Overrated – The Breakfast Club weed scene
Ned Bitters |
This week’s inductee into the “Overrated Hall of Fame” is … The Breakfast Club weed scene.
I was showing the movie A Breakfast Club to my students this week. You’d think a 26-year-old teen movie would bore the hell out of today’s high school seniors, but these kids were riveted. I’m not talking preppie little white kids either. I have 80 percent black students and only one honors class. The majority of my kids are the lower level types, which I specifically ask for because those are the very kids to whom a teacher can show A Breakfast Club without fear of any parents calling the principal to report my slacking ass.
Every single kid was engrossed in the movie. Most had never seen it, despite its almost daily showing on some 200-something channel on your local cable package. I’d look around and see the usual sleepers and fuck offs actually leaning forward on their desks. If someone dared talk, he’d get shushsed by six of his wanting-to-fuck Molly Ringwald peers. It’s an amazing phenomenon and it speaks to the timeless genius of that rare piece of 80s culture not deserving of being incinerated at ground zero of a nuclear strike.
But there is one part of this movie that bothers the hell out of me. No, not the fact that Carl the janitor is a good-looking, articulate gentleman with a wry, immediate wit, which I’m sure describes every custodian at your workplace. It’s not the complete inattention to the potential liability issues of leaving five horny high school kids in the library with no direct adult supervision. It’s not even the fact that possessing a firearm in school, or pulling a false fire alarm, or assaulting and injuring a fellow student, would result in a punishment no greater than spending a Saturday in the school library writing a punitive essay.
No, what bothers me most about this movie, what I find the most implausible, is the kids’ reaction to the weed they smoke. Other than the first couple of “high” scenes, the rest of their post-blaze-up behavior rings false.
Of course, being a teacher in a public high school, I must state right here and now that I am basing my judgment purely on observations and extensive research, for I have never, ever partaken of the drug cannabis. My ideas of what constitutes the normal “stoned” (that is the correct word to describe the effects of marijuana, right?) behavior are based solely on what I’ve read, what I’ve seen in movies and what my pastor and fellow church deacons tell me every Wednesday when we volunteer at the Just Say No center. Okay, that should suffice lest anyone in charge of my school system see past this Ned Bitters pseudonym and begin termination proceedings.
That very true confession being out of the way, I will take blogger’s license and write the rest of this as if I have, indeed, actually indulged in the inhalation of marijuana smoke, a.k.a. toking up, getting my high on, getting cheeched, toasted or ripped and other such euphemisms with which I, myself, am not personally familiar. (You got all that, Personnel Department?)
Right after the kids blaze up, their behavior is spot-on high. They laugh too much. They talk too much. They make no sense. That’s typical baked behavior.
But then things take a turn for the implausible. The conversation not only turns serious, but it also makes sense. It’s intelligent and interesting. It has depth. I’ve been around many high people, and I cannot once remember some stoned motherfucker making sense. But these kids are laying bare their greatest insecurities and vulnerabilities with extreme eloquence.
The stoners I’ve known are never eloquent. They ramble incoherently about grandiose plans they’ll never actually follow through on. (“Yeah, man. I’m just gonna quit my job and walk around the southwest for a year meeting Navajos and shit. I wanna get into Indian culture and take my mind to like another plane of consciousness. Or go to Denny’s maybe.”)
Or they discuss, with more seriousness that one might find in national security meeting, the relative merits of Kit Kats vs. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Or they talk about their love of humanity on a grand, all-encompassing scale. In other words, everyone who gets high is immediately full of shit.
But not these kids. Heartfelt, lucid confessions roll out one after another, and even more amazing, the other kids actually listen. When I’m high [note above disclaimer, all you Central Office readers], I’ll do my share of babbling on in nonsensical fashion, and I know my weed-mates are nodding encouragingly while not really listening to the string of inanities coming out of my at-that-point very dry mouth. (Research, baby. Research.). I know I don’t listen to their theories on infinity or the impending zombie invasion. No one listens when they’re high. When stoned, you either talk or wait to talk. But not in A Breakfast Club. Actual conversation ensues, and all tokers know that one of the best reasons to get high is to avoid real conversation.
Then we have the bizarre scene when Emilio Estevez’s character, Andrew L. Wrestler (L. is for Lunkhead, of course), emerges from a smoke-filled room and goes on an aerobicized display of athleticism that would land him a silver medal in London this summer. He’s vaulting book stacks, running up walls a la Bo Jackson (Google it, all you young whipper-snappers) and throwing violent air punches.
If you, dear reader, have, unlike me (take note, Mr. Superintendent), sinned against God and nature by putting a tightly rolled marijuana cigarette to your lips and sucking in the sweet, smoky release said cig offers (so they tell me), then you know how hard it is to believe this scene. Hell, a person smokes weed to stop feeling that way. Instead, Andrew runs around the library as if his dutchie was laced with PCP. No one in the history of highness has acted like that when stoned.
Where was some half-stoned gaffer on the set who should have alerted the people in charge about this obvious error? Where was Estevez brother Charlie Sheen to warn John Hughes that such behavior is more often the result of six snorts of coke and four shots of Jack Daniels, which he could have demonstrated right then and there?
