The Molly Mob: A Response to Mr. McCarthy Part 2

So, I finally read the infamous "Brat Pack" article from New York magazine from 1985.  It didn't take long.  It was one of those "5 minute reads" as the kids are calling it nowadays.  Here it is, in a nutshell (although it already is a nutshell):

Emilio Estevez is the President of "The Brat Pack," a super clever phrase that I've (author David Blum) invented which I'm going to drop over and over.  Emilio likes to go to clubs with Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson and hang out in Westwood, eat pizza and get into movies for free. The End.  

Really, that's it.  And it really is kind of a hatchet job.  I mean, is it supposed to be some kind of revelation?  Oh, what? Newly famous, newly minted movie stars, early 20 year-old guys like to party, check out girls and get stuff for free?  Wow.  Thank you, New York magazine and Mr. Blum for finally unveiling the truth!  I mean, for such a non-starter article; it certainly started something.  That term, anyways.  The Brat Pack.  Yes, the term was bandied about for much of 1985 particularly in the days leading up to, during and after the release of St. Elmo's Fire.  Let's talk a little about St. Elmo's Fire, shall we?  Oh, do we have to Chris?  Yes, I feel it is germane to all of this. Whatever "this" is.  Well, what is this, Chris?  I guess it's an examination of Pop Culture moment that refuses to be forgotten?  Okay, sure.  Let's go with that.
So, St. Elmo's Fire.  The movie.  And yes, I guess we have to include the song and it's accompanying video by Mr. John Parr.  Just learned he was/is British.  Who knew?  Full disclosure.  Had a crush on him.  One of the first blokes to embrace male nipple love.  Let's take a look!  (Around the 2.00 mark):

Hot!  So why did they pick a Brit to sing what became an anthem about American kids.  Then again, were they kids anymore?  They never really were kids, even when they were playing kids.  They were like in their early 20's.  Almost their mid-20's.  Mr. McCarthy was like 25ish when he was playing Blane in Pretty and Pink.  Cripes, James Spader was pushing 30 when he played "Steff McKee" (and who knew that was his last name?).  Let's take a look!

Team Duckie?  Team Blane?  How about Team Steff?  He was the one Andie really should've been with.  Someone to give her a run for her money with dry sarcasm and wit.  They clearly had the most chemistry.  ASTROLOGY ASIDE: Molly Ringwald and James Spader, both Aquarii.  Let's see what Harvey Sid has to say!

And really, can we just be honest here for a moment.  Get Real?  Team Duckie?  Did anyone for a single second of that movie think that Duckie was "straight"?  Sorry Jon Cryer.  Sorry "Duckie Dale."  Methinks you crushed just as hard on Blane as Andie did.  Maybe even more so.  No "straight" male teen ever said: "Let's plow!" and "...that ensemble is volcanic."
But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Back to St. Elmo's Fire.  And how lazy was New York magazine?  They couldn't be bothered to send a photographer to Los Angeles for dedicated photos for their cover story?  They used outtakes from the movie poster photo shoot?  Yeah they did.  Perhaps Columbia Pictures should be held responsible for some of the fall-out?
​So, let's all have a wheat grass smoothie,  watch the official movie tie-in video and all meet back here later!

Before we explore what is the video to "Man In Motion: The Theme Song From St. Elmo's Fire" (or whatever it is) can I first just say something?  And I'm probably not the first to say this (I mean, my husband first pointed this out to me).  Is Friends not simply St. Elmo's Fire staged as a sitcom?  I mean think about it.  Not too hard.  But think about it.  Ross is the Judd Nelson character.  Emilio Estevez is Joey.  Andrew McCarthy is Chandler.  Ally Sheedy is Monica.  Demi Moore is Phoebe and Mare Winningham is Rachael. Or maybe Rob Lowe is Joey.  I mean, you can play around with it; but there it is.  

Gee, do you think maybe there was a Lowenbrau tie-in?  And what the heck happened to that brand of brew?  Do they even make it anymore?
In the video; and this is surprising because these things were usually just clips from the movie as the Rock Star du Jour played the song; we have the entire cast from the film appearing in what can only be looked upon as supplemental material to the actual film.  Part of the "canon" of St. Elmo's Fire, if you will.  And I will.  As I can't imagine that very many humans in the world today, on the planet earth, are concerned with the canon of St. Elmo's Fire.  But I am, and thus I feel a responsibility; even though (full disclosure) I was never a fan of the movie.  At least a fan in the sense that I thought it was good in a traditional way.  I did enjoy it.  In fact, I very much enjoyed making fun of it with a friend, as we recognized the film's (full disclosure) resounding vapidity.  But, you know, resounding vapidity in a good way!  I mean come on...Rob Lowe as a saxophonist? I mean, I could see him as a sex-a-phoner...
Gosh, remember how popular the saxophone was in the 80's!  It really enjoyed a renaissance in the Big 80's; maybe even more so than the Big Band 40's.  Let's take a look!

