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‘Brats’ Entertainment
What to do when a stupid nickname ruins your life
Does anyone ever like a nickname dumped on them by someone else? What if you have to go through life with everyone calling you Sasquatch? Or Carbzilla? Does Earvin Johnson ever get tired of being Magic?
Since the 80’s actors Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, John Cryer, and Judd Nelson have been super-glued to a handle they despise: Brat Pack.
“I just thought that was terrible instantly. And it turns out I was right,” says McCarthy. “I felt like I had lost control of the narrative of my career.”
Seeking to reclaim some of that narrative decades later, McCarthy gives us the documentary Brats (Hulu), an attempt to make peace with those two obscene four-letter words that will be used in his obituary.
The term came from “Hollywood’s Brat Pack,” a New York magazine article by David Blum published on June 10, 1985. This was back when magazines thought they were celebrities, too.
A snarky, mean-spirited take on a group of young, dumb actors behaving like young, dumb actors, the article landed like a bomb. The toxic “Brat Pack” label was immediately staple-gunned to their foreheads and the phrase entered the language in record speed. It’s one of the…
