When I was barely-out-of-diapers-young, one of my favorite books was a collection of jokes for kids. The big finish — the joke they just had to save for last — was a simple riddle: “What’s big and red and eats rocks? A big red rock eater.”
Try the veal and don’t forget to tip your servers. I’ll be here all week.
Since then, I’ve read the poetry of Jim Morrison; the columns of Maureen Dowd; the backs of countless boxes of Boo Berry Cereal; the 1988 Libertarian, Republican and Democrat political platforms in their entireties; the works of various Brontë sisters; particularly heartfelt lines from love letters I wrote to my high school sweetheart; I even read George Friedman’s The Coming War with Japan — which he wrote in 1991.
These are the credentials you need to know when I tell you: In the 38 years since I learned to read, I have read some really stupid shit.
But I have never read anything quite so stupid as Alan Siegel’s article in The Atlantic, insisting that everyone “get over” Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
On the movie’s 25th anniversary, Siegel’s problem with Ferris Bueller is Ferris Bueller, appropriately enough, whom he derides as “banal.” The primary complaints all come from the middle of the piece, where Siegel complains that “Nothing challenges Ferris. Unlike most teens, his life is free of adversity.” That the movie is “dripping with classism.” And while John Hughes’s other movies “may not channel Dickens, but they’re at least populated with teenagers who’ve had it rougher than Ferris.”
Boo-hoo, I suppose, because Bueller didn’t bear enough boo-boos. But let’s try and remember that the movie is about a kid’s day off. It ain’t The Basketball Diaries, nor is it supposed to be. And anyway, accusing a teenage boy of being banal is like accusing… a teenage boy of being interested in sex. Why, I never!
Siegel’s complaints about Ferris generally break down to “kind of sad where they aren’t plain wrong.”
Great take-down. The movie’s not about Ferris; it’s about the impact he has on other people’s lives when they allow themselves to be touched by him.
FBDO was one of my father’s favorite movies. He would have loved your analysis/rebuttal.
The Atlantic is magazine that publishes liberal garbage. What did Vice President Bush call this in 1980? Anyone? Something doo.
Something-economics, vee-oh-oh economics, voodoo economics. Classic.
Sounds like Siegel could use a well-deserved dressing down from one Sgt. Peterson of the Chicago Police.
“Check out Ferris’s bitch list: Useless parents, officious school officials”
well, nowadays we have kids being suspended/expelled for giving each other aspirins, bringing butter knives to school and drawing pictures of guns. All under the rubric of zero tolerance. And zero common sense.
Never saw Ferris Bueller, but to spend the time crafting an essay to take it down? Take a nap instead, much more productive use of your time.
Just don’t you dare touch Caddyshack.
I get the feeling that this Siegel guy would attack Caddyshack — another movie I adore. If he ever does, I’ll take down that one, too.
So, yes, I spent an the time on this. And I’m pretty damn proud of the results, too.
Stephen,
Is it really any wonder that a guy like Seigel would get something so factually, demonstably wrong that a simple review of the “event” would lay bare his ridiculous assertions?
Kinda like the Heathcare debate…Gun gontrol…the Stimulus…Islamic terror.
Same facts, same BS conclusions from the left.
No offense meant to you, but DUH, isnt it a sad state of affairs when something as simple and verifiable as MOVIE DIALOG is so badly misrepresented, it requires you to write an article set them straight?
Do me a favor…
Dont wait till he butchers Caddyshack, find any excuse that PJM will allow and write something this entertaining about Bushwood today!.
I’ll call you Mr. “Greenskeeper” from then on!
If I take down “Caddyshack” will you rise to its defense then?
Several good scenes, lots of bad ones. Flabby, inconsistent and dull in places. A character arc (the kid golf pro wanna be) that gets abandoned.
That’s off the top of my head. Heck, I’ll even watch it again for this. And unlike Siegel, I’ll even remember it correctly.
I don’t write for The Atlantic, so it’s slugging downward, but will ya?
You forgot to add that the gopher looked totally fake.
all of which matters exactly zip once Rodney Dangerfield steps into a scene and steals it…
Baby Ruth, nuff said.
Who the heck is ‘Ferris Bueller’, never heard of him. Could it be because the last movie I saw was ‘Mars Attacks!’? Love Slim Whitman, greatest alien slayer and greatest country singer in Great Britain!!
Actually Mike, Ferris Bueller’s Day off pre-dates Mars Attacks by about a decade.
Slim Whitman??? Eeewwww… Just…… EEEEEeeeeeeewwwwwwwww!
Saw Slim sing on Johnny Carson, just love his yoddle! Did you know he sold more country records in GB than any other Country Western singer?
Never heard of Slim Whitman until one night in the late seventies, after midnight, driving a van through Arizona and one of us put in a cassette of Slim’s Greatest Hits.
When he got to “Kaw-liga the Wooden Indian” I started laughing so hard I nearly put the van off the road.
Solid post. I read Siegel’s essay and couldn’t quite make it come together. Thanks for tearing it apart.
As an aside: on your earlier post, someone mentioned the fan-theory that Ferris is just in Cameron’s head. I’m a fan of that theory, but I prefer to think of Ferris as the Übermensch.
Do you mean the Ferris Bueller Fight Club Theory?
http://www.slashfilm.com/the-ferris-bueller-fight-club-theory/
I’m very fond of the Fight Club theory, but no–I mean a strict Nietzschean interpretation of FBDO. Although the two should be reconcilable in any case.
I can honestly say I never thought I would every read the phrase, “a strict Nietzschean interpretation of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
A strict Cartesian interpretation maybe but never a Nietzschean.
People seem to have these reactions to Ferris. They either love him or hate him. I think that means he’s an interesting character. Cameron’s speech, quoted above, is critical to understanding Ferris. Bueller is the one who *doesn’t* let events unfold to determine the course of his life – he’s already taken his stand. Unlike Cameron, Ferris is (almost) totally in control of his own life.
I think the problem for some viewers is that Ferris takes advantage of other people, manipulates them, lies, and breaks the rules in order to have that control, that freedom. Trouble is, he’s a high school student. He doesn’t have the liberty or the resources of an adult. So he uses whatever tools he has – his intelligence, his charm, his chutzpa, and a strangely comprehensive understanding of human nature. And let’s face it: in the course of maintaining his freedom, he spreads joy to everyone he meets (except Rooney and his sister). Even the cops like him. He must be doing something right.
Unrealistic, sure, but this is a comedy and not a heavy social commentary.
I had a friend when I was young who was always getting away with stuff like this. He’d be late on homework, and go talk to the teachers and get an extension. He’d ditch class and the teachers wouldn’t care. When I did similar things, I’d just make a hash of it and spend weeks getting out of the hole. He was one of my best friends, but deep down I hated him for having this “luck” that allowed him to get out of jail free.
