This past weekend the cast of The Breakfast Club reunited — 40 years after that fateful detention day. Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall and Emilio Estevez all got together on Saturday, April 12 for a panel at C2E2, a pop culture convention in Chicago, to reminisce with fans over John Hughes’ beloved 1985 film.
During the panel, that was moderated by Josh Horowitz, Ringwald was asked to share her take on the fan response to Sheedy’s big makeover scene in the coming-of-age film — and she had some thoughts.
“I just want to say that I am not responsible for the makeover,” Ringwald told the Chicago crowd. “And I was really not happy.”
The pivotal scene in question sees goth “basket-case” Allison (Sheedy) get a makeover from Claire (Ringwald), who disposes of Allison’s dark, oversized clothing, pulls her hair away from her face with a frilly ribbon, and dresses her in soft, pink tones. It’s drastic enough to make Andrew (Estevez) sit up and ask, “What happened to you?”
Over the years, some fans on social media have asked the same question about the makeover scene but in a much more critical tone, adamantly voicing their dislike over Claire completely changing Allison’s style. And Ringwald agrees.
“I thought that it would’ve been better just to strip off all of the makeup and just have Ally’s face fresh-scrubbed because it’s so beautiful,” she said at C2E2t. “I didn’t like the way that they did her hair at the end… I was not responsible.”
But not everyone resents the The Breakfast Club makeover scene. Nelson defended the moment, pointing out that the reasons for it are addressed in the dialogue.
“Those people don’t understand, it’s explained in the scene. ‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘Because you’re letting me,'” he said, parroting the conversation between Claire and Allison. “That’s why.”
While Sheedy didn’t weigh in on the makeover during the reunion, she has previously admitting to pushing back on it during conversations with Hughes. While the writer-director did incorporate some of her feedback, the scene remained.
“I don’t know if John wrote that or it was a studio thing that they wanted Allison to go from being very plain to being suddenly very glamorous. I didn’t like that,” Sheedy told Elle back in 2015. “I had come up with this thing about her black eye makeup and very pale skin so I thought, ‘Could it be more that she’s taking this mask off?’ John did give me that and they didn’t really put a whole bunch of makeup on me; it was more about revealing who Allison is. I wish it had been a little more of that and a little less of, ‘Let’s make her pretty.'”
The makeover trope is, of course, a staple of ’80s rom-coms and coming-of-age movies. But while many other ’80s movies end with the female character realizing that true beauty was within them all along, The Breakfast Club ends soon after Allison’s transformation, with her new look winning over Andrew. It’s a storyline that, especially in recent years, has irked fans new and old.
As for a re-do of the makeover scene in a sequel? Despite fans’ hopes for a The Breakfast Club sequel, the group said another film was not in the foreseeable future for them out of respect for the late Hughes, who directed the classic and several other films of that time.
“It was something that was conjured and thought about,” Hall shared, referencing one of his last conversations with the film’s director. And while he and his costars were enthused on the idea, they agreed they wouldn’t do it without Hughes at the helm.
