No one here has said that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a bad movie simply because the title character behaves badly or even because he’s a bad person. That’s a strawman. The discussion of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in this thread involves a more nuanced difference of opinion about how Ferris is depicted. I covered this in my previous post:
OK, then I’m pretty sure there are a lot more “kind of nutty” people in the world than you think there are.
And (not having read the article yet either) I don’t think actors are necessarily immune from that particular brand of nuttiness either.
Some people really do view movies - and real life - as a simple morality play. Maybe it’s because they’ve been trained to do so; maybe it’s because that’s just the way they are; I don’t know.
I think you’re right.
I think the example of a writer or director making a racist scene is not as simple as it sounds, because writers and directors are making creative decisions. I don’t think it’s always easy to tell what’s a creative decision and what’s a prejudice - we are claiming to read their minds.
For example, let’s say a director consciously decides “Hey, let’s play this scene as if we’re all a bunch of racists”. That can create an effect on the screen that wouldn’t have happened if the director had only said “Keep in mind that your character and his character are racists”. But neither one is morally the same as if a director and a cast all accidentally act like racists because they are racist and none of them had even realized there was a decision to be made.
He steals and later destroys an expensive and treasured vehicle and then permits his ‘friend’ to accept exclusive blame for it. It is portrayed in the film as being acceptable because Cameron’s father is emotionally distant and neglectful, and that somehow this incident will rectify the deficiencies in that relationship, but realistically there is no way this goes well for Cameron. The universe that Ferris Bueller is populated by morons, nincompoops, and suckers which are specifically crafted to make Ferris Bueller look clever even though he’s really about as shrewd as your typical eight year old. Oh, he faked an illness by claiming to have stomach cramps and licking his palms? What parent is actually fooled by this?
Stranger
As I read the article, something like this seems to be Ringwald’s issue with the behavior of the Bender character in The Breakfast Club. Not that Bender is a serial killer, but that he doesn’t do enough to earn his redemption. He spends most of the movie alternately harrassing or viciously belittling Ringwald’s character. He never apologizes, and indeed never seems to show much remorse at all, and yet at the end he “gets the girl.” Or at least he gets a kiss and, IIRC, one of her earrings–it’s been years since I’ve watched the film.
I can certainly see how watching this with 2018 eyes, as well as the eyes of a mother–the article was prompted by watching the movie with her young daughter–might make Ringwald feel uncomfortable. After the way he’s treated her, why should Claire respond this way? It didn’t feel earned to me, either. It smacks of “The Couples Have to Pair Up Because It’s the End of the Movie” style writing, with, as you say, no real recognition of just how badly Bender has treated her.
The characters could all act badly and I might still enjoy the movie.
If the characters all act stupidly, I’m likely to lose interest.
I’m the exact opposite, it bothers me in the extreme when the hero gets blamed for collateral damage when non action would have lead to magnitudes worse results.
There are whole genres of youtube videos with titles like “top 10 great movies ruined by terrible endings.” The better ones go into critical analysis of why the ending breaks the movie.
I was never happy with the ending of No Country for Old Men, because I felt like it was just contrived to deliver punishment to the main bad. I read something that talked about how it was showing the randomness of tragedy, like the coin flips, but I still felt like it was unearned. Whats-his-name had always been so careful and deliberate, and then has an accident?
The same with every episode of Law and Order where the accused gets off, and is then gunned down on the court room steps.
Uhm…if anyone is getting repercussions in Sixteen Candles its the 18 year old woman who statutory raped the drunk 14 year old.
That’s what I got from the article, too, but Ringwald even says that it took until she was 30 to realize she should avoid men that treat her badly. I always took the movie as meaning Claire was willing to give Bender a chance, even if he didn’t deserve it. Perhaps because she was inexperienced, an idiot, or just attracted to cute-dangerous-exciting guy. In my interpretation the movie isn’t forgiving his behavior because he has a bad home life, but rather agency is being given to Claire, and she makes a bad decision—he doesn’t “get the girl”, she picks him.
I may be miss remembering things, because it’s probably been 20 years since I’ve seen Breakfast Club, but of all the brat pack movies, it was the only one I liked and bothered to see more than once.
Actors who appear incongruously “innocent”, like the long-ago Molly Ringwald, …
Maybe sometimes it’s because they are that innocent. And maybe their early experiences in acting have turned out difficult and partly traumatic just because it’s traumatic and difficult for an innocent kind of person to get through life at all. Though getting through life in the movie business might be more difficult or traumatic than some other things.
