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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Deep Thoughts about Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and listen to a podcast once in a while, you might just miss it.
This week, Tracie shares her deep thoughts about the iconic 1986 teen movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off–and unfortunately the results are not as charming as Matthew Broderick’s smile. Not only is Jeannie unfairly made out to be a villain simply because she is tired of Ferris getting away with murder, but the Guy sisters are able to draw a straight line between the beloved portrayal of a wealthy, confident and privileged teen boy who faces no consequences…and Brock Turner. Although Ferris’s antics hit different nearly 40 years later, the character of Cameron is just as compelling as we remember him, and a queer reading of Alan Ruck’s hilarious and poignant performance of the neglected best friend (and possible true protagonist) adds some nuance to a film that never claimed to be deep.
Be a righteous dude and listen in!
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off with my sister, emily Guy-Burken, and with you. Let's dive in. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come over, think with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. All right, and I am certain you've seen this movie. We probably watched it together. But tell me what you remember about Ferris Bueller's Day Off. We probably watched it together.
Speaker 2:But tell me what you remember about Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Okay, so the most embarrassing thing I remember about Ferris Bueller's Day Off is when it was in the theaters when I was seven, I guess I thought it was called Ferris Wheeler's Day Off and I thought it was about a person who worked at a carnival and got a day off, so the person who operated the Ferris wheel Because who has the first name? Ferris? So that's the first thing Now this was a staple of. I think it was like the kind of movie that was on TV all the time. I feel like I watched it at sleepovers.
Speaker 2:I remember really liking Cameron, that character. I remember the car and feeling really, really awful about the car. I remember the race at the end to get home before his parents realized he wasn't homesick, and I remember that the guy who plays Mooney has turned out to be a complete piece of crap. And then there's other things. Other things like, uh, there's the band called save ferris is based on that's you know from a lot from this movie. And then, um, the uh secretary saying I think he's a real cool dude it's actually righteous dude, righteous dude, he's a real righteous dude, yeah that that's.
Speaker 2:That's basically what I remember. I mean, I think back on this fondly. I know that, uh, like, there's aspects of the soundtrack are really really good, like the the boom, boom, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Song from the end, yeah, that became like a Twix commercial or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but yeah. So that's, that's, that's what I know, that's what I, I can remember, tell me, uh. So why are we talking about it today?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so 1986, I was 10. Uh, so this was like I was primed for this to be like on repeat a lot during adolescence. And you know, when we were thinking about this project, we've been trying to kind of alternate with genre and kind of pathos versus comedy, whatever. It was kind of time for another one of these so-called coming of age. Uh, and this one was one that, like like so many of you, I remember with a lot of fondness, like the reason I had a crush on matthew broderick for so long and those sorts of things. So I figured it was time. And some of the things I'm going to I want to explore with you are gender, because we always talk about gender, and storytelling, because there's some fourth wall breaking that happens in this film that.
Speaker 1:I love in general and I think you know, along with the monster at the end of this book, I think this movie helped to kind of solidify my love of breaking the fourth wall, along with the monster at the end of this book.
Speaker 3:I think this movie helped to kind of solidify my love of breaking the fourth wall.
Speaker 1:Also, I really want to talk about Jeannie, played by Jennifer gray, the sister, and kind of she's set up to be sort of a villain.
Speaker 1:And I really want to rethink that with you a bit, and also Ferris and Cameron's relationship. So gender, je Jeannie Cameron, storytelling, those are the sort of buckets that I want us to kind of unpack a bit from this. You know kind of fluff piece from our adolescence and childhood. But before we get there, let me give you a plot summary, and actually I'm going to cheat this time, but I'm going to tell you I'm cheating, so it's not really cheating, right, it's transparent. I am going to read, or paraphrase perhaps, the Wikipedia summary of the plot of Ferris. Bueller's.
Speaker 1:Day Off. So Wikipedia contributors, thank you so so much. So it's a warm, sunny spring day in Chicago, in a Chicago suburb, and Ferris Bueller, a high school senior, fakes illness so that he can stay home from school, skip school. His parents, katie and Tom, believe that he's ill, his sister, jeannie, does not. And then we get some fourth wall breaking where Ferris talks directly to the camera, gives us some tips for faking illness, including licking your palms to make clammy palms rather than trying to fake a fever, because then you might end up at the doctor's office. And this fourth wall breaking extends to actually like text on the screen. With some of these instructions, ferris is also like during the sort of fourth wall breaking. We're watching him kind of rig stuff up in his room that we don't quite know what it is at the moment, but he's like tying string to a trophy and doing all kinds of interesting things and like playing with all kinds of like fancy gadgets gadgets that were fancy in in 1986. So cut over to the school, the dean edward rooney it's rooney, not mooney has learned that ferris is absent from school for the ninth time that semester. He calls ferris's mom to say it's been nine times. She's like no, that can't be right. While he's on the phone with her, ferris hacks into the computer system and reduces the number of absences on next to his name from nine to two.
Speaker 1:Now cut back to Ferris. He calls his friend Cameron, who is in bed and uses like speakerphone, and he's like sick. He's got medicine everywhere. He's honestly the poor kid looks depressed. But Ferris, wikipedia says, persuades I would say like I don't know harasses, bullies, coerces Cameron in. For how beats that's a great word Br cameron into coming over because ferris doesn't have a car and cameron does.
Speaker 1:So cameron comes over to ferris's house and the two of them you use calls to the school and fake voices to get ferris's girlfriend sloan out of school by telling the school that her grandmother has passed away. So cameron, like, puts on a fake voice and pretends to be sloan out of school by telling the school that her grandmother has passed away. So cameron, like, puts on a fake voice and pretends to be sloan's father. And then they decide to take cameron's dad's prized possession, which is a 1961 ferrari, out of the garage because ferris says that the school will never believe that sloan's dad, mr peterson, would actually drive the piece of shit car that cameron drives, that.
