Through the magic of Twitter I found myself perusing Amp Magazine and this article that has prompted me to post a quick rant.
You see, the author has gone out of her way to suggest that the character of John Bender (that’s the bad boy Judd Nelson one) in the Breakfast Club was actually gay. And that none of us ever noticed it.
I read it and thought… what? Surely not? Now I’ve got to watch that movie again to see if there really are “homoerotic signifiers” all over the place.
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I feel rather shocked by the idea, especially because the author has gone out of her way to invoke all those teenage lusty memories that were associated with the character:
The acid tongue, the Rottweiler puppy-dog eyes, the soft silky hair, not to mention the easy access to vast amounts of evil illegal intoxicants: John Bender had everything you wanted in a boy.
Though you knew deep inside that John Bender would rip your heart to pieces like a textbook and then confuse you by weeping over the pages, you still wanted to hang out with him in the car-park, and for it to be your earring he proudly sported in his left earlobe.
Oh, to kiss John Bender on the neck whilst locked in a broom cupboard. These are the things that Physics lesson daydreams are made of.
Eloquent, don’t you think? So there I am, reminded of how much of a spunk Judd Nelson’s character was, and then she pulls the rug out from underneath. No way!
If it’s true it will be like that awful feeling that came with discovering George Michael was gay. So very depressing.
I just have to add an unrelated anecdote: the first time I saw the Breakfast Club I was about 12 and my older cousins had rented out the video. This was at a time when my dad was fanatical about making sure my siblings and I never saw any kind of unsavoury movie. This was why I didn’t ever see the full version of Beverley Hills Cop until I was about 27.
Anyway, the parents were away when we started watching the film but unfortunately they returned just at the exact moment when Judd Nelson makes his impassioned speech about his father, with every second word being “fuck.” Just remembering it I still get that awful sinking feeling. You know, when you’ve been sprung.
Thanks to the intervention of my older cousin we were allowed to see it through to the end. So the Breakfast Club still has a tinge of the forbidden to it. It was one of my first “grown up” movies.
Ah memories.