Brat pack
Brat Pack is a name for a generation of actors that established itself in clique films in the early to mid-1980s , in which the same actors often appeared together. They also met privately and were known to be wild partiers.
Her films were mostly intended for a young audience, whose enthusiasm for the majority of these actors waned as both the audience and the roles grew up.
Origin of the term
Brat Pack ( brat , English for ' brat ' or 'bellows'; pack , English for 'pack', 'pack'), also alluding to the Rat Pack , the group around Frank Sinatra (with Sammy Davis Jr. , Dean Martin et al), which is said to have been dubbed for the first time by actress Lauren Bacall . The term Brat Pack originated from a cover story in New York Magazine on June 10, 1985. In this article, author David Blum describes the wild partying behavior of a group of young actors in their 20s who have worked together in various films since the early 1980s. Even if the article highlights the talent of the young actors in part, including the lack of acting training as a criterion for membership, it is very critical, especially in its description of the group behavior and its starry airs. Most of the actors named in this way did not like the term and even blamed the article for the decline of their careers.
Members
The collaboration between the Brat-Pack members goes back to school age, with Charlie Sheen , Sean Penn , Chris Penn , Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe making Super 8 films together as young people . In the eponymous article in New York magazine of June 10, 1985, author David Blum initially assigned the actors Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson , Tom Cruise , Timothy Hutton , Matt Dillon , Nicolas Cage , Sean Penn and Matthew Broderick to the Brat Pack . The (core) group was later defined by the main actors of the films The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire - The Passion Burns Deep and, according to popular opinion, comprised eight actors:
Judd Nelson (background)
In the course of time, this circle expanded to include more actors, as the increasing number of films also increased the frequency of roles with certain actors.
The Brat Pack also includes C. Thomas Howell , Mare Winningham and - due to their involvement in The Outsider - Matt Dillon , Ralph Macchio , Diane Lane and Tom Cruise .
Filmography
Essentially, the main actors from the films The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire are summarized today under Brat Pack . Other Brat-Pack films include Die Outsider , Class , Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink .
- 1983: WarGames - war games with Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick
- 1983: Bad Boys - Small and Dangerous with Ally Sheedy, Sean Penn and Alan Ruck
- 1983: The Outsiders with Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze and C. Thomas Howell
- 1983: Class with Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy and John Cusack
- 1984: The Red Tide with Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Gray and Lea Thompson
- 1984: You can only do that as an adult with Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, John Cusack and Jami Gertz
- 1984: Oxford Blues with Rob Lowe and Ally Sheedy
- 1984: A strong number with Jon Cryer and Demi Moore
- 1985: The Sky Strikers with Andrew McCarthy and Mary Stuart Masterson
- 1985: The Breakfast Club with Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy
- 1985: St. Elmo's Fire with Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy
- 1986: Pretty in Pink with Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, James Spader and Andrew McCarthy
- 1986: A crazy summer with Demi Moore and John Cusack
- 1986: Again like last night with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore
- 1986: Wisdom - Dynamite and Cold Blood with Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen
- 1986: Body check with Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze
- 1986: Ferris goes blue with Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Jennifer Gray and Charlie Sheen
- 1987: Below zero with Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr., Jami Gertz and James Spader
- 1987: Mannequin with Andrew McCarthy and James Spader
- 1987: The Lost Boys with Jami Gertz and Kiefer Sutherland
- 1988: Johnny be Good with Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr.
- 1988: Young Guns with Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland
- 1988: Kansas with Matt Dillon and Andrew McCarthy
- 1988: Tender love with Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy
- 1989: We're Not Angels with Demi Moore and Sean Penn
- 1990: Men at Work with Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen
- 1990: Ghost message from Sam with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze
- 1991: Hot Shots! - The mother of all Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer films
- 1992: A Matter of Honor with Demi Moore, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise
- 1994: Stephen King's The Stand with Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe
- 1994: Julius Caesar Superstar with Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr.
The literary brat pack
The term also had a similar meaning in American literature. From the mid-1980s onwards, a series of debut novels by hopeful young writers that addressed the process of growing up and became very successful in the course of this hype was aggressively marketed as the “literary brat pack”.
This loose group included the media, such as B. Pages Magazine, initially the following authors and works:
- Jay McInerney : Bright lights, big city (1984)
- Bret Easton Ellis - sub-zero (less than zero) (1985)
- Tama Janowitz - Big City Slaves (Slaves of New York) (1986)
- Mark Lindquist - Sad Movies (1987)
- Jill Eisenstadt - Rockaway (From Rockaway) (1987)
Other media such as Spy Magazine have included the following people on various occasions:
- Donna Tartt - The secret history (1992)
- Peter Farrelly - Outside Providence (1988)
- Jonathan Lethem - Motherless Brooklyn (1999)
- David Leavitt - The lost language of cranes (1987)
In addition to dealing with aging and topics such as drug abuse, consumption, lovesickness and disorientation, the novels shared a mostly thoughtful and sometimes even cynical view of social classes. Usually a fictional story was combined with the real culture of the 1980s (including music). Therefore, the novels are now considered an important part of popular literature . In many cases, they also shared the narrative perspective of the first-person narration .
Four of the authors listed here (Ellis, Eisenstadt, Tartt and Lethem) had also studied at the liberal Bennington College in Vermont , the most expensive college for the visual arts in the USA at the time.
A brief discussion of his time in the "literary Brat Pack" can be found in Bret Easton Ellis' semi-biographical book Lunar Park (2006).
See also
literature
- Jonathan Bernstein: Pretty in Pink. The Golden Age of Teenage Cinema. New York 1997. ISBN 0-312-15194-2
- Steven Paul Davies, Andrew Pulver: Brat Pack Confidential . Batsford, London 2003, ISBN 0-7134-8685-6 (English)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ David Blum : Hollywood's Brat Pack . In: New York . June 10, 1985, pp. 40-47.
- ↑ Samantha Miller, Dan Jewel: Brat Race. In: People . April 19, 1999.