With the weather changing to awesome here in Arizona, it reminds me of a movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That movie is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s how to live life fully without apology or without fear. It’s a message about life that people realize far too late and often on their death bed.
As a family, we used to have Ferris Bueller trivia on our road trips. What car did Ferris Bueller take on his day off? It was the Ferrari California 250 GT, which Cameron’s father wiped with a diaper.
It’s a simple plot. It’s a high school student named Ferris Bueller who skips school with his best friend and girlfriend and the adventure they have on that day. The End.
The film reminds us that life’s journey is more important than the destination. The film is a modern-day fairy tale. It carries with it a much deeper lesson. It’s a lesson that has become more relevant and more important since the film has been made. The film has aged like fine wine. A true classic.
It’s not laugh out loud comedy. The film is just pure fun. A grin will stay on your face for a whole 103 minutes.
The film is bursting with optimism. Most stories have a main central character. Usually, what makes a story interesting is watching the main character change over the course of the story. It’s not only about what he/she says or does but how much it affects them. This is a story arc.
The triumph is when they find the right answer and the tragedy is when they find the wrong answer. It begins with one view and then ends with that one view changed.
Yet, Ferris Buellers Day doesn’t have that.
At the start of the film, Ferris says, “Life moves pretty fast and if you don’t stop and look around you might miss it.” By the end of the movie, his philosophy is unchanged. “Life moves pretty fast and if you don’t stop and look around you might miss it.”
So why is this movie so good? He convinces his parents to let him stay home from school. He then looks at the camera and says, “They bought it.” Ferris knows he’s in a movie. He knows we are watching, and he is taking us along for the day dispensing his wisdom in the process.
A lot of us fear what would happen if we stepped out of line by skipping school or work. The fear of detention or being fired. The fear of the teacher, the parent, the fear of authority. It looms over us. It’s not irrational. We do need a job and we do need to go to school, but it doesn’t dominate our lives.
Ferris’s best friend Cameron perpetually lives in fear. He is defined by it. As Ferris explains, “Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his a**, in two weeks, you would have a diamond.” If Cameron keeps living like this, living in fear, Cameron will never be happy.
Cameron has a fear to conquer. So how do you conquer a fear? Well Ferris has an answer. The solution is simple. You laugh at the fear. You cozy up to it. You evade it. You make out in front of it. When you seem like you should just give in and all hope is lost, you don’t. Cameron says, “Surrender.” Ferris says, “Never.” You push through and laugh the entire way.
The film doesn’t undermine the fear of authority. In some ways, it makes it worse. We see the principal, Ed Rooney, and he is hell bent on catching Ferris and his friends. The idea that a principal would spend his whole day chasing down Ferris and his friends is exactly what Cameron fears.
Ferris doesn’t care and Ed Rooney doesn’t even phase him. If anything, Ferris revels in it. Ferris isn’t controversial or feared. He is universally loved. Grace, the secretary, says, “Well he’s very popular, Ed. The sport o’s, the motor heads, Geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads, they all adore him. They think he is a righteous dude.”
Do you know someone like Ferris who floats through life without a care with seemingly everything he touches turns to gold? Or, do you resent him due to the fact that you have to work and you have done all the right things.Yet, the rules don’t seem to apply to this person? Does that annoy you? Well, then you are Ferris’ sister, Genie, “Screw him.”
Ferris gets away with lying and causing chaos. So many people love him because he does all this mischief with good intent.
At the end, it seems like Ferris has planned this day off entirely just for fun. But really, it’s for everyone else. It’s for Cameron to show him what life’s all about. It’s for his girlfriend Sloan so he can propose to her, and ultimately, it’s for us.
Unlike most films, the character changes at the end. In this film, it’s the rest of the world that has changed because of the main character. Ferris doesn’t have a character arc in this movie because the world does. By extension, we do.
No one can live like Ferris did every day. Even in the film, they acknowledge that you can’t wing it through life forever. Besides, he has only skipped school 9 times. Not every day can be a day off. The truth is that most of us are not like Ferris Bueller. We aren’t hyper confident, super fun, and daring.
Most of us are closer to Cameron, which for the most part, may be for the best. The Ferris Buellers of this world are important. They remind us that life is happening to us right now. Most of what we do and what we fear, is just BS.
The characters are in school. Remember when we were in school? Remember how important things seemed at that time and we laugh at it now? Could that maybe be true of anything in your life today?
So how did Ferris Bueller change my life, besides having fun and putting things in perspective? Many years ago, I had my own Ferris Buellers day off with my best friend. It was at a time when I was feeling trapped, unhappy, and depressed. I was part of a big corporate machine.
I didn’t join any parades. However, that day off was a great day. I still carry that day with me years later. I knew from that day on that I could break the rules and get away with it.
We all need a bit of Ferris Bueller in our lives. A willingness to say, “screw it.” And, take back the day. Stop everything and look around and see the sights and smell the roses.
And yes, the next day, we must go back to our obligations of work, school, and busyness. We will be better for it and changed, like Cameron. The act of momentary escape is a courage you can carry with you forever. No longer are we the prisoners of our own fears. We can walk out whenever we like. Even for a moment. In doing this, we may even return appreciating more of what we had already.
In the book, Top Five Regrets of the Dying written by Bonnie Ware, these are the top five regrets:
- I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish I had let myself be happier.
Ferris Bueller is a wakeup call. He reminds us that life is happening to us right now. We may say, yeah yeah yeah, I know that. But, it isn’t the same as internalizing it. We all know the answers to the problems we have on some level. You need to live them, just for a day or just for a moment. If you haven’t seen the movie, go watch it. Let the message sit with you. Go live life! “Life moves pretty fast and if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Pamela Chambers, Research Associate
Pamelachambers.com
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