The Breakfast Club is a legendary culture moment for Gen X about growing up. Five teenagers have detention at school on a Saturday, and the long, boring time in the library helps kids across cliques and caste realize they’re all fundamentally human.

I was born ‘88; this takes place in ‘84; this was not part of my personal canon growing up. I’ve seen it before though, just not in a while. These days I usually watch older movies and think, “Wow, everyone looks so young.” Everyone in The Breakfast Club somehow still looks exactly my mom’s age. I think it’s because this is such an anachronistic movie: beyond the music and fashion, the exact dynamic expressed between generations is distinct to Gen X.

I expected the story to be more timeless. If you boil it down to the core message — one where People Are People, and Growing Up Is Hard — that feels extremely timeless. Yet the way that the people interact feels distinct to its time.

We’ve spent decades growing away from the sort of social attitudes that made open mockery of weird, naive, earnest, or *anyone* culturally acceptable. Relentless bullying from Bender against his fellow students gets groans and eye-rolls, even when he pulls a switch blade–that’s how commonplace it seems. One kid is found with a gun in his locker and sent to detention instead of help. Violence is both explicit and verbal. Also, there is no communication between these children that is not hyper-aware of their position in society and prioritizes that before anything else, so accepting other people as human must be their primary development. They are still far away from a point where they might actually be able to build healthy relationships, and that’s so depressing.

Further, the dynamic between Gen X and their parents is distinct. Older gens were extremely traumatized by the depression and great wars; they passed a lot of authoritarian junk onto their children out of fear. There was such a rift in trust between many parents/kids, and this haunts our protagonists. Remember how we judged Helicopter Parents? That was a lot of Gen X trying to figure out how to *actually* bond with their kids, because their parents expected them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. Millennials, meanwhile, have coined “gentle parenting” and get judged for being too nice. I suspect we’re going to see a swing back into more trauma-influenced parenting trends through the 21st century, but I’m not sure the teen/parent dynamic will ever quite look the way it did in 1980s.

Every character in The Breakfast Club feels vividly real–probably because they *are* so screwed up in such authentic ways. The personal-feeling nature of it — the fact I can only associate these characters/situations with people I actually know, who were not adults for me when I needed them — means I just feel uniformly bad encountering it. But that same very evocative personal nature is its charm for many fans.

I can’t add anything about the Claire/Bender dynamic that wasn’t better described by Molly Ringwald in a thoughtful article reflecting on her time working with John Hughes. I feel pragmatic about the toxic masculinity of this era of cinema. Even before seeing Ringwald remark that Hughes took rejection like Bender did, I sensed the story is obviously a very personal one to Hughes, and the fact he can harass the girl thusly and get at her by the end is obviously fantasy fulfillment for the creator. This is true of quite a few movies. If someone is narratively rewarded for bad behavior, it’s usually fantasy fulfillment for the creator.

Of course, one wants to sympathize with Bender/Hughes, especially if Bender’s story of abuse has any reflection from Hughes’s life. Men have learned throughout the generations that they can get sympathy despite bad behavior if they claim an abuse history. It’s human instinct to protect our fellow person. But loads of people are abused without turning into abusers, sexually assaulting girls, and pulling knives on classmates; likewise Hughes was more than grown enough to handle rejection without violent explosions.

I don’t think anyone likes seeing Allison’s transformation at the end of the movie, nor do I find her HFN with Andy satisfying or compelling. We’ve seen too many transformation from “ugly” girls to “actually pretty” (whether or not the movie meant to say that) to take it as anything but policing aesthetics of femininity. I mean, the two of them are still better than Claire and Bender. I am willing to accept these things as an expression of the theme, though: In order to accept that people are just people, these kids had to realize that they can do and be all the same things as their peers. They can date anyone, dress any way they like, and be who they want. That’s a good message, even if it gets bogged down by grossness.

After all, this movie is predominantly a fantasy for a successful white dude who wrote extremely offensive coked-out comedy (citation: Molly Ringwald’s article), and I just don’t think it’s reasonable to expect it to be anything else. It is what it is. It’s a microcosm of a generation that feels toxic as hell, but it was trying to heal. And when I take it from that direction, I can appreciate it, even if my urge to rewatch is going to be pretty low. All I can think is that the people who relate to this movie must have *really* needed it, and I’m comfortable setting it down as “not for me, not my time, but clearly a noteworthy part of cinema.”

