Molly Ringwald Has Admitted That “The Breakfast Club” Hasn’t “Aged Well” As She Once Again Called Out The Sexual Harassment In The ‘80s Cult Classic

The teen coming-of-age comedy-drama tells the story of five teenagers from different high school cliques who have to spend a Saturday detention together. 

While the concept of teenage stereotypes has become a pretty common movie trope over the years, at the time of its release, The Breakfast Club was the first film to examine high school hierarchies in this way.

It also stars ‘80s “Brat Pack” icons Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez, which secures its position as a classic from this era.

Molly was just 16 years old when she played the so-called “princess” Claire in the film, the most popular girl in school known for how beautiful and rich she is. 

Throughout the movie, Claire is relentlessly teased by John Bender, played by Judd Nelson. Bender is the bad-boy antihero of The Breakfast Club who detests everything that Claire represents.

In an essay for the New Yorker, Molly called out Bender’s behavior in the movie and the problematic example that it set for viewers, writing: “Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film. When he’s not sexualizing her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her ‘pathetic,’ mocking her as ‘Queenie.’ It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol.”

Molly also recalled her mom being upset by a scene where Bender looks up Claire’s skirt and seemingly touches her inappropriately without her consent. As Molly was a minor when the movie was filmed, an adult double was used for the shot of Claire’s underwear.

“At one point in the film, the bad-boy character, John Bender, ducks under the table where my character, Claire, is sitting, to hide from a teacher,” she wrote. “While there, he takes the opportunity to peek under Claire's skirt and, though the audience doesn't see, it is implied that he touches her inappropriately."

Elsewhere in the 2018 essay, Molly called out another seriously problematic scene in Sixteen Candles, another John Hughes movie that she worked on.

“Back then, I was only vaguely aware of how inappropriate much of John’s writing was, given my limited experience and what was considered normal at the time,” she began. “I’m a little embarrassed to say that it took even longer for me to fully comprehend the scene late in Sixteen Candles, when the dreamboat, Jake, essentially trades his drunk girlfriend, Caroline, to the Geek, to satisfy the latter’s sexual urges, in return for Samantha’s underwear.”

“The Geek takes Polaroids with Caroline to have proof of his conquest; when she wakes up in the morning with someone she doesn’t know, he asks her if she ‘enjoyed it.’(Neither of them seems to remember much.) Caroline shakes her head in wonderment and says, ‘You know, I have this weird feeling I did,’” Molly wrote. “She had to have a feeling about it, rather than a thought, because thoughts are things we have when we are conscious, and she wasn’t.”

“How are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose?” she later asked. “What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it?” 

For context, Molly was just 10 years old when she first started acting.

“I don’t enjoy watching myself on screen. I only rewatched The Breakfast Club, which came out in 1985, because Mathilda wanted to see it with me,” she explained. 

“There is a lot that I really love about the movie but there are elements that haven’t aged well — like Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, who essentially sexually harasses my character,” Molly added. “I’m glad we’re able to look at that and say things are truly different now.”

“I don’t think that professional acting is a great way for kids to grow up. It’s way too stressful, and it’s a crap shoot on whether or not the kids can make it through,” she continued. “I did my first professional job at ten years old and it was not easy.”

Now that Mathilda is an adult, she is making her acting debut in the upcoming movie The Idea Of You, and Molly has already hit back at nepotism claims. 

She said: “The nepo baby thing is ridiculous. Of course if you have a parent in the industry, it’s something that you’ve heard about and might be genetically predisposed to.”