Anyone? Anyone? …

With three films, John Hughes gave voice to the insecure, geeky, spoiled punks of the 1980’s 

by Jen Chaney

When most people think back to high school, they remember the worst - bad hairstyles, awkward social skills and various identity crises.

The teen years are among the most formative - a time when raging hormones mix with peer pressure and the need to defy authority. A time spent moping around the house and talking back to parents. And, if you grew up during the 1980s, it was a time spent believing “In Your Eyes’ really was written about you and the guy you happened to have a crush on that week.

Fortunately, many of us discovered that we had a wise, funny and astute older brother who understood what we were up against. His name was John Hughes, and in the mid-1980s he produced a succession of the most memorable teen movies of all time. One can argue that films such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and Confused provide a more accurate picture of high school life. But those films can only be regarded as individual achievements. By cornering the market on “80s teen angst cinema, Hughes, intentionally or not, created a canon.

Looking back at Hughes’ films today, it’s easy to be amused (or horrified) by the Brat Pack, new wave music and other trappings of the ‘me decade.” But if you can get beyond that sense of bemusement, it’s clear that Hughes really knew what he was doing. Compared to the She’s All That tripe of today, these films are the Citizen Kane of the high school movie genre.

Each one of Hughes’ teen films could be plumbed for deeper meaning about what it’s like to grow up while attending a suburban American high school, albeit one comprised of a mostly white, upper-middle class student body. But I would argue that only three of Hughes’ movies really get to the heart of the teenage identity crisis - The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off - and Hughes develops a stronger image of the modern teenager with each film.

He starts in 1985 with The Breakfast Club, which focuses on five very confused, semi-troubled teens, moves on to Pretty in Pink (1986), starring a strong-willed, yet ridiculed, Molly Ringwald, and ends with Ferris Bueller Day’s Off (1986), featuring Matthew Broderick as Ferris - perhaps the most confident and envied teenager in contemporary cinema. In The Breakfast Club, the students don’t really know who they are. By Ferris Bueller, Hughes has created a character who is not only hyper self-aware, but who understands the world around him well enough to look straight into the camera and tell the viewer what’s what.

*****

As much as I love Hughes’ other films, I consider The Breakfast Club to be the signature “80s teen movie. The setting is Shermer High School in Shermer, Ill. - the fictional town that Hughes created as a backdrop for all his films. Five students must spend a Saturday in detention because of various sins, ranging from cutting class to bullying classmates.

The students include Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), the geek; Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez), the jock; Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy), the outcast; Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald), the rich snob; and John Bender (Judd Nelson), the punk.

We meet each of them as they arrive at school in a manner that foreshadows their personality and indicates that the parents are responsible for their children’s neuroses. Andrew gets a ride with his competition-obsessed father, while Claire arrives in a BMW driven by a slightly dismissive father. Brian’s mother drops him off with the parting words: “Mister, you figure out a way to study!”

Tellingly, Allison and Bender’s parents are not seen. Allison steps out from the backseat of a car and doesn’t get so much as a “Good-bye” from the unseen driver. Bender ambles up to school by himself.

The quintet settles into the library, clearly wary of one another, if not downright repulsed. Enter Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason), the power-hungry principal/dictator (Hughes never misses an opportunity to portray grown-ups as even more screwed up than the kids). Vernon gives them an assignment that informs the action from this point forward: “Write a thousand-word essay describing to me who you think you are.”

Initially, each of the characters seems to play into the prevailing one-dimensional stereotype. Claire is a well-dressed priss who east sushi for lunch. Andrew takes great pride in his athletic physique and has no patience for under-achieving slackers like Bender, a loud-mouthed, obnoxious nay sayer with an implied criminal record. Brian observes them from his post as the requisite socially awkward member of the math and physics club. And Allison remains detached - a mousy, Cap “N Crunch-and-sugar-sandwich-eating freak.

As the day progresses and the characters talk more amongst themselves, more layers are revealed, though in many respects they are as stereotypical as their initial identity markers. Underneath their cool fa”ades, Bender is (not surprisingly) vulnerable and frightened and Andrew longs for independence from his coaches and parents. Brian simply yearns to be cool and to live up to his parents’ expectations. The women are also troubled. Claire is sad and resentful of her parents’ fractured relationship, while Allison is starving for attention. As Andrew notes: “We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that’s all.”

