SAVE JEANIE

May 31, 2016 6:08 AM

"Jeanie is actually 100 percent correct in her assessment that Ferris has been cut way too many breaks in life and should be held to a higher standard. In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, she’s not just a petty, jealous sibling, she’s a female voice of reason raging against a society that demeans her and disregards her opinions." - On the 30th anniversary of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a reflection on the overlooked Jeanie Bueller.
posted by The Whelk (169 comments total)

I was in another country when this film originally came out, so I didn't see it in the midst of the immediate hoopla/hysteria. I saw it perhaps a year or two later; I was still a teen though.

And you know what? I absolutely could not STAND that self-important arsehole Ferris from the very first time I saw the film. I totally related to his sister's frustration with him always "winning" and no one ever seeing him for the narcissistic egomaniac that he was. He was the epitome of entitlement (a word I didn't know/use then, of course).

And I could never understand WHY the HELL anyone would think he was cool, or someone to emulate. He was a dick, through and through.

Team Jeanie forever!
posted by Halo in reverse at 6:15 AM on May 31, 2016 [33 favorites]

Jeanie is really something - - she's like the wind. I always looked at her with hungry eyes and can honestly say that when I've been with her I've had the time of my life.
posted by fairmettle at 6:15 AM on May 31, 2016 [80 favorites]

not quite sure how to reconcile this with fight club reading
posted by klangklangston at 6:17 AM on May 31, 2016 [16 favorites]

Every generation seems to invert the stories of the previous generation, finding villains in their heroes.

It used to be the Chuck Jones Road Runner cartoons. I remember seeing a piece once that surveyed Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers about the Coyote and the Road Runner. Boomers invariably identified with the Road Runner, their children with the Coyote.

Same as it ever was, I guess.
posted by Naberius at 6:19 AM on May 31, 2016 [21 favorites]

And you know what? I absolutely could not STAND that self-important arsehole Ferris from the very first time I saw the film. I totally related to his sister's frustration with him always "winning" and no one ever seeing him for the narcissistic egomaniac that he was. He was the epitome of entitlement (a word I didn't know/use then, of course).

THANK YOU. Ferris is a smug, destructive dickbag. I spent the whole movie wondering when he was going to start becoming slightly self-reflective and halfway likable and it never happened. I wanted to smack that little shit's face every time it was on screen. Still don't understand the appeal.
posted by Anonymous at 6:21 AM on May 31, 2016

I had a spoilt younger male sibling who always got his own way so when I watched this for the first time I could relate to Jeanie* but I still rooted for Ferris. Revise all you want, people, he was cool and you know it!!1 My socially anxious self would have given my right arm for his complete ease with the world.

*i call her Shona

also that scene with Charlie Sheen still makes me cringe all the way to my insides because I could also relate to being a total nerd around boys
posted by billiebee at 6:24 AM on May 31, 2016 [12 favorites]

Drugs.
posted by gwint at 6:35 AM on May 31, 2016 [14 favorites]

I loved this movie (which I'm pretty sure was the first one I ever saw in the theatre twice) so goddamn much when it came out, but...yeah, as an adult the last time I watched it most of what seemed charming and suave about Ferris when I was in grade six seemed smug, entitled and often irresponsibly reckless. It's very well-cast and made, and the performances are good, but in 2016 it's like White Privilege: The Movie.

I'm always going to have a crush on Mia Sara, though.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:35 AM on May 31, 2016 [22 favorites]

Yes. Ferris is a monster, a gloriously entertaining monster, but a monster nonetheless. However, Charlie Sheen's advice to Jeanie is the truest thing in the movie. "You oughta spend a little more time dealing with yourself and a little less time worrying about what your brother does." It's like a koan.
posted by wabbittwax at 6:36 AM on May 31, 2016 [55 favorites]

It really is White Privilege: The Movie! I love it when articles like this come out that make me rethink the movies I loved when I was a kid. It's really interesting and eye-opening.
posted by Kitteh at 6:37 AM on May 31, 2016 [14 favorites]

However, Charlie Sheen's advice to Jeanie is the truest thing in the movie. "You oughta spend a little more time dealing with yourself and a little less time worrying about what your brother does."

Pity it had to come from the character most like Ferris in the entire movie.
posted by Etrigan at 6:38 AM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

Anyway, Jeanie doesn't need saving. She's got her father's gun and a scorching case of herpes.
posted by wabbittwax at 6:38 AM on May 31, 2016 [30 favorites]

> Whatever Ferris wants, Ferris gets, with the exception of his own car (arguably a significant exception). That really irritates his sister, Jeanie Bueller, whom the movie paints as a bitter, angry young woman eager to see her lovable brother finally get his comeuppance.

Jeannie was the original Frank Grimes.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:38 AM on May 31, 2016 [26 favorites]

I have always been Team Cameron when it came to FBDO. I knew that I would never be as cool as Ferris (and yeah, that some of the things he did made him kind of a jerk). Cameron always seems to marvel that Ferris gets away with everything but then again, he gets to be Ferris' friend and doesn't have to be the sibling.

I do like the perspective of the article and the acknowledgement that some of the things that are played for laughs when it comes to Jeanie aren't actually all that funny because they're true. If it does shine a little light on the female perspective, all the better because maybe it makes up for some of the not-so-great things that Hughes wrote into 'Sixteen Candles' - I just watched that again recently and Jake and Farmer Ted are a little problematic too.

(Also, Cameron wears a Red Wings jersey all over Chicago - yes!)
posted by Gronk at 6:39 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pity it had to come from the character most like Ferris in the entire movie.

But he's kind of like the flipside of Ferris, because clearly he DOES get caught and will have to face some consequences.
posted by wabbittwax at 6:39 AM on May 31, 2016

Boomers invariably identified with the Road Runner, their children with the Coyote.

Wow, this whole thing is completely batshit to me. Of course the Coyote is the good guy. He's the lovable loser, proof that the best-laid schemes of mice and men etc., a demonstration that sometimes the game is just fucking rigged. The smug suggestion that "kids today" (15 years ago) just love to feel oppressed is madness.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:40 AM on May 31, 2016 [32 favorites]

I read the coyote more as a dupe of technology and an agent of corporate violence
posted by thelonius at 6:44 AM on May 31, 2016 [23 favorites]

Yep, that's the piece! Thanks uncleozzy.
posted by Naberius at 6:47 AM on May 31, 2016

Of course the Coyote is the good guy. He's the lovable loser, proof that the best-laid schemes of mice and men etc., a demonstration that sometimes the game is just fucking rigged.

Wile E. Coyote buys weapons in the pursuit of resources, rather than simply buying the resources. Good guy or not, he's definitely American.
posted by Etrigan at 6:50 AM on May 31, 2016 [27 favorites]

"Oh, hello Jeanie- who's bothering you now?"
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:51 AM on May 31, 2016 [10 favorites]

Yeah but the freeze dried Road Runners are harvested and packed by slave labour.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:52 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Jeanie is really something - - she's like the wind. I always looked at her with hungry eyes and can honestly say that when I've been with her I've had the time of my life.

So, you're saying no one should put Jeanie in the corner, basically.
posted by briank at 6:56 AM on May 31, 2016 [20 favorites]

The Road Runner is barely even a character! Aside from occasionally stopping to gawk at his predator's failures or startling him with a "beep beep," he could be easily replaced by a pizza on a skateboard with no real loss to the story.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:57 AM on May 31, 2016 [35 favorites]

Oh, and for extra credit consider: At what point exactly did The Simpsons stop being a show about Bart and start being a show about Homer?
posted by Naberius at 7:00 AM on May 31, 2016 [13 favorites]

Y'all really like talking about this movie, don't you?
posted by jonmc at 7:00 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jeanie is really something - - she's like the wind.

We have to put up the whomper!
posted by pwally at 7:00 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

So, you're saying no one should put Jeanie in the corner, basically

Let's see if she can carry a watermelon, first.
posted by TwoStride at 7:00 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'd really identify with a pizza on a skateboard.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 7:01 AM on May 31, 2016 [11 favorites]

No, the Road Runner definitely takes a certain joy in defeating Wiley. There are several moments in the cartoons where he goes out of his way to ensure that the destruction is total.

I always liked both of them. I wished Wiley would stop chasing and just try to be friends.