Speaker 1:Those are the words that uh ferris uses. So, despite cameron's obvious discomfort with this, they take the Ferrari, they pick Sloan up at the, at the school, cameron's kind of like ducked down in the convertible hiding. Ferris is posing as the dad Sloan approaches him while Mr Rooney is watching and he, ferris, says do you have a kiss for daddy? And then the two kiss and it is clearly not the kiss between father and daughter, and this line has always bothered me. Rooney's watching and says, oh, so they're like that in their family anyway yeah, yeah yeah, despite cameron's strong objections.
Speaker 1:Ferris says they're taking the car on a day trip into chicago. Remember, they're in the chicago suburbs. So they go into chicago, they pull into a parking garage, they leave the car with a parking attendant, um, and then they go on this long um, the three kids go on this like long montage of Chicago things to do, while the parking attendant and a friend two parking attendants take the car out on a long joy ride. So the kids go to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Art Institute of Chicago, they see a game at Wrigley Field, they go on the sears tower and like lean against the glass to look down at the city. They then attend what apparently, according to wikipedia, is the von stupenday parade, like a german-american parade, where ferris ends up on a float, lip-syncing to both dunkelstein by wayne new Newton and twist and shout by the Beatles.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, principal, yeah, as one does, exactly, exactly as one does. Meanwhile, rooney is convinced that Ferris Bueller is playing him. Ferris managed to like freak him out because he, rooney, knew that the Sloan's grandmother thing was a ruse and was like giving him a hard time, but he thought he was speaking to Ferris. He was actually speaking to Cameron. So Ferris called the school and spoke to Rooney, so and Rooney apparently doesn't think of the possibility that it could be another friend Anyway.
Speaker 2:So Rooney, I mean, they'd have to know that he and Cameron are friends and Cameron's not in school either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, cameron does seem like everybody forgets about Cameron. Yeah, I think that is true.
Speaker 1:True, also Rooney, not the brightest bulb, also not particularly professional, because he like is at the Bueller home like trying, well, he's gonna confront ferris. So he like rings the doorbell. But ferris has this elaborate like um mechanism set up so that when the doorbell rings it starts a cassette recording that one could almost believe you were talking to him. And in fact rooney does the first time. But then he rings the bell again and the exact same thing happens. So he's prowling around the back and like sneaks into the home through the dog door, gets chased by their Rottweiler and meanwhile Ferris, being sick, has turned into this like whole rumor that he's like super sick. So all the kids are on this like save Ferris campaign trying to raise money.
Speaker 1:Um, jeannie, the sister played by Jennifer gray, is like so annoyed that he's, she knows he's, she knows he's faking. He winked at her, so like he let her know that he's faking and she's just pissed off that he gets away with it Like no matter what he does. Their parents just like moon over her, moon over him, which we actually have seen and she's just mad. So she heads home, she's going to confront him and she ends up running into Rooney in the kitchen. Each of them thinks they're going to confront Ferris and they jump out at each other, thinking that Ferris is on the other side, but it's Rooney or Jeannie, and Jeannie kicks him in the face like four times and knocks him out.
Speaker 2:I remember that like the kick, kick, kick, kick, being like kind of super, like go for go you.
Speaker 1:It's impressive. And then she screams and runs upstairs, calls 911. And then the cops don't believe her and so she ends up getting arrested for making a false police report. We head back to the sloan, cameron and ferris in chicago. They pick up the car it's, you know, not a scratch on it and like wow, this was actually good and cameron actually had a surprisingly nice day. But then they look at the odometer and Cameron knew to the 10th how many miles were on this thing, and it was like 160 some, and now there's over 300. And so Cameron like has some sort of panic attack where he goes, sort of semi-catatonic.
Speaker 2:Well, and Cameron knew how much, because his dad knew exactly how much.
Speaker 1:His dad loves. Cameron says at one point his dad loves this car more than life itself and certainly the implication is that he loves it more than he loves Cameron. Dad loves the car more than he loves Cameron. So Cameron goes kind of catatonic. So they're like I don't know in a park somewhere and Sloane is trying to revive Cameron. She's kind of like talking to him gently and he's like lying on his back and he's just not responsive at all. How you know, this is kind of his and Cameron's last chance, cause they just have this summer and then they're going to go off to college and who knows what's going to happen. And then he tells us that Cameron's going to marry the first girl he lays and she's going to walk all over him because you can't respect someone who looks at you that way. I don't remember the exact words, but something in that in that he definitely says first girl he lays, and I don't remember the precise reason why you can't respect someone who does. But it was basically like you know who needs you so much, or you know, is that needy? Something in that direction. Sloan's like Sloan's like Ferris. This isn't working. We have to try something else.
Speaker 1:So the next thing we see they're in Sloan and Ferris are in the hot tub and Cameron is sitting on like a lawn chair on the diving board. I think this is at Sloan's house, they're all very rich. And then Cameron, we watch him sort of just move ever so slightly so that he tumbles down into the swimming pool and just sinks and the other two freak out and ferris actually goes and kind of like rescues him, if you will, and is like really freaking out. And then cameron, um, kind of smiles at him and and we see he was cameron, was was pranking ferris. So they go back to Cameron's place and they set up the car on a jack and put it in reverse with like a cinder block on the accelerator pedal so that it's like running backwards. They think that this will make the odometer go backwards. It doesn't, obviously.
