Not Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

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calculus entrophy
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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#26 Post by calculus entrophy » Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:46 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
domino harvey wrote:Ferris was the most popular kid in school....
Did I miss the post making the case for the contrary?

EDIT: Oh. There it is.
This one definitely didn't.
calculus entrophy wrote:Ferris Bueller no longer just said, nerds are cool, too....it said nerds are cooler.

You had to go through Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science and then Pretty in Pink to get there, but the nerd had arrived, had its day, and there was nowhere left to go.

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domino harvey
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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#27 Post by domino harvey » Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:49 am

Can you translate it then, because your point appears to be that Ferris is the ultimate nerd

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#28 Post by calculus entrophy » Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:52 am

That was the point - nerds have now become cool.

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domino harvey
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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#29 Post by domino harvey » Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:54 am

In what way is Ferris a nerd, by definition a social outcast?

EDIT Actual definition from M-W:
an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits
No part of this describes Ferris

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Drucker
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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#30 Post by Drucker » Wed Dec 06, 2017 9:56 am

Nerds tend to not date the most beautiful person in school and skip classes to ride in Corvettes.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#31 Post by calculus entrophy » Wed Dec 06, 2017 10:14 am

He's a nerd, and he's cool. Its a "what if" premise, a nerd's fantasy in the social hierarchy at that time, but of course the premise requires some credibility in execution. After much success in prior Hughes episodes, nerds are now mainstream, relatable, maybe even rich or successful????.

So, he's a nerd of out of "water" but his inexplicable popularity is also made to become an in-joke through the "Save Ferris" campaign. He's just an average guy who we have to accept is somehow the most popular kid, not for wealth, his car, but for his ingenuity I guess. He has no exceedingly special qualities besides his ability to devise solutions and situations with his intellectual ingenuity. Yo many at the time, who grew up on the tired cliche of "Revenge of the Nerds". this was counter most teen movies that required we always pair nerds with the same themes of the nerd's failure and redemption.

The giveaway to me, is there is no credible basis for his popularity. Its a nerds daydream. Ferris has a run of the mill face, build, nerdy voice, and is not a jock or "brain". He does no work, and there is just a mystery behind the basis for his popularity and how he dates a chick 10x hotter that would likely not be with a young boy his age, as shown in the awkward eye contact with his father in the cab. He does have the geekishness to design the snoring, automaton ruse, however, which we all enjoyed far more than the status quo image of teen turmoil.

The movie and the reality signaled an upheaval of the mainstream leading male "teen" image at that time....you could be a nerd and be confident, even the most popular in school, which was a great self image to finally see in a popular hit comedy. So perhaps, now nerds didn't even need to seem like nerds anymore. At least for one day.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#32 Post by domino harvey » Wed Dec 06, 2017 10:38 am

Ferris is charming and 100% self-confident, which is cool and thus everything needed for securing and maintaining popularity. There is no mystery here

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#33 Post by calculus entrophy » Wed Dec 06, 2017 10:51 am

Ferris is charming and 100% self-confident, which is cool and thus everything needed for securing and maintaining popularity.
....exactly, and what would a nerd fantasize, or dream of being?
There is no mystery here
None implied, more a fantasy, a daydream......... it is FB's "DAY" off, not life and times of FB, he is an ideal.
Last edited by calculus entrophy on Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#34 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:04 am

I don't know if Hughes' intention was to make us believe that Ferris is based on any particular teenager archetype. He certainly is nowhere near any of the kids in The Breakfast Club, but that's not to say he is without faults or flaws of his own either. They are just downplayed next to how cool he is.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#35 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:36 am

flyonthewall2983 wrote:I don't know if Hughes' intention was to make us believe that Ferris is based on any particular teenager archetype. He certainly is nowhere near any of the kids in The Breakfast Club, but that's not to say he is without faults or flaws of his own either. They are just downplayed next to how cool he is.
Yeah, the appeal of the film, to me, is that he flies above that kind of categorization. There's even a line in the film meant to disprove any of the kind of pigeon hole-ing that calculus entrophy is trying to do:
Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads... they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#36 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Dec 06, 2017 12:15 pm

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:Yello made excellent and forward thinking electronic music that hip musicians today try to emulate. Their first album on The Resident’s Ralph Records is a real blast.
Their earliest records were certainly important, but they lost something vital when Peron left. "Oh Yeah" feels like an irritating novelty thanks to commercial overuse, and Stella, the post-Peron album from whence it came, is not one I'd hold up as one of their best.

