The Breakfast Club Library Confessions and Beautiful Tribes

Does The Breakfast Club have insights we still need? Did belonging to a club or team help many of us find friends? Is it okay that these tribes were imperfect and the same as other tribes?

Last weekend I was at a memorial for a dear friend from high school who passed. She was one of those amazing people that was a central hub for so many of us. Most of us present at the memorial were connected to her through drama and speech club.

Some of these people I have remained in contact with over the years. Others I had not seen since the ’80s.Though we were not the acne faced youth we once were, in some ways, it felt like wearing a comfortable pair of old jeans being in their presence. We were different, but the memories and the connections were beautiful.

A group picture was taken and it has been shared by many online. Some refer to it as our tribe. I love that and it makes me feel good. Like we all still belong.

For a beautiful season of youth for many of us, our cliques and clubs were our tribes. Together we had coming of age adventures and endured puberty, trauma, delights, and life. It is beautiful.

More than a decade ago I was serving as an interim minister for a UCC church when I was still a pastor. An interim minister is a temporary role while a church finds permanent replacement for the last minister.

While I was serving there a former athlete that went to my high school had passed. His family was a member of the church. At the funeral were many middle aged adults only a few years older than me. As I invited them to speak, they told stories of their former teammate and what he meant to them.

I could see the connections as people who had not seen each other for decades had the same experience I had last weekend. They had a beautiful season of youth bonded by the sport they were teammates in. Together they had coming of age adventures and endured puberty, trauma, delights, and life. It is beautiful.

It was the same thing. He was a beloved friend who made a difference in their lives. It was just a different club.

John Bender:
Excuse me a sec. What are you babbling about?

Brian Johnson:
Well, what I had said was I’m in the math club, uh, the latin, and the physics club… physics club.

John Bender:
Hey, Cherry. Do you belong to the physics club?

Claire Standish:
That’s an academic club.

John Bender:
So?

Claire Standish:
So academic clubs aren’t the same as other kinds of clubs.

John Bender:
Ah… but to dorks like him, they are. What do you guys do in your club?

Brian Johnson:
Well, in physics we… we talk about physics, properties of physics.

John Bender:
So it’s sorta social, demented and sad, but social. Right?

In the context of the whole scene in The Breakfast Club, Bender had made a brilliant point. The clubs or teams or friends we had were our tribe and it was the same to us. It carried the same importance of belonging, identity, common interests, and special friendships.

As we get older, some of us enjoy looking at our yearbook memories and have bittersweet and joyous occasions to gather with those old friends that came into our lives in a very special time and place.

In moments like memorials and funerals we dig a little deeper into those times and remember how important those friendships were to us when we needed a light in darkness.

And in our tribal nature we will see other groups as being less special than ours. And this is where we get into the lie.

Being young is hard. The Breakfast Club highlights that very well. Regardless of the clique or the clothes, we have similar hurts and pains and fears. The experiences may differ in severity, but there was an emotional impact.

We see this in The Breakfast Club. Bender was a victim of physical abuse. Brian and Andrew had parental pressure to succeed. It drove Brian to attempt suicide and Andrew participated in bullying and injuring another schoolmate in the locker room. Allison was invisible to her parents and felt ignored. All of it hurt and like the library confession scene in the movie, special moments with other people you know feeling the same things were important.

Now we get to Claire in the library confessions. While the tribes we were in gave us a sense of belonging they were not perfect. She felt pressure to be liked by her friends and behaved in ways she felt was necessity to belong. She did not like it, but she did what she felt she had to do to belong.

And this is where I get uncomfortable when our nostalgia for our tribe brushes over the dark things while elevating our tribe as better.

Just looking at one tribe I was in, theater. I often hear my friends make claims that were just not true. We were the safe space for people who did not have safe spaces. Our club was not like the other clubs. No one was hurt and all were welcome.

But it is not the truth. Some girls in my tribe were victims of sexual assault by other members of our tribe. We had a caste system just like any other tribe where some were more and others were less. There were bullies and victims. We had people like Claire who went along with things they did not want to because they felt that was what was needed to belong.

And we could be cruel in our words about people in other clubs.