Speaker 1:And so when Cameron realizes that it's it's not working, farrah says well, we'll just have to crack it open and rewind it by hand.
Speaker 1:And Cameron says you know, no, that's not gonna work, don't, don't bother, uh, I'll just, I'll just take the blame.
Speaker 1:And then he, he Cameron, kind of finally expresses some emotion like, and like starts kicking and kind of banging on the car and like bangs up the the hood and the front bumper and, and you know, expressing frustration with his father, who just the implication we get is that he's neglectful, um, and just kind of awful. But the action of hitting the hood has broken the jack or breaks the jack, and so when Cameron's actually kind of like worked his stuff out and like just kind of leans on the hood but that's enough, the jack breaks the rest of the way and as soon as the wheels hit the uh ground, the car is in reverse and it immediately like just runs out the back of this, like this crazy garage that's like floor to ceiling, like walls of windows, uh over like a revision, yeah yeah, like in the woods, yeah, and the car just like zooms out, breaking the windows and falling down into the ravine and there's just this moment of silent shock and they're all freaking out a little bit.
Speaker 1:Cameron says what did I do? Ferris says you killed the car and then Ferris actually says he will take the blame. Says you killed the car and then Ferris actually says he will take the blame. That Cameron can tell them, tell dad that it was Ferris's fault and he'll take the blame. And Cameron says no, you know what? It's time he's going to have to deal with me. He's finally going to have to deal with me.
Speaker 1:Ferris walks Sloan home, says goodbye to her and then suddenly realizes that his parents will be returning home any minute, so like five minutes. So he's running through the neighborhood, uh, through backyards and like actually through houses, and he's running on the street and runs by Jeannie's car as Jeannie and their mom are driving home and mom doesn't see him. But Jeannie sees him and she like floors she's going to make it home before him because her whole thing today has been trying to expose Ferris. So he gets to the back door and goes to pull up the mat. Ferris gets to the back door after leaving Sloan and he pulls up the mat and there's the shade of where a key used to be and it's not there. And he's like, ah, what I'm going to do. And then, like a foot steps into his view and it's Rooney and he says, looking for this, and he holds out the key and Rooney's like I got you, like I finally got you. Well, jeannie looks out the back door and sees the two of them on the back step, opens the door and we're not sure what's going to happen. She actually saves. Ferris, says to Mr Rooney thank you so much for walking him home. Can you imagine trying to walk home from the hospital when someone's as sick as he is? So then Ferris starts coughing to corroborate that he.
Speaker 1:Ferris sneaks in past genie and uh. Genie looks at rooney and says by the way, you dropped this on the kitchen floor and it's rooney's wallet. She tosses it into the backyard, waking up the Rottweiler who attacked him earlier, and closes the doors. Then Ferris is running up the stairs ahead of his parents. They haven't seen him. He gets to his bedroom. He slides into the bed, pushing the mannequin out which he had rigged up earlier. That's what he was doing with the twine and the trophy. And just as his parents are about to open the door, he hears the sound of soft snoring, which is a sound effect he had set up on one of his many gadgets. And so now he's going to be caught. But then he remembers he has this baseball in his pocket that he caught at Wrigley Field. He throws it expertly at the stereo that's making the snoring sounds and turns off the snoring sounds just as his parents walk in to say how are you feeling? So he got away with it. So he got away with it.
Speaker 1:So during the, a scene that plays through the credits, rooney is walking away because there's all sorts of shenanigans that happened to this guy that I didn't talk about. You know, his car has gotten towed Like his clothes are a mess. He's been beat up during this movie, so he's like walking like a different kind of walk of shame. Uh, away from the fair, the Bueller household, and the school bus pulls up next to him and offers him a ride. So he, um, he accepts a ride on the school bus filled with students who are, like you know, talk and smack about him kind of quietly. He sits next to a girl with like real thick glasses. Who offers him a gummy bear from her pocket which he flicks away in disgust?
Speaker 1:Because it's still warm from her pocket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember that she says it makes it really good.
Speaker 1:He glances to the kid across the aisle in the bus from him who has Save Ferris written on his notebook, and then, you know, the bus drives away and then, in a post credit scene, ferris comes on his notebook. And then, you know, the bus drives away and then, in a post credit scene, ferris comes around the corner. It's in his house. He comes around the corner wearing his robe, which we'd seen earlier, looks directly at the camera again, breaking that fourth wall, and says you're still here, it's over, go home. And then, uh, the the movie ends.
Speaker 1:So that actually wasn't a reading of the uh Wikipedia synopsis, but I I did use it to like help remind me of things it was jumping off from. It was a jumping off point. So thank you, wikipedia office, you helped me a great deal. So I want to start. Well, I'll start with gender. As I said, this film actually does pass the Bechdel test in multiple occasions. So it's not even just a single scene. There are multiple occasions where so Sloan talks to the nurse who is given a name, about her supposedly dead grandmother. Jeannie talks to the receptionist the one who said he's a real righteous dude and they talk and she has a name which'm not remembering, but she has one and they talk about jeannie's class she's supposed to be in and then she and her mother talk too about something other than ferris, don't they?
Speaker 1:yes, they do, yep, their mom, mrs bueller, katie, has to pick jeannie up from the police station and so they talk about you know what has happened. They also, when Jeannie is driving and mom is a passenger, they talk about Jeannie's driving. So it definitely passes back to Elle in multiple occasions. So that's great and am. I think I'd say sloan is actually sloan's an interesting. I mean, none of these characters are super deep. She's not as flat as I expected her to be.
