My Generation

“A brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse.”  Quick, what legendary piece of pop culture multimedia am I referencing?

A - Beverly Hills 90210

B - Goonies

C - Glee

D - The Breakfast Club

E - All of the Above

 

If you answered E, I hate to tell you that you are wrong (technically correct, but wrong nevertheless).

The tag line is actually straight from the poster for the landmark 1985 coming of age film, The Breakfast Club. This cult classic recently celebrated its 25^th anniversary, which provided for a moment of reflection of its cultural impact on today’s young adults. 

In retrospect, The Breakfast Club and more broadly John Hughes—writer and director of the film—helped to define the 1980’s through a dynamic story line that resonated with a generation. The film gave rise to a cast of characters and created a set of identities for young adults that would live on to influence the media and overall culture.

Awards, accolades and nostalgia aside… Was this legacy of young adult stereotypes—the nerd, punk, jock and so on—necessarily a good thing for the generations that followed? What effect did it have on today’s Millennials?

Based on my own healthy consumption of pop culture and media, I am most surprised at the longevity of these stereotypes. I believe that while times and generational titles may have changed over the last 25 years, the way in which young adults are portrayed in media and viewed by society has not. Since the movie’s release, much of mainstream media continues to reinforce the same fundamental stereotypes—for better or for worse. In fact, many of these caricatures are to this day portrayed in popular, modern-day television shows such as Glee, Real World, Beavis and Butthead, Freaks and Geeks and My So-called Life just to name a few.

Do Millennials actually self-identify with the characters and roles portrayed in these movies or shows? Is that why these characterizations persist?

ABC recently also debuted a show called My Generation—a documentary style television series that followed the lives of nine high school students from the class of 2000. The show followed up with each of them 10 years later to find out where they are now. During the opening of the pilot you see the following labels next to each character, “the over-achiever, the rock star, the jock, the nerd, the beauty queen, the punk...” and so on. Sounds a little familiar, doesn’t it? ABC recently cancelled the show due to low ratings. I guess that it just didn’t resonate with viewers, including those who are supposed to identify with the characters—the Millennials.

How has the media impacted how Millennials view themselves and are viewed by others?

By the end of The Breakfast Club, stereotypes are crushed and both the characters and viewers are transformed by the experience—each character realizes that they are more alike than any of them ever suspected and not defined by their respective “labels.” In the famous last line of the movie, the characters declare that, “You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.” In many ways this sentiment is still very relevant to today’s young adults, but only when viewed through a very different lens.

While the examples above highlight how media “roles” for young adults haven’t changed much over the last 25 years, I do believe that the context with which we view them has changed quite dramatically.

Unlike The Breakfast Club, which was based on the story of “five total strangers, with nothing in common,” we now live in a world where connections take on a whole new meaning. Social media and online networks allow many of us to identify and connect with others who have something in common and reinforce those distinct bonds. I realize that this is somewhat of a sweeping generality, but in comparison to 1985, most young adults are no longer limited to a single community like the one portrayed in the movie. In many ways we’ve embraced the stereotypes with the help of social media and they have empowered today’s young adults to develop an identity of their own through Facebook profiles, Twitter handles and YouTube videos. This modern day composite identity is one that can include, “a brain, a beauty, a jock, a rebel and a recluse” and then some.

This post merely scratches the surface with thoughts and references from my own personal experiences about generational stereotypes. By writing this piece, I’m not trying to make any judgments as to whether or not stereotypes such as those featuring young adult characters have a positive or negative role. What I do know is that these roles make for good television, music videos and movies, and will live on longer than anyone who ever “played” them on film.

Why do you think stereotypes like the ones highlighted in The Breakfast Club for example have lasted so long? Will technology continue to change the way we identify ourselves and others?