The Breakfast Club

John Hughes, Hollywood, and the Golden Age of the Teen Film

Elissa Nelson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781134814473
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The Breakfast Club is a quintessential teen film. This book analyzes how multiple factors coalesced to solidify the status of The Breakfast Club as one of the most emblematic films of the 1980s and one of the most definitive teen films of the genre. The film brings together genre-defining elements – the conflicts between generations and peer pressure, archetypical characters and breaking down stereotypes, the celebration and survival of adolescence, and the importance of this time in life on the coming-of-age process – and became a significant moment for John Hughes as an auteur and for teen films in the 1980s. More than just embodying these elements of the genre, filmmaker Hughes and the Brat Pack stars helped introduce and popularize multiple generic features that would come to be expected with the teen film formula. The content of the film combined with its context of production in the middle of a boom in teen filmmaking in Hollywood. Meanwhile, the marketing that focused on contemporary music, peer group dynamics, and oppositions between Generation X and baby boomers, merged with an enthusiastic reception by youth audiences. Its endurance speaks to the way the film's level of importance as a critical, commercial, and influential film with tremendous impact has grown since its initial debut.

1
The right place at the right time

How the market was primed for the production of The Breakfast Club

In the 1980s, economic factors within the Hollywood industry and economic factors in the United States at large helped ready the market for the huge onslaught of teen film productions. Teen films, which came to be recognized as those films featuring primarily teenage characters going through coming-of-age processes, appeared in multiple forms. They could be seen as subgenres of, or hybrids with, larger, more established genres, such as teen comedies or teen horrors, or they could be divided into specific types of the larger umbrella category of the teen film, such as teen love/sex films or teen angst/rebellion films (Nelson 2011: 423). Regardless of their specific classification, they were plentiful. From 1980 to 1989, over 460 teen films were released, accounting for a little more than 10% of all films released in the United States (Shary 2002; Nelson 2011: 168).

Not only were teen films being produced in large numbers, but they were also some of the more successful films released as well, as determined by box-office success. From 1980 to 1989, teen films made up approximately one of every ten films released but about one of every six of the top box-office films of the year, or about 16%. In 1985, the year The Breakfast Club was released, teen films made up almost 12% of all films released but a whopping 24% of the top 50 grossing films of the year (Nelson 2011: 169). In addition, because they often had smaller production budgets than the large-scale blockbusters or studio pictures with big-name stars and their commensurate big-name salaries, the ROI, or return on investment, for teen films was greater as well. As a case in point, the budget for The Breakfast Club was reported in Variety as being in the $6 to $9 million range (Tusher 1985), while the worldwide box office was reported at $51.5 million according to Box Office Mojo (2018); these numbers do not even take into account money made from ancillary markets, such as cable and home video. In general, teen films were less risky and came with the potential for great reward.

Hollywood may have appeared to be doing well as a result of blockbuster filmmaking and increasing total box-office receipts; further analysis into the numbers and into what was going on behind the scenes, however, reveals a different picture. Studio fears of box-office attrition during the decade were founded. While total box office increased from $2.75 billion in 1980 to $5.02 billion in 1990, the actual number of tickets sold held relatively steady from 1.02 to 1.06 billion over the decade, meaning that the increases were due largely to rising ticket prices, which averaged $2.69 in 1980 and $4.75 in 1990 (MPA 1990 US Economic Review). These numbers also do not take into account the soaring negative costs and mounting costs of prints and advertising, which, while not including increasing returns from ancillary markets, outpaced domestic box-office revenues (ibid.). Hollywood needed to figure out ways to lure audiences back into theaters, and making teen films, of which The Breakfast Club turned out to be exemplary, was one of the key strategies.

The rest of this chapter examines the changing nature of the film and media business in the 1980s, including how competing home entertainment technologies affected audiences and how changing ownership structures and modes of production affected Hollywood output. Because the focus is both on the teen film more broadly and The Breakfast Club more specifically, the first part of these analyses will look at industrial factors affecting the industry and economic elements that can help situate the film. The second part will go into detail about the production history of The Breakfast Club and how the specific cast and crew that was available, including the young talent and the more experienced filmmakers, assembled at a particular moment in Hollywood history. The Breakfast Club would not have existed, nor would it have had its lasting effect, if the market had not been primed and if the creative personnel were not in the right place at the right time.

The changing Hollywood industry and its effect on teen film production

There are many similarities between Hollywood in the 1980s and in the 1950s. Both periods saw a booming economy (for certain socioeconomic classes), competition from new technologies, and government policies that affected the film industry. Not coincidentally, the two decades are also the most prolific in terms of teen film production and remain the two decades that are most closely associated with teen films, which can in large part be ascribed to these economic conditions (Nelson 2017: 126).

