CAMERON? PRESENT! BATMAN? PRESENT! JOKER? PRESENT! FRITZ?... FRITZ?... FRITZ? BEN ON SPECTATORSHIP, "FERRIS BUELLER", AND "BATMAN" Like many theories described and argued in complex terms by members of the academy to members of the academy, spectatorship is conceptually understood by many laypeople who simply lack the terms to discuss it. Although you will not find many people sounding like Roland Barthes in arguing that "there is one place where this multiplicity [of a text] is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hither to said, the author," (122) it would be pretty difficult to find anybody who goes to the movies who has not gotten into an argument with somebody who seems to share many traits with them about the merits of a certain film. The argument may be about whether Mars Attacks was funny or stupid or whether The English Patient was touching or painfully cliched, but the concept that these people inherently understand is the same : the meaning of a film is found in a viewer's interpretation, not in the intention of the author (unless, of course, the individual believes that they consistently understand an author's intention while others are ignorant). Despite the many qualities different people share in common and the undeniable fact that a text must be created and exist prior to any interpretation, in the end people engaged in debates such as the ones described above intuitively agree with David Bleich's argument that, "interpretive authority has been determined by the communal beliefs and by the particular shape of belief in the interpreting individual." (69) What is particularly interesting, yet frustrating, about spectatorship is that, despite what would seem to be predictive traits, it is impossible to conclude definitively how a person will interpret a film. Why, for instance, do I find Scream so pompous and faulty when many of my friends, who are similar to me in many ways (White, young, familiar with the horror genre, and on and on), believe it is innovative and thrilling? Similarly, we must join Judith Mayne in asking "to what extent is identity a misleading route toward understanding spectatorship, particularly if it is limited by literalist assumptions, i.e., that black audience can only 'identify' with black characters, female audiences with female ones, etc.?" (77-8) Clearly, our identities are not so simple, nor so stable, as to have obvious traits such as age or interests which predict who we will agree with about a certain text or whether we will find a character or quality in a film with which we can identify. In order to explore these questions of identity and spectatorship, I have taken myself as a subject (since I know myself best, although certainly not fully) and will consider how I analyze and identify with two very different films: Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Batman (1989). Enjoying and identifying with a film about three teenagers taking a day off of school which forces one of them to confront his own self-image is an entirely different experience than doing the same with a movie about a psychologically scarred, costumed hero who confronts a villain created by him and with scars as deep as his own. As I shall demonstrate, the narrative codes in these films differ quite dramatically and yet I am able to enjoy each one. Although I am the same individual watching them, different elements of my identity are called upon and suppressed in order to enjoy each film and to ignore issues which might otherwise be problematic for me. It is probably not all that surprising that I find much to identify with in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a film where the main characters are white teenagers from an affluent suburb. However, it is much more than these surface elements which make this a special film for me. Ferris Bueller has what so many other films about teenagers lack: a complex character who does not fit an immediately recognizable stereotype. Even more powerful, however, is that he is not the title character, Ferris Bueller, but rather his best friend, Cameron Frye, who is by the conventions of the genre made into a supporting player, but is really the heart of the film. It is difficult to fit Ferris Bueller into any genre beside that of other films by its producer/writer/director, John Hughes. And at the beginning of the film -- and many other moments throughout -- the movie doesn't carry much more meaning beside another take on life in Hughes's standard Chicago suburbs, this time as a vicarious thrill where we watch the adventures of Ferris Bueller as he skips school with his girlfriend and best friend for a day of fun in Chicago, all the while evading his arch- enemy, the Dean of Students, and close calls with his father. Slowly but surely, however, the movie becomes more and more about the pain that Ferris's friend Cameron is experiencing due to an unhappy home situation where his father has domineering father has practically crushed any semblance of self-confidence. Nigel Floyd, in a review for Monthly Film Bulletin, very accurately describes Ferris Bueller as an "extravagant wish-fulfillment fantasy which then shifts imperceptibly into a poignant study of friendship and the importance of hero figures." (77) It is easy enough to privilege the character of Ferris, though. After all, not only is he the title character, but much of the film focuses on his exploits and he occasionally breaks the fourth wall to talk to the viewers, assuming a role of importance. Perhaps more importantly, both the beginning and ending of