Now I know I'm old. JC Penny's is running a back-to-school commercial with Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)." The kids are all running through the school halls, lined with lockers and there's a cut scene of them doing a "dance" in front of a big clock thing.
Yeah. I know.
JC Penny's just released a Breakfast Club commercial.
And it gets worse. They've released a SERIES of Breakfast Club commercials. I wanted to show you one and quickly discovered one which uses scenes from throughout the movie:
Breakfast Club was the first movie I purchased on VHS. I wanted to get it on Betamax, but by that time, Betamax had mostly lost the videotape format wars for home VCR machines - which was too bad as it was by far the better format. (Sidenote: many television stations didn't stop using the Betamax format until they could completely switch to DVDs ....)
I had not gotten a chance to watch Breakfast Club in the theatre - I wasn't quite 17 when it came out in February and my mom was vehemently opposed to rated R movies anyway. In February of 1985, I was in 10th grade and by the time 11th grade started, everyone I knew had seen this flick. Our principal even referenced it at the beginning of the year when she told us they were instituting Saturday school as a punishment option that year - with the caveat that it would NOT be like Breakfast Club.
So, when passing through our local Federated electronics store, I saw Breakfast Club and knew I had to catch up on this bit of cultural treasure. It was also the first time I'd seen used VHS movies - and the first time I'd seen VHS movies under about $80.
My mother was appalled.
First, that I'd bought a movie. She cannot really re-watch a movie and, in fact, can't re-read books. I, on the other hand, watch and re-watch endlessly ... listen to a CD endlessly ... and re-read books quite frequently.
Secondly, she was appalled that it was rated R and I was under quite strict orders to not allow my sister to see a single frame of the movie. So, I watched it late at night, with the sound down quite low. The first time I watched it, Bender's "fuck you" panicked me completely. After that first time, I waited for that part with my hand on the television's volume control.
To see that movie shown in commercial form - as a platform for fashion (Penny's is calling the campaign "get that look") - is disturbing to the extreme. While the Breakfast Club tried to show that the diverse groups in suburban high schools really weren't all that different, that in fact, a brain and a jock could be friendly with each other, it also celebrated the differences of the various students. To see these representations suddenly as a fashion statement is just ... wrong.
Sadly, I still have the movie on that original VHS tape. I just hate re-buying things on new media. Still, I think I need it on DVD.
Why yes, yes I am a neomaxizoomdweebie.
Posted by Red Monkey at August 8, 2008 10:36 AM | | 
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Ack! How could they do that? I must have seen this movie 100 times too. The WORST part of this horrid spot, in my opinion? Replacing loner emo girl with a girl in a pink tennis dress?! Criminal!
August 8, 2008 12:08 PMserenity said:
*sigh
I haven't seen the commercial and it sounds like I don't want to. Also one of my favorite movies of all time. I have it on DVD and transferred it to my iPod for easy viewing at any time I'm bored in a doctor's office or whatever. What a perfect example of what it was like to go to high school in the 80s (and probably more universally appropriate for any decade...just change the music and hairstyles and clothing).
Guess we have to keep in mind for good ole JC Penney that "screws fall out all the time...the world is an imperfect place"
August 8, 2008 12:39 PMJenn said:
Ah, like you, Ender, I wasn't permitted to see any of the John Hughes films either because, to quote my mom, "Those kids sass their parents."
Er, yeah. Well...
Ironically I ended up seeing the Breakfast Club for the first time in high school as a holiday treat.
August 8, 2008 12:53 PMTara R. said:
John Hughes was a cinematic genius! I think fell in love with Judd Nelson watching that movie.
August 8, 2008 4:28 PMDawn said:
My parents definitely wouldn't have let me see that movie. I still remember going to see Back to the Future with friends and loving it so much that somehow I got my parents to take me to it the following night. Talk about feeling awkward and uncomfortable in SO many places--I hadn't even noticed the language or "immorality" or any of that the first time through, but boy did I ever sitting next to my whispering mother and wanting-to-leave father! TOTALLY know the whole volume control thing when watching movies in my parents' house. I could lower the volume in a nanosecond, or hit fast forward.
First rated R movie I ever watched was A Fish Called Wanda. Rented it from the convenience story and watched it by myself when my parents were out one night. I didn't even fast forward John Cleese in the nude but rather delighted in the fact that I didn't HAVE to, though I still winced out of habit whenever the word "fuck" would be uttered ;)
August 9, 2008 7:13 AMPandoraWilde said:
I may have to Netflix this one--I've only seen it on TV, meaning I've only seen the cut/edited version. I really dislike not seeing the uncut version at some point, so Netflix it is when I can figure out how to return my disks without the little thief upstairs deciding she could "borrow" them once I put them out for the mailman to pick up.
August 19, 2008 2:19 AM
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