If God has any reserve of mercy, this election will be the last great grand showdown between two Baby Boomer presidential candidates. One, a miserable lying egotist. The other, a miserable lying egotist. It fits that "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" came out this year, particularly because the great grand showdown in that film, just as in our reality, just stinks. It stinks watching millions of dollars go to the spectacle of a people’s home demolished by two overgrown children given powers beyond their deserving. Popular culture and the narratives it shepherds through the ages wield power. Following that, one wonders if art precedes life in this case.
Although the flaws in the film get bigger the more you watch it and the older you get, I will still show my daughter "The Breakfast Club" when she comes of age. If nothing else, it means to show what happens when different types of people are forced into a common enterprise. In our presidential contest, let me be analytically blunt: John Bender = Donald Trump. Claire Standish = Hillary Clinton.
Claire Standish: rich daddy’s girl, prom queen, versed in the academic discourse that privilege affords (Molière, anyone?), attractive in that '80s prom queen sort of way. Beneficiary and guardian of the status quo.
John Bender: sassy rebel, outsider, rule breaker, drug user, bully, sexual harasser, attractive in that rebel way that makes so many earnest sensitive young men want to dig their brains out. The threat, the ugly, that sticks it to everybody deserving.
Both characters kind of suck as human beings. But as things to project ourselves onto they serve a purpose. The film takes time exploring the simultaneous disgust and attraction the two have toward each other. However, the real instructional point involves how they deal with others and application of this literary template to this presidential contest.
Claire Standish is nothing if not a creature of political convenience. She sidles up to the jock when she thinks he will protect her from the rebel. She sidles up to the basket case when she wants to do a public good deed making that unique creature over into a fresh-faced Seventeen cover model. Claire pimps her charity case to her previous political ally, the jock. She sidles up to the brain when he can get her out of her detention homework jam. She sidles up to the criminal to hook up with someone beneath her class, conveniently within view of her dad as he sits in his (and by rights, eventually her) BMW.
Claire’s moral core is revealed in the cathartic circle scene. When asked, after an afternoon of soul searching, if she can bring herself to acknowledge the other four students when they see each other in the halls Monday, she says, “I don’t think so.” Even here, asserting her ability to deny humanity dependent on circumstances, she does not give an affirmative “no.” She leaves herself wiggle room. That is, of course, the pragmatic way to collect people you may need later, when the next prom election rolls through.
John Bender appeals the way every anti-hero has ever appealed: by not giving a damn. As the Big Lebowski said about true nihilism once: “Oh, that must be exhausting.” Bender does give a damn about fear and adoration. When the jock refuses to believe Bender’s pantomime about an abusive home life, Bender without blinking shocks with evidence of his damage. John Bender reveals his moral core when the principal has him alone in a storage closet and offers Bender a free sucker punch if a fair fight is to come afterward. Bender does not take the bait, and Principal Vernon rightly says, “That’s what I thought. You’re a gutless turd.” Bender would rather cower in the well-known safe place of constant sniping and zero material performance.
These two nominees, arguably their entire generation, still mentally roam the halls of their high schools. Clinton/Claire is the kind of social mover that no one really likes but will vote in for prom queen, mainly because they are simply too tired from survival to imagine a better royal court. The Clintons of the world are really more exhaustedly tolerated than liked by most people, until they aren’t (See: France, Russia: revolutions of).