Re: whether Ferris is or is not a "nerd," it's not exactly a topic that I find engaging, but I just remembered something that I did find interesting: Ferris was an early PC user. It's been pointed out to me by my computer engineering friends that not many high school kids in 1985 (or 1986?) would be so adept at computer programming, much less know how to hack into other computers, so it's pretty impressive that Ferris would be able to do all that. The idea to add that to his character might have been inspired by Broderick's past roles (War Games), but who knows.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#37 Post by Big Ben » Wed Dec 06, 2017 1:07 pm

The legacy of "Oh Yeah" at least as I've seen it is showing up during short videos with implied suggestive/sexual content where it's used essentially as an audio cue. As for the film in question I only know about the part where Ben Stein mumbles his famous lines of "Bueller? BUELLER?" and that's it!

The "nerd" and "jock" question has certainly changed though. Nerds can certainly be just as bad as the jocks and in some cases far worse.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#38 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Dec 06, 2017 1:17 pm

Big Ben wrote:The legacy of "Oh Yeah" at least as I've seen it is showing up during short videos with implied suggestive/sexual content where it's used essentially as an audio cue.
Fortunately for you, you never watched enough broadcast TV. Twix is the first to come to mind but I can't tell you how many times I've heard that stupid cue in a TV commercial.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#39 Post by Gregory » Wed Dec 06, 2017 1:37 pm

Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads... they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.
Good old Edie McClurg!

Bloods... as in, the street gang from L.A. adored Ferris?

And yeah, of course the dickheads liked him.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#40 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Dec 06, 2017 2:11 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Big Ben wrote:The legacy of "Oh Yeah" at least as I've seen it is showing up during short videos with implied suggestive/sexual content where it's used essentially as an audio cue.
Fortunately for you, you never watched enough broadcast TV. Twix is the first to come to mind but I can't tell you how many times I've heard that stupid cue in a TV commercial.
I don't know about anybody else but I am thirsty for some Duff anytime I hear it.
mfunk9786 wrote:
flyonthewall2983 wrote:I don't know if Hughes' intention was to make us believe that Ferris is based on any particular teenager archetype. He certainly is nowhere near any of the kids in The Breakfast Club, but that's not to say he is without faults or flaws of his own either. They are just downplayed next to how cool he is.
Yeah, the appeal of the film, to me, is that he flies above that kind of categorization. There's even a line in the film meant to disprove any of the kind of pigeon hole-ing that calculus entrophy is trying to do:
Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads... they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.
I would not go as far as to say he is an apparition or something closer to mythology, but the sheer will he applies from the moment he is on screen is really something you only see in movies. There's no moments of self-doubt or reflection, he's just full-tilt and forward-thinking all the way through. Maybe it is mythology, but one that combines the people at the center of every cool story you ever heard about someone else in high school.
calculus entrophy wrote:
There is no mystery here
None implied, more a fantasy, a daydream......... it is FB's "DAY" off, not life and times of FB, he is an ideal.
That's an interesting interpretation. The movie as a full-length daydream of someone who might be having a harder time in that stage of life, be it Ferris himself or even Cameron, is one I hadn't considered much until right now. I can think of several movies (most notably the beginning of Rushmore) that have these brief sequences of how a kid wishes his life went. I doubt whether or not this was Hughes' intention, but it is an interesting angle nonetheless.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#41 Post by mteller » Wed Dec 06, 2017 4:07 pm

As someone who was a high school nerd when the movie came out, there is no way in hell that Ferris reads as "nerd". His ability with the computer (and note the disappointment in the line: "I asked for a car, I got a computer") is just another aspect of his "Ferris is magically amazing at absolutely everything he does" character. Nothing else about him comes off as nerd.

