CHICAGO — Ferris Bueller is a lifelong Republican. He holds a conservative view of the U.S. Constitution. I know because we spoke the other day. Ferris Bueller was fun to talk to and extremely charming and, despite what the movie suggests, he was thoughtful. Ferris Bueller owns a sheep farm in the Hudson Valley of New York, and he produces his own maple syrup. He has also remained close to the ...

Ed McNally, a former student at Glenbrook North High School and the person that John Hughes most based the Ferris Bueller character on, is photographed at the school in Northbrook, Illinois, on May 28, 2026.

E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS

CHICAGO — Ferris Bueller is a lifelong Republican.

He holds a conservative view of the U.S. Constitution. I know because we spoke the other day. Ferris Bueller was fun to talk to and extremely charming and, despite what the movie suggests, he was thoughtful. Ferris Bueller owns a sheep farm in the Hudson Valley of New York, and he produces his own maple syrup. He has also remained close to the major seats of power in this country for several decades. He served on the transition team during Donald Trump’s first term and worked with Brett Kavanaugh for George W. Bush, he wrote speeches for George H.W. Bush and represented — Ferris Bueller being a trial lawyer now — George Ryan, the former governor of Illinois.

Ferris Bueller didn’t want to talk politics, though.

He said John Hughes (a rare Hollywood Republican conservative) didn’t make political films.

None of which is why I have such mixed feelings about Ferris Bueller, as in the fictional character played by Matthew Broderick, the rascally folk hero of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” which premiered 40 years ago this June and since become a Chicago touchstone.

Still, I was uneasy explaining my ambivalence to Ed McNally.

See, McNally IS Ferris Bueller.

Or rather, he very probably is. Director John Hughes never said flatly that McNally was the basis for the Ferris Bueller character, but McNally believes he was at least a major component in a thinly veiled composite, and frankly, the evidence is compelling. McNally and Hughes grew up on the same street and attended Glenbrook North High School together. McNally’s best friend back then was a kid named A.C. Buehler, though it was McNally who had such a talent for skipping class that Glenbrook’s principal launched a crusade to catch him. In the film, Ferris skips nine days of school. McNally skipped 27 days. On one of those days off, he “borrowed” his father’s prized possession — a purple Cadillac — and put 113 miles on it, then, as the fictional Ferris does with a red Ferrari, McNally lifted the car onto jacks and ran it backwards, hoping to reverse the odometer.

So, how is Ferris Bueller… er, uh, Ed McNally, 40 years later?

“My life, on certain levels, turned out about the way you might think Ferris’ life would turn out,” he said.

McNally went from almost a month of skipping classes and the wrath of the Glenbrook administration to Yale University, the University of Notre Dame and the London School of Economics. Then he was suspended a year from Yale because of his talent for pranking — including stealing several prized possessions of Harvard and planting a totally fake story about a Yale kite-flying team in the New York Times. A decade later, as a traveling scholar in China, while riding in a motorcycle sidecar, he was arrested with John Burns, the Times’ Beijing bureau chief, accused of espionage and expelled from the country.

“On some level, it all kind of tracks,” McNally said. “It’s about what you’d expect of Ferris. Like the movie, I guess it’s been a mixed bag of the consequences of exuberance.”

He later became an assistant attorney in the Southern District of New York; and George W. Bush’s first general counsel for Homeland Security; he’s now a law partner at the Manhattan-based firm Kasowitz, which has represented Trump and conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly.

Frankly, I can’t help but think of Tracy Flick, the overachieving anti-heroine of “Election” (1999), played by Reese Witherspoon as an intense, rule-bound Ferris. She spends much of the film certain of her place in the high-school meritocracy, and a thorn in the side of her teacher, played (serendipitously enough) by Matthew Broderick. But in the final minutes, we see her in Washington, years later. Broderick’s character is attending an educator’s conference and happens to spot Tracy getting into a politician’s limo. As he narrates, he remembers her relentlessness, he feels sorry she let ambition rule her life, but soon that annoyance veers into jealousy, his voice rises: Where is she going, why is she in a limo — “and who the (expletive) does she think she is?” He throws his drink at the car window, panics and runs off. Faced with the Ferrises of the world, all we can do is rage.

Indeed, Jeanie, Ferris’ sister (played by Jennifer Grey), expresses this very same irritation with her brother, blurting: “Why should he get to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants? And why should everything work out for him? What makes him so (expletive) special?”

Eventually, everyone gives in to his charms.

Even Cameron (Alan Ruck), Ferris’ best friend, who’s domineered by Ferris from the start, who should seethe with righteous anger by the end of the film, says: “It is possible to stop Mr. Ferris Bueller.” Then he takes the fall for Ferris Bueller.

