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Almost four decades on from its initial release, Molly Ringwald is looking back on The Breakfast Club with fresh eyes.
Talking to The Times, the actress spoke about rewatching the cult 80s film with her daughter, Mathilda, and realising that, like many of our other favourite flicks from the era, the romance doesn’t hit quite like it did all those years ago.
“There is a lot that I really love about the movie, but there are elements that haven’t aged well—like Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, who essentially sexually harasses my character,” said Ringwald. “I’m glad we’re able to look at that and say things are truly different now.”
The film tells the story of five very different teens from various social classes (a ‘princess’, a ‘brainiac’, a ‘basket case’, an ‘athlete’ and a ‘criminal’) forced to spend a Saturday together in detention. As time passes, they learn a lot from each other and share some emotional breakthroughs. Two couples even emerge from the group—one of which is Ringwald’s character, Claire Standish and Nelson’s character, John Bender.
Throughout the day, Bender aggressively hits on Standish, approaching her with crude remarks that would not stand for romance today—even with his ‘bad boy’ persona.
In 2018, Ringwald, who starred in many classic romcoms from the decade, told NPR about her perspective changing as she’s gotten older.
“As everyone says, and I do believe is true, that times were different and what was acceptable then is definitely [not] acceptable now and nor should it have been then, but that’s sort of the way that it was,” she told the outlet. “I feel very differently about the movies now, and it’s a difficult position for me to be in because there’s a lot that I like about them.”
The Riverdale star expressed her gratitude to director John Hughes but noted that some of her early work is hard to watch.
“I don’t want to appear ungrateful to John Hughes, but I do oppose a lot of what is in those movies,” she said, adding that even when she wasn’t comfortable with the content, it was hard to speak up at just 17 years old. “You don’t want to speak up too much. You don’t want to cross the line. Or at least that’s the way that I felt at the time.”
