Molly Ringwald has been praised for airing her concerns about her 1985 film The Breakfast Club, which she has said is now “troubling” to her due to scenes involving sexual harassment.
The actress re-examined the teen film, about five misfit students held in detention on a Saturday, while questioning its director John Hughes in light of the #MeToo movement against harassment.
Writing in The New Yorker, Ringwald, 50, said she recently watched the film again with her 10-year-old daughter and, after fearing her child would be concerned by it, she “hadn’t anticipated that it would ultimately be most troubling to me”.
“At one point in the film, the bad-boy character, John Bender, ducks under the table where my character, Claire, is sitting, to hide from a teacher,” Ringwald wrote.
Tracey Spicer joins Holly Wainwright and Rachel Corbett to deep dive on why the #metoo movement has kick-started a new way of thinking worldwide. Post continues after audio.
“While there, he takes the opportunity to peek under Claire’s skirt and, though the audience doesn’t see, it is implied that he touches her inappropriately.”
She added: “What’s more, as I can see now, Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film.
“When he’s not sexualising her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her ‘pathetic,’ mocking her as ‘Queenie.’ It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol.”
Ringwald noted that, despite all of this, the film sees him “get the girl in the end”.
She said that she thought about the film a lot after re-watching it, particularly after a number of women came forward with sexual harassment allegations against the likes of film producer Harvey Weinstein and others.
“If attitudes toward female subjugation are systemic, and I believe that they are, it stands to reason that the art we consume and sanction plays some part in reinforcing those same attitudes,” she wrote.
Throughout the piece, she paid tribute to Hughes, who died in 2009, and hailed his work as having a “cultural impact”.
Ringwald, however, added: “It’s hard for me to understand how John was able to write with so much sensitivity, and also have such a glaring blind spot.”
Following the publication of the article, Ringwald was widely praised on social media for her take on the film.
American author Jenny Han tweeted: “To all the people claiming that Molly Ringwald is ‘throwing John Hughes under the bus’- did you even read what she wrote?
“It’s a pretty tender, fair-minded piece. She’s not ‘crying’ about #MeToo. She’s a grown woman examining her legacy and that of the man who helped shape it.”
Writer Mark Harris said: “This piece by @MollyRingwald is one of the most insightful and honest pieces of cultural criticism I’ve read in ages, and a model of how to discuss movies within the context of when they were made without excusing their faults and failings.”
Weinstein, who has been accused of sexual assault and harassment by multiple women, has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.
Top Comments
Okay, but here's the thing. I went to a year 7-10 junior campus high school (ages 11-16) with about 20% girls and 80% boys, from 1992-1996, and it WAS like that.
I think in some ways, Molly is forgetting she is viewing it through her 50 year old, eyes and grown up wisdom... teens do act this way when they're beginning to interact and fool around with the opposite sex.
Also she's forgetting it was the 1980s. She's looking at it with her 2010s values.
I think that's the whole point of her standing up & saying what she is.........it's time NOW for change!
Then she should critique today's movies, not stuff done decades ago.
If we don't recognise & acknowledge the bad/wrong/immoral etc things of the past then how do we change the future...........
As you said, you change things now.
There's no issues looking back, but you have to look at it through the zeitgeist of the time.
It was a semi-accurate depiction of high school at that time (dramatised, obviously, i'm not claiming it's a documentary). Girls going for the bad boys is a trope for a reason.
Let's not forget Andrew was prepared to fight Bender to protect Claire's honour. Andrew's character has it's own issues, only willing to date Allison once she has a makeover.
And the geek never gets a girl, and has to do all the school work, and was there because he bought a gun to school to commit suicide.
The whole point of the film is saying that though they are all different, they have a piece of each other inside them, as Brian puts in the letter:
'But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal'
Sorry, went off on a tangent there defending one of my favourite movies.
Let’s hope you’ve found love with the new, better romance in 50 Shades of Grey, which if box office numbers are to be believed, is every woman’s dream relationship.
Strangely enough also like my high school days. It was a very weird time....