What They’re Going Through: The Brat Pack Gave Teens a Voice

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on The Brat Pack.

The Breakfast Club opens with a title card quoting David Bowie’s “Changes”:

The song lyrics express what The Breakfast Club and many of the Brat Pack films were portraying–that teenagers have as much of an understanding, inner conflict, and a place in this world as adults do. Their characters fight the ignorance of their principals, teachers, and parents who don’t bother to listen to what they’re dealing with inside.

David Blum’s 1985 article “The Birth of Hollywood’s Brat Pack” had him acting just like the adults Bowie sang about. He spit upon the young actors of the beloved teen films, and undermined them because they were young. He believed they were not entitled to fame and money and that their talent was not valid, all because of their youth.

The phrase for the group stuck, but Blum was met with scathing criticism from actors and journalists alike. Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, and Rob Lowe were the focus of the article, with mentions of other actors. The who’s who of the Brat Pack varies, but most consider those who star in both The Breakfast Club and/or St. Elmo’s Fire. After the article’s release, the Brat Pack actors were angry and humiliated. Their group refused to hang out together anymore, feeling that their reputation as a group was tarnished. Reading the article, it’s easy to see why they were so mad. It paints all of the young actors in the same brush stroke, making them all out to be shallow and money-hungry narcissists.

John Hughes himself even expressed distaste for the group name in a 1986 Seventeen magazine interview with Molly Ringwald interviewing him.

JH: I think that this clever moniker was slapped on these young actors, and I think it’s unfair. It’s a label.
MR: People my age were just beginning to be respected because of recent films such as yours, and now it’s like someone had to bring them down a peg or two, don’t you think?
JH: There is definitely a little adult envy. The young actors get hit harder because of their age. Because “Rat Pack” – which Brat Pack is clearly a parody of – was not negative. “Brat Pack” is. It suggests unruly, arrogant young people, and that description isn’t true of these people. And the label has been stuck on people who never even spoke to the reporter who coined it.
MR:  Such as myself. I’ve been called the Women’s Auxiliary of the Brat Pack.
JH: To label somebody that! It’s harmful to people’s careers. At any rate, young people support the movie business, and its only fair that their stories be told.

David Blum admonishes the actors for their lack of formal training, addressing how they do not idolize or try to live up to famous method actors Pacino and De Niro: “If I were a Hollywood star I would spend more time working on my craft instead of chasing girls as the Hard Rock.” But even the most famous well-crafted actors also occasionally enjoy the perks of fame.

And so what if they’re not method actors? All you have to do is watch the scene in The Breakfast Club where they all describe how they got detention (which was completely improvised by all of them) to see their impressive talent, regardless of training or not. Blum acts as if they were handed everything on a silver platter, as if they didn’t work hard or even care about their profession.

He goes on about their fame and wealth: “They make major movies with big directors and get fat contracts and limousines. They have top agents and protective P.R. people. They have legions of fans who write them letters, buy them drinks, follow them home. And, most important, they sell movie tickets. Their films are often major hits, and the bigger the hit, the more money they make, and the more money they make, the more like stars they become.” Did the young Brat Pack actors enjoy the perks it came with being Hollywood stars? Of course they did, and that’s nothing new. We’ve seen it time and time again with some of the most famous and well-respected stars.

It is overall an ugly article that portrays them in an unflattering light. Most importantly, what David Blum fails to see is why those films were such big hits, why they were selling so many tickets. People have always been fascinated with the celebrity life, but what the fans cared about more than their off-screen lives was the people that they portrayed onscreen. That is why they were drawn to them in the first place. The Brat Pack actors portrayed the types of characters that teenagers of that time could relate to. They were the faces of thousands of all the teens out there, bringing to life the stories that they had all been dying to hear.

Before the 80s, teen movies were often good vs. evil stories, such as Rebel Without A Cause, or nostalgic looks at teenage lives of the past, such as American Graffiti. Films were rarely marketed or made for teens because executives felt that audiences didn’t care about them, and teenagers weren’t taken seriously. John Hughes comments on this in his Seventeen magazine interview:  “My generation had to be taken seriously because we were stopping things and burning things. We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the baby boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us. But now, there are fewer teens, and they aren’t taken as seriously as we were.”

80s teen films expressed the plights and anxieties of that Regan-era generation, the ones who grew up after Woodstock and before YouTube; there was a huge lack of respect for their generation. 1980s America was suffering from high divorce rates and economic setbacks and unemployment that led to an obsession with money and a huge divide of class distinctions.

1980s teens were very aware of who had money and who didn’t and how painful that divide can be. That is the crux of Blaine and Andie’s relationship in John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink. She’s poor and he’s a rich yuppie–how could it work?  Duckie and Andie drive through a ritzy neighborhood as Andie exclaims about how beautiful a house is: “You know what the really sad thing is? I bet the people that live there don’t think it’s half as pretty as I do.” The Breakfast Club also focuses on that divide, especially between rich girl Claire and rebel Bender over an argument about her earrings. Bender says, “I bet he bought those for you! I bet those are a Christmas gift! Right? You know what I got for Christmas this year? It was a banner fuckin’ year at the old Bender family! I got a carton of cigarettes.”

But for all the statements they made about teenage life in the 80s, these stories are timeless. They changed the world then and remain renowned today. The Breakfast Club is nearly 30 years old and still relatable to teens of this generation. These films had teens that were here to say, “Even though I’m young with my whole life ahead of me, there are things that I have to deal with and I have problems that affect me too.”

These characters talked about how their parents have failed them or hurt them, the pressure to do well in school or have the right friends. Just look at the heartbreaking scene in The Breakfast Club when Bender describes his abusive dad. Or Andrew the jock screaming about how his father so desperately needs him to “Win! Win! Win!”  Think of how many kids in that audience could relate to that. They saw the Brat Pack actors up on the screen, speaking aloud something that they were struggling similarly with deep down inside.

Teenagers are often seen as self-centered brats, and it certainly doesn’t help if they’re also rich and famous. David Blum saw them as brats, as most adults see those who are younger than them. So yes, they are a pack of young kids. But the word “brat” doesn’t have to refer to what they are, but what they’re seen as. Call them brats all you want, but that’s not what they are inside.

Whatever the Brat Pack actors did with their fame in real life does not reflect the impact they ingrained on our culture. They helped put a face and a voice to teen struggles. These talented young actors gave teenagers an identity and platform for their problems that will stand the test of time. We will always thank the Brat Pack for that.

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Caroline Madden is a recent graduate with a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory. She writes about film at Geek Juice, Screenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.