(Ferris Bueller was insufferable from the first moment he opened his sneering asshole mouth.)
posted by Scattercat at 7:01 AM on May 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

Never a fan of this movie. was an adult when I saw it first. So condescending towards parents.
little more than mouse brained dimwits...the movie has no soul...
posted by judson at 7:01 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I never really saw Jeanie as the bad guy in the movie. Her anger at Ferris is entirely justified and I felt that way even when I was 10. The bad guy is clearly the principal because adults, amirite?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:02 AM on May 31, 2016 [9 favorites]

I always had a soft spot for the girl on the bus with the gummy bears.
posted by TwoStride at 7:04 AM on May 31, 2016 [11 favorites]

So did she.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:05 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

I really don't get people's hatred of Ferris/this movie. But as long as they lay off of Wargames, I can let it go.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:09 AM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

I love Wargames, too, but between it and Ferris, Matthew Broderick = smug prick in my mind to the point where I actually assume it's true.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:11 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Road Runner is barely even a character! Aside from occasionally stopping to gawk at his predator's failures or startling him with a "beep beep," he could be easily replaced by a pizza on a skateboard with no real loss to the story.

IT'S MEEP MEEP YOU MONSTER
posted by beerperson at 7:11 AM on May 31, 2016 [53 favorites]

The bad guy is clearly the principal because adults, amirite?
posted by soren_lorensen

Authority is what I would have said. And yes, while entertaining and fun, Ferris was a smug twat.
posted by djseafood at 7:11 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

IT'S MEEP MEEP YOU MONSTER

*ahem*
posted by wabbittwax at 7:17 AM on May 31, 2016 [19 favorites]

At what point exactly did The Simpsons stop being a show about Bart and start being a show about Homer?

"Like the concept of the show once focusing on Bart, the widespread idea that it later did the same to Homer can probably be blamed on the fads of the time. As the initial mania over Bart t-shirts and the like faded, Homer became the natural face of the show in the public’s mind. After all, he’s the dad on a family comedy, and family comedies have long been defined by their dad characters. The show itself was always remarkably consistent; the only thing that really changed was the way people thought about it."

There never was a shift to Homer.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:19 AM on May 31, 2016 [10 favorites]

It really is White Privilege: The Movie!

The scene where Ferris belittles the waiter is especially cringeworthy.

There was a great essay on this subject on the late, great 'Whatever, Dude'. Key to the theory that the sister was right and Ferris is an asshole is that Ferris only has one altruistic moment towards his friends -- when he's willing to take the blame for the car. But even then, it's half-hearted, and it's probably offered only knowing that Cameron won't take him up on it, anyway.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:21 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have always been Team Cameron when it came to FBDO.

Cameron is the film's stealth protagonist, because he, unlike Ferris, changes because of the film's events -- he decides to stand up to his father and take the heat for wrecking the car. Cameron shows his strength of character in not getting away with something even when he possibly could -- Ferris, hastily, did offer to accept the blame.

By the way, I knew someone in college who idolized Ferris Bueller. He wound up in jail.
posted by Gelatin at 7:22 AM on May 31, 2016 [23 favorites]

But I like to think that someday, maybe after they’ve finished college and are both working in Chicago while Ferris jet-sets around the world in his career as an international assassin (or perhaps, begins his gig as a fry cook on Venus)


Rather than the Fight Club theory, I'm a proponent of the Election theory of future Ferris. After just sort of skating through college, and then bumming around for a bit, Ferris settles for a teaching certificate, and winds up having his own encounter with a narcissist with boundary issues and poor impulse control.

(although, Tracy Flick is actually more of a combination of Ferris' arrogance and unexamined privilege, and Jeanie's rage)
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:23 AM on May 31, 2016 [25 favorites]

I should add that Ferris' only possible saving grace is in the interpretation that he's doing the whole thing for Cameron, not for himself, but the film only supports that theory weakly.

Speaking of characters who change, Jeanie does get the dual triumph of both having Ferris dead to rights and letting him off the hook with one of the most awesome winks in film history.
posted by Gelatin at 7:26 AM on May 31, 2016 [8 favorites]

Did anyone else read Jeanie as the younger sibling? Did it ever say in the movie who was older?
posted by fiercekitten at 7:28 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

She has to be either the younger sibling or a twin. Ferris is in his final year of high school. Jeanie is also in high school, so she's not older. unless they were born 10 months apart in the same calendar year I guess.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:29 AM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

I've always read her as older, but that's probably because I've got an older sister and projected. Farris is a Senior, so she'd have to be at least close enough in age to also be a senior, or be younger to still be in High School.
posted by The Man from Lardfork at 7:29 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Wile E. Coyote buys weapons in the pursuit of resources, rather than simply buying the resources. Good guy or not, he's definitely American.


"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Give that same man a gun and others will feed him for a lifetime."
posted by sourwookie at 7:31 AM on May 31, 2016 [11 favorites]

Ferris Bueller's Day Off should be mandatory watching for anyone dealing with a suspected sociopath. Yes Ferris is a totally smug prick coasting on his charisma as a way to avoid any sorts of consequences for his actions. Some people realize that he's an awful awful human being but rather than just avoid him they try to get even with him without realizing that they are just lowering themselves in the process.

Ferris will undoubtedly get a job as a trader on Wall Street or Chicago and make lots of money and spend it on drugs and prostitutes and other things as he tries to negotiate his way into adulthood but his fundamentally lack of empathy for just about everyone will force him to continue to use and discard people.

I can totally see Ferris calling up Cameron to get some help disposing of some bodies (maybe Sloane's) and Cameron will totally go for it.

So yeah Ferris Bueller is basically a high-school age Patrick Bateman that hasn't descended into the depths of depravity yet.
posted by vuron at 7:31 AM on May 31, 2016 [13 favorites]

As long as we're looking at 80's films through the lens of time, can you imagine how unwatchable The Breakfast Club would have been if cast with actual whiney 15-year-olds?
posted by sourwookie at 7:32 AM on May 31, 2016 [9 favorites]

Gelatin: "By the way, I knew someone in college who idolized Ferris Bueller. He wound up in jail."

Put milk in first, did he?
posted by chavenet at 7:32 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I will not partake in the Ferris hate. Ferris is a guy who simply embraces life and opportunity. He's clever and confident, which trails into smugness, but I don't think Ferris is or should be considered a bad guy. His sister's anger comes, in part, out of sibling jealousy, and its also sibling affection which results in her covering for him at the end. I expect Ferris ends a travel writer or something.

Save Ferris.
posted by Atreides at 7:35 AM on May 31, 2016 [31 favorites]

I'd always thought the only satisfying way to watch the movie was by understanding Ferris as a Manic Pixie Dream Boy fueling Cameron's character development. "Allegory of male privilege" is an intriguing alternative.
posted by babelfish at 7:35 AM on May 31, 2016 [17 favorites]

I thought Broderick's casting in Election was a deliberate reference to Ferris and where he could have wound up after high school ended. It seems like the sort of thing Alexander "Everyone Sucks" Payne would do.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:36 AM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's really not fair to say Ferris lacks empathy. During the scene where Cameron goes (fake)catatonic and Ferris addresses the camera about their respective futures he shows some real concern for Cameron's lack of self-confidence.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:40 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've come to think of Ferris as Cameron's Willy Wonka, an impossible fairy figure who presents certain challenges to the real protagonist. But that's probably giving Hughes a bit too much credit.

I think Hughes comedies are a product of a time when everything about adolescence was labeled destructive and pathological. Games, music, sex, art, cruising, fiction, sports, depression, autonomy, anger, and drugs were all things that needed to be put under strict parental or school control. So it's not a surprise that the "escape from suburbia" movie was a big thing in the 1980s. The protagonists are Cameron and Jeanie for being depressed and angry within an American subculture that tried to smother those problems out of existence in ridiculous ways.

As time moves on, I think harsher, more bitey movies do it better. "Desperately Seeking Susan" in my opinion has emerged as the best escape from suburbia movie, primarily because it focuses so clearly on gender roles. "Heathers," in my opinion offers a more explicit satire of how Tipper Gore culture was just so fucking patronizing when it came to adolescence. ("Teenage Suicide, Don't Do It," is perfect black humor for those of us who attended suicide prevention rallies.)