Speaker 1:she's also not particularly, you know, well drawn, but, as I say, none of them really are. So I'm not actually going to pick on Sloane too much. She uses her sexuality a little more than I feel super comfortable with, considering she's supposed to be 16. But not in explicit ways, just in ways that I would feel more comfortable if she were meant to be a bit older. But that's fine. But Jeannie I really want to talk about Jeannie because Jeannie is totally vilified. Like if you look up who's the villain, it's, I mean, rooney's the primary villain, but Jeannie's a close second. When people think about who's the villain in this, in this film, and like, is she? Like, what did genie do that was so bad, right? Like she's tired of this man getting away with shit that she couldn't get away with because he has a charming smile. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And that doesn't seem so often. And the way the storytelling treats Jeannie really bothers me in this rewatch in part. So I didn't talk about the scene. Charlie sheen shows up in this movie briefly. Uh, when jeannie's in the police station and her mom is talking to the cops like a a guy in in you know a suit and tie, she's kind of in the I don't know waiting room and charlie sheen is there too as, like another person who's been picked up, he says drugs and she's like what he's like, and they have this weird like who's on first kind of conversation. He was trying to ask if she's in for drugs and she thought he was offering her drugs.
Speaker 1:Anyway, they have a conversation where he's basically like chill out, worry about your own self which, on the one hand, isn't terrible advice but on the other, like they're having a conversation, she's just as snarky as ever. And then when mom comes out of the captain's office or whatever they're making out, and as she's leaving to follow her mom, she turns into like the stereotypical girl giggly with a crush exactly yeah like giggly and silly and just I don't know she chills out, I suppose, but it feels really like out of character from what we've been given so far.
Speaker 2:And then we don't see like what happens right before they.
Speaker 1:They start making out like no, okay, no, in fact she's like he. He says charlie sheen says to her there's somebody I think you should talk to and she says if you say ferris bueller, I swear to god I'm gonna rip your testicle off, or something like that. The threat has the word testicle in it, though I don't remember precisely what she threatens. Did you do it? So? No, like we don't see why she would like this guy and it. I don't know it.
Speaker 2:It sits very differently for me now than it did in the in the late 80s and the 90s do you know, I'm thinking also like her frustration with Ferris getting away with everything. Now, granted, she's also a child of the same family, yeah, but when you were talking about because I never really thought about it but the level of wealth in this entire neighborhood, all of these people, and so, like, the fact that ferris bueller can get away with murder is understandable, that someone who is, from, granted, not much more marginalized, but a more marginalized group, would be infuriated by, yeah, and, and actually john hugh, the movie maker.
Speaker 1:He shows us that Jeannie's not wrong. So Ferris is annoyed that he got a computer and she got a car for whatever birthday?
Speaker 2:Are they supposed to be the same age? Is she older than him?
Speaker 1:I think she's a little younger, I think she might be a year younger or something, but that's not clear. That is not clear. But they both say she got the better present out of whatever. Whatever it was 16 or 17, whatever the present was, she got a car, he got a computer. So and and both of them indicate both both genie and ferris indicate that genie got the better end of the year on the present thing.
Speaker 1:But in every other way, like the way that their mom sort of berates her for her so-called bad behavior, the way that they just that mom and dad both just accept that he is ill and kind of fawn over him, despite the school calling to say like um, nine times, and and like it's rooney and he's a jerk, and so like we're meant to just be like yeah, but he's a jerk, but he really has skipped nine times. And then like we have this, the, the race that you remember, and at the last minute Jeannie's won over. Why? I mean maybe because Rooney's a bigger enemy to her, since he was the one that was in her house, and like it's his fault that she was not believed in some ways by the. You know. Like she got called.
Speaker 2:She got arrested for a prank, calling the 911 when in fact Rooney was in her house and she knows he was because she has his wallet. So I always took that to be that she now had something over Rooney.
Speaker 1:And so she did that because that would that's the more like strategic. I don't think it's an either, or I think she could, uh, let true rooney, you know, get ferris, and she had his damn wallet yeah all right, that's.
Speaker 2:That's a good point. Just that the as as a kid, I remember thinking it was just like because as a kid I always thought genie was smarter than than ferris like he's cunning, but she's smart, and so I I kind of took it as like, well, she's still got time left at the school and so she's going to use that. But you're right, she didn't. It wasn't an either, or she could have sold out Ferris and held something over Rooney's head. So you're right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So and don't get me wrong, like when I was watching it the first time and probably the 20th time, like I was either literally or metaphorically cheered when she chose her brother, because Matthew Broderick is really charming, really charming. But watching it now with this critical eye, I'm like what message was I really getting about?
Speaker 2:not just Jeannie, but like women and our role and our relationship to charming men should be allowed to do, to get get away with whatever they want.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, that is the thesis of this.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's I mean, but then that's a straight line to Brock Turner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is, it really is.
Speaker 2:And that's gross. It's really nasty.
Speaker 1:It's really gross. It's really gross.
Speaker 2:And then that also puts like no, rooney is a villain because he cares so much about like he is. I've talked before about when I was teaching high school. There were teachers there who had never left high school and they were still trying to be big man on campus as educators in the high school where they went to school. And so Rooney reminds me of that. He's like I can't let this kid get one over on me, which is just not on, but at the same time, like it is reasonable for an administrator and an educator to be concerned about a kid who is slacking off of school without his parents knowledge.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. I mean the call to Ferris's parents is completely appropriate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it also house? Yeah, it also it wasn't. It wasn't the like he's the, the head principal, yeah, it's not his job to even call like there the there are like now, granted, it's, it's automated these days, but there are, there's an attendance office that specifically, that's their job.
