FREE ESSAY ON DAZED AND CONFUSED VS. THE BREAKFAST CLUB

DAZED AND CONFUSED VS. THE BREAKFAST CLUB

The carefree years vs. the petty years
At one time or another, a movie is made about every generation. Dazed and Confused is for
the 1970's group of Americans (during the coming of age) when bellbottoms and marijuana
were the fashion, drinking and driving had yet to become unthinkable, and safe sex was
used only to avoid pregnancy. The Breakfast Club is a remembrance of the 1980's era of
pegged jeans, glitter and leg warmers, when AIDS started but only through rumors, and
drugs were the only escape. Throughout the precedent decades teens in schools across the
country experience a society that consists of social groups, also known as cliques.
Cliques, which are natural to American society, can take the concentration off of the
anxiety and reason each teenager sets foot in a high school. Dazed and Confused and The
Breakfast Club are perfect examples of the typical American high school. 
Dazed and Confused follows the lives of various groups of teenagers, during the last day
of school in 1976, as they stray around their hometown. The movie is all about their
philosophies on life, work, love and especially their futures that we never hear about.
Among the characters, there is Randall Floyd a young football player, pressured into
choosing between being drug-free or authority-free. Then there is Mitch, an upcoming high
school freshman trying to fit in, who spends the day running away from the senior hazing
team, while attempting to hang out with the older crowd. It's a time when everyone wastes
their lives away in the carefree high school years together no matter who you are.
The movie is not only funny and entertaining. It is a historic document of life, and is
one of the most honest "teen movies" in the movie archives. The message of the movie is
not much but to stand up for what you believe and resist all authority. Dazed and
Confused captures the have fun now before it's too late state of mind better than, say,
The Breakfast Club, which goes out of its way to show that teens from all different
lifestyles have serious problems no matter what clique you're from. 
Taking place almost entirely in a high school library, The Breakfast Club, is about five
completely different students spending their Saturday in detention for one wrongdoing or
another or even because they had nothing else to do. This is a perfect representative
cross-section of every high school in North America. The characters are the basic teen
stereotypes, the geek, the outcast, the rich pretty-girl snob, the jock, and the future
criminal all in a search for meaning. Being from such widely different backgrounds and
having completely different personalities, it's inevitable that some tension and conflict
will develop. They all have their extremely 80's problems aired in their extremely 80's
environment. 
These people, the geeks, the future criminals, and the outcasts... they were no different
from my high school really. They were just as scared as I was, had the same thoughts and
emotions and experienced the same pressure as I did. I had just never had a chance to
talk to them honestly. Every teen character in these movies can be related to someone we
knew in high school. They all exist, to some degree or another, in the classrooms of
every high school. These five characters in the Breakfast Club would normally never
associate with each other, but the circumstances force them to get to know each other and
eventually become friends. In Dazed and Confused however, drugs and alcohol brings the
kids together to celebrate the last day of school. Many don't like the role they
portrayed in the high-school scene but it is practically inescapable. 
The way people are in high school does not say much about what they will be like in the
future. In today's society many people who portray a certain character in high school
become something of the total opposite. High School is the end of the adolescent years;
but, the beginning of finding out who you really are. Many feel that they are still
recovering from the drama and pressure that they incurred during the high school years.
The Breakfast Club and Dazed and Confused plainly portrayed all the cliques so the people
could see that everyone went through the same angst to find meaning in their high school
career.