A pot-smoking scene leads to more confessionals, and deeper truths - personal stories about insecurity, desire and pressure - are revealed. The characters bond and friendships seem cemented until Brian raises the question of what will happen on Monday when they return to their respective positions in the school hierarchy.

“I mean, I consider you guys my friends,” Brian says. “I’m not wrong, am I?” Claire essentially tells Brian that he is wrong; their cliques don’t allow for much deviation.

Andrew argues with her, but Claire persists. “Oh, be honest, Andy. If Brian came walking up to you in the hall on Monday, what would you do? Picture this, you’re with the all the sports. I know exactly what you’d do. You’d say “Hi” to him and then when he left, you’d cut him all up so your friends wouldn’t think that you really liked him.”

Bender calls her a “bitch” for not standing up to her peers. Claire says he’s a hypocrite and would behave in the exact same way. They argue. Claire cries. Brian reaffirms that, regardless of Claire’s assertions, he would never treat anyone that way. The conversation intensifies. More tears are shed and more arguments ensue, all of which climaxes with a MTV video-style dance scene, wherein the characters shimmy and shake throughout the library to a power rock tune called “We Are Not Alone.” By the time detention ends, Allison the outcast and Andrew the jock appear to be falling in love; Claire the rich snob shares a kiss with Bender the punk and Brian the geek writes what he considers to be a stellar essay (why is it geeks never find love?).

In the film’s final moments, we hear Brian’s voice, as we did at the beginning, reading a letter to the principal.

“We think you’re crazy for asking us to write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, the most convenient definitions. You see us as: a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.”

During the voice-over, we see Bender walking across the football field, raising his hand in victory, while the song “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by the then-popular Simple Minds gets louder. From all of this we infer that in getting to know each other, they are more secure with their own individual identities. They have defied society’s rigid expectations, and, in doing so, have formed a new pseudo-clique of their own.

The notion that high school students will emerge on equal footing if given the chance to erase misconceptions is sweet though not entirely realistic. But Hughes doesn’t try to make you believe it. The film begins and ends on a Saturday; we are not privy to what happens when the school doors re-open Monday morning. Despite the fact that the members of The Breakfast Club have developed an obvious fondness for each other, I can only conclude that Claire is right.

With the exception of Brian and Allison, perhaps, they will go back to business as usual and ignore each other. Granted, they’ll do so with the implicit understanding that they know each other more intimately than their closest friends. But they’ll still behave according to societal expectations, which proves that these characters have not fully resolved their individual identity crises. It’s a pessimistic interpretation, but a realistic one. Indeed, it’s that realism that makes this Hughes’ signature film.

*****

Pretty in Pink brings us Ringwald again, but this time she’s a self-assured poor girl rather than a confused rich one. Andie Walsh lives on the wrong side of the tracks with her out-of-work and unmotivated father (Harry Dean Stanton), who still mourns the fact that his wife left him and Andie three years ago. Andie’s best friend is the loveable, goofy Duckie Dale (Jon Cryer), who harbors a not-so-secret crush on her. And her surrogate mother is Iona, the eccentric woman who runs Tracks, the record store where Andie works after school.

Andie is a focused and determined teenager. She takes care of the house and her father, designs and sews her own clothes and does well in school, despite constant taunting from the “richies’ (the wealthy and popular students). She is extraordinarily resilient and independent. When Steff (James Spader), a handsome but slimy rich kid, tries to ask her out, she rejects him.

“What makes you so different from all the other girls at this school?” Steff asks, clearly aghast that she won’t jump at the chance to sleep with him. “I have some taste,” she responds.

Her opinion of the school’s aristocracy is challenged when the rich but sweet Blaine (Andrew McCarthy) expresses interest in her. Duckie tries to warn her of impending doom, but Andie snaps back, “I’m not going to let anybody shit on me.” She knows how high school works, but she has enough confidence to go after what she wants, something most of the characters in The Breakfast Club would probably not have the courage to do.

Of course, the romance blows up in Andie’s face when Blaine succumbs to peer pressure, stops returning her phone calls and tries to weasel out of being her prom date. Rather than meekly accept his behavior, Andie strikes back. “Just say it,” she shouts, pushing Blaine against his locker. “You’re ashamed to be seen with me. You’re afraid to go out with me. You’re scared that your goddamn rich friends won’t approve. Just say it! Just tell me the truth!”

