Breakfast Club free essay sample

For my movie analysis assignment, I chose to watch the movie The Breakfast Club. The breakfast club, written by John Hughes in 1985, is an American teen drama film full of stereotypical gender roles. The characters in this film have all violated a rule at Shermer High School, located in Shermer, Illinois. The five students in the film all violated a rule at Shermer High resulting in a Saturday morning detention. The five students having to report for the Saturday morning detention do not share the same interests and are somewhat familiar with one another. Andrew Clark, Claire Standish, Allison Reynolds, Brain Johnson, and John Bender are the five students. Shermer High’s assistant principal Richard Vernon is supervising the three males and two females in the library. Obedience to these gender roles is enforced by each of the characters except Bender, who attempts to break them down by treating everyone the exact same way, unkindly, but equally so. We will write a custom essay sample on Breakfast Club or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Bender’s role in the film is to break down each character to their core rather than allow them to continue to show a false exterior facade. The Expectations of gender are represented in this movie in a very general way but spread out among the characters. The three male characters all embody a different form of the prototypical male form, a sports star, a brainiac, and a bad boy. The two women are separated by their varying levels of femininity; Claire embodies the popular girly-girl while Allison is the secretive and reclusive type. The film paints a good picture of what gender each character is because if they were described by their traits only a person could determine who is male or female. The expectations of these characters are tested multiple times. In Clair’s case when she applies her lipstick utilizing the cleavage of her breasts she surprises everyone because that is an act that a lady like her would not do. Andy and Brian both challenge the expectation of being male by crying and speaking about their feelings. Allison and Bender are somewhat outliers because they are true to themselves and do not care about other people’s perceptions about them. Every time a character challenges their expectations the surrounding characters address it so it is known and this allows for the characters to become closer to one another by breaking down their exterior personas that they came into detention with. This movie clearly shows that masculinity and femininity are two divergent definitions. Bender and Andy both assume the position of dominant male with them trying to fight several times along with Andy attempting to protect Claire from Bender’s advances. The defining characteristic of femininity is of the topic of sex and Clair’s inability to answer whether or not she has had sex because of the double standard Allison brings up that is imparted on women at that time in their lives. This line does seem to blur at times such as when the entire group is sitting in a circle and expressing their fears and begin to cry, a non-typical characteristic of masculinity. In general the characters that challenge their gender expectations are revered. If they were not then this movie would not have ended the way it did. Rather than going home as people that are very close they would have hated each other. When the characters challenged their expectations it allowed them to open up and become closer. The challenges are welcomed and greased along by Bender who is really the orchestrator of the main theme of this movie that I feel is friendship through overcoming hardships. This movie does address inequality standards between men and women. There is no way that Mr. Vernon would threaten a woman in the way that he did to Bender. In another example is the double standard that Allison spoke of for women, saying you haven’t had sex makes you a prude while saying you have makes you a slut. This only applies to women and gives men more leeway when discussing sexual activity without applying a stigmatism to the answer. When a woman asserts herself in a powerful way in this film it generally garners her more respect from her male counterparts. For example when Allison empties her purse and tells Andy and Brian about her problems they at first tell her she is stupid but with further conversation between Andy and Allison she is respected for having said what she said. Also when Allison yells at Andy for taking the wrong way back to the library he can only bow his head in humiliation and her being right.