Today, I realize that his powers were confidence and the ability to see that the rules imposed on us (by Schools and by our own social insecurity) are arbitrary. This is the message that Ferris gives us. Schools create ridiculous rules because it makes life easier on them, not because it makes kids safer or more likely to learn. And certain (not all) officials enforce those rules not because they want the kids to learn, but because they crave the illusion of control. As kids, we look at our relationships as big dramas when they are in fact the natural growing pains of a teenager.
At the end of the day, Ferris shows us that when you see these rules and tribulations as the teenage angst that they are, and have the confidence to shrug them off, you have a beautiful day. Everything he does- going to a snooty restaurant, walking past a police line at a parade and hopping on a float- he is crossing VIRTUAL boundaries that we often honor to the point of suffering when put in front of us. As someone who didn’t “get it” I too was frustrated by Ferris and my friend when I was younger. But I grew up. That is where I differ from Siegel.
Hey, must you bag on “The Coming War With Japan”? Sure it was wrong, that happens a lot in the predicting game, but it was fairly well argued based on the trends of its day.
Loved “Ferris Buehler” The scene with Principal Rooney staring at the flashing hold button of the call he thinks is Sloan’s father, my nominee for funniest scene in movie history.
Stephen, when you posted before, my first reaction was that I felt no connection at all to Ferris Bueller as a character, yet enjoyed the hell out of the movie.
This post explains why. Well done.
Ferris Bueller and Cameron actually address this which was from the blog of a palliative-care worker
People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.
When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again.
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I defy Siegel to show me where Ferris does not help Cameron and his sister address all 5 of these items. Or does Siegel just want the rest of us to enumerate the same list because he, himself, knows that he will.
I never could relate to the movie, myself. It had plenty of entertaining scenes, but it almost seemed to me the characters were all just excuses to have the various funny scenes.
This is because my own childhood was so really, really bad. Extreme poverty, abusive father, absentee mother, etc…. So, the plaints of the characters in the movie, to me, seemed like the whinings of spoiled brats. These kids had a roof over their heads which did not leak, their own rooms, stereos, enough to eat, and decent clothes to wear. If their parents seemed absent, maybe that was because these children were complete ingrates. Nothing would ever have been enough.
I had a similar reaction to “The Breakfast Club”. Even the bad boy was partly unrelatable, because he was a coward. The only part I got was his feeling better about himself at the end. Playing tonsil-hockey with Molly Ringwald will do that for a guy.
What you say is true. I just figured it was an 80s thing. That decade, all of pop culture was obsessed with materialism, money, success, looks, and upper-class snobbishness. Of course, that strain has always existed in music, literature, TV, etc. In the 80s, though, it became sort of a mania.
In some ways, I also have trouble sympathizing with the FBDO characters. Not Ferris or Sloane, necessarily. They seemed better-adjusted than most of the people around them. They were children of privilege and they acted like children of privilege. Their problems were the problems of children of privilege. Shallow but understandable. Cameron, though – he was a kid who had everything, and probably decent though materialistic and clueless parents. A lot of teenagers think their parents are materialistic and clueless. He was just going through the typical teenage struggle to reach independent adulthood despite being afraid and confused. Ferris helped him. Very small story, but I identified much more with him than with Ferris.
“That decade, all of pop culture was obsessed with materialism, money, success, looks, and upper-class snobbishness.”
Just that decade?
Danke Schoen, darling Danke Schoen.
Thank you for all the joy and pain.
Picture shows, second balcony, was the place we’d meet, second seat, go Dutch treat, you were sweet.
Ta Nehisi Coates is a senior editor at The Atlantic. I dare you to read 5 of his columns, any columns, without pulling your hair out.
FBDO is also one of my all time favorite movies and best of all it’s a great movie for generational sharing. My 14 year old son is also a Ferris Fan and can recite lines from the movie that perfectly peg situations in his own adolescent life. Yesterday at a visit to the oral surgeon we were greeted by a nurse before the doctor came in. After she left the room, I asked my son who she reminded him of…without missing a beat he replied “what is it this time Jeannie” imitating the school secretary from the movie. We laughed so hard I thought she was going to come back in the exam room!
Here is how despicable Ferris Bueller is. Ferris has me agreeing with The Atlantic and scoffing at the Vodkapundit. That’s pretty low Ferris.
Maybe its a guy thing. I never liked Ferris, never identified with Ferris. And I can’t belive anyone is still writing about this sillier than a Democratic platform movie. So I will stop.
Your real problem is reading the Atlantic.
But you read the article. You are apparently familiar with the film. You got this far through the responses. If you hated it that much, why?
I remember not liking the movie much at the time, while still feeling affected by it. I look back now and it’s clear that it was provoking me to look at my own weakness in terms of breaking out of the rut that was being laid for me by well-intentioned others. Cameron had his breakthrough moment, and I later had mine (the first of many, really, as transcending our own boundaries is process that I don’t think ends until we die).
But I remember feeling at the time that Beuller was too smug, even though he really isn’t, and I also frowned at the ease with which he got away with things. “Life’s not like that,” I thought.
But sometimes it is!
Now I really like the story of an enlightened ‘old soul’ in the body of a high school kid. It’s a great ‘what if’ escape, as in, ‘What if I could really get my shit together in my head and my heart and my soul, and then go back and do high school over again?’
The result would probably look a lot like Ferris. Invisible when he wants to be, making a big splash when the situation calls for it. People like him and don’t know why, or care. The only people he ‘hurts’ are those who throw themselves at him in an effort to slay a projection of their own making. Their demise comes from their own exertions and expectations and not his. People in his presence find their energy raised and their lives become more colorful, vibrant and in the present.
Speaking of Bill Murray, “The Razor’s Edge” is the movie that comes to my mind. The characters are quite similar, but in Maugham’s (sp?) tale, we see the formative years, wheras in Bueller (the character) we’re seeing the end result.
If I ever get a chance to meet Bill Murray, that is the movie I’ll thank him for. I still can’t believe he made it!
And now for Matthew Broderick’s *other* day off. Thanks for nothing, Ferris! Jeesh!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Cp3WCdPHg&feature=player_embedded
“If you say the words ‘Ferris Bueller,’ you lose a testicle.” — Jennifer Grey to Charlie Sheen, apparently continuing their conflicts from Red Dawn
Ferris must have had a positive influence on Cameron, given that the latter went on to command the Enterprise-B.
Military school apparently agreed with him. =^[.]^=
Samuel Goldwyn is supposed to have said, “Our comedies are not to be laughed at.” Looks like the Atlantic took him seriously.
I am astounded (a bit) that none of you see the bigger picture here.
