Bueller? Bueller?

When I started writing this blog almost four years ago (wow… does NOT seem that long ago…), I wanted to avoid the trend in opinion writing (not just on the Internet, but there’s certainly plenty here) of picking out something in the conventional wisdom and then taking the opposite opinion just for the hell of it. If you’re genuinely against the grain on a certain topic, hey, it’s a free country. But it was the whole contrary-for-the-sake-of-being-contrary thing that just seemed tedious to me. And I also didn’t want this blog to turn into “Look what this idiot wrote.” Frankly, that’s boring.

So it’s with total blogger integrity that I present this essay from The Atlantic and say that, while I appreciate the writer’s point of view, I disagree.

It’s been 25 years since “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was released, which means that it’s been slightly less than 25 years since my mom persuaded my older sister and I to watch it, telling us that “that girl from ‘Dirty Dancing is in it.’” And the film’s continuing popularity seems to bug Alan Siegel, who thinks it’s an unrelatable, whitewashed fantasy with an unlikeable hero.

Well, yeah. First of all, if you’re expecting any studio comedy released in the 80s to explore race and class relations without any cringe-inducing moments, you’re in for disappointment. Why “FBDO” should be singled out for criticism – when it takes place in one of the whitest, most privileged places in the U.S. at that time – among all the other all-white, “greed is good” films of the era is kind of silly. Siegel should definitely not watch “Adventures in Babysitting” or “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

For me – not that I could articulate this as a school-aged middle-class kid – Ferris Bueller was less a hero to be emulated than a fantasy object. It’s escapism. Bueller is sort of the trickster character that shows up in myths and stories practically since people started telling stories. He doesn’t change; people around him do.

And even as that single-digit-aged kid, I could recognize the slightly absurd fantastic elements of the movie. At the end of the movie, Ferris’ girlfriend Sloan watches him scurry off, saying to herself, “He’s going to marry me.” You’re what, 17? Enjoy looking back on that moment, honey. If I could appreciate this sheltered, naïve moment of youthful idealism at an age when I thought the Muppet Babies were real, why can’t a real-live grown-up writer?

But I do appreciate what he’s trying to say. We should look critically at why Hollywood did, and to a large extent continues to, pitch affluent white guys as “universal” figures while neglecting equally entertaining stories about people who aren’t in that demographic. But I think we can do that without guilt-tripping the people who quote Ferris Bueller in their high school yearbooks.

Lighten up, honey. Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.