Posted on 04/02/2016 7:48:35 PM PDT by pboyington
It’s hard to believe this year is the 30th Anniversary of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the iconic film written and directed by the late John Hughes.
In the film, Ferris Bueller is a high school senior and popular and smooth talking con artist who intricately plots and executes a day of hooky from school, while outwitting his parents and arch nemesis, the Dean of Students, Ed Rooney.
Ed Rooney…
Ferris Bueller, being a senior in high school in 1986 was born in 1968 and therefore a charter member in Generation X. Bueller, his best friend, Cameron, and girlfriend, Sloan represent everything Generation X stood for in 1986 and still does today; cynicism, a smirking disrespect for all authority, the desire to get rich and get rich quickly, the ability to fend for oneself since mom and dad were at work and the desire to make your own impression on the world without help from the government.
Everything Ferris, Cameron and Sloan stood for in 1986 is completely opposite what the Millennial Generation believes today.
Bueller and his classmates would laugh guest speaker and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders out of the high school gymnasium. Free tuition, give me a break! Like we’d believe that one! Get lost you socialist! Go back to Russia! Who invited this schmuck? Here’s Ferris’ take on socialism, “I do have a test today. that wasn’t bull. It’s on European socialism. I mean, really, what’s the point I’m not European. I don’t plan on being European. So who gives a crap if they’re socialists They could be fasict anarcists. It still doesn’t change the fact that i don’t own a car.”
If Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was produced in 2016 it would be called, Ferris Bueller’s Day In. Millennials have no desire to go anywhere because the world is at their fingertips. Why go out when you can binge watch Breaking Bad all day long?
Ferris Bueller is a master of technology, 1986 technology that is, a world with VCR’s, stereo systems and telephone answering machines. It was a world without cell phones, lap tops, DVD’s, Bluetooth, streaming video online, because there was no one online. There was no Internet. The world was silent, at least more silent than it is today. And, yes, there was no texting.
Unlike Millennials, Ferris is a DIY guy who has Jimmy-rigged his bedroom in order to fool his parents and whoever else enters his MTV man cave that he is indeed sick and incapable of going to dreaded high school, where he appears to be, if not the Big Man on Campus, the Cool Dude on Campus. Grace, Ed Rooney’s secretary describes Ferris to Rooney, “Oh, he’s very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads–they all adore him. They think he’s a righteous dude.”
Ben Stein’s mention of Voodoo Economics in his high school classroom could be construed as a micro-aggression by today’s students who have seen their parents suffer from economic difficulties. Students would demand an escort to a safe space after class to unwind with a Bubble Guppies video and some Play Doh.
As Ed Rooney escorts Sloan out of school, he would encounter a student protest, led by whiny Snowflakes who claim he isn’t providing them with a safe environment. Posters read, “Mr. Rooney, you’re triggering me!” and “You’re not providing a home for us!”
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Very few high school kids today want or have a driver’s license. No kid today would make any effort to break into a locked garage and commandeer his dad’s 1962 Ferrari convertible. Plus, the security system could be engaged, alerting the local police who would taser Cameron and Ferris.
Why drive to the Chicago Art Museum? You can view the paintings online. No need to take the elevator to the top of the Sears Tower. You can just view the webcam online too. As for watching commodity traders yell at each in open outcry; that’s been taken over by the computer as well. Sure, there were thousands of jobs lost, but Walmart is hiring. Wait…Rahm Emmanuel was paid off to make sure Walmart couldn’t open a store in the city of Chicago. That’s out. Try K Mart.
Social services would arrest Ferris Bueller’s parents for allowing their minor son to roam free and attend a Cubs game without accompaniment by helicopter parents. Cameron would be charged with battery after impersonating George Peterson and calling Ed Rooney an A Hole.
Ferris, Cameron and Sloan are skinny and surprisingly free of Millennial teen and early adult diseases like Diabetes and High Blood Pressure. Why? Because they went places and did things!
Being a Gen X-er, Abe Frohman the sausage king of Chicago, was admired by Ferris. Who wouldn’t want to be the Sausage King of Chicago? But, to a Millennial, why try to disguise yourself as a millionaire and con your way into an expensive restaurant in the Loop, when you can just order food with an app and eat at home? Plus, who wants to impersonate a millionaire? Abe Frohman is a Lake Shore Drive money bag who is exploiting the 99 percent and should be heavily taxed, not emulated.
