Sometimes we’re Ferris, sometimes we’re Cameron
This past weekend, I saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at an outdoor park screening. It’s not something that I would have ordinarily watched, or rewatched for that matter: there are only a few movies I am willing to rewatch, and I do it continually, almost ritually. I am averse to rewatching almost anything else, and so it’s a bit of serendipity that it was being screened. It’s also not something that I would normally review: I generally only write about Asian-American films, or those that have few reviews online, so my blog will appear on web searches. But I didn’t have anything to write about this week, and the movie got me thinking.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a story about a teenage boy from the suburbs of Chicago who fakes an illness to get out of school (hence the day off). Ferris spends the day gallivanting around the city with his best friend and his girlfriend, Cameron and Sloane, much to the anger of his sister and principal, Jeanie and Ed, neither of who believe he is sick. The film is nearly just a series of episodes running in parallel: Ferris and friends having the best day of their lives across iconic Chicago landmarks, and Jeanie and Ed becoming increasingly frustrated chasing Ferris. The movie ends concludes with the timid hypochondriac Cameron achieving an epiphany about his relationship with his father, Jeanie coming to terms with Ferris’ behaviour, Ed becoming physically and emotionally defeated, and Ferris having gotten away with truancy and the perfect day.
The movie is fast-paced and engaging, even by TikTok attention-span standards. It employs physical comedy, verbal comedy, and frequent fourth-wall breaks to great effect, using camera pans, cuts, and music to support the humour and story. The story itself is one about the triumph of a teen over adults, individualism over collectivism, and rebellion over authority, the classic American story. The principal is played for laughs, everyone adores Ferris, even though he gets away with everything. The musical numbers are excellent, as are the indulgent shots of Chicago and within the Art Institute.
The freedom of older high school movies always seem starkly different to present day, when everything is so much more serious, even for children: gun violence, college admissions, and over-parenting are all non-existent worries. In the past, I’ve written about watching Asian movies set in the eighties and nineties, nostalgic for the freedom from ones race and social expectation, but I’ve realized that the freedom represented in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is also no longer present. The movie is a clever fiction of a time that no longer exists, or perhaps has never existed.
When the movie started, Ferris immediately reminded me of a friend: the taste in music and clothes, and the devil-may-care attitude that he moved through life with. He would often get me in all kinds of trouble, and in one of our most recent conversations advocated for more chaos in our lives. This would, of course, make me Cameron, the morose, anxious, lanky, and uninspiring hypochondriac. Though the archetype is tempting, I rejected it by the end of the film: not because I didn’t want to be Cameron, but because I realized my friend also had many traits that he shared with Cameron: neuroticism, overreaction, and tendency to spiral-down. I’ve heard one creative interpretation of the film construe Ferris as a figment of Cameron’s diseased mind, the imaginary friend that he needs to take back control of his own life. But I think that in most friendships, everyone is both Ferris and Cameron at times.
Certainly, there are friends who are more Ferris to me than Cameron, the ones who inspire the craziest ideas, who take initiative on outings, and who encourage me to participate where cost and inertia would have otherwise prohibited it. There are also friends who I am more Ferris to than Cameron, the ones who I drag out, who I get into trouble, and whose parents hate me. My ability to travel and enable travel on a whim doesn’t hurt either. But much of the time, and to less dramatic appeal than Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, we are both Ferris and Cameron to our friends. We inspire and need to be inspired, we pull and need to be pulled.
Though in a fourth-wall break, Ferris claims to be doing this for the good of Cameron, deep down we know it’s not true. Ferris wanted to take a day off and spend it with a friend. It’s for inherently selfish reasons that Ferris gets Cameron involved: car and company. But in the end, the incentives all happen to be aligned. The same way when I ask a friend to spend time together, I don’t think it’s because they will suffer without it: my friends aren’t charity cases. I’m spending time with them because I want to, because I don’t want to be alone. But if I happen to be providing the company they want and the momentum they need to get out and do something, all the better for it. Aside from support during a truly emotional event or reprieve from an extremely stressful period, the intent to hang out with a friend is almost always selfish. Their company is what I crave, and I can’t get that without spending time with them. Even when I’m there ostensibly to support a friend, I’m happy to be basking in their presence, knowing that they also chose to spend this time with me.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is then a tribute to not only Chicago and America, but also friendships, and the specific sort of energy that Ferris embodies. It’s easy to hate Ferris; if he was a real person, he’d be pretty unlikable for all the reasons he irritates Jeanie and Ed: he gets away with everything. But we don’t hate Ferris, because he’s our friend. Though we all wish we were Ferris, while watching the movie, we’re just Cameron. We’re not driving the Ferrari, we’re just along for the ride. In real life however, we have the chance to be Ferris. Of course, not all the time. That would be tiring. But if we had the chance to take our Camerons out for the perfect day, wouldn’t we? Take the risk, and go on that adventure.
