Everyone Is a Brat
Especially you, Andrew McCarthy but also you, Justin Timberlake! Also: Build Your Own Mini-Mall, and Kevin Costner starts PR rehab.
I recently spent about 90 minutes I’d like back watching Brats, Andrew McCarthy’s vanity documentary ostensibly about how damaging the Brat Pack label was to all of their lives and careers. It’s actually a portrait of Andrew McCarthy making sweeping assumptions about how his colleagues felt that appear based entirely on his own experience; the most interesting part of the documentary is when it openly ponders who is even in this Brat Pack, anyway. After you turn it off, thanks to the magic of New York magazine putting some of their archives online, you can look for answers yourself in the the original 1985 article, and, while you’re there, decide if it feels like something that could torpedo someone’s entire career or if Andrew just needs to make like Elsa and let it go.
Everyone, including some of the folks in the documentary, seems to have a different sense of who or what the Brat Pack was. I was in elementary school in the ‘80s, so to me, the Brat Pack members were an amalgam of the stars of The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, and Pretty in Pink: Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, and Demi Moore. Anthony Michael Hall sits on the fringes for me, on account of Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club, and when I interrogated why those alone didn’t land him in my mental Brat Pack, I landed on the fact that he was never the protagonist of those movies, nor does he connect with or morph into any of the “cool kids” featured in them. Judd Nelson, in The Breakfast Club, is an outsider who’s essentially paired up with mainstream popular girl Molly Ringwald. Ally Sheedy, visually also an outsider, gets a makeover that basically turns her into her character in St. Elmo’s Fire and attracts the mainstream jock Emilio. Hall’s character, conversely, just perks up a bit and then does all their homework for them. I think that’s why I also don’t consider Mare Winningham or Jon Cryer part of the Brat Pack even though they have appeared in exactly as many of those movies as Demi Moore did (one). Nothing about them ever felt dangerous or exciting; Demi blew into St. Elmo’s Fire just feeling like a movie star, doing crazy and pretentious and adult things with snappy wit and a juicy (if also ridiculous) breakdown scene, whereas poor Mare was the character who had to sleep with Rob Lowe so he could feel good about himself, and Duckie was… just Duckie. Their movies never took either of them as seriously, so they ended up on the outskirts.
I treated the question of which movies are part of the Brat Pack canon with some fluidity. They’re more of a vibe than anything — a John Hughesian coming-of-age sensibility that included Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles (the latter because of Molly) and Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire, but excluded Ferris Bueller, because his blithe life and glossy crises (stole friend’s dad’s Ferrari, upset girlfriend will still be in high school, wants to go a Cubs game and eat pancreas instead of running laps in gym) felt so much less relatable and urgent than your boobs coming in late and your terrible family forgetting your birthday and generally feeling entirely overlooked in high school by the cute boy and tortured there by the glamorous bitches.
No matter how you personally draw those lines, Andrew McCarthy is pressed about this “Brat Pack” nickname, coined by New York writer David Blum as a pun on the Rat Pack but encompassing a younger generation than Frankie and friends (hence, the added B). To hear Andrew tell it, this moniker ruined lives and careers — partly by implying they were BRATS who ran in a PACK. (This is the lone contribution of actor Timothy Hutton, who pops up to say that both “BRAT” and “PACK” seem very assumptive, but who clearly is otherwise bemused by the entire project.) My crabby summary is that Andrew McCarthy believed himself to be serious and talented, but because he did not become one of those performers whom people refer to very seriously as a fine actor, he blamed this career trajectory on his Brat Pack association — which came to him by dint of starring in the first movie to be released after the article (St. Elmo’s Fire). The most telling quote in the film is when McCarthy says, “Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, they’re not gonna call up somebody who’s in the Brat Pack.” We will come back to this point in a minute, but for now: No shit, Andrew, BECAUSE VERY FEW OF YOU WERE GOOD ENOUGH ACTORS. The ones who broke through, did so for a reason. The term “Brat Pack” is not why Mannequin didn’t take McCarthy to Eddie Murphy levels of comic success…or even the tiers of his co-stars, Kim Cattrall and Meshach Taylor.1 He didn’t do Weekend at Bernie’s 1 and 2 because Spielberg was busy blacklisting Brat Pack actors. Also, dude, you were in The Joy Luck Club! An excellent movie! If that didn’t take you to Scorsese’s door, that’s not New York magazine’s fault.
