Melodramatic, sex-centred brain candy with protagonists that spend way too much time on their hair. Whether in movies or novels, teen pop culture can get a bad rap. And sure, while there may be several dozen (or more) Clueless rip offs out there that doesn’t mean they are the definer of all that it means to be a teenager–in reality or on the big screen.

Enter the Breakfast Club. A gritty, but warm movie with plenty of dandruff skylines, raw emotion and fist pumps that showed me when I was fifteen that it was okay to feel shitty about  my life–and reminds me still today why writing about being a teenager can, and should, go beyond the latest trend in nail decals.

So thank you Breakfast Club,  you inspire me.