Andrew McCarthy's Brats examines the Hollywood curse of the Brat Pack

There may still be some debate over who, precisely, was part of the Brat Pack (Ally Sheedy? Yes. Kiefer Sutherland? No), but there is little debate over the seismic cultural impact of the informal group and its moniker catchy, which was first coined by David Blums1985 new York cover story.

To the world at large, the term Brat Pack, a cheeky riff on the Rat Pack, was a catch-all way of referring to the young actors who were taking Hollywood by storm. For these emerging artists, however, this nickname was less of a cutesy blessing than a humiliating curse.

Four decades after solidifying their reputation and persona, Andrew McCarthy, one of the cliques' ringleaders, revisits his legacy and its effects, with Kidsa feature-length documentary, premiering at this year's Tribeca Film Festival before premiering on Hulu on June 13. The film chronicles the whirlwind phenomenon and, ultimately, the delicate process of looking back and learning to accept both the good and the good. let go of evil.

For McCarthy, the Brat Pack was shorthand for something horrible. It made us feel like we were lightweights. That we didn't take it seriously, he says in Kids, and the that to which he refers is his profession. Along with Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, and Molly Ringwald (along with many Brat Pack-adjacent compatriots, as Lea Thompson calls herself), McCarthy was part of a group of twenty-something stars who represented a titanic change in Hollywood.

Headlining a wave of films expressly focused on the personal, social and emotional lives of adolescents, they were icons for a new generation and the works that marked their early careersSixteen candles, The breakfast club, Saint-Elme fire, Pretty in pinkAnd About last nightcame to define the youth culture of the 1980s. When McCarthy, at one point in his documentary, compares The breakfast club has The Rye Catcherthe comparison is telling, since for kids of a certain age (and those after), the Brat Packs' signature films were essential expressions of their young adult realities.

According to McCarthy, however, all of this was tainted and overshadowed by the Blum magazine report, which began as a profile of Estevez before morphing into its final form after the author's night out on the town with his subject. McCarthy spends a lot of screen time in Kids explaining to the camera and interviewees that the moment the Brat Pack nickname was born, it immediately entered the zeitgeist and, as a result, changed the way everyone inside and outside it was perceived by those outside the industry.

In his opinion, none of this was positive, because it reduced him and his colleagues to glib bullies who were more concerned with partying than playing. Whether or not this opinion was correct (or even whether people supported it) quickly became secondary to the fact that he felt denigrated (and under pressure to overcome it), and this deleteriously altered his view of himself -himself and his fortune.

Filled with film extracts and set to notable tunes of the era, Kids is McCarthy's first person to reckon with his own path of rise and fall, and it motivates him to reconnect with as many fellow Brat Packers as they are willing to participate. Alas, Ringwald and Nelson are not, and no one even mentions Anthony Michael Hall, which sounds like something close to sacrilege. Still, the rest hangs in the balance, starting with Estevez, who says he spent years avoiding retrospective screenings of his '80s hits because the Brat Pack's reputation interfered with his ambition to become a famous actor/director. like his father.

When asked if he would erase the term from history if he could, Estevez admits that it's a difficult question to answer, because one can only know the known. Is this something we have benefited from? Maybe. But in the long run, I think that's not the case. I think it did more harm than good.

Sheedy also feels hurt by the label, and Timothy Hutton is called the Godfather of the Brat Pack for winning an Oscar in the 1980s. Ordinary peoplesaid he thought it was cheap. Yet as McCarthy continues his investigation, he increasingly recognizes and takes a different perspective on the Brat Pack. Demi Moore doesn't seem at all perturbed by her association with this nickname and by her remark: We were babies! speaks to the fact that their negative reaction had a lot to do with immaturity, especially in light of their hyper-competitive, image-driven activity. Lowe is even more optimistic about the whole period, reminding McCarthy that remembering anything fondly after thirty years or so must indicate that it means something to people.

In Kids In the finale, McCarthy sits down for a long conversation with Blum, who admits to taking some sarcastic jabs at McCarthy and his ilk in the magazine article, but otherwise refuses to apologize for an article and a term that he considered it to be a precise and precise term. entertaining portrait of notable individuals at a specific time.

Do you think you could have been nicer? » McCarthy asks at the end of their conversation. His desire for repentance, alas, remains unsatisfied; while he understands why McCarthy and company might not have liked it, Blum is candid about the pride he felt and feels for the Brat Pack title. Additionally, as he states, his article was about attention-seeking adults and the behavior they chose to display in his presence, and so any blowback was, for him, collateral damage.

In interviews with Jon Cryer, Malcolm Gladwell, Bret Easton Ellis, author Susannah Gora and Independent According to critic Kate Erbland, McCarthy gains a deeper understanding of the formative influence of the Brat Pack films on American children and, by extension, on culture at large. As Kids The convincingly argued, they were and remain beloved bridges that help boys and girls transition from adolescence to adolescence. As such, their lasting value negates the (potential) ugliness of the Brat Pack designations.

Even though it derailed the dreams he once had, McCarthy seems to find some peace with being a member of this exclusive club that never really existed, since they never hung out or even knew each other, understanding that this made him and his famous brothers the very thing. movie actors aspire to be: immortal.