You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation [Hardcover]

Susannah Gora (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 9, 2010

You can quote lines from Sixteen Candles (“Last night at the dancemy little brother paid a buck to see your underwear”), your iPod playlist includes more than one song by the Psychedelic Furs and Simple Minds, you watch The Breakfast Club every time it comes on cable, and you still wish that Andie had ended up with Duckie in Pretty in Pink. You’re a bonafide Brat Pack devotee—and you’re not alone.

The films of the Brat Pack—from Sixteen Candles to Say Anything—are some of the most watched, bestselling DVDs of all time. The landscape that the Brat Packmemorialized—where outcasts and prom queens fall in love, preppies and burn-outs become buds, and frosted lip gloss, skinny ties, and exuberant optimism made us feel invincible—is rich with cultural themes and significance, and has influenced an entire generation who still believe that life always turns out the way it is supposed to.

You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried takes us back to that era, interviewing key players, such as Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, and John Cusack, and mines all the material from the movies to the music to the way the films were made to show how they helped shape our visions for romance, friendship, society, and success.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The phrase was coined by David Blum in the headline Hollywood's Brat Pack, heralding his cover story for the June 10, 1985, issue of New York magazine with its cover photo of Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson. The label stuck, Gora notes, and extended to describe other actors: Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, and Anthony Michael Hall. A former editor at Premiere, Gora guides the reader through the creation of the teen cinema of the 1980s, described by the American Film Institute as the cultural phenomenon which helped make us what we are today. To recall the era, she interviewed two dozen actors, plus the directors and producers behind the Brat Pack's memorable movies, including The Breakfast Club, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo's Fire and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. As Gora sees it, The films changed the way many young people looked at everything from class distinction to friendship, from love and sex to fashion and music. Writer-director John Hughes's ability to capture adolescent angst is highlighted. The 1980s youth films maintain their popularity on TV and DVDs, and Gora gives them near-encyclopedic, comprehensive coverage. (Feb. 9)
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From Booklist

Concentrating on the making of such seminal films as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, Say Anything, Home Alone, and, of course, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Gora’s celebration of writer-director John Hughes (1950–2009) tends to be exhaustive and often exhausts. Gora cites the New York Times’ A. O. Scott on Hughes—he “was our Godard”—and Roger Ebert’s characterization of him as “the philosopher of adolescence” to orient her essay exploring what she calls cine-sociology, “the concrete sociological impact that movies can have on our lives.” She discusses the origin of the sobriquet Brat Pack, offers biographical portraits of Hughes and many of the actors most associated with his movies, discusses the music of the so-called Brat Pack films (it was a crucial factor in their success), and considers how the Brat Pack films changed a generation. Although probably too self-important for its own good, this is still a must for Hughes admirers and students of American pop culture. --June Sawyers

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Crown Archetype; 1 edition (February 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307408434
• ISBN-13: 978-0307408433
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun and Lightweight, March 21, 2011

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Ria Darling (the Midwest) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation (Paperback)

Other reivews of this book convinced me to buy it and they're very on target. It's not full or pictures and the interviews prove that hindsight is 20/20, but there is a gossip-feel to it. It's not a serious film text and it's not People magazine but somewhere in between. For someone like me who saw the films a million times it's interesting to hear about how the characters were formed and the filming and how it all came together. A really enjoyable read and each chapter stands on its own.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Not Ignored, May 8, 2010

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Gail K. Powers "Abra" (Harbor Country, Mi,N. Naples, FL, Chicago area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation (Hardcover)

This was a truly addictive read. Author Gora has broken down the fascination that we had and continue to have for movies directed at the teen audiences of the '80's. While providing running synopsises of the movies that captured audiences when they were made, Gora has interviewed the actors, writers, and directors and assorted key players that made the movies inordinately popular box office blockbusters.
Reading this book helped me to revisit the movies themselves. I think that a certain amount of distance enhanced the experience of reading this book. Gora informs her reader that John Hughes extracted a lot of what went into his scripts from real life experiences that happened to himself and his friends. One occured when a friend of his took Hughes and their girl friends to the Union League Club in Chicago because the friend's father had a membership there. I roared because anyone who has ever been there would know that the Union League Club is one of the stodgiest exclusive clubs west of Boston. And so it goes that Ferris Buehler became the sausage king of Chicago.
The term 'brat pack' was bandied about a lot when these films were made, but there seemed to be solid evidence from the actors that there was an extended family of sorts forged and many of these relationships exist in one form or another today.
While it wasn't all love and kisses while these films were being made, for the most part these productions became classic examples of really good ensemble acting and it all worked amazingly well.
The major suprise that the book had for me was that this book was not all about John Hughes who died in 2009. This book looked at other popular teen movies made in that era. One film analyzed was a critical failure SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. I really liked that one quite a bit and thought it has held up well.
Another element included in this book were short bios of many of the key actors who have managed to have solid adult careers. It gave me a sense of who they were and the process they used to make these parts work from their perspective.
This book was thoroughly researched and well-written. If you are interested in film criticism, teen movies, or the cinema of John Hughes and his contemporaries, I think you would find this book a good choice.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Hughes movies rule, April 12, 2010

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Lee Lee (Australia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation (Hardcover)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Susannah clearly has an enormous appreciation for John Hughes and his work as shown by the depth of her information. It was amazing to hear stories from the actors about things I had no idea about and found their insights throughly fascinating. The movies are timeless and although John Hughes is no longer with us (RIP) his work continues to live on through his fans and their love for his movies which represent a time and a place (the 80's) like no one else.