You want some nerd wish fulfillment, look at Indiana Jones. That dude is a U of C professor.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#42 Post by PfR73 » Wed Dec 06, 2017 4:26 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:The movie as a full-length daydream of someone who might be having a harder time in that stage of life, be it Ferris himself or even Cameron, is one I hadn't considered much until right now.
The Ferris Bueller Fight Club Theory

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#43 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Dec 06, 2017 10:33 pm

mteller wrote:(and note the disappointment in the line: "I asked for a car, I got a computer")
His synthesizer cost 8 grand in 1986.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#44 Post by whaleallright » Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:24 am

Last time I saw this, I was struck by just how derivative it was of Risky Business, which I had watched recently. It can't help but pale beside that film, of course. Business has a crazily ambitious, and assured, mixture of satire, low comedy, drama, and lyricism, and this one is, by contrast, largely just a farce. The dramatic beats are the ones that don't come off, IMO. There's also a nasty, smarmy quality—with more than hints of misogyny, racism, and especially classism— that runs through a lot of Hughes's productions (and his stuff for National Lampoon, too). By the end, I sort of ended up hating almost everyone involved in making it, although I'd admit it has some of Hughes's most confident and inventive stuff. Ultimately its main virtue to me is Tak Fujimoto's wonderful location shooting of the Chicago of my youth.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#45 Post by Zot! » Thu Dec 07, 2017 6:42 am

mteller wrote:As someone who was a high school nerd when the movie came out, there is no way in hell that Ferris reads as "nerd". His ability with the computer (and note the disappointment in the line: "I asked for a car, I got a computer") is just another aspect of his "Ferris is magically amazing at absolutely everything he does" character. Nothing else about him comes off as nerd.

You want some nerd wish fulfillment, look at Indiana Jones. That dude is a U of C professor.
Exactly right, I know today a 'nerd' is basically anyone who wears wayfarers frames and has a tattoo of hello kitty, but once upon a time it was a put-down for social outcasts who qualified that they don't play DnD, they play ADnD. They were met with considerable derision, or at best went unnoticed. Ferris is a fantastical character that definitely doesn't exist, and the film certainly plays to the same male teen wish fufillment as Risky Business.

calculus entrophy
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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#46 Post by calculus entrophy » Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:37 am

mteller wrote:As someone who was a high school nerd when the movie came out, there is no way in hell that Ferris reads as "nerd". His ability with the computer (and note the disappointment in the line: "I asked for a car, I got a computer") is just another aspect of his "Ferris is magically amazing at absolutely everything he does" character. Nothing else about him comes off as nerd.

You want some nerd wish fulfillment, look at Indiana Jones. That dude is a U of C professor.
1) Name: Ferris Bueller - the name is nerdy by design.
2) Status: The most popular kid in school, town, etc, yet absolutely average in every dept, looks, voice, demeanor, grades, and no wealth or car. No achievements of note. Any "real" character with the popularity of Ferris would be in many clubs, organizations, teams, yet we see or hear of nothing like this. Also, he seems to be known by everyone, yet he only has 1 friend, who is also a nerd. Strange?
3) Girlfriend: is unattainably hottest in school: Enough said.
4) Popularity: Did you notice the exaggerated popularity, to the point of surreal, with the "Save Ferris" campaign? Hello, its screaming - this is all far too fantastic, even absurd.
5) The Daydream: First, its all one day. That's significant. Also, didnt you see how "perfect" everything is?? Each plot point turns on somehow, incredibly, it always works out perfect for Ferris, like when he runs by his parents and ends up in bed without ever being noticed - that's totally impossible. Also, when he is in the cab with Mia Sara, he is totally busted, but Mia Sara saves the day somehow through edit-time shifting.
6) Revenge: Did you perhaps notice how maybe all the people that make Ferris life more difficult, all end up in very humiliating situations?

And don't you remember the time you led all of downtown Chicago in a sing along? No, you didn't. Or that time your Ferrari got stolen, and then returned without a scratch? Thought not.

Ferris is just an absurd, fantastic character. Someone who has no past and no future besides this one perfect day. Over and over, everything always works out perfect. Kinda like a super nobody's daydream. Oh and as a recovering nerd that graduated high school in 85, I can assure you that your opinon doesn't have any special weight on that count, but I can guarantee you that at the time, nobody thought Danke Schoen was a high school favorite!