the film seem to establish Ferris as the central character, for it is he who begins the action and he whose problems are resolved last. This is surely what leads to reviews such as the one in Variety, which states that "the thin [plot] premise demonstrates the great lengths to which the irrepressible Ferris Bueller goes in order to hoodwink his parents and high school principal into thinking he's really sick when, in fact, all he wants to do is play hooky for a day." (16) This focus on Ferris, however, serves only to pay homage to a Hughesian teen genre which could not exist here without him (for Cameron's travails posess neither visual excitement or romantic tension, at least one of which must be necessary for a teen film to "work"). Indeed, Ferris's role as a commentator only demonstrates how central Cameron really is. For it is through Ferris that the viewer is gaining insight into Cameron. This is best demonstrated at a point late in the film where Cameron lies, seemingly comatose, being comforted by Ferris's girlfriend Sloane after he realizes that parking attendants have put hundreds of miles onto his father's Ferrari that Cameron was not even allowed to take in the first place. Instead of finding a quick fix to Cameron's problem, like Hughes's own Pretty in Pink does in throwing the suffering best friend a random girl at the end, Ferris approaches the camera to let the viewers know of his concerns for Cameron's future: He's gonna marry the first girl he lays and she's gonna treat him like shit because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind to be the be all and end all of human existence. And she won't respect him, 'cause you just can't respect somebody who kisses your ass; it just doesn't work. Ferris approaches us to talk about Cameron not simply to describe who he is (that is already established), but rather because it is Cameron who Ferris, and thus the viewers of Ferris Bueller, is concerned about. We never really learn much about Ferris beyond that he is the most popular kid in school and that his philosophy is "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it." But Cameron has a character that slowly shines through in the movie, culminating in the film's true climax where he finally comes to terms with his problem, realizing that he must stand up to his father, stating "My old man pushes me around -- I never say anything! Well, he's not the problem." Ferris is silent throughout this entire sequence, which is appropriate, for now that Cameron is taking a stand for himself the audience no longer needs Ferris as a lens through which to view Cameron or as a narrator to help us understand him. By the end of this scene the answer to a question that Sloane later poses to Ferris, "You knew what you were doing when you woke up this morning, didn't you?" is quite obvious. More importantly, just as Ferris knew his true purpose in cutting school that day, John Hughes understood fully what he was doing in making a movie about Ferris Bueller's day off. After this, the final scenes where Ferris evades capture by the Dean and restores familial bliss serve only as an epilogue, fulfilling the need of the genre for all that was right to be restored and good (Ferris) to triumph over evil (the Dean). It may be obvious at this point that I enjoy this film immensely because I identify very strongly with Cameron. Indeed, I would likely find Ferris Bueller's Day Off nothing more than amusing if it was only about Ferris's adventures as he is accompanied by his characterless girlfriend and pursued by the dimwitted dean. But it is Cameron who immediately intrigues me and I find myself latching onto him from his first scene where he lies i sick in his bed begging Ferris not to make him go out. Cameron draws upon both my insecurities and my hopes throughout the film. In him I see angst that I often felt I was the only teenager in the affluent White suburbs to feel. As he watches Ferris singing "Twist and Shout" in a parade and comments to Sloane how "There's nothing [Ferris] can't handle; I can't handle anything," I see many of my feelings about the world around me in high school brilliantly summed up in one moment. But as he finds meaning through self-respect thanks to the support of his friends at the end, I feel like I am watching my own evolution into a much happier twenty year-old as I hear Cameron say "I am not gonna sit on my ass as the events that effect me unfold to decide my life. I'm gonna take a stand . . . I'm tired of being afraid!" It is like seeing years of pain and growth rolled up into one day. This summation, however, is also a potential problem that I must ignore in order to enjoy the film. If Cameron's day emblamatizes my pain and my growth for me, it also forces me to ignore what a difficult and long process it was. In seeing myself in Cameron, I must pretend that pain that came from a variety of sources -- family, peers, community -- can be blamed on one man and that salvation can be found in one decision, rather than years of work (in a process that is far from complete). Additionally, Hughes forces those viewers such as myself who identify immediately with Cameron to find him for most of the film through or around Ferris Bueller, a character who is vastly different than anyone I ever was or would ever want to be. Because Hughes seems to believe (quite possibly correctly) that in order for the film to be successful it must be purportedly about Ferris and feature his wacky adventures prominently, I am forced to watch and yet refuse to find meaning in a character who