Welcome to the Tytell Timeloop, a column where I (Tytell) look at old teen movies from different decades in chronological order (a Timeloop) to see what different times have to say about the teenage experience.

The Breakfast Club (1985)—Angstus teenagus variety: detention

Summary:
Five teens with practically nothing in common (whom the movie famously refers to as “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal”) are in detention one Saturday morning, forced to sit in obedient silence and reflect on what landed them there. Over the next eight hours, they do everything but sit in obedient silence—but they certainly analyze their high school experiences and what led them to be there in the first place.

Social critique: What makes clique culture so dangerous?
The Breakfast Club actually has quite an interesting take on high school culture, specifically the underestimated power of cliques.

By the end of the movie the characters inevitably realize that they aren’t so different after all (eyeroll), but when Andrew (“the athlete,” Emilio Estevez) asks the group whether they would talk to each other after that day, Claire (“the princess,” Molly Ringwald) says no. According to Claire, even after they’ve been isolated from their spheres and acknowledge the damaging nature of their social categorization, they are still not capable of breaking free from their given social roles.

In my opinion, the best part of the movie is Andrew’s monologue explaining why he beat up a classmate. It is incredibly rare for a movie nowadays to get inside of the head of a toxicly masculine bully and try to sympathize with how society failed him such that he attacked an innocent person to impress his father. (As a reminder, I appreciated “Rebel Without a Cause” for a similar reason.) Combined with a dramatic pan and a stellar score, this scene gives me chills every time I watch it.

This movie has a lot worth criticizing (we’ll get there), but its themes, however overt they may be, are certainly worth thinking about. That’s more than I can say for “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Carrie.”

Modern perspective:
Focusing for a moment on the sexual assault and aggressive homophobia, both are bad things that this movie does too much of which is—and this will shock you—bad. I counted a minimum of four slurs dished out over the course of the film, not to mention all of the disturbing interactions between Bender (“criminal,” Judd Nelson) and Andrew where both weaponize homosexuality against each other at the expense of my delicate modern sensibilities.

(Spoiler warning) In addition to all of that nonsense, Bender spends a good 10 percent of the runtime harassing Claire in one way or another. He also does some even grosser stuff that I won’t put in this review. But the worst part is that the film seems to forgive him for it—Claire ends up making out with him by the end (gross), implying that she forgives him for all his abuse—and so do the writers.

The film gives its characters too many passes on their bigotry for my modern tastes, and if you watch this movie in the 2020s chances are you will feel the same way. For as much as the movie prides itself on breaking down each group’s stereotypes, it still sticks to them quite a bit: notably, the two women end up with the two guys whose character archetypes are known for “getting the girl” in movies.

Teenage Take: What did the 1980s have to say about being a teen?
Being a teenager is about learning how to become your own person and leave the shadow of what your parents expect you to become.

Expect lots of:
David Bowie quotes, state flags, attempted voter fraud, threatening lockers, marijuana smoking, disrespect for libraries, venting (about parents), venting (around the school), evil school administrators, trauma bonding and bad makeovers.

Should you watch it?
That is a really good question. It’s certainly more fulfilling than a Saturday spent in detention, and cultural literacy is always a boon. But if the short clip from “Pitch Perfect” is the only part of this movie you ever see you’ll probably be okay.