Stereotypes In John Hughes's The Breakfast Club

“Spend a little more time trying to make something of yourself and a little less time trying to impress people.” – The Breakfast Club
This is only one of the well-loved quotes from director John Hughes’s 1985 classic “The Breakfast Club”. It’s a film that follows a story where five different teenagers have been sentenced to a Saturday in detention. The five main characters represent typical stereotypes in a high school environment. Coming into detention, they are expected to write an essay about “who they think they are”; but during this film, we come to see that each character has a deeper struggle than what can be seen during school. We also get a chance to see why each of the characters are in detention, which ultimately leads to one of the significant scenes in the movie. By the end of this film, the teenagers end up seeing eye to eye and leave detention on a good note. This can be seen

They’re quite aware of what they are going through.” Then when the quote suddenly disappears, the screen looks like shattered glass. I see this as a resemblance of the breakthrough that each character has later on in the movie. Another part from the first scene that really stands out to me, is when Brian is narrating his essay and listing each of the stereotypes; a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. As he is doing this, the movie goes to different shots that go along with each of the characters (for example, for Princess, it goes to a quick shot of a banner that reads “Prom Queen”). Also, as each of them are arriving to detention, it clearly shows that each character is dealing with something different. For instance, Brian (The Brain) is putting up with his mother’s scrutiny and Allison (The Basket Case) steps out of her car, closes the door, and is ignored as she tries to say