Question: “Who is the Protagonist in ‘Ferris Buller’s Day Off’”?

Received a tweet this week from @ryanbinaco:

Can you review Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Ferris is the main character but the movie’s about Cameron. Elaborate, if you would.

Turns out, I’ve already gotten into this, but it’s a subject worth revisiting. From January 19, 2010, a GITS Blast-From-The-Past:

Received an email from Eve Montana:

Scott,

I am working on a feature in which my character is similar to Ferris Beuller in “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off.” I was trying to think of the arc that Ferris underwent in the film and had a hard time doing so. Then I came across an epiphany that others have probably said but I missed out on completely. Ferris is not the protagonist of the film, Cameron is. Is there another film in which the marketing and the title of the film is concentrated on a character that is not the protagonist?

This article about the film is interesting and eye opening to say the least:

The first step in understanding Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is realizing that the main protagonist is not, as the title may suggest, Ferris Bueller, but actually his best friend Cameron Frye.

It is Cameron who undergoes substantial character development in the movie and has to overcome his critical flaw — namely his cowardice and reluctance to stand up against his father. He also has to learn to enjoy himself in the process.

For more, go here.

This is a most interesting question because Ferris Bueller’s Day Off does bump up against typical associations re a Protagonist character. To wit, here is an excerpt from a lecture in one of my online screenwriting classes:

What is a Protagonist character? The word is derived from Greek and historically the protagonist of a Greek drama was the leading actor, but in contemporary Hollywood, Protagonist generally refers to the central character in the story. It is their journey which typically creates the spine of the plot, their goal which establishes the resolution of the story. Usually the story is told through the Protagonist’s vantage point and it is through their experience of events that we, the reader / viewer, enter into the story.

So by this logic, that would clearly point to Ferris (Matthew Broderick) as the Protagonist of FBDO: He is the central character in the story, it’s his journey that creates the spine of the plot (his day off), his goal that establishes the resolution of the story (getting home on time before he gets discovered). The story is obviously told through his vantage point. But then in my lecture, I follow up with this observation:

In my view, there is one more determinative factor regarding the Protagonist role: Generally they are the character in the story who changes the most.

In FBDO, Ferris doesn’t change at all. Neither does Sloane (Mia Sara), his girlfriend. But Cameron (Alan Ruck) does. Saddled with a dark world view and dysfunctional relationship with a distant, materialistic father, Cameron moves from a state of fear to getting in touch with his anger to a determination to confront his father.

This transformation arc is played out in Cameron’s ‘relationship’ with his father’s car (the father is never visualized, only ‘physicalized’ in the form of his beloved sports car).

* Beginning: Cameron resists Ferris’ pleas to use Cameron’s father’s car for the trio’s trek to downtown Chicago (fear).

* Middle I: Reluctantly convinced by Ferris, Cameron is desperately concerned about the safety of his father’s car, but willing to go along for the ride (fighting fear).

* Middle II: After returning from their journey in the ‘extraordinary’ world (their day off), Cameron attacks his father’s car (anger).

* Ending: Once the car crashes out of the garage and gets destroyed, Cameron resists Ferris’ offer to take the blame for the accident, instead wanting to face his father once and for all — “I’ll handle it” (determination).

So where does that leave us re Eve’s question: Is Ferris the story’s Protagonist? Or is Cameron?

I have an opinion on this which I’ll upload later as an update. But I’m curious how GITS readers see this question. So post away with your thoughts in comments.

UPDATE: Lively conversation in comments. Let me add two ideas to the mix.

First, the designation “Protagonist” and, indeed, any other archetypal moniker (e.g., Nemesis, Mentor, Attractor, Trickster) is an artificial term. At their best, characters in stories are flesh-and-blood, multidimensional entities who (hopefully) transcend categorization as we, the viewer, experience the unfolding of the story. These designations can be extremely helpful in everything from a writer wrangling the multiple characters who inhabit a story they’re penning to analyzing a movie and why it works (or doesn’t), but on one level of considering the movie Ferris Bueller, Ferris and Cameron are ‘bigger’ than any type we might lay atop them.

But once we move into the realm of movie analysis and it’s fair game to ask such a question as, “Who is the Protagonist of Ferris Bueller,” that’s when I’m happy to have in my theoretical arsenal the concepts of Plotline and Themeline.

What are they? Broadly speaking the Plotline is the physical track of the narrative and the Themeline is the emotional track. They interweave, but the Plotline is built upon the major plot points that happen in the story and the Themeline is built upon the movements within a primary character’s transformation. Typically these tracks are tied to one character. But there are some occasions where one is connected primarily to Character A and the other is connected primarily with Character B.

I think you can make an argument that Ferris Bueller is such a movie. 

Ferris dominates the Plotline. It’s he who wants the day off, he who pushes all those plot buttons, and it’s his story with his Nemesis Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) that dictates the major beats that comprise the overall movement of the plot.

But I would argue that it’s Cameron who dominates the Themeline. As noted in my analysis above, there is a clear and discernible arc to his transformation. Yes, it evolves in response to everything Ferris puts Cameron through, but still his change emerges through his own psychological development and empowerment.

Indeed, I would say that while it’s easy to suggest that it’s Ferris’ movie, without Cameron, the movie would not work. Why? Because without Cameron, there would be no emotional meaning to the story, a series of fun but ultimately meaningless events.

So how about this? They are Dual Protagonists: Ferris is the Protagonist as Change Agent. And Cameron is the Protagonist as The Transformed.

And by the way, I always thought that Ferris’ romance with Sloane was just a fling. Ferris would go off to some East Coast private college like Williams or Tufts, and leave Sloane behind. And Cameron, who clearly is smitten with Sloane, would stumble into a relationship with her. Maybe they end up together as a couple, maybe they don’t, but they have a much more natural and perhaps even sincere relationship than Ferris and Sloane.

Which leads to another question: After the movie, years down the road, which of the two characters — Ferris or Cameron — has found a more fulfilling life?

To read the OP and the lengthy discussion in comments, go here.

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