We are all screwed up in our ways, and Hughes allowed those people to be visible, to be heroic, to be *cool*. His work is fascinating, problematic, and nuanced, and The Breakfast Club is one of the problematic but also more iconic examples.

(movie credit: Universal Pictures)

Joker was too political in its moment to be evaluated on its own merits. The PR around Joker’s release turned into an arm of Trump-era pre-pandemic culture war. Joker, both the movie and central figure, were claimed as icons of right-wing reactionaries. Being part of the left-leaning internet, I mostly saw analyses talking about how much incels loved it. It didn’t feel at the time like anyone was actually watching the movie.

But basically, if you wanted to be a libertarian neckbeard pissing off SJWs for the lols, you associated with Joker (often seen alongside memes like Pepe); if you were mostly trying to survive these guys, then you were following Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn redemption journey instead.

Now that we’re five years out from the mess of its Discourse, it’s easier to see that Joker is just a character piece akin to Taxi Driver wearing Batman clothes. Fleck’s journey is one of a man let down by society and his mother, the only two possible support systems he has, and gets real revengey about it. The revenge element, and knowing what power the Joker gains as a crime boss after the end of the movie, certainly makes this an appealing fantasy for a certain kind of person.

Does Joker intend to appeal to right-wing reactionaries? I don’t think so. Does Joker do anything to dissuade bad behavior from such reactionaries? Also no, but Joker’s bad behaviors and public shootings are not narratively approved. They are only *Joker* approved, and the movie can’t say anything Joker doesn’t think by virtue of its close POV.

This falls into the trap of any character piece about a villain: when you take a sympathetic and aesthetic look at bad guys, you give irl bad guys someone to misinterpret.

My biggest issue with the movie is that I personally don’t like incarnations of Batman’s Joker which give him a back story. I have never liked Red Hood. I wouldn’t even acknowledge The Killing Joke if Babs hadn’t spent so much time as Oracle thereafter. My preferred Jokers play into his role more like a chaos-entity, like the mischievous Coyote of Batman’s rogue’s gallery, emblematic of themes and serving as a mirror to Batman/Bruce Wayne’s character issues. Turning Joker into an actual person takes away the arcane magic of the Batman mythos.

I don’t mind this Joker backstory too much. It doesn’t feel like a real Batman-universe movie, really. It’s an adoring homage to cinema that appealed to a trend of comic book movie dominance in order to get funded.

Enormous narrative tension surrounds both literal and metaphoric loaded guns, which you know must fire, but not when or how or who will catch the bullet. The close POV with an unreliable narrator means having no clue which parts of the movie are real until you get the perspective of a conclusion. You can sense that Arthur’s making things up, but the seamless slip through his version of reality and actual reality makes it difficult to grasp the difference. Truth doesn’t seem all that important after a while.

The editing and score have a gorgeous confluence, evoking some of Nolan Batman’s rhythms and grit but without any of the action. The style is beautiful to look at, in a horror movie way; Gotham’s 80s NYC wear-and-tear has been rendered in stark shadows and shocks of virulent neon.

The performances are outstanding. If you’ve never understood when someone says “the actor disappears into this role,” Joaquin Phoenix manages to do it with Arthur Fleck here. His development of Arthur Fleck is really such great work, hand-in-hand with director and writers who take great care to show us that Joker is actually a really bad guy and his barely sufficient healthcare really was keeping him from turning into a monster. It’s a fun approach to the king of the Batman Rogue’s Gallery. Batman’s rogues are so traditionally representations of mental illness and trauma that they literally go to an asylum instead of jail when caught. But Joker’s really, really just a Very Bad Man.

I agree it’s easily read with bad motives, too. It felt more irresponsible to release a movie so easily appropriated by right-wing reactionaries in 2019 when Americans were suffering under a chaotic orange clown in the White House. But within itself, on its own rules, Joker doesn’t have to say anything about that — it just has a terrible sense of humor and legendarily bad timing for its political moment. Arthur Fleck couldn’t have done it worse himself.