I'm sorry Rob.  I love you.  But I can't even pretend to pretend that you're actually playing the sax here.  Now, here is what I think is the ne plus ultra of saxophoning from the 80's.

But you know; someone out there is going to have to be concerned with the canon of St. Elmo's Fire if they really do make a sequel, which is an idea being floated right now.  Of course the original co-writer/director of the movie, Joel Schumacher is no longer with us.  Oh, what to make of Mr. Schumacher?  Well, for one thing, he designed the costumes for one of my all time favorite movies.  Woody Allen's Interiors.  I don't think better use was ever made of the colors beige, gray and olive drab in American Cinema.  I'm serious!  Let's take a look!

Back to the video for the St. Elmo's theme song.  So, we see the cast of actors from the movie, presumably in character, gazing into the front window of Central Perk--err--St. Elmo's bar.  But what's this?  Is the place deserted?  It sure looks like it, based on the fact that there's nothing inside and the actors looking in have looks of pensive concern on their faces.  Oh, and I guess that "Out of Business" sign of the window rather points to this.  Checkered tablecloths litter the floor.  Judd Nelson looks particularly bummed at the 29 second mark.  But wait a second.  Let's pretend it's 1985 and we're watching MTV and this video comes on.  As it's promotional, it would be airing probably a good month before the movie is released.  So, in watching it, we have to extrapolate a few things.  Since we go from a dissolve of the cast in caps and gowns to them standing outside the defunct bar, we can assume the movie is about them and that perhaps this is some bar at which they congregated.  Or a restaurant, since it doesn't say "bar" or "cocktails" on the signage.  And since there's no way can have seen the movie at this point, we have to also extrapolate that this bar being closed figures into the plot of the movie.  But in hindsight, we recall that the bar does not close in the movie.  So, it's a visual metaphor for something.  Something we can't possibly know without having seen the movie.  Who is the man inside, singing?  Is he a homeless person?  This bar seems that it has closed down a long time ago, long enough ago for people to feel comfortable breaking and entering and lighting fires inside steel drums.  Then, this group of young, attractively, expensively dressed young people decide to go inside this abandoned place; apparently to smoke cigarettes, which, is fair enough, since we saw that there was a torrential downpour at the beginning of the video.  Then we see scenes from the movie.  Are they reminiscing about the past?  We can only assume that.  And then they hang out and listen to the man sing about men in motion and men doing things and persevering and prevailing and nothing about women, even though three of them are clearly women.  I guess since this is becoming way more of a deep dive into St. Elmo's Fire than anyone wanted; I suppose we should check out the official trailer.

PSEUDO-ASTROLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS:
Let's break down the main cast of St. Elmo's Fire by astrological signs, for no good reason; perhaps for some filler and maybe for some uncanny bits of Universal universality.  And these are the signs of the actual actors.
Judd Nelson as "Alec Newbary":   SAGITTARIUS
Ally Sheedy as "Leslie Hunter":   GEMINI
Emilio Estevez as "Kirby Keger":   TAURUS
Mare Winningham as "Wendy Beamish":   TAURUS
Andrew McCarthy as "Kevin Dolenz":   SAGITTARIUS
Demi Moore as "Jules":   SCORPIO
Rob Lowe as "Billy Hicks":   PISCES
Now see, we already have some interesting patterns forming here.  We've got two Sagittarius' and two Taurus'.  We've also got Ally Sheedy, who is a Gemini, playing a character sexually/romantically involved with the two Sagittarius characters.  Gemini, is the twins, if you will recall.  And Sagittarius is the balancing sign of Gemini.  Gives an interesting dynamic to the very dynamics of the plot, doesn't it?  Coincidence?  You tell me, Universe.  But can we ask, why doesn't Demi's character "Jules" have a last name?  Was she supposed to not have a last name?  Was she doing a kind of "Cher" or "Charo" or "Prince" type thing.  I mean, that would've made a kind of sense, as that was quite the 80's thing to do; and her character sort of epitomized the whole 80's zeitgeist dynamic.  It was quite popular with the gays.  I recall several acquaintances renaming themselves with single name monikers.  This guy named, like Kevin Jones renamed himself "Abraxis."  It was a thing.  Yes, Demi's "Jules" might very well have been on the cover of a Duran Duran LP.

