History Fridge / TheBreakfastClub

!!FridgeLogic
* The whole subplot with Brian's parents. What exactly is their son going to get out of their extreme pressure to make perfect grades? They could have found other ways of encouraging him instead of mental cruelty.
** They probably saw him as a slacker who needed that pressure to make anything out of himself.
** TruthInTelevision. Parents like Brian's aren't always reasonable. There are plenty of cases like his in RealLife where parents just don't understand how cruel their levels of pressure ''are''--or who, for any number of reasons, genuinely believe that cruelty is better for their child in the long run.
** It's also entirely possible that they genuinely don't see it as being cruel at all. After all, we live in a society that tells people that if you work hard and achieve, you can get whatever you want. Obviously that isn't true but it's still something people willingly buy in to, and there are probably thousands of cases of parents who pressured children through school because to them, a higher grade equates to a better future. And who's to say they know they're the root cause of Brian's detention? He was probably pissing himself at the thought of having to tell his parents he'd be spending a Saturday in detention without mentioning what the exact cause of it was...
** They may also have an over-inflated notion of what it's reasonable to expect of Brian. They know he's smart, they just don't have a realistic sense of precisely ''how'' smart he is - i.e. top 10% of his class level, ''not'' Nobel-winning genius level - or of how intellect, alone, can't always compensate for everything (like a lack of mechanical aptitude when crafting elephant-lamps). For all they know, his schoolwork really ''ought'' to be easy for him.
* It seems odd that kids in '''detention''' are left entirely unsupervised for large portions of the movie. Even in the mid-1980s.
** There's nobody there except the kids, Carl and Vernon. Carl has his own job to do and Vernon hates his job--he's there on a Saturday, who wouldn't? But he doesn't care enough to actually do a good job, nor does he care what they get up to. He just wants it to be over so he can go home. The only time he interfered was when he overheard a noise, like Bender falling through the ceiling, or when he caught them in the act, like Bender in the gymnasium.
** Vernon did the bare minimum by leaving the library door open, which would have allowed him a clear view of the kids from his office if Bender hadn't messed with the door (Bender intimates that he's pulled the same stunt before, so you'd think Vernon would have seen it coming; Vernon also might have had Carl fix the door). As the detention monitor, he should have been in the library with the kids regardless, but given his attitude it's not surprising he blew it off. He didn't want to be there any more than they did.
* One hates to imagine what further consequences the kids might suffer on Monday. Their detention resulted in considerable damage to the library ceiling and a shattered window in the door to the library's Foreign Languages lab, destroyed books, etc. Allison pitched the contents of a teacher's locker all over the teacher's lounge in a deleted scene (though, being deleted, one might consider it not to have happened, even though she's shown with the Prince album she took from the teacher's locker later in the library). Plus, while Brian's essay is pointed and satisfying, it doesn't fulfill Vernon's instructions (not for Brian, and certainly not for the others), which is likely all Vernon is going to care about. Of course, it's just as likely that Vernon is going to have to answer some uncomfortable questions about just where ''he'' was when the kids were doing all this stuff.
** With regards to the essay at least, it's unlikely they'll see any consequences for that. Given Brian's description of detention to his mother at the start of the film (that they're supposed to just sit there) and Vernon introduces the essay task with calling it "something a little different", writing an essay is not an official aspect of detention in the first place and more just a completely superfluous task Vernon himself decided to set them purely on a whim, probably because he imagined it might keep them quiet, and this is {{Lampshaded}} in Brian's final essay when he points out that Vernon doesn't care about who they think they are because he's already labelled them. Note how, despite clearly none of them ever doing any work on their essays whenever he comes into the room, he never once tells them to get on with writing it or demands to see their progress which makes it even more clear that this isn't an official task and more a "this is how I suggest you spend the time" thing.
* While there's obvious symbolism in the layers of clothes the kids are wearing (note that Claire wears the least number of layers; note that Andy strips down to just his blue tank-top and jeans when he gets high, note that after Allison's makeover, when she and Andy face each other, they're both wearing the least amount of layers that they have in the whole film; note that, at movie's end, Andy has given Allison his hoodie and she pulls a patch off of his letterman's jacket)the kids must have been roasting. The film is set in late March which, while likely cool, would not have required the layer-upon-layer of clothes and heavy coats (Andy and Bender both have at least 4 layers if you include their coats) the kids were wearing. They all look like they're dressed for the dead of winter.
** Even late March can have very cold days in the Chicago area. Weather Underground records indicate that the average temperature on that day was around 37 degrees and a few days earlier the temperature had reached 0 degrees. People who live in cold areas tend to dress in layers and for warmth because it's much easier to take off a layer than to just be cold.