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Other than a flabby part in the middle where the filmmakers fill time by having pundits talk about how great John Hughes movies were, the film is essentially McCarthy being flabbergasted that nobody will validate that “Brat Pack” ruined their lives, no matter how many times he repeats this assertion. In real time, he starts to wonder if maybe he demonized something that was pretty significant, despite also continuing to persist in said attempt at demonizing; he even interviews David Blum, and comes away half-charmed.2 Otherwise, the entire documentary is all Emilio Estevez looking like he wishes he’d passed on appearing, Demi Moore gently counseling Andrew that perhaps he is inflicting this sense of decades-long damage upon himself, Rob Lowe merrily waxing poetic about how being part of movies that are a generational touchstone and universally beloved — even when they were not good — is a significant meaningful thing and that he hopes “Brat Pack” will stick to them until they die, and Ally Sheedy warmly saying as little as possible. It’s quite something, by the way, to listen to McCarthy talk about the trauma of the Brat Pack label upon his life and career, to a person who has survived drug addiction and who tweeted (but has since deleted it) an implication that James Franco being sexually inappropriate led to her departure from Hollywood. Andrew McCarthy is absolutely allowed to have confusing feelings about this era of his life, but by the 20-minute mark I wanted him to close his piehole and find a better therapist, and we still had more than an hour left. Molly Ringwald was so right not to return this call.3
Given all that, there are a few things that surprised me about reading the actual piece that lit this fire. First and foremost, I cannot stress this enough: It never mentions the women. Molly Ringwald’s name does not appear in it. Neither does Ally Sheedy’s. Demi Moore’s does, but only in the context of being Emilio Estevez’s on-off girlfriend. The female characters in these movies, many of whom are their engines, do not rate. McCarthy, intriguingly, does not hold David Blum’s feet to the fire about the casual sexism of ignoring them, because he’s too focused on trying to get Blum to apologize for ruining his career or whatever. (Blum, for his part, stands by his piece both in the documentary and as recently as last week, but he does acknowledge leaving out the women.)
Second: I was intrigued by the actors who are considered Brat Packers by the man who coined the term4; pop culture and our personal experiences may have made that term more elastic, stretching and contracting to fit around the people we believe it should, but he started it and he has a WAY different view of it than I ended up with. He begins with the movies:
The first Brat Pack movie was Taps, the story of kids taking over a military school, a sleeper that took in $20.5 million. Then came The Outsiders, adapted from the S. E. Hinton novel and directed by Francis Ford Coppola; Rumble Fish, another Coppola-Hinton effort; The Breakfast Club; and now, on June 28, the release of the latest matchup of the Brats, St. Elmo’s Fire.
I don’t know why, but I never linked The Outsiders to this era, possibly because it’s based on a beloved novel? It does feature Lowe and Estevez, though. Taps stars Tom Cruise, Sean Penn, and Timothy Hutton, all of whom are included on Blum’s list of Brat Packers. But the term itself came about because Blum noticed a certain brash confidence in Estevez, Nelson, and Lowe, as well as the attention they got from female fans, and I think he retrofit other actors to fit into that idea even if they rarely overlapped. As the story itself notes, its featured Brat Packers barely even knew Hutton. (And, circling back to McCarthy’s comment about Scorsese, Cruise, Penn, or Hutton haven’t been particularly hampered by a lack of attention from top directors; Tom in fact released The Color of Money a year later with, yes, Martin Scorsese.)
As for Blum’s opinion on who the Brat Pack OGs are, here you go, and brace yourself please for his description of Nic Cage:
The Hottest of Them All—Tom Cruise, 23. He first made his mark in Taps, then went on to star in the youth-movie classic Risky Business. The huge success of that movie (it made $30.3 million) gave Cruise the leverage to get over $1 million per movie.
The Most Beautiful Face—Rob Lowe, 21. He first showed it to moviegoers in The Outsiders, then starred in Class and The Hotel New Hampshire. He stars in St. Elmo’s Fire.