What Seigel is doing to Ferris Bueller is a microcosm of what is being done by Obama and his media and political O’bots to this whole country: A giant media testimony and crusade to wipe out the banality of what the libs view as Middle Class White culture.
Seigel sees Ferris Bueller as the “Every White American”: happy, hopeful about the future, occasionally whiny but not obsessed with it, and one who is inordinately blessed with all the comforts and future of the White Middle Class.
He sees this as resulting from Ferris’ oppression against everyone else who is NOT Ferris (and by extension NOT White Middle Class America). Ferris is evil, Ferris must be viewed as shameful, and only in the destruction of Ferris personally and in the history books can justice be served. Redistributive justice.
Having watched a speech on Youtube (that is now been removed) by Michelle Obama herself about ending the evils of “White Middle Classness” that pretty much duplicates Seigel’s commentary on Ferris , I can certainly grasp the totality of the Left’s hatred for all things American Culture …including an amusing tale of a kid and his life in the burb’s of Chicago.
Interesting that the most powerful of the very same forces that lust to kill everything about Middle Class White America hale from the same city as this story is set in.
I’ll bet the Obamas want every last copy of that film burned!
Interesting to notice that Ferris’s “white middle-class” parents still needed to go out every day, both of them, and work their asses off. And as much as they were crazy about their son, they still wouldn’t give him everything he wanted (no car).
Tell me about it – I’m still bitter that my old man never took me into the White Guy’s Clubhouse to show me the secret handshake and bestow upon me my set of Keys to the Universe. Had he done so I would not have had to work as hard as I have.
Come to think of it, both he and my Mom had to work awfully hard, for a couple of white people. I think maybe some people have been lying to us.
Oh, please!
It sounds like the Atlantic article was ridiculous, but some of these responses are a bit over the top.
Okay, you liked the movie, fine. I didn’t–I really loathed it, but was stuck there with a kid we’d brought who enjoyed it, so I just waited for the time to pass. I wasn’t a kid myself, and I’ve never been male, so that might account for it.
But to call it emblematic of white (or was it Western European?) culture or something? Oh, no–we’re not that bad!
This movie had all the depth and profundity that we’re used to from TV, at least.
I’m not talking about the movie…I’m referring to Seigel’s response to it…
It is just a movie. To us Cons – pure entertainment.
Amusing tale…loved the parade part…and mind games with Rooney. His secretary is hysterical. Mia Sara is cute…so is Jennifer Grey – needs an attitude adjustment, though.
To Libs – symbolic of the evils of “White Middle-classness”.
It is Libs that deal and live in symbolism – I’m just pointing that fact out.
I’m afraid I have to agree with Siegel, at least on the question of Cameron. There’s a maxim that should be well known among artists (especially filmmakers): “Don’t tell. Show.”
If you go by what is shown in the film, Ferris shows Cameron no consideration, buffaloes him into doing a lot of things he does not want to do and does not enjoy, and except for using him as a stooge to procure the Ferrari, barely acknowledges his presence. When we last see Cameron, he is standing amidst a sea of wreckage that we know he cannot escape, but that Ferris can and will.
I don’t know why anyone attaches any importance to Ferris’s offer to take the rap, since we all know he won’t.
Over against this, we have the suggestion that Cameron’s father mistreats him, and that he is about to have a confrontation with him that will somehow make his life better. There’s just one problem. Neither the mistreatment nor the confrontation (much less any improvement in Cameron’s situation) is in the movie. If you tell me they are, then you’re right: I didn’t see the same movie you did.
If I saw these things, I might believe in them, but I don’t. There is nothing in Cameron’s future except a world of pain.
Well said.
Cameron let Farris “bully” him because he wanted to. That was his way of joining Farris on his day off. He tells us – and Farris – this in the clip above when he says, “I could have stopped you. It is possible to stop Farris Bueller, you know.” (Or whatever the exact quote.)
And surely you can’t be serious by your claim that we can’t assume things will work out because the movie didn’t show us that explicitly. If that were true it would be impossible to make any watchable movie, or write any readable book. Give me a break. But I’ll break this one down for you and maybe you’ll be able to do the same yourself with other books and movies: We can be sure Cameron will come through it okay because he is sure. Children know how their parents will react to their antics. He isn’t going to be beaten or killed, or ostracized forever, or whatever horror you imagine we’re supposed to be imagining…… But then I thought we weren’t to imagine anything, that we have to be spoon-fed everything…… Well anyway. Farris is also sure, and he knows something of the situation. Cameron LET Farris take the car – indeed CAMERON took the car – because he knew he would inevitably get caught and have to confront his father about who/what he loved most AND THIS IS WHAT HE WANTED. And THIS – this confrontation that never actually happened in the movie – is what the movie is really all about. And it couldn’t be in the movie because the confrontation belongs not to Cameron but to every adolescent viewer of the movie who knows he or she has to have that confrontation with one or both of his/her parents about something, too. The movie is telling us to believe that the confrontation can occur, must occur and WILL work out all right in the end. And for most children (thank God) this is true – as it was for Cameron. Get it? Come on. Don’t be dense. You’re more intelligent than this bit of analysis makes you out to be; I can tell. But you’re letting some personal peccadillo prevent you from seeing the movie for what it was. I suspect this is true of everyone on this blog who obviously didn’t get FBDO. It’s a teen angst film telling teens how to deal with a very real problem they are facing – rich, white and privileged, or not. And these movies are very necessary, as are all good stories, because stories are really the way we learn to deal with the world.
Don’t forget that it’s Cameron’s fault they had to take the Ferrari in the first place. If he hadn’t screwed up the call to Rooney and demanded to see him in front of the school they could have taken Cameron’s car.
Yes Ferris turns the seemingly insurmountable problem into his advantage, but he did that throughout the movie.
In the end, Cameron wanted to take the Ferrari.
I didn’t forget. My point was only that Cameron could have said no and sacked the whole day but he didn’t because he had a much deeper motive than pleasing his best friend. He was the only one with access to the house and the car. It was his call. And – we agree – he wanted to do it.
The movie doesn’t need to show the abuse. It’s smarter than that. It alludes to it, but what matters in terms of the story is not the exact form of the abuse, but what it does to Cameron’s character. He’s totally submissive, self-loathing, hypochondriac, and terrified of the people he should love and seek out for comfort.
Ferris knows this, and the whole ‘day off’ wasn’t about Ferris having a good time. It was intentional therapy for Cameron. The movie explicitly points this out near the end when Sloane says to Ferris, “You knew what you were doing all along, didn’t you?” or words to that effect. And Ferris grins slyly, signalling to the audience that yes, this whole wacky adventure was Ferris’ scheme to wake up Cameron, show him how to enjoy life, and teach him to break the shackles of authority that had him trapped.
