What The Breakfast Club Can Teach Us About How To Treat One Another Today
HBO currently has “The Breakfast Club” on demand, and after watching it the other night I realized that maybe the world would be a whole lot better if everyone took away some of the lessons from the movie.
You remember “The Breakfast Club,” right? The 80’s movie about five high school kids from different stereotypical cliques who all have to serve detention together one Saturday afternoon?
Apart from the killer soundtrack, this movie that was made in 1985 is still relevant today. Even the questionable fashion in the movie is making a comeback (I still don’t get it). But regardless of the clothes, or when it was made, the message of the movie is more important now than ever.
So relevant in fact that maybe, if everyone just watched “The Breakfast Club,” everyone could calm the hell down and realize that, guess what(!), we have more in common than we have differentiating us. And maybe, if we stopped being so concerned about what other people think, we could actually use that to our benefit.
Three Ways “The Breakfast Club Can” Make Us Better Humans
We’re All Dealing With Shit
It doesn’t matter what socio-economic, religious, or ethnic background we come from, we all have shit to deal with. From the super trivial to the really hard stuff, everyone is dealing with something. Johnny has an abusive father. Claire has parents who use her as a revenge tool. Andy has a dad who is unnecessarily hard on him and his wrestling career. Brian has parents who pressure him to keep up his grades.
To John (who has the abusive father), Claire’s problems seem trivial. To Claire, Brian’s parents getting on him for his grades seems insignificant. Allison seems to be the most “messed up” yet has no good reason to be in detention on Saturday other than “she had nothing better to do.” But regardless of how we all perceive our own problems to be, we are all still fighting some battle, no matter how small or large, in our own way.
Despite what you may think, that actually unites us. Sure, maybe the kid from a broken home can’t relate to the princess whose parents give her everything, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t dealing with their own issues they have to work through. To each of them, there is something to overcome. And that is what unites us. The feeling and the knowing that all of us are struggling with something and no one has a perfect life.
We All Want To Feel Noticed/Wanted/Loved/Appreciated
I don’t care who you are, or where you come from, deep down (even if you have to look really really far down), all of us want to be loved, wanted, or just noticed. Despite all the things that divide us as humans, we all want the same things. We want to feel appreciated. We want to be noticed. We want to feel love, to be loved, and to love in return. It doesn’t matter where you come from, that is a universal human truth.
Almost all the characters in the movie suffer from this need. It is initially depicted through the characters need to feel noticed from their parents, but by the end of the movie, some of them are looking for it in each other. Brian eventually asks “what happens on Monday?” hoping that come Monday, this eight hour adventure was not for nothing. Hoping that the bonds they formed are real and withstand the social pressures they are all subject to when they pass each other in the hall.
So maybe it doesn’t matter if you come from a family whose parents love you and are supportive, or you come from a family whose parents don’t recognize you at all. We all still want the same thing: to know that our life matters. To know that we matter to someone. Somewhere.
Our Problems Are Not That Different
Despite coming from very different home situations, all the characters in “The Breakfast Club” have the same problem: their home life is unsatisfying because their parents either don’t pay attention, or pay too much attention. They lead very different lives at school, and yet they can all find common ground over this one fact. And even though they can’t relate to each other in other ways such as social status or popularity, they can empathize with each other on how they are struggling with life.
The empathy is the key part. We don’t have to be able to relate to every person’s situation, but we should be able to empathize with what someone is feeling because chances are, we have felt the same thing at one point. Maybe, if we could empathize a little more, we would see that we are actually a lot more alike than we think. And maybe, if we approach situations with that mentality, we can treat each other better.
“The Breakfast Club,” despite being made a year before I was born, is still relevant on so many levels. Maybe the social groups in high school aren’t as extreme anymore. Hopefully the fashion is better. But the core message the movie is trying to get across: that we are more alike than we are different, is still applicable today. It still matters today, probably more than it did back then. And maybe it takes watching a movie from the 80’s to be reminded of that message.