The Overrated One—Judd Nelson, 25. He made his reputation as a hood in Making the Grade and The Breakfast Club. And now, in St. Elmo’s Fire, he shows—with his role as a congressional assistant—that he was better off when typecast.
The Only One With an Oscar—Timothy Hutton, 24. He got started ahead of the others as a troubled teen in Ordinary People, then joined the Brat Pack in Taps. Fellow Brats whisper that he’s made one too many flop (Turk 182! was its name) and now must revive his career or risk being forgotten.
The One Least Likely to Replace Marlon Brando—Matt Dillon, 21. Everyone thought he would do it back when he made Tex and The Outsiders, but he eased into a lower gear with The Flamingo Kid, a comedy that did well at the box office.
The Ethnic Chair—Nicolas Cage, 21. A nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, he changed his famous surname—and took out an eyetooth to play a leading role. Birdy, which made his reputation as an actor. His ethnic looks usually land him the part of brother or best friend.
The Most Gifted of Them All—Sean Penn, 24. He is the natural heir to Robert De Niro’s throne; like his mentor, Penn will transform himself for any role he takes. The results have been awesome: from the surfer Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High to the drug dealer Daulton Lee in The Falcon & the Snowman.
Not Quite There: the Two Matthews—Broderick, 23, and Modine, 24. Both are fine actors—Broderick in WarGames and on Broadway, and Modine in Birdy—but both live in New York. The Brat Pack likes them but doesn’t know them. The same goes for Kevin Bacon, 26, the star of Footloose and Diner.
THE ETHNIC CHAIR. Wow, dude. And please note that the Matthews got the “fine actors” label that I think would have pleased McCarthy infinitely, had he been mentioned in that breath. But he was not. You may, in fact, notice that he’s not on that list at all. In fact, considering this article and the term it coined have apparently haunted McCarthy throughout his life, it may surprise you the most to learn he does not feature meaningfully in it at all. His name appears only once, in an admittedly snarky little blind item whose source I am dying to know and whose name I suspect rhymes with either Blemilio Schmestevez or Mudd Gelson:
“This word ‘hot,’” says Judd Nelson, who switched just recently to PMK. “‘Hot.’ ‘Hot’! You can be ‘hot’ and be a shamelessly poor actor. It’s possible, now it’s possible to be at the top for half a second and then disappear. It’s such a strange thing, to try to build a career on this heat.”
And yet that is precisely what they do. For actors so imbued with the ensemble spirit, the Brat Pack members are out for themselves. “Sean [Penn] is crazy with all of his role preparations, becoming the character in every way,” one says. And of Andrew McCarthy, one of the New York–based actors in St. Elmo’s Fire, a co-star says, “He plays all his roles with too much of the same intensity. I don’t think he’ll make it.” The Brat Packers save their praise for themselves.
That is both way harsh, and also an insightful little note about the experience of watching Andrew McCarthy act. No lie detected. Blaine IS Kevin Dolenz IS Jonathan Switcher, and probably also whoever he played in Weekend at Bernie’s. Is that why McCarthy is so mad at this article, nearly 40 years later, even though he keeps saying “thirty”? Is his beef actually with Anonymous Costar? Or did he sincerely not even re-read it to realize he’s not even a footnote? Sidebar: There’s another moment near this in the original piece, after they contemporaneously run into Timothy Hutton (who is searching for Sean Penn), where a “source” is quoted as telling Blum that Hutton’s last three movies bombed and maybe not even his Oscar can save him. The whole thing has the air of either, um, Schmestevez or Gelson leaning over to Blum and whispering, “Off the record, but that dude is fucking it UP.”
