Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Ferris Bueller decides to skip school by playing sick

He and his friends go on fun adventures during the day; ranging from borrowing a Ferrari, going to a baseball game, eating at a fancy restaurant, and singing in a parade.

Summary

Ferris Bueller; Main character who skips school and is the driving force behind playing hooky

Sloane Peterson; Ferris’s girlfriend who is excused from school by Ferris

Cameron; Ferris’s best friend who stayed home sick and ends up tagging along

Characters

Statement: We as the audience can learn and observe how to play hooky.

Evidence: Ferris shares with us, the audience, the rules of how to fake sick, pointing out the dangers of a phony fever and how to make clammy hands.

Connection: Observational learning is the acquiring of skills and knowledge by observing and imitating others.

Observational Learning

Statement: Cameron’s sickness is an issue of his cognitive perspective.

Evidence: Cameron believes that he is dieing, but really he is just tight, and can’t see the world in a positive light.

Connection: The cognitive perspective shows how a person feels and perceives the world around them.

Psychological Perspections

Statement: Ferris has conditioned Cameron to give him car rides.

Evidence: Cameron knows that Ferris will be persistent if he doesn’t give him a ride, so he ends up going to his house.

Connection: Cameron has learned through operant conditioning, that when he gives Ferris a ride, he ends up having a good time with his best friend, so he decides to continue to give him rides.

Operant Conditioning

Statement: Communication does not need words.

Evidence: Cameron makes a sink dripping noise to communicate his boredom and his body language suggests a lack of enthusiasm.

Connection: Communication in this scene is verbal noise communication, but is not language. Body language is also a dominant way people communicate.

Communication

Statement: Discrimination in fancy restaurants is due to social norms.

Evidence: Abe Forman is expected to be a high class businessman, but instead, Ferris is posing as him and this throws the host off. Also, the female voice is trusting and the host believes her. The deep male voice is easily believed as an angry policeman.

Connection: Social psychologists deal with gender roles and socio-economic situations like the prestigious restaurant.

Social Psychologists

Statement: Ferris has great musical intelligence.

Evidence: Ferris’s “Twist and Shout” performance in the parade pleases everyone and evokes their musical joy!

Connection: There are different levels of musical intelligences according to Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Ferris, the shaking guy, choreographed dancers, and older people all display their unique strengths, or weaknesses, in the intelligence.

Multiple Intelligences

Ferris Bueller's Day off. Dir. John Director Hughes. 1986. DVD.

Citation

Life moves pretty fast, If you don’t stop and look

around once in a while, you could miss it.

-Ferris Bueller