The Issues of Social Inequality in "The Breakfast Club"

The movie Breakfast Club revolves around a group of five kids stuck in Saturday detention. Each one with their own unique personalities and unusual reasons for being in detention. Initially, the group doesn't mix due to their different personalities, not to mention having to deal with Mr. Vernon breathing down their necks. The group is given an essay to write and told to stay in the library from 8am - 3pm. With nothing to do, the group slowly warms up to each other; mostly due to one of the kids constant teasing, provoking, and dragging everyone into his antics. Near the end of the movie they all begin to open up to one another. At the end of the movie they all become friends and that is where their story ends. The main characters include; Andrew Clark who is a jock, Brian Johnson who is a nerd, John Bender who is a rebel, Claire Standish who is a princess, Allison Reynold who is a loner and lastly Richard Vernon who is the teacher. I have decided to write about The Breakfast Club because it has many great examples to explain what leads to social inequality and the many issues that are posed by social inequality.

The movie’s main message was to find out “who you are”. Throughout the movie we slowly begin to understand each character, learning about who they are and what makes them unique. The second concept of the movie would be culture diversity and how society influences youth. Specifically subcultures and countercultures. The director did a great job of assisting each character into a specific subculture and giving them a personality that reflects the stereotype of their subculture. The Breakfast Club gives the audience a perspective of a typical 80’s high school society, with the typical subculture groups and anti-culture groups that thrive in its society. Along with giving lessons of subculture and how people belonging to the cultures behave, the movie gives a hint at the family structure of that time period and the effect of primary groups. Every kid in the group had some sort of family issue and felt pressure from their parents. This pressure leads to each child to behave the way they do.

Andrew Clark is a varsity wrestler and is currently striving to get a scholarship. Everything he does is to impress his father, but nothing seems to be good enough for him. His father always told stories of how he would misbehave in school and how “cool” he was. Andrew took it upon himself to follow his father's bad footsteps and ended up bullying a kid in the locker room. Andrew breaks down to the group and confesses that he never wanted to be the kid up, in fact he felt extremely guilty for his actions and regretted what he had done. On top of that, his father is always pushing Andrew to win no matter what and gets into fits of anger when Andrew doesn't meet his expectations. Brian Johnson is a typical nerd. A member of countless academic clubs and maintains an above average grade average. His parents don't fight or argue, but they do place an enormous amount of pressure on Brian to maintain his grades. This had such a serious effect on Bryan that when he failed a project in shop, he contemplated suicide. John Bender comes from an abusive family. From John's recreation of a regular day in the Bender house, we can see that his father is very abusive physically and verbally. The two would exchange swear words and get into fights. John went as far as showing a cigar burn his father gave him on his forearm. John's behavior is a by-product of his father's Behavior. John rebels and acts up because that's all he knows how to do. Allison Reynolds is a quiet outsider that only begins to speak near the final quarter of the movie. Her family issue is straightforward; they ignore her. The isolation she is exposed to at home translates to school, causing her to be the person she is. Claire Standish’s family situation is very different from everyone else. Her family is rich and she seems to be delighted with the relationship with her family. We find out later that she feels crushed by the expectations to be perfect. Throughout the movie, she is referred to as a prune, which would be linked to her family's wealth and the assumption that she looks down on people because of her financial position.

Mr. Vernon is the teacher in charge of looking over the group of kids while they serve out their detention. Right from the start, Mr. Vernon is portrayed as a strict teacher and asserts his dominance with the kids by calling out Bender in front of everyone for the way he behaves and dresses. Mr. Vernon is very concerned with how people view him (respectful and powerful) and hates being made a fool. Mr. Vernon has been cut into the strict teacher role and fully embraces it. From a micro perspective, we can assume that Mr. Vernon has had a serious impact on the group's lives in a negative and positive manner. The negative impact; it seems that most of the group has never dealt with Mr. Vernon prior to the event in the movie, but it is obvious that Bender is quite familiar with Mr. Vernon. Throughout the movie Bender is looked down upon by Mr. Vernon. He is called names and is used as an example for the rest of the group to strive in school so they don't end up like Bender, a useless piece of trash who will never do anything with his life. If we are to make assumptions, we can say that due to the abuse Bender faced during high school, he might just fall into the category he keeps being placed. Leading to a burden on society and causing welfare to be more of a demand. The positive impact; in some weird way, by forcing the group to think about “who you are” he caused them to interact with one another and truly figure out who they really are. By doing so, he gave them the ability to interact with other groups of society and taught them to seek help with their problems from a third-party perspective.

The sociological concepts that shown in the movie are; Feminist Perspective: Our upbringing and peer socialization plays a role in the feminist perspective. Throughout the movie, Claire is degraded by John, his views on her is that she is less than and is only good for her pretty looks. His actions prove he has little respect for women. As the movie comes to a close end, despite everyone's outlook on Claire's over-indulgent ways, John begins to respect her and doesn't treat her like she's a piece of meat. Functionalist Perspective: Functionalist can be observed in the way the Saturday detention serves the community both manifestly and latently. The manifest function is to punish the students for misbehaving in school, while the latent function is in the way the students become friends and unite to oppose Vernon. Conflict Perspective: Conflict perspective is demonstrated in the way the conflict between the group members at first serves them positively in the end. This is because even though they are all different and from different groups and backgrounds they are also very similar. In the end, they are able to offer different points of view on situations and share feelings and stories that eventually help each other deal with their individual problems. Symbolic Perspective: The symbolic perspective is seen through the essay at the conclusion of the film. Brian states in the essay that they are all a little bit of everything in the end. They accept that they are all outcasts and weird and despite what Principal Vernon wants them to write, they refuse to associate themselves with a single group and rather band together as one.

The Breakfast Club shows us that people have problems that you can’t always see. The characters try to hide their problems by acting a certain way so the people around them can’t see their imperfections. For example John struggles with his Dad being abusive. The characters can't see the effect that his dad has on him because John hides it by trying to act tough. The message is appropriate for young adults. It deals with the problems that teens may have while growing up and adults mat have later on in life. The message also reminds you that you can’t always judge someone by what you see on the outside because they might be dealing with problems that aren't so obvious. Even though the movie is made in the 1980s, it is still relevant today and addresses societal problems that are still being dealt with today, such as suicide, bullying and strereotyping.