The Write to Know, Issue 12
Reviews, recommendations, randoms and reads
Warning! This is a Brat Pack heavy issue of The Write to Know. One for all you 'neo maxi zoom dweebies’…
I wanted to live inside The Breakfast Club.
I’ve probably watched that film 30 times, or more, because it was my teenage escape. I was 16 when it was released and yearned to be Molly Ringwald’s character Claire Standish. I wanted Claire’s posh girl life, face, body, clothes, popularity, make-up, neat little sushi lunch and the chance to snog Bender, played by Judd Nelson.
In fact, I wanted to live inside all of the movies she made with director/writer John Hughes, including Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles.
I’d never been in detention but I really REALLY wanted to be in this detention at an American high school on a Saturday morning, hang out with four strangers, tell them how shitty my home life was and make friends for life (or until Monday morning when I’d pass them all in the hall and say nothing).
I loved all of the so-called Brat Pack movies, even though re-watching St Elmo’s Fire recently wasn’t quite the warming and sentimental journey down memory lane I was expecting.
The film is pretty hacky and honestly, those people were just awful characters with questionable motives (but they seemed so together and grown up back in the day). I watched it both laughing and cringing but I’m a middle aged woman now.
Teenage me thought it was the slickest film ever made.
Would I ever be cool enough to drink at St Elmo’s and hang with Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Mare Winningham and Andrew McCarthy? Probably not. But what a life that would have been. Just me and my gang of chisel-jawed, sharp-witted, shoulder-padded besties. Us against the world, always there for each other.
The reality was that I was more of a Brian from The Breakfast Club, or a Ducky from Pretty in Pink, but the mere fact that those nerdy, outsider characters were on screen was enough. Young, naive, wide-eyed me became a Brat Pack devotee to the core.
Those characters, scenarios and stories gave me life - and, more importantly, an escape from my stressful young life which bounced between an unsettled home and the ever-present school bullies.
So, it was with great interest that I watched Brats, Andrew McCarthy’s documentary, which looks at the impact that the Brat Pack label had on the lives of the actors.
I was shocked to learn how much they all hated it but amused by the fact that nobody seemed to have any idea who was officially a Brat Packer.
To me, the term was a cool spin on the Rat Pack. Yes, Sammy, Frank and Dino were all bona fide greats but they were either dead or old men. The Brat Pack were closer to my age and all the things I wasn’t - hip, fresh and fashionable.
Turns out, Andrew McCarthy, who played Molly Ringwald’s love interest Blane (ick, what a name), in Pretty in Pink, in particular, had a real problem with the label. Demi and Rob, who both have been through a lot of addiction and therapy and went on to great success, seemed to have the healthiest attitudes, which was basically don’t let it define you.
Angsty Andrew not so much.
He seemed to find some acceptance of the label as he travelled the country for the film, talking to his former cast mates and also people like Lea Thompson, who was Michael J Fox’s mum in Back to the Future, and calls herself ‘Brat Pack adjacent’, the ‘godfather of the Brats’ Tim Hutton, who starred in Taps and Ordinary People (winning the best supporting actor Oscar, in 1980), and Jon Cryer, aka Ducky, who went on to make untold riches from the sitcom, Two and a Half Men.
To make things more confusing the 1983 movie, The Outsiders, starring Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio and Patrick Swayze is also considered a Brat Pack movie. Sean Penn, who was in Taps, is also mentioned in the documentary.
However, it was Emilio Estevez, now a successful writer/director, who was the focus of the original article from which the name sprang. You can read the original story by David Blum, for New York magazine, here. It’s only up for a short time so hurry, hurry. (Estevez talks it down on Letterman at the start of this Late Show appearance, in this documentary I found on You Tube).
The article comes across as pissy and snarky. Maybe that’s a New York thing? Maybe that’s just how you did things back then? Andrew McCarthy is singled out for criticism, so that wouldn’t have helped his long-term trauma.