The 1950s and the mid-1980s are both considered periods of economic growth because of markers such as increased gross domestic product and low unemployment rates (‘United States’ 2007: 1020–1021). Although not all sectors of the population were beneficiaries of these booms, nevertheless, teenagers, often the ones from middle-class families, were viewed as reaping some of the rewards. Teenagers, whose families were prospering in the 1950s, and who had more money as a result of living in two-income families where both parents worked and because they themselves had jobs in the 1980s, were seen as having the coveted ‘disposable income.’ Because they usually did not have to pay household expenses, the money they had could be spent on non-necessities, such as entertainment purchases. As their buying power increased, producers and advertisers paid them more attention, and they became a bona fide market segment. Some estimates from research companies in the 1980s put teen discretionary income buying power at over $30 billion per year (van Tuyl 1989: 14). Trying to figure out what they liked became a big business as research firms were enlisted to study their habits and desires and goods were catered to their tastes.

Indeed, this focus on marketing across businesses was exceedingly important for Hollywood in the 1980s. The amount of money spent on marketing, which happens in multiple stages of production (for example, when assessing audience tastes and testing films before release and when advertising films once they have already been made), grew exponentially during the decade. However, it actually became a prominent tendency in the film business starting in the 1950s, and the reason for this increased emphasis on marketing reveals some of the ways Hollywood views its products and audiences. In the years following the Paramount Consent Decrees in 1948, the vertically integrated major studios lost their guaranteed exhibition outlets, meaning that instead of making films that would be released in theaters regardless of quality, studios that were now focused primarily on production and distribution had to be more concerned with actually selling their products to exhibitors and audiences. In addition, with the rise of television as a competing entertainment technology for audience attention, viewers became more discerning about which movies they would go out to see in the theater.

Industry structure also played a role in the increased focus on marketing starting toward the end of the studio system. Picking up momentum in the 1960s during the first wave of mergers and acquisitions that swept through Hollywood, studios were bought by larger corporations, companies that were more familiar with marketing research techniques from their experience in packaged goods (Wyatt 1994: 156). Marketing research would help the studios’ film production decisions look financially sound to their corporate owners. The next big wave of mergers and acquisitions began in the 1980s when studios were bought by large conglomerates that also had other media holdings, and the need to focus on marketing increased. Combined with the shift in distribution strategies in the 1970s that often followed wide, saturation release patterns, where films would be released on hundreds and then thousands of screens around the country simultaneously, and with the commensurate television advertising campaigns that would ensure the big advertising push needed to make audiences aware of new releases, marketing became essential. As Mark Litwak describes when talking about the state of the industry in the 1980s, ‘executives increasingly make decisions based on market research, demographic trends and minimizing financial risks’ (1986: 97).

With the increasing focus of marketing in general duly noted, the importance of targeting teens specifically was of huge concern during the decade. Not only did they have a large amount of disposable income as youth research reports revealed, but commissioned research reports also revealed that over 80% of the youth population went to the movies (‘Youth Barometer’ 1985: 2). Teens also made up a large portion of the movie-going audience, and even more important, they were frequent moviegoers, often going to the theater multiple times per month, and were repeat viewers, who would go to see the same film again and again (Albert 1985). In mid-decade, according to an ‘Incidence of Motion Picture Attendance’ report cited in Variety by Jack Valenti, the long-time head of the MPAA, the youth audience, or those in the age bracket between twelve and twenty years old, made up 36% of total yearly admissions in 1984, even though they only made up 18% of the resident civilian population (Valenti 1985: 94). In other words, even though teens made up less than a fifth of the population, they made up more than a third of those who went to the movies. In addition, the same report revealed that frequent moviegoers made up 84% of theater admissions, and the teenage segment of twelve- to seventeen-year-olds made up 45% of those frequent moviegoers (ibid.). Because films featuring teenaged characters were thought to appeal to this desired demographic, Hollywood started producing more teen films.

Another reason for the increase in teen film production is because Hollywood tends to follow patterns; when it notices downturns in the box office, it falls back on familiar strategies that were successful in the past. So when there are threats of audience attrition because of competing media, the tendency was for there to be a subsequent increase in the production of teen films. In the 1950s, television threatened the box office with Hollywood thinking that it would have to fight and curtail the television beast in order to retain studio revenues. Eventually, Hollywood learned how to profit from television, largely by getting into production of television programming and later, especially in the eras of media deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s, by having ownership stakes in television networks (Anderson 1994; Hilmes 2014). Combined with the migrations to the suburbs and away from expensive first-run theaters, a greater portion of the population was opting to stay home to be entertained instead of going out to the movies. The hope was that teen films would entice the teen audience to go to the movies in order to socialize with their peers.

