When The Breakfast Club begins, we’re presented with the five characters as easily defined stereotypes – “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.” In the film’s closing moments, against the backdrop of the Simple Minds classic “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” Anthony Michael Hall iterates the fundamental message of the film – that although it is much simpler to perceive the characters as members of discrete categories, it’s just plain wrong, and it’s an insult to each of them to do so. The members of the Breakfast Club don’t believe that Principal Vernon’s assessment of any of them is going to change in the slightest beyond the stereotypes he has already assigned them to, and therefore feel there is no point in attempting to explain themselves to him. It would all go in one ear and out the other.

The Film: The Breakfast Club

The Song: “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”

The Artist: Simple Minds

Ever since this endless presidential race began – and let’s be honest, the Democratic primary has effectively been underway since Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 convention and the Republican primary hasn’t been much shorter – the traditional media has been struggling to characterize the candidates in terms of their high school equivalents. Anyone who has actually been to their high school reunion has a pretty good idea that people change a great deal in college and thereafter. Relying on a perception of a candidate’s stereotypical high school persona to make judgments about their current character and competence is an activity you might expect from someone who needs a bib to eat, has mittens pinned to their jackets, and isn’t allowed to play with matches, but certainly not from a professional journalist. (more…)