* Consider what the movie says about the prestigious/successful: Claire's parents are rich, but they're also divorcing and emotionally abusing their daughter, who is unhappy and upset because of the position her peers force her into. The principal evidently doesn't like his job, despite the fact that principal is quite a respected position. Carl, who was once his class's Man of the Year, is a janitor. Brian's parents force him to work hard, not caring about how much stress he's under, and Andy's father has alienated his son to the point that Andy wants to give up a sport he's good at so his father will leave him alone. From this, the underlying message of the film might well be construed as 'Success/riches/prestige don't equal happiness, so don't force yourself or others to achieve them'.
* On the topic of Carl, the movie is about breaking down social barriers and features characters that are all ranked differently on the school hierarchy. Andy is at the top as a representative of the school, Claire is a step below, Bender is in the middle, Brian is on the lower end and Allison is at the bottom as she is ignored by everyone. Carl is there to show that you shouldn't waste time worrying about who society says you ''should'' care about and just be friends with who you want. This also extends to family, as the five characters have dreadful parents yet are expected to maintain close relationships with them because of blood ties.

** This is actually addressed in an extended version of Brian's confession scene. One of the kids asks Brian if he brought the gun to kill the shop teacher, and Brian insists that he did not, saying that his failing grade isn't the teacher's fault.

** Even worse: Did Brian bring the flare gun as a means of a suicide attempt like Claire and the audience think it was, or did he bring the flare gun to threaten the shop teacher to giving him a better grade? Get's you wondering, doesn't it?

*** Ironically, it's Bender who is most likely to remain on good terms with everyone, since he doesn't really care about social circles.

* I noticed when the group is talking in a circle that Bender seems really disengaged. He's almost always seen looking away and not really contributing. What I found interest/ironic was that throughout the whole film, he seems to look down on Brian the most. Bender doesn't like Andy, but he takes him more seriously, somewhat like Claire. As for Allison he doesn't seem to mind her. What got me is when Brian is talking about the gun and his DrivenToSuicide attempt. You can see at this point Bender doesn't look condescendingly towards him anymore, and this is because Bender is the one most likely to commit suicide. He finally related to him on a level that no one else could.

** My own parents used to say, "If you put pressure on coal, you get a diamond."

* I always wonder why the movie was called '''Breakfast''' Club. Later on, I learned that "breakfast" literally means "to break bread", and in Biblical times, it was a part of a day for friends to get together. So, by the end of the film, the misfits have considered on another friends.
** Playing fast and loose with etymology there, perhaps. "Breakfast" literally means to "break the fast" that you've endured overnight since the last night's meal. However, in communities that live in close quarters, it was generally true that breakfast would be the first mealtime of the day that everyone would be together.

* This one didn't occur to me until nearly twenty years after the initial release of the film. When the gang gets to lunchtime, Bender immediately goes around asking people what they've got for lunch and ridiculing the stuff they've got. He then moves off to sit somewhere else. He doesn't eat lunch. On reflection, given he's basically from an abusive household, ''of course they wouldn't have packed his lunch for him.'' That's why he fronts the other about their lunches--he's trying to distract them from the fact that he hasn't got any.

* When Andy unpacks his lunch, piece-by-piece, he does something odd. He first unpacks his four sandwiches and milk, then makes as though to put his bag away, then slowly takes out two pieces of fruit. While might seem like a tiny moment of comic relief, it's actually extremely telling of his life--not only did Andy not pack his own lunch, ''he had no idea what was in it''. Andy is so disconnected from control of his own life, he can't even decide what he eats. Prize racehorse indeed.

* In spite of how controversial Allison's makeover is, if you think about it, in the end she looks exactly how her actress, Ally Sheedy, looked in real life. So her makeover most likely really does symbolize her showing her true self, especially with Andrew saying "I can see your face." [[UnnecessaryMakeover Though the light pink/white blouse and bow was too much]].

** I was listening for post-production audio echo after reading this--there isn't any. Clever repetition though, yes.