Other than that, the movie is a teen fantasy, expertly designed to push our buttons and give us all a vicarious ‘day off’ through the exploits of Ferris. And it’s funny as hell. What more do you want from a lighthearted 80′s teen comedy?
Good points all.
“What more do you want from a lighthearted 80′s teen comedy?”
Nothing. That’s why it’s one of the greatest.
I didn’t like what he said about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
It’s a generational thing. I was early 20′s when Ferris came out, I thought it was kid stuff and still think so. Interesting, went out to watch it, but it’s not Citizen Kane like some people seem to think.
Thanks god it’s not Citizen Kane
How many people who say “such and such movie is no Citizen Kane” actually WATCH Citizen Kane? Yes, fine, it’s a work of art and a historically important film but can you really watch it all that much? Give me The Big Lebowski or Glengarry Glenross any day. Or, for that matter, FBDO.
Or The Maltese Falcon. That’s one I keep going back to.
Your point about Kane is dead on. Brilliant, astonishing film. That said, is it the one I take to the desert island? Not even. That would probably be the two Bill and Ted movies.
Okay, so sure me. But they cheer me up, seeing two doofus losers have fun with historical figures and save the future.
I first watched this movie in my high school history class, a few days before summer break. I was this Asian kid wondering why everyone was giddy with anticiaption over Ferris Bueller. My initial reaction was “Ho, Bueller is the general from ‘Glory’”. I found out later that the principal was the emperor in Amadeus.
The best part for me was when Cameron crashed his dad’s car. Everyone can relate to playing second fiddle to your father’s hobbies or things. (Cameron is a prototypical Asian kid, IMO). Good comedies should have that emotional center that gives all that laugh and fun beforehand a sense of purpose. Comedies nowadays go for that hammy “you’re my best friend mo matter what” moment that does nothing for me.
Bueller is kinda like Tom Sawyer. He’s a flawed trickster figure who can manipulate lesser people, but he’s a decent person at heart. The left might dismiss him because his antics aren’t making some sort of larger social commentary about equality or oppression. He’s some white kid from the suburbs trying to ditch school one day with his friends.
This is where Siegel has a ghost of a vague notion of an idea, although he utterly he fails to mention it, develop it, offer support for it, or draw conclusions from it. Being the soul of kindness, erudition, and literacy grace that I am (not to mention my almost superhuman modesty), I’ll start the ball rolling for him.
“Resolved: the last generation or two is so dumb that they find Ferris Bueller substantially more plausible than Till Eulenspiegel. Discuss.”
Actually, I think Ferris is more like Bugs Bunny.
IMHO, FBDO is a great, timeless perfect little film. I love it. My kids love it and I suspect my grandkids will love it.
Ferris is very much Bugs Bunny — Jung’s “trickster” archetype.
Unlike Eulenspiegel, Ferris never crapped anyplace inappropriate – in Rooney’s desk drawer, for example. That might make him somewhat more plausible to today’s youth.
I am reminded of a review I read way back when my favorite ’80s movie came out:
“Better Off Dead.”
The reviewer complained, “Cusak’s character is in love with a pretty blonde girl, and it’s never explained why.”
What the hell is wrong with the brains of movie critics?
It’s time we woke up to the fact that rags like the New York Times and The Atlantic simply don’t have good writers anymore. It’s seems to be on the order of the equivalent of modern popular music.
When I listen to music, good music, I’m not supposed to be able to say, “Oh, yeah, I could do that, even better.”
When I read an article, I’m not supposed to be saying, “Is someone kidding me? This person gets paid?”
When you spend too much time trying to reflect on the demographic make up of your readership in terms of diversity, ideas and talent take a back seat. Contrary to popular belief, choosing to make an office diverse won’t improve output but make it worse. Having a certain percentage of people who are black or women presupposes that there is such an embarrassment of riches out there that no fall off will occur.
The record industry has tried to pander to what they think an audience wants rather than creating than empowering and creating what works and what is good and putting it out there. Sure the audience will always have the final say but they cannot judge what they never hear.
Writers are like that and it is no surprise how the New York Times went downhill after its long diversity lawsuit in the 70s. Good stuff is where you find it and that may not wear a woman’s body or that of a gay person or a minority. On the other hand, maybe it will.
Paying attention to skills and standards is the way to go. What does the word “professional” mean nowadays if it is so wrapped up in political correctness as to be invisible?
There has always been a push pull in terms of the popularity of a product with the public but to eliminate the push in favor of a popularity contest decided on by the great unwashed produces mediocrity and in spades.
Some venues have better gatekeepers than others and this is very uneven but it is plain to see in what areas results matter and in what areas a dumbed down public is made to be the arbiters of good taste.
If the diversity police had come into George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic in the early 80s I would not have been surprised to see films with Wayang Kulit shadow puppets used for special effects. The United States is drowning in itself where the obvious is ignored and cheap psychology the basis of all things.
What can you say when Mad Magazine and The Onion have trouble out-satiring reality and where hypocrisy is the rule rather than the exception?
That is roughly it. Just instead of “cheap psychology” I would probably use “quack psychology”.
Hey, Bub. You gotta problem with Wayang Kulit shadow puppets?
My fifth grade teacher was a shadow puppet. Now I have a phobia and just the mention of Indonesia sends me screaming into the night.
I don’t care for clowns either.
@21 lee
I liked your likening him to Tom Sawyer. (Such a stylist, sorry). That’s exactly who the Ferris character reminded me of too.
I can’t quite get over the self-contradictory notion of the most popular kid in high school being best friends with an unpopular kid. Is this true to life?
But now I’m going to read the Atlantic piece for myself, so mission accomplished, Roger. Enjoyed hearing you on NPR today for the first time!
Tom Sawyer gets some real world comeuppance. Ferris does not. Tom’s aunt is not portrayed as stupid. Ferris’ parents are. The adults in Tom’s life, even though he may get over on them from time to time and not bumbling idiots like the various adults in the Ferris’ life. To compare Ferris Bueller to Tom Sawyer is to be extremely disingenuous to Mark Twain.
“I can’t quite get over the self-contradictory notion of the most popular kid in high school being best friends with an unpopular kid. Is this true to life? ”
As the unpopular kid with the popular best friend, I can attest to this. I really think it had to do with the fact that the rest of the “popular” crowd was too busy being popular to be any fun to be with. =^[.]^=
Indeed. The smart popular kids used to talk to me on the sly. But in public they would close ranks.
At least, socially in public. I still remember one of the popular kids defending me in class. I gave an oral book review of The Great Gatsby that was pretty good, but the teacher gave me a C because I had not remembered to bring the book with me, and that was One Of The Rules. This gal Jill (funny the stuff you remember 40 years later!) got really mad and said mine was the best book review she had ever heard and that the teacher was being unfair.
