Detention: No Judgment Zone

By: Alex

Art by Alex

I’m proud to say I got through high school with a clean slate. No detentions, suspensions, not even a parking ticket for me. Working to keep my name off the lists outside the school office helped solidify the independent goody-goody personality I identified myself with in high school. What I did (or didn’t) do gave me my reputation, thus reputation became a means of segregation in an already confusing world of high school. If only I had the chance to know some of the kids who spent their Saturdays in detention. Of course, I would have had that opportunity if I had been at Shermer High School on March 24, 1984. Yes, that is the exact time and location of The Breakfast Club, of which I am begging to be a part of.

John Hughes’ coming-of-age piece, The Breakfast Club chronicles the lives of five different teenagers as they spend a day in detention and learn about themselves through the interactions they have with each other.  This film captures the inner turmoil of going through high school, whether you are an athlete, a princess, a geek, a criminal or a basket-case, everyone struggles to figure it all out in those four overwhelming years.

The Breakfast Club allows us to see a specimen of each of the strictly stratified social groupings of high school and how, though they may seem different, there is so much that one can have in common with the other. As we see these five teens start to get along and open up to each other during detention, the world doesn’t seem as scary. These kids share their deepest secrets, and though there is some teasing at first, there is never any judgment. They get along so well and just want to help each other figure it out as they each struggle with the same questions. If The Breakfast Club can find solace in one another, things seem less impossible for us.

By finding this solace, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be who I am today if John Hughes hadn’t created such a piece of teen gold. While still being easy enough for kids to watch, Hughes gets down to the tough stuff about growing up, some of the taboo that we don’t really like to think about. But even though this movie examines some things that might not be comfortable to confront, I feel a lot better after watching it. The more real the movie, the more I can trust the characters. I totally relate to these anxious teens just trying to get by in a world they don’t understand. If they can find some peace by the end of the film, I think I can too.

The Breakfast Club will always speak to me as one of the most real accounts of teen angst out there. Through one day of detention and sharing their inner turmoil, they found something in themselves and found a savior in someone else, which is sometimes, all we need to know that things will be okay for a while. And when John Bender thrusts his fist in the air as Simples Minds plays over the freeze frame, Hughes gives us one final triumphant image, as if to say, he made it, we can too.