And of course, John Waters.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 7:40 AM on May 31, 2016 [34 favorites]

I watched this recently and as a grown ass lady who has ideas on social justice, this movie was funny as hell and also misogynistic (just the whole set up of Ferris, he is such a fucking asshole, really), homophobic (queer coding the waiter), racist (Ferris talking to the car lot attendant), ableist (Ferris is going to tell Cameron just to smile his shit circumstance away) and ageist (every adult is made out to be a buffoon).

But all that said my 12 year old son was able to see all the problems with the movie and still derive it's central truth, which is to live your teenage years with as much panache as you can muster because youth is fleeting.

And Jeanie truly is the Tumblr generation writ large across that movie, the chorus of a future to come. She is the self awareness in the movie.

So I think of the movie less about discrete characters and more each person plays a role in a singular human consciousness. This movie IMO is about the battle of youth against growing up, unaware playfulness against having to wake up and face the world of one's own making.

And let's remember that Jeanie is the one swift kicks adulthood right in the face, which basically represents staying young in your heart forever and facing the world with a steady determination to not "be that guy" (Ferris).
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:45 AM on May 31, 2016 [27 favorites]

Ferris as White Privilege: The Movie is one of the smartest, most incisive ideas I've read in recent memory.
posted by latkes at 7:47 AM on May 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

What's always made Ferris great (apart from its perfect use of Yello's "Oh Yeah") is that it was never just about the title character, but an ensemble movie. Jeanie, Cameron and Mr Rooney are all dealing with Ferris's nonsense in different ways, and they're all sympathetic characters. Even Ed Rooney, the "buffoon". Watch it again, with this article's reading of Jeanie in mind, and think about what Rooney must have been putting up with to drive him to these extremes.

That's why Ferris and Election make the perfect double bill. Matthew Broderick has become Ed Rooney, and the circle is complete.

My main problem with Ferris seeing it the first time and again twenty years later (in said home-DVD double bill) was that Hughes could have done more with the girlfriend as a character, and that the Day Off itself was a little too compressed-into-montage; another scene or two would have made it feel to the audience like the best day ever, rather than just being told it was.
posted by rory at 7:47 AM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

They saw the whole city! They went to a museum, they saw priceless works of art! They ate pancreas!
posted by Chrysostom at 7:52 AM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

Ferris's character is a fantasy. Jeannie's is way too close to reality to cycle that high on humor, especially for female viewers that have seen male privilege in action. Recent examples of the Unfortunately Female Foil are the sister in The Goldbergs (which is Very 80's) and the sister in Phineas & Ferb, which is on my kids-do-not-watch list because it comes off as being awful social programming about women. penguins of Madagascar (Marlene) redeemed itself with a few episodes that debunked female gender essentialism. I am Team Jeannie & will enjoy Ferris after the post-rehab/post-prison transformation occurs.
posted by childofTethys at 7:53 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

The 30th anniversary of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — which falls on June 11, but was commemorated with this past weekend’s Ferris Fest in Chicago

Hope it ends up kicking off an annual Bloomsday type celebration where enthusiasts dress in period fashion and trace the journey Ferris takes around Chicago.
posted by kersplunk at 8:05 AM on May 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

The movie is really about Cameron and his anxiety. Ferris is his magic pixie. Ferris doesn't change substantially from beginning to end of the story. Dream or not---I tend to not as Ferris has an existence with Jennine outside of Cameron too.
posted by bonehead at 8:08 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hope it ends up kicking off an annual Bloomsday type celebration where enthusiasts dress in period fashion and trace the journey Ferris takes around Chicago.

You feel that traffic in downtown Chicago is not sufficiently congested?
posted by wabbittwax at 8:08 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Another reason why I put "Susan" above the rest of the escape from suburbia genre is that the city in "Susan" feels more like a city than a theme park of wacky experiences.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:11 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

I stand by my earlier comment on FBDO.
posted by Mchelly at 8:11 AM on May 31, 2016

There are people who think the Road Runner is the protagonist?

Oh, they're all Boomers. That makes more sense. Road Runner's success is entirely accidental and a product of circumstances not under his direct control, either through the incompetence of Wile E.'s schemes, or through the convenient suspension of what had previously been ironclad rules. Wile E. paints a tunnel onto a sheer cliff face, and doesn't screw it up? No problem, Road Runner will just run through it like it's real, and when Wile E. tries to pursue him, SPLAT. The next generation is reaching the age of majority and is facing an economic crisis? No problem, Reagan will just gut the social safety net, and when Gen X tries to find the same unskilled middle-class jobs their parents had, SPLAT.
posted by Mayor West at 8:14 AM on May 31, 2016 [57 favorites]

I have always been Team Cameron when it came to FBDO.

Cameron is the film's stealth protagonist, because he, unlike Ferris, changes because of the film's events

I'd always thought the only satisfying way to watch the movie was by understanding Ferris as a Manic Pixie Dream Boy fueling Cameron's character development.

Same.

But then, I've always been a mildly depressed semi-shut-in with dad problems who never got the girl, so my perspective on the movie is definitely coloured by the fact that I can completely relate with the Cameron character.

Anyway, I'm 100% here for this article's take on Jeanie Beuller. And on Ferris, who was always kind of a dick to Cameron, even if he did accidentally help the latter to a moment of catharsis with his father.

Did anyone else read Jeanie as the younger sibling? Did it ever say in the movie who was older?

She does read as the older sister, maybe because of the way the movie casts her as a fuddy-duddy snitch. Perhaps they're twins?
posted by tobascodagama at 8:18 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cameron is the film's stealth protagonist, because he, unlike Ferris, changes because of the film's events -- he decides to stand up to his father and take the heat for wrecking the car. Cameron shows his strength of character in not getting away with something even when he possibly could

Ferris is a catalyst for those around him. Yes, he's a smug asshole jerk and I want to punch his face in; but this movie is about Cameron. And Jeanie. And maybe even principal Rooney.

The title is misleading, because every day is a day off for Ferris. Every. Fucking. Day. He's a privileged asshat who has never had a day on. But...what everyone else kind of learns is that they need to take a day off from Ferris, because he's fucking toxic. He's the Roadrunner, untouchable and unbeatable. And the answer is not to chase him or chase after him and what he represents, but to focus on what they need to do. The hard work about themselves that they ignore because of fucking Ferris Bueller. Cameron needs to stand up to his father. Jeanine needs to focus on herself. So does Rooney, but he never gets his arc closed if I remember. Sloane...well, I kinda feel that Sloane only exists to help prop up the image of Ferris as the privileged asshat who has had everything just fall his way, so not much to work with there.
posted by nubs at 8:19 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

As a kid, I sympathized with both Jeannie and Cameron (walking around Chicago in a Gordie Howe jersey? Boss.). It didn't make me dislike Ferris, though. Ferris is like the Tom Bombadil of Cameron's life.
posted by praemunire at 8:22 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

Jeannie was the original Frank Grimes.

No, she was Lisa. Ferris is Bart, but instead of Springfield they're in Chicago, and the family is better off financially. Ferris' acting out reflects the need for validation that neither his nor Bart's family could provide.
posted by krinklyfig at 8:23 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

In the shooting script, Jeannie (Jean / Jeanie) is explicitly the older sister:

His older sister, JEANIE, walks into the room. She's dressed for school. She's cute and stuck-up. A major pill.

However, they're both cited as 18 in the same script.
posted by Etrigan at 8:29 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

However, they're both cited as 18 in the same script.

That's a serious case of Irish twins.
posted by suelac at 8:32 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

Count me among the "Fuck Ferris Bueller" crowd. When I first saw it, I was absolutely horrified that the Mia Sara character seemed to think that the highest honor she would ever achieve in her life was to marry this smug, miserable little prick.

This picture is really the cinematic personification of the Reagan 80s: its philosophy is pretty much that having a cool car and making a lot of money is the only important thing in life, and only a chump would think otherwise. It's right up there with "Sixteen Candles" in the pantheon of vile John Hughes movies that everybody inexplicably loved in the 80s (actually, that's all John Hughes movies, come to think of it). Although in fairness, Sixteen Candles is actually a lot worse.
posted by holborne at 8:36 AM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

I recently worked on a show about "Election" and one of the comments was about the casting coup of Matthew Broderick. There's a definite attempt to comment on the Ferris connection throughout the movie.