In this postmodern age where all teenagers are portrayed as ultra media-savvy and dialogue drips with irony, the less-than-subtle battle lines marking class divisions are almost quaint in retrospect. Andie’s gumption is incredibly sincere.

“I just want them to know they didn’t break me,” Andie tells her father, as she stands before him in a prom dress she sewed herself, ready to go to the prom alone.

Yet all ends well. In a switch from the film’s original ending (Duckie and Andie end up together), Blaine comes to his senses and Duckie encourages Andie to accept Blaine’s apology because “he’s not like the others.” It may not be entirely realistic, but Hughes has presented a picture of a teenager whose own identity is secure, and who demands to be accepted on her own terms.

*****

Hughes manages to take the ‘teen with healthy self-image concept” one step further in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Though clearly a comedy, this film delves into semi-serious issues of adolescent angst in ways that complement The Breakfast Club. But instead of focusing on five identity-seeking students, this movie is about one teenager who is absolutely free of high school’s shackles.

Ferris Bueller (played unforgettably by Matthew Broderick), is a charmer leading a charmed life. Not only can he con his parents into thinking he’s sick and convince his best friend to let him “borrow” his father’s Ferrari so they can cut school and drive around Chicago, but when word of his “illness’ spreads, students collect money to ’save Ferris.” His hero-worship status permeates all cliques; there is no one who doesn’t adore Ferris.

“He’s very popular, Ed,” a school secretary tells Ferris’ only foe, school principal Edward Rooney (Jeffrey Jones). “Sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads. They all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.”

Unlike most of Hughes’ other characters, Ferris is completely above high school politics. His identity issues are so resolved that he looks beyond immediate quandaries and realizes that youth is temporary and meant to be savored. “Life moves pretty fast,” he advises the audience, speaking directly to those outside his suburban Illinois existence, which he has already mastered. Ferris is a teenager who realizes that the system can be beaten if you pretend to play on its terms. He is no longer struggling to be understood by his peers or his family, and so he focuses his attention on winning over the audience.

I can only imagine that if Ferris somehow found himself in detention with the members of the Breakfast Club, he’d tell them to quit arguing, skip detention and go do something more productive.

Ferris also differs from his previous Shermer High classmates in his relationships with authority figures. Aside from Rooney, he gets along smashingly with his teachers (the English department sends him flowers and a get well card). He also has a positive relationship with his parents. Granted, he spends much of the movie planning ways to deceive them, but he also praises them and professes his love.

His hugely exaggerated, artificial existence is contrasted with that of his friend Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck) who fears everything in life that Ferris embraces. A nervous hypochondriac who is scared of standing up to his father (and Ferris), he is ultimately empowered only after he accidentally sends his dad’s Ferrari through a glass window and into a ditch.

“I gotta” take a stand,” he announces, rejecting Ferris’ offer to take the blame for the incident. And with those words, it appears that he, too, has reached self-actualization. He may not be ready to sing “Twist and Shout” ala Ferris on a float in the middle of a parade, but he’s on his way. His ego has landed.

I don’t conclude that the Ferris method of handling high school is somehow more enlightened than the approaches in The Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink. One might say that Ferris is living a life based on falsehoods and denials and isn’t really self-assured at all. But Hughes clearly intends for Ferris to be a folk hero, and on many levels it works. Fifteen years later, Ferris is still a teen icon while many other characters from the “80s are stuck in a time warp.

*****

The morals of Hughes’ teen canon cannot help but come off as sappy clich’s in our present cynical and more enlightened times. But they are clich’s that endure - and ones that still reveal the dynamics of high school life in an image-driven American culture. If Hughes canon has a message, it’s that every young person has different challenges, backgrounds and hang-ups. In order to find yourself amidst all the nonsense that is high school, you have to get to know the people around you. Cross boundaries. Talk to people you wouldn’t normally approach. Help a freshman get out of summer school. Go on a date with a “richie.” Give one of your diamond earrings to the dangerous guy who sat behind you in detention.

More realistically, Hughes shows that all of this young adult confusion is a process that can be overcome. And, perhaps when it’s all over, you too can say the words spoken by Ferris Bueller (and stolen from John Lennon): “I don’t believe in Beatles. I just believe in me.”

Jen Chaney is a columnist and feature writer in the Washington, D.C. area who, on occasion, has been mistaken for Molly Ringwald.

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