thumb|From left: [[Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall in February 2025. All four actors are considered members of the Brat Pack.]]Brat Pack is a nickname given to a group of young actors who frequently appeared together in teen-oriented coming-of-age films in the 1980s. The term Brat Pack, a play on Rat Pack from the 1950s and 1960s, was first popularized in a 1985 New York magazine cover story, which described a group of highly successful film stars in their early twenties. David Blum wrote the article after witnessing several young actors being mobbed by groupies at Los Angeles' Hard Rock Cafe. The group has been characterized by the partying of members such as Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, and Judd Nelson.
Genesis of the name
David Blum's New York story, titled "Hollywood's Brat Pack", ran on June 10, 1985. It was originally supposed to be just about Emilio Estevez, but one night, Estevez invited Blum to hang out with him, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, and others at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was a typical night out for the group, who had gotten close while filming St. Elmo's Fire. That night, Blum decided to change the article's focus to an entire group of young actors at the time. The St. Elmo's Fire crew members did not like Blum and sensed that he was jealous of the actors' success.
Blum thought of the term the day after meeting the group, while thinking about a friend of his who was following Grace Jones to different restaurants and referred to his experience as following the "fat pack". At this instant, Blum felt like he was following the Brat Pack: "I wouldn’t call it an inspiration exactly. I did think it was pretty clever [...] these guys definitely fit the bill."
When the piece ran, the actors all felt betrayed, especially Estevez. The article mentioned people in several films but focused on Estevez, Lowe, and Nelson, and portrayed those three negatively. The Brat Pack label, which the actors disliked, stuck for years afterward. Before the article ran, they had been regarded as talented individuals; after the article, all of them were grouped together and regarded as unprofessional.
Some actors went on the Phil Donahue show and called Blum an "unethical jerk". During the show, Richard Schickel said "I really thought that was a scurrilous article.... I really think this is a kind of scuzz journalism.... I’ve been around journalism a long time. I look at a piece like that, and I say, this is really slob work, and he was out to get you." After the show, in the Chicago Sun-Times, Rob Lowe reminded that "He’s not Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe, he’s David Blum living in a cheap flat", and Sean Penn added "Sometimes writers, like actors, like anybody, do their work to impress three or four of their cool friends in SoHo".
In 1987, Blum wrote an unapologetic article on the matter, stating "I do have one thing they don't. A job at a magazine. And that entitles me to the freedom of the press", and mentioning that he could not copyright the term Brat Pack even though he had also written an initial plot for a Brat Pack movie. With this criterion, the most commonly cited members include:
- Emilio Estevez: Identified by Blum's original article as the "unofficial president" of the Brat Pack. According to Susannah Gora, "Many believe they could have gone on to more serious roles if not for that article. They were talented. But they had professional difficulties, personal difficulties after that." By the 21st century, the term Brat Pack had lost its negative connotation.
The films themselves have been described as representative of "the socially apathetic, cynical, money-possessed and ideologically barren eighties generation." They made frequent use of adolescent archetypes, were often set in the suburbs surrounding Chicago, and focused on middle-class teenage angst. According to author Susannah Gora, these films "changed the way many young people looked at everything from class distinction to friendship, from love to sex and fashion to music." They are considered "among the most influential pop cultural contributions of their time."
In 2012, Entertainment Weekly listed The Breakfast Club as the best high school movie ever made. On VH1's 2006 list of the 100 greatest teen stars, Molly Ringwald was ranked No. 1, Rob Lowe was ranked No. 2, Anthony Michael Hall was ranked No. 4, Ally Sheedy was ranked No. 34, and Andrew McCarthy was ranked No. 40.
In 2020, Estevez expressed frustration at the persistence of the Brat Pack name, saying "That [term] will be on my tombstone ... It's annoying because Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Matt Damon have worked together more than any of us have. We just made two movies and somehow it morphed into something else."
In June 2024, the documentary film Brats was released reflecting on the careers and lasting impact of the Brat Pack. Released by Hulu, the film was directed by and stars McCarthy, and features interviews with Estevez, Lowe, Moore, and Sheedy, as well as original article author David Blum and various frequent collaborators.
Filmography
Beyond the two primary films, there is no generally accepted list of Brat Pack movies. While Blum's article credits Taps as the first Brat Pack movie, with C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Grey, Charlie Sheen, Harry Dean Stanton, Patrick Swayze, and Lea Thompson, 1986's Ferris Bueller's Day Off which starred Matthew Broderick with Grey and Sheen in supporting roles and 1987's The Lost Boys with Kiefer Sutherland and Jami Gertz in key roles.
Later acting careers
Many of the Brat Pack members have continued to act past the 1980s.
{| class="wikitable"
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! Photo !! Name !! Career
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| frameless|upright=0.3 || Molly Ringwald ||
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| frameless|upright=0.3 || Rob Lowe ||
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| frameless|upright=0.3 || Emilio Estevez ||
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| frameless|upright=0.3 || Judd Nelson ||
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| frameless|upright=0.3 || Ally Sheedy ||
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See also
- Brit Pack
- Child actor
- Dreamlanders
- Frat Pack
- Generation X
- Splat Pack
- Teen film
- Typecasting