consistently does things I could never and would never do. While there certainly is some element of vicarious thrill, Ferris Bueller mostly bores me in and of himself for living a life so removed from what I experienced in high school. Far removed from the life I lived and the many I didn't in high school, however, is a place where psychologically scarred people don masks, capes, and new identities to fight purportedly over the fate of millions of innocents but more deeply over the righteousness of their own existence: the Gotham City of Tim Burton's Batman . Despite its differences in characters, themes, and style with Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I find Batman both very enjoyable and emotionally charged. Its onsistent emphasis on style, awareness of the genre in which it falls, and exploration of the deeply disturbed psyches of two characters (Batman and the Joker) usually portrayed as simple personifications of justice and insane evil, respectively, appeal to me both as an avid movie fan (particularly of the action genre) and a human being who often doubts the righteousness of my own actions and position in life. One of the great strengths of Batman is that it creates a plot that fits perfectly into the staid genre of an adventure film -- heroic Batman faces off against the evil Joker; both men love the same woman; the final battle is man to man in a dramatic setting (and on and on) -- but it is perfectly aware of it and instead emphasizes style and characterization over plot. It is perhaps not surprising that in the process of giving it a mediocre review, Roger Ebert notes on the CD-rom Cinemania that "Batman is a triumph of design over story; style over substance -- a great looking movie with a plot you don't care much about." He goes on to criticize the characters as lacking in depth. (Cinemania) Mr. Ebert is right that the plot of Batman is indeed ridiculous and, even, irrelevant. What I believe he dismisses far too easily, however, is the power of the style and characters that director Tim Burton emphasizes. Batman is a movie of images and psyches more than a movie of textual depth. This is a powerful and effective choice, for at the end the viewer is left shocked and disturbed by both, as is surely Burton's intention. The emphasis on style is made early on, from the first shots of the decaying art deco buildings of Gotham City to a couple of crooks' discussion of the Batman where they theorize that he sucks the blood out of his victims. This mystery surrounding the Batman as well as his use of darkness and intimidation to fight criminals demonstrates that he, like the movie, is effective because of the image he projects even more than the actions he undertakes. Once he faces these criminals discussing him, Batman does not hurt them seriously or even arrest him, he simply scares them and warns one to "tell your friends about me." This fits in perfectly with the progression of the film, where for the sake of genre, certain plot necessities are met again and again, but they are at the service of a hip and self-aware style. This is best demonstrated near the end, when Batman reaches the top of Gotham cathedral where the Joker waits with contested woman Vicki Vale for an escape ride. As soon as Batman reaches the top, before he can face the Joker, he must do battle with three henchmen who fight in a ninja style. This barrier to final battle is standard in action films (the missile sequence in Superman III, for example), but in Batman , it is self-obviously and almost ridiculously observed, for these henchmen come out of nowhere, seemingly appearing on the top of a belltower because the film needs them (and doesn't mind the viewer knowing that) rather than out of any plot consistency. Subverting this supposedly serious conflict even more is the polka-like scoring which emphasizes the Joker's mad waltz with Vicki Vale in the background over the action we supposedly are focusing on in the foreground. Just as the plot turns and mood of Batman dominate the standard plot, the characterizations of Joker and Batman are much deeper and more disturbing than anything called for in a story of good versus evil. Both Bruce Wayne/Batman and Jack Napier/Joker suffer from a multiphrenia which blurs the lines of identity and demonstrate to the viewer that within one person the lines of identity are not clearly drawn. Kim Newman gets at this point when she observes that "When Vicki Vale asks which of the guests at a party in Wayne Manor is Bruce Wayne, Wayne honestly and disturbingly replies, 'I don't know,' a meeting-cute device which establishes how fragile the multi-millionaire's identities are." (269) Perhaps even more disturbingly, the film suggests that the lines between Batman and Joker, hero and villain, are not that clear. After all, both men were the progenitor of the other's turn to a different identity and both achieve their goals through the use of a symbol -- ironically enough, for the hero it is the dark symbol of the bat while for the villain it is a smiling face, further blurring distinctions of good and evil. The Joker's last line of the movie succinctly makes the point about Batman and Joker's shared identity: as Batman is about to shoot the line that connects Joker to the stone that drags him to his doom (seen by the viewer, but not Joker), the Joker comments "Sometimes I just kill myself!" suggesting that as Batman kills the Joker, both he and the Joker are committing an act of partial suicide. While the actions of hero and villain, including the ultimate killing of the Joker, fit