Ferris Bueller, Beatles, and Companionship
AKA: Ferris Quotes John Lennon. What Does It MEAN?
(AKA: what if I was annoying and read too much into it)
At the very beginning of the film, Ferris delivers his monologue to the viewer, griping about his European history test and giving his reasons not to care about school and the subjects. He quickly follows up with a disclaimer. "Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, 'I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.' Good point there."
Except of course, the spectacular parade scene uses a very particular cover of Twist and Shout: the Beatles one.
Except, of course, Ferris never gave the complete Lennon quote at all.
The full lyric from Lennon and Ono's song God is "I don't believe in Beatles / I just believe in me / Yoko and me / And that's reality." The rest of the song fits into Bueller's ideals perfectly in that he refuses to be governed by anything, that he wants to breathe in the crisp air of reality and enjoy life the way it is, without all the fluff on top. (The perspective from Lennon would be different here, but we're talking about how the song relates to Ferris. I'm not losing my credibility as a bug fan over this.) He wants to live untethered. He doesn't believe in -isms. He doesn't believe in Beatles. Just himself.
But when Lennon believes in himself and Ono, and Ferris chooses to sing a song that his own quote belittles, you kind of have to wonder how much he's really standing by this. By deliberately cutting out the lyric about companionship, Ferris presents himself to the audience as independent and above-it-all. Cool. We see the way he runs through reality like he owns the place, his easy command over crowds, what sometimes reads as self-serving indifference.
Only, he'd go out of his way to get Sloane out of school too, even when a wrench was thrown into that plan via Cameron. He proposes to her! Far from the breezy persona we're presented with, he wants Sloane to be someone he struts through life with. That's not believing in "himself and that's all."
Beyond that, Ferris has a goal through the film to push Cameron into something better. I daresay he purposely chose his day off knowing that Cam was already going to be staying home sick. He comes across as callous dragging Cameron out of bed, but he does have his best interests in mind. To Ferris, Cameron doesn't know love, or unburdened joy, or relaxation, or freedom. Ferris uses the day off as fun for himself and Sloane of course, but also in an attempt to breathe life into his stunted bestie.
And the parade scene with the Beatles song? Ferris initiates this as a direct response to Cameron saying he hadn't seen anything good. The way that Ferris presents John's quote reads that John is shunning his bandmates, that he only needs himself. Well, singing (...syncing) a song from the era in which John was so entrenched with those bandmates, in response to his own companion expressing disappointment, it does the exact opposite of what Ferris was going for in the monologue.
Ferris is, to the core, a performer. Because he acknowledges the audience, he can lie to us too. He can chop up the lyrics and deliver them in a way that makes the same impression on the audience that it makes to other students in the film. He can remove the part that says "I don't want to be alone. I need someone I love here with me. What could be more real than that?"
I think he ends up saying it pretty clearly anyway.
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