...Film Analysis Paper: The Breakfast Club “To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others”. -Anthony Robbins All living beings are, in one way or another, drawn towards each other. We, as humans, strive to “communicate” with individuals who are in our environment. Communication is literally defined as: “the sending and receiving of verbal and nonverbal messages between two or more people”. When pondering on what film I should base my essay on, many factors came in to place; such as, “How many different types of communication are taking place? What is the predominant type of communication? And how many characters are communicating at the same time? After much thought, I decided on the world-famous cult-classic, The Breakfast Club. The setting for the film is Sherman High School; Sherman Illinois on a Saturday morning. Five very different students gather to serve their sentence of Saturday school under the careful hawk-like watch of the school’s vice principle Mr. Vernon. They are classified as a jock, a princess, a brain, a basket case, and a criminal. After arriving and selectively taking seats in the library, they are assigned an essay of, “no less than a thousand words, describing who [they] think [they] are.” After a short time the students completely ignore the assignment and begin interacting with one another. As time...
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...The Breakfast Club In the movie The Breakfast Club it depicts the different types of social groups in high school by using five teenagers as the main characters. It explores the different pressures put on teenagers to fit in their groups, as well as the expectations from parents and authority figures. The five teenagers start to realize that although they all have different social groups they are more similar than different. The movie is based on five students stuck in detention together. The students pass the hours by talking, arguing, and, at one point, smoking marijuana. As the day goes on the students begin to open up to each other. The students realize that even with their differences, they face similar pressures and complications in their lives. They all feel pressures from all aspects of their lives from who they can befriend, grades, social status, strained relationships with their parents. Two of the main characters are Clair and Allison. Clair who is from the popular group is going through something most teens experience in high school, pressure from her friends. She is a virgin and feels she should be doing what all her other friends are doing. It’s sad to see how in high school the pressures of being sexually active are so high. She is also going through family problems. Her parents are divorced and are using her to get back at each other during arguments. Allison is the quietest student except for her occasional outburst and seems to be a compulsive liar....
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...The movie deals with the cognitive, psychosocial, physical, and moral development of the characters throughout the film. The Breakfast Club is about people, personality types, human behavior, strengths and vulnerabilities. It is about stereotypes and breaking them down. It’s about prejudice and gaining greater understanding through communication. It’s about rebellion, and also about teamwork. Every character in the film contributed something unique in society which allowed them to learn something new about themselves and about others. The Breakfast Club is a norm in today society because many people go through the major developmental themes of that these characters experienced and many teenagers can relate to their stories. The Breakfast Club The Breakfast Club, created in 1985, contained a wide variety of behavior cues and stereotypes. Five teenagers Claire, Andrew, Bender, Brian, and, Allison were from different social groups, didn’t know each other , and had to spend a Saturday in detention at the suburban school library. They were resistant on getting to know one another at the beginning but eventually let in. The stresses and strains of adolescence turned their inner lives into a minefield of disappointment, anger and despair. The movie used elements from many of the principle theories of personality development, which helped to better understand who these characters are and who they are likely to become in the future. The character I was most intrigued with...
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...The Breakfast ClubFive teenagers who don't' know each other spend a Saturday in detention at the suburban school library. At first they squirm, fret and pick on each other. Then after sampling some marijuana, a real encounter session gets underway. The stresses and strains of adolescence have turned their inner lives into a minefield of disappointment, anger and despair. The catalyst of the group is Bender (Judd Nelson), a rebellious working-class punk who seethes with rage and attacks his peers with sarcasm. A cigar burn on his arm is a sign of the abuse he receives at home. Andrew (Emilio Estevez) is a Varsity letterman in wrestling. He's spent most of his youth trying to measure up to his father's machismo image of him. This entails winning in athletic competition and preying upon weaker peers. He and Bender clash. Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) is an unhappy honors student who wishes he could be accepted as a person and not valued just as a brain. Upset over a poor grade in shop, Brian has contemplated suicide rather than live with the ire of his disappointed parents. Allison (Ally Sheedy) is the eccentric of the group. "My home life is unsatisfactory," she confides. Living in her own fantasy world, Allison can't really tell the difference between the truth and the lies she fabricates. These teenagers don't like or respect their parents very much. One asks: "My God, are we gonna be like our parents?" Another in the group replies: "When you grow up, your heart dies." But the...