Boy, did I hate high school.
But, thank you Jill, wherever you are!
Oops, almost forgot. Shout out to Bennett Cerf, author of “The Big Red Rock-Eater”, among many, many other achievements! What was he on, What’s my Line, I’ve got a Secret, or To Tell the Truth? Was he with Kitty Carlysle, Peggy Cass, Orson Bean, or neither of the above?
Why did the man put the clock on the airplane?
He wanted to see time fly.
What time is it when an elephant sits on your clock?
Time to get a new clock!
Why do birds fly South?
Because it’s too far to walk.
(ba-dump)
Sad to say, that’s still pretty much the only joke I know!
I don’t know what this means in the grand scheme of lefty/righty but I think everyone who was involved with Ferris Buellers Day Off should get 24 hours of the bastinado while being sanded with 40 grit sandpaper and painted out with turpentine or pureed habenero peppers. Then drawn and quartered. Why? They wrecked that Ferrari. No torture on this planet is too bad for them.
Just kidding …… about the drawing and quartering.
Deconstructing this fun cute movie is missing the point. So let’s go.
Ferris is the only unreal character in the story. He is maybe real except for his one perfect teenage day. He gets a pass from sunup to sundown on the rules. He has many fun adventures. On the way the people closest to him learn about themselves and get ready for the coming year. A perfectly good Ferrari gets destroyed.
Good movie I don’t see the problem here.
Least we all forget, the guy who played principle Rooney was later busted on kiddy porn charges.
1. Save Ferris’s version of Come on Eileen
2. Does Ferris exist? Cool reinterpretation of film a la Fight Club, watch it again.
3. Killjoy – I freakin’ hate people who purposely rain on a parade, trying to make us hate a great fun film. Screw you Atlantic Monthly. Wish Ferris had a baseball big enough to shut them up when they push c**p like this.
4. Little sisters are a pain, sorry Jeanie.
5. Shake it up baby now! A great scene.
6. Sorry Mr. Rooney ended up being a pedophile, reality shouldn’t intrude on movies.
Cracked had a bit about your #2 (scroll down to #4 in the article) some time back. Thought that was an interesting way to look at it. (liked the Bond theory also)
Alan Siegel says Ferris Bueller is banal? Well that’s it then.
Alan Siegel has a mortal lock on banality.
Somebody should offer Siegel a gummy bear.
I had to take a couple of deep breaths before responding to this. It pains me to see people viewing movies with their nostalgia goggles glued to their face. This movie is reprehensible. Like many 80s movies, it parodies adult figures, rendering them as dolts, diffuses or in Cameron’s case, disinterested and self adsorbed. A common complain of the left against the “indulgences” of the decade. Bueller’s mother is a moron who just assumes little Ferris is the perfect little darling. No chance young Bueller had ever exhibited the tendencies he shows in the movie. She’s loving but complete detached from her son so as to not be able to spot when he is up to not good.
It’s an adolescent fantasy rendered out on the big screen. Ferris steals, repeat that until you understand it, steals a Ferrari. One of only 55 ever made at that, and takes on a joy ride because Ferris doesn’t like Cameron’s dad, so that makes it o.k. I’m willing to concede there are people like Cameron’s dad, that doesn’t justify grand theft auto of a priceless automobile. Respect for personal property is a cornerstone of the conservative ideology, and we aren’t offended, nay we laud this portrayal. Do you want your kid skipping school and stealing cars? You want to tell me it’s all a big gag, o.k, it’s a big gag and has a lot of yuk yuks. That means its a throwaway piece of entertainment, and we should “get over Ferris Beuller’s Day Off”.
Lighten up, Francis.
Yeah, man, everything Hollywood does is real. Time to grow up, kid! And stay away from Jack Kerouac, too.
Wow! Do you always get this worked up about a comedy? Or this one somehow different than all the other comedy movies out there involving inappropriate behavior?
I know! Let’s get into a discussion about all the crucial life lessons taught in the old Three Stooges movies!
Comparing a teenager taking his dad’s favorite sports car out for a joy-ride to grand theft auto is way, way, WAY beyond the pale. That’s not conservative, it’s just uptight. There’s a big difference. I suppose if an 18 year old ditched school with a 17 year old it would be kidnapping? 25 to life? Please! You give credence to the liberal view of conservatives as overbearing, self-righteous kill-joys, and that’s too bad. It was a good movie with a good message. Sorry you missed it.
“Like many 80s movies, it parodies adult figures, rendering them as dolts, diffuses or in Cameron’s case, disinterested and self adsorbed.”
Yeah! Adults are never like any of that!
Careful, folks, there’s merit to Rik’s argument, agree or no. You can love Ferris and still get that, and you won’t explode or anything.
Rik gets it. 55 Ferraris of that model made, wreck one and suffer endless pain. I wonder if the Lefties would feel different if they knew that most of the guys who built that handmade 12 cylinder rocketship were (and still are( Communists.
It’s ridiculous the number of people who are going ballistic over a car wrecked (supposedly) in a movie.
Yeah, it was fast for 1960, but you can easily buy something off the showroom floor for WAY under $40,000 that will blow its doors off, not even need a tuneup for 100,000 miles (most Ferrari’s won’t even live for 100,000 miles), is not only cheap to fix when it does need work and you don’t have to fly in a Ferrari engineering team to fix it, isn’t a gas hog, AND you might actually survive a 100+ mph crash.
Not to mention that the new cars are both comfortable and can actually be driven in less than perfect weather – or even thru absolute crap if it has AWD like a Subaru WRX – AND the sound system rocks.
Those skilled Italian commies would be picking their noses were it not for the capitalist who gave them work. Try to think of that instead of banal goods like cars.
I think it would be funnier if the Ferrari Commies found out that one of their precious masterpieces was destroyed by a trio of pampered, bourgeois American kids because one of them had daddy issues.
Dude. I had exactly that same joke book.
Well the votes are in and the election is over. We now have to conclude that those who write for “prestige” middle-brow magazines have WAAAYYYY too much time on their hands.
Worth it just for the “Twist and Shout” sequence. Lennon’s vocal is fabulous, and Broderick does a great job of lip-synching and, in general, rockin’ out. You can’t watch it without dancing, singing–or both.
I am fine with Ferris. But Alan? Alan who?
Everyone I know has heard of Ferris Beuhler, whereas nobody I know has heard of Mr. Siegel… maybe that’s why he is so mad?
This Ferris Bueller article is the same as the ‘Tiger Mom’ article from a few months ago. They are both ‘troll’ articles written just to get a rise out of folks and generate attention for the author. I’m sure this guy has a book or something to sell. We’ve all got to stop giving time to these attention whores. That’s all they are.