Ferris would be caught in the Jacuzzi in his underwear with Sloan and therefore be charged with pedophilia since he’s 17 and a half and she’s 16. He would be labeled a sexual predator and be included in online searches of sexual predators in his neighborhood. Ferris could also face charges of wire fraud for manipulating the school’s internal computer system to change grades and absentee days.
The Save Ferris movement at school would be outlawed because the kids don’t have a local business permit to set up a desk and ask for donations for his kidney transplant. Save Ferris written in chalk was reported to the police by a student who felt that the words caused grievous harm since the kid fell off a Ferris Wheel two years before.
Mr. Rooney would charge the girl in the pinball arcade with assault for spitting soda at him from a straw. The case would get nationwide attention and be covered daily by Nancy Grace.
“Oh Yeah”, the theme song is obviously sexist since it implies a guy admiring a pretty girl. It’s probably racist too, because maybe the song is about a white guy spotting a really hot black chick. It needs to be banned.
Well, if you have time this weekend, put down the cell phone, turn on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and spend a couple hours time traveling back to the 1980’s. Reagan was President.
Life was good.
Are you still here? Go home!
Ain’t that the truth.
I thought Jennifer Grey was pretty cute back then.
Then she had to go and ruin it by getting her nose done.
In the one I'm thinking of, she wears an expression that says oh dear, yet another male making a complete fool of himself for me. As if it's not the first time, and thinks its silly - but, even so, she likes it.
Kind of like the Mona Lisa.
some publicity stills for Lolita:
http://flashbak.com/sue-lyons-risque-lolita-publicity-photos-1962-48433/
With Jennifer Grey, it was much more the way she acted. Not that she wasn't cute, but her attitude was extremely charming, winsome.
The scene where she interacts with Charlie Sheen at the police station is delightful. Even though when I watch it as an adult I know that it's going to end very badly if she takes up with him.
In a couple of those, she looks like Alicia Silverstone.
“In a couple of those, she looks like Alicia Silverstone.”
Good call. There is a strong resemblance.
I wonder how many of those pictures were taken by him.
Sue Lyons has the property that it is almost impossible to take a bad picture of her. I'm sure that's one of the things that made Kubrick hire her.
According to Wikipedia, Tuesday Weld was considered for the part. She also has that quality - she's delightful from pretty much any angle, with any expression on her face, and wearing anything.
Perhaps she was too well known, and therefore too expensive. Also, I think Kubrick wanted someone unknown, an new face. By 1962, Ms. Weld was already very familiar, having appeared in nine movies by that time. Also, she's three years older than Sue Lyons, and probably wouldn't have been able to pull off the "precocious 14-year-old" thing by then.
I did see that kind of careerism or materialism, but all the grungy slackers were also GenX, so it was confusing back in the 1990s.
Are young people really less driven now? It's true that they're more coddled and less cynical, but I bet you can find a large subset of young people who are highly focused on career goals growing over the past two generations.
Whether in the 80s or now, young people spend less time at the beach or the malt shop than 50s or 60s teens (to judge by TV and movie depictions).
Ferris, Cameron and Sloan are skinny and surprisingly free of Millennial teen and early adult diseases like Diabetes and High Blood Pressure. Why? Because they went places and did things!
That's what parents and grandparents talk about '80s and '90s kids and what parents and grandparents say about kids in every generation. Before there was the Internet there was TV and there were even video games back then. Parents reproached their children for not getting out in the real world and doing things even 20 or 30 or 40 years ago.
Sue Lyons not only had the photographic quality that you describe so well, but she was 13- and in the book Lolita is 12 1/2. An inspired choice by Kubrick.
Poor Sue Lyons sure went on to live a screwed up life afterwards.
In the movie it makes it look like his dad is some multi-millionaire.
But supposedly the house was hard to sell, as it wasn't particularly fancy.
It hadn't been upgraded in years.
Yeah, Sam Adams, she looked like Blair from the Facts of Life
I had a good run for about 5 to 7 years but it started getting crappy in the late 80’s.
Pelham (you): "The phrase "jury rigged" has been in use since at least 1788. The adjectival use of "jury", in the sense of makeshift or temporary, has been said to date from at least 1616 when it appeared in Capt John Smith's The General History of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles published in 1624. [...]"
I had thought that my question - concerning "jimmy-rigged" - made clear that I already had an understanding of the lexicology of "jury-rigged" and "jerry-rigged."
Regards,
I posted it for the benefit of those who may have read your post but don’t have your etymological knowledge.
You’re right. It was small and old but very distinct and mid century modern, all glass. I have no idea what the kitchen or whatever looked like. The owner who had it built was in the textile industry.
Still is.
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