Ferris Bueller's Day Off, suggests not just a day off from school, but a day off from a life of being scared that it isn't what they'd hoped, and from those heavy consequences.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#47 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Dec 07, 2017 11:57 am

7) Shirt has a pocket on it
8)

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#48 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Dec 07, 2017 12:41 pm

whaleallright wrote:Last time I saw this, I was struck by just how derivative it was of Risky Business, which I had watched recently. It can't help but pale beside that film, of course. Business has a crazily ambitious, and assured, mixture of satire, low comedy, drama, and lyricism, and this one is, by contrast, largely just a farce. The dramatic beats are the ones that don't come off, IMO. There's also a nasty, smarmy quality—with more than hints of misogyny, racism, and especially classism— that runs through a lot of Hughes's productions (and his stuff for National Lampoon, too). By the end, I sort of ended up hating almost everyone involved in making it, although I'd admit it has some of Hughes's most confident and inventive stuff. Ultimately its main virtue to me is Tak Fujimoto's wonderful location shooting of the Chicago of my youth.
Great observations. I saw Risky Business not too long ago, with fairly low expectations, but was surprised by how well it had aged.

I also didn't know Fujimoto shot this, which is pretty cool. I remember my surprise when I found out Dede Allen cut Trains, Planes and Automobiles - what wasn't too surprising was that she came up with the montage near the end when Hughes was at a loss on how to end the film.

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#49 Post by domino harvey » Thu Dec 07, 2017 12:52 pm

Risky Business is an unfunny teen sex comedy with self-important art house window dressing and centers on one of the least tolerable male ego strokings in existence (whore likes guy so much she does it for free). You really want to take the high ground there over this?

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Re: Forthcoming: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

#50 Post by mteller » Thu Dec 07, 2017 1:13 pm

calculus entrophy wrote: 1) Name: Ferris Bueller - the name is nerdy by design.
What? It's an unusual name, but if Hughes wanted to give him a name that says "nerd", he'd have gone with "Poindexter" or something more traditionally associated with nerddom ("Albert" seems like a good nerd name), not a name no one has ever heard before. If anything, the name makes the character cooler and more unique.
calculus entrophy wrote:2) Status: The most popular kid in school, town, etc, yet absolutely average in every dept, looks, voice, demeanor, grades, and no wealth or car. No achievements of note. Any "real" character with the popularity of Ferris would be in many clubs, organizations, teams, yet we see or hear of nothing like this. Also, he seems to be known by everyone, yet he only has 1 friend, who is also a nerd. Strange?
Broderick is a very handsome guy, and his clothes in the movie are stylish. Average in demeanor? He's the coolest cat around. Nerds (as they were portrayed in the 80's) did not have "average" grades, did not skip school, and LOVED joining school clubs. He's not only known by everyone, but beloved by everyone, which makes the "only one friend" idea ridiculous. His mission that day is to break Cameron out of his shell so he focuses on him but there's no evidence that he has no other friends.
calculus entrophy wrote:3) Girlfriend: is unattainably hottest in school: Enough said.
4) Popularity: Did you notice the exaggerated popularity, to the point of surreal, with the "Save Ferris" campaign? Hello, its screaming - this is all far too fantastic, even absurd.
5) The Daydream: First, its all one day. That's significant. Also, didnt you see how "perfect" everything is?? Each plot point turns on somehow, incredibly, it always works out perfect for Ferris, like when he runs by his parents and ends up in bed without ever being noticed - that's totally impossible. Also, when he is in the cab with Mia Sara, he is totally busted, but Mia Sara saves the day somehow through edit-time shifting.
6) Revenge: Did you perhaps notice how maybe all the people that make Ferris life more difficult, all end up in very humiliating situations?

And don't you remember the time you led all of downtown Chicago in a sing along? No, you didn't. Or that time your Ferrari got stolen, and then returned without a scratch? Thought not.

Ferris is just an absurd, fantastic character. Someone who has no past and no future besides this one perfect day. Over and over, everything always works out perfect. Kinda like a super nobody's daydream.
Tons of movies are fantastical and feature things going improbably well for the protagonists, but that doesn't make them nerds. I think there is a conscious effort not to pigeonhole Ferris into any one particular group/archetype, and that includes "nerd". Wish fulfillment, sure. Nerd? That doesn't read to me at all. Iconoclast, perhaps.

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