Hi friends! Hope you had a great day.
Peacing out of Hump Day like
Starting off here with a little PSA: Clemency, one of my favorite movies of last year, is now available to stream on Hulu. It’s a fairly grim watch to say the least, given the subject matter dealing with capital punishment and American injustice. But it’s absolutely worth stomaching the pain for an extraordinary performance by Alfre Woodard, the Black prison warden who’s torn between her professional duties and her personal conscience.
An interesting article here that shows how policy directly correlates personal outcomes — thanks to the CARES Act, America has capped the rise in poverty. (That’s not to say it’s perfect, but the data is bearing out that the law has helped many people stay afloat through this recession.)
Case in point around the imperfections of the government’s response: this CNN story highlights a viral Black-owned business success and the shortcomings of the federal pandemic response. I appreciate the way this story highlights what much of media fails to grasp when reporting on a GoFundMe helping a needy cause — often times, the fact that people had to turn to crowdfunding points to a larger failure within the systems meant to support them. What might look like inspiration on the surface can cover up institutional rot. Here’s the key portion of this story, to my eyes:
“The federal program designed to keep them afloat and keep their employees paid was structured in a way that made it exceedingly difficult to tap. Instead, in many cases it served to exacerbate the acute disadvantages faced by Black-owned small businesses in America.
From lack of relationships to banks, to minimal or less than pristine credit histories, to something as simple as the size and structure of their businesses, Black-owned small businesses faced built-in structural disadvantages, according to lawmakers, advocates, government officials and business owners.”
So, keep all this in mind the next time a piece of recovery legislation comes up for debate in Congress. And be prepared to call your representatives! (202-224-3121)
On that note … a hard pivot into once again begging you to take the quick survey for The Distancer by Friday! I’m already learning a ton about what’s working and not — plus getting some exciting ideas about #content for the future. Help me out, though, and make sure I don’t have an unrepresentative sample! If all the people without Disney+ don’t start flooding the surveys, you might not be pleased at where the recommendations start going in the next month given what I’ve gleaned thus far…
And, as always, a reminder that my employer is matching donations to a number of justice-oriented organizations (all of which are listed and described in this nifty spreadsheet). Make your money go twice as far by noting your organization of choice in a Venmo payment (@marSHAffer)!
Now, what you came for…
DAY 104: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (available on Netflix until 6/30)
Look, you’ve probably seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — and if you haven’t, just stop reading and do yourself the favor of watching it before the end of the month when it leaves Netflix. This high school classic is always a fun time no matter how many times you watch it. Certain scenes (Jeannie kicking Ed Rooney, the prank phone call, Ben Stein’s “anyone? anyone?” lecture) still get an audible laugh out of me. But — hear me out — what if we’ve been watching it wrong the whole time?
I wish I could share the article that sent me off on this journey a few years ago and wildly changed the way I thought about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Needless to say, if you haven’t seen the movie, expect spoilers. The prevailing view of Ferris seems to be that he’s a hedonistic thrill-seeker bored with the routine of school. While he’s not exactly booksmart, he’s clever enough to think one step ahead of the adults who want to harsh his vibe and force him into their rhythms. Matthew Broderick’s performance is the epitome of a teenager who’s cool under pressure and fast on his feet. (It also helps when you are already 24 when making the movie.)
But what if the day off doesn’t really belong to Ferris Bueller after all, despite the title granting him possessiveness over it? This grand theory of the film speculates that Ferris is more than just a hooky-playing wiseguy; in fact, the entire day has been ingeniously planned for the benefit of Alan Ruck’s Connor Roy — I’m sorry, I mean Cameron Frye — as he needs a strong shove out of his comfort zone. (Sorry for all the non-Succession watchers who had to scratch their heads through that joke.) What if Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is not him flying by the seat of his pants and letting life take him where it will, as his famous maxim might imply? What if all of it was elaborately laid out?
Take, for example, the scene at Chez Quis where Ferris pretends to be sausage king of Chicago, Abe Froman, over the objections of the snooty maître’d. The easy read of the scene is that Ferris looks at the guest book, picks the first name he sees and just runs with it. But what if … Ferris had called ahead and put down the name Abe Froman? How would have have known that Abe Froman hadn’t been seated? Or wasn’t just going to show up while they stood there? Maybe the explanation is that he wanted the ensuing confrontation and to force Cameron into taking his side.
Or consider the infamous parade float scene where Ferris emerges to sing Wayne Newton’s “Danke Schoen” while riding through the streets of Chicago. I always let myself assume that was classic suspension of disbelief you just go along with. He can get on the float because of course he can, it’s just a movie. But consider that Ferris was singing the same song in the shower that morning and treating the shower head like a microphone. What if … he’s rehearsing for the parade? What if he’d arranged for the parade just like everything else in the day? How else would all the women know not to be weirded out by his appearance and just go along with it? (Of course, not everything goes according to plan, and those glitches produce some of the film’s most poignant moments.)
Anyways, that’s my galaxy brain read of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. (Some people have also speculated that most of the film takes place in Cameron’s mind, which just feels a bridge too far to me.) Whether you want to rethink your relationship to the film or not, it’s going to be a great hang.
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall