This week, the Beloit College annual “Mindset List” for incoming freshmen was released. As usual, the list contains a myriad of references to pop cultural trends and icons from bygone eras and how they fit (or don't fit) into the class of 2015. The most striking to me was a passing reference or two to Ferris Bueller as a potential parent to a recent high school graduate. There's something so sacrilegious, so wrong, so culturally shocking to consider Ferris Bueller as a father figure to anyone. But what could it be?
The math and dates make sense. Ferris Bueller's Day Off was released in the summer of 1986 meaning Ferris would walk the isle to Pomp and Circumstance in the spring of 1987 and today Ferris would be 42 years old, certainly capable of having multiple children of age. Matthew Broderick who brought Ferris to life, himself, born in 1962, was 24 when the film was released and today is 50. But seeing Broderick get older was never a cause of concern or a moment to reflect. The actor aging is not the same as the character aging.
The offense arises not from chronological gripes but from thematic ones. We feel that Ferris Bueller cannot age because he represents youth, or at the least the zeitgeist conception of youth from the 1980s. Most people don't remember the details of their high school experience, but they remember what films (and music and television shows and...) best tapped into its social relevance and energy. It would feel just as violating to suggest that John Bender is now a high school principal or janitor or that Samantha Baker is a day over 16. The actors come and go freely, but the characters are ours, forever frozen in celluloid for our enjoyment and dissection.
However, what if those wounds are felt in error from romanticism, not just of our own memories of our lives but memories of memories – memories of films? Does Ferris Bueller stand for youth and fighting for your right to party? At first glance, it certainly seems to. Ferris lives a high schooler's dream life: he breaks all the rules but never gets caught; he does next to nothing but gets all the credit; and most importantly, he's popular with everyone including the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads. They all think he's a righteous dude.
But all of this notoriety with teenagers buys him no currency with adults. Every obstacle that comes Ferris's way comes for two reasons: because he lies and because he's a teenager. Moreover, all of Ferris's lies are because he's a teenager without a car, a job, independent income, a house or a degree – all the hallmarks of being “adult.” That being said, Ferris's problems can be merged into one collective issue: Ferris lies about being an adult because he's a teenager. The eighteen year old's fantasy is to become a grown up or at least be treated like one.
If this seems self-evident, it stands in direct contrast to the nostalgia of Ferris as a paragon of youth. In the film, he is able to accomplish nothing as himself and nothing alone other than to fool his well-meaning yuppie parents. He needs Cameron's help to get Sloan out of school, but even then, they must pretend to be Sloan's parents on the phone and dress up as her father to pick her up. They can only get a seat at the finest restaurant in Chicago by again placing prank phone calls posing as police officers and sausage barons. When they get to the big city, they oddly spend time at the NYSE, an adult business institution, where Ferris suggests to Sloan that they embark on another adult institution, marriage. In the film's universe, fake adults can get more accomplished than teenagers.
Yet, even as Ferris, Sloan and Cameron struggle to apparently escape their teen years through reaching for perceived maturity, they collide back with their real parents because their lives are inextricably governed by their parents. They have to “borrow” Cameron's dad's car for their adventure. Ferris runs into his dad at the restaurant and again in traffic. When trying to hurriedly get home before they arrive, he is almost hit by his mother and sister driving. As they ascend the Sears Tower, Cameron first thought at reaching the then-highest man-made point in the world was, “I think I see my dad down there.”
The lone naysayers to this trend in the film are Ferris's sister, Jeanie, and his principal, Ed Rooney. Jeanie and Mr. Rooney despise Ferris and his attempts to circumvent the normal teenage rigors of going to high school and taking classes. Jeanie's attempts to play by the rules though are not rewarded by the film. After calling the police about a crime, she is the one arrested for prank calling and taken to another, darker adult institution: jail. Rightful Teenage actions have placed her in adult entrapment. She meets Charlie Sheen, the Shakespearean fool shouting wisdom that is often not followed due to the lowly source. Sheen tells her to lighten up and live her own life. When next confronted with the intruder Rooney, she has the opportunity to turn Ferris in to either her parents or to her principal. But she interprets Sheen's advice as to stop playing it straight and instead fake adulthood. Jeanie converts to Ferris's mantra of perceived adulthood and pretends to be Ferris's mother and kicks Rooney out of the house. At the film's close, Rooney the sole person not persuaded by Ferris's antics has lost almost all markers of true adulthood: his car has been towed, his wallet now belongs to a fierce canine, his clothes are shredded, he has to ride the school bus like a child, and he may lose his job after this very visible incident of student harassment.
Much earlier in the film, though Ferris knows he has his mark in his parents, he's not satisfied at escaping school and pissing off his sister. He ups the ante by openly mocking traditional paths toward success and maturity. He sarcastically quips, “I want to go to a good college and lead a fruitful life.” Similarly after Ferris has foiled the “snooty” restaurant host, the maitre d is left to aggressively shout, “I weep for the future.” He's not the only one.
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