Ferris Bueller's Day Off/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • As pointed out by Dr. Insano, why the heck did Ferris convince Cameron to "borrow" the Ferrari if he was just going to leave it in a parking deck all day? Even if you accept the idea that he didn't want to rack up the mileage, then why didn't they just use a taxi instead?
    • Because they'd actually have to PAY for a taxi from the 'burbs into downtown Chicago, and it would be pretty pricey. Not something Ferris could easy charm his way out of.
    • Because Ferris follows only one rule: the Rule of Cool.
    • Or because he's a manipulative psychopath who's just curious about how far he can tip his "friend" with emotional leverage?
    • Ferris planned the day the same way Indiana Jones plans his. He needs a nice car, so he gets a nice car. He has a nice car, so he drives it in to the city. He's in the city, so he visits some attractions. He doesn't know what he's going to do next, so he just goes with the flow.
    • .... No, they actually explain this in the movie. Before they can do to the city, they have to pick up Ferris's girlfriend, and they have to do it with Rooney right there, expecting her dad. Since her dad is apparently a very wealthy, influential person, he'd drive a sweet car, so Ferris needed to borrow the Ferrari to fool Rooney into thinking it was him. The plan was to bring the car back when they were done, but he was enjoying it too much.
    • It's a bit of both: he wanted to see if Cameron would let him take it, and came up with "piece of shit" rationale when Cameron tried to resist. And he did that because it's a sweet-ass Ferrari.
    • Although this is perhaps more of a Doylist answer than a Watsonian one, I think that Ferris's putting the car in that garage is the film's way of telling us that his motives are at least partially sincere. If he had no real concern for his sick friend at all and just brought him along so he could joy ride in the family's cool car then he would have done so, or tried to. The parking confirms that the car was just a cool bonus and not the real, primary motive.
  • Noah points out another piece of Fridge Logic in the audio commentary for the Insano review - what happens the next day when Ferris shows up to school, not dying of a terminal illness? He observes that most people in the same situation would get lynched, but says Ferris could probably laugh his way out of it.
    • He never said he was terminally ill. He never even IMPLIED it. That was just a stupid rumor that got spread. Also, I don't think he went to school the next day either. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't show up again, given the climax.
      • No, he explicitly says that he thinks he needs a kidney transplant when talking on the phone to his classmates.
    • I always assumed it takes place on a Friday. It really seems like a Friday, doesn't it?
    • Exact words: He said that he thinks he needs a kidney transplant, not that he definitely would. He can fully explain away why he wouldn't, such as "food poisoning".
    • Also, he could pretty easily pass the "kidney transplant" as a joke: "Haha, you guys took me seriously? I was kidding!"
    • Or he could've simply said "Eh, you know how it is when you get sick. You're always afraid it's more serious than it actually is."
  • Another bit of Fridge Logic: what happened to the real Abe Froman?
  • Not about the movie is that this page for the movie is mostly filled with Doctor Insano's opinions and barely anyone's own.
    • Because he managed to identify so many of the issues of the movie.
      • Or, Alternative Character Interpretation, is busily projecting his own issues onto it.
    • Yeah. It's a movie, just sit back and enjoy
    • What's this page called again?
      • "Headscratchers", apparently. Hey, I didn't change it.
      • Point still stands, why come on to a page specifically devoted to dealing with issues people have with movies and say 'its just a movie'
        • Because at some point nitpicking the movie to death crosses a line from "Thoughts I had", Fridge Logic, and "I was wondering about this", and into being a pedantic asshat. Sometimes the answer really is "It's just a movie", and demanding explanations for common tropes of fiction turns into flailing around on the ground screaming "But whyyyyyyyyyyyy?!" Some things are legitimate headscratchers, some things are just people being overanalytical dumbasses.
    • Because Doctor Insano identified, or at least raised, most of the issues. Everyone else just thought "This is a cool movie."
      • Not really. This troper and her friends watched it at her dad's recommendation, and we all thought pretty much everything Insano said, espeically about Ferris being evil (and we only saw his review like 2 year later). There actually are a lot of people who see Ferris as an insensitive prick and wanted Jeannie (or maybe Rooney, but preferably Jeannie) to drag his butt back to school, prove he had manipulated everyone, and get his butt in trouble. It's mostly modern viewers, or people who identify with Jeannie and Rooney wanting to enforce the rules and not let Ferris just do as he pleases.
      • This troper has been on both sides of the issue--I was 17 myself less than a decade ago (as of this writing, that is), and I have worked for the local school district as a substitute teacher. I have firsthand experience about both teenage hijinks and school administrative rules. And I still side with Ferris Bueller, and will continue to do so, because I was defined as intellectually gifted at a young age, and I suspect that Ferris was a gifted kid as well. I know how incredibly plebeian the public school systems are, and how soul-crushing it is to be a gifted teenager in those surroundings--I saw its effects both as a teenager and as someone who works with teenagers. Trust me, if Ferris had been in some kind of gifted magnet school, he probably would have put forth some positive effort and growth, and not felt the need to cut class. And remember, kiddos: just because there are rules, it doesn't mean that they are necessarily right all the time.
        • ^ Speaking as someone else who's also pretty darn smart (IDK if I'm "gifted" or not); if Ferris is so gifted, why can't he find a way to get himself in a course or school that challenges him? I ended up in a few of those without even trying, once managing to make the Honor Roll entirely by accident. Also, there's a big difference between merely "being bored with school" and "choosing to skip school ten times and manipulate the people around him". Equating the two would be trying to deflect responsibility. Like most escapist fantasies, the movie's logic falls apart the second you look at it critically.