Consider this… Obama is getting away with impeachable offenses and skips ‘school’ to play golf. Maybe this is a Freudian slip of how the left actually is upset that the FB in the WH is getting away with so much!
Couldn’t help drawing that self same comparison myself.
I have no problem with the president playing some golf, or basketball whatever. I prefer fishing myself.
Anybody in high pressure job needs some way to decompress and do something physical. That is a healthy response.
Golf is a great sport. Can’t fault Obama for that. He needs some time and golf is way better than many other ways to recharge the body and spirit.
I can fault him for playing more golf in two years than Bush did in eight, and Dubya got pilloried for being out of touch and casual by the same clowns who droll over Obama’s pecs.
Actually, I think Obama passed Bush’s total in his first year. If golf is a great game for Obama, why was it a disgrace when Bush played it?
Never saw “Ferris Bueller”. Never wanted to see “Ferris Bueller”. Never read anything about the movie that even remotely made me think I would ever want to see the movie. Even on TV reruns.
Writing an article trashing a worthless movie decades after it has left the theaters and been flushed down the Video Rental toilet is a total waste of anyone’s time.
Writing an article refuting the trashing of a worthless movies decades after it has left the theaters and been flushed down the Video Rental toilet is an even bigger waste of time!
Looks to me like Mr. Green has WAY too much time on his hand.
Spent an awful lot of time whining about what a waste this all is.
So a movie you never saw or had no interest in is worthless.
So is your comment.
Never saw “Ferris Bueller”. – Good. A clear statement of fact.
Never wanted to see “Ferris Bueller”. – OK. A statement of intent.
Never read anything about the movie that even remotely made me think I would ever want to see the movie. Even on TV reruns. – Now we are talking! Could it be a statement of prejudice? Or reading the wrong sources? Reaching judgment hastily and without due investigation? Please grace us with some elaboration on the way you have obtained your insight, and I will be happy to give you my opinion. It will run quite contrary to your position, I have to admit.
Thank you for spending your valuable time pointing out the waste of ours.
Just curious, is there any way you could rewrite your comment so you don’t sound like a pretentious asshole?
Gee, and all I saw was a movie that was full of fluff, entertaining and worth watching every 10 years if I was bored. Entertaining and pretty well done, but I missed all the really deep sociopshycological stuff. Guess I’m just not all that bright.
That’s why you should hang out at Pajamas Media. It makes you smart.
Good article Stephen, although I disagree – slightly – with your interpretation of the focus of the film (see my comment under 18 Lord Mountararat). But I refuse to believe anything is dumber than Wuthering Heights – the most pointless, boring, inane and incomprehensible bit of writing I’ve ever forced myself to read. I’m not going to read Siegel’s article to find out if you’re right. I won’t make the same mistake twice. Now when I find myself reading (or watching) a piece of garbage I_just_stop.
For the record, I had the same book of riddles as a kid, and the big, red, rock-eater joke was the most hilarious joke I knew for at least 24 years.
Oh – and I prefer the alternative theory to Ferris Beuller – that Ferris’ day off is entirely in Cameron’s imagination and a result of his tortured psyche.
The Ferrari wreck with Cameron was profound and touched me deeply. Against the lightness of Ferris — who is a a sort of otherworldly, Tom Sawyer guardian angel creature — Cameron presents a Zen moment of enlightenment.
The depressing critic doesn’t sound like someone I would like to spend a carefree day with.
Siegal is acting like he thinks he is the “Sausage King of Chicago.”
He’s probably still pissed that Ferris took his reserved table.
I was an adult when I saw this movie and I hated it with a passion. I thought Ferris was obnoxious and should have had his derriere kicked from here to eternity.
It had nothing to do with anything Siegel describes, it didn’t go that deep – Ferris was a punk. Even as an adolescent, there was absolutely nothing in Ferris I would have related to.
It was so bad, I could not watch Matthew Broderick in anything else for YEARS! LOL!
The family would tease me, “MOM! Your favorite movie is on!”
Somewhere, somehow it must have hit a nerve in me because all I wanted to do was punch Ferris Bueller in the face!
It’s sort of funny to think about how visceral my reaction was, but I STILL can’t watch that movie.
everyone is forgetting the real star of ferris bueller and other ’80s flicks
that would be yello and “oh, yeah”
chickachicka
Bomp bomp!
Let’s start small. Ferris’ parents both work at highly demanding jobs. They aren’t home observing minutely the character development of their kids. John Hughes noticed this in the 80′s- detached, wealthy parents ignoring their children’s emotional states. He wrote some very popular movies that described the effects of this on these kids. The kids across America, who were living this, responded. Yours truly, included.
Second, Ferris doesn’t just take a day off. He takes a day off to savor all the best that the West can offer: 50′s music, beautiful cars, art, baseball, French food,a Chicago mercantile exchange. He proposes to his girlfriend, and she commits to him. Two teachers are shown: Ben Stein lecturing on economics- he gets in a full Laffer curve- and a teacher lecturing on european socialism- and she is dismissed as not relevant. That adds a completely brilliant texture to the movie: it’s an encapsulated argument, all on it’s own, in the background. It’s what makes the movie durable. Ferris could have gone shopping at a mall, and then to a movie, or something like that- oh wait, there’s even technology in the form of video games. But instead, he takes his educated heart and head to all the best of Western Civ. That’s reason enough for the leftist critic to hate him.
We all know that Ferris does well in classes, has learned, and probably will attend a challenging college and get a serious degree and then continue on, married, with children, productive, and all that. He’s lived the model, he knows how it works. It’s what John Hughes did- right down to marrying his high-school sweetheart.
Cam loves his Dad enough to try and force a confrontation. That’s a lot of trust in his father, that there’s something worth saving. Cam has learned his worth this day, too.
The principal is an unboundaried scoundrel who has let his job become too personal. I’m glad he gets slapped down. Who isn’t? Who is a fan of Javert? He’s lucky he’s merely shamed, rather than charged with criminal trespass. He did do a home invasion- the sort of thing that the left likes to do to, oh, say Branch Davidians, innocent Cuban- American families. It’s the sort of thing that makes warrantless house hunts popular. We’re justifiably glad the man gets a comeuppance.
In the lightest, deftest way, all of this is lobbed up in the air, on the backs of carefree high school students. No wonder we love it. It’s our story, too.
I hated and still in a sense hate Ferris. The underlying reason is I would never be able to pull off one thing Ferris does in the movie. The other aspect is realizing everything your parents told you about how to have a successful life is a lie. It is people like Ferris who have success while those of us who put in long hours studying to get straight A’s in HS and college, etc but are completely inept in other aspects of life sit in a cube. My sister married a Ferris type guy who is a lot more successful than I am even though I was the one who graduated Summa, Phi Beta etc from the same university we all attended.
