John Hughes Film Analysis

Since the highlight of his career in the mid-eighties, John Hughes has influenced teen movies for three generations. Hughes was one of the first directors to create films based on teenaged life with teenagers as the intended audience. It has been over thirty years since Hughes’ last teen film and his work is still prided to be among the most honest and accurate portrayals of coming-of-age stories to date.

Hughes had a unique approach to directing, often preferring the actors’ suggestions over his original writing. “He was not in any way wedded to his words. He would put it to the feel and ‘well that seems right, say that, yes definitely, much better, that raises the bar.” -Andrew McCarthy, Actor, Pretty in Pink. Hughes often acquired creative advice and suggestions from all members of the crew. He believed that every department should cooperate fluently and be adaptable to artistic changes. This created unity in the production crew and made his workers feel validated when sharing their own artistic ideas. He put great effort into getting to know his actors on a personal level not only to connect with the individuals but to also uncover small attributes to their personalities and then implement those details into their characters. This made his characters seem more authentic as the actor was now able to channel a familiar aspect of identity. Having an open mindset and developing close relationships with his team is what Hughes was most admired for. This also made working conditions easygoing and enjoyable. I find Hughes’ work ethic inspirational, and I plan to implement these characteristics into my own directing style.

In the early seventies, John Hughes was a writer for National Lampoon’s Magazine. P.J O’Rourke says, "John wrote so fast and so well that it was hard for a monthly magazine to keep up with him". Hughes has revealed in multiple interviews that he could write his screenplays extremely fast. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune in 1986, Hughes revealed his writing process for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “There was a writer’s strike coming up in a week and my agent called and warned me, so I thought, ‘Gees, John, you better write something’ and so I got this sentence… out of the ozone. ‘I am 17 years old, and I know exactly where my life is going’ and then I thought, ‘I am 17 years old and I have no idea where my life is going,’ and I thought, ‘That`s it!’” Hughes also stated that he could write most of his screenplays in 20-hour binges and could typically finish one in about four days.

In 1979, He wrote a story about a family trip gone “horribly awry” called Vacation 58. This story was later developed into National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983). Going forward, Hughes’ films seemed to be coming out one after another after another.

The overall message of one of Hughes’ most popular films, The Breakfast Club, is to keep an open mind about the people around you and not to judge a book by its cover. This is displayed through the characters’ initial harsh judgments of one another, and Bender’s commitment to exposing each character’s truth. Hughes’ original draft of the screenplay states “They come in as five separate people, become friends, leave as five separate people.” There is no protagonist, and there is no plot, but every character had a story to be told, and together they told it beautifully. Bender is the instigator; he spends the whole film interrogating and bullying people into sharing more information about themselves. However, Bender also opens up to his classmates in his own unique way. Bender’s famous and heavily layered outfit is a symbolic disguise to his complex mentality. As the film progresses, Bender reveals several layers of his character to his peers while simultaneously removing layers of clothing. In the beginning, Bender is wearing grey baggy pants, a long trench coat to his ankles, over a jean jacket, a flannel and sweatshirt underneath, with sunglasses and a scarf. As he enters the library, he takes off the glasses. After sitting down, He and Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) both begin to take their jackets off simultaneously. He glares at Brian as he continues to show his dominance. Brian cowers and keeps his jacket on. Later, Bender loses his jean jacket and performs his interpretation of his abusive home life. These costume variations show that Bender is both literally, and metaphorically, sacrificing himself to vulnerability and stripping himself down to a more authentic version of his identityto symbolize how he is becoming more vulnerable with his classmates.

The characters’ costumes were also used to display their connection to one another. In Hughes’ first draft of the screenplay, he describes that each character’s most notable colour of costume will be different and that the setting will be fairly dim, “the colour comes from the kids’ clothes”. However, each character would have an underlayer that coordinates with the main colour of who they will connect with most. Claire wears pink with red as an underlayer, while Bender also has red in one of his many layers. They undergo the most conflict throughout the film and end up together in the end. Alison (Ally Sheedy) wears black but with light blue underneath, and Andrew (Emilio Estevez) wears blue. They also end up together at the end of the film.

