News of Matthew Broderick reprising Ferris Bueller for some kind of Superbowl commercial (teaser) has me wondering.
I’ll admit I had lust for Matthew Broderick at the time, but I thought the character was one of the most despicable, amoral, conniving, utterly selfish, damned near sociopathic bastards ever to be the lead in a comedy. He doesn’t give fech about Cameron or any kind of authority, doesn’t seem to appreciate a damned thing- his carefree life or his friends or anything else really, makes his sister’s life miserable, tells constant lies himself (and not all of them harmless) and manipulates others into lying and stealing for him, makes fools of his parents and pretty much everybody else, preys on people’s gullibility and (in his parents’ case) their kindness, hacks into official records… he’s just absolutely horrible.
I also invoke the 90 Pounds With Acne Rule: if Ferris looked like a hundred pound weakly with acne (think D.J. Qualls) or if he looked like Jonah Hill (pre weight loss) instead of a cute twinkish 20ish Matthew Broderick, many current fans of that movie would probably denounce it in a heartbeat.
I will admit that personal baggage from my own teen years when I was broke as hell and incapable of any kind of ‘rebellion’ to a million responsibilities probably flavors my opinion substantially, but Ferris’s shaggability quotient is to me the only thing to recommend him. All the rest is basically An Epic Paean to Rich White Kid Privilege. His college years will likely involve his parents bailing him out of a totally valid date rape charge before he goes to work as a right hand man and adopted son to Bernie Madoff, who he then screws over and alerts the Feds to strictly to keep his share of the divvy.
But, this is my opinion only of course. Albeit the correct one, of course.
But out of curiosity, is there anybody else who wanted to see it ending with Rooney catching him, exposing him to his parents, and getting him expelled while Cameron’s dad charging him with grand theft auto? (Meanwhile Sloane gets home to find out her grandmother really did die and with Ferris gone she shags Cameron senseless. And gets pregnant. And to get money for an abortion becomes Ferris’s dad’s mistress… I really hate these Ferris and Sloane.)
You’re not by a long shot the only one who dislikes Ferris Bueller. There are a number of articles on Cracked.com about what a jerk he is. Here’s one of them:
I tried watching it when it showed on cable. Bleah. Didn’t like the character, didn’t like the situation, just a big pile of dumb with an extra helping of unfunny. Of course, that’s my reaction to a LOT of movies, so take it for what it’s worth.
I’m torn between giving the following responses:
[ol]
[li]Ah, lighten up! It’s just a fun, light-hearted romp of a movie. Ferris just wants to live life to the fullest, and, if we let it, the movie makes us want to do the same.[/li][li]In fact, the movie’s appeal is that it lets us live vicariously through Ferris, and without any consequences. Ferris Bueller is who all of us (well, okay, some of us) fantasize about being.[/li][li]You’ve got a point there. Ferris is a dick, who gets by on charm, and it makes total sense for him to rub you the wrong way, especially if he resonates with you in a negative way due to your own background. [/li][li]Anything you can say against Ferris has already been said, in the movie itself, by his sister.[/li][li]Don’t think of Ferris as a real, flesh-and-blood human being. Think of him as a mythological-archetype-slash-cartoon character. Do you resent Bugs Bunny for wreaking havoc and getting away with stuff?[/li][li]The movie isn’t really about Ferris, but about Cameron. He’s the character who changes over the course of the movie. His character arc is one of the standard tropes: “tight-ass learns to loosen up and have fun.”[/li][/ol]
It’s nice, sometimes, to watch the bad guy win, if he does it with style and finesse. It appeals to the bad guy in all of us. I’m sure I didn’t have anywhere near as many responsibilities at that age as you, but I sure couldn’t throw off that much responsibility…but it was fun to watch all the same, and imagine that we could break the rules like that, just for a single day.
That doesn’t mean you have to like it. I’m just explaining why I like it, even though Ferris is a jerk.
Plus back then I crushed on Charlie Sheen. :shudder:
Cars are meant for driving. Cameron’s father is the one who deserve a pistol-whipping.
There’s always the theory that either the events of the movie, or even Ferris himself, are figments of Cameron’s imagination. Ferris is pretty much the introvert’s definition of the charismatic guy that gets away with anything.
(To the OP, does Ferris hack into school records? Broderick does that in WarGames, not FBDO.)
Well, everyone else likes him. “The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.”
Even his sister learns to like him in the end. The lesson is that our jealousy of Ferris, and all he gets away with, is only because of our dissatisfaction with our own inaction. Yes, he is kind of a dick but the kind of dick I would like to be if I had the balls.
It’s a fantasy. At a certain point, we all want to imagine we’re Ferris even as we worry that we’re really Cameron.
But we’re not Ferris or Cameron. As one critic of the movie pointed out, there’s only one Ferris and Cameron in the movie. Most of us are the anonymous students who go to Ferris and Cameron’s high school. We’re living in a world where somebody else is the star.
