YES! THANK YOU! That was my reaction every time I watch that movie.
“Well, my zillion dollar Ferrari and house are totalled, but at least my son and I understand each other better”
You realize it’s a comedy, right? Did you also have trouble with the fact that they don’t actually brainwash male fashion models to be assassins?
Yes, I am familiar with the concepts of comedy. I am also aware that as a genre of entertainment, comedy is derived from satire, which is at its essence the exaggeration of behaviors or characteristics to highlight the absurdity or incongruity of their actors. The problem with Ed Rooney is that he isn’t just absurd or exaggerated; he is completely unrealistic, even as a caricature of a school principal. Think back to the principals and disciplinarians that you have known; would even the most aggressive and unreasonable of them have focused so much energy, attention, and ego on a single student for the sin of being regarded a “righteous dude”? No, of course not. They have bigger problems and just don’t care that much about any individual student who will be gone in a year. So, Rooney isn’t an exaggeration of the normal aggravation a principal might have with a troublesome or exceptionally clever student. He is instead an artificially constructed antagonist, an intellectually hobbled foil. If Ferris is really so clever, doesn’t he at least deserve a better opposition?
Don’t misunderstand; I’m not opposed to low brow or absurdist humor if done properly. Better Off Dead, which is pretty much the lowest of low-brow short of scatological humor, is pretty consistently brilliant despite the poor production values and sketchy pacing precisely because it presents typical teenage anxiety in an absurdist fashion and does so consistently. But Ferris Bueller isn’t good comedy. It creates false opposition to mock. It tries so hard to make Ferris clever when he really isn’t, so the film surrounds him with imbeciles to make him look smart.
Stranger
Realism? You have a problem with Rooney because he’s not real enough? I could name off a dozen other characters from movies and TV who could not or would not exist in the real world. That doesn’t make them less entertaining to watch.
The way I see it, FBDO is about a kid who, for whatever reason (he’s charming, he’s handsome, he’s a scam artist, he’s a sociopath, he’s nice, or whatever) people gravitate toward him and become some degree of obsessed with him-- either because they love him (most of the students) or they hate him (Rooney and Jeanie).
Rooney didn’t wake up planning to waste a day chasing Bueller. He just doesn’t like seeing someone take advantage of the system he’s been put in place to administer. But he’s a schmuck, and because he’s a schmuck he became obsessed with busting Bueller. There also may be a bit of jealousy driving him-- Ferris is almost universally loved at school, chances are, Rooney’s almost universally hated. But Rooney knows Ferris is a scammer, so he wants to expose him in the hopes that everyone else will hate him too.
Would it happen that way in real life? Probably not, but who cares? The Office, The Simpsons, South Park, Workaholics, Kick-Ass, most other superhero movies, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and most sketch comedy all feature characters that are pretty absurd and extreme. They are still funny and/or entertaining. It’s called suspension of disbelief. You don’t want to suspend your disbelief for Ed Rooney? Fine, that’s your decision.
I think you’re thinking about it too much. The movie is just wish fulfillment, fantasy to me in a bit of a cartoon/slapstick/low brow comedy style. It’s a high school version of Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny in regards to Rooney and Bueller.
Understatement of the decade.
I didn’t mind the principal so much. I just loathed the three main characters and wished they would all die horribly, preferably torn apart by an angry mob at the parade.
No, Rooney isn’t a schmuck becuase he’s chasing Bueller; the film goes to great lengths to otherwise demonstrate his fundamental stupidity. And that is the heart of the problem; we are supposed to be rooting for Ferris because he is charming and oh so clever, as we wish we are. But Ferris is only really clever because he lives in a world full of utterly gullible and clueless morons. The parents, the girlfriend, the kids at school taking up a collection for Ferris’ medical treatment, and of course Rooney himself, are all complelely credulous and could be outmaneuvered by the average eight year old. And that is part of the problem; when Rooney “corners” Ferris in the end outside his house, what is to keep Ferris from just spewing another line of his famous bullshit which has served him so far in the film. “Hey, I had a fever dream and dressed up in a suit 'cause I thought it was Sunday,” and then putting on his smarmy manner. Roony really has nothing on him at this point. The only people in the film who aren’t complete morons are Cameron and his sister, and even they fall prey to his cleverness in ways that are completely implausible. (And really, does unseen Cameron’s father–who “never has, never will” trusted Cameron, leave the keys to his 1961 Ferrari GT California in the ignition where anyone could break in and steal it?)