      • ^ Exactly (this is the one who watched with her dad). I am gifted, could read at a college level by 3rd grade, and yes, I got bored in school, despite actually being if the gifted program. Guess what? It's legally required you have some form of education aka you must go to school anyway even if you're bored. Also, Ferris didn't seem gifted except as a manipulator and liar--aka everyone I ever hated in school, hence my view of him as a Villain Protagonist and a Jerkass. Plus, if I wasn't clear, the main reason I sympathized with his sister was that she was telling the truth and no one believed her because Ferris was more popular--or worse, insulted her because she said he wasn't sick when he was. I'm not saying it makes the movie bad, just dated especially by today's kids who are more likely to be divided than just see a cool guy doing whatever he wants.
      • By looking too close at your own interpretations of the characters, I think you're missing the point of the movie. He's not a real person who is "gifted" and acts out because he isn't being challenged enough (I saw that episode of the Simpsons, too). He's a character in a film about a kid who is willing and able to go to great lengths to have fun and avoid class. His sister becomes the antagonist because she's against the protagonist the same way criminals are the protagonists in all those heist movies.
      • Except most interpretations of fiction DO depend on your point of view. That's the nature of fiction! If you were a stickler for the rules, or if you dislike liars, then yes, you might side with Jeannie and Rooney. By contrast, if you DON'T think along those lines, then you'll (more than likely) cheer on Ferris. You do take your values with you whenever you take in fiction, and as we've seen, FBDO is an excellent example of different points-of-view in play. John Hughes was a master of writing movies that toyed with Alternate Character Interpretation.
      • All that said, Jeannie's (and the naysayers') problems with Ferris are dissected by Garth within the confines of the movie, and Rooney's problems as an administrator were already somewhat addressed in The Breakfast Club by Principal Vernon's character growth arc.
  • OK, so the main characters visit downtown Chicago. And there's a huge culture festival/parade going on in the middle of a weekday? We know it's not a holiday or weekend because school is in session. But if it's during the week, shouldn't all the people in the crowd also be at work or in school?
    • Maybe it's a week-long thing?
    • If I recall, that was actually a fluke. The parade/festival was going on while they were shooting, so they decided to work it in.
  • We all know that Ferris is audacious, but he was downright stupid during the parade scene. He's standing in the middle of a float, hundreds if not thousands of Chicagoans are on hand to watch, the whole thing's almost certainly being broadcast on local television....and Ferris isn't even wearing a mask (which wouldn't raise any suspicions, due to the parade's carnival-like atmosphere)! Sure, I know it's a big city - but what if one of Ferris's schoolmates came home and saw their parents watching footage of the parade on the evening news?
    • Well, that's assuming any of the news cameras cared enough about what he was doing to zoom in. Can you pick out a schoolmate's face from hundreds of feet away?
    • Considering the fact that the entire parade has broken out in a fit of dancing thanks to this kid on the lead float, I'm sure news cameras would zoom in on him, and the fact that Ferris Bueller has garnered a near prophet-like status in his hometown ("Save Ferris" anyone?), it's not far off to think that more than one person would recognize him.
      • Fridge Brilliance, actually. Ferris is so prophet-like that it wouldn't be unusual for someone to make a Ferris mask and wear it. As a culture festival, it would be even more likely. And then there's that even if people DID recognize him, there's that they would probably realize he was faking being sick and cover for him.
      • I don't think a Ferris mask could look quite so lifelike as the real Ferris...
    • At that point he didn't really care. He was sad and frustrated that Cameron was still moping and claiming he hadn't seen anything good. Living in the moment, he decided to take his audacity Up to Eleven in an attempt to shock Cameron out of his funk and get him smiling. It worked, too... Cameron's bemused as he does it, but he's smiling by the end of the scene.
  • Why didn't Jeannie give the police Rooney's wallet? After she kicks the crap out of him, you see his wallet drop out of his pants to the floor. At the end of the movie when she saves her brother's ass, you see her take Rooney's wallet out and fling it in the mud. Why in the hell didn't she give it to the police when they came? Also, another one: Why the hell did the police arrest her for calling them? She was obviously hysterical, so why would they assume it was a joke?
    • There actually was no scene where she found the wallet, or even enters the kitchen, until the end of the film. It's likely that she didn't find it until after they got home.
    • In real life, 911 can and has reprimanded kids for making emergency calls when the situation was serious, only for them to find out the kid was really telling the truth. It's resulted in at least one death because they didn't take the kid seriously. At least in this case, they sent out someone to check for Jeanne.
    • She was also skipping school herself by this point. When they got there, she probably had no good explanation for why she just happened to be there at the same time there just happened to be a prowler (who they found no evidence of). The cops probably assumed she was on drugs, had hysterically called them while experiencing a bad trip, and hauled her in for testing (using the false alarm as an reason to do so). When she tested clean, they just gave her a reprimand and called her mom to pick her up.
    • Though one wonders what she could have gotten away with if she just said "Ferris suddenly felt a bit worse and begged me to come check on him". If her claim was investigated (by say, the police going to check with Ferris and finding him not there), she'd win because she just wanted Ferris to get busted. If it wasn't, she could probably avoid a lot of trouble (family emergencies typically get leniency).
      • Alas, that would have required Jeannie to have something vaguely resembling charisma, and Ferris apparently got the entire genetic lottery on that.
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