When you consider the Brat Pack period that swept the nation all through the Eighties, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders in all probability isn’t the primary film that involves thoughts. Coming out in 1983 earlier than the Brat Pack style actually got here to fruition, The Outsiders follows a gaggle of teenage Greasers in Sixties Oklahoma who battle to make ends meet and keep away from the violent taunting of the rich Socs. The film offers with themes of affection, grief, and suicide, all complicated subjects that are additional sophisticated by the socioeconomic circumstances of its lead characters.
Flash ahead a number of years, and the Brat Pack style was dominated by, nicely, Socs. In motion pictures like The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, and Sixteen Candles, the leads come from completely different household conditions however all share a definite air of privilege and a normal lack of self-awareness. When we put it up towards these Brat Pack staples, The Outsiders tells a much more compelling narrative as a result of these children not solely needed to cope with the familial points and rising pains that different Brat Pack teenagers cope with, however they’ve the added burden of their monetary and social circumstances which gave them a extra grounded perspective.
Who Were Members of the Brat Pack?
For a small crash course, the time period “Brat Pack” was initially coined in a 1985 New York Magazine article, and refers to a gaggle of younger actors within the ’80s — specifically Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Andrew McCarthy, and Demi Moore. While The Outsiders isn’t at all times included in Brat Pack discussions, the inclusion of Lowe and Estevez as Sodapop Curtis and Two-Bit Mathews cements its place as one of many first motion pictures of the period. While qualifying for the style was extra concerning the forged than the themes, the films usually revolved round teenagers and younger adults — nearly solely white and middle-class — struggling to determine their identities, and their locations on this planet.
‘The Outsiders’ Greasers Struggle to Make Ends Meet
In The Outsiders, Ponyboy Curtis (C. Thomas Howell) and his older brothers Darry (Patrick Swayze) and Soda battle to maintain their little household collectively after the tragic demise of their mother and father. Darry works arduous to maintain the lights on and preserve his brothers out of a boys’ residence, and Soda drops out of highschool to work on the fuel station and earn cash. The Curtis brothers belong to the Greasers, a tight-knit group dwelling underneath the poverty line and always butting heads with the rich Socs who stay on the opposite aspect of city. Ponyboy is a pensive teenager who tries to remain out of hassle and primarily buddies round along with his greatest buddy Johnny (Ralph Macchio), a timid however candy boy who has been severely abused by each his mother and father and the Socs. After a brutal confrontation ends with Johnny killing a Soc, the 2 younger greasers are pressured to flee city. As the film goes on, we will see how the group of younger males battle to be seen as greater than thugs and criminals, whereas additionally being pressured into this archetype by advantage of their circumstances.
How Does ‘The Outsiders’ Compare to Other Brat Pack Movies?
In phrases of different Brat Pack motion pictures, John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club might be the one which shares probably the most with The Outsiders, albeit skewed by a middle-class lens. The mother and father in each motion pictures are both absent or abusive, and the principle teenagers are lumped collectively by authority figures and dismissed as burnouts and delinquents. Like a number of the children in The Outsiders, The Breakfast Club’s lead dangerous boy John Bender (Judd Nelson) has a violent father, and the opposite children even have strained relationships with their mother and father. Their issues are legitimate, and we will’t utterly dismiss them. However, these teenagers stroll as much as Shermer High School with such melancholy you’d suppose they have been headed for the gallows moderately than a Saturday in detention.
Throughout The Breakfast Club, we will see how whereas these children are all struggling in several methods, they’re additionally insanely entitled. The fashionable Claire (Molly Ringwald) pulls out a full sushi board within the library after which can’t stand being known as out for her wealth and social standing, and Andrew’s (Emilio Estevez) largest grievance is the ache he inflicted on one other scholar — personally Andrew, I really feel worse for the child whose butt cheeks you ripped off.
In The Outsiders, alternatively, Socs like Cherry (Diane Lane) and Randy (Darren Dalton) resent their elite reputations and really feel trapped by the established order. Similarly, whereas the teenagers in The Breakfast Club all have justified feelings and insecurities, what all these characters have in frequent are the obtrusive blindspots that come together with immense privilege. Beloved although it could be, this cult traditional is basically an hour and a half of youngsters studying about primary empathy and meandering their manner out of complete self-absorption. While The Breakfast Club gang is pressured to put in writing the principal an essay defining themselves — which in fact, they refuse to do — in The Outsiders’ Johnny, Dally (Matt Dillon), and Ponyboy need to actually run right into a burning constructing to be able to show their character to their neighborhood.
‘The Outsiders’ Couldn’t Be More Different Than ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ & ‘Sixteen Candles’
While the children in The Breakfast Club are removed from excellent, they’re nothing in comparison with the over-coiffed, self-important twenty-somethings in St. Elmo’s Fire. These latest school grads vary from barely sympathetic to downright unbearable, most of them reeking of ignorance and lamenting their superficial issues to anyone who will hear. I perceive the plight of the aimless graduate in addition to anybody, and even I cringe as these characters complain about having to attend tables and be gifted automobiles by their wealthy fathers whereas their cries reverberate off of the uncovered brick of their inexplicably huge residences. In comparability, the Director’s Cut of The Outsiders opens with Ponyboy being stalked, jumped, and sliced by a gaggle of predatory Socs only for strolling alone down the road. I believe most viewers of St. Elmo’s Fire would pay good cash to see the film’s self-righteous leads in a rumble with the Greasers and Socs from The Outsiders.
Another John Hughes traditional, the quintessential ’80s rom-com Sixteen Candles is as soon as once more a film that highlights the struggles of teenhood, however is shrouded by a veil of annoying entitlement — and on this case, appalling racism. Molly Ringwald’s Sam is horrified that her household has forgotten her sixteenth birthday, which actually, is truthful sufficient. However, as she pines over fashionable jock Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) and is pissed off by the relentless pursuits of Ted the Geek (Anthony Michael Hall), watching Sam wallow in her angst will get a bit tiring. Once once more, our protagonist is dealing with upsetting points, however we will not deny that Sam’s white, middle-class standing in Sixteen Candles endows her with an undeniably privileged viewpoint.
Brat Pack Movies Legitimized the ’80s Young Adult Experience
All in all, after we examine The Outsiders to different Brat Pack motion pictures of the period, we have now to acknowledge that privilege and socioeconomic standing play a serious half within the viewing expertise. To reiterate, not each film has to have life-and-death stakes, and a lot of the issues that we face in life should not grand-scale catastrophes. What the Brat Pack motion pictures do nicely is present that whenever you’re younger, all the things appears like the top of the world. This style legitimized the younger grownup expertise in a brand new manner and is an simple cornerstone of ’80s popular culture.
However, it’s additionally price acknowledging that when put next with a film like The Outsiders, the issues of the center class turn into more and more surface-level. When we watch The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, and Sixteen Candles with this concept in thoughts, it is made manifestly apparent that almost all of those characters endure extra from the emotional turmoil that they conjure up for themselves moderately than from the precise conditions they discover themselves in. As Cherry and Ponyboy focus on in The Outsiders, whereas all these teenagers could watch the identical sundown, they actually do not stay in the identical world.