The problem isn’t that Rooney and the other characters are unrealistic or exaggerated; as I’ve repeatedly stated, that is expected in a comedy. But there needs to be some root of plausibility in their characters, some aspect you can point at and, no matter how absurd they are, identify with someone you’ve met in your life. Bill Murray’s gonzo camp counsellor in Meatballs, William Atherton’s over the top arrogant professor in Real Genius, Frances McDormand’s plastic-surgery-and-online-dating obsessed fitness trainer in Burn After Reading; these are all exaggerated characters, but they have characteristics that we know from people in real life, so the amplification of them is amusing. But having something completely unconnected from reality–like a character walking around in a duck suit all the time–just isn’t really funny unless there is some compelling (and yet amusing) reason why he would be compelled to do so.
Sure, and the slapstick antics of a Buggy Bunny cartoon can be amusing for eight minutes, but grow tiresome at movie length. Just because a film is fantasy or wish fulfillment doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be held to the same critical standard as any other movie in terms of being well-structured and self-consistent. You may find Ferris Bueller’s Day Off funny, and that is a perfectly valid opinion, but from a technical standpoint of the plotting and characterization the film has enormous problems. Contrast it to, say, Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, which just progressively ratchets up the absurdity, and yet never loses control, to the point at the end of the film that the old man is willing to marry Jack Lemmon’s character even after he finally reveals that he’s actually a man, with the offhand line, “Nobody’s perfect.” It’s a perfect ending line because there is nowhere to go from there that could be plausible; the film precisely reaches its logical height of absurdity.
Stranger
You’re helping me prove my point that “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is the greatest movie ever made. For someone to loathe the movie this much, and yet have such a comprehensive thesis formulated around its characters puts this right up there with “Hamlet” and “Paradise Lost.”
RESOLVED!
I don’t “loathe the movie this much,” I just find it indifferent, overhyped, and poorly constructed. Movies I actually loathe, such as Goddard’s Contempt or Haneke’s Caché, fall into an entirely different category.
And John Milton’s Paradise Lost has never been made into a film. Hamlet has, of course, often and typically indifferently, but I find the 2009 BBC production with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart to most excellently capture the true gallows humor and absurdity of the play.
Stranger
They’re both works of literature that have been discussed and dissected and analyzed ad nauseum. Sheesh, lighten up, Francis. I’ve never seen someone put so much time and effort to something they find so indifferent.
That being said, I don’t necessarily disagree with all you said in your analysis, I just think that that’s no reason to hate the movie, dislike the movie or think it less-than-stellar.
So, you initiated this thread in the form of a formal debate, but only want affirmative responses? That’s not the way it works.
Stranger
Fair enough, carry on! This being Cafe Society and not Great Debates, I suppose I was expecting more favorite lines and clips from people, and less deconstruction of plot and character analyses. I guess I shouldn’t post “RESOLVED” with my tongue in cheek.
I was actually half-expecting someone to post “Napoleon, like anyone can even know that” as a rebuttal to my initial claim. But your stuff is much better. Wrong conclusion, but interesting nonetheless.
Me thinks you took the OP too literally.
No, and I mean, who really cares what happens to Cameron?
The point is we get to watch a hilarious scene where a beautiful and cherished automobile gets thoroughly and totally trashed.
The take-away, I think, is that the only thing that matters is Ferris.
Which, I believe, proves our point. The destructiuon of something beautiful and cherished is seldom to be applauded, and Ferris is a dick. Therefore the whole movie is a waste of time and not worth watching.
I think the point was that even though the Ferrari was beautiful, it allowed an outlet for Cameron to be passive aggressive towards his father who was never really one at all. He loved the car more than his own son. The ultimate destruction of it was not intentional but it was still cathartic for Cameron.
Greek and Shakespearean plays have similar themes although not the same ones. I think some of you are writing it off because you view it as yet another 80’s high school movie even though the themes are much more timeless than that.
I thought it was clear Back to the Future is the best movie ever made?
Though Ferris Bueller has some big laughs and great lines, The Big Lebowski is the best comedy ever made.
I never guessed so many people disliked FBDO.
Maybe the Ferris character itself is polarizing? That smarmy, slick, manipulator. Did the people who disliked Ferris also dislike Ryan Reynolds in Van Wilder or Chevy Chase in Caddyshack?