In the doc, Andrew meets Blum, who is resolutely unrepentant but he does reveal that Emilio gave him full access, and that he was a young journalist trying to make a name for himself.
He explains that the name Brat Pack came out of a dinner party he had with his friends that was so glutinous they labelled themselves the Fat Pack.
After its publication, and the intense spotlight it cast on the actors, Emilio and Andrew decided not to move forward with a movie called Young Men With Unlimited Capital, based on the book of the same name, about the founders of Woodstock. Read about that here. Post article, few of the Brat Pack, whoever they were, wanted to work together again.
Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Mare Winningham and Molly Ringwald didn’t appear in the documentary. Molly has said she wants to leave those days behind her but here’s an article where she talks about the John Hughes movies in light of the #metoo movement.
She also spoke to This American Life about the experience of watching The Breakfast Club with her young daughter.
And earlier this week, Anthony Michael Hall, talked to Ermine Saner, for the Guardian, about that time and many other things.
Life evolves, times change and our perspective on it changes, but there will always be a place in my heart for those movies, and by association, the Brat Pack.
Back then, for those of us on the outside, they gave a shred of hope to all the young, weird, non-cool people who were struggling to fit in. Through the Brat Pack lens, it felt as if everything was going to be okay.
READ THE BREAKFAST CLUB SCREENPLAY
I read it and it was great! Then again, I know most of it off by heart.
That wraps up this Brat Pack deep dive, so thank you for your patience. I’m now off to make a prom dress out of a pair of curtains…
AND NOW FOR SOME DOUBLESPEAK
Earlier this month, George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four celebrated its 75th anniversary.
It’s the only book I have multiple copies of, aside from Pratt of the Argus, by David Nobbs, which I also own as part of The Complete Pratt.
As a former local newspaper journalist, Henry Pratt, a cub reporter on the Thurmarsh Evening Argus, was a hapless anti-hero of mine, and I still pick up the books when I need a chuckle or two.
But if you want to find out more about the author George Orwell, and the recent celebrations for his book, check out The Orwell Foundation website.
Stuart Maconie hosted a Nineteen Eighty-Four themed show for 6 Music, which you can listen to here. You’ve got a week left to listen but it was how I found out that the book was 75 years old.
And this harrowing story of Winston Smith’s struggle to confirm, which endures as the modern world forges its way through our dystopian present, is coming to Broadway. Read about it here.
Fun fact, I always look for a glass coral paperweight every time I visit a second-hand store. I’ve really outed myself as a first class nerd today, haven’t I?
PICK UP A PENGUIN
Penguin have launched their 2024 Undiscovered Writers prize. The theme this year is commercial romance (last year it was crime). But you only have until the end of August to submit.
From their website: The winner of the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers' Prize will receive a publishing contract with Penguin Michael Joseph, worth at least £10,000, and representation by the Janklow & Nesbit agency. All shortlisted writers will also receive one-to-one editorial feedback and guidance from an editor or agent.
Sweet!
GET CARTEL
Long read klaxon!
My lovely Substack friend Jeanine, aka Mexico Soul, wrote this absolute corker of an article about the Kentucky Derby and a Mexican cartel. I asked her if I could share it here and she said yes. Thank you, Jeanine!
So pour yourself a fresh cup of java and enjoy this rollicking read.
AND FINALLY…
Some most excellent writing advice from Colm Tóibín, the author of Brooklyn, about his writing process.
Have a great week everyone!
Lisa
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Thanks so much for including my Kentucky Derby - Mex cartel post in The Ten, Lisa! Appreciate that! Plus enjoyed the nostalgia of the Brat Pack.
I think the original "make a prom dress out of a pair of curtains" film scene has to be Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. She did manage to hook up for a big dance number with Clark Gable while wearing the dress.
As far as the Brat Pack goes, I always had a bit of a thing for Bad Boy James Spader.