“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 25th anniversary, which provided for a moment of reflection of its cultural impact on today’s young adults.
In retrospect, The Breakfast Club [2] and more broadly John Hughes [3]—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 [4], Real World [5], Beavis and Butthead [6], Freaks and Geeks [7] and My So-called Life [8] 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 [9]—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 [10] 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?
Comments
Hughes told us exactly why stereotypes still resonate. They're "the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions."
Especially among youth, who generally lack experience across the board, it's easy to lump things that aren't easily understood into blocks. People don't have socially awkward tendencies or different means of expression, they're a "nerd" who plays computer games instead of baseball. There's no nuance because there's very little understanding required once they're just a nerd.
When I was in high school, I hung out with a pretty diverse group of friends. I myself was a combination of a brain, a recluse, a jock and a rebel, and I knew that most of my friends, whether from the soccer or (yes, really, let's add to the Breakfast Club references) wrestling teams, the orchestra, the yearbook staff or my group of skateboarding buddies, were combinations of that, too.
The people who made assumptions about who we were (skate punks, meatheads, stoners, insert your favorite demeaning stereotype name here) were the ones who didn't bother to take the time to get to know us; even when my own friends overlapped into other cliques at school, it seemed the mentality of the lowest common denominator won out. If some idiot called another kid a "queer" or a "fag," that won out over the people who were likely thinking (but dare not say for social hierarchy reasons) "guys, c'mon, he's my friend."
We could get into a discussion/rant on the social implications of cliques and general teen/high school hierarchy, but that could take years (I mean, it has so far and nobody has an answer, right?).
I think people, generally, prefer the easy way out -- thoughtless grouping and stereotypes that have become cultural memes -- rather than taking the time, and social (cultural?) risk, of getting to know someone and finding common ground. We see it in anything you could apply a stereotype to: race, gender, religion, politics, music, ethnicity/regional culture, and everything else they say isn't polite dinner conversation.
And, for the record, I answered "D."
Ian, a sincere thank you for your thoughtful comments - reading your answer I'm not surprised that you knew the right answer! Agreed, there are so many different cultural, societal, personal [the list goes on] reasons for why we group people and create stereotypes that ultimately define us/our experiences/our memories. I for one know that I've fallen into several of those stereotypes and applied them to others as well from time to time. I guess the next frontier is that "common ground" you speak of -
I think the interaction between technology and social labels is an interesting topic to raise.
As an Internet user, I can find my own community and surround myself with a "high school" of people just like me. But that just means our minute differences get magnified. Now the jock v nerd distinction is, for example, a difference between my favorite Stones album v your favorite Stones album.
In one sense, I think it's a good thing because we think harder about things than we might otherwise. But in another sense, maybe it's not such a good thing because we don't expose ourselves as much to other points of view.
Maybe the jock v nerd label system was a good thing. It forced each of us to see our identities from a broader perspective. After all, for the Breakfast Club to come to their profound conclusion (though let's face it, it was probably mostly Anthony Michael Hall's character's conclusion) they had to be in the same room together, right? I guess we'll have to wait and see...