Of course, when it comes to TV watching habits, guys revert back to their DNA-based hunting tendencies, the modern-day version of what we’ve pretty much done all the way back to our Homo erectus brothers of the Pleistocene epoch. When it comes to TV, unless it’s a game we’re watching, we absolutely must grab the remote and hunt to find something better, especially when whatever we’re watching tends to be an endless run of mind-numbing commercials, with only the occasional GEICO spot to evoke a snicker.
And, so it was a few weeks ago when I was scrolling and came upon the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,: which was just starting.
I instantly plunged the “select” button for that meander down memory lane. Now, my memory lanes so often tend to include my daughters, Shannon and Katie, back when they were cute little ladies in pigtails rather than the grown ups they slipped away and became despite my strict orders to stay in the nest.
And, if you’re of a certain age and were raising kids in the late 1980s as I was, my guess is, you’ll remember your kids’ attraction to the movie, especially once it made its way from the big screen to the small. That movie and, of course, Travolta and Newton-John’s “Grease,” were must-sees every single time they recycled on TV for my kids.
As for “Ferris,” the tale centers on the charismatic and innocuously duplicitous Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, who, even at 24 when he made the movie, had no trouble passing for a high schooler intent on cutting school and convincing his girlfriend Sloane, and his best bro, Cameron, to do likewise and seek adventure.
I think one of the appeals of the movie for mine and possibly your kids if you also remember their sitting and howling for most of the 107 minutes was that the movie most certainly portrays the kids as being a whole lot smarter than pretty much every adult, parents and school personnel alike, especially the school’s principal Mr. Rooney. To be honest, that always kind of annoyed me back when Shannon and Katie were watching, offending me on not one but two levels, since I was equal parts parent and school teacher. As they sat on the floor watching, I’d often stroll through the room and offer an aside, as in “We’re not all that stupid!”
However, since I’m not an overly sensitive sort, I gradually swung around to appreciating the cinematic romp as a harmless tale of a quest, one where fun was the only real prize and while on their quest, one where the kiddos were always going to be several steps ahead of the adults whose job it was to oversee and direct them appropriately, not surprising given the film’s target audience. That was often the case with filmmaker John Hughes, who also gave the same demographic the films “Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles,” movies where adults exist only to play the role of foils by extolling the worth and relevance of the teens at the narrative epicenter
When I watched the movie recently through 65-year-old eyes, of course, there were memories of Shan and Kate and the resulting misty eyes that always come when I think of the childlike versions of them, but there was also somewhat of an epiphany as to why the movie even three decades after its release and seven years after Hughes’ passing still resonates.
In the film, as the three absentees bounced around my birth city of Chicago, that message should be clear, and it has far less to do with encouraging irresponsibility by the ditching school or work and a whole lot more to do with the joy of discovery, seeking new adventures, in the words of another Madison Avenue time, recalling that Schlitz commercial, to go out and grab a double-handful of gusto in our only-around go-round.
Even at the expense of making most of us adults look like saps, that’s a pretty good take-away.
And, that’s a message that should matter to all of us, whether it be in our daily lives, with a decision as simple as not sitting in the exact same pew at our Sunday services, or in our leisure travel times, when we follow the great poet Whitman’s mandate and take to our open roads and stretch our physical boundaries, instead of heading to the exact same cottage on the exact same lake.
OK, so you’re done my reading my weekly rant. Now, go have an adventure!
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