Youth, Angst, & Subculture in Cry-Baby and The Breakfast Club
- Scott Barnard
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 12 hours ago
Youth, Angst, and Subculture in Cry-Baby and The Breakfast Club
Teen rebellion has always been a source of fascination in cinema, reflecting the tensions of adolescence and the social structures that shape it. Two films from the 1980s and early 1990s - John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club (1985) and John Waters’ Cry-Baby (1990) - offer strikingly different perspectives on subculture and angst. While The Breakfast Club seeks authenticity through realism and stereotype-driven drama, Cry-Baby revels in parody, camp, and exaggerated stylisation. Together, they reveal the multiple ways youth identity, rebellion, and belonging are constructed and performed on screen.
Parody and Performance: Subculture in Cry-Baby
John Waters’ Cry-Baby is an over-the-top homage to 1950s teen melodrama, parodying the cultural panic around juvenile delinquency. The Drapes, led by Cry-Baby (Johnny Depp), embody the aesthetics of resistance: slicked-back hair, leather jackets, motorcycles, and a soundtrack of rebellious rock ‘n’ roll. They stand in contrast to the Squares, the socially respectable middle-class teens. This division is less about actual conflict than about style as symbolic resistance, as theorist Dick Hebdige argued in Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979).
One key scene - the Drapes’ chaotic dance-off against the Squares - illustrates subculture as performance. Clothing, dance, and music function as “subcultural capital” (Sarah Thornton, 1995), granting recognition within their in-group rather than threatening mainstream culture. The rebellion here is less existential than theatrical, parodying how the media of the 1950s demonised youth culture.
At the same time, the film nods to sociological theories of delinquency. Albert Cohen’s (1955) subcultural theory suggested that working-class youth form alternative status systems when mainstream success is denied. Cry-Baby’s exaggerated posturing - his jailhouse song, his symbolic “bad boy” tears - mocks yet also re-enacts this process. John Waters makes clear that rebellion itself is a performance, a carefully styled spectacle that both celebrates and satirises youth subcultures.
Authenticity and Angst: The Breakfast Club
Where Waters embraces parody, John Hughes pursues sincerity. The Breakfast Club strips rebellion of stylisation, confining five archetypal students - the Athlete, the Brain, the Basket Case, the Princess, and the Criminal - into the grey space of Saturday detention. At first, they embody their stereotypes: Andrew the jock defends his honour, Claire the Princess clings to social superiority, and John Bender the “delinquent” pushes boundaries by removing a screw from the library door. The act seems trivial, but symbolises his refusal to accept institutional control; as the teacher rages, it becomes clear that it’s possible the teacher is the one with a screw loose.
The film’s realism lies in dialogue and confession. Bender’s mimicry of his abusive father - complete with imaginary slaps and a cigar burn - shatters his sarcastic mask. At lunch, the contrast between Claire’s sushi, Andrew’s mountain of sandwiches, and Bender’s lack of food foregrounds family life as the root of identity. As Hughes shows, rebellion is not an abstract cultural pose but a response to domestic pressures. Each character fears becoming their parents: Andrew fears repeating his father’s controlling masculinity, Brian nearly commits suicide under the weight of academic pressure, and Allison fears invisibility. “When you grow up, your heart dies,” Allison declares, summarising their existential dread.
Unlike Waters’ parody, Hughes suggests that rebellion, however small, emerges from genuine attempts to negotiate identity, responsibility, and freedom.
Comparison: Camp vs Realism
Cry-Baby and The Breakfast Club represent two ends of the spectrum in cinematic portrayals of youth. Waters’ film thrives in camp excess, parodying rebellion as style, while Hughes pursues authenticity through dialogue and emotional revelation. Both, however, explore the tension between individual identity and social expectation.
The differences are striking in their cultural reception. Cry-Baby never escaped its cult subculture status, appealing to niche audiences attuned to Waters’ sensibility. The Breakfast Club, by contrast, became a mainstream generational touchstone, resonating with audiences who recognised themselves in its stereotypes. The contrast reflects Gelder’s (2007) observation that some subcultures remain marginal while others translate into mass culture.
Ultimately, both films reveal that youth rebellion is always mediated: either through stylised parody or through the supposedly “realistic” lens of teen angst. In both cases, rebellion is performance, but its meaning depends on whether the audience sees it as camp spectacle or existential truth.