If you notice, one of Broderick-as-teacher's catch phrases in the movie is "Anyone? Anyone?" - same as Ben Stein in FBDO.
posted by fungible at 8:40 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

I recently worked on a show about "Election" and one of the comments was about the casting coup of Matthew Broderick. There's a definite attempt to comment on the Ferris connection throughout the movie.

I always kind of felt that Election showed where Ferris wound up.
posted by nubs at 8:44 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've come to believe that Ferris is a low-power Zebediah Killgrave, the way he just sort of takes over people's lives, even those of brief acquaintance (see the parade scene, for example).

In reality, of course, it's really all about John Hughes' suburban-kid preoccupations and prejudices. Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles is such an offensive caricature because Hughes didn't know any Asian kids growing up, or at least any that were actual exchange students or FOB. John Bender from The Breakfast Club is such a grating parody of a working-class kid because ditto; at best, Bender is acting out some notion of what he thinks a working-class kid is like, but he's from the same upper-class family background as the rest of them. And Ferris cuts class to go into the city for the day, but thinks that he's really going to stand out in a city of three million.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:46 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Most of the comments seems to look at Ferris as a psychopath or as the embodiment of white privilege, but I think both kind of miss the point of the movie. Yes, he lies about all kinds of things for his own benefit and yes, he gets away things in part because he is a white teen in the 80s, but the thing driving the whole story is everyone's interaction with the Rules of Society.

Go to school, don't lie, definitely don't take the car, definitely don't go to the city and have an adventure. People that follow the rules and don't get satisfaction from it are driven nuts by Ferris... not for breaking rules, not even for getting away with it, but for getting a greater satisfaction out of life than they can ever achieve. Ferris shows them that the rules they follow are arbitrary and that's why Rooney and Jeanie go insane - everything they believe in is undermined by his actions and THAT'S why they take it so personal.

I think Ferris has his own personal code of morals he abides by and isn't a heartless psychopath (though he might be their hero) since he does show concern for his friend and not just for show. He gets away with things because most people want to get away with breaking rules that don't matter much and are inspired by his point of view. Jeanie letting him off the hook at the end means she has finally loosened her adherence to the Rules, for the better.

Honestly, the movie might have been better if Ferris did get caught in the end and was suspended and grounded for two weeks. Because then he could sneak out the window to see his girlfriend again. The point is not about "getting away with it" but living beyond the rules others put on us and that we put on ourselves.
posted by lubujackson at 8:46 AM on May 31, 2016 [28 favorites]

Jeanie would be pissed at how much play Ferris is getting in this thread. Just sayin'
posted by childofTethys at 8:49 AM on May 31, 2016 [13 favorites]

The screenplay would like to believe that Ferris is a closet punk protesting Reganite hegemony and the use of conspicuous consumption as a proxy for intimacy. But since Ferris is trivially affected by that (in contrast to Jeanie and Cameron) and does the same to Cameron, it really doesn't work out that way.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 8:59 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

which is to live your teenage years with as much panache as you can muster because youth is fleeting.

When I was a teen, this attitude made me so depressed. I could not be Ferris as a teen, I didn't even want to be, and my teen years were never my "best," I was a fucking mess who knew almost nothing and feared everything.

In terms of physical shape, middle age is not the best, but in terms of giving no fucks, finding great great friends, knowing what I like and seeing through bullshit? It's badass.

But first I had to dislodge the crap programming that "once you're over 18, your best years are behind you." The hell they were.
posted by emjaybee at 9:06 AM on May 31, 2016 [42 favorites]

White Privilege: The Movie

Around 2008, I taught in a predominantly black high school in south Seattle. On the last day of school, with me doing mostly wrap-up paperwork, I offered to let my students (juniors) watch films. I'd brought in some DVD's, and among them were Ferris Bueller and the Breakfast Club. As I'd become much more sensitive to inclusion in media as an adult than I was when I was a kid, I kind of shrugged and apologized and said, "These are great movies, but they're admittedly really, really white."

Unanimous verdict: "That's cool, Mr. K, put it on!" We went with Ferris.

I didn't try to make sure they were watching. Again, last day of school, I didn't even really mind cell phones that day. Then one kid picked up a call from another student who hadn't shown up, and I heard him say, "Nah, it's cool, you're not missing anything. Mr. K's showin' us some movie about white people."

I've never been able to watch a "teen movie" the same way since.
(I'm repeating this comment from an older thread. Seemed relevant.)
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:15 AM on May 31, 2016 [37 favorites]

I never watched the movie growing up but found it bittersweet as a young adult in college. Ferris was a smug a-hole, but when he talks about getting married to his high school girlfriend you know he's just blustering in the face of an uncertain future.

Unfortunately, I never liked Jeannie, but I was always a let-it-roll-off-your-back type of gal.
posted by stoneandstar at 9:19 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've always thought of Ferris Bueller's Day Off as a celebration of that magical time in a kid's life between about 16 and 18, when they are old enough to (sort of) fend for themselves but young enough to not yet have any real responsibility.

Kids react in different ways to that time of life. You can follow the rules out of fear of the consequences (Cameron), rage against the unfairness of it all (Jeanie), go along with the cool kids without any agency of your own (Sloane), or you can take the bull by the horns and make the most of it (Ferris). Yes, none of this changes the fact that Ferris is also kind of an asshole, but that's part of his process.

I also agree with those who say that the movie is really about Cameron, who is the character who changes the most, as a result of Ferris's Manic Pixie Dream Boy behavior.

The important thing, however, is that the movie is not meant to be taken literally. It is literally impossible for anyone to do everything in that movie during one school day. It's basically magical realism, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez for upper-middle-class white teenagers.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:24 AM on May 31, 2016 [12 favorites]

I knew a guy in college who was a dead ringer for Cameron. Every year for Halloween he just wore a Gordie Howe sweater. That's all I've got.
posted by dudemanlives at 9:29 AM on May 31, 2016 [8 favorites]

When I was a teen, this attitude made me so depressed. I could not be Ferris as a teen, I didn't even want to be, and my teen years were never my "best," I was a fucking mess who knew almost nothing and feared everything.

Youth is fleeting but that doesn't mean your life is over, it just means the hangovers don't hurt as hard when you're 19.

(says the 42 year old parent who can still ollie higher than almost every teen skater kid at the skatepark)
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:42 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

We all seem to hate this movie, but we've had a couple zillion threads about it. Why not a cool teen movie, like Dazed and Confused, Over the Edge or even Fast Times' forgotten sequel, the Wild Life. All of which were more like my teenage years than fucking Ferris.

Esp regarding money, the only working teenager in any Hughes movie is Molly Ringwald working at the hip record store.
posted by jonmc at 9:52 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

My assumption re: Ferris and Jeanie was that they were twins, FWIW, since that would make the contrast in their personalities funniest (and also seemed to be the most logical way for the whole school thing to work).

I suppose if I really thought about their childhoods my assumption is that Ferris was the "challenging" kid and Jeanie the "easy" kid. Maybe Ferris was trouble, maybe something happened to him, whatever it was his parents felt the need to dote and fuss and cut him slack. Whereas Jeanie was just more capable, or less trouble, or consistently better behaved or whatever.

The "easy" kid often ends up with a nasty double-bind: your parents simultaneously expect more from you and provide less for you. Once you're a teenager this means you have twice the responsibility and half the freedom, and that is a bullshit deal for a teen. So the "easy" kid becomes the angry, alienated teenager. But the parents pretty much never notice, because who pays attention to the "easy" kid? Until they end up in the police station.

Dang, I guess I have more ideas about affluent suburban parenting kicking around in my head than I thought.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:54 AM on May 31, 2016 [29 favorites]

My little brother (who *also* got away with everything) and I used to watch this just so we could rewind and rewind and rewind the part where Jeanie screams and kicks the principal in the head. I've probably seen that 100 times now and I laugh every time, still.
posted by sallybrown at 9:56 AM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

We all seem to hate this movie

[Citation needed.]
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:57 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I love this movie. That's what makes the close reads and hot takes so cool.
posted by latkes at 10:07 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Y'all really like talking about this movie, don't you?
posted by jonmc at 7:00 AM on May 31 [+] [!]

We all seem to hate this movie, but we've had a couple zillion threads about it.
posted by jonmc at 9:52 AM on May 31 [+] [!]