That’s it, precisely. I don’t mind bad characters doing bad things. Or even good characters doing bad things (for a short arc), as long as the narrative treats those things as bad. When they treat bad things as good/benign, they lose me as a viewer.
Why?
I’ve now read the article, and Ringwald doesn’t come across as nutty to me at all. She definitely doesn’t say that the movies she made with John Hughes are bad movies because they depict characters behaving badly. She seems quite thoughtful and willing to listen to other people’s views. In the specific case of Sixteen Candles, Ringwald explains the problems she has with the way the character Caroline is (mis)treated in the movie, but also includes a differing opinion from the actress who played Caroline, Haviland Morris.
Because women are inconsequential and using them as fodder for what would otherwise be viewed as deeply disturbing treatment is funny. This of course does not influence the behavior or outlook of young men who grow up watching such films, and so it’s all just good fun. Also, Harvey Weinstein and Roman Polanski were just “boys being boys” and we should just give them a pass because they have directed and produced entertaining films.
Stranger
Not arguing a point here, but just asking out of curiosity, how about authors like Philip K. Dick which typically have no “heroes” at all.
I found it interesting talking with friends about the original and the recent reboot of Blade Runner. In both movies I assumed the typical Philip K. Dick model of no heroes, but several people had issues due to the protagonist’s action.
IMHO I was expecting a dystopian story, where for a lack of a better term the dregs of society were interplaying with themes on what humanity even was.
But I was surprised that others didn’t view the protagonists as anti-heros, which outside of the pacing seemed to be the largest complaint.
I think it’s really hard to have a clear protagonist who isn’t depicted as being explicitly evil or a jerk or whatever, and not think that the work is portraying them as “the good guy,” or, at least, “an acceptably good guy.” It’s just something we expect, and if it isn’t clearly subverted, then that’s the message people take away.
As for the OP: I also agree no one doesn’t get this. I think this is almost always a misunderstanding of what people think. They may themselves say this, but, drill down, and you’ll find they don’t mean it.
People are not inherently good at explaining their tastes. Your reaction to art is almost always feeling first, and then trying to figure out why you feel that way, not the other way around.
I admit that I like Ferris’s Day Off, even though Ferris is exactly the type of character I would normally hate. Somehow I’m able to ignore that and have fun, and not care that I think Ferris is horrible. I only can guess why: that I interpret the movie as a pure power fantasy and not something anyone would actually consider good.
Hell, the fact that everyone is a moron may even play into that. It’s so unrealistic that it has to be just a daydream.
Stranger on a Train:
Not really, his motivation is that his job was stolen by the rich and powerful. He was very happy to have the contract to clean up the resulting destruction, that didn’t motivate him to villainy.
But here’s a great example from the MCU: Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. I find it very difficult to root for the Guardians against the golden-skinned guys, because Rocket was wrong in stealing the batteries from them. Despite some good aspects to the movie (Star Lord and Ego, Gamora and Nebula), I found this to be a major sticking point in my enjoyment of the movie overall.
I short-slipped the details in an effort to avoid an extended discussion, but yes, Toomes had the opportunity for a big contract and then the carpet was pulled out from under him in a bery underhanded and unfair manner (which was analogous to some of the machinations over the World Trade Center cleanup,and reconstruction). But my point is the film actually acknowledges that aomeone has to come in after the heroes are done and do all the hard world of demolition and reconstruction.
The Guardians are explicitly not “good guys”; Quill is a thief and a former Ravager, Gamora is an assassin, and Rocket is a professional asshole with a violent tree as muscle. Only Drax is actually motivated by a vaguely noble cause, and even he is pretty indifferent, albiet largely through his legendary obtuseness. (“Nothing goes over my head! My reflexes are too fast, I would catch it!”) But the universe portrayed in the Guardians films is pretty much lawless and amoral. Even the Xandarians, despite being presented as the most enlightened civilization, have an abbreviated judicial process and a thoroughly anarchistic prison where they dump the Guardians. The Soveriegn are, as Rocket describes them, “conceited douchebags”, and the ancient beings in the galaxy like Ego, The Collector, and The Grandmaster aren’t enlightened and benvolent intelligences but narcissistic assholes who think nothing or torturing, enslaving, or killing people for their own pleasure.
Besides, if Rocket hadn’t stolen the batteries they wouldn’t have been able to detroy Ego and prevent him from consuming all other life. So Rocket would argue that he was totally justified even if he didn’t know it at the time, because that’s how he is.
Stranger