‘Brat Pack,’ ‘Nepo Baby’ and How Celebrities Continue to Miss Out on Media Labels

It takes about 30 minutes of writer-director Andrew McCarthy’s new documentary, “Brats,” to realize that it’s not really about anything. Or rather, these are vaguely hurt feelings.

This shouldn’t seem reckless. Celebrities are human and have the right, as much as anyone else, to explore the difficult emotions they have about something that has impacted them — for better and for worse.

“Brats” is trying to have a complex conversation, although it exists mostly in the vibes. The film reflects on the effects of the “Brat Pack” nickname, given to a group of young white movie stars in the 1980s, including McCarthy, by journalist David Blum in a 1985 film. New York magazine article.

It was an homage to the “Rat Pack,” which referenced an equally popular but ’40s and ’50s group of artists – including Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin – this was a catchy phrase to describe highly successful superstars/friends who They often partied and worked together.

According to to the legendIt was actress Lauren Bacall who originally came up with the otherwise throwaway name when she found Davis, Frank Sinatra, Martin and the others partying with alcohol in Las Vegas one night and said, “You look like a damn pack rat.”

Then she turned and walked away, probably.

OK, that last line was added for effect. But also to highlight a phrase that Bacall probably instantly forgot. Davis, Sinatra, and the others were highly respected and successful throughout the end of their lives, seemingly unaffected by the “Rat Pack” label.

However, McCarthy has a different perspective on what happened to him and his group. Or that’s what he intends to articulate in “Pirralhos”.

Yes, he and his peers — including Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez — were making big money, going to clubs and often co-starring in films like “St. Elmofire.” But they were also, according to the director’s biggest complaint, serious actors.

They appeared in major films such as “Ordinary People” from 1980, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” from 1982, “The Outsiders” and “Risky Business” from 1983, and “Back to the Future” and “The Breakfast Club” ,” from 1985. McCarthy feels that the article and nickname that accompanied the actors in other interviews, which he includes in archival form in the film, did not capture this.

For what it’s worth at this point, Blum’s article does a great job of putting the reader right into the scene, shining the actors right where they are (a busy scene at the Hard Rock Cafe in Los Angeles, to be exact) – which is the mark of any great writing. This captures the fact that they are young, excited about Hollywood, and having a lot of fun with their newfound fame.

What it doesn’t do is create a particularly flattering image of the stars. They seem a little fickle and self-centered. For example, Estevez checks out a nearby “Playmate of the Month.” He’s also sometimes sarcastic, complete with a list of Brat Pack superlatives, like “Hottest of all-Tom Cruise, 23” or “Most talented of all-Sean Penn, 24.”

It’s cheeky and shows that a traditionally older Hollywood has seemingly suddenly given birth to a previously elusive class of young actors in their 20s who were thriving.

To put this into a more current perspective, consider it along the lines of how Elle magazine recently published its “Hollywood’s Rising Class of 2024”Package highlighting the new, young stars on the block. Blum’s article strips away the veneer, but achieves something similar.

From a journalistic standpoint, the “Brat Pack” article, which, incidentally, only mentions McCarthy once, is a masterful snapshot that serves as a good reminder that journalists aren’t interviewing stars to be their friends. They are there to tell you the truth about what they see and what you tell them. Just it.

It is a concrete fact that McCarthy only type realizes in “Brats,” although Estevez, who the director interviews in what appears to be a mansion in the film, is the one who raises this point to him. “Brats” follows McCarthy as he attempts to reunite with some of the actors mentioned in or associated with the “Brat Pack” article to hear their thoughts on how it affected them.

All in all, it didn’t seem to have as severe an impact on them as it did on McCarthy’s sense of identity and his own career. Moore, who recently was acclaimed at the Cannes International Film Festival for “The Substance,” adds crucial nuance, reminding McCarthy that they were all young and, for her in particular, juggling ambition and excess. They were far from perfect.

Lowe jokingly asks McCarthy if a certain drunken night happened, alluding to a night Davis himself showed up, during a rare clash of two worlds. Lowe and McCarthy’s conversation infuses the film with a hint of nostalgia as they reflect on hard-learned facts about themselves and the privilege they all enjoyed early in their careers.

The interviews with actors Lea Thompson, Ally Sheedy, Jon Cryer and Timothy Hutton, who work continuously as those mentioned above, are versions of the same thing and once again raise a critical question about “Brats”: what is it really about? ? ? We don’t really get the answer.

McCarthy continues to search for justification for his feelings as he finds “Pretty in Pink” and “St. Elmo’s Fire producer Lauren Shuler Donner, who rightly tells you that “Brat Pack” was one of the best things that actually happened in her career. Because then everyone knew his name.

Bingo. Not every actor can say that.

As if finally coming to terms with what he’s projecting with his film’s title, it’s the scenes that highlight McCarthy’s curiosity and humility that are far more interesting to watch, even if they are few and far between. Like when the director sits down with Blum, who kindly appears in the film and essentially tells him that he would write the exact same article today, after being pressed about it.

It’s clear that McCarthy at this point seeks some kind of recognition of wrongdoing that he never gets. They have a very thoughtful conversation that may or may not have satisfied the director, but certainly crystallizes the obvious misunderstanding between journalist and subject.

Recognition of privilege is something that no one brings into focus more sharply than Ira Madison III, a black and queer cultural critic who is also the only person of color in the entire documentary. Madison tells McCarthy that black people like him, who grew up watching movies featuring members of the “Brat Pack,” were forced to see themselves in his stories. And they often did it with affection.

Frustratingly, McCarthy doesn’t really engage with what Madison is actually saying there. He recognizes this as true, but it would have been up to the director, in the midst of his own apparently obsessed speech about an almost 40-year-old nickname, to also think about the advantages that have been granted to him and that have escaped many others.

There are several discussions that would have deepened “Brats,” which ends up leaving the audience with the question of, well, they were Are they brats, really? Was the label deserved in that way? Considering the way the documentary unfolds, an even stranger question arises: Did McCarthy yet a brat?

Maybe that’s his point, but that would be something of an excuse. There’s a huge opportunity here to really delve into what it’s like to have to struggle, whether you’re a good actor or just famous and young and white? Blum’s article, in McCarthy’s general opinion, does not make this clear.

But that’s how many media labels work. They do not exist to validate the actor or his talent. (This is what your management team should be doing). They are there to interact with their readers and audience, to help identify that person or group of people in a fun and/or truthful way, so that they will be remembered. no way.

Many celebrities are vying for public attention. Not all of them get to be part of a “Brat Pack” or be the “Sexiest Man Alive,” or certainly not a “Nepo Baby,” a phrase that only speaks to an undeniable truth about privilege in Hollywood, but somehow shape still can confuse. These are labels that present some semblance of truth about who they are as celebrities.

At the end of “Brats,” it’s hard to say whether McCarthy truly reconciles this. Actor Judd Nelson, one of several actors he spends much of the film trying in vain to connect with (Ringwald is another), finally calls him back.

Is this conversation just another trip down memory lane to satisfy nostalgia-starved audiences, or another effort for McCarthy to validate his own conflicted feelings? Or will he really feel challenged? We never get to see how the conversation with Nelson unfolds. The film ends there, and so does any hope that anyone will learn anything from this.

“Brats” premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival and will be released on Hulu on June 13.