Art, as they
say, is a mirror, and the saying holds true for the 1986 pop-culture ‘classic’
movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Its characters and plotlines reveal the essence of modern America with
remarkable clarity.
Ferris
Bueller, the teenage boy at the center of the movie, is the quintessential
modern American: determined to ‘pursue
happiness’ (Declaration of Independence), he has no problem ignoring all rules
and authorities to obtain it: skipping
school, deceiving parents, etc. This
plays out geopolitically with the US ignoring and/or undermining international
treaties, moral traditions of other countries, the rules of warfare, and so on
to obtain whatever they are after.
Authority
figures in the film are portrayed as either hopelessly naïve and irrelevant
(like Ferris’s parents, who believe his performance that he is ill so he can
stay home from school) or utterly tyrannical (like Ed Rooney, the dean of
Ferris’s school who is determined to catch Ferris in a lie and punish
him). This is also very much akin to the
US view of political authority: There
are only those two options: Political
authorities are either wicked, uncontrollable tyrants or toothless puppets of
the people (autocracy vs. democracy, in Pres. Biden’s terminology).
Ferris’s
best friend Cameron, who is dragged into the action by Ferris, is another
illustration of the US attitude toward authority. Deathly afraid at the start that his father
will find out that his prized Ferrari was driven about town by he, Ferris, and
Sloane (Ferris’s girlfriend), by the end of the movie he has been transformed
into the typical rebellious American who is ready to confront and win his
independence from any kind of restraining force. It’s 1776 within the family, and it is
glorious!
Jeannie,
Ferris’s sister who is angry that he never gets in trouble for his constant
rule-breaking, symbolizes virtue, morality, and conscience. It is remarkable that she is corrupted by the
end of the movie (after some advice at the jail from a drug addict, another
American man ‘pursuing happiness’), as she comes to Ferris’s aid just as Rooney
is about to expose his lie that he has been sick all day. And this is presented in the film as a
praiseworthy change that we should cheer!
The charade of modern America’s morality is thus stripped away: Virtue for the US is the ability to smugly
flout whatever rules they wish, and to enjoy doing so by strangling the cry of conscience.
Is it any
wonder that, more and more, countries in the world with even a shred of
traditional religious sensibility are beginning to question their friendship
with the United States?
How can the
US create close ties with them again?
With stacks of cash? That might
work on a few, and for a time, but certainly not with most of them, or for very
long.
What is
necessary is a transformation of the peoples of the US and their government, a
step back into their more traditional past.
Prior to their war for independence in 1776, the 13 colonies that later
became the United States were basically extensions of European Christendom in
North America. After that war, the new
States became post-Christian – not all at once, it is a process that has been
ongoing, though there have moments that accelerated it such as the Northern
Yankee Revolution of 1861-5 and the CIA-driven cultural revolution of the 1960s. Nevertheless, 1776 is the dividing line,
after which the States exchanged Christianity (in the attenuated forms in which
they knew it) for an idolatrous worship of Liberty.
In order to
regain the trust and friendship of the more traditional countries of the world
that they are alienating – with the Global South, i.e., by far the greatest
proportion of the world’s population, the United States will have to rediscover
and nurture anew their Christian roots. . . .
The rest may
be read here:
https://www.geopolitika.ru/en/article/ferris-buellers-day-captures-essence-americanism
Or here:
https://katehon.com/en/article/ferris-buellers-day-captures-essence-americanism
--
Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us
sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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