Dude. We don't come into your threads and knock The Dictators out of your mouth.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:10 AM on May 31, 2016 [20 favorites]

We all seem to hate this movie, but we've had a couple zillion threads about it.

You're still here?
posted by beerperson at 10:12 AM on May 31, 2016 [16 favorites]

We all seem to hate this movie, but we've had a couple zillion threads about it.

I love this movie! One of the best things about it is how much I fucking hate the purported hero.
posted by babelfish at 10:22 AM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

I still love the scene at the Art Institute with the Dream Academy's version of "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want," and Cameron staring into Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte – 1884.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:27 AM on May 31, 2016 [16 favorites]

For anyone in the Baltimore/Washington area, Ferris Bueller will be the opening film in the Flicks From the Hill outdoor movie series at the American Visionary Art Museum, on July 7. Food trucks, cool people, always a great time.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 10:42 AM on May 31, 2016

The scene at the Art Institute. John Hughes commentary on the museum scene.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:44 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

To be honest, I think Ferris is a wannabe Coyote as Trickster, the character from Native American mythology, played on the Simpsons by Johnny Cash.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:45 AM on May 31, 2016 [11 favorites]

To be honest, I think Ferris is a wannabe Coyote as Trickster, the character from Native American mythology, played on the Simpsons by Johnny Cash.

I have not read a sentence anymore beautiful than this so far today.
posted by Atreides at 10:50 AM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's probably only due only to the fact that Broderick played both rolls, but for some reason Ferris Bueller and David Lightman (of War Games) are tied together in my head. And they are pretty similar characters. They're both smart alecs in school, are good with computers (they both hack into their school's computer to fix something) and seem to be on a path to just glide through highschool. Lightman, however, screws something up bigtime, is forced to be clever and not just smooth and smug and faces the results of his actions. He actually grows a bit from the experience (how could you not from almost ending the world?) as opposed to seeming to expect to slide through life without any issue.

As to the Road Runner, I will point out that one of the greatest comic book authors, Grant Morrison, who is on the front end of Gen-X wrote what I consider the best take on Wiley E Coyote I've ever read. The Gospel of Crusty is #8 in his run on Animal Man and essentially turns the Coyote into a Christ figure. He suffers for the rest of us, in the comic to bring peace to his world, in our world to bring joy to us. (Also, he has caught the Road Runner once (not in the Family Guy abomination) to typical fruitless effect.)
posted by Hactar at 10:53 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think another possibly fun reading of Ferris and Jeannie's relationship is that maybe they are Step Siblings of basically the exact same age. That might explain Ferris's behavior some as many parents in a step sibling arrangement might become overly permissive of one sibling and at the same hold up ridiculous standards for the other sibling.

In this reading I imagine that Ferris is probably a total creeper and Jeannie hates having to deal with him because no matter how she complains about his behavior he gets away with it.

it might also explain how her parents trust her with a car but Ferris is a senior without a car.
posted by vuron at 11:01 AM on May 31, 2016

The parents gave her a car because they didn't want to drive the kids around anymore, which is why most parents of highschoolers give them cars, in my experience. And if Jeannie has a car she can take Ferris places, so why buy another?
posted by emjaybee at 11:30 AM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

And if Jeannie has a car she can take Ferris places, so why buy another?

FWIW the mom was planning to buy Ferris a car, except Jeannie getting arrested caused her to "lose the Vermont deal."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:43 AM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

But hey Jeannie made out a with a dude in the waiting room, it was totes worth it.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:58 AM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

FWIW the mom was planning to buy Ferris a car, except Jeannie getting arrested caused her to "lose the Vermont deal."

"I think we should shoot her. "

Fun fact - the Bueller parents ended up getting married for a while in real life.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:01 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Man, 80s parents and their winning/losing obscure "deals" all the time.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:09 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

I also like to think that when the Russians invaded, the Buellers sent Jeanie to Colorado where she got to work out some of her frustration behind a PK light machine gun.


Fun fact- Dirty Dancing and Red Dawn are the only two films that Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze starred in together. Watch them back-to-back some time!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:14 PM on May 31, 2016 [8 favorites]

I feel I should note that in addition to showing some measure of compassion, Ferris does have a moral code, which he outlines early in the film. He does not condone fascism --or any ism for that matter. And he's not the Walrus, and even if he was, he'd still have to bum rides off people.*

*I take it as a given that the things Ferris says directly to the audience are true at face value as he shows no signs of being an unreliable narrator.
posted by wabbittwax at 12:14 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can we pivot this into a Red Dawn discussion pleze
posted by Annika Cicada at 12:24 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can we pivot this into a Red Dawn discussion pleze

Sure. I figure Ferris either dies really early on in the invasion when he walks up to the paratroopers all smug and cocky, or else he becomes an incredible collaborator for the Russians.

Wolverines!
posted by nubs at 12:30 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

The "easy" kid often ends up with a nasty double-bind: your parents simultaneously expect more from you and provide less for you. Once you're a teenager this means you have twice the responsibility and half the freedom, and that is a bullshit deal for a teen. So the "easy" kid becomes the angry, alienated teenager. But the parents pretty much never notice, because who pays attention to the "easy" kid? Until they end up in the police station.

IT MEEEEEEEEEE. Substitute "moving in with dirtbag artist boyfriend" for "in the police station".

See also: We cannot continue to overlook "high-functioning" depression — one of the best things about my dirtbag artist boyfriend is that he saw my depression and encouraged me to do something about it.
posted by epersonae at 12:33 PM on May 31, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'd be the last person to argue that privilege isn't a real thing, but I also think so many discussions where it comes up - especially in cases where it's construed to be some magic charm that is in the possession of a particular individual who is under a critical microscope - turn out to be really unhelpful.

Ferris has no power over anyone, no authority over anything; his life is ruled by adults, who, it turns out, are literally glue-sniffing nincompoops. Ferris' expression of will is entirely through persuasion, charm, deceit, and other manipulations of the people around him.

Which is a stereotypical female situation and a stereo-typically female avenue to power. If you insist on interpreting the movie through the lens of privilege, that seems like a big, interesting point to gloss over.
posted by Western Infidels at 12:34 PM on May 31, 2016 [8 favorites]

Ferris Bueller is the story of a smug entitled little shit who runs cons and gets cut way too many breaks and insists he's charming and likable and never ever gets punished or suffers consequences.

Ferris Bueller is the story of America.
posted by The Whelk at 12:41 PM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

BTW, Uncle Buck is still my favorite John Hughes movie.
posted by krinklyfig at 12:42 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

That Museum Scene was probably the major influence on me getting more interested in art. Don't know what that says about me in that I needed a loud blockbuster Hollywood movie to spark an interest in something more personal and intimate like art, but, I'm sure lots of people started going to the museum after that.

And while I didn't hate Ferris, I was totally on Team Jeanie, and hoped he would get his comeuppance sometime.
But then again, I always thought that the Frank Grimes Simpsons episode was written with me in mind!
posted by bitteroldman at 12:42 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd be the last person to argue that privilege isn't a real thing, but I also think so many discussions where it comes up - especially in cases where it's construed to be some magic charm that is in the possession of a particular individual who is under a critical microscope - turn out to be really unhelpful.

Ferris has no power over anyone, no authority over anything; his life is ruled by adults, who, it turns out, are literally glue-sniffing nincompoops. Ferris' expression of will is entirely through persuasion, charm, deceit, and other manipulations of the people around him.

