Page 118 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

barriers dividing them and established real contact with one another, they
are, finally, unable to accomplish the social changes that would permit
them to act on these new feelings and insights. When school resumes
on Monday, they know they will reassume their prescribed conflicts
and roles. Unlike adolescents of the 1960s, who were naive enough to
believe they could change the world, the members of the Breakfast Club
are trapped in their self-awareness.
All trappings of adult legitimacy drop away in The Breakfast Club,
where adult authority has collapsed into a corrupt and destructive power.
Vernon, the school official who monitors the Saturday detention session,
wields power but no legitimate authority. He is empowered through
the totalitarian organization that employs him, rather than through any
personal qualities that merit respect. His delusion is that, as an adult, he
has transcended the pains of adolescence.
At one point, Carl, the school janitor, discovers Vernon in the base-
ment of the school, rifling through personnel files to find dirt he can use
to undermine colleagues. In other words, Carl finds Vernon engaging
in the type of behavior that would earn him detention in the Breakfast
Club. In the scene that follows, Vernon confides his fears and insecuri-
ties to Carl, at the same time as the Breakfast Club is meeting in the
library detention center. He admits that he has trouble sleeping at night,
knowing that one day his students will take over the world as adults. The
irony of his fear is twofold: First, they have already taken over—Vern
goes to detention every Saturday. He has never left school. Second, the
dividing line between adolescence and adulthood has disappeared. Vern’s
fears of his students in essence reflect the conditions of his own life and
the dangers that that presents. As a stunted adolescent, Vern is his own
worst nightmare.
The film opens with a slow pan of the school, which has the look of
an abandoned warehouse. The walls are marked with dirt and graffiti,
the corridors are littered with trash. The camera quickly passes over a
display of photographs honoring each class’s “Man of the Year.” Close
inspection reveals that the Man of the Year in 1968 (the year that Alice’s
Restaurant was released) was none other than Carl the janitor. Carl is the
film’s only respectable adult. He remains trapped in the school; however,
unlike Vern, his self-awareness is his redemption. Like the students in
the Breakfast Club, he accepts the limits of his condition. In a world that
is portrayed as a prison, the film suggests that, for adults, honor lies in
doing your time without illusion.

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