'Brats' and the Journalist/Subject Situationship
Andrew McCarthy's documentary on the Brat Pack shows the tenuous threads connecting celebrity and journalism
Like most of us this weekend, I watched Andrew McCarthy’s documentary Brats. Following the rise and rapid fall of the “Brat Pack,” the 1980s band of young actors most commonly associated with John Hughes films, the documentary has received a fair bit of back and forth on whether it’s a vanity project by McCarthy, an attempt to lambast a journalist for doing his job, or a deep exploration into a term that both limited and elevated those associated with it to iconic status.
Having watched the finished product it’s definitely frustrating and should remind everyone why it’s often better for documentarians, separated from the subject, to tell the story. The 90-minute runtime feels like a first draft, with McCarthy taking precious screentime to show himself cold-calling people (it even ends with a key member of the Brat Pack finally returning his call…only for the credits to roll) and reminding everyone, ad nauseaum, how much the term “brat pack” ruined his career, and probably his life. Trust me, no one felt more slighted by the term than Andrew McCarthy. And, dammit, he’s going to tell you why.
But what ended up sticking with me while watching Brats is how it ends up perfectly illustrating the current issues inherent in writing about celebrity today: if celebs don’t control the narrative, they sure as hell don’t want journalists to. It reminds me of that quote from Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lester Bangs in Almost Famous:
You cannot make friends with the rock stars... And they're gonna buy you drinks, you're gonna meet girls, they're gonna try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs. I know, it sounds great, but these people are not your friends. You know, these are people who want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of the rock stars and they will *ruin* rock 'n' roll and strangle everything we love about it.
And, trust me, that’s hard to realize about entertainment journalism. Because everyone is trying to be on their best behavior, and aiming for a good article (however you choose to interpret that), there’s an unspoken hope that by the end of the interview everyone will come out friendly by the end. This has only been intensified as influencers, many of whom make their platform on giving their fans an intimate exploration into their lives, start interviewing celebrities and make that parasocial relationship even murkier. In a way, having influencers fill the void of entertainment journalists is doing exactly what McCarthy was hoping David Blum would do when he wrote the article in 1985: be their friend.
Make no mistake, watching the interview between McCarthy and New York magazine reporter David Blum is about attempting to hold the journalist accountable for what he wrote and it’s kind of cringe-inducing. Even more so if you’re a journalist. McCarthy’s big hang-up is more so the headline “Hollywood’s Brat Pack” which everyone else attempts to tell him is an interesting way of comparing Hollywood’s young up-and-coming actors of the 1980s with the similarly insular cult of cool that was Sinatra’s Rat Pack. And, if anything, Blum himself even says he just wanted something catchy. As someone who struggles with writing headlines — when they aren’t changed by an editor — I’d kill to come up with a phrase like that.
More so, Blum says it wasn’t necessarily him coining the phrase that caused it to take off. It was subsequent media entities that ran with it and, eventually, turned it into a pejorative (though, I’d say it’s more McCarthy who turned it negative than anyone else). How is it any different than today when everyone reads a headline and not the actual piece?
But I can’t ignore the discussion journalistic ethics and the divide between journalist and subject. Blum emphasizes: they were adults. This isn’t a story that altered the trajectory of a group of teens. They were all in their twenties and well aware of publicity. Most importantly, as Blum said at the time, he wasn’t their friend. And what’s funnier is how it remains unspoken that those who participated in the article no doubt thought if they treated him like he was part of the club that he’d be more complimentary to them in the finished piece.
It’s something every profile writer struggles with: where the line is in being objective, even more so when a celebrity is allowing you into their inner circle. The fear of losing access only becomes more overt these days, where even implying a flaw in a celebrity can be enough to get a journalist blackballed from talking to certain talent.
I also have to chuckle at McCarthy thinking this was just an isolated incident. Outside of the Rat Pack comparisons, the idea of coining a term for a group of young people who feel they’re part of an elite club isn’t new. Hell, it wasn’t even new after the Brat Pat. In 1998 New York Magazine would send Nancy Jo Sales — of the Bling Ring fame — to spend time with Leonardo DiCaprio and his friends wherein everyone would learn about his group, the infamous “Pussy Posse.” Sure, it wasn’t the headline of the article but if you grew up in the late-’90s you knew that term.
This is all to say Brats really doesn’t seem to have much objectivity toward the subject, and it would have been a great opportunity to look at the interrelationships within celebrity and journalism, particularly at a time when social media wasn’t a thing and the majority of audiences did receive their news via magazines and newspapers. Instead, we get a decent reunion film and everyone telling Andrew McCarthy he needs to relax and probably get a good therapist.
Brats is streaming on Hulu now.
I often don't read criticism of a movie before watching it, yet I'm glad I read your review of BRATS first. It is odd that McCarthy is so hung up on the nickname now, and back then it was a clever pun. If I was him then, I would've thought it cool to be linked to the Rat Pack. I had the same thought that Pussy Posse was a much worst nickname in all ways. Brat emphasizes youth; Pussy Posse sounds predatory. I'll still watch the doc, but going in I'll know it's flawed thanks to your review.