“You know what would help my friend Cameron? If I got to do everything I wanted and get away with it scot free. Yeah, that’ll cheer him up, all right.”
That’s your argument?
It was called Election, and it didn’t go so well for Ferris.
??? Huh? I couldn’t agree more about the brilliance of Lupin and Omar Sy as its star Assane Diop (“Lupin”), but I don’t understand your references to Lupin’s “sometimes-girlfriend”.
Do you mean Claire, his childhood sweetheart and ex-wife (or maybe ex-partner, I’m not sure they were ever officially married)? He can’t exactly “cut off contact” with her given that she’s the (custodial) mother of his son Raoul, whom he wants to keep at least some level of involvement with. AFAICT, though, they no longer have any sexual relationship (although maybe a resumption in the future is hinted at? Who knows, it’s France).
He does eventually opt for transparency and a clean break with both Claire and Raoul once the whole kidnapping thing brings home to him the danger he’s been putting them in. That realization and sacrifice and the increased maturity they imply are deliberately made part of his story arc.
Exactly, which IMHO is why it doesn’t qualify for the OP’s criterion. Yes, Lupin/Diop has been in way over his head trying to combine even a vestige of family life with his criminal career, but that’s made obvious right from the get-go. There’s no suggestion that he’s being presented as an unambiguously “good” person. Viewers are clearly expected to understand that his criminal activity has been catastrophically destructive for his interpersonal relationships, beginning in his adolescence when he stole the violin for Claire.
I’m assuming you weren’t referring to Juliette, the “long-lost love” whom he deliberately manipulates into infatuation with him for his own purposes (related to seeking justice for his father). Again, not “good” behavior, but not in any way portrayed as such either.
Assane Diop/Lupin is definitely a flawed character, but not in any way an “unintended villain” in the vein of the OP’s contrarian interpretations of “evil Glinda” or “evil Mary Poppins”.
My view of Ferris is that he’s a classic trickster figure, like Anansi, Loki, Robin Goodfellow, or Bugs Bunny. The trickster’s job is to break taboos and introduce change, whether for good or for bad. He tweaks the nose of authority figures, yes, but he also throws the lives of ordinary people into chaos, transforming them into different people at the end - if they survive. Thus, the story’s protagonist, Cameron, had his life ruined and as a result was transformed into the kind of kid who’d be willing to stand up to his tyrannical father. Was it worth it? It’s hard to say, but it also isn’t that important - it’s the change itself that counts.
Someone more creative than I will fill in the gaps explaining how the pressure of saving the world from WAPR… combined with the US Army’s need to keep things quiet… caused Seattle’s very shy David Lightman to suffer a psychiatric dissasociative event in his path to becoming Chicago’s compulsively-popular Ferris Bueller.
Then, as mentioned above, there’s another movie which shows how the two personalities combined to form the loser in Election.
Yes, exactly!
In the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons, Bugs started off minding his own business. He’d be happily munching on carrots until somebody (Elmer, Sam, Daffy, the Tasmanian Devil) showed up and started causing trouble. Bugs wouldn’t stand for that, and you knew he was going to win in the end. In the cartoons that strayed from that formula, with Bugs stirring up trouble on his own, he came across as a bully.
It’s been ages since I’ve seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but I don’t remember anybody starting trouble with Ferris, unless you count his teachers and parents expecting him to go to school. Ferris fakes being sick, hacks into the school computer, and instigates all the trouble himself.
Not all tricksters are the same, obviously. Both Harpo Marx and the Norse god Loki fall under the broad trickster archetype, but I wouldn’t say that they’re that much alike.
I would definitely count that. Ferris doesn’t go to school not because he doesn’t like school, but because he’s expected to go to school, even when he doesn’t feel like it.
As Alessan points out, trickster figures can be good or bad (or at least can act in a good or bad way).
I like the notion of Ferris as trickster figure. I’m thinking of a spectrum of trickster figure behavior, similar to D&D alignment. I never played, so I had to look it up to refresh my memory…all tricksters I’d say are ‘chaotic’. Ferris falls somewhere between chaotic evil and chaotic neutral. Bugs (in most cartoons where he’s minding his own biz until he gets messed with) is somewhere between chaotic neutral and chaotic good.
Chaotic evil
Archetype: Destroyer
A chaotic evil character tends to have no respect for rules, other people’s lives, or anything but their own desires, which are typically selfish and cruel. They set a high value on personal freedom, but do not have much regard for the lives or freedom of other people. Chaotic evil characters do not work well in groups because they resent being given orders and usually do not behave themselves unless there is no alternative.
Chaotic neutral
Archetype: Free spirit
A chaotic neutral character is an individualist who follows their own heart and generally shirks rules and traditions. Although chaotic neutral characters promote the ideals of freedom, it is their own freedom that comes first; good and evil come second to their need to be free.