In recent years, there has been some controversy about Alison and Andrew’s connection. Some people claim that Alison had to change herself for Andrew to like her and that this “sends this message of the girl is only worth if she is appealing or attractive to the other person. (Jonathan Hetterly, Mental Health Therapist, Shrink Tank) However, Claire’s “makeover” consists of removing Alison’s heavy eye makeup, and thick, dark layers of clothing, and pulling her hair back. When Andrew sees Alison, he is seeing her for the first time. When she catches him staring at her she asks, “What’s wrong?” He responds. “nothing’s wrong it’s just so different, I can see your face.” “Is that good or bad?” she asks. “It’s good.” Andrew nods and smiles. Throughout the entire film, Alison is practically begging the other students to pay attention to her, to see her. She admits she is a compulsive liar and kleptomaniac and that her parents ignore her. All she wants is to be seen. All Claire did was help Alison to show her true self, rather than hiding behind the mask she created.

Although the film has no distinct plot, Hughes was able to send that message about understanding and sympathizing with each other so perfectly. In their final letter to Vernon, Brian wrote “You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms and most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed...” After leaving the school that Saturday afternoon, they may never speak to one another again. But those five students have a better understanding of each other and the world outside of their own cliques. And the viewers learned more about themselves and each other. Hughes’ films created a ripple effect in film history. Now, just about every teen film to date sends the same message about self-expression and compassion for others.

Hughes’ first directorial debut came in 1984, with Sixteen Candles. The film was a major hit among teen audiences at the time, awarding the lead actors, Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall “Best Young Actress in a Lead Role” and “Best Young Actor in a Lead Role” making them the first juvenile actors to win each of these awards. Although the film was widely celebrated by teenagers at the time of its release and still listed in Entertainment Weekly’s list of the Top 50 Best Teen Movies in 2008, the movie has since received some controversy. Over thirty years following the film’s release, society has changed and so has the idea of what is “politically correct”. Since the #MeToo Movement, a campaign based on advocacy and justice for women, against sexual harassment, went viral in 2017, we have seen a big change in how women are portrayed in the media. Although Sixteen Candles was based on a teenaged girl’s life, with the intention of taking her problems and emotions seriously, the film also featured an abundance of inappropriate sexual behavior disguised as comedy. For example, Jake Ryan, (Michael Schoeffling) Samantha’s (Molly Ringwald) love interest, tries to convince Anthony Michael Hall’s character, “The Geek” to have sexual relations with a girl who was drunk and unconscious. It is later implied that he did take advantage of the girl as he brags about it to his friends. In 2021, this is no longer considered something that should be joked about, this is rape. The film also used a close-up of a supposed teenaged girl’s breasts as a transition between scenes, and a scene where The Geek holds up Samantha’s panties for all the boys in the washroom to see. In The Breakfast Club, Bender (Judd Nelson) interrogates Claire (Molly Ringwald) about her sex life, asking explicit questions regarding sexual acts. He later lays on the floor under the desk and puts his head between her thighs. Although it is not confirmed that those are 16-year-old Molly Ringwald’s legs, its implied, and that is enough for it to be deemed highly inappropriate. By the end of the film, Claire and Bender share a kiss or two and Claire gifts Bender one of her diamond earrings. This sends the message that Claire can easily look past her day full of sexual harassment from Bender and have romantic relations with him anyways. In the 80s, sexually objectifying or even assaulting women for bragging rights or something to laugh about seemed to be the norm in films and television. However, this is not something most women have ever appreciated. These trends perpetuate the idea that acts of sexual harassment are funny or that women should take the abuse as a compliment. It is distorted and damaging to our society, and if we allow these trends to continue onscreen, we are allowing them to continue in real life. People may not copy everything they see on TV, but it definitely has an influence. As children and teenagers especially, we look up to who we see on screen and often try to replicate the scenes and characters we admire. It is a filmmaker’s responsibility to send the right message to their audiences, and I believe there were times where Hughes missed the mark.

