[Nerdspresso] How I Learned to Forgive the Cast of St. Elmo's Fire

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By Jeff Stanford, Special to Southpoint Access

I saw a movie in my teens that totally messed up my life goals. It gave me really unrealistic expectations for what the future would hold for me after college. I actually think this flick affected an entire generation. It made us all think that we’d graduate and get sweet jobs and fancy apartments and hang out with our friends at fabulous hot spots. Plus, we’d sport awesome hairdos and get to play the saxophone.

Yes, I’m talking about St. Elmo’s Fire.

This movie and The Breakfast Club both came out in 1985 and gave rise to the “Brat Pack,” a clique of winsome young actors that symbolized a new era in Hollywood. For those of us in high school at the time, they were the thespians du jour. I saw more than my share of films starring Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, et al. They were the epitome of cool for this shy suburban nerd. Like the kids say these days, they had major rizz. The kids still say that, right? 

I think many of us youngsters watching St. Elmo’s Fire at the time were dreaming of a future that resembled the one in this film. We would get diplomas from our posh Ivy League universities and then conquer the world with our active social lives and lucrative jobs in banking, journalism, or politics. Maybe we’d get a huge loft that we decorate tastefully with Patrick Nagel prints? Director Joel Schumacher and his charismatic cadre of comely compatriots did us dirty.