In a post on Writer Unboxed, Julianna Baggott examine a recent documentary about the group of 80s actors nicknamed the Brat Pack and what writers can learn from its lessons.
You probably remember them – Anthony Michael Hall, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy, Ally Sheedy, et al. The group name was coined by a journalist who spent time partying with Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson, and decided that an entire generation of young actors was overprivileged and unprofessional. The name stuck, affecting each of the actors differently. “The film is instructive because it’s not about how criticism landed on one person and their career,” Baggot says. “It’s a research study about how criticism affected a group of people, each reacting in their own way.”
The film follows Andrew McCarthy, who took the criticism heavily, to the detriment of his career, as he approaches his fellow Brat Packers to inquire about their reaction and how it affected them. Rob Lowe and Demi Moore seem ok with it. Other have struggled with the weight of the expectations.
“One issue facing creatives is that so few people are willing to talk about failure, real or perceived, so our narratives are skewed and our models for how to deal with rejection and failure go missing,” Baggott writes.
Ultimately, Demi Moore gives McCarthy some insight he could have used when he was younger. The Brat Pack name affected him because he let it. She suggests that there was no backlash or expectations, other than what each actor placed on themselves. Each decided what the term meant for them, for good or ill. Because McCarthy expected to be stabbed in the back during his career, he absorbed the group name as an attack, undermining his confidence and career.
What does this mean for writers? Baggott suggests six things to consider:
- Identify the writing anxieties you carry and develop workaround strategies should the worst occur.
- Identify your enemy and try to see them in a different light.
- Lower or reinterpret the value of what you fear.
- Understand that friction and obstacles arise in everyone’s life and anticipate it in yours.
- Use that friction to energize your work.
- Own your narrative.
