Brat Pack | Meaning, members, actors, movies, movies and 80s

New York magazine and label Brat Pack

The term Brat Pack was coined by New York magazine writer David Blum in a profile of several promising actors published in June 1985. That spring, Blum flew from new york city to Los Angeles interview Emilio Esteveza son of Martin Sheen and brother of charlie sheen (both are also actors). Estevez had appeared in several films, including Francis Ford Coppola‘s The outsiders (1983), action comedy Repository man (1984), and the high school drama The breakfast club. Blum’s initial goal was to write solely about Estevez, but when the two met, Estevez invited Blum out with his friends. Rob Lowe and Nelson Juddwho had just finished working with Estevez on the soon-to-be-released film. Saint Elmo’s Fire. (Lowe had also worked with Estevez on The outsidersand Nelson had starred with him The breakfast club.)

Starting this night on the town with Estevez and his friends, Blum composed his New York cover article, titled “The pack of Hollywood brats”, as a critical look at the lives of young actors. Blum dubbed Estevez “the unofficial president of the Brat Pack,” taking advantage of the iconic “It was from the 1960s.”rat pack”, which included famous revelers such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martinand Sammy Davis, Jr. Blum classified the newly anointed Brat Pack as the equivalent of the 1980s Rat Pack, “a traveling band of famous young stars on the prowl for parties, women, and a good time.” The profile described in detail the pack’s night out, portraying them as privileged and haughty. Blum named success as the most critical aspect of the Brat Pack’s life and wrote:

For one of the pack, [failure] It’s a mortal sin, because what makes you a member, what makes you a brat, is the ability to be in a position where Hollywood needs you more than you need Hollywood.

Blum also proclaimed faucets (1981), a drama about military cadets how outstanding Tom Cruise, Sean Pennand Timothy Huttonhaving been the first Brat Pack movie. He listed several other actors whom he considered part of the Brat Pack, highlighting their connections with each other and with the great actors of history. hollywood. Their list included Cruise, Penn, Hutton, Matt Dillon, Andrew McCarthyand Nicolas Cage. Blum did not include any actresses, only briefly mentioning Demi Moore (to Saint Elmo’s Fire cast member) and Melissa Gilbert (former star of the television show Little house on the prairie) regarding her romances with Estevez and Lowe, respectively.

Brat Pack Tag Impact

After the article was published, many of the actors mentioned, particularly Estevez, Lowe and Nelson, felt betrayed by Blum’s depiction of them. Despite their objections, “Brat Pack” quickly became the common name for the group of actors. Ironically, several actors who came to be considered members of the Brat Pack, namely Antonio Michael Hall, Molly Ringwaldand Ally Sheedy—didn’t appear in the story, but the title stuck with them anyway. As a result, the friendships that had formed between some of the actors were damaged because many of them did not want to be caught in public hanging out together. In Susannah Gora’s book You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation (2010), Sheedy said that the article “simply destroyed [the group]. I had really felt part of something and [Blum] blew it to pieces.” Other Brat Packers, especially Hall and Nelson, insisted that there was no Brat Pack; in fact, Hall and McCarthy had never even met.

Some actors named in the article, such as Cruise and Penn, managed to shake off the association easily, so that many film fans and critics came to forget that they had ever been considered part of the group. At the same time, the label continued to be applied throughout the 1980s to many other young actors and actresses, many of them being labeled with the label simply because of their age and because, at some point, they had been cast in a film that It was aimed at teenagers or young adults. In 2024, McCarthy told reporters that the label “represented a seismic cultural shift” in which “movies were suddenly about kids… Some people loved it and some people thought we were brats.”

Brat Pack Movies

Despite Blum’s claim that faucets It was the first Brat Pack movie, many movies amateurs classifies a Brat Pack film as one in which multiple members of the classic Brat Pack lineup appear together. Additionally, all of the Brat Pack movies feature a coming-of-age plot. By that definition, there are 12 Brat Pack films, released between 1983 and 1990. The collaborations began with Estevez and Lowe in The outsidersa teenage rival story gangs in Oklahoma in the 1960s which also starred Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick SwayzeC. Thomas Howell and Diane Lane. Other Brat Pack movies that meet this definition include Class (1983), sixteen candles (1984), Oxford Blue (1984), pretty in pink (1986), blue city (1986), About last night… (1986), Wisdom (1986), and fresh horses (1988).

(Discover “12 Essential Brat Pack Movies”).

The most notable Brat Pack movies, however, are John Hughes‘s The breakfast club and Joel Schumacher Saint Elmo’s Fire. These two films feature more than half of the classic Brat Pack lineup and, in particular, complement each other in terms of the stages of life they address. The breakfast clubstarring Estevez, Hall, Nelson, Ringwald and Sheedy, centers on five high school students who make unlikely friends while in detention all day. Saint Elmo’s Firestarring Estevez, Lowe, Nelson, McCarthy, Moore and Sheedy, follows the lives of recent colleague graduates struggling with adulthood. (Mare Winningham also starred in the film and yet, in what remains an unsolved mystery from the 1980s, completely dodged the Brat Pack label.) Betsy’s wedding (1990), a romantic comedy starring Ringwald and Sheedy, considered the last film of the Brat Pack gender.

All of the Brat Pack actors continued to do notable work, whether as actors, directors or writers, albeit with different professional peaks and valleys. Their careers also continued to overlap occasionally. Both Moore and Nelson had recurring roles in the television series Empire (2015-20), and Ringwald and Sheedy reunited in an episode of drunk single woman (2022-23). In 2024 Ringwald and Moore appeared in the miniseries. Fight: Capote against the swans.

In early 2024 McCarthy announced that a documentary noble brats would go on air Hulu later that year. Inspired by McCarthy’s memoirs Brat: a story from the 80s (2021), the documentary promised to include interviews with fellow Brat Packers Moore, Sheedy, Estevez and Lowe, as well as Blum, the journalist who gave them their infamous name.