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What I personally find irresistible about Joker is how I relate to Arthur Fleck’s early movie struggle with his “mental illness.” I saw the movie not too long after my stay in a mental hospital. The healthcare system in my state was like participating in my own degradation for the betterment of my health. It meant spending a lot of time in very old buildings with peeling walls. It meant fighting side effects for medication that were sometimes worse than the illness itself.

My outcome was ultimately positive, but it felt bleak to trudge through. Fantasies constructed for self-preservation in such an environment can easily skew toward seeking a horrible catharsis. I don’t have the angry character of someone like Fleck, but I can *feel* it sometimes. The dangerous allure of leaning into the worst fantasies. This is a lot of the reason I also can’t resist Donnie Darko.

If the arc where Joker goes from being an infantilized fool into a serial killing kingpin mostly by stopping his medication doesn’t convince you to keep taking those meds, then maybe nothing will. (I’m kidding.) (Is it a joke? Would Arthur Fleck laugh?)

(image credit: Warner Bros)

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” -Lizzy from Pride & Prejudice

“Somehow, I’m mad and horny.” -Noah from Fire Island

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If I’m in a TV mood and need to itch my P&P urges, I watch the BBC version starring Jennifer Ehle.

If I’m in a movie mood and need to itch my P&P urges, I grab the 2005 one with Kiera Knightley–then fling the DVD straight out the window! Sorry, Tom from Succession, you’re a great Mr. Darcy but I just don’t dig the adaptation.

I’m watching Fire Island, baby!

What I love about Jane Austen books – surely what everyone through the ages has loved about Jane Austen books – is the timelessness of gossip, relationship fuss, class arrogance, and how amazing femmes are. It’s only right to transpose the courtship drama of Pride & Prejudice on a bunch of modern queens as they spend their summer vacation on Fire Island.

Rather than sisters, we have a bunch of bff gay guys who spend every year visiting their fag hag, who is like Mrs. Bennet with all the good parts and none of the bad parts. The sisters’ personalities are flawlessly transposed on each of the friends: a lovely sensitive older sister (Bowen Yang!!!!), the two completely inappropriate little sisters, and the brainy one who thinks you’re all fools for subjecting yourself to toxic beauty standards.

Everything works perfectly compressed into a week. The nation’s gays have converged on Fire Island, a real vacation destination favored by mostly East Coast homos, and everyone’s around for a good dance and snort and suck. By everyone, we mean anyone who can afford it. Fire Island is real fancy and our girls are…not as much. Lesbian Mrs. Bennet is about to lose her house on the island. This is their last summer together. It’s easy to project the precarity of the Bennet economic situation upon our gays teetering on the brink of rich enough for the ultimate gay vacay.

This is their last chance for a big blowout. So Noah and Howie (Lizzy and Jane) seek to get laid, of course. Noah has sworn he shall not hook up until they find someone for Howie. They trip into the companionship of an especially wealthy group of friends. That’s where we meet Jane’s Mr. Bingley (really adorable and clueless in this adaptation) and Lizzy’s Mr. Darcy (the hunkiest robot-man-lawyer who makes dorkiness look cool). Everything you think will happen, happens – this is a great adaptation. It’s just that this version is if Jane Austen took poppers and wrote her book at a sauna.

Look, I don’t know how to tell you that our culture *needed* Queer as Folk mashed up with Pride & Prejudice. But it did. It really did. This is a celebration of femme gays with the textured writing of Joel Kim Booster, who plays Noah, and obviously knows exactly what he’s talking about. The Mr. Wickham scandal is handled with an especially deft modern hand.

There’s a season for all movies. In much the way there are different horror movies for Halloween season versus Valentine’s Day, there are also different romcoms for Valentine’s Day versus summertime. Fire Island belongs on a list of summer rewatches. You can put it on any time you want to recall the smell of sunblock, lube, and salt water, or when you want to feel like you’re watching your gorgeous best friends get up to bitchy nonsense wearing virtually nothing, the way God intended it.