Despite these now, less appreciated elements of Hughes’ writing, the films still remain popular among wide audiences. This is because teens today can still relate to the teenaged characters that were written thirty years ago. They still have the same goals, conflicts, and sense of humor. “He had the ability to be incredibly heartwarming and side-splittingly funny at the same time, and that was his gift, that was his genius.” -Lauren Shuler Donner, Producer of Mr. Mom, Pretty in Pink. Hughes had a remarkable way of connecting his audiences with his films through simplistic storylines and detailed characters. Every one of his characters are relatable to somebody watching because they each have a defined personality and intriguing story to tell. Matty Simmons, Founder of National Lampoon’s Magazine said “I totally related with it. It was about me and my family and it was about everybody’s family, and I called John and I said we’re gonna make a movie of this.” (John Hughes: The Voice of a Generation) But Hughes did not take his work lightly. He always wanted to put his best foot forward and made sure that he would be proud of the work he was putting out. “I can tell you over the years that I worked with him I saw so many scripts that got to page 75 or 90 and he’s threw them in the garbage can because he didn’t feel like he had the ending that he wanted or something didn’t or something didn’t, you know, feel right to him, that any other writer who had spent or has gotten that far into a script would have kept, but he didn’t… It meant a lot to him that his name was on it, he thought it was an honor, and he was right.” – Howard Deutch, Director of Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful.

Hughes had a connection with teenaged life, and he empathized with teenagers’ problems. Hughes once said “I generally dealt with relationships within young social structures. I mean I went into a specific genre because I saw a need there for film.” (John Hughes: The Voice of a Generation) He also stated “I really don’t like labelling people, you know, teenagers, they’re people. I just think that people have tended to think that if you’re going to do a serious movie it better be about adults because people under 21 aren’t serious, and I think that the thoughts and feelings and emotions of someone at 16 are as valid as my thoughts at 35.” He listened, He saw, and he understood others regardless of age which is what made it possible for him to write such convincing, realistic portrayals of teenaged life. It’s implied that Hughes’ films began a revolution. It is possible that his work was the first piece in the domino effect that has led our society to where we are now; understanding and advocating for teens’ social issues and mental health. I believe that John Hughes was the voice of a generation, and that generation grew up with his morals and his legacy, and they had kids and that’s my generation. Millennials and Gen Z are the people on social media who made #MeToo and Black Live Matter Protests go viral. We are using our platforms to influence a stronger and healthier future for our society, and although that is not a direct result of John Hughes’ movies, I believe he had a hand in that. I think that since the legacy he led through his work in the 80s, has echoed through three generations of teens and young adults who still praise his films for being some of the most influential coming-of-age movies to date, he could have been the inspiration that began the revolution taking over our society today. Although it is hard to look past some of the negative qualities of his films listed earlier, for these reasons, I pride John Hughes as one of my favorite directors. Through his artistic writing style, his empathy for others regardless of where they come from, and his legacy; to learn to recognize others as equals and treat them as so, and to always stay young at heart.

Sources:

John Hughes: The voice of a generation [Video file]. (2018, August 08). Retrieved May 04, 2021, from https://youtu.be/AlrGg0X1iKs

Script, D. (n.d.). The breakfast Club script by John Hughes. Retrieved May 04, 2021, from https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/breakfast_club.html

Ben Travis, J. (2020, July 24). The 50 Greatest teen movies. Retrieved May 04, 2021, from https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/best-teen-movies/

Elena Nicolaou, C. (n.d.). A #metoo timeline to show how far we've come - & how far we need to go. Retrieved May 04, 2021, from https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2019/10/8534374/a-metoo-timeline-to-show-how-far-weve-come-how-far-we-need-to-go#:~:text=October%2016%2C%202017%3A%20The%20%23,near%20universality%20of%20the%20problem.

Shrink tank [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved May 04, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJacBqE8mNh-dbuSQO3yASA

Hughes, J. (Director). (n.d.). The breakfast club [Video file].

Hughes, J. (Director). (n.d.). Sixteen candles [Video file].