Molly Ringwald Not a Fan of The Breakfast Club Character Relationship

“There is a lot that I really love about the movie, but there are elements that haven’t aged well,” said Molly Ringwald, referring to Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, who essentially sexually harassed Ringwald’s character. She also added that she’s glad we’re all able to look at that particular interaction between two characters of the film and say that things are different now. But Ringwald also added that there are plenty of things in The Breakfast Club she really loves as well.

For those who haven’t seen The Breakfast Club—and we strongly recommend it—the movie centers on five very different teenagers locked in the school library on a Saturday as punishment for a variety of transgressions. They’re supervised by an inattentive but rather cruel headmaster, Mr. Vernon, whose periodic absences allow the teens to talk, bond, and come to understand their prejudice against each other. Molly Ringwald portrays Claire Standish, nicknamed Princess, who was a wealthy, popular girl who received detention for skipping school to go shopping.

Judd Nelson’s character, John Bender, is the troublemaker of the group with quite an uncaring attitude, which stems from growing up with an abusive father. He also uses humor as a defense mechanism to deflect a lot of negativities hurled his way—some of it coming from Molly Ringwald’s character, Claire. Naturally, John suggests that the other four students stuck in detention learn just how liberating it is to deliberately break the rules, and with teens being teens, that’s precisely what happens in The Breakfast Club.

They share some marijuana—we’ll let you guess who smuggled it into detention—they go around breaking a ton of rules along the way, and they all dance in the school library. According to the original script for The Breakfast Club, Claire was the only character who was supposed to get up and dance around, but Molly Ringwald also revealed that she didn’t like the idea of being the only character dancing, mainly because she wasn’t confident in her dancing skills. Hughes then made all the characters dance, but the scene is still everything you’d expect it to be—embarrassing.

As previously stated, The Breakfast Club was one of the biggest movies of its era, having made $51 million at the box office from a production budget of a mere $1 million. Besides The Breakfast Club—currently streaming on Netflix—Molly Ringwald also appeared in other John Hughes movies, such as the 1984’s Sixteen Candles and 1986’s Pretty in Pink, and Judd Nelson also starred in St. Elmo’s Fire from 1985, associating both actors with the so-called Brat Pack—a group of young actors Hughes often collaborate with.