Beyond The Breakfast Club: Snackers on '80s teen movie archetypes
Horny Asian exchange student not included
From left: Katie Thornton, Mark Carpenter, James Roberts, Eric Heiberg, and Courtney Hopkin Salinas
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Since producing his son James' "high schoolers in rebellion" allegory New Port South in 2001, filmmaker John Hughes—who died today at the age of 59, not long after we initially published this story—lived a life of relative J.D. Salinger-esque seclusion in the Chicago suburbs, marked by a steep decline in quality in the movies which bore his name. In the august years before his death, cast-off Hughes scripts were fashioned into the regrettable Maid In Manhattan and Drillbit Taylor, but fortunately those didn't do anything to tarnish the legacy of a string of angst-ridden teen films—beginning with 1984's Sixteen Candles and ending with 1987's Some Kind Of Wonderful—that children of the 1980s regard as essential cinema. Perhaps The Snackers Club, an homage (and suddenly, a makeshift memorial) to Hughes and contemporaries like "Savage" Steve Holland staged by local improv troupe Snackers, will in its own small way help to shore up Hughes' legend, and remind those who may have forgotten thanks to that recent barrage of mediocre films that Hughes was once our nation's foremost chronicler of adolescence. More likely, though, it will just cause audience members to think, "Man, I was just like that character in high school." Following a test run for The Snackers Club's month-long Thursday residency at the Hideout Theater, the members of Snackers spoke with The A.V. Club about the rigidly defined character types of 1980's teen movies and how they'll figure into the show.
The jock
Mark Carpenter: Have we had a show with a jock yet? Shows how sporty we all are.
James Roberts: How were these movies received in the rich, popular jock community?
Eric Heiberg: [In rich jock voice] "Part of the movie they make us look good—but at the end we look stupid! This movie sucks!"
The nerd
MC: I watch the movies, and I want to be the popular people, but when I get on stage, I tend to be the geeky-loser guy. I have to overcome that.
The A.V. Club: Why do you think that happens?
MC: He's easy for me to play. I understand him. I can feel him.
EH: These days, you have these punk kids who watch Napoleon Dynamite and think, "Oh he's a cool guy," and I'm like, "That was me! And he wasn't cool! He got his ass kicked!"
The protagonist/blank slate
Katie Thornton: You can put yourself in their position, and they embody the feelings you have about angst and boredom.
Courtney Hopkin Salinas: And they're weird—to a point. They can't be too weird, because people would be like "that's not me." And they say really broad things. It's not like they're talking about something specific and special. They're just like, "I thought we knew each other. I thought we had an understanding."
EH: And thanks to that, I can do an amazing Andrew McCarthy. But that dude's got psycho eyes. He has killed, and he will kill again.
The preppy asshole
AVC: Isn't James Spader more likely to kill someone?
EH: But he wouldn't make a big deal about it.
KT: James Spader's character [in Pretty In Pink] is never in class. He just smokes in the bathroom.
CHS: He never actually smokes. He just holds the cigarette.
MC: He's so badass, though. I have such a man crush on him that I'd want to be him in every single friggin' show.
EH: That's the thing about some of these characters: If the heroes are vapid, the villains are senselessly vapid.
MC: He's as evil as a James Bond villain.
EH: He should have a Persian cat to stroke while he's saying, "Oh, I think you'll dump her before prom." He's got this real, genuine interest to break-up his friend and this "street trash."
CHS: What I love about the people in these movies is that they care so damn much.
AVC: Be careful with mixing Spader and McCarthy into discussions of villainy and murder—that's Bret Easton Ellis territory.
EH: Maybe that'll be the next Snackers genre.
The clueless/disappointed authority figure
MC: That's kind of a problem, because we're all dressed up like the kids.
EH: I came out to play a principal tonight, and all I could do was [mimics Paul Gleason's "mess with the bull" hand gesture from The Breakfast Club]. It's hard not to just rip off complete scenes from the movies.
CHS: We usually do have a parent who's disappointed.
MC: Those are the characters that actually solidify the show, that explain what's going on. "No daughter of mine..."
CHS: The kids don't pay attention. It's like Charlie Brown's teacher.
MC: Watching these as adults, the parents seem pretty reasonable.
CHS: Don't spend all your college money on some earrings!
The poverty-stricken best friend
KT: With Some Kind Of Wonderful, we really latched on to the fact that [Mary Stuart Masterson's] Watts lives in, like, "Section Nine."
JR: Sector Nine. I can't believe that made it into the script.
CHS: She lives in a terrible place—like some sort of shed where she plays the drums, and no one can hear her. The main characters just whine about stuff all the time, and then they have this friend whose life actually sucks. "Oh, this is the worst day of my life," and then there's Ducky over here who lives on a mattress and has cinder block for walls, and there's graffiti on the inside.
EH: And the house is on fire.
