It’s no mystery that “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is a film intended for the younger crowd in America. The movie follows mischievous high school senior, Ferris Bueller, for an entire day as he skips class and does whatever it takes have a care-free “day off” in downtown Chicago. Ferris pulls out all the stops and uses his cunning ways to convince his girlfriend and hesitant best friend to join him while avoiding their suspicious principal, and he even goes as far as persuading that friend to secretly take out his father’s 1961 Ferrari for the day. The movie attracts and inspires students like me to live by the motto, “Leisure Rules”. Throughout the film, Ferris takes moments to step away from the scene and talk directly to the audience, giving his thoughts and opinions. One of these asides is a monologue that takes place during the opening scene of the movie, right after tricking his parents into thinking he is ill and cannot go to school. The monologue basically reveals Ferris’s feelings about school, how to skip school, and even some of his opinions on life. The point of his speech is that school is not so important that you need to let it interfere with being yourself and living the way you want to live. By choosing these concepts to talk about, he is reaching out to a fairly specific audience; that is, just about any student who sees the movie.
Now considering this audience and the content of his aside, Ferris’ strongest rhetorical appeal is definitely his ethos. Being a high school senior, he has been in grade school for most of his life and would likely know what he is talking about when it comes to skipping, so he has strong extrinsic ethos in that regard. An audience that consists of mostly students would give credibility to Ferris because he likely has more experience in school than the majority of them.
In terms of the intrinsic ethos, which he must develop for himself, he builds a great deal of credibility which begins in the very first line. Just