4 ms·

Growing up in rural Ireland in the late 70s and 80s The Breakfast Club seemed so damn cool to us. Life for these kids seemed impossibly great and it was hard to

by jahnu 4y ago

Growing up in rural Ireland in the late 70s and 80s The Breakfast Club seemed so damn cool to us. Life for these kids seemed impossibly great and it was hard to understand why they were so jaded. At least the more privileged ones. But then I grew up and saw Ireland go from fairly poor to rich and understood that when you solve one set of more basic problems then new higher level problems emerge.

projektfu 4y ago
As a suburban white kid a few years younger than the characters, my first watch through the Breakfast Club saw it as a subversive film about cool, rebellious teens making space for themselves. Later, it seemed like a time capsule of the oddity of our society trapping kids in a liminal space between childhood and adulthood and punishing them for their reactions. They're all helpless, even the "bad one" who makes his escape attempt. The light read is that we are not merely our cliques and labels.
FearNotDaniel 4y ago
I remember that feeling, watching John Hughes films as a teenager in northern England. Though sometimes part of his gift was that the sense of adolescent angst was so universal, I could identify with some of the characters despite the exotic setting. And in some cases (e.g. Pretty in Pink) Hughes managed to show us this world of spoilt rich kids through the eyes of someone less privileged. Tangential, but I think part of the genius of the more recent Sex Education (Netflix) is that the setting is definitely British (accents, landscape) and contemporary (smartphones, fashions) and yet brilliantly evokes a British kid's fantasies of what a High School should be like after watching too many 80s American movies.
- anthomtb 4y ago
  The Sex Education aesthetic is explicitly inspired by John Hughes films: https://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/sex-education/what-year-set-in/ https://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/sex-education/what-year-set-... I had to go down that rabbit hole after watching Sex Education and thinking "this high school atmosphere feels very American."
le-mark 4y ago
It was really alien to a lot of poor rural and inner city American teens as well.

by jahnu 4y ago

projektfu 4y ago

As a suburban white kid a few years younger than the characters, my first watch through the Breakfast Club saw it as a subversive film about cool, rebellious teens making space for themselves. Later, it seemed like a time capsule of the oddity of our society trapping kids in a liminal space between childhood and adulthood and punishing them for their reactions. They're all helpless, even the "bad one" who makes his escape attempt. The light read is that we are not merely our cliques and labels.

FearNotDaniel 4y ago

I remember that feeling, watching John Hughes films as a teenager in northern England. Though sometimes part of his gift was that the sense of adolescent angst was so universal, I could identify with some of the characters despite the exotic setting. And in some cases (e.g. Pretty in Pink) Hughes managed to show us this world of spoilt rich kids through the eyes of someone less privileged. Tangential, but I think part of the genius of the more recent Sex Education (Netflix) is that the setting is definitely British (accents, landscape) and contemporary (smartphones, fashions) and yet brilliantly evokes a British kid's fantasies of what a High School should be like after watching too many 80s American movies.

anthomtb 4y ago
The Sex Education aesthetic is explicitly inspired by John Hughes films: https://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/sex-education/what-year-set-in/ https://www.popbuzz.com/tv-film/sex-education/what-year-set-... I had to go down that rabbit hole after watching Sex Education and thinking "this high school atmosphere feels very American."

le-mark 4y ago

It was really alien to a lot of poor rural and inner city American teens as well.