The Mehkfast Club

   I'll be honest, I pretty much hate the 80's. Aside from some music and some good movies I think the decade seems like a shit time to be young. The Breakfast Club is the marker everyone jumps to when talking about young people in the 80's. I personally don't care much for the movie, it just doesn't resonate with me. However as the reading mentions the idea of cliques coming together and the Neo-Con agenda the film carries it's a perfect demonstration on how the 1980's exploited, broke down and re-sold youth culture and built the blue print for how it is sold now.

    The characters in this movie all have their "image" their sub section of youth culture, jock, bad boy , rich girl etc. They all use their "image" to mask their issues, pretty typical behavior, we all were or knew people similar to these characters. They cling to these masks and for me I found I couldn't trust any of them, even when at their lowest these characters were still liars to me, I couldn't help but to think that it was just too convenient for all of them to have bad home lives, were they exaggerating or out right lying? Like Claire says to Brian "It's because you look up to us." Brian denies it, but that statement has an interesting implication. They are all just trying to maintain face, they are social climbers and if one doesn't corroborate the story of living in grief with their parents they will ostracized from the others. In my eyes they are trying to maintain social status. We get no insight into the lives of these characters except for what they tell us, why should we trust them, we know they are petty people.

    These characters are avatars of sub-culture, basically advertisements. Bender is from a working class family, presumably a metal head or punk from his style of dress, but why? Bender could look totally unassuming, he could still maintain his personality with a different style of dress but no the film bashes us in the head with the stereotype?  Why, because Bender isn't a person none of them are. They are just attitudes in certain clothing. They are cheap simulacrum.

      Their disunity and cruelty ties directly into the Neo-Con agenda. Youth culture is a product, these characters are manifestations of brand names, like "Jock" or "Brain." Neo-Con's believe in strict caste "Rich" "Poor" etc. These brand names can't mix and must adhere to their own roles in order to not confuse the consumer and eventual member of the clique. These characters could probably benefit one another by banding together or trying to at least express some kind of genuine human connection, but Hughes doesn't want to show kids banding together. Displays of unity break from Neo-Con dogma.

      The Breakfast Club annoys me because of it's inhumanity and ultimately a useless experience. I just can't help imagining these kids graduating and never speaking again. Going on with their lives, maybe every once and awhile having a pang of nostalgia for that dim and distant day in detention, then going back about their life.

Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride, Get back in Line

 Okay, full disclosure, this may get a little soapboxy and somebody may walk away offended, so you've been warned, nothing personal. Desperately Seeking Susan was a fun ride nothing particularly taxing on the gray matter, essentially forgettable and at first I did just that forgot about it. However in class when we got onto the topic of image control and celebrities as salespersons, selling in many ways ideologies as products that got me going.

 The commodification of ideology is a weird thing but ultimately nothing new. Take for example the building of the Vatican. Back in the day the Pope sent out a man named Johann Tetzel to collect money from the peoples of Europe. Tetzel was a clever man and figured he could use faith as a selling point and came up with a catchy jingle " Every time a coin on the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs." Basically people paid for their relatives to be freed from purgatory and all the money built St.Peters.

I see something like this all the time albeit not quite as outright as Tetzel and his methods. Today there are lots of "Ism`s" Anarchism, Communism, Feminism, Capitalism etc and today our culture has many idols and youth culture prophets designed to push Coke and most importantly ideas. When a celebrity say Madonna or Beyonce release their latest album their fan base goes freaking nuts endlessly posting on Facebook how that celebrity is at the fore of the fight for in this case Feminism, but is this a condusive introduction to any of the nebulous "Ism`s"? I personally think this introduction to thought through pop is a perfect way to create stunted " heroes of the revolution." Like buying a Che Guevara  T-Shirt or getting your risque Anarchist paraphernalia at Hot Topic. Many people do not move beyond image identification with an "Ism" and we are all guilty of it. Through direct observation of people I encounter I have seen many examples  in others and in myself of this strange phenomenon. For example I am interested in Anarchist thought and find many of it's philosophies to be liberating, but I'm here at a STATE school, receiving STATE grants. Not exactly hoisting the black flag and declaring an end to nations am I. However I was introduced to the ideology through popular culture and for years thought it was about smashing Starbucks windows and going to Road Warrior conventions. Then I did some reading and research and applied what I thought I could to my own life and it's been working so far.

But I don't think many people move beyond an introductory course in their chosen "Ism" before becoming a crusader for it. Feminism is a hot topic on campus lately, I've met a lot more self-identifying Feminists in the past semester than ever before. Absolute equality for peoples of all genders, races and creeds is a no-brainer in my estimation. But in my observation I've met these people only after celebrities began pushing Feminism as a popular concept. This in my opinion is dangerous for cultural movements as it creates a groundswell of fair-weather "Ism" followers and ceases new thoughts and adaptations on old concepts so that ideology may evolve in the 21st Century to finally see it's goals achieved. It makes me wonder how many will self-identify with their ideology as time goes on and things change.

Perhaps I'm a nut and no change comes from below but trickles down from icons and idols engineered by institutions be they economic or religious or governmental and we only change as we buy more of what they sell, I hope not because that's a pretty hopeless world.