All of which is why I want to build a case against Ferris, why I think Chicago should move on, rethink Ferris and stop shouting “BATTER, BATTER, BATTER SWING BATTER” at Wrigley Field in honor of Ferris and his pals and their day off. But I’ll be generous here and say, in a world now run by Ferrises, at least the kid believed in something. Everyone knows: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” It’s been a senior quote in generations of yearbooks.

Everyone’s knows the basic plot, in so much as there is one: Ferris fakes a cold, convinces his mom and stays home from school; talks his best friend Cameron into stealing his father’s Ferrari; jailbreaks girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) from class; then everyone spends a day as Chicago tourists (Sears Tower, Wrigley Field, Art Institute of Chicago, the Loop), discussing their distracted parents and futures and sidestepping trouble, including the humorless principal Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones).

McNally, though, sees more, a broader Tao of Ferris.

He can imagine both the prosecution, and the defense, of Ferris.

He says he’s used Ferris’ outlook on life “every single day.” One line in particular hits hard: “You realize if we played by the rules right now, we’d be in gym?” “That is a lesson that should be part of everyone’s day,” McNally said. “Sure, you have to work for a living, and sure, you have to pay taxes, but if you’re lucky enough to have a backyard to BBQ or a hill to ski down somewhere, do it — our lives are filled with gym classes to avoid.” He also sees a recognition that “your situation doesn’t have to be what it appears.” He said, “It’s what I do for a living. I defend a lot of CEOs and politicians facing serious consequences, and my job is not only to protect and defend them but to help them see beyond their current situations. I will have CEOs crying in my office, and they think the world has come to an end.” He wants them to picture a different outcome.

On the other hand, Ferris Bueller, he agrees, is irresponsible.

“You goad a friend into stealing a prized car, you drive it recklessly, then you cause it to be ultimately damaged beyond recognition — which would have been catastrophic for Cameron and his family. And what happens to Ferris? Nothing. Which always felt a little too easy.”

Therefore, my case against “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is such:

No. 1: We need to stop thinking of the character Ferris Bueller as a hero, a spontaneous defender of freedom and Chicago, but as the entitled sociopath he proves himself to be. Despite a therapeutic motto about life moving fast and needing to stop and look around or miss it, he avoids introspection himself.

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Ed McNally, a former student at Glenbrook North High School and the person that John Hughes most based the Ferris Bueller character on, is photographed at the school in Northbrook, Illinois, on May 28, 2026.

E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/TNS

No. 2: How else to explain a teenager — played then by a 23-year-old actor — who bullies a clearly depressed friend with a strict father into stealing their father’s jewel? And after that car is destroyed, Ferris leaves his friend to accept the blame? True, Cameron says he could have stopped Ferris; yes, Cameron admits he must face his father, who we learn only loves the car and doesn’t take enough time to appreciate his wife or son. But it’s a cheap excuse for Ferris, who runs home and faces no consequences at all.

No. 3: Similarly, the film itself treats Cameron’s depression, and need to assert himself, as flavoring to lend the story weight, only to discard it when things turn real.

No. 4: Worse, Ferris has the nerve to advocate for a father-son dialogue for Cameron and then races home before his parents learn he’s lying about being sick. Mind you, he’s already faked his way into eight other days off. So who is the one with a phony relationship here? Who is the one so eager to keep parents happy that he baby-talks them while bundled beneath his sheets?

No. 5: Who really needs the intervention here?

No. 6: Who’s the one reframing manipulation as friendship?

No. 7: A privileged child of the North Shore — although the exteriors of his home were filmed in California — Ferris is clearly the product of generational wealth, his bedroom a hub of tech. Yet his ongoing complaint is that he got a computer for his birthday, not a car. You get the sense that no matter what happens to him, he’ll have a future anyway. (One of the odder things about “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is that, unlike the other teen movies that John Hughes made in the mid-1980s, there isn’t a middle-class kid in sight.)

No. 8: Ferris Bueller is anti-education and classist. Why does he avoid school? To miss a test on socialism and a lecture on the problems with Reaganomics. The first person he meets after he steps out of the North Shore is a parking garage attendant in the Loop (played by Richard Edson, who, incidentally, was Sonic Youth’s first drummer). And the first thing he thinks to say: “Do you speak English?” Ferris leaves the Ferrari with the attendant and his coworker, who promptly take the car joyriding.

