I remember watching the iconic teen movie "The Breakfast Club" with a group of friends 30 years ago, and seeing some of the same acting group (Nelson and Sheedy) later the same year as supposedly older friends a year out of college in "St. Elmo's Fire". The first movie really is a classic and it felt real in a lot of ways that John Hughes films did not feel real, from the very beginning. St. Elmo's Fire, I'm afraid, is that terrible movie with some of the worst acting from very talented people, that we just loved and couldn't get enough of, but not one frame of it felt real. It was contrived. Again, I watch it now every time I stumble upon it on TV and still moon over the bad boy Rob Lowe, but the film, like St. Elmo's Fire itself, wasn't real.
The Breakfast Club, even though it was about white upper middle class and wealthy students living near Chicago, like almost all of Hughes' films, resonated - and it was real. Did I believe Molly Ringwald would have brought sushi for her lunch to Saturday detention? Not really, but everything else she said and did that day felt authentic. Ally Sheedy was almost impenetrable most of the movie, appearing to be what she symbolized - that freaky girl at your school who didn't wash her hair, who dressed in dark clothes, probably had sex with boys she didn't even know in the bathroom at school or at a party - but was an actual person hiding beneath layers of eccentricity for protection. Nelson, Estevez and especially Hall were also broad stereotypes on paper - but each emerged in the movie just like the boys we knew at the time who were more than just their letterman jackets or the heavy aroma of pot enveloping them or their straight As and manic descriptions of solved math problems or obscure historic facts. What The Breakfast Club revealed was the possibility of life after high school that dropped into those five students' laps that day. For all of the different perches they were all forced to stand on and be observed from during high school, each of them was able to see the respite beyond.
You can almost imagine those five people seeking each other out at their 30 year reunion all these years later, hoping that life unfolded well for the others, that they became self-assured, were loved, and embraced life. They would be the people who didn't feel compelled to talk about their children's accomplishments or the fashionable part of town they live in today, or the monetary success or relative renown they have enjoyed in life. They would seek out each other's eyes. Just as we were all there in high school, almost afraid to look beyond the superficial in our assessments of others and equally as afraid to step out of our comfort zones and the lanes set forward for us by our teachers, friends, family - so too are we or will we be there 30 years down the road. We know what it feels like to receive a sincere hug, a lingering embrace that signifies we mattered to this person and we still matter today, versus smiling at someone we recognize across a crowded room with openness and seeing the dismissal still remains.
There's a commercial that airs frequently for DirecTV, part of a series of clever commercials that Rob Lowe does for them. In it his alter ego is 'peaked in high school' Rob Lowe. A character not unlike Billy ('college was out of control') from St. Elmo's Fire. In contrast to that commercial, which is clear in its ironic way about making good long term choices versus unwise ones, is what I imagine the reunion at that fictional high school from The Breakfast Club would be like. None of those characters peaked in high school. Some of them might have, otherwise, but they opened up when the opportunity arose on that Saturday afternoon. They knew by Monday things would be different, the lanes would be marked again for them, but they couldn't unlearn or unsee what they had experienced together. Maybe none of those five middle-aged adults would even go to their reunion because they certainly wouldn't be concerned with showing others what they had accomplished or with having an evening full of short, superficial conversations. Maybe all of them would though - because they might get a few moments to just exchange a few real words with people they really cared about, maybe even some others they didn't even realize they cared about until they saw them again.
A film is great when it captures truth, just like any art form. The Breakfast Club endures because even though the times change, the truth of where we came from does not. I am a contemporary of the actors in The Breakfast Club and that film doesn't resonate with me because of the familiar music, the clever scenes or the us vs. them construct against 'authority' that first brought the five diverse students together to declare that they would not be pigeon-holed. No, it resonates because it captured some basic truths, some that transcend period, about being on the verge of real life and needing to see that the moment you are in is actually contrived by circumstance and age and the general order of the universe. If you are young now, you won't be forever, and who you are, who your parents are, where you live - won't matter when you measure your life and it won't matter as you are living it. If you are 30 years down the road, you should realize how frequent the thresholds are in life and if you've failed to move onto the next phase or step into new situations or come to new realizations - well, there's still plenty of time left. And, at their core, your friends, your tormenters, those who were merely indifferent to you when they could have been kind and welcoming, are no different than those five kids thrown together to share a brief punishment - all are capable of redemption.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Women's History Month
During Women's History Month just as during any history or heritage month, I step up my reading of history, viewing of documentaries and watching of films about women. Women have definitely been portrayed differently throughout history, but if you go way back, I fear there really aren't as many really positive role models. Most of the women brought to the forefront in early history and literature are scandalous, and you certainly have to look no further than the Bible or Greek Mythology for broad stereotypes and role models you wouldn't exactly want your daughters to emulate.
There's Eve, of course, wandering into the garden and playing with the serpent (a more obvious symbol of penis envy you will not find anywhere in Freud) before noshing on the forbidden fruit. And then of course, to borrow a quote from 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' -'all hell done broke loose' in Eden and the so-called weaker vessel doomed hapless Adam and all of his heirs to the same fate. And seductive Delilah, before Tom Jones sang of her in the swinging 1960s, gave poor Samson the ultimate bad hair cut and brought about the strong man's downfall (although he had the last laugh by bringing the house down). There's curious old Lot's wife who couldn't help herself but had to take a gander back at Sodom - and just as her mother had probably warned - her face stayed like that forever - in fact her entire body did, remaining where she stood in saline veritas. Mythology was no better. Helen of Troy, don't get me started, and poor misunderstood Cleopatra. I suppose there was kind, gentle Ruth, who even garnered her own book in the Bible (one Book named after a woman out of a total of 39 in the Old Testament), but what of the two Marys (no, not the ones from reality TV) of the new testament? Guess they weren't big writers like Paul.
Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of both good and poor male role models in the Bible and in mythology, but women tended to get elevated for, oh say keeping their legs crossed for years on end while their spouses or suitors sailed the high seas on one adventure after another (Penelope), and in real life if they had any weird peccadilloes (Ann Boleyn for example, a little too attracted to her own brother at the same time she was an expendable spouse to old Henry VIII - or Marie Antoinette and her cake fetish)) they tended to lose their heads or (the cross-dressing, pugilistic Joan of Arc) get a little too hot under the collar.
So, during Women's History month I am not advocating that you watch The Other Boleyn Girl, or the grotesque Cinemascope extravaganza Cleopatra. Quite the contrary. There are so many movies about very strong women who were just ordinary people. Some of them would have led very different lives had they been born even 20 or 30 years later than they were, but all of them are role models in their own ways. Great books I've read about strong women include "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio", written by the late SF Chronicle cartoonist Terry Ryan about her mother holding a large family together amidst the chaos of marriage to an alcoholic underachiever (it was also made into a movie starring Julianne Moore if you're not a reader). A great black and white gem of a movie that is based on a real social worker is "A Child is Waiting" starring Judy Garland - about a teacher in one of the old state schools who dared to connect with and love the children who were placed there. Garland, a tragic figure in her own right based on when she was born and the entertainment system she was fed into, wears her fragility on the outside in that movie. And if you want to see Elizabeth Taylor stand tall, watch Giant. Lots of overacting in that movie, but her character comes through just as Edna Ferber intended when she wrote the original book. Finally, sometimes it is the secondary character, the one not often highlighted who teaches girls and other women great things about dignity, perseverance and strength. Here I am back at the movies - Ghosts of Mississippi with Whoopi Goldberg as Myrlie Evers - moving forward for decades after Medgar's murder and finally seeing justice; and Walk the Line, with Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, a woman who believed in love against all odds and understood the difference between a passion that would pull her in and the real, enduring love that you work to make last a lifetime.
For Women's History month I remind myself to also think about my mother and my grandmothers - all women of strength. Nobody has written books about them or made movies about them, but they are equally remarkable and unforgettable.
There's Eve, of course, wandering into the garden and playing with the serpent (a more obvious symbol of penis envy you will not find anywhere in Freud) before noshing on the forbidden fruit. And then of course, to borrow a quote from 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' -'all hell done broke loose' in Eden and the so-called weaker vessel doomed hapless Adam and all of his heirs to the same fate. And seductive Delilah, before Tom Jones sang of her in the swinging 1960s, gave poor Samson the ultimate bad hair cut and brought about the strong man's downfall (although he had the last laugh by bringing the house down). There's curious old Lot's wife who couldn't help herself but had to take a gander back at Sodom - and just as her mother had probably warned - her face stayed like that forever - in fact her entire body did, remaining where she stood in saline veritas. Mythology was no better. Helen of Troy, don't get me started, and poor misunderstood Cleopatra. I suppose there was kind, gentle Ruth, who even garnered her own book in the Bible (one Book named after a woman out of a total of 39 in the Old Testament), but what of the two Marys (no, not the ones from reality TV) of the new testament? Guess they weren't big writers like Paul.
Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of both good and poor male role models in the Bible and in mythology, but women tended to get elevated for, oh say keeping their legs crossed for years on end while their spouses or suitors sailed the high seas on one adventure after another (Penelope), and in real life if they had any weird peccadilloes (Ann Boleyn for example, a little too attracted to her own brother at the same time she was an expendable spouse to old Henry VIII - or Marie Antoinette and her cake fetish)) they tended to lose their heads or (the cross-dressing, pugilistic Joan of Arc) get a little too hot under the collar.
So, during Women's History month I am not advocating that you watch The Other Boleyn Girl, or the grotesque Cinemascope extravaganza Cleopatra. Quite the contrary. There are so many movies about very strong women who were just ordinary people. Some of them would have led very different lives had they been born even 20 or 30 years later than they were, but all of them are role models in their own ways. Great books I've read about strong women include "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio", written by the late SF Chronicle cartoonist Terry Ryan about her mother holding a large family together amidst the chaos of marriage to an alcoholic underachiever (it was also made into a movie starring Julianne Moore if you're not a reader). A great black and white gem of a movie that is based on a real social worker is "A Child is Waiting" starring Judy Garland - about a teacher in one of the old state schools who dared to connect with and love the children who were placed there. Garland, a tragic figure in her own right based on when she was born and the entertainment system she was fed into, wears her fragility on the outside in that movie. And if you want to see Elizabeth Taylor stand tall, watch Giant. Lots of overacting in that movie, but her character comes through just as Edna Ferber intended when she wrote the original book. Finally, sometimes it is the secondary character, the one not often highlighted who teaches girls and other women great things about dignity, perseverance and strength. Here I am back at the movies - Ghosts of Mississippi with Whoopi Goldberg as Myrlie Evers - moving forward for decades after Medgar's murder and finally seeing justice; and Walk the Line, with Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, a woman who believed in love against all odds and understood the difference between a passion that would pull her in and the real, enduring love that you work to make last a lifetime.
For Women's History month I remind myself to also think about my mother and my grandmothers - all women of strength. Nobody has written books about them or made movies about them, but they are equally remarkable and unforgettable.
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