In the 1980s, competing media again seemed to be a threat. While cable and home videocassettes were introduced in the 1970s, their popularity increased dramatically in the 1980s (Wasser 2001; Mullen 2003). Indeed, the diffusion of innovation was rapid: in 1980, of all households that had televisions, 2.4% had VCRs; in 1989, the penetration rate was 70.2% (MPAA 2000 Economic Review). Again, Hollywood initially fought the new technologies because of fears that audiences would rather stay home to watch films on television instead of in the theater (Wasko 1994: 114). And indeed, audiences did turn to these new technologies; by 1987, the home entertainment market was more profitable for studios than the theatrical box office (Thompson and Bordwell 2010: 663). However, as with television, Hollywood profited by offering sales and rentals of their films on videocassette, by licensing rights to cable stations and later in having partnerships in stations either outright or through studios’ conglomerate owners, and by producing films for direct release onto cable and home video. Savvy to the changing market, Hollywood again turned to teen films. Even though reports in Variety noted that teens, although still a large part of the theatrical audience, reduced their theatrical attendance by 20% in 1985, they tripled their rate of viewing rentals on VHS the same year (Roth 1986: 3). To get teens both to the theaters and interested in rentals for new ‘VCR dates,’ they had to make products that appealed to the market segment.

Another trend influencing the prolific production of teen films is Hollywood’s tendency to follow cyclical production and marketing patterns after a few similar popular releases. As Eleanor Bergstein, the writer and co-producer of Dirty Dancing (1987), stated, ‘Never underestimate Hollywood’s eagerness to copy something successful’ (quoted in Freeman 2016: 157). Copying recent successes showed itself in a few ways. First, just as in the 1950s when the success of Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle, both in 1955, influenced the teen production trend later in the decade, there were a few teen films that were surprise box-office hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s that spurred the filmmaking trend into the latter decade. Films like Halloween and Breaking Away (Yates) both in 1978, as well as the successes of Friday the 13th (1980) and Porky’s (Clark 1982), led the studios to produce similar films, thinking this was the genre teens wanted to see. Even though cycles of popularity tend to run their course, it was still worth it to ride the wave for as long as it would last.

Other ways Hollywood copied recent successes and applied them to teen filmmaking and marketing in the 1980s could be seen in its turns toward the strategies of making easily accessible films with broad appeal. Blockbuster filmmaking began in earnest in the 1970s with Jaws (Spielberg 1975) and Star Wars (Lucas 1977), where Hollywood deliberately tried to target teens with easy-to-follow, action-oriented plots and with summer releases that appealed to students on their summer vacations. This was combined with the rise of the multiplex in malls across the country, where the increasing number of movie screens in shopping centers frequented by teens led to a need for more youth-targeted films (Shary 2002: 6). Making films accessible meant making them easy to understand, fun to watch, and ensuring there were ample ways, places, and times to see them.

Around the same time, two other buzz terms for Hollywood strategies that also tried to benefit from widespread audience tastes generally and the teen market specifically were gaining a foothold: ‘high concept’ and ‘synergy.’ Justin Wyatt describes high concept as a production style based on ‘“the look, the hook, and the book.” The look of the images, the marketing hooks, and the reduced narratives form the cornerstones of high concept’ (Wyatt 1994: 22). High production values, sleek designs, and streamlined plots were cornerstones of this strategy, providing popular and easily palatable entertainment for the masses who watched movies, of which teens were a primary percentage. Synergy, meanwhile, is the idea that products related to one intellectual property, if sold across different media and ancillary markets, could exponentially increase sales and recognition of said property. In 1980s filmmaking, this meant that the box office of a film could be enhanced if there were also a successful soundtrack accompanying it. This was a mutually beneficial practice – the sales of both the film and the soundtrack would be bolstered by sales and publicity of the product across markets.

The proliferation of entertainment media in multiple markets that could be exploited using the practice of synergy also meant that there was a need for product, especially product that would appeal to the demographic that spent so much of its money on entertainment purchases. Multiplexes, video store shelves, and cable stations all needed content. As Thomas Schatz (1993: 35) describes, there were three dominant modes of production in the New Hollywood, or the period beginning post-Jaws: block-busters, star vehicles, and small, independent films. But it is important to add another mode – the genre picture. Budget-wise, some of these genre pictures were mid-budget films made by the major studios. During the 1980s, teen films of all different types and from different sectors of the industry were produced.

Using the teen films Flashdance (Lyne) and Footloose, released one year apart fro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Series editors’ introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Breakfast Club and the golden age of the teen film
• 1 The right place at the right time: how the market was primed for the production of The Breakfast Club
• 2 Rules of the genre: creating iconic characters while breaking down stereotypes
• 3 Teen problems in the 1980s, and Generation X and baby boomers just don’t get along
• 4 The synergistic effects of the marketing and the music
• 5 The lasting legacy: historical reception, contemporary impact, and Hughes as auteur
• Bibliography
• Index