I tend to be defensive of journalists who get needled just because they are hired to write a profile, and they don’t deliver one that is unquestioning and glowing. Their job is to report the experience of talking to a person as much as it is what that person says. The concession I’ll make to McCarthy here is that Blum’s article IS snide, and not in a way that feels earned. If anyone had the motive to write something snarky, it’s author Jay McInerney, who makes a cameo because Estevez wanted to meet him — at the time he was adapting Bright Lights, Big City — and whom they appear to ditch at a club. Blum watches that happen, and it’s relevant, but nothing in the way he interacts with the actors seems to justify the way his piece refers to them as Brats and implies that they are self-referential and cliquish. He writes them into a monolith; they all admire the same actors, they’re all cheapskates, they’re all competitors, they’re all shallow, they’re all delusional, they’re all entitled, they’re all okay — an approach that may unintentionally mirror the conclusion of The Breakfast Club, but in a hostile way. You can see why McCarthy fixates on the word “Brat” as a slur against their attitudes, rather than the punny fun I think it was in Blum’s mind. But this is not why Spielberg didn’t call McCarthy for, say, Minority Report. Whom did he call? Tom Cruise.
There is a much better Brat Pack documentary5 begging to be made about which actors are ultimately considered part of it, and why, and whether this catchy branding cemented their fame rather than torpedoing it. From the outside, I tend to agree with Lowe that the infamy — if you think of it that way — was also an enormous leg up in visibility, and that the actors who’ve had lasting careers from that era are the ones who either played it best or had the chops to back up the notoriety. You could make the same argument about the cast of Beverly Hills 90210, or Gossip Girl, who captured the zeitgeist in a similar way in later eras. And I would welcome a documentary about BOTH of those groups, actually, but preferably one by a gifted filmmaker6. Turns out McCarthy isn’t on that list, either.
I know. Maybe the real brat is ME.
— Heather
Kevin Costner’s PR Machine Kicks Into High Gear
Kevin Costner’s Western Horizon opens this week — this is the film financed with thirty-eight million of his own dollars, that he mortgaged his own property to finance, and basically quiet-quit Yellowstone over — and thus, his PR machine is accordingly kicking into high gear with, as befits a celebrity whose heyday was the early 90s, a glossy People cover story.
I haven’t read the interview in its entirety — they wisely have not put the whole thing online, and I haven’t gotten to the newsstand yet — but there’s plenty of it at People’s website, and you imagine the general vibe: Remember how you love Kevin Costner and saw Robin Hood three times in the theater even though his accent was all over the place and it wasn’t very good?7 Remember, you love him? Good news: He’s got a new movie coming out! New Movie = People cover + glossy softball interview is such a go-to PR move for a celebrity of a certain generation, and I must confess that I embrace this retro vibe. Thank God no one tried to force Kevin on TikTok. As you can see on the cover, Costner’s PR even talked the magazine into making ol’ Kev number one on their list of 100 reasons to love America! Ahead of the country’s state parks! Give this publicist a raise!8 This arm of the film’s press push is also a great (and obvious) opportunity for Costner to do some personal PR rehab after this past year’s one-two punch of his messy divorce from both his wife and his hit TV show with the exact people who are likely to go see his movie.
The main gist of the coverage is what a great wholesome Dad Costner is:
“It’s really about the children,” the actor and filmmaker says. “I am still teaching my kids. And by the way, I’m still learning.”
It’s about the children. They’ve taught him more than he’s taught them, guys! He’s just their Uber driver, y’all, constantly ferrying them from volleyball to dance recitals or whatever! He loves spending quiet time with them! He’s just like you, except he casts his kids in his movies and also they go spearfishing on their multi-million-dollar Santa Barbara oceanfront property! The kids are his priority! Costner even notes that his previous divorce was really hard on the children of that marriage, so he was hesitant to get into this last one — although he doesn’t mention that said previous marriage broke up due to his infidelity with at least one hula dancer and was also historically brutal on his pocketbook.
I am sure Costner does love his kids, but also this is very much in keeping with what all famous people tell People about their families; a celebrity could literally be doing Ruthless People at home and they’d still gush to People, “My family is my heart.” My actual favorite part of this interview is Costner’s very vague comment about falling in love again. Remember his EXTREMELY PASSIVE official statement about his divorce? If you need a recap, when he and his wife broke up last year, his PR released a comment reading:
It is with great sadness that circumstances beyond his control have transpired which have resulted in Mr. Costner having to participate in a dissolution of marriage action.