I think this is a pretty big misinterpretation of the concept of privilege, which isn't necessarily about power. I'm not the one who started the privilege discussion, but imagine how different the situation would have been if it was three black teenagers skipping school, stealing a car, and wandering around Chicago for the day.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 12:49 PM on May 31, 2016 [19 favorites]

literally glue-sniffing nincompoops

Pedantry: I believe she's sniffing Wite-Out.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:56 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ferris generates a reality distortion field. He makes seemingly-impossible things happen by convincing people that they are possible. The difference between Ferris and a sociopath is that Ferris isn't faking it. He's a true believer in his own doctrine. His sincerity is one of the sources of his power. It also blinds him to reality, which will one day be the cause of his downfall. I see him founding some kind of multi-level marketing scam, which is successful in part because he doesn't believe it's a scam. And he rides it all the way into lawsuits and bankruptcy, increasingly baffled, unable to comprehend why the world has suddenly turned against him.
posted by dephlogisticated at 1:25 PM on May 31, 2016 [8 favorites]

the Wild Life

That movie aged really badly. Great Bananarama title song, tho.
posted by schoolgirl report at 1:27 PM on May 31, 2016

The Roadrunner is not a Warner Brothers character, he/she is the McGuffin. I think the same might be true for FBDO as well. He certainly doesn't behave the way a character in a screenplay would be expected to; he has no arc, he doesn't evolve. Those things happen to those around him. He's just the plot device that allows those around him to evolve--even Rooney.
posted by spacely_sprocket at 1:28 PM on May 31, 2016

*I take it as a given that the things Ferris says directly to the audience are true at face value as he shows no signs of being an unreliable narrator.
posted by wabbittwax at 2:14 PM on May 31

They're not so much true as he believes they're true. It's not that he's an unreliable narrator and lies to the audience. It's that he doesn't really know who he is yet (as most teens don't).

Part of the attraction of Ferris, for me, as a teenager, when I watched this movie in the theatre something like 10 times and on our VCR another million times, was that he appeared to know who he was. It's only as an adult that I realized how much of an unwitting facade that is.

Anyway, Jeannie. I always loved her. I was always really angry that she got arrested for reporting the stranger in her house.
posted by joannemerriam at 1:40 PM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

THANK YOU. Ferris is a smug, destructive dickbag. I spent the whole movie wondering when he was going to start becoming slightly self-reflective and halfway likable and it never happened. I wanted to smack that little shit's face every time it was on screen. Still don't understand the appeal.

It's too bad the rumored sequel -- where that smug fuck Ferris was expelled from college for running a plagiarized-paper ring, was disowned by his family, and eventually OD'd in a shooting gallery in a condemned building in Gary -- never got green-lit. I mean, I heard the line-up of songs on the soundtrack would have been amazing!
posted by aught at 1:42 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

a celebration of that magical time in a kid's life between about 16 and 18, when they are old enough to (sort of) fend for themselves but young enough to not yet have any real responsibility.

But the fact that he's 18 and has no sense of responsibility for anything but indulging himself is part of the upper-middle-class white-privilege socioeconomic problem many folks are describing in this thread. It's not a widespread experience.
posted by aught at 2:03 PM on May 31, 2016 [7 favorites]

Privilege isn't just power-over, it's also an assumption of inherent trustworthiness if you belong to the right social class groups.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:13 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yes, I was one of the people making those points upthread. I should have said that it's a celebration of that magical time in a kid's life that is available to a certain segment of the population.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 2:21 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

On the Green.
Frankly, I think Jeanie should be very grateful for landing in the police station and making out with a hot guy. Maybe she left with him and became Shawna forever.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:47 PM on May 31, 2016

The coyote's goal is to kill and eat the roadrunner, and yet people still see him as the good guy? It's right there in the theme song, folks: "Poor little Road Runner never bothers anyone / Just runnin' down the road's his idea of having fun"

As for FBDO...I was 21 when it came out, so maybe just outside of the target demographic, but I watched the movie fully expecting Ferris to get some form of comeuppance, or for him to see the error of his ways and make some positive change - but that never happened. Cameron got to have his epiphany moment, and Jeannie did too in a way, (poor Sloane was basically scenery) but Ferris never changed at all. There was just no closure for me.
posted by rocket88 at 3:01 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

When I shared FBDO with my kids probably 10 years ago, when they were preteen or young teens, they kept expecting Ferris to get caught. They were shocked that he kept getting away with it. I took it as a parenting failure that they had so much faith in authority :)
posted by COD at 3:10 PM on May 31, 2016

Sloane was basically scenery

I dunno about that. thin dialog, but she must have had good direction or a natural feel, because some of her body language and facial expressions telegraphed that she was onto FB. imho.
posted by j_curiouser at 3:14 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

When I saw this movie, I was horrified by Bueller's advice to his friend about the friend's father. I thought that in real life it would have ended really badly. Also, I went to a high school with a 30% drop-out rate, so this magical happy truancy did not jibe with the reality of the people I knew. Bottom line, I hated Ferris Bueller.
posted by acrasis at 4:01 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

The coyote's goal is to kill and eat the roadrunner, and yet people still see him as the good guy?

He's a frickin' coyote, man, it's the circle of life.
posted by tobascodagama at 4:07 PM on May 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

The thing about MetaFilter is, I don't know whether to take you guys seriously.
posted by king walnut at 5:38 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm dead serious about Wile E. Coyote being a coyote.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:49 PM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

Ceci n'est pas un coyote
posted by rifflesby at 6:00 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the coyotes in Chicago are actually pretty lame.


They come downtown and usually just go to Quiznos.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:21 PM on May 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Weird to see so many people read FBDO as about white privilege — as a white kid (whose parents were about the same age as John Hughes and also from Chicago), Ferris was a fantasy of rich, suburban life, as much as a fantasy of adventure.

"Oh, they're all Boomers. That makes more sense. Road Runner's success is entirely accidental and a product of circumstances not under his direct control, either through the incompetence of Wile E.'s schemes, or through the convenient suspension of what had previously been ironclad rules. Wile E. paints a tunnel onto a sheer cliff face, and doesn't screw it up? No problem, Road Runner will just run through it like it's real, and when Wile E. tries to pursue him, SPLAT. The next generation is reaching the age of majority and is facing an economic crisis? No problem, Reagan will just gut the social safety net, and when Gen X tries to find the same unskilled middle-class jobs their parents had, SPLAT."

This is insane contrarian bullshit. Wiley's an anti-hero at best — he's one of the archetypical predators of classic cartoons, expanded (so much as there's a coherent character there) through the sheepdog workaday cartoons. But arguing that his attempts to kill an essentially innocent bird who uses absurdity to escape makes him the good guy? You fucking fascist! Wiley's in the fantastic just world where his Trumpist capitalism eternally loses to the clever outsider.

There are fair cops about the classic Looney Toons — they're racist, sexist, all the -ists — but next you'll be complaining that none of the Bugs Bunny shorts adequately dealt with Fudd's social anxiety brought on by a speech impediment, and that his licensed recreational hunting was the only chance he had to be fully in control of his own destiny, only to be confronted by a glib rabbit flaunting an unnatural social fluency. Or that Jerry's the cruel, smug antagonist to Tom's hapless performance of petit bourgeois class roles, forced by the property owners to perform a role he's uncomfortable and unsuited to.

Rooting for Wiley Coyote ignores a central, salient point to the conflict: The coyote is the aggressor. When you see a bully get their come-uppance, complaining that the bullied seemed smug in the moment is justifying predatory violence! Wiley can be sympathetic, but he's not the fucking hero.
posted by klangklangston at 6:54 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

COYOTES NEED TO EAT, TOO, JESUS CHRIST.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:18 PM on May 31, 2016 [6 favorites]

Weird to see so many people read FBDO as about white privilege — as a white kid (whose parents were about the same age as John Hughes and also from Chicago), Ferris was a fantasy of rich, suburban life, as much as a fantasy of adventure.

Rich suburban life is basically nothing but white privilege, and has been since the 50s.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:53 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

but imagine how different the situation would have been if it was three black teenagers skipping school, stealing a car, and wandering around Chicago for the day

Do you mean the in-movie situation or real people's reaction to the movie? Because "clever guy manipulates a bunch of people he doesn't respect" describes Eddie Murphy in Trading Places as much as it describes Ferris.
posted by aaronetc at 8:11 PM on May 31, 2016 [3 favorites]

next you'll be complaining that none of the Bugs Bunny shorts adequately dealt with Fudd's social anxiety brought on by a speech impediment

That's funny, I was completely in your corner on the Ferris and Road runner but I never liked Bugs Bunny because, although I couldn't articulate this at cartoon watching age, he was such a bully. Elmer Fudd is both pathetic and way overmatched, the kind of guy you shouldn't pick on, and "hunting wabbits" never registered as malicious to my young self.

Chuck Jones said they always made a point of showing Bugs just minding his own business at the beginning of each short and then getting harassed to start the action, precisely so he didn't look gratuitously nasty, but I guess I didn't have a strong sense of narrative.