the standard action genre plot just fine, the dialogue and superb acting of Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson make clear that the lines between hero and villain so often drawn in an action film are often not present at all and all that makes one character righteous is his role as protagonist. My appreciation for Batman's subversion of the traditional action genre comes from my familiarity with these types of films or, that is to say, my life as a film viewer. This is a world that can be inhabited by anyone (although there are certainly some more likely to watch action movies than others) and thus draws more upon what I have done than where I have been placed in society. It is my experiences and insights from too many Superman, Die Hard, and Lethal Weapon sequels that allow me to find so much meaning in the non-traditional style over substance. Batman's plot would surely seem forced onto the film if I were not aware that screenwriter Sam Hamm was purposely following longstanding standards. In this case I am not even identifying with the characters in the film, but the filmmakers or, alternately, the text itself by finding meaning in comparison to other action films. That meaning comes from a small amount of my life spent watching movies and forces me to ignore my real life and how that would relate to the plot, for I would surely find little to identify with in a story of semi-psychotics attempting to best each other for reasons that don't seem to jibe with what the storyline suggests. These reasons go toward one aspect of Batman that I find particularly powerful, never mind the dull plot: despite their apparent flaws and loss of purpose, I feel closer to both Batman and Joker than I do to any other hero or villain in any action film. No matter how many action films and comic books I have taken in over the years, I have rarely been able to feel secure about the conflicts of the world, be it whether my political views are absolutely right (I fight passionately for them, but seem to lack the certainty of so many others)or even whether I can live a righteous life or am simply doomed to further entrench the power system I have benefitted from most of my life. While these examples might seem a bit tangential, what I am getting at is that the conflicts of Batman and Joker within themselves as well as their concurrent opposition and similarity reflect the inner tensions that I face as well as my sense that many of the problems I face politically are of my own creation in the culture from which I benefit. Batman very effectively finds this tension present in my life and has fun with it, using it to subvert a genre that has always said these tensions I feel are unnatural. In the process of this subversion, however, I also lose touch with values that, despite conflict, are still dear to my heart. In order to identify with Batman and Joker, I must ignore many of their actions such as murder and brutality which I find unjustifiable, no matter the cause for which they are done. I may revel in the deep meaning of the Joker's final departure, but I also must ignore the unnecessary brutality Batman has undertaken. In my enjoyiing Batman's ultimate similarity to his nemesis, I am forced to forget what it is that the film makes him into: a violent psychotic hardly better than his enemy. In forcing me to ignore morality and revel in subversion or sweep away the realities of my life and allow pain and healing to be embodied in a few actions on one day in order to enjoy them, films such as Batman and Ferris Bueller's Day Off draw out small parts of my identity in order to incur a brief two hours of enjoyment. The conflicts between this aspects of myself and the values they contain demonstrates how, as Judith Mayne puts it, "the act of watching is both pleasurable and dangerous." (31) Spectatorship can engage and excite me, but it also forces me, and any individual, to put aside issues that would otherwise be of vital importance in order to make a film seem enjoyable to myself as a whole human being. The different ways in which I spectate Ferris Bueller and Batman are just two examples of the self-fragmentation and the privileging of some identity aspects that any text reading compels. When confronting Batman for the final time and, in effect, looking into the face of a part of his own self (as I suggested earlier), the Joker asks "I mean, I say you made me, you gotta say I made you. I mean, how childish can you get?" In confronting the conflicting values and experiences they draw on to enjoy different texts, perhaps each viewer must stop and ask himself the same question. I would suggest that although enjoying films of every type is a marvelous thing, the question is much less childish than we would like to think. By understanding spectatorship, we may be further on the way to understanding our own selves. Essay by Mr. Ben Fritz (BFritz1@swarthmore.edu) Copyright 1997 by the author English 228: The Literary Screenplay Professor Quinn Eli 11-11-97 Works Cited - Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." Ed.unknown. Publication Information unknown. 118-122. - Bleich, David. Subjective Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. - Cart. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Variety 4 June 1986: 16. - Ebert, Roger. "Batman." Cinemania - Floyd, Nigel. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Monthly Film Bulletin 54 (1987): 46. - Mayne, Judith. Cinema and Spectatorship. New York: Routledge, 1993. - Newman, Kim. "Batman." Monthly Film Bulletin 56 (1989): 268-9.