Amazing. I love it. I haven’t seen so much passive language since I learned about passive verbs. Anyway, the person behind that statement surely also had a hand in crafting the following response to a (very softball!) query about whether Kevin’s open to finding love again:
"Yeah, I think everybody would like to be in love," he says. "There's such a good feeling that's associated with that. It may have to be defined in a different way, but yeah, I love the idea of that possibility."
He doesn’t even love the possibility. He just loves the idea of the possibility. The whole statement gives big “whatever ‘in love’ means, anyway” energy and I hope whatever hot 40something blond Santa Barbaran he’s currently squiring around town to upscale Mexican restaurants takes heed. This man is not in a place to get married again! (As a related sidebar, he also clarifies that he has not dated Jewel, as was rumored, although she’s “beautiful and smart enough for all those things.” What good news for her!) If I were Kevin’s publicist, I’d have told him to respond, “I’ll always believe in love9” — can’t you just see that splashed across a cover?! “I Listen to My Heart” is close, but give the hard workers at one of the last good weeklies standing a slam dunk cover line, Kevin! — but, as of this writing, he has not attempted to hire me. His loss! I have so many thoughts.
— Jessica
Congrats, You’re Now a (Theoretical) Entrepreneur
Recently, I stumbled across a very amusing conversational prompt at
(which is, by the way, a constant source of delight; I highly recommend it); she got it from The Art of Noticing, where I believe it originated. It was so fun that I now bring this query to you, although I’ve edited it a bit for my own purposes, as all smart plagiarists do. Picture it: You own a corner strip mall, with spots for four establishments. (The size of the spots, for our purposes, are rather like the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts; you have exactly as much space as you need.) These four businesses can be anything you like. A defunct chain! Something fictional! A functional establishment like a laundromat rather than a restaurant or store! But you do need to think a bit about setting your mini-mall up for at least mild financial success, i.e, you probably should not have four bookstores in a row. After much thought, I’ve decided my strip mall will have:A Noah’s Bagels, because I love Noah’s Bagels and there isn’t one near me. It’s my mini-mall! Also, bagels are delicious.
A Coffee Bean, because everyone enjoys an Ice-Blended. I was a little concerned that there is too much overlap between the Coffee Bean and the Noah’s, but ultimately decided that no one goes to Noah’s for JUST coffee and definitely no one heads to Coffee Bean specifically for a bagel, so I think we can support both of these.
A really, really good newsstand, the kind where you can get all the international Vogues and House Beautifuls and various papers from all over the country, and a bunch of hyper-specific publications like Cat Fancy and Bonsai Weekly and World of Miniatures. Like all good newsstands, this place will also sell bottled water, mini packages of Kleenex, travel packs of Advil and Tylenol Cold and Sinus, and small boxes of Tampax.
A fantastic, independently owned nail salon.
I feel like this setup will be very popular on weekends, when it’s a one-stop shop for you to get a bagel/coffee, buy a People magazine, and then get a pedicure. I am a little worried we’re not going to be sufficiently busy at, like, 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, but hopefully the weekends will make up for this. What’s your mini-mall set-up? Tell us in the comments.
— Jessica
Life Moves Pretty Fast
To quote a non-Brat Pack film starring a fine actor, I thought to myself, “Of COURSE Justin Timberlake got arrested for a D.W.I. on a week when we took Thursday off.” And then I reminded myself that he was arrested after that, and the news cycle is just so speedy that we’ve already churned through every possible hot take and meme about the cop in question not recognizing him and of course the infamous ruin-the-tour conversation.
Now Page Six is reporting that Justin was stopped earlier in the night by the same cop, who let him off with a warning. The source calls Timberlake a “dumbass,” accurate on a number of levels. Look, if J.T. has a drinking problem — and the videos of him at his first concert after the arrest did NOT look healthy — then I don’t want to dunk on him for that, because it sucks for him and his family and he would be VERY lucky if this is as bad a wake-up call as he gets. But I am fine with dunking on him for being primarily concerned about his terrible world tour for his nonentity of a new album, and for not calling an Uber. I get really cranky at the tenor of stories who claim this is just the overzealous Hamptons cops, as if rich people with vacation homes should have a dispensation to drive home drunk in peace.