Ferris Bueller is an annoying twerp in the movie.
Matthew Broderick is annoying to watch on screen.
Which is why people will love Ferris and this movie as long as there are movies and this pissant Atlantic writer will be forgotten by next Friday.
Of the handful of movies I’ve watched multiple times, FBDO is one. it might even rise as high as “if you were stuck on a desert island, and you got to pick ten movies, which ones would you pick…”
His basic point is not that bad, that Ferris is all about the self-indulgence and treating slacking as a higher purpose in life. But I don’t have so much of a problem with it in a John Hughes movie, which by definition is always about looking back on your younger, less tightassed self and regarding your lack of adult perspective fondly.
Where I have a problem with it is in that awful piece of crap American Beauty, where the slacking is by a grownup who should know better and sponges off his wife’s work ethic while mocking her every move. Truly a loathsome character.
As a politically correct alternative to Bueller, Siegel cites … The Breakfast Club?
There are Puritans everywhere, and it’s their calling to more or less continuously shout, “Hey!!! Cut that out!!! Quit having fun, damnit!!! Life is supposed to be serious, and you can only be serious if you act and think precisely like I and all the other bien pesants do.” Or to that effect, anyway. They apparently see their life as dedicated to draining all the fun out of anything at all, no matter how harmless, no matter where it’s found. I get sick of the pretty quickly.
And is it possible to love the movie and not be all that wild about Ferris himself, because that’s my attitude. And I had kids his age when the movie came out. I took them and we all laughed our asses off.
He would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
Ferris Bueller is a sort of inverse Holden Caulfield, useless twits the pair of them.
Bravo!
Wow. A George Friedman reference. Not only did I read The Coming War with Japan, I actually took his companion college course on the subject.
“I’ve read the poetry of Jim Morrison; the columns of Maureen Dowd; the backs of countless boxes of Boo Berry Cereal; the 1988 Libertarian, Republican and Democrat political platforms in their entireties; the works of various Brontë sisters; particularly heartfelt lines from love letters I wrote to my high school sweetheart; I even read George Friedman’s The Coming War with Japan — which he wrote in 1991.”
Reminiscent of Major “King” Kong’s assessment in Dr. Strangelove, ” Well, I’ve been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard . . .”.
A bit pithyer than yours, but both good.
The funniest part is that the answer is actually in Siegel’s original article – in the quote from George Will. It’s an escapist fantasy. More specifically, as someone else pointed out, an adolescent escapist fantasy. The adults are one-dimensional parodies? Of course they are – from a teenager’s point of view. And if you care to think about the larger implications of what Ferris, Sloan and Cameron do on their day off, that’s typically adolescent too – it’s the last stage of life where you can take a mulligan even on big mistakes.
Ferris really exists in the movie, but there’s no Ferris archetype in real life, because he IS the fantasy. Smooth, smart, unworried about his material circumstances and able to go out and do things in the grownup world, but without being a snob or a jerk to his high school classmates. He’s what everyone in high school would be, “if they had the means”. Cameron has the real problems (a hard and distant father, something Hughes’ generation related to moreso than later ones) because he is a person who exists in real life. Cameron and Ferris also represent the conflicting pulls of late adolescence, the carefree kid versus the budding realization of adult responsibilities.
Is it time to start a “Ferris Bueller Died For Your Sins” society? I mean, http://www.ferrisbuellerdiedforyoursins.com is still available…
It wasn’t just a day off for Ferris. He had a plan. During the movie, he talks about Cameron’s abysmal future, where he marries the first woman who sleeps with him, and how she’ll hate him for it the rest of their lives. In short, how Cameron will lay down and suffer at the will of others, for the rest of his life.
Ferris’s point in his day off is to help move Cameron off his bottom, to try and force a change in how Cameron approaches life. He didn’t figure on the car buying it, but in the end he was successful.
By the way, there is a show where Ferris has grown up, and has a job. And things usually go his way.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115369/
You mean Cameron, right?
I was expecting a link to an entirely other show.
I was attending UCLA when FBDO came out, and the reviewer in the Daily Bruin practically had an aneurysm ranting at how horrible Ferris and company were (he actually used the phrase “Ferris and his fascist friends”). Which said more about the psychotic state of campus politics in the mid-1980′s than it did about FBDO.
Exactly. Now, I probably was not as big a miscreant as you were, but I was advised that I was being awarded a National Honor award with the lowest conduct grades ever in the history of the school. I say this because our backgrounds as imperfect teenagers may shade our view of Ferris, but I really don’t think so,
THANK YOU, thank you, thank you x 10
When I read the Atlantic article, I thought it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. I’m so glad you wrote about this, you took Siegel down. I wanted to say the same things when he wrote about Cameron “martyring himself.”
If you want an equally crazy, but more entertaining, theory about Ferris Bueller, look up “Ferris Bueller is a sociopath”
Mr. Green, I had a brief phase of life, from about the age 14 to 16ish, where I was sympathetic to the hippie movement, Woodstock, etc., and I briefly idolized Jim Morrison and bought a book of his “poetry”. I feel your pain.
Very little survived that phase of life. Jimi Hendrix is still cool. That’s really all that comes to mind.
Siegler is simply revealing his own egocentrism in his review. In the guise of lambasting Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, he is really shouting, “This movie isn’t about me! It doesn’t make people think about me and how I should be more important!”
Siegler wants people to care more about the political issues Siegler is publicly identified with and by extension to make Siegler more important. Virtually all Leftists criticism of art come down to this dynamic. They like art about themselves and art that makes them feel more important. It kind of distrubing how deeply the modern American Left has absorbed the world view of the Fascist and Communist wherein politics was the only valid purpose of art.
I think Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a great movie because it explores universal human themes. You could redo the movie’s story in almost any culture and people would relate to it. The movie explores the universal themes of the desire for freedom and the envy against those who have it. We all desire to be the kind of smooth operator that Bueller is. We would all like to have his charmed life. We would all at times like to escape the rules and roles we must follow. We all empathize with the characters like his sister who resents Bueller’s charmed existence because she follows the rules but he gets the greater rewards. We all envy those who do what we only fantasize about. (In my personal experience, people who have a strong negative reaction to characters like Bueller are individuals with envy issues.)
The movie is clearly not intended to be taking literally. After all, Bueller’s escapades border on magical realism. Clearly they are amusingly symbolic. Bueller is the suburban avatar or perhaps the secret love child of the Coyote spirit. He is rule breaking and mischief without serious consequence. We both adore him for his abilities but also resent him out of envy.
