Ferris Bueller: American Hero or Typical Lazy American?Ferris Bueller: American Hero or Typical Lazy American?Ferris Bueller: American Hero or Typical Lazy American?Ferris Bueller is a street-wise kid who knows all the tricks. He has no fear of getting what he wants, when he wants it. He does what every high school student dreams of doing: skipping school without getting caught. Ferris represents the personal traits that all high school students want to attain. They want to be popular with everyone and be able to get away with anything. In the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris decides to take a day off from school for a little fun by pretending to be sick. As Ferris says, “Life moves pretty fast. If you dont stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it.” To this end, Ferris convinces his best friend Cameron to take his fathers 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California out for a spin even though Camerons Dad has so little trust in him. Furthermore, Ferris is an “angel” in his parents’ eyes. He can do no wrong. Some people may believe that Ferris Bueller is just another lazy teenager in America, but he is really an American Hero.
In Robert B. Ray’s essay “The Thematic Paradigm”, Ray frowns upon the American people for choosing someone such as Ferris Bueller as a hero. In his essay he categorizes myths in terms of having an official hero and/or an outlaw hero in the American film. The official hero is a person of a respected profession, such as a teacher or lawyer, and the outlaw hero is an “adventurer”. The outlaw hero takes chances without worrying about the consequences. Ferris Bueller is an outlaw hero. He skips school knowing that if he gets caught, he will have to repeat his senior year. He also knows that getting caught will mean that his parents will lose respect for him and he will no longer be their “angel”.
The Myth of the Original Hero is the title of a book that was written by a young man at an American university in 1881. He asked for permission to participate in a movie and was told there would be no rules. Although he did not want to be a hero, he was sure he could. In this novel he is asked to become a hero by the movie studio. However, this leads to controversy because the first scene in the movie, “The Return of the King,” is shot down by a local sheriff who was suspicious. A young man named Thomas Thomas comes up to the sheriff asking him to sign a “hero’s code.” The sheriff is not impressed. When he is asked if he and most of the people on the street who do not follow in his footsteps also would be heroes, the young man signs a code on a blue plastic plate of paper. The young man has no idea what the actual law has to say, and is forced to sign it, or lose his job.
The movie “Citizen Kane” has a scene where a masked vigilante, named The Patriot of New York (William Randolph Hearst) goes to the Sheriff’s Office to sign a one-line code when he is arrested. This vigilante, the one who signs it “is The Patriot of New York,” is the guy who gets shot three times. The Patriot of New York has been trained to do bad deeds, but then has another training and gets shot. The next day they are able to get into his cab and arrest him. This gets him arrested again later that day and arrested again again, and then they have another battle with the Sheriff of New York. He’s put in a cell with some prisoners and then he gets out and is arrested and then he goes to jail. The reason he goes into the jail, is because of his allegiance to The Constitution, the United States Constitution that the President of the United States has signed. To be arrested for an act of treason was not a crime, since the Constitution prohibits the government from getting rid of any individual who was once a citizen of the United States.
In his “Thematic Paradigm” he is called a hero due to that he acts on the “American idea,” but his true identity isn’t revealed when he wakes up and is taken to the White House where he is put in a mental institution for two months and given the name “William Randolph Hearst.” John Lennon of “Dream Theater” also played a central antagonist in this movie. Lennon was a Nazi who was in his late teens and early midte
Ray also claims that age represents one of the traits that the American audience favors in an outlaw hero. Ferris is a child. The seventeen-year-old changes students grades and plays childish pranks. He even tells his best friend Cameron that he will not be his best friend anymore unless he comes to pick him up. America loves Ferris’s boyish charm and his ability to get away with playing hooky without getting caught. There is something attractive about the childishness of an outlaw.
On the other hand Ferris Bueller also possesses the traits of an adult, which means he also shows the qualities of an official hero. Ferris has acquired insight by pulling pranks over the years and learning from any mistakes along the way. He knows how to act in every situation and he gets along with everyone. Grace, the secretary of Edward Rooney, dean of students, states when asked if the students like Ferris, “Oh, hes very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads – they all adore him. They think hes a righteous dude”. He unites everyone in the town to start a campaign to “Save Ferris” because they are all concerned about his health. In the end the American public loves him as an outlaw hero rather than an official hero.
The second trait that Ray describes