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...“The Breakfast Club” Review Made by ivanbolt Teenage movie about mature problems. Saturday has always been the day of relaxation and having fun. But not for characters of “The Breakfast Club”, who ought to spend their day off to attend a Saturday detention for each of their mischief, and write an essay “Who you think you are?”. Along with the fact, that this group is so ill-assorted, you can’t even get how they all appeared to be in the same place, the Shermer High School library. This small mixed group consists of jock Andrew (Emilio Estevaz), who is insane about sports; nerdy Brian (Antony Michael Hall), whose aim is to get straight A’s at any cost; princess Claire (Molly Ringwald), who conceitedly trying to prove that she does not belong to the company; kook Alison (Ally Sheedy), that surprise everyone by her outstanding acting; and rebellious criminal John Bender (Judd Nelson), that demonstrates indifference and toughness. The movie, written and directed by genius of teen comedies John Hughes and produced with the help of Ned Tanen, represents a perfect mix of a joyful comedy and profound drama. To begin with, the situation represented in the film is quite realistic, except for the fact that such different people gathered together in the same place and at the same time. However, the viewer can consider that as a miraculous coincidence, which often happens in real life. Still, clear representation of youth problems, their behaviour and attitude to each other does...
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...Masked Desires Actor parade around in fictitious demeanors in order to perform their given part. Comparatively, athletic jocks create false identities to fulfill their role as kings in the socially constructed hierarchy system of high school. In the iconic 80’s film, The Breakfast Club, John Hughes investigate the correlation between standardized stereotypes and internalized struggles through the Saturday detention of five students at the fictional Shermer High School. Andrew Clark, on of the students serving detention, is the typical jock stereotype. His physical prowess and mentality undeniably affirm his respective social standing. However, while Andrew is the king of the social order, he is unable to dictate his own actions, let alone...
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...Set on a Saturday morning of 1984 at Shermer High School, five students are present to serve their detention in the school library. Although they are not unfamiliar with one another, their outwards persona has led them in separate paths until this day. Their views of each other are limited and much easier to describe with high school stereotype-like categories. ‘The Athlete’ Andrew Clark, ‘The Basket Case’ Allison Reynolds, ‘The Princess’ Claire Standish, ‘The Brain’ Brian Johnson and ‘The Criminal’ John Bender. The characters that are similar to myself in ‘The Breakfast Club’ are Allison and Brian while the character least like myself would be John. I’ve noticed that I share numerous stereotypes associated with the most introverted characters out of the cast and I wasn’t surprised when Allison and Brian stood out to me personally. A character that I relate to is Allison Reynolds. She is labelled as ‘The Basket Case’ due to her questionable actions/comments. For a person with such a quiet demeanor, whenever Allison experiences occasional outbursts, her bold interjections are viewed as exceedingly uncharacteristic of her. She yearns for attention due to being neglected by her parents, compulsively lies and does not know how to handle social situations appropriately. Her artistic...
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...The character I chose for the breakfast club was John.He was a guy who had a tough family life. He talked ab0ut how his dad said he was no good in everything he did and that his dad would beat him as well. That is a terrible life to. He was kind of the gangster of the school and everyone knew him because he was a gangster. You can't really blame him though because he had a really tough life at school and at home. John thinks he can do whatever he wants and it doesn't matter who it is he will still do it. The one thing I realized about him is that he is just a normal kid but doesn't really know how to fit in so he tries to be the gangster because he thinks that it is cool to be the gangster. Whenever they do something in the library and the...
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...What are the kinds of parenting styles that are portrayed in The Breakfast Club? Fortunately, John Hughes was able to implement most of the styles and assign them to every character in the motion picture. Some of the characters share the same style of parenting, but some differ. In this essay, all of the parenting styles and what character(s) it fits will be discussed. The characters are as follows: Brian Johnson, Claire Standish, Andrew Clark, John Bender, and Allison Reynolds. The parenting styles are authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglectful/uninvolved. Firstly, I will include short descriptions of the characters in the movie to give insight to the reason for the parenting styles. Brian Johnson is considered the brain. He...
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...What was the task(s) of the Breakfast Club? Did they succeed or fail in performing their task(s)? Evaluate their group performance of the task(s). Their tasks were to write a essay no less than 1,000 words describing who they are, think about why they are in detention, and not to talk, sleep, or move while they are there. They succeeded in performing their tasks but not by the way their instructor wanted them to. They came together and opened up with each others feelings. Identify and analyze informal role emergence in the Breakfast Club. Is there role status? Role conflict? Role Reversal? Role Fixation? Provide examples of character behavior to support your answer. Andrew shows role reversal when he opens up during “group therapy” with his...
