The Brat Pack: In with the wrong crowd
There's one in every school: the 'in crowd' everyone else wants to be a part of. But does membership of such a clique mean success later in life? Elli Lewis looks to the Brat Pack for answers to this age-old question.
The ‘cool crowd’ is a staple phenomenon of every school environment. Usually made up of unnervingly attractive or charismatic individuals, this group attracts a mixture of envy and hatred from their peers.
In fact, regardless of whether we loved or loathed them, it seems that we all suffered from a strange, mass version of Stockholm syndrome when it came to our school’s popular kids. They demanded our loyalty and we delivered, wanting to be like them and, more importantly, to be one of them. Yet was our ambition justified?
Whilst it may have seemed like fun at the time, did membership of this club guarantee one’s future, or was it just the set up for a big fall from grace? Some insight might be gained from the 1980’s super clan known as The Brat Pack.
This group of actors, usually identified as the teens that starred in the films ‘St Elmo’s Fire’ (1985) and ‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985), became Hollywood’s answer to the cheerleaders and the jocks in the eighties. Successful, talented and beautiful, their every move was caught by cameras and their parties became the stuff of legend.
As a result, every teenage boy aspired to be a Rob Lowe or Emilio Estevez while girls changed their hairstyles to copy Demi Moore and joined a fan club called 'the Ringlets' in homage to Molly Ringwold.
Yet despite their success and the expectation of great careers for all who formed part of this gang, few fulfilled their promise. Whilst it is true that Moore is an A-list actress and Lowe is still very much in the public eye, it is doubtful whether most movie-goers could recognise many of the rest of the pack, let alone name them.
If the Brat Pack teaches us anything it is that we would have been wiser to concentrate on our education rather than on our schoolmates. Of course, for those of us who may not have known this at the time, fear not: celebrities will keep our education alive with the school of life.
Elli Lewis
The ‘cool crowd’ is a staple phenomenon of every school environment. Usually made up of unnervingly attractive or charismatic individuals, this group attracts a mixture of envy and hatred from their peers.
In fact, regardless of whether we loved or loathed them, it seems that we all suffered from a strange, mass version of Stockholm syndrome when it came to our school’s popular kids. They demanded our loyalty and we delivered, wanting to be like them and, more importantly, to be one of them. Yet was our ambition justified?
Whilst it may have seemed like fun at the time, did membership of this club guarantee one’s future, or was it just the set up for a big fall from grace? Some insight might be gained from the 1980’s super clan known as The Brat Pack.
This group of actors, usually identified as the teens that starred in the films ‘St Elmo’s Fire’ (1985) and ‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985), became Hollywood’s answer to the cheerleaders and the jocks in the eighties. Successful, talented and beautiful, their every move was caught by cameras and their parties became the stuff of legend.
As a result, every teenage boy aspired to be a Rob Lowe or Emilio Estevez while girls changed their hairstyles to copy Demi Moore and joined a fan club called 'the Ringlets' in homage to Molly Ringwold.
Yet despite their success and the expectation of great careers for all who formed part of this gang, few fulfilled their promise. Whilst it is true that Moore is an A-list actress and Lowe is still very much in the public eye, it is doubtful whether most movie-goers could recognise many of the rest of the pack, let alone name them.
If the Brat Pack teaches us anything it is that we would have been wiser to concentrate on our education rather than on our schoolmates. Of course, for those of us who may not have known this at the time, fear not: celebrities will keep our education alive with the school of life.
Elli Lewis
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