‘The Breakfast Club’: 40 Years Later And Viewers Can’t Forget About It

The five eclectic members of “The Breakfast Club” — “a brain, an athlete, a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal” — are the blueprint for Hollywood’s American high school. “The Breakfast Club,” released in 1985, is a coming-of-age indie film about five teenagers in detention. As a testament to the film’s long-standing popularity, in 2016, the iconic movie was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. After 40 years of “The Breakfast Club,” is the film still relevant to the youth of today?

Maybe you were forced to watch “The Breakfast Club” by your parents who grew up watching the Brat Pack — Hollywood’s group of young actors who dominated 1980s coming-of-age films — in movie theaters, or maybe you found the film on your own. Regardless, when watching Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy on screen, it is clear why the kids of the ’80s saw themselves or discovered who they wanted to be through “The Breakfast Club.”

Nowadays, teenagers resonate with their own adolescence on social media. The once pretty-in-pink princess with diamond earrings — Claire Standish (Ringwald) — is now the gold-wearing girl with a peacoat draped over her shoulders and a Van Cleef pendant dangling from her neck. The once flannel-wearing bad boy — John Bender (Nelson) — is the skater boy in baggy cargo pants and an oversized graphic tee with a baby photo as his profile picture. The once artsy goth-chic dressed in all black — Allison Reynolds (Sheedy) — is now the tortured poet with chipped purple nail polish and smudged black eyeliner who archives and unarchives posts of her doodles on Instagram.

Surely almost everyone has encountered at least one of these evolving characters in the halls of their high school or on their phone screens. The clothes and expressions of self may change, but the archetypes upheld by “The Breakfast Club” remain the same.

Despite first-glance conceptions, “The Breakfast Club” is much more than a dramatization of the stereotypical teenager; It is the story of young people with conflicting personalities coming together to endure the trials and tribulations of teenage angst. In other words, “The Breakfast Club” is the pioneer of the classic scene where wildly different people connect in a confined space.

The library — where the iconic group of soon-to-be friends serves detention in “The Breakfast Club” — has been referenced in countless other media like “Victorious,” “Community,” and “Spider-Man Homecoming,” to name a few.

“The Breakfast Club” continues to resonate with viewers as this form of expressing community has truth behind it. Being enclosed in a space with people who are completely different forces individuals to see through the superficial facades that each personality type constructs. The moment when characters become vulnerable with each other while sharing what others may not guess at first glance and the dance montage where they let go of all their inhibitions happen in this one library that they are confined in. Through their shared experiences, the characters begin to see past the so-called roles they play and, in turn, better understand themselves. With its acute insights, “The Breakfast Club” reminds audiences why they both crave and need interpersonal bonds; they are conduits for self-realization.

Even 40 years after its premiere, viewers still cherish “The Breakfast Club.” The scene when “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds is blasted as Bender walks through the football field with his fist in the air will forever be ingrained in viewers’ minds. “The Breakfast Club” will never be forgotten because it represents who viewers are when their walls are stripped down.

As Brian writes: “Does that answer your question?”