Speaker 1:Well, even in 1986, I'll give them that for the shorthand, because like we don't need any more characters. But yeah, I mean he doesn't just show up at the house and then like, see, here's the this doorbell recording. He like walks around the back and like peeks in the back window and then climbs through the door which is big enough for him, because it's big enough for a rottweiler. I mean, the man stepped, he didn't just like, like, like shuffle off of professionalism, like he took a big, lunging step away from professionalism.
Speaker 2:Well, and it gets again to like the idea that and there are I mean I know there are educators out there who think that they are in some sort of competition with the students, the students, yeah, and those educators exist, I know that they do. But even the ones that I know that exist would not do what Rooney does. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's a ridiculous. I mean, there's a lot that like. In fact, my spouse watched it with me and at one point they said, wow, there's a lot of like, I believe buttons that you got to press when you're watching this movie. So you know like Rooney's behavior is only one of them. That's a funny way to put it. Yeah, so, okay, so that's, that's Jeannie. I would also I'd really like to talk about Cameron. So Cameron was one of, as you, you identified him as one of your favorites, so played by.
Speaker 1:Alan Ruck, we get this sort of quiet where I guess we're meant to think he's a hypochondriac. That's what Wikipedia says about him. But you know, now as an adult, looking at this, like I'm seeing a deeply depressed kid who's not getting what he needs at home, he's not being nurtured at home. He's not being nurtured at home and that stands in stark contrast to Ferris's parents, who are very loving, almost like to the point of being naive and not actually seeing when they are being taken advantage of and and, as a result of that, him not getting what he needs.
Speaker 1:I totally clocked in as gay this time watching which I don't think I had that in my head explicitly in in previous watches. So I'm watching it thinking maybe Cameron is gay this time watching, which I don't think. I had that in my head explicitly in in previous watches. So I'm watching it thinking maybe cameron is gay and that's part of what's what's going on, with the kind of not being seen that he's feeling from his parents well, it also it kind of.
Speaker 1:Well it also it kind of contextualizes the relationship between Ferris and Cameron because, like, cameron's his best friend but it doesn't seem like he's worried about Cameron because his future wife is going to walk all over him, because he can't respect a person who you know needs you, like that and I'm now watching it going you mean, like you do Ferris. I mean Ferris is really kind of awful to him. Yeah, and much like other kind of 80s films, we're invited to forgive it because by the end Cameron seems to like, like it.
Speaker 2:There's a point where Cameron's sitting in his car like arguing with himself. He's like I'll go, I'll go, I'm not going to go, and like back and forth, yep, and like that doesn't seem like that should be a part of a friendship well, all the more because ferris knows that's happening and tells us so.
Speaker 1:He says right now cameron's arguing with himself about whether or not to come over. And then we cut to cameron sitting in the car, as you say, like banging on the steering wheel. He gets out, he gets back in, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go, I don't want to go, you know. So, yeah, yeah, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:It's really bothersome to me looking at it now, especially that, like, cameron accepts that treatment from ferris because ferris at least pays attention to him yeah, yep, and like, even with the at the end, when, like when he says I'm gonna take the blame for the car, which, yeah, yep, yep, like he can't ignore me, and it's like so the only attention he gets is negative from his best friend and now from his father yeah, or I mean, the one time that ferris gives him attention that actually feels affectionate or caring is when he thinks that camera's gonna drown. Like effectively.
Speaker 1:Cameron is arguably attempting suicide in the pool and then Ferris does jump in after him and is very worried about him. But that's. You shouldn't have to go to the extreme of, you know, trying to hurt yourself in order to get non-negative attention.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in fact Sloan and Cameron talk about it. So after the baseball game, before the parade, first we see Cameron and Sloan talking and they're actually sort of holding hands because it's a big crowd and they're like where is he? Why is he doing this? He's always doing this and like crowd um, and they're like where is he? Why is he doing this? He's always doing this and like sloan's kind of trying to, you know, defend him like you know, I'm sure he's around, you know how he gets sometimes and and cameron's like really upset. And then we see there's when he's on the float on the float.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, but cameron knows it, you know because he says it to sloan. Cameron knows it, you know because he says it to Sloan, so that's something that is like really standing able to link to it in the show notes. But one commentator I read was arguing that actually Cameron is the protagonist, not Ferris, whereas Ferris does not, which I think is also sort of an interesting thing when thinking about the storytelling, and it resonates in interesting ways if I, if my sort of read of Cameron as gay is. You know, if we pull on that thread, what is, what is that? The fact that he actually has an arc, that he moves from, you know, making himself sick in order to get attention to sort of standing up for himself in order to get attention. You know, like there's it's negative attention in both cases in some ways.
