When The Cool Kids Hung Out At The Museum

As you may be aware, last Friday, June 11 was the 30th Anniversary of the release of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. To commemorate the anniversary, Vox had an article about how it was a great movie about being a terrible person.

However, a few weeks back Smithsonian pointed out that the movie was, to a great degree, a love letter to Chicago from director John Hughes. Particularly, John Hughes included a scene set in The Art Institute as a tribute to all the time he had spent there.

Because, really even in 1986, how many kids cut school to visit a museum?

Actually, maybe it isn’t so far fetched. Given that Ferris and his friends bluff also their way into a French restaurant for lunch, a visit to the Art Institute could be viewed as experimenting with what they perceived to be post-graduation adult existence.

The museum scene is really quite poignant on its own. There is no dialogue, a little goofing around, some tender moments and some existential angst.

In short, pretty close to what you want a museum experience to be for people. Reading the Smithsonian article, I wondered if that scene in a movie about the quintessential 80s con-artist might have had a lingering, albeit subliminal, positive effect on those of us who grew during that time.

I am just trying to think, other than this scene in the movie and maybe A Night At the Museum, are there any other movies that present a museum in a way that makes you want to visit? I am hoping there are.

Usually museums are places to be robbed, places kids visit on boring field trips or places where a character’s cultural bona fides are established (often in a negative, Bond villain sense.)