Why every Gen A and Gen Z should watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

I was never a huge of the John Hughes stable of teen films – I was never that bothered by the cringiness of them, because the teen years are inherently cringey – but to me they excessively romanticised the teen years. They paved the way for the truly risible Dawson’s Creek, and it’s hideous ‘Creek Speak’ that always sounded like the masturbatory fantasy of how Kevin Williamson thought he sounded like he was a teenager, when in fact he was probably the bloke everyone gave a wide berth to at college parties because he was so pretentious.

John Hughes’ films are better than Dawson’s Creek, but they still have that sheen of adult fantasy that in no way reflected the real angst and tedium of the teen years. They also ended way too neatly and victoriously to be a true representation of the messiness and uncertainty of being sixteen or seventeen.

However, I’ve recently become interested in the concept of nostalgia, because modern teens – older Gen A’s and younger Gen Z’s – live in an era of extreme nostalgia where they are constantly told everything in the past was better. Whether it was house prices (definitely better), the pre-tech era (debatable) or socialising (better in some ways, worse in others – try being a gay kid in the ‘80’s or even ‘90’s), teens today are being told constantly by powerful and influential voices that the past is less a foreign country, but a better country and there is huge curiosity and romanticism from modern teenagers about a past they never experienced.

I decided to watch, listen to and read popular films, TV shows, books and music specifically from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, the decades they are most interested in, and the results have been interesting. Discussions about Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Nirvana, The Beach, Tupac, Bridget Jones’ Diary (book), The Cure, Sonic Youth, NWA, Clueless etc have been wildly entertaining, but one of the films that caused the most emotional reaction with A’s and Z’s was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and I choose the word ‘emotional’ intentionally because that was the response.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is ostensibly a comedy about a cocksure and hilariously Machiavellian 18-year-old young guy who sails through life with ease and charm, adored by his parents and peers (though loathed by his sister Jeannie, played with stellar resting bitch face by Jennifer Grey), and pulls off the most outrageous scams with aplomb. He’s rich, has a gorgeous girlfriend who he adores and takes delight in torturing his headmaster, Ed Rooney, who’s set up in the film both as his nemesis and the antagonist. The film centres around him basically bunking for the day and going to downtown Chicago, and for this he enlists his girlfriend, Sloane and his depressed and uptight friend, Cameron who’s dad, who we never meet, but who’s bullying presence haunts Cameron throughout the film, who owns a bunch of classic cars including a 1961 Ferrari, which they ‘borrow’ to pull off the bunk, a fact that stresses out the already on-the-edge Cameron, even further.

In theory, you should hate Ferris. The character in another actor’s hands might have come across as spoilt, smarmy and altogether too slick, but Matthew Broderick infuses him with both a likeability and charm, that makes you root for him, and also made kids project a bit of wish fulfilment identification on to him – who doesn’t want to be as cool as Ferris?

I saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when I was a pre-teen and viewed it as a straight comedy, at an age when bunking school and outfoxing your Headmaster seemed the height of rebellion. But what I missed until I watched it as an adult, and what the Gen A kids watching it saw right away, was the heavy and quite moving emotional dimension of the film.

The three teens, Ferris, Cameron and Sloane, are in that weird liminal space between childhood and adulthood, all on the precipice of leaving school and entering the adult world, and the film is a less of a last hurrah, and I’ve come to see, a plea, to really seize the day in that time you’ll never get back. Ferris Buller inherently understands and shows the teen audience, that this will be the last time you’ll be old enough to enjoy it but young enough not to have responsibilities, bills or the adult world weighing you down. Their odyssey through Chicago, where they look at priceless art, eat great food and overtake a street parade is pure carpe diem, and what hit the modern kids watching it, is how rarely they get to do this. Life now is lived through the screen or lens of the phone, so the art would have been Tik-Tokked, the food would have been Instagrammed and they would have been busted in seconds by parents calling them on phones or someone spotting them on Snapchat or People Finder. The kids in Ferris Buller find themselves by getting lost for the day, and how often do modern kids get to do that?

The second thing I missed until I watched Ferris Bueller as an adult and with modern teenage kids is the very relevant good-heartedness of the film, but also it’s very serious side. As a kid, I thought Cameron was whiny and kind of irritating, sort of a middle-aged teenager, but I can now easily see he’s both deeply depressed, anxious and genuinely traumatised by his bullying parents. This brought quite a different dimension to the film, as it can be interpreted not as Ferris Bueller just have a great time in a Ferrari with his mate and hot girlfriend, but constructing the elaborate day out as a genuine attempt to save his best friend and empower him to stand up for himself and seize the day – which he does in the end. Interestingly, the modern teens immediately spotted Cameron’s struggles and interpreted him not as a buzzkill, but as someone they sympathised and empathised with. Modern kids with their perpetual, existential angst, worrying about pleasing everyone and uncertainty about the future are spiritually much closer to Cameron and Ferris, which begs the question, who is going to save them and give them they day out they all need as they face adulthood?

I was interested in the emotional response of some of the modern kids watching the film – there were tears at the end, when Cameron loses it and trashes the car, and Ferris lets him, willing him to exorcise his fear and rage.

I worry a lot about modern teenagers, and I also worry about the level of rage there feels like there is currently in the world. It’s everywhere. On roads, planes, trains, playgrounds, gyms, clubs, shops and schools. People – young people, old people – express their rage in the wrong ways, with violence in the street and cruelty online – our perpetual act of kicking the Ferrari because we’re upset and angry all the time. I was thinking about this recently after watching Ferris Buller with the kids and how much the film might contain some ideas about how we tackle this in small and big ways. Kids don’t get to disconnect anymore and just the appreciate the beauty and wonder around them and they need to do this very badly and often. Art, dancing, good food, fooling around with mates has been lost to screentime and everything having to have a point – almost none of the kids visited museums or galleries, which often are actually free just to appreciate the magnificent and priceless works unless it was for school, and this is a huge shame, because this is a generation out of touch with the therapeutic effects of beauty and wonder, just for beauty and wonder’s sake.

But the real emotional heft of the film, and I think the thing that really appealed to the modern kids watching it, is Ferris – a young guy – really sees and understand his male friend’s pain and takes a risk to help him. Sure, he has a good time on the way, but risk is another thing we’ve taken from modern kids, with good intentions but bad outcomes. Modern kids don’t take calculated risks much anymore relying on willing parents and carers too much to drive them places, book things for them, organise their social and well-being calendars, and this overparenting has taken more than it’s given.

The pleasure of watching kids watch Ferris get away with it was quite something, and I was left with the absolute certainty, that without condoning bunking or pinching priceless cars, Gen A and Gen Z need more Ferris Buller’s typedays off where they can get lost and found, where they cans see the world and each other away from parents and camera lenses. They need it badly, because life moves pretty fast, and before they know it, they will be adults too.