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...“The Breakfast Club” The movie, “The Breakfast Club”, is a heartwarming story of 5 stereotypical teens that end up together for an entire day of Saturday detention. These students, the brain, the princess, the athlete, the criminal, and the basket case all come together and find friendships that they never knew could exist. In the beginning they all stayed to themselves because they thought they were all so different that they could never get along. Throughout the day, “the criminal” pushed everyone to his or her limits and brought out who they were as people. These not so different teens found that they all faced the same kind of issues and that they all were alike in some ways. They broke down the stereotype barriers of their high school society and accepted themselves as people they wanted to be. The whole movie is based around the attitude changes of these impressionable teens. In the movie the teens deal with stereotypes working against them. Each of them believes that the others have certain traits that are unappealing when the others are actually a lot like them. The stereotypes make it hard for them to change their attitudes about the others with them. Of course they believed that if you were a pretty popular girl that you didn’t have any problems and that if you were a successful athlete it was because you wanted to and that you were very cocky and conceited. Their time together showed how wrong those stereotypes can be and that they deal with problems like the rest...
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...The movie The Breakfast Club has five main characters in it, I will be doing John Bender. John Bender is, in my opinion, the main character of the whole movie. He first comes off as a person that doesn't care about anything or anybody. Multiple times throughout the movie he is told that he doesn't matter and that he will end up in jail. John Bender’s first scene is him walking into the school nearly getting hit by a car as he jaywalks across the street. When he gets into the library he makes another character, Brian, get out of his seat so he can sit there. At the begging I personally though he was the bully that nobody liked. I ended up being right, but only at the begging. He immediately begins to develop into a whole different character...
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...Teen films may characterize the female adolescents by having their personalities and story-lines directly reflect the film setting’s era and culture. In comparing Mean Girls (2004), Clueless (1995), and The Breakfast Club (1985), together, these films demonstrate and exemplify how the film industry has been influenced and altered by time, culture, and society in their portrayal of teenaged girls over the past 30 years. The Breakfast Club (1985) is a cinematic view on the struggles of adolescence wherein five troubled teenagers with adversely differing personalities spend a Saturday in detention and eventually grow to confess their fears and secrets and find their true selves outside their segregated stereotypes. Claire Standish is a spoiled,...
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...Breakfast Club film contained a wide variety of behavior and stereotypes. Each person had their on personality and taste at the beginning of the film. I believe that communication played the biggest part in the movie. It shows the way that people from totally different backgrounds can communicate and even agree on issues. The various types of communication and behaviors within the film will be discussed. Key terms will be pointed out and highlighted, as well as described in relation to the examples extracted from the film. To begin with the film started out with a communication climate that was both tense and without verbal communication. This was mainly due to the variance in membership constructs of the characters involved. The characters included the brain Brian, Andrew the athlete, the criminal Bender, the princess Claire, and the basket case Allison. There was a great deal of interesting nonverbal communication taking place between these people. As the story progressed, their reactions and responses to each other demonstrated perceptual errors, which would later be shown. The gender conflict styles also played a role. The girls both tended to listen, rather than hold the attention of the others. This was especially true in Allison's case, who never spoke. Allison was introduced in the movie as the basket case. Allison showed that she was obviously insecure, seating herself facing away from the rest of the room (avoidance). She would not speak out, was non-assertive, and when...
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...The Breakfast Club is about a group of teenagers who have detention on a Saturday for almost nine hours. All the kids in detention come from different backgrounds and hang out with different groups. First, we have Andrew who is a jock and wants continually seeks his father’s approval by being good excelling in sports and beating up kids at school. There is Brian, who is a nerd that’s in the math and physics club and brought a flare gun to school. Claire is considered a princess and is the popular girl in school; she got detention for skipping school. Allison is the basket case and doesn’t have any friends; she is only there because she had nothing better to do. Next, is a student named John, he is the bad boy. He has a drunken abusive dad, and is the kind of kid who always gets detention. The final character, is the Principle who tries to be tough and firm with the students. I noticed in this film there was a lot of tension between the characters. There was primary tension which means anxiety arising early in a group formation, as members work out their relationships and role. I saw this in Brian when he sounded really nervous while he was talking during the beginning of the movie. I also saw this tension in Allison because she hardly made a sound in the beginning of the movie, with the exception of a couple weird sounds. There was also secondary tension; meaning there is a task related tension that stems from different opinions, about the substantive work of the group. An...
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