I agree strongly that Cameron is the actual protagonist of the story and I think that Cameron’s plight is highly subversive to the Leftists narrative. Siegler gives the game away when he says:
Hughes’s other movies may not channel Dickens, but they’re at least populated with teenagers who’ve had it rougher than Ferris.
By evoking Dickens, Siegler is clearly meaning “rougher” to mean material poverty. Yet Cameron’s plight is one of material wealth and emotional starvation. Cameron has all the material benefits that Leftist fantasize they can give the poor but Cameron is still miserable to the point of suicide because his emotional deprivation. The moral is that money doesn’t make you happy, family and friends make you happy. The moral is that its better to come from a poor but loving family than it is to come from a wealthy but unloving one. (All modern scientific research agrees BTW).
This is a highly subversive subtext for Leftists because it undermines their whole redistribution argument. They claim they will make people happy by redistributing material wealth even as they work to destroy the bonds between individuals. The last thing they want to see is a miserable wealthy character because they claim to make people happy by making them more wealthy.
Siegler hates the movie because it subverts his arrogant and egocentric world view. It isn’t about him so he hates it. End of story.
Very interesting point. It had not occurred to me before that socialists are the real materialists, in that their entire prescription for human happiness is to take from others and redistribute as they see fit.
As much as I despise Donald Trump, he doesn’t strike me as a person obsessed with wealth – he goes broke, so what, he can always make another fortune. And then he goes and does it. A socialist, on the other hand, is constantly aggrieved that some enjoy material wealth and ponders endless schemes to take it away. A true capitalist would say “Do you need what I have? Here – I’ll just make more of it.”
By reducing Man to a mere appetite for material security, socialists destroy the real human spirit, the desire to strive and move upward.
This was also my take on Alan Siegel’s mean-spirited attack on Ferris Bueller in The Atlantic. It also struck me that such an attack could come only from progs and lefties because they’re the ones who regularly express their bleak feelings of despair and hopelessness in oh-so-hip posts brimming with cynicism and irony. Their default emotional setting seems to be somewhere around “low-grade depression”. With that in mind I left this post at Siegel’s article. (While I’m not generally a comment recycler, it seems pointless to create a post from scratch to make what I think is a valid point):
Ah, Jeez. Don’t you guys get tired of the same old there’s-not-enough-realism-to-this-escapist-movie whinerization? Let’s examine your objections. White kids? Two parents in the same upper-middle-class house? Non-fecundity abounding among girlfriends? Oh, yeah, I see what you mean. Damn Hughes for making light, sweet movies. If only he’d had the courage to make Home Alone a cry for help from all those alienated kids victimized by the Satanic worship which simply everyone knows runs wild in flyover country….
Just who is complaining about movies’ supposed false portrayal of happy, suburban, middle-class, two-parent families? I suspect that generally it’s those who know little of the subject – whether the suburbs, the middle-class, intact families…or happiness. The uber-urbanized, irony-O.D.’d, omni-agnostics who live in Manhattan, L.A. and Georgetown, or whatever geographically tiny islands of massive overpopulation there are among those so predictably overrepresented in our media and yet so unrecognizable to the vast majority of Americans. It’s those people who don’t quite get who it is that’s out of step; viz. Pauline Kael and her famous irony-free wail that she couldn’t grasp how Nixon won since no one she knew had voted for him.
You guys keep The Royal Tenenbaums and Little Miss Sunshine and the other “real” depictions of terribly dysfunctional American family life if you think that truly represents America. I don’t, and neither do some 200 million Americans who see little that’s familiar in those depressing movies. We’ll keep watching what we know to be representative of America: movies like Sixteen Candles, Uncle Buck and, yes, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Great article. I had the exact same reaction to the Ferris-gets-off-scot-free for the wrecked-Ferrari line. What a breathtakingly stupid argument. Did Siegel even watch the actual movie?
And the notion that FBDO was racist because the two garage attendants were ‘ethnic’ was equally dumb, yet predictable in the same way ‘Friends’ was routinely trashed for the horrific crime of telling a story primarily about white people. Many other characters of pallor, including Principal Rooney and the maitre’d at the snooty restaurant, were much more unsympathetically portrayed. The garage attendants actually turned out to be OK guys; they brought the car back without a scratch.
The garage attendants did exactly what Ferris, Cameron and Sloan were doing. It was a story within a story and it was exquisite. ….. Except – as you pointed out – they didn’t destroy the car!
Let’s also think about who got away with their exploits unscathed in the movie: Ferris did, but so did the garage attendants. You didn’t see them arrested, or losing their jobs, for their own day off. Most of the whites in the movie weren’t that lucky.
It was a pointless review. It’s teen fantasy and he’s the teen Superman: He can do *anything*.
That movie sucked but not for the reasons he lists. The guy is an unremittant jerk who ruins everyone’s life and gets away with it all constantly. I couldn’t help think of Ferris when Clinton was president. But he’s charming! But he’s handsome! its okay if he does anything! I hated that movie.
It’s possible that Ferris was just an innocent free spirit from the Chicago burbs, but he looks way too much like David Plouffe to not at least consider this a separated at birth situation: http://www.michellesmirror.com/2011/04/david-plouffe-ferris-bueller-separated.html
Alright
But say what you like, I still think Sesame Street is fakey.
“Heathers”, anyone?
Stephen, Stephen, Stephen.
Ageed. “Bueller” was a banal film about an exceptionally smarmy teen as king for a day. A nice 80′s time waster, back in the day.
But Doood! You’ve got wa-ay too much time on your hands to compose 1,318 words in order to excoriating Alan Siegel for his scathing opinion, even if his tardy opinion is made more ridiculous when compared to today’s gang infested, drug ridden, armed security warehouses we call public schools.
I’ll await his treatise on that subject, any day now…
But perhaps you should cut some slack to Alan Siegel for his current screed.
Siegel was probably drunk when he wrote it.
Nobody ever complains that Cinderella (with the help of her alleged godmother) managed to ditch her night shift and break curfew without her guardian’s permission, steal a pumpkin, run off to the ball with domestic animals she doesn’t own, get home with no negative consequences besides a wardrobe malfunction, and then is abruptly promoted to a high position of political power by the object of her crime spree.
Cameron is Cinderella with issues.
First off, Alan Siegel IS Jeanie. He hates the fact that Ferris gets away with all his shenanigans without any retribution. Maybe he should take some advice from Charlie Sheen on this, because the problem is with HIM.
Besides, I stopped listening to morons like Siegel years ago and learned to make my own opinions about movies. I’m sure that there are plenty of movies that I (and I’m sure you, who ever you are reading this) absolutely love, that Siegel and his ilk have given one star to or simply hate. I’ll keep my movies, my opinions, and Ferris. Siegel, you can have the rest.