The Stories Stars Tell: Guest Blogger, Emma Matthews
Emma Matthews, MC in The Stories Stars Tell, Movie Review
CLW: I asked Emma Matthews (an MC in The Stories Stars Tell) to write an analysis for The Breakfast Club based on one of the discussions she, Liam and Ginny would have after one of their John Hughes movie nights. She asked me if I wanted it like a formal essay? I told her I didn’t care as long as she was comfortable with me sharing it on the blog. This is what she submitted).
The Breakfast Club and Timeby Emma MatthewsI’ve been thinking about time a lot lately (maybe it’s because I’m working on my Salutatorian speech). As a senior how can I escape it? In fact, just the other night, I was talking to my best friends, Liam and Ginny (though the specifics of our private conversation will remain between the three of us), and it made me reflect about how all of us are preoccupied with focusing on graduation. I remember when I was 9 and couldn’t wait to be 10 so I’d be in double digits, or when I was 12 and wanted to be 13 so I could be a teenager, or when I was 15 and couldn’t wait to be 16 so that I could finally drive alone. Considering the many times I’ve watched The Breakfast Club with my friends, this viewing I noticed the way John Hughes paid attention to the idea of space and time and I haven’t been able to shake thinking about it.
Considering my own teen years (even if I’m still in my teen years), there are lots of ways to feel trapped and powerless. For example, how much say do teens have over rules at home? Or which classes we get assigned at school? When our curfew is set? Or what religion we get to practice? These things are dictated to us for the most part. And like the situation in the movie, the teen characters are confined to Shermer High School’s library. They’ve not only been restricted to the space but also compelled to share their day with strangers coated in an infraction that serves to communicate their identities. Within the first 5 minutes in the film we’ve been given the day (Saturday), the date (March 24, 1984), a shot or two of the clock and the place. These characters are locked in a space in which it seems time has stopped.
Mr. Vernon, the adult in charge, enters the library and after sharing the time adds, “you will not talk, move, or sleep.” The stifling omnipresence of not only a controlling adult entity but also a single day stretched into a vast void of loss of time and autonomy looms. The frame cuts to a clock face highlighting time as a motif, but also suggests the feeling of being stuck. I imagine as I watch the time lost, the boredom, the struggle to adhere to these directives by the authority figure I see as nonsensical, and who has set rules that seem arbitrary. I also don’t know why these students are required to be at Saturday school in the first place. These facts add to the dichotomy between what it means to be a teen stuck between external forces who dictate belief systems and behavioral expectations, and the desire for self-determination.
The character Claire seems to highlight this idea. The popular “prom queen” demonstrates why she believes Saturday school isn’t an apt punishment for her infraction: skipping school to go shopping. Her attitude and dialogue reflect the external identity she’s built in her mannerisms, her outward appearance, and her condescension toward others in the library with her. She complains about her life, her parents and her feeling of being “stuck.” As the movie progresses however, the other characters challenge her attitudes. Over the course of the film we see her shift from who she entered at the onset of the story to the person she becomes when she leaves at the end demonstrating that power for personal autonomy.
The clock—as the movie progresses—disappears, demonstrating the way in which time seems to stop in the film, and like Claire, each of the characters are forced to examine their attitudes and behaviors. But they aren’t the only ones, right, because even the audience has to examine his/her own attitudes. Remember, this is occurring in the library, a place of learning. The space, then, becomes something more significant in the timeline these characters share highlighting the importance of space and time, and becoming reflective of the way in which the time becomes a place of learning, of gaining insight, of finding one’s story. We get to see this occur in John Bender, who, at the beginning of the film, tears apart the library; he rearranges cards in the card catalogue and destroys books. As the day continues, however, his behaviors shift. We see him put himself on the line with Vernon for the sake of the others, he tells the truth about his family, and even stands up for others. His mask fades to allow others to understand him.
Can we change in a moment of time? John Hughes once said of his discovery of Bob Dylan’s song “Bring it All Back Home” that it changed him. “Thursday I was one person and on Friday I was another.” I like the idea that we can experience something so profound, so challenging that it bumps our trajectory from one plane onto another. Now, as a senior, I’m facing the unknown of what happens after graduation. There are these moments behind me. I recognize all the choices I had to make and wonder if I made the right decisions. How things might be different had I made a different choice? The Breakfast Club asks us to look at a moment like their day in the library and be open to its possibilities.
The significance of time then is that while the clock keeps moving forward, we have the opportunity to move with it or run the risk of getting stuck in the same mindset. Hughes alluded to this during a discussion between Mr. Vernon and Carl, the janitor, the only two adults in the film. At the same time the students are smoking marijuana in the library, tapping into their rebellion and sliding into their inhibitions, the adults are drinking alcohol in the basement (another symbol perhaps of adults hiding their true selves while the teens in the library are exploring them more honestly and openly). Vernon insists that kids and their attitudes are degrading while Carl confronts Vernon’s attitudes, intimating that it’s Vernon who’s stuck in a mindset and unwilling to change. Vernon then represents the inability to change and the problem with remaining stuck. This becomes dangerous when he confronts John Bender in the closet (still in hiding much like the basement), threatening the teen. As the audience we are uncomfortable with this adult degrading into the Bender we saw earlier in the film because it reflects the adult’s inability to grow.
While I think there’s a lot wrong with The Breakfast Club (i.e., gender roles and behaviors, stereotypes, and a lack of racial perspective to name a few) the theme of time and the importance of looking at it honestly in order to make meaningful change is universal. Ultimately, I think all of us can take a moment to reflect: Am I who I want to be? Am I making the most of the time I’ve been given? What I need to do to make that happen? Let’s make an agreement, then, to not waste a single moment.
Next Week: Pretty in Pink and Ginny Donnelly as our Guest BloggerCLWalters Blog RSS
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