Speaker 1:But there is something that feels sort of interesting to me in that, in that kind of uh constellation, and while we're talking about sexuality, one redditor had this whole like retelling of the story in their mind, where ferris is bi and ferris and sloan are polyamorous and this was a bid to invite cameron into their relationship. Huh, which certainly wasn't intentional, but maybe kind of I don't know, I don't. I don't know. It might be a step too far, but I do think there is something interesting in thinking about if Ferris is bisexual and some of the kind of I don't know allegories, maybe with this best friend and the girlfriend, and the ways he interacts with them and they interact with each other each other. I don't actually have that much more to say about it, but I wanted to throw it out there because I was reading. I was again Reddit rabbit hole last night.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, so I have heard a fan theory and I had forgotten about it until you mentioned that. You know, with Cameron's the protagonist. I remember hearing a fan theory many years ago that Cameron is the protagonist and Ferris doesn't actually exist.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I read that too. Yes, yeah, ferris is the kind of guy that Cameron wishes he could be yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so he like gets permission to do the things he wants to do by pretending to be Ferris.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and Sloane is like just a girl he has a crush on and this is all like a bigris. Right, right and Sloan is like just a girl he has a crush on. And this is all like a big fantasy yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which, honestly, in some ways that jives with, like what my spouse noticed right, like somebody actually tried to do all the things in a single day, in the timeframe that they say it gets done, and like it would take a lot of planning because it's just like the they do a lot of things, like the mercantile exchange floor doesn't exist anymore, but the mercantile exchange, the art Institute of Chicago which they didn't run through, cause you see them like studying different meanings the Sears tower, the ball game, the lunch I didn't even mention lunch at a fancy, upscale place where apparently his dad also goes and um, the, the parade, yeah, which would have messed up traffic, although yeah, they don't they don't touch the car after they leave it with the parking attendance.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, somebody's fantasy actually does make a certain amount of sense with this film. Yeah, you know, the fantasy idea makes sense and it also jives in so far as, like, there are several moments where the jig would be up if Ferris gets spotted and he just misses being spotted, right like he catches a foul ball at wrigley field and it's on the tv at a bar that rooney is has stepped into, but rooney looks down and doesn't see it.
Speaker 1:The three of them are in a cab, uh, on the streets of chicago and it which is stopped at a traffic light right next to another cab in which ferris's dad is riding in the backseat and he looks over quickly and sees them and then looks away. Ferris and Cameron duck down and he and only Sloane is left. Which wouldn't he have known what Sloane looked?
Speaker 2:like, but whatever. Yeah, I remember that being a like that doesn't make sense when I was a kid. Yeah, like he'd know his son's girlfriend, wouldn't he?
Speaker 1:right. So there are several moments like that where he's kind of like snuffleupagus, snuffleupagus when we were kids. He gets seen now where, like he's, they're like just hair's away from being seen by, by folks who would put the kibosh on this whole day off, and it doesn't happen, which does sort of speak to like a you know, a fantasy scenario. So so that's so. That is kind of an interesting fan theory.
Speaker 2:Well, and it it also fits with, like how over the top Ferris is If he's, because, like the, the, the, you know he's pretending to be sick and so, yeah, it's a great idea to be on a parade. Float right singing now. Granted, this is before everyone had, um, you know, a video camera in their pocket social media right, uh-huh yeah, and social media and all of that, so like gotcha.
Speaker 2:But even the way that the school like rallies around him and isn't there, I kind of remember there being a like water tower with Save Ferris written on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when Jeannie comes home I think it's in the middle of the day that the water tower is visible from their front door, like behind their house kind of, and it says safe for us.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, and that's I mean absolutely not. No, right, that does sound like the fantasy of a neglected child.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really does, it really does.
Speaker 2:So I I'm wondering, like um, you said that that you clocked Cameron is gay. I love to hear you say more about that. Like what, what exactly made that seem Like what? What exactly made that seem like a reasonable assumption?
Speaker 1:watching it now, it's a great question and I'm not 100% sure of the answer. Part of it is just intuition.
Speaker 1:But, I think if I'm looking for the actual data, part of it is despite the arguing with himself that we've already talked about the devotion Cameron has to Ferris and the ways in which, at one point so when they're trying to get Sloane out Cameron is on the phone pretending to be Mr Peterson, talking to Rooney, and he says I want her out front by herself, nobody else, and Ferris is like what are you doing? And like smacks him on the arm or something, and anyway they get through that call and then they hang up and then the way that the two of them interact and cameron's like why did you? You hit me. And ferris is like I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, but you hit me. And the the sort of the way the woundedness is expressed. There's something that reads as intimate partner rather than sort of platonic best friend in
Speaker 1:that moment. It's also the case that, though they're doing all of this work to get Ferris' girlfriend out of school, there's no talk about a girl or girlfriend or crush or anything, and in fact the only conversation we have about that at all is Ferris telling us the viewers, directly that he's going to marry the first girl he lays. We haven't actually seen any evidence that he's going to marry the first girl he lays. We haven't actually seen any evidence that he wants to get laid with a girl. There is one moment when, after he's stopped being catatonic and unresponsive, sloan says Cameron, did you see me when I changed Cause? I thought you were catatonic and he kind of like smirks.
Speaker 2:But even that, doesn't Well that also if, if, if he's gay, that also kind of is like why she, even if he's catatonic, she'd be like all right, I'm going to like there. There I cannot think of many of my guy friends when I was a teenager who I would be comfortable changing in front of, even if they were apparently catatonic, but like catatonic gay friend.
Speaker 1:Maybe, maybe. Well, and she says I'm not embarrassed, like that's kind of her response, like he's kind of giggling, but it's even in his giggle, despite what is actually happening. Something in the delivery from Alan Rock, like it didn't feel predatory. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whereas that would have been predatory on on on Ferris' part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, yeah. And even the way he responds it's not like oh yeah, baby, or any anything like that, he just kind of like giggles yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So two things that we've been talking about. One is like this kind of intimacy between ferris and, uh, cameron, and then also the idea that, like Ferris gets away with everything is and I remember this as a kid even when Ferris is like I'll take the blame, that is not going to get Cameron out of trouble. In fact, all that's going to do is make it harder for Cameron to be friends with Ferris, maybe Because if Ferris takes the blame, he didn't just sneak in. Cameron had to have let him, and so it is like he's trying to insist on taking the blame and they argue about it, and I remember that stand-up thing that ferris seems to do. The entire film is still like it's still all about cameron's devotion to him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because he's protecting him yeah, yeah, and I think ferris thinks he's trying to help cameron like relax or whatever, because cameron clearly suffers from anxiety. Yeah, but he does it in ways that Ferris would like. And then you know the storytelling beats. Tell us that, cameron, it works and therefore we forgive him for the brow beating but yeah, it doesn't feel as warm and fuzzy on rewatch in 2024 as it did in my memory.