Finally, the high doesn’t last very long at all. Within an hour or so of blazing up, they are back to their normal, whiney selves, bemoaning shitty parents, the travails of negotiating the brutal halls of a public high school and – my favorite – the crushing, soul-deflating pressure of being rich, popular and good-looking in that public high school.
Come to think of it, maybe there’s more overrated stuff in this movie than I thought. I’d go into that right now but, uhhh …I gotta go not get high.
Ned Bitters is, in fact, overrated. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.
While you (err umm, I mean people you KNOW) might discuss aimlessly wandering through the Southwest kickin’ it with Navajos, marijuana can also elicit a few heartfelt eloquent conversations. Just because it hasn’t been the experience of people that you know doesn’t make it impossible. I’ve had some pretty insightful conversations while high. I’ve witnessed plenty insightful conversations of people who were high when I wasn’t. And although I personally couldn’t muster the energy to sprint through the library turning somersaults after smoking, I do know of people that blaze up and then go clean their house from top to bottom. People’s experiences are different.
As far as the serious conversation goes, who’s to say it didn’t occur a few hours later once most of the effects had worn off? I think you’re taking a minor detail and overshadowing the importance of the following scene. Next you’ll be complaining that it’s so unrealistic because none of them broke into the teachers’ lounge vending machine to score snacks for the munchies.
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Honestly IDC u smoke pot the fact u want kids like me not to help them but slack off with them and then insult them when u know 80% of ur students won’t see it I dropped out of school cuz of teachers like u ur supposed to be a role model not pre on less intellectual students idk rethink ur career choice before u screw someone’s life up
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Chris Reply:
August 19th, 2016 at 8:01 pm
Learn to spell retard. Quit blaming teachers for your failures when you can’t even structure a sentence properly. Dumbass.
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Not only should you be fired for showing this movie that has absolutely nothing to do with education, but also for looking down on these kids that obviously need strong minded, compassionate, & intelligent teachers. All of which you lack! I’m pretty sure that you are also racist, thanks for pointing out that %80 of your students are black. That makes you feel tremendous probably. You were probably bullied as a child & now your back to take your revenge on these poor innocent students. You and your hidden agenda. Smoking marijuana does not mean you turn into a baffling idiot. And because you have never smoked, you shouldn’t comment & base your Harold & Kumar pov to assess something you clearly have no clue about. Do yourself a favor and take your head out of your ass. You second rate, egotistical, asshole!
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Ciara Reply:
May 27th, 2017 at 12:57 pm
He was being sarcastic. obviously, he’s done weed. Who hasnt?
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Luca J Reply:
December 21st, 2018 at 4:58 am
Well Not to sure because He doesn’t seem to have smoked or atleast in the wrong setting because stuff Like talking about Feelings and all that does Happen in a normal basis in my circle of friends. Or stuff Like becoming extremly hyperactive after Smoking can easyly Happen when with active people. Pot Kind of boosts a persons Charakter traits so yeah.
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You sir obviously have never smoke weed… Everything you described as being fake actually happens man just everyone reacts differently.
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The best and most profound conversations I’ve ever had have been when I’m high. I bet yours would too. In fact, I reckon you’d change your life completely & for the better after that first session. You’re confused.
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This article is lazy. You sir have not lived, and don’t deserve the responsibility of being called a journalist. I guess if you had written the movie, they’d have immediately started getting lazy, eating potato chips, and talking about aliens.
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U need a joint man
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Wow. It’s unbelievable this day and age to continue to see this wreck less ignorance thrown around about cannabis. How can someone be so sure of the effects of a drug they have never taken? Of course from observation of high school students doing it. What’s the best way to gauge a psychoactive drug? We don’t know, it’s still schedule 1 and research has been limited. What we do know is taking a sample of cannabis users with undeveloped minds and saying they are the best example of stoned behavior is foolish. And so is this author. He needs cannabis in his life clearly. Any adult with a fully formed brain who has sampled the magical herb would look at that article after writing it and throw it in the trash. Smoke a number and write something real. I actually think it’s cool that you played this movie for high school students but from your points of view, I feel sorry for the kids you teach.
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Yeah you’re right about the scene with Andrew. That wasn’t weed effect even though I’ve never done it myself. I’ve known someone taking ice and he was all hyper and crazy…like Andrew in that scene. That was the only ridicule I could pick out from that scene about it.
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I think everyone else has summed up why this article is ridiculous. And made good points about this “teacher” and his fetish for poor black kids with neglectful parents. But I smoke and have energy to workout harder than if I don’t smoke. Some people react like a zombie and some react like Bo Jackson. An adult who has smoked should know that different people react differently to weed. As for the conversation, you must be around of like minded people. If you’ve never smoked and had thoughtful convos, even as a teen, you’re probably not the best candidate to teach children.
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You’re a fucking idiot
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You have never been stoned bro. Also it’s a 🎥 and at the time they usually smoked the real thing but the edit showed them sober. I use to smoke and it seems legit for a movie
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You forgot the comma after the word, spell. What you actually did was tell him to learn to spell the word “retard”. Just saying.
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