Imagine, painfully, a 2015 remake of The Breakfast Club. Latino-American, African-American, Islamic-American, Born-Again Christian, Undocumented Alien, Feminist, Post-Feminist, Occupy Activist, Tea Party Member, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender… To cover all the bases of Identity Politics, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez and Anthony Michael Hall would have had to double- and triple-up. And wear some strange cosmetics.

John kept his characters alike as possible, within the spectrum of high school anthropology, in order to make them as different as possible, within the spectrum of individuals. All five members of the Breakfast Club have Anglo-Saxon last names. All are attractive. They could be related (and John would have known) if five bland WASPy sisters had married two brunettes, two blonds and a redhead of varying abilities and intellects.

John worked with types but wouldn’t let them represent kinds. Claire Standish may be elected Prom Queen, but she isn’t the elected representative of the silk stocking district in the Congress of High School Detention. Nor has Shermer been gerrymandered to make sure that John Bender is the official representative of the under-employed labor force facing wage stagnation.

There’s nothing revolutionary about The Breakfast Club. On purpose. The kids don’t try to abolish authority and institutions. They elude and modify them with wit. This is a comedy.