Speaker 2:Well and honestly, like I always hated the car, like I always hated it because so, for one thing, I've always liked cars, and so that gorgeous vehicle like my you know child self was like, did they actually have to destroy a car to do this?
Speaker 1:I thought that was the same question.
Speaker 2:It really bothered me, like that's a vintage, beautiful car, so there's that. And then the fact that, like Ferris, browbeat Cameron into doing something that was really going to get Cameron in trouble yeah, really bothered me. And then I know I couldn't have articulated this, but do we have any evidence that Cameron is going to be safe when his father discovers this? No, no, we're given to understand that his parents are neglectful, not abusive. Yeah, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that Ferris gets away with it with no repercussions whatsoever to himself. Yep, like all the other stuff, I I didn't bother me. You know cause it's? It's it's small change, but the car being destroyed and like obviously a car is not more important than your son, and I think the film is trying to say that Cameron is actually going to have to have it out with his dad and make it clear like you need to show me that I am more important than that hunk of metal. But we don't, we don't know that his father is going to do that and there are people who are incapable of that and they're not all of a sudden going to be like you know what, son, you're more important when the car is totaled in a really spectacular way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or Cameron.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember there's the scene where he's looking at the point, the list painting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually I wanted to bring that up before we wrap up. So, yes, they're at the art institute and we it's like a montage with just some stills of, like, the three of them looking at paintings and like whatever. But then we come, we go back and forth several times between cameron and this. It's a sarat, it's the um. What's sunday in the park? Sunday in the park it.
Speaker 1:Park. So it's a pointless painting and Cameron stands looking at it for a long time and the camera looks at Cameron and then at the painting, and Cameron and the painting, and each time we get zoomed further and further, closer and closer to the canvas. When it goes to the painting and it's looking specifically at a child and goes closer and closer and closer and so we can actually see the dots and even the like texture of the canvas behind it, so that it stops having meaning because we're in so close, which I feel certain there was an intentional something that somebody John Hughes or the director or somebody was like oh, this is important and meaningful. I'm not 100% sure what it was they were trying to get at us, but it seems significant to me that they chose a child who's standing next to their mother and that the child becomes sort of unidentifiable when we look really closely. It's just a, it becomes just like almost noise, and that it's Cameron who has that sort of fascination.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. Like when you you were stumbling over Cameron and camera, I was thinking like really, really overthinking. But if you think of him as as being like a camera or even a reflection of Ferris, where, like he's not living his life, he's there for Ferris to perform for. So what I remember about that scene is I remember them getting closer and closer to the canvas. I didn't remember that it was on a child specifically, I just remembered that it was a figure and I remember his, like Alan Ruck has gorgeous eyes he does and I remember like being like heartbroken by his eyes in that scene as a small child.
Speaker 2:Yeah, part of the reason why he was my favorite character and I'm just thinking about like maybe that they're, they're trying to say something about him being the the camera for for Ferris's antics and not actually experiencing things himself. And so, like him taking the blame for the car and actually like taking out his aggression on the car is is him finally engaging. And I I know John Hughes did not mean that to be a negative thing at the end of the movie, but it's yeah, and you know, one would hope that this is going to be a really important lesson for everyone. For Ferris to recognize like no, there are real consequences to my actions and I need to stop being a dick. And for Cameron's father to be like oh my God, I did not realize that my son was was so resentful, yeah, hurting so resentful, yeah, hurting so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for Cameron to be like I need to actually express myself so it doesn't come out in such destructive ways. But considering what we know, I don't believe any of them are necessarily going to have those lessons. Yeah, oh, poor Cameron. Poor Cameron, can I cam, can I? Can I? Just there's? There's two things that bothered me as a kid. Okay, one is when he kisses sloan goodbye and she says I'm gonna marry him.
Speaker 1:Yes, actually she says he's gonna marry me. And that's because earlier in the movie he says to her let's get married. And she's like you're 17. Like what? No, um, I'm not, you know, like I don't. That's not the exact word, but she basically is like that's, that's a crazy thing. And he's like why? Why is it crazy? Like so, he's, he has said, and I think he even says to us he's going to marry her. I can't remember precisely, but she's actually restating something that we've heard earlier.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, okay, and I did remember there being a marriage conversation earlier, but I had forgotten exactly what. What she said I remembered. It bothered me because it was just like even even with the, the earlier conversation is like she's just following his lead and it's. And also like even as a small child I was like don't, don't decide to get married to someone you're a teenager with. I mean like no, so that bothered me.
Speaker 2:And then the fact that immediately after, while he's racing through all the backyards and stuff, which is a very funny sequence, like there's like you know, he goes through a house. He's like, oh, it smells good. And then goes in the backyard dinner's ready, and like stuff like that, where there are two young women who are sunbathing in bikinis and he turns around and comes back and is like hey there, yeah to them. Right after he was talking to sloan about getting married, right, and like that bothered the crap out of me as a kid. It's like yeah, and I know it's supposed to be this joke, like you know, like he's rushing get home so he doesn't get caught, but pretty girls gotta go talk to him.
Speaker 1:But it's, it's not a funny joke to me that's honestly like the equivalent of mike myers's I got hit in the balls joke. It's just like it's a throwaway. It's not like I'm not excusing it, but I'm. What I'm saying is that like I don't know that Hughes actually even thought about what it said about the character. It was just like a visual gag.
