Modern day Breakfast Club?
October 24, 2017 11:46 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for stories of people from diverse backgrounds who bond together and form a community.
"Bonding of diverse people" should be central to the story, not incidental. Movies preferred, but other media could work. Either fiction or non-fiction is fine. The Breakfast Club is a good example, but I'm hoping to find something less dated.
"Bonding of diverse people" should be central to the story, not incidental. Movies preferred, but other media could work. Either fiction or non-fiction is fine. The Breakfast Club is a good example, but I'm hoping to find something less dated.
Best answer: Station Eleven (book)
"Because survival is insufficient"
posted by Flannery Culp at 11:52 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
"Because survival is insufficient"
posted by Flannery Culp at 11:52 AM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
You may find some hits in my earlier question about movies where women win.
Immediately coming to mind are A League of Their Own (except for the dated bit, though friendship and baseball are eternal) and Pitch Perfect.
posted by phunniemee at 11:53 AM on October 24, 2017
Immediately coming to mind are A League of Their Own (except for the dated bit, though friendship and baseball are eternal) and Pitch Perfect.
posted by phunniemee at 11:53 AM on October 24, 2017
Those Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies? The TV series The Good Place.
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:54 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 11:54 AM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Pacific Rim
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:12 PM on October 24, 2017
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:12 PM on October 24, 2017
Hotel (Hotell) is a Swedish movie by Lisa Langseth about a group of very different people who meet in therapy and decide to run away to a series of hotels to practice radical acts of self-therapy.
posted by acidic at 12:15 PM on October 24, 2017
posted by acidic at 12:15 PM on October 24, 2017
TVTropes will ruin your life. I went to find it based on the assumption that there would be some kind of a trope and that it would probably be linked off of the Leverage page, so that's my top suggestion, but I was kind of surprised to find that the trope really is named Breakfast Club. That page also links Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, which is similar. Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the examples given of the latter, but I'm not sure if superheroes in space is what you're looking for.
posted by Sequence at 12:26 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Sequence at 12:26 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
The good place!
posted by heyforfour at 12:36 PM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by heyforfour at 12:36 PM on October 24, 2017 [9 favorites]
"A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry is an excellent novel. Takes place in India in the 1980s, around economic inequality and the assassination of then-president Indira Ghandi.
posted by entropone at 12:40 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by entropone at 12:40 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
All the DC shows, like Flash, Super Girl, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, etc. A lot of beautiful, thin people with different backgrounds coming together to fight the bad guys. They're on Netflix.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:45 PM on October 24, 2017
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:45 PM on October 24, 2017
Avatar: The Last Airbender is a pretty good example. There's even a major plot-twist addition to their group late in the series. The Legend of Korra is a little less so, but there's still a pretty unsubtle "you cannot do it alone, you'll need everyone" theme through it. Nthing The Good Place as well.
Oh, and the comic Lumberjanes, which has a very diverse cast of characters who come together at summer camp and wind up taking on three-eyed foxes and dinosaurs and hipster yetis. Very strong "friendship to the max!" theme with the characters drawing on each others' strengths and perspectives. I cannot recommend the issues Noelle Stevenson wrote highly enough. That series is a part of my family's DNA now.
posted by middleclasstool at 12:46 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Oh, and the comic Lumberjanes, which has a very diverse cast of characters who come together at summer camp and wind up taking on three-eyed foxes and dinosaurs and hipster yetis. Very strong "friendship to the max!" theme with the characters drawing on each others' strengths and perspectives. I cannot recommend the issues Noelle Stevenson wrote highly enough. That series is a part of my family's DNA now.
posted by middleclasstool at 12:46 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Gravity Falls!
posted by thirteenthletter at 12:51 PM on October 24, 2017
posted by thirteenthletter at 12:51 PM on October 24, 2017
The Walking Dead is more a group of diverse people who yell at, act suspicious of, and attempt to kill one another. It's a terrible example imo.
my suggestions:
the Fast & Furious movies
Inception
Sense8
posted by mannequito at 12:53 PM on October 24, 2017
my suggestions:
the Fast & Furious movies
Inception
Sense8
posted by mannequito at 12:53 PM on October 24, 2017
Sens8.
posted by liminal_shadows at 1:10 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by liminal_shadows at 1:10 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
This is half of the original concept for Survivor. 16 Americans placed on an island, to build a new society.
(The other half is the voting people out.)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:13 PM on October 24, 2017
(The other half is the voting people out.)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:13 PM on October 24, 2017
Best answer: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
What? They're diverse. There's a rugged farmgirl, a fashion diva, a wizard nerd whose life had revolved around study, a recluse who can only relate to animals, a tomboy with aspirations to join an elite military unit, and a happy-go-lucky party girl who was raised by a family of pony Mennonites.
Their friendship perseveres through clashes of personality and differences in background on many occasions, including:
Neat vs. Messy
Reclusive vs. Fame-seeking
Traditional vs. Completely Different Traditional
These clashes aren't constant. But the characters are consistently presented as very different from each other, and their differences are something that makes their friendship stronger.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 1:13 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
What? They're diverse. There's a rugged farmgirl, a fashion diva, a wizard nerd whose life had revolved around study, a recluse who can only relate to animals, a tomboy with aspirations to join an elite military unit, and a happy-go-lucky party girl who was raised by a family of pony Mennonites.
