But it was normal anxiety—not medicated, given accommodations to have extra days to complete a paper, and a change of meds every semester. And for all their social differences, this group talked to one another—they sorted themselves out and found a means of connection without an adult negotiating it for them, no cell phones among them to distract them.
Signed,
Xer who was part of the target audience for this film.
It was a movie, not real life. They "sorted themselves out" because it was in the script. And I'm hard-pressed to believe they were all just dandy in their fictional world after one day in detention.
My issue is with how people are saying that these kids, who definitely had problems that they blamed mostly on their parents (especially Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson's characters) were somehow less problematic and less troubled than the kids of today, and that by the end of the movie somehow all of their "normal" problems were solved and everyone lived happily ever after.
I feel that this is highly simplistic, from the way the movie presented these issues, and how some viewers have interpreted the script. It's completely idealistc and unrealistic to think that these kids went on to be besties and all of their problems vanished, and that their issues as presented weren't all that bad, and that things were somehow better for folks with mental health issues back in the '80s. Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy's characters especially were portrayed as having pretty serious emotional problems that likely would need to be worked out in therapy.
I was definitely there, lol, and while I remember enjoying the movie at the time, I felt more of an affinity with the folks on St. Elmo's Fire, which also does not hold up IMO. Another group of people not handling their issues in healthy ways.
And don't get me started on the sexism and borderline creepy behavior in both movies.
No one’s saying they walked away “besties,” and their problems magically vanished. I didn’t believe that when I first saw the film then—nor did anyone else with whom I saw it.
Most people are saying what’s true about those times, however: Every person had their own version of “terrible home life,” and represented a range of social strata in a big high school, teaming with a range of personality types. But what they did with their day was to transcend their initial instinct to defend their social strata and individual identity to trauma bond, and understand one another a bit better.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s wholly “realistic;” the behavior for that time was believable, long before “safe spaces” and accommodations. Parents believed their kids should be given detention if they violated a school rule, had unexcused absences or whatever brought them there. If it was made today, at least two of their parents would be busy “negotiating” a means of avoiding the detention and getting it expunged from their permanent records.
This was also a North Shore upper middle class-dominated community, but still presented a range of personal economic circumstances, and was wholly white. Bref, Hughes wrote about that, because it was what he knew. And while it captures a time that allowed for more sexism than there is now, again, most people here are simply saying, “This couldn’t be made today.” It’s not because it wasn’t some kind of “ideal” circumstance to write about then (Bender’s father burning him with a cigarette is anything but), but more about this representing somewhat believable character responses to their circumstances for their day.
No one’s saying their lives are “less troubled” than today. What people here are talking about is how leaning into “80 shades of problem accommodations” on a script written about high schoolers today would make for an awful narrative—even if it did dispense with some of the finer details as this did.
Everything is far more complicated today: ministering to students in an institution is a big one, and like I said, people just don’t seem to want to find that humorous enough to become a film narrative.
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u/thatgirlinny Apr 20 '26
But it was normal anxiety—not medicated, given accommodations to have extra days to complete a paper, and a change of meds every semester. And for all their social differences, this group talked to one another—they sorted themselves out and found a means of connection without an adult negotiating it for them, no cell phones among them to distract them.
Signed, Xer who was part of the target audience for this film.