Not much has changed over the decades

The Breakfast Club is an ‘80s classic movie set at Shermer High School in Shermer, Illinois. Five students (Brian, Claire, Andrew, John, and Allison) from different social groups end up in Saturday detention together on March 24, 1984 and, by the end of the day, they are able to better understand one another.

Claire (Molly Ringwald) is a popular girl who got detention when she skipped school to go shopping. Andrew (Emilio Estevez), a multi-sport athlete, found himself in the group after he got in trouble for taping another student’s butt cheeks together during gym class. John (Judd Nelson) is the rebel of the group, who found himself in detention after he got caught pulling a fire alarm. Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) is the stereotypical nerd, who was reacting to his family’s intense pressure to get perfect grades when he brought a flare gun to school in an attempt to commit suicide, but it shot off in his locker instead. The fifth member of the detention, Allison (Alley Sheedy) is a shy girl, an early version of Goth, who came to the library that Saturday not because she had done something wrong, but only because she had nothing better to do.

The antagonist is Vice Principal Richard Vernon (Paul Gleeson) who clearly abuses his power by harassing students and going above and beyond when trying to prove a point. One of his most memorable quotes, one that helps the viewers understand his attitude, is, “Don’t mess with the bull young man. You’ll get the horns!”

The Breakfast Club is considered a classic because, although it was made in 1985, it gives a timeless representation of what it’s like to attend an American high school. The stereotypes may be too distinct to accept the characters as real people, but they do serve as clear representatives of cliques. In the end, the battle between breaking those barriers and facing peer pressure to keep them up is clearly portrayed.