No. 9: Tabloid-wise, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” did not age well. Jeffrey Jones, who spent the movie hunting a teenager, pleaded no contest in 2003 to hiring a teenager to pose nude and later received five years of probation and was required to register as a sex offender. Also, Broderick and Grey, despite playing siblings, were secretly dating — a relationship that went queasily public in 1987 when the pair were vacationing in Northern Ireland and Broderick crashed a rental car, killing a mother and daughter.

No.10: No matter how universal the film’s themes of cutting loose and living in the moment sound, it has a habit of punishing anyone who shows responsibility. Plus, the movie is misnamed. It’s Cameron’s story. He’s the only character with any contours, the only one with a soul. Ferris, in comparison, is basically Bugs Bunny as a cult leader, and unlike Cameron, he’s also a conformist, responsible to nothing but his parents’ approval.

And now I will pull this stick out of my backside and admit:

When I was 15, when “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” premiered, I saw it on opening weekend and loved it. I believed deeply in it. Like a moviegoer who peels out of a parking lot after a “Fast and Furious” sequel, it was life-affirming, albeit briefly. Like a cinematic fortune cookie. Yes, teens SHOULD cut loose. Yes, self-respect IS hard won. Ferris was just trying to get a friend to look beyond his parents’ materialism — a ubiquitous ‘80s theme.

Forty years on, it’s obviously a fantasy of freedom, the parents (distant figures in Hughes’ teen movies) as cartoons, Ferris himself more attitude than person. On paper, Ferris — rule-breaking, anti-authority, contradictory — should be a classic anti-hero. He confesses to the camera, breaking the fourth wall, that his relationship with Sloane is doomed. Hughes left clues suggesting he once intended a more bittersweet character: He cut a scene in which Charlie Sheen’s juvenile delinquent explains that Ferris tried to save him from delinquency, better explaining Ferris’ demand to save Cameron. The movie’s novelization even includes a scene at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where Ferris seems more self-aware, railing: “How is it that just 50 miles from here there are farmers working their asses off from dawn to dusk and they’re going broke while these guys act like jerks for six hours a day and get rich?”

Alas, the Ferris we know is a visionary of sorts. He shows an early understanding of sampling technology, he grasps the power of digital ghosting. (It’s how he fakes out the adults.) Ferris will have a future. Today, he would be teaching us how generative AI can allow everyone their own day off — while steering around that part about losing your job.

In summation:

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is a love letter to Chicago and its suburbs, starring downtown and Highland Park and Winnetka and Northbrook. It has been a wellspring for Movies in the Park, and an inspiration for out-of-towners who reenact its scenes for Instagram. Along with “About Last Night,” which opened a few weeks later, it shifted the city’s cinematic profile from the South Side of “The Blues Brothers” to a glossier, gentrifying North Side, a provincial view of Chicago as the heart of the world.

All flattering, no doubt.

The Art Institute — which has long had a “Be Like Ferris Bueller” tour, easily its most popular self-guided tour, according to a spokesperson — gets a close-up for the ages, a breezy two-minute walk-through pitched just right, as lovely and dreamy as a lazy day.

But that scene is sandwiched between a lurching Looney Tunes that periodically casts aside its silliness and begs to be taken seriously. Nobody wants to see Bugs Bunny get caught, and no one wants him to pause to offer life advice either. By chance, summer also marks the 75th anniversary of “Catcher in the Rye” and Holden Caulfield, another tale of a teenager of privilege who took time off and avoided his family. Like Ferris, Holden has no use for school or authority figures. He rants famously against the “phonies” of the world. You might assume they would have plenty to discuss, but I bet Holden would hate Ferris, who sidles up soundlessly to power to grab what he wants, who extracts exactly what he wants from those closest, then leaves them to clean up.

I asked Ed McNally if Ferris Bueller would have a future in the White House.

And like Ferris Bueller, he sidestepped without quite dodging.

He said of the presidents he’s worked closest with — Bush 1, Bush 2, Ronald Reagan — “all were easy laughs with a light touch, none of which diminished their seriousness of purpose.” He said of all his years in Washington, of the people with power he’s known, “no one was as humorless and unsympathetic as Ed Rooney — and by that, I mean the original Ed Rooney who chased me.”

Myself, I’m ready to convict Ferris.

And McNally?

If The Man Who Was Ferris Bueller had to defend Ferris Bueller, he knows exactly how he might do it.

“The main defense, I think, is that there is really no dark heart there. Even when things go awry for Ferris, there is no malicious intent. He is trying to bring light and laughter to the days of everyone he encounters. Unlike, say, Al Capone, he is all goodwill and light heart — and so what jury is not going to let this guy get off? All I would have to do, really, is have one juror hold out on Ferris’ behalf, and that I would have.”

Besides, the statute of limitations probably expired anyway.