The Breakfast Club

John Hughes ‘The Breakfast Club’ is a film that follows 5 teenagers as they spend Saturday together serving detention in the Shermer High School library. All 5 of these student conform to generic high school stereotypes of the decade. The Expectations of gender are represented clearly by both sexes. The three male characters all embody a different form of the typical male form, the jock, the nerd and the rebel. The two female characters are different in terms of the levels of the femininity in which they project. The popular girl who maintains her appearance, and the more reclusive, mysterious girl. These traits are enforced by the majority of the characters.

,

In an article by Hannah Taylor she states that “John Hughes made a sociological impact by changing youth culture and he permanently changed how Hollywood makes and markets the teen film by reinventing it in the 1980s.” The 80’s teen films tended to represent the notion of the “jock” or the “nerd” in a very two-dimensional way, and whilst this is exemplified by the characters in the beginning of the film, as it progresses we see that there is a lot more to their identities. 

“One of the ways Hughes made such an impact was by taking teens and their problems seriously and understanding that what teenagers are going through matters to them” The Breakfast Club is a great example of how gender alters who a person is and how they act. This is exemplified through each of the 5 students who bring their unique portrayal of what stereotypes engulf both genders.