Page 6A
April 14,1997
Hill Topics
Bueller?...
SLACKER? OR ICON?
By Adam Herschman
By Jeff Ruby
Jeff Ruby is a Wichita graduate student in journalism.
He skipped school with his best friend Cameron, his girlfriend Slane and took in the sights of the Windy City. They went to the Sears Tower, the Chicago Stock exchange. The Art Institute, a parade on Michigan Avenue and a Cubs game at Wrigley Field.
And what could be better than cruising around him is explain himself.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look once in awhile, you could miss it." Ferris looks at life positively, and he understands that life is meant to be enjoyed. Ferris is the type who sees half a glass of water as half full, while Cameroon sees it as half empty.
But that still wasn't the main point of the movie. I think the theme is larger. It revolves around an outlook of the life that Ferris has. He represents an attitude which... well, I'll let Ferris explain himself.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look
iraisi Foster's California:
Ferris Bueller's Day Off has influenced a generation of 20-year-olds. Maybe not spiritually or emotionally, but when you hear someone quoting in a movie, chances are it had a lasting impression for one reason or another.
"Bueller... Bueller... Bueller..."
When Ferris was planning to miss his ninth day of school, the question was not what he was going to do, but what he wasn't going to do.
Cameron also had planned to take Ferris off, but he didn't intend to spend it with Ferris. Cameron decided to lie in bed depressed and sick, and he told Ferris he wasn't leaving.
Ferris Bueller is no Abe Frohman. They wasted their time watching former MTV video jockey Adam Curry present hours of music film. But that wasn't the main point of the movie.
I think the theme is larger. It revolves around an suburb.
But for one day Ferris Bueller was the king of the but for one day Ferris Bueller was the king of
Whether you've seen the movie, you've likely heard his name called by at least one of your hip As Cameron hung up the phone, he said, "I'm drunk"
Those in the wires play music.
Those who enjoyed the movie probably have a favorite scene. I laugh when I watch the scenes between the Dean of Students Edward R. looney and his secretary Grace.
Ferris called back and said, "You're not dying. You just can't think of anything good to do."
Cameron talked to himself as he struggled to decide whether to leave his house:
"He'll keep calling me, he'll keep calling me. I'll
*ay favorite is when Rooney tells Grace his feeling about Ferris. "I don't trust this kid any further than I can throw him."
a favorite womensy who has faster anger about Ferns. "I don't trust this kid any further than I can throw him.
"Well with your bad knee Ed you shouldn't anybody. it's true, Grace said
But besides a good laugh, I wasn't know the but beside
throw anybody. It's true, "I grace said."
But besides a good laugh. Why did Ferris take the day off? Or phrase in book report form, what is the theme of Ferris Budler Day Off?
At the oogaming of the movie, Cameron was stick down on himself and had little confidence. By the end of the movie, Cameron's attitude had improved, and he was ready to make some changes in his life. He told Ferris that he had the best day of his life.
Although Ferris skipped school to enjoy a beautiful spring day more than a decade ago I don't buy the notion that the movie encourages skipping school.
If Ferris didn't ditch class the movie would lose favor in the plot and characters. I mean, how funny would a movie called Ferris Brueller's Day off On Sunday or Ferris Brueller's Flag Day be? Ferris and friends did, however, receive an education outside of the classroom. It's not like Adam Herschman is a Minnetonka, Minn., junior I journalism.
Yet when I decided not to take school so seriously, I didn't have the resources or creativity of Ferris. There wasn't a major league baseball team or a collection of French impressionism at my daily disposal in Wichita. Nor would real parents be cueles enough to A. Believel I was really on the verge of barfing up a lung, or B. Leave the keys to the Ferrari in the ignition. My friends' parents drove Toyota Tercels and we had no idea where she learnt her lessons.
I could hijack a float, induce widespread dancing and croon about Central Hall in fall. Truth is, I identified more with Cameron than Ferris, afraid to take chances, paranoid be caught, and wallowing in my own misery with my personal lump of coal up a very personal part of my body.
But — and there's always a "but" when it comes to issues of our institution — when I tried to emulate Ferris Bueller and ditch school, I usually just watched some television, or went to McDonald's, or something. It's all right to point out the absurdity of traditional education, as director John Hughes did more deflavour than any other filmmaker of his genre. We couldn't help agreeing that Rooney and the monotonous economics teacher who said, "Bueller." Bueller" were complete tools to be mocked and disreputable.
Then again, movies are made to be enjoyed, not followed. And yet I still find myself telling friends, "I could be the Walrus — I'd still have to bum rides off of people."
His name is Ferris Bueller, he's missed class NINE TIMES this semester, and somehow we're still convinced he's a "righteous dude." Bueller ditched school in 1986 and shaped countless upper middle class suburban kids in the last decade.
Bueller may have seized the day, enriched his life and educated himself by stopping to 'look around once in awhile.' But when I tried to follow suit and flog authority in the real world — where it's impossible to do all that cool stuff in one day — my rebellion was empty. Empty because I had no money and no outlet to soothe the restless angst Ferris Bueller illustrated so brilliantly.
"Ferris gives good kids bad ideas."
Whether you're a member of the "sportos, motorheads, geeks, slurs, bloods, wasties, dweebies or dickheads" — arguably the most expansive list of high school social types ever broadcasted — you have probably quoted and followed Ferris Bueller's Day Off at some point in your life.
Save the Star Wars trilogy, no single movie has had as lasting an impression on young people as Fergus Bueller's Day Off. But return of the Jedi really didn't apply as much as Bueller to our everyday lives, because we tend to live slightly closer to Chicago than Tattooine.
If we are a generation of sluggish slackers as we have been labeled, then there is only one explanation. The answer is so obvious I can't believe I missed it. Eleven years ago, a single individual ditched school with his friends and went to Wrigley Field — among other fun places — and managed to capture and shape the feeling of an entire generation
I wondered why I didn't have neurotic, hockey局wearing friends whose Dads owned 1961 Ferrars we could plunder on weekdays. I starting doing that mohawk thing when shampooing my hair. I craved a girlfriend who wouldn't get pissed when I led to get her out of class. I cursed my home-town for having no elaborate parade at which
Ferris Bueller came out when I was in eight grade, and suddenly I forgot school. I forgot work. I wanted to move to some cushy North Shore suburb, stare at that Seurat painting and pretend I was Abe Froman, the exalted sausage king of Chicago so I could eat pancreas at smoooty downtown restaurant