Their friendship perseveres through clashes of personality and differences in background on many occasions, including:
Neat vs. Messy
Reclusive vs. Fame-seeking
Traditional vs. Completely Different Traditional
These clashes aren't constant. But the characters are consistently presented as very different from each other, and their differences are something that makes their friendship stronger.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 1:13 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Sense8 was already suggested. It has 2 seasons on Netflix; there'll be a single-episode finale sometime next year to wrap up the story. Highly recommend, much awesome, worth watching twice because wow does it change once you know what's going on.
Almost any superhero team or adventure-team story can have this, but the story focus is likely to be on "join together against a common enemy" rather than team bonding. However, fanfic exists to fix that! At AO3, scifigrl47 has two series, In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family Was Assigned by Nick Fury) and the related Phil Coulson's Case Files of the Toasterverse , which have the Avengers team-as-family adventures. (Also, sentient toaster. Can't go wrong with a sentient toaster.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:33 PM on October 24, 2017
Almost any superhero team or adventure-team story can have this, but the story focus is likely to be on "join together against a common enemy" rather than team bonding. However, fanfic exists to fix that! At AO3, scifigrl47 has two series, In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family Was Assigned by Nick Fury) and the related Phil Coulson's Case Files of the Toasterverse , which have the Avengers team-as-family adventures. (Also, sentient toaster. Can't go wrong with a sentient toaster.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 1:33 PM on October 24, 2017
Wouldn't this be Firefly?
posted by praemunire at 2:04 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 2:04 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Also, Ocean's 11.
posted by praemunire at 2:05 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 2:05 PM on October 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
People have already mentioned Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place, but this is basically Michael Schur's (show runner of both) deal and I'm now realizing this is one reason I like his shows so much. Parks and Recreation is another.
Post-apocalyptic stories tend to be good for this. My current favorite is The Passage trilogy, contains several iterations of this trope.
posted by lunasol at 2:13 PM on October 24, 2017
Post-apocalyptic stories tend to be good for this. My current favorite is The Passage trilogy, contains several iterations of this trope.
posted by lunasol at 2:13 PM on October 24, 2017
A large part of Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache mystery series is about this very thing—the diverse community of the hidden village of Three Pines and the “department of outcasts” Chief Inspector Gamache has gathered that comprise the homicide unit of the Surete. Over the course of the series these two communities intermingle and include one another.
posted by epj at 2:14 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by epj at 2:14 PM on October 24, 2017 [3 favorites]
Nthing Community, Brooklyn 99, Parks and Rec, Leverage, and Avatar. Adding:
- Dead Like Me: Misfit grim reapers who have work meetings in a diner every morning. TV show, same showrunner as Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies and Hannibal.
- Runaways: A group of teens who barely tolerate each other discover that their parents are not just friends but supervillains in an apocalyptic death cult. (You could just wait until it becomes a Hulu series in another year or so, but the comic is a modern classic for a reason.)
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is made up of a bunch of mini-series all set on the same world, and most of them fit this to some extent or another, especially the City Guard and Witches branches. If you're not familiar with the series try the standalone novel Monstrous Regiment, and then Guards! Guards and/or Wyrd Sisters if it suits your fancy.
posted by bettafish at 3:26 PM on October 24, 2017
- Dead Like Me: Misfit grim reapers who have work meetings in a diner every morning. TV show, same showrunner as Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies and Hannibal.
- Runaways: A group of teens who barely tolerate each other discover that their parents are not just friends but supervillains in an apocalyptic death cult. (You could just wait until it becomes a Hulu series in another year or so, but the comic is a modern classic for a reason.)
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is made up of a bunch of mini-series all set on the same world, and most of them fit this to some extent or another, especially the City Guard and Witches branches. If you're not familiar with the series try the standalone novel Monstrous Regiment, and then Guards! Guards and/or Wyrd Sisters if it suits your fancy.
posted by bettafish at 3:26 PM on October 24, 2017
I looked up Square Pegs, and realized it was on over 30 years ago, so it is probably rather dated, but is otherwise a good fit.
posted by zorseshoes at 5:14 PM on October 24, 2017
posted by zorseshoes at 5:14 PM on October 24, 2017
Science fiction okay?
I got a recommendation for The long Way to a Small, Angry Planet here on MeFi and enjoyed it. Very diverse (different species).
posted by kristi at 9:17 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
I got a recommendation for The long Way to a Small, Angry Planet here on MeFi and enjoyed it. Very diverse (different species).
posted by kristi at 9:17 PM on October 24, 2017 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks, guys! These are all helpful. I've marked as best answers the once most likely to fit into my project.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:01 AM on October 25, 2017
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:01 AM on October 25, 2017
The OA. There are two parallel storylines with two different groups of people. This is not suitable for your children.
posted by AFABulous at 10:22 AM on October 25, 2017
posted by AFABulous at 10:22 AM on October 25, 2017
Recent BBC Food Programme on Eating with Strangers.
posted by sagwalla at 3:35 AM on October 26, 2017
posted by sagwalla at 3:35 AM on October 26, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by goatdog at 11:49 AM on October 24, 2017