----

FBDO is one of those movies I loved and have no desire to rewatch in case it turns out I now dislike him.

I liked the OP article for not going all in on the contrarian side. Jeanie was portrayed sympathetically despite being Ferris' antagonist, something I don't think I thought about before reading it. Only the Charlie Sheen scene strikes me as off.

Even as a white male teen when it came out I never identified with Ferris. He was too cool and was into status symbols I didn't even aspire too (fast cars, fancy restaurants, singing in public, etc.). Cameron was the dork I was afraid I was. Jeannie the sparring sibling was the most identifiable.
posted by mark k at 8:24 PM on May 31, 2016

Yeah, it's not white/male privilege alone that allows you to bend the shitty rules to live your life. Women and men of color do it all the time, too. The stakes are just different, and the story is different, and it's usually told differently (but doesn't necessarily have to be).
posted by stoneandstar at 8:27 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

klangklangston Rooting for Wiley Coyote ignores a central, salient point to the conflict: The coyote is the aggressor. When you see a bully get their come-uppance, complaining that the bullied seemed smug in the moment is justifying predatory violence! Wiley can be sympathetic, but he's not the fucking hero.

Wiley is the aggressor, true; but the Road Runner is definitely the bully.
posted by yeolcoatl at 8:56 PM on May 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

acrasis: "When I saw this movie, I was horrified by Bueller's advice to his friend about the friend's father. I thought that in real life it would have ended really badly."

Wait, what advice? The car gets wrecked, Ferris volunteers to take the blame, Cameron decides on his own that he needs to confront his father.

Ferris: Cameron, it's my fault. I'll take the heat for it. We'll wait for your father to come home and when he gets here, I'll tell him that I did it. He hates me anyway.

Cameron: No. I'll take it.

Ferris: [shakes head]

Cameron: No, I'll take it.

Ferris: No. No, you don't want this much heat.

Cameron: I want it. If I didn't want it, I wouldn't have let you take the car out this morning.

Ferris: I made you take the car this morning.

Cameron: I could have stopped you.

Ferris: [skeptical look]

Cameron: It is possible to stop Mr. Ferris Bueller, you know. No, I want it, I'm gonna take it, that's it. When Morris comes home, he and I will just have a little chat. It's cool. No, it's going to be good. Thanks anyway.

Cameron may be making a big mistake, but it's definitely not Ferris's idea.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:43 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

I always viewed FBDO as this was Ferris's last time he would get away with his hijinks, and he was aware of it the whole movie. His life was going to change soon, so he lived it up one last time.
posted by coberh at 11:12 PM on May 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

Three things... 1) when you guys started talking about Frank Grimes, I got confused and thought you meant Frank Burns, for a second... From MASH? Because Ferris is very much like Hawkeye Pierce, and Jeannie is actually very much like Burns but even more like "Hot Lips" Houlihan, especially as they are portrayed in the original Altman movie... Of course, the series goes on to humanize Houlihan and humble Hawkeye quite a bit. He becomes less of a sociopath and she becomes less of a stick in the mud as the series becomes less bleakly ironic and more righteously angry through the years. So maybe that would also be Ferris's fate, if his story were continued as long as Hawkeye's.... pranks and passive aggression only work as a coping mechanism for so long. Then you just get mad.

2) Hawkeye was drafted and sent to Korea against his will, so in a lot of ways he is completely helpless. Ferris is in high school so, ditto. And yet it's true that they both get away with crap that people with less privilege wouldn't, which is part of the reason that Jeannie/Houlihan hate them so much. Being female, they can't get away with as much. (I think Major Frank Burns is actually more like Rooney, pissed at Ferris for disrespecting his authority.) But a lot of the "relational aggression" that Ferris and Hawkeye get away with is in some ways classic "Mean Girls" stuff, because again they have no actual power... So I guess their male privilege lies in being able to engage in relational aggression without being labeled "bitch"?

3) But I also love the notion of Ferris as Willy Wonka / Manic Pixie Dream Boy for Cameron. Put me down as another one who mostly identifies with Cameron throughout the movie (though I am female). I am not sure whether the movie could have the same tone if all three main characters were black, but I feel like just Ferris himself could be black and fit comfortably into the Magical Negro trope, though we probably wouldn't then get a portrayal of Jeanie being justifiably jealous, etc. The movie would probably be more explicitly about Cameron, if a black Ferris were co-starring with (still white) Cameron. :-( But if you tried to make Cameron black, that's what would really change the tone. Because Cameron is not magical or untouchable. Cameron has to face consequences and knows that. And I think we would all have a pretty intense awareness of how serious the consequences could be as we're watching the movie, if Cameron himself were black. It's actually Cameron's white privilege that lets the movie be a comedy instead of a drama. We have this underlying confidence that confronting his dad will be good for him, and ultimately he will be fine. None of this is actually going to screw up his life. That confidence wouldn't be there if he were black. Similarly I think you could somewhat replace Ferris with an actual manic pixie dream girl for a male Cameron (though someone would probably call her a "bitch" at some point...) but if Cameron were also a girl it would be more of a parable about getting tempted to become a Bad Girl and would probably end with girl-Cameron learning her lesson and vowing to be more responsible in the future (I'm imagining Ferris as Faith and Cameron as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in season three here...)

Anyway Cameron is the only one with anything really at stake here because Ferris is magic or a tickster god or something, and Ferris can become even more clearly a magical pixie of some kind if we mess with his race/gender... But yeah, Cameron's totally the stealth protagonist, and I would contend that it's his privilege which really sets the emotional stakes where they are for the movie. (Now I'm wondering who's the Cameron in MASH? I want to say Radar...)
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:41 AM on June 1, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm imagining Ferris as Faith and Cameron as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in season three here...

Or Ferris as Regina George (Rachael McAdams from Mean Girls) and Cameron as the Lindsey Lohan character. And we've already had people comment on Reese Witherspoon's character from Election as a gender-flipped Ferris...

So now I'm trying to imagine if Tracy Flick and Regina George and Faith, all evil-pixie dream girls (though I guess Tracy doesn't really tempt any other women to join her in her wicked ways) would get along with each other, or if the rivalry would turn fatal. What if they had a common enemy? This is fun!

Ferris hanging out with Willy Wonka and Hawkeye Pierce is also fun to imagine. Ferris on the Wonka factory tour, with Hawkeye as the grandpa, subverting Wonka's machines?
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:08 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Faith would completely ignore Tracy Flick and throw Regina George under a bus (heh). Meanwhile, she'd fuck Cameron for kicks, steal Sloane from Ferris, and go joy-riding in the Ferrari. Rooney would mysteriously disappear, but his corpse (if it was ever found) would probably show traces of wood shavings in his gaping chest wound. Then Faith would transfer to a new school in Southern California and go on to place second in the National Cheerleading competition.
posted by wabbittwax at 6:06 AM on June 1, 2016 [6 favorites]

and throw Regina George under a bus (heh)


Teenage suicide...don't do it.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:28 AM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure Faith would also murder Cameron's dad, most of the honored guests at the Von Steuben Day parade, and possibly the real Abe Froman.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:55 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Okay yeah Faith violates social norms a little more ... violently than the others. But at the beginning of her arc she's just like "C'mon Buffy, seize the moment! Flirt with boys! Ditch school! Shoplift! Live a little!"

But taking that kind of advice does not usually end well for girls in fiction (and is probably less likely to end well for girls in real life too. Privilege.) Buffy being the show it is, "does not end well" pretty much has to mean "ends with mass murder and narrowly averted apocalypse."

I still say that for much of season three, before the Not Ending Well, Faith is Buffy's Ferris.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:05 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love this movie on its own but have loved it far more once you hear the theory that Cameron is having a fever dream and Ferris is but his Id talking to him and trying to convince him to take control of his own life. Of course they couldn't traverse Chicago in a day, the city scenes are often dreamlike, etc., he gets to see Simone naked, etc. Not what the original makers intended, I'm sure, but it works.
posted by agregoli at 12:33 PM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

It works, but you have to forget details like Jeanie. One of the things that was great about the Hughes movies is that he tried not to neglect any of the characters.
posted by bonehead at 1:44 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

"COYOTES NEED TO EAT, TOO, JESUS CHRIST."

If you can afford to buy endless disposable weapons, you can afford to buy yourself a goddamned burger.