Chaotic good
Archetype: Rebel
A chaotic good character does what is necessary to bring about change for the better, disdains bureaucratic organizations that get in the way of social improvement, and places a high value on personal freedom, not only for oneself, but for others as well. Chaotic good characters usually intend to do the right thing, but their methods are generally disorganized and often out of sync with the rest of society.
I confess that I watched the show start-to-finish some time ago, and it was only in rewatching bits and pieces with my daughter (she was watching it, and I would catch a scene here and there) that I really noticed his misbehavior. I apologize for misremembering some of the bits.
The two scenes that really stood out for me, I think I can describe obliquely. One happens in the main storyline on a train, where he wants to prove to everyone involved that he’s not a shitty dad. In order to prove this, he puts his family in serious danger, and in order to keep Claire from leaving with Raoul, he keeps lying to her about the amount of danger they’re in. Her spidey sense is going haywire: she knows there’s something terribly wrong. But he’s all smiles and lies and “don’t worry, it’s fine!” even as he knows the danger. Had he not done that, Raoul would have been much safer.
The other scene involves a flashback to a restaurant. He knows Claire wants to talk about something serious with him, and he’s nervous about the conversation, so instead of reserving a quiet restaurant table as she requested, he gets something super-fancy, which makes her really uncomfortable. She wants to talk about something quietly, but he turns it into a massive public spectacle, making her even more uncomfortable and off-balance and unable to discuss things the way she wanted to. Then, when he realizes he’s in danger, he lies to her again about what’s happening. It’s very manipulative and controlling.
Both of these scenes are pretty awful. He’s a con artist who can’t turn it off, who seems to know only one way to deal with folks. Except that (and I could be wrong here) I don’t think he treats his best friend that way: he’s honest with his friend in the scenes I rewatched. Maybe it’s a gender thing?
Yeah, he gets better. But as I said, I found him to be a terrible partner/boyfriend/husband/ex-husband in those first-season scenes.
I have a hard time seeing Ferris as evil. He’s not cruel; none of his actions really hurt other people except where they bring it on themselves; and he has a certain innocent joie de vivre that isn’t something you see in evil characters.
He’s not firmly at either extreme, but I think where you place him along the chaotic good vs. chaotic evil continuum depends on how you interpret his treatment of Cameron. Is the Day Off motivated by a sincere desire to encourage a depressed, possibly suicidal friend; or is Ferris callously using Cameron for his own self-centered gratification?
Agreed. He’s clearly not full chaotic evil, but where on the chaotic spectrum you decide to place him depends on how you interpret his intentions. If you really think his intentions were only to help Cameron, then even more toward chaotic good. Me, I’m more in the Robot_Arm camp:
Well, it worked didn’t it?
Ferris does say right at the beginning that he’s worried about his friend Cameron, he’s sad about the prospect of them going to different universities and he really wants to enjoy a great day with him now because summer will disappear too quickly.
Yes, that involves stealing Cameron’s dad’s amazing car, but it’s quite clear throughout that Ferris really wants to show Cameron a good time - look how upset he is when Cameron suggests they didn’t do anything that wonderful.
The catharsis Cameron achieves vis-a-vis his relationship with his father and indeed his entire passive approach to life was certainly more than Ferris was planning on, and the killing of the car was way beyond anything he’d even conceived but it all stemmed from Ferris accurately understanding his friend’s problems and trying to do something to shake him out of them. He’s a righteous dude
I’ve never had a camp before, much less any campers.
Did it; is there really any reason to think Cameron is better off at the end of the movie than at the beginning?
“I got my friend to start thinking for himself and his father is no longer indifferent to his feelings!”
“How did you do that?”
“He got kicked out of the house and disowned.”
Cameron was about to leave home regardless, so being kicked out isn’t that much of a consequence.
And a parent who would disown you just for wrecking their car is a parent you’re better off without. If Cameron’s dad is regularly that emotionally abusive, Cameron’s absolutely better off cutting him out of his life, regardless of how much of an inheritance he’s losing out on.
what do robots have instead of camps? Robot_Arm network? Robot_Arm swarm?
Here is proof that Kevin in Home Alone was the villain.
“Ultimately, Kevin McCallister is the true villain of this story. Not only does he ruin a very expensive vacation for 14+ people, he also holds no respect for human life. In the extreme situation of a possible robbery, he escalates it more than he needed to when there was an easy resolution”.
Excellent example! And he really shows his true colors a couple years later in the ‘real’ sequel to Home Alone:
Just out of curiosity, where on the spectrum of tricksters / shit-stirrers do you put Peter Pan?
We spent quite a bit of time discussing where Ferris is as a sociopath compared to the ‘default’ teen, but what happens when you take a self-centered young person and leave them in that mode forever, especially with no one to gainsay any of his whims?
The internet abounds with articles about how easy it is, especially in modern takes, to make Peter the villain, and while I don’t read the author’s intents into the story as much as some, the self-centeredness and selfishness of PP makes him feel more like a villain than Ferris. The very important difference between in willingness to use violence and put others in mortal danger being much more clear.