And isn't it nice to know that they've found Rio after all these years?  But that's for another blog.  I wonder if Patrick Nagel was gay?  I just looked it up.  He probably wasn't.  But it didn't keep me from making assumptions; much like Jules made assumptions about Mr. McCarthy's character, Kevin, in the movie.  You see, all of these plot points regarding the movie are coming back to me as I write about it.  These things are unbidden; but God help me, they're there.  Still stuck in my subconscious.  How many effing times did I watch it?  Which brings me to this plot point, and now I have to vent about it.  And it's sad, because the movie's director and co-writer is responsible for it.  Perhaps you recall the early 80's.  There weren't just the films coming out(!) about teens; but also about gay people.  It was right after Cruising and just before AIDS.  It was like 1982, pretty much.  There were a handful of movies about gay people that seriously examined gay life and didn't treat gays as freaks and worthy of derision and death.  Making Love comes to mind.  And Personal Best, a movie which seems to have been completely forgotten.  I mean, we could probably look at Can't Stop the Music (1980) as a pro-gay movie.  Not a very good one; but definitely a "pro" one.  But once AIDS came along, that all got dashed on the rocks of fortune.  There was a gay backlash in films.  We didn't just go back to square one, we went back to the 50's.
Recalling the plot of St. Elmo's Fire from forty years ago, without the benefit of having recently rewatched it, I remember there was a plotline involving Demi's neighbor.  A gay man she was friendly with.  He may even have been her hairdresser or something.  Demi assumes, that because Andrew doesn't and hasn't had a girlfriend pretty much the entire time she's known him, that he's gay.  He's actually in love with the betrothed-to-Judd-Nelson, Ally Sheedy character; which is why he hasn't dabbled with other ladies.  Demi then tries to fix him up with the neighbor.  I recall Mr. McCarthy's acting choices in regards to this storyline and his interactions with the actor playing the gay man were really quite mean spirited.  His anger seemed real.  Too real.  I recall it bordered on cruelty.  This may be one of the reasons why I have negative feelings about the film on a core level.  I'm just gonna say it; that whole thread of the movie was nasty.  Was Mr. McCarthy directed to behave this way towards the gay character?  Directed by a gay man?  If so, why?  I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now.  Nobody's ever apologized for it, either.  And what became of the actor who played this character.  Let me do a bit of research.  I'll be right back.  Please hold...

Yeah, okay...so I'm pretty sure this is him.  Actor Matthew Laurance who played "Ron" the gay guy.

He has the sad, set apart eyes typical of the Piscean.  Yeah, I kind of remember his character seeming bewildered whenever he was on camera.  Perhaps an acting choice or more than likely actual confusion.  They better bring him back in any future "reboot."  And wouldn't it be great if Ron and Kevin did end up together, after all?  *SIGH*
Shall we keep going with this?  I guess we have to.  Let's take a look at what was playing at the movies when St. Elmo's Fire came out, in the summer of 1985:

Remember when theaters would tout the success of a movie.  Often by proclaiming how long it had been playing.  Like: "10TH SMASH WEEK!" or like pointing out that Cat's Eye is a "HIT."  And who knew Don Ameche got top billing for Cocoon?  Well, good for him!  And I never did see A View to a Kill (and I love Bond movies).  But I did see the Duran Duran video a couple of thousand times!  Let's take a look!

Okay, so let's just go where this takes us.  You may recall that the "Love Theme" from the film (or whatever) was released as a single as well.  I don't know if there was a video; but I found this.  I don't know if this is canon or fan created; but you can kind of watch the movie in three minutes (believe me, you do not need to hear the dialogue).  This also gives you an idea of the photographic quality of Mr. Schumacher's films, which was always top notch.  And this is the work of DP Stephen H. Burum, who worked with Brian DePalma a lot (one of my favorites).

Yes, Joel Schumacher gave good visual; but did he give good story?  Did he give good insight into the human condition?He did give us Bat Nipples, which I, for one, am forever grateful for.  I wonder if Mr. Parr inspired him?

Please see: Brats Part 3: The John Hughes Effect for further investigation into this exciting topic!

​CFR   6/23/24