Speaker 2:That's what you did in 80s movies, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which doesn't make it okay, cause what, what your, you know, young self saw is there? Were those the two things that you went over. Those were the two things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were related to each other Cause and in part because they're so close together In the film. Yeah, but yeah, that that just didn't. It just didn't sit right with me back then. Even I was like that's not. It's the same as the kind of throwaway jokes about like how fathers are useless, yeah, when it's like don't we know, like boys can't control themselves Right.
Speaker 1:Once again, it's that straight lines of Brock Turner Exactly, exactly, yeah, okay, let me see if I can try and synthesize our conversation a little bit. Let me see if I can try and synthesize our conversation a little bit. So, on gender, this movie does pass the Bechdel test in multiple scenes, so it is not strictly a sausage fest. So that's cool, I guess. Sloane is relatively flat, but not more so than her male counterparts. Flat, but not more so than her male counterparts Jeannie. On the other hand, the sister is a caricature in what I think is actually harmful ways. She's like the 80s teen version of the so-called feminazi, the man-hating woman who, when we really investigate what's happening, it's not that she's man-hating, it's that she's got the raw deal and she's not going to take it anymore and as a result, she gets vilified and because of the storytelling beats of the actual movie, she's redeemed. I'm putting air quotes around this out of being a bitch, for the sake of her charming brother via charlie sheen's tongue.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So yuck, there's some interesting questions, potential interpretations around sexuality with. Maybe Cameron is gay, maybe Ferris is bisexual. Obviously not. Well, maybe not, obviously I'm not sure. It is obvious that there was no intention that Cameron be gay from the movie makers. He's not explicitly gay from the movie makers. He's not explicitly gay. Interestingly, like one of the things that kind of supports my read of that is his relationship with ferris, which, when ferris talks about cameron's future romantic partner walking all over him because he won't be, she won't be able to respect cameron, he's describing his relationship. Ferris is describing his own relationship with cameron in terms of the storytelling beats one of the things that this movie does like really.
Speaker 1:He's describing his relationship. Ferris is describing his own relationship with Cameron In terms of the storytelling beats. One of the things that this movie does like really charmingly is break the fourth wall and talk to us directly, and I mean really charming. It's like so much fun to have Matthew Broderick look directly into the camera and give you that dimpled smile and talk to you directly. Life goes pretty fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you don't stop and smell the roses every once in a while, you might just miss it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he doesn't say smell the roses, but if you don't stop and look around, you might just miss it. Stop and look around, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you might just miss it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So that's like it's really charming. Also, in terms of some of the storytelling beats, there's some interpretation question about, like, who is actually the protagonist of this story. Obviously ferris is the narrator, but is he in fact the protagonist? Because he has no, no character arc, he has no change. Cam Cameron is the one who goes through a character arc and has some sort of fundamental change. Let's see, we also this movie does to Cameron what so many 80s movies did, where they have a protagonist or narrator in this case who behaves badly toward a character and then we as the audience are invited to sort of forgive or overlook or think it's not that bad because the person who was treated badly comes to somehow like the outcome or the behavior or whatever. So that happens between Ferris and Cameron in this film. What am I missing? Um, I know I'm missing things.
Speaker 2:We talked about the fan theory that Ferris is not only not the protagonist, he doesn't actually exist. Yeah, that the story is basically in Cameron's head, which is why you have to hit the believe button, the I believe button, for so many things. We talked also a little bit about Rooney and how over the top his insistence on catching Ferris is. And obviously this is not a film that takes place in the real world, but I do know that there are educators who get into those kinds of like power struggles with the, with the students, but the, the level to which he takes it is completely unreasonable and unprofessional and unbelievable and realistic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also talked about how, even though Ferris does the one thing that Ferris does that shows truly how much he cares about Cameron is offering to take the blame for the car, which I could see Ferris arguing. Like the specific thing that happened to the car at the end is Cameron's fault. It's not the sacrifice that the movie wants us to think. It is because Cameron is going to be in a world of pain no matter what, even if he's able to blame it all on Ferris, because he's the one who had access to the car. He's the one who's friends with Ferris and it may also result in him no longer being able to see Ferris. Right, right, and that's worrisome for poor Cameron.
Speaker 1:Really is who deserves better. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We hope he went to college and got a really sweet boyfriend yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, another childhood film ruined.
Speaker 2:Go us. Well, another childhood film ruined. Go us ruining your childhood favorites, ruining your childhood since 2023. Yeah, that's what we do, although, honestly, this is making me want to watch it again, even though it's kind of ruined, just partially, because they're, they're, they're scenes I want to see and, um, it's genuinely funny, I know yeah, broderick is adorable.
Speaker 1:I mean this. This film made him, you know, the sort of teen heartthrob that he became. Mm hmm Okay, what are you going?
Speaker 2:to ruin next time? Well, next time we have our cousin in law, Jake Cohen, is going to be coming on to talk to us about Dune, which I'm pretty psyched about.
Speaker 1:Cool, yeah. Oh man, there was a picture that came up in my one of my social media feeds recently of sting in that movie and I was like oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I remember cause I've read the book. It's been like 25 years since the last time I read it. Like I read it more than once. The first book I once I saw how many there were. I was like I'm good, I after finishing the first one. But there's a lot of stuff in like Fear is the Mind Killer, and there are aspects of the story that I just really really like a lot and have stuck in my head.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, I look forward to digging into Dune with Jake and I'll see you then. See you next time. Do you like stickers? Sure, we all do. If you head over to guygirlsmediacom slash, sign up and share your address with us, we'll send you a sticker. It really is that easy. But don't wait, there's a limited quantity. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?