Police in Sag Harbor are notorious for parking down the block from popular bars like the American Hotel and waiting for patrons to return to their cars. Motorists are followed for a bit, and stopped the moment their car weaves over the lane lines, speeds, or ignores a stop sign or red light.
“Before cellphones and cameras were everywhere, bartenders in the village would call 911 and report a fire or an accident miles and miles away, just so their customers could drive home,” another local law enforcement source said.
MAYBE THEY SHOULDN’T BE GETTING IN THEIR CARS THEN? Sheesh.
— Heather
Some Scheduling Notes!
Good news! Our recaps of The Bear are coming your way soon, kicking off next week.
The entire season drops on Hulu on Wednesday — yes, that’s TOMORROW — at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT. (You are not hallucinating; they pushed this date up a couple of days.) This season has ten episodes, which we will be tackling in two-episode chunks — for many reasons, not least of which is that watching ten episodes of The Bear in like two days would probably be bad for everyone’s cortisol levels. Want in? All recaps are a perk for paid subscribers! We’d love to have you.
Last Call
— Great news! It's time to enjoy the most over-the-top hats of this year's Royal Ascot! I rounded them up at Go Fug Yourself, where you can expect several folks with giant flowers on their heads — although sadly no one this year wore, say, a full English breakfast strapped to her noggin. — J
— File this one under Ew: Former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, 72 years young, has a new girlfriend and SHE IS 23. Even Dave Portnoy, of Barstool Sports, who is himself gross, responded to this news with the following quote: “Yikes. Ew. Wow.” Exactly. Don’t worry, per Page Six, the happy couple “bonded over a philosophy project she was working on” — PRESUMABLY FOR HER COLLEGE CLASS! — and now she’s helping him with “business endeavors.” It’s all cool, though, her ex-boyfriend — WHO IS HIMSELF 64!!! — says she is “wise beyond her years.” That’s what they all say. —J
— Speaking of absolutely insane headlines, here’s a corker at Vanity Fair: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Once Lived With an Emu Who Regularly Attacked His Wife (Now He Just Has Pet Ravens He Feeds Meat Scraps and Yells “Caw! Caw!” To). Everything in this story is — I cannot stress this enough — completely bonkers. One of my neighbors just unfurled a huge KENNEDY 2024 flag and I wonder if he knows about this10. — J
Designing Women forever!
Blum HAS to be like, “REALLY? This was decades ago!!!” —J
I know at least four other Gen Xers who watched this and they all said to me that they just wanted Andrew McCarthy is SHUT UP by the end of it — J
I keep typing Brad Packers. That’s a different thing. Brad Packer caddies for your dad at the country club and makes off-color jokes about women. —H
Ideally one shot by something other than what appears to be an iPhone propped up in the passenger seat of McCarthy’s car, watching him drive past people’s houses and be like, “Wait, did I miss the turn?” Yes, this happened.
I couldn’t fit this into the flow, but: The end of the movie is McCarthy’s phone ringing and him saying, “Judd???” before they cut to the iconic last shot of The Breakfast Club. NICE TRY, DUDE.
In my defense, it was very hot that summer and my parents didn’t have A/C!
Also please let me be a fly on the wall when People staffers heard they had to do this as a requirement for getting the interview. I know someone sighed deeply.
Relatedly, in the past month or so, Kevin Costner has ALSO capitalized heavily on people’s love/nostalgia for Whitney Houston by talking about The Bodyguard and being her protector. He is pulling out ALL the stops for his shitty movie no one liked at Cannes. — H
If he has a Kennedy flag to begin with, surely that headline will only make RFK go up in his estimation —H
My fantasy strip mall would have:
1) a lovely store with local fruits and veggies grown by farmers who have been in the area for generations, and possibly soup. Bouquets, too.
2) An ice cream shop
3) A local roaster/coffee bar
4) Bagels, but also pastries because who doesn’t like a croissant now and then?
5) A bookstore with a good greeting card selection
Here’s an interesting fact about Ally Sheedy. When she was 12, she wrote a book about Queen Elizabeth I called She Was Nice to Mice. Which was awesome but I think sadly it’s out of print now.