As the photographer for the high school paper I knew the people in all the other tribes. Though I had a tribe in theater, I was a bit of a nomad as the photographer. I was at the football games, the madrigal concerts, the math club events, and even make sure the royal members of the homecoming court were properly regal and so much more.

When I heard some of the things a few in my tribe said about a princess prom queen like Claire, I doubt many of them knew the work she did at a home for young people with special needs. This work included bathing, cleaning up after, and playing with the young residents who were abandoned by their own parents. My tribe did not know how her football star boyfriend held her many nights over as she wept about unspeakable things she was going through. I knew, but I was lower in the caste system of my tribe and making a stand for her could lead to alienation. Also, I was a coward.

The clubs we were in defined us on a personal level, but they should not be how others defined us. And our space of belonging and having a tribe was so very important and beautiful. But part of what made it beautiful was the friendships made in the midst of the shitshow called life.

When we idealize our experiences, we obscure the truths and that makes it a little less beautiful. The good friends we made when things were not ideal is part of what makes those friendships and that time special. This is a disservice we do to ourselves.

When we continue to vilify the other clubs and teams and tribes of our past while elevating ours, there is a societal cost. If we are a marginalized group or allies to a marginalized group, this tribal mindset can get in the way of intersection. Instead of embracing equality for everyone we let tribal mindset hinder collaboration and inclusion.

When I was involved with a feminist organization on the front lines of the Abortion Rights battle, we sometimes had very uncomfortable moments. Racism or transphobia by some members would hinder the very important work we were doing and hurt others. Tribal mindset had some people believing black women or trans and non binary people should not be welcome and supported in abortion rights. No one wins when we allow that.

Finally, there is the cost on our children, and in some cases, grandchildren. If our stories of glory days have an idealized false impression of our club, we could be leading them like lambs to the slaughter of negative experiences. And if they hear us speak ill of jocks or motorheads or math nerds, what does that do to them if they have an interest in a sport or understanding how machines work or math? Will they be afraid to express their interest and passion and find their own tribe? Could they try to live up to our expectations?

In The Breakfast Club we saw the harm in that.

If we are not careful, we can become Andrew’s dad and that can happen in wrestling, dance, drama, or even the glee club. The next generation needs our love, attention, and support. Not our shadow and our disappointment.

Do you guys know what, uh, what I did to get in here?  I taped Larry Lester’s buns together. Yeah, you know him? Well then you know how hairy he is, right?  Well, when they pulled the tape off, most of his hair came off and some, some skin too… And the bizarre thing is, is that I did it for my old man… I tortured this poor kid, because I wanted him to think that I was cool. 

He’s always going off about, you know, when he was in school… all the wild things he used to do.  And I got the feeling that he was disappointed that I never cut loose on anyone, right… So, I’m… I’m sitting in the locker room, and I’m taping up my knee.  And Larry’s undressing a couple lockers down from me.  Yeah… he’s kinda… he’s kinda skinny, weak.  And I started thinking about my father, and his attitude about weakness.  

And the next thing I knew, I uh, I jumped on top of him and started wailing on him… And my friends, they just laughed and cheered me on.  And afterwards, when I was sittin’ in Vernon’s office, all I could think about was Larry’s father. And Larry havin’ to go home and… and explain what happened to him.  And the humiliation… fucking humiliation he must have felt.  It must have been unreal…

I mean… (Andrew is now crying) I mean, how do you apologize for something like that?  There’s no way… it’s all because of me and my old man.  Oh God, I fucking hate him!  He’s like this… he’s like this mindless machine that I can’t even relate to anymore… “Andrew, you’ve got to be number one!  I won’t tolerate any losers in this family… Your intensity is for shit! Win. Win! WIN!!!”  You son of a bitch!

You know, sometimes, I wish my knee would give… and I wouldn’t be able to wrestle anymore.  And he could forget all about me…

When you are together with those old friends, enjoy them. Love the memories we have. But keep it real. In the glimpses of the real and the honest was where the foundations of our beautiful friendships in these demented and sad, but social, spaces were poured. It was where we found the space to have our library confessions that saved us.

And knowing that the other club meant the same thing to the people in them, enjoy what you loved and still love and let that be enough. No one has to suffer for us to enjoy our beauty.

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