As the hotbed issue of privilege continues to manifest throughout the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, it seems irreverently (in)appropriate that the cast of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off should turn up for the final summer episode of Josh Gad’s new Zoom-based series, Reunited Apart. Rejoining six of the main cast members (plus Ben Stein), Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Jennifer Grey, Mia Sara, Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward, Gad relished asking Ferris himself some of the backstory behind the movie and its creation. That the 1986 John Hughes film showcases moment after moment of the worst kind of privilege—that of the white male variety—it is only natural that Broderick was handed the part on a silver platter. Having just performed in Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues, Hughes wanted Broderick not only for his appearance as a teenage computer hacker in 1983’s WarGames, but because these stage roles specifically featured him talking to the audience in a way that would effectively translate to him breaking the fourth wall on camera.
Broderick as the first choice to play a smug charmer from a cush background was in keeping with the actor’s own origins, hailing from a family that offered actor James Broderick as his father, playwright Patricia Broderick as his mother and advertising titan Milton H. Biow as his grandfather. Yes, it pays to be born to those well-connected to your industry—and who have made more than decent money off of it. What’s more, to further layer the “getting away with it all” stylings of Ferris in the movie, only a year after its release, Broderick would find himself in the headlines for getting in a car accident with his onscreen sister Jennifer Grey while the two were vacationing in Ireland together, exposing them as a couple. Crossing into the wrong lane, Broderick collided with a Volvo whose passengers were killed in the accident. At first faced with up to five years in prison for a “causing death by dangerous driving” charge, Broderick only ended up being fined $175 after his crime was reduced to “careless driving.” It’s almost too sadistic on Fate’s part when flashing to those scenes of Ferris barreling down the roads in his friend’s dad’s Ferrari with a devil-may-care manner.
Hughes, who wrote the script in a fevered instance of inspiration during the span of a weekend, was no stranger to showcasing the privilege of white males in his movies. From Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) in Sixteen Candles to Blane McDonough (Andrew McCarthy) and Steff McKee (James Spader) in Pretty in Pink, wealthy teens taking what they wanted out of life when they wanted was something Hughes was well-versed in parading. And, speaking of parade, as one of the most iconic moments in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off features the titular character hijacking a float during Chicago’s annual Von Steuben Day parade, celebrating some German whiteness bullshit (though maybe, for some modern cachet, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm was a closeted homosexual based on that back in the day euphemism of “he never took a wife”), it makes one wonder: would a black man have gotten away with such effrontery? Hell na. In fact, every action taken by Ferris in the film has audiences of the present as enraged as his sister, Jeanie (Grey), demanding to herself, “Why should he get to do whatever he wants? Why should everything work out for him? What makes him so goddamn special?” Granted, this was before white women were coming under just as much fire as white men for their complicity in perpetuating the fair-skinned patriarchy’s control. Yet, at the time of the movie’s release, and even in the decades after, Jeanie served as the voice of every person who despised Ferris for his entitlement and privilege. For his assumption that of course everything would work out for him, just as it always did.
On the flip side of his white male affluence is his more “working class” best friend, Cameron Frye (Ruck). Neurotic and anxiety-ridden, Cameron suffers from quintessential symptoms of paternal neglect. Born to that type perpetually absent-even-when-he’s-there 1960s kind of dad, Cameron long ago realized that pleasing or impressing his father more than his prized red Ferrari in their garage (which sort of negates the “working class” angle) is impossible. Yet the effects of not being able to still impact Cameron’s mood on a daily basis. Including the day that Ferris decides to fake ill for the umpteenth time, well, if we’re being specific, Ferris has been absent a total of nine times during the semester. A number that the now infamous Principal Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) has kept meticulous track of—which is why he’s flummoxed when the school computer he’s looking at in his office while talking to Ferris’ mother on the phone changes from nine to two days of documented absences. Hughes then cuts to Ferris whining, “I asked for a car, I got a computer. How’s that for being born under a bad sign?” Not only does this speak to the reality that people were far more into going out and living life during the 80s, but also the fact that Ferris is such a spoiled puto that even something as expensive as a computer (particularly back in ’86) still isn’t enough to satisfy him.
No, the only thing that might is not having to go to class for a day, asking us, “How could I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this?” Well, maybe because everyone else is expected to handle it as well, dear white boy. His motivations in skipping also stem from not wanting to deal with taking a test, of which he comments, “It’s on European socialism. What’s the point? I’m not European, so who gives a crap if they’re socialists?” Damn Ferris, way to speak directly to why Americans are so utterly clueless (read: daft fucking pricks) about anything outside of their own bubble, and how it affects them in the grand scheme.
Continuing to wax about himself and his embitterment over not having a car, Ferris adds, “They could be fascist anarchists, it still wouldn’t buy me a car… It’s not that I condone fascism, or any ‘ism.’ A person should not believe in an ‘ism,’ he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: ‘I don’t believe in Beatles I just believe in me’.” Well ain’t that convenient. Too bad the attempt at ignoring the existence of isms and people’s belief in them (i.e. racism) is precisely what’s led to the revolution of the moment. Alas, the “me me me” soliloquies of Ferris fit right in with the long-standing white privileged sense of being exempt from having to do or endure what others are expected to. The entire message of the movie amounts to: Oh but rules don’t apply to charismatic white males from a family of means.
Hughes’ blind spots in matters of race in his films have, unfortunately, not aged so well. And though there was no intent for maliciousness on his part in writing a script with a lead character of this spoiled, self-concerned nature, that’s how it comes across—most especially in the present. Ben Stein would remark that the movie is ultimately about adolescents coming to terms with the idea that these really are “the best years” of their lives (which is, indeed, a chilling thought), and that the most prudent thing anyone can do is to, ironically, be reckless. To capitalize on the ephemerality of youth with a carpe diem form of impetuousness. So it is that Stein stated Ferris is “the most life-affirming movie possibly of the entire post-war period. This is to comedies what Gone with the Wind [ooo, bad choice to call out] is to epics. It will never die, because it responds to and calls forth such human emotions. It isn’t dirty. There’s nothing mean-spirited about it. There’s nothing sneering or sniggering about it. It’s just wholesome. We want to be free. We want to have a good time. We know we’re not going to be able to all our lives. We know we’re going to have to buckle down and work. We know we’re going to have to eventually become family men and women, and have responsibilities and pay our bills. But just give us a couple of good days that we can look back on.”
As we’ve seen, Gone With the Wind is pretty close to dead, and Ferris might one day go the same route (along with Sixteen Candles for its racist, rapey undercurrents). Stein, in all his wisdom, is inherently denying that many people do not have Ferris’ blanco-based luxury of carving out said “couple of good days” for themselves. Lest they risk being put in a chokehold.