"Rich suburban life is basically nothing but white privilege, and has been since the 50s."

This is one of those places where insisting on the primacy of race as the analytic lens to the exclusion of class is at best misleading, and can be pretty obnoxious.

"Wiley is the aggressor, true; but the Road Runner is definitely the bully."

This is like when the Focus on the Family people complain that LGBT people "bully" them by forcing them not to be raging assholes all the time, in contravention of their deeply-held belief in being total assholes.
posted by klangklangston at 2:05 PM on June 1, 2016

The only food product Acme sells is bird seed, obviously. Have you ever seen the damned cartoons?
posted by tobascodagama at 2:27 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

And even if they sold beef, something still died to make that. Seriously, they covered this in The Lion King, I think.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:30 PM on June 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

Road runner is apparently delicious. Parts of the road runner taste like liquorice and double martinis... To quote Wile E. Coyote - "..the road runner is to the taste buds of a coyote what caviar, champagne, fillet Mignon and chocolate fudge are to the taste buds of a man..."

But there were rules...
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:34 PM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is one of those places where insisting on the primacy of race as the analytic lens to the exclusion of class is at best misleading, and can be pretty obnoxious

Are you suggesting that rich+ suburban isn't an overwhelmingly white thing, in aggregate over the past 60-odd years?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:45 PM on June 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

That requires a fairly long discussion of what "white" or, probably better, access to middle-class piviledge means. Does that include Italians or French Canadians or Jews, for example? Does it now include Chinese? When did the SE Asian community get access to the suburbs? In this particular case, economic access explains as much or more than ethnicity. How does economic access affect social access to the middle class?

Hughes even touches on this in some of his other films, Sixteen Candles, for example.
posted by bonehead at 3:04 PM on June 1, 2016

Responding to any mention of white privilege with a cry of "what about class?!" is dismissive and oh-so-overdone. In the case of Ferris Bueller, there is clearly an issue not just of class privilege, but of race privilege. As Ferris flouts truancy laws, lies to his parents and school staff, steals a car, and treats the city as his playground, he is clearly protected by his white skin privilege. He is free to do literally whatever he wants, with no personal repercussions, and without having his actions seen as reflecting poorly on others of his race. He will not be punished for his actions, and likewise, no one will use his actions to justify harsher sentencing for people of his ethnicity, nor will they feel afraid that his criminality represents a threat to their property or person. He is not seen as a reckless, asocial other, but rather a clever and even heroic character for us all to envy.
posted by latkes at 4:20 PM on June 1, 2016 [6 favorites]

That's fair, latkes. But I think that Ferris being white and upper class are necessary conditions, but not sufficient ones? Ferris is the one person who gets away with shit. Other white upper-class people do not - Jeanie, Cameron. The adults lead staid, boring lives (the Buellers, Ben Stein), possibly with humiliation added (Ed Rooney).

Ferris - whether you regard him as smug asshole or trickster god - is unique. He creates wacky situations. Agreed that he probably couldn't get away with this stuff if he were non-white or not wealthy. But NOBODY gets away with it, except for Ferris.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:54 AM on June 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Chrysostom: But NOBODY gets away with it, except for Ferris.

So if white privilege is playing life on Easy Mode, then Ferris is playing life on God Mode.
posted by clawsoon at 6:57 AM on June 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wonder if the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote generation gap matches the Sealion generation gap. ("Sealion: Civil Rights crusader or MRA troll?")
posted by clawsoon at 6:59 AM on June 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ferris Bueller: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start
posted by Chrysostom at 7:33 AM on June 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ferris is a plot device, pure and simple. He gets away with all he gets away with because he's a movie character, not a realistic depiction of anyone, including a white male suburban high school kid. He has to, he's the object lesson for everyone around him.

He's mostly notable because he is by ethnicity, by class, by gender fairly advantaged. His only lack of privilege is the core dynamic of the film: youth against adult authority. But he's a wise fool, and wise fools have to be low privilege. It's the device that allows them to satirize their masters. Sure, it's possible to imagine other ways the character could have even lower privilege, but I don't see how that would materially change the story dynamic of youth rebellion, or speak to the issue that's at the core of Cameron's problem. That is the privilege gap the movie was about.

MPDG and Magical Minority-driven movies were pretty common when FBDO was made. I don't think Hughes picked a white boy as his Peter Pan character by accident. He almost certainly could have made a similar movie with another character. There were lots of those.
posted by bonehead at 7:43 AM on June 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

I always thought Sloane and Cameron secretly had a thing for each other

I totally sensed that but never really was aware that's what I was picking up until you said this. OMG, YES Sloane and Cameron are in total ship with each other!
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:07 AM on June 2, 2016

(Maybe because Sloane is the stand-in for Helena Bonham Carter's character in Fight Club)
posted by wabbittwax at 12:21 PM on June 2, 2016

Ferris Bueller is the story of a smug entitled little shit who runs cons and gets cut way too many breaks and insists he's charming and likable and never ever gets punished or suffers consequences.

It does my uncool little goody-goody heart joy to see that so many other people find Ferris reprehensible, but I've found the greatest chasm in philosophy of life is whether you sympathize with Bill Murray or Richard Dreyfuss in What About Bob?

As an inveterate square, I am the latter. The one supervisory job I've held, I was surrounded by the former. It did not go well.
posted by psoas at 12:57 PM on June 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Previously on Ask MeFi: crimes committed by Ferris Bueller during his day off.
posted by How the runs scored at 4:44 PM on June 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ferris Bueller is definitely a perpetuation of the trickster god archetype like Loki or Māui, not clearly malicious or benevolent.
posted by XMLicious at 9:20 AM on June 11, 2016

A few quick points:

1) The closest parallel to Ferris Bueller-- a movie about black teenagers who skip school, steal a car, and travel through Chicago-- is Cooley High, which predates FBDO by about a decade. It has comedic elements, but it's certainly not a pure comedy, in no small part because...

2) Race issues in the United States are NOT just a subset of class issues. Seriously, Ta-Nehisi Coates' whole "Case for Reparations" article (MeFi thread) uses Chicago specifically as an example of how black people were-- ARE-- automatically barred from environments where whites pass through with minimal effort. Imagine race-swapping Ferris and his friends and imagining how far they'd go through their day:

catching a cab yeah, good luck
bluffing their way into a high-class restaurant ejected, even if they claim to be the direct descendants of Jean Baptiste-DuSable
joining a class of grade-schoolers during a museum trip ejected and/or arrested
running down the middle of the street through traffic arrested, possibly shot (Michael Brown ending)
sprinting through multiple strangers' backyards, then through one of their houses, then going BACK to talk to sunbathing women arrested, PROBABLY shot

Even controlling for class, you can't just swap people of different races into this film and get the same outcome.

3) I'm not trying to fault John Hughes for it, but his movies do contain quite a bit of tone-deafness when he steps out of a relatively narrow frame of reference, mostly centered around white suburban life. The parade scene is insane for lots of different reasons (a mid-week non-specific parade through downtown Chicago in celebration of... German-ness?) but thirty years on I still don't get the point of that... uh... dance scene-- you know the one. John Hughes used more black people in that one scene than he may have put into the rest of his movies in total, but their inexplicable Electric Slide/Thriller dance just makes no logical sense if you're trying to see those people as viable characters and/or human beings. You know, the most interesting minority character(s?) in the whole movie are the two valets who get the keys to the car for a good part of the day: a follow up of their adventures could be an interesting older/working-class parallel to the day off of the main characters, but in this movie it's just an aside.

4) Ferris is kind of a manipulative, classist jerk. Why work up such an immediate grudge against the restaurant maitre'd (?), and why steamroll through your friends' objections just to get over on the guy? In retrospect, Jeanie is definitely the most dynamic character in the movie (you just know Cameron got grounded forever (why not follow up with HIM after the credits? Typical Bueller, thinking people care about him), but the whole gone-giggly-over-Charlie-Sheen plot point may have put me off of reaching that conclusion except in hindsight. So... basically, this post and thread have made me think WAY TOO MUCH about this movie. Thanks, I guess?

5) Wile E. Coyote and Ralph Wolf are TWO SEPARATE CHARACTERS! That oversight shouldn't make me angry BUT IT DOES
posted by tyro urge at 9:15 PM on June 30, 2016 [5 favorites]