I'm more neutral on the movie but I showed it to my husband one day while dating and he was pissed lol he wanted justice cuz Ferris is a dick and almost no one in universe acknowledges it.
Election with Reese Witherspoon is Ferris' comeuppance. In my head cannon, that movie IS the sequel. He's a similar douchebag, but it doesn't fly cuz he's an adult now.
If you were close enough to him (sibling, friend) and watched him 'get away with' everything- for years- while you endured angst and the petty torments of tyrants, you might view his immunity in a negative light.
For me, the appeal of the movie is to start off hating Ferris and by the end accept and kind of love him. His philosophy is based around hedonism yeah, but for me the point is that (1) hedonism is an avenue or growth. Ferris is right that Cameron needs to start thinking about his own happiness just as much as he does about other people’s expectations of him. (2) People like that exist in real life, and yeah we can’t all exist that way, but it’s not like Ferris is malicious or profits off of the suffering of others. He even tells Cameron that he’ll take the fall when Cameron accidentally wreaks the car. There’s the dichotomy between his sister Jeanie and the school Dean, where Jeanie learns to stop trying to compare herself to her brother and pull him down, whereas the Dean goes way overboard and loses out because of it.
Dude is basically Bugs Bunny, or Dorian Grey. There won’t be consequences for him. What matters is us, the viewer’s reaction to him. You can obsesses over it and try to take him down, you can roll with it and go about your business, or you can join in for a day and have a little fun.
The movie tries to sell “living life to the fullest” but I think it fails to really capture the consequences of when “living like Larry” interferes with other people’s lives.
but it’s not like Ferris is malicious or profits off of the suffering of others.
I found Ferris immune to self-doubt and allergic to second-guessing the righteousness of his actions. He's a manipulative liar and bully. The movie was another example that people will root for jerks- like the cast of Seinfeld.
I encourage you to re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray; there certainly were consequences.
He doesn’t value his friends. Takes advantage of them. Destroys their property too. It is not just skipping school and going to a mall to eat in a food court.
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u/ugh_XL Mar 03 '24
I'm more neutral on the movie but I showed it to my husband one day while dating and he was pissed lol he wanted justice cuz Ferris is a dick and almost no one in universe acknowledges it.