Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: Who is the protagonist?

While reading about protagonists in this week’s reading Robert Mckee’s The Substance of Story. While reading about what a protagonist does and does not do I started to think of many examples and how they do or do not fit the mold described. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off specifically popped into my head when I read the following quote:

“In Story, we concentrate on that moment, and only that moment, in which a character takes an action expecting a useful reaction from his world, but instead the effect of his action is to provoke forces of antagonism. The world of the character reacts differently than expected, more powerfully than expected or both.” (Mckee 145) 

I take this to mean that the protagonist is the conservative thinker and the antagonists will be the driving forces of conflict that bring in all things contradictory for the protagonist.

Ferris Bueller is not a conservative thinker.

Nothing really happens to him. The biggest piece of conflict I can think of that Ferris has to personally deal with in the film is seeing his Dad at the restaurant. In my opinion, Ferris Bueller is the main antagonist to the major protagonist Cameron. Cameron by far has the most character growth out of anyone in the film. Ferris remains the same happy-go-lucky, too smart and likeable for his own good self  while Cameron (certainly a conservative thinker) goes through a deeply personal journey. The audience see’s Camerons struggle with crippling anxiety and gaining the strength to stand up to his father. Cameron is only able to do this through Ferris’s ‘forces of antagonism’.

Ferris convinces Cameron to get out of bed 

Cameron gains strength after he destroys the Ferrari.

*** Featured image was cropped and comes from theNerdPatrol FOUND HERE

Citation

McKee, Robert. (1997). ‘The substance of story.’ In Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, USA: HarperCollins, pp. 145.