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Saturday, March 24, 1984.
Before the “Mean Girls” cafeteria map, there was “The Breakfast Club.” Growing up, watching “The Breakfast Club” was the perfect act of rebellion, without actually having to rebel. It’s an iconic movie for misfits across generations, and it proves that the popular kids are never really as perfect as you think.
In so many ways, “The Breakfast Club” is one of the few teen movies that actually takes teens seriously. By the end of the movie, those kids are more self-aware than I am. I can’t help but wonder if they escaped their fates and avoided turning into their parents. After all, the older I get, the more I open my mouth and hear my mother come out. Originally, “The Breakfast Club” was supposed to be filmed every 10 years. While it didn’t end up happening because of the volatile relationship between John Hughes and Judd Nelson (Hughes didn’t want to work with Nelson again because of his contentious relationship with Ringwald http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088847/trivia) it’s easy to imagine these characters’ fates. Since the planned sequels never happened, it begs the question: where would “The Breakfast Club” be today?
“Criminal” John Bender
After a brief flirtation with Claire, Bender can’t help but cheat on her with the plethora of burn-out ladies available to him. Despite his bad behavior, he considers her “the one that got away.” Unfortunately, Bender’s breakup with Claire forces his extreme bitterness to amplify. He pawns her diamond for weed money and spends the rest of high school trying to win her back, despite their extreme social disparity. When that doesn’t work, he spends the next couple decades roaming the halls of Shermer High as a janitor.
“Athlete” Andrew Clark
Andy suffers a leg injury and has to give up his dream of wrestling in college, disappointing his father. After graduation, he returns to Shermer High to become the wrestling coach. He and Allison Reynolds were high school sweethearts who married directly after graduation. After they divorce, he finally comes out of the closet (an affair with one of his students forces him to). This disappoints his father once again. Eventually, his leg heals and he becomes a Raw wrestler, making his dreams come true. His signature move is the “Bun Taper.”
“Brain” Brian Johnson
Brian’s mother continues to cut the crust off of his PB&Js long into adulthood, which forces him to hold onto his virginity for much longer than he’d like (he carries that nudie photo around for years). After a stint at MIT, he drops out and makes millions in the tech world. He finally cashes in his V-card to one of the many supermodels who hangs around his techno-entourage. He sends Bender money for years.
“Basket Case” Allison Reynolds
After her short-lived marriage to Andrew, Allison sets out on her own and moves to New York. While she doesn’t “sit in alleyways and, like, talk to buildings and wear men’s shoes and that kinda thing,” she does wear a lot of black and become a poet. Claire visits once a year and they do brunch, “Sex and the City” style.
“Princess” Claire Standish
After Claire’s brush with a bad boy, she becomes the ice queen she was always destined to be. She spends her 20s and 30s going through multiple husbands, Botox injections, and attempts to escape her tendency to be a “daddy’s girl,” which isn’t as cute in adulthood. While she’s none too pleased with Bender’s position as janitor, she can’t help but walk into the sunset with him while “Don’t You Forget About Me” plays. They reunite when she attends parent-teacher night with her son. Bender is more than happy to raise Claire’s son as his own, because he always wanted to be the father his never was. While working as a janitor, he writes a novel about the students he knows so much about, and it’s wildly successful. After the dot-com bubble bursts, he ends up sending Brian money.
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Margaret Abrams
Nothing Margaret writes should be taken seriously by anyone, including her parents, employers, or gentleman callers. She's currently coping with a quarterlife crisis.
@margaretabrams
@margaretabrams
This sucked.