Facing Your Fears
"Being afraid, worrying about everything, wishing I was dead, all that shit. I'm tired of it. That was the best day of my life." -Cameron Frye
While all characters in this film have their own fears that they personally overcome, no one is more afraid in the beginning of the movie than Cameron. Cameron is almost completely different from Ferris, as Jeffrey Lyons from the Washington Post states in his review that, "Ferris has no fear, for failure is not in his lexicon" (A Day Off Just for Fun, 8). Cameron doesn't want to get out of bed and face school, and after much deliberation Ferris (Matthew Broderick) finally convinces him to skip, instilling the constant theme of the movie into Cameron's life. Cameron, however, is still afraid of getting caught missing class, but after some time he decides to stop considering the consequences and worrying about taking a day off and to enjoy his time outside of school. As the day progresses, and after the three have burned countless miles on Cameron's father's Ferrari, Ferris needs to calm Cameron down as he has a panic attack thinking about what his father will do when he finds out they took his precious ride for a spin. Cameron comes to realize his stress is irrational and makes his own comeback. He kicks the Ferrari as if he were kicking the fears out of his life. He recognized the fun in taking chances and saw that there was more to life than following rules and regulations placed on him by his superiors, and by doing so, he comes of age.
In this video clip, we can see Cameron freak out about all the miles he added to his father's car, but we also see that after he thinks about his actions, he decides that he needs to be upfront with his father and face the things that scare him most instead of being pushed around by them and living in fear of the unknown. He defends his actions, whether they were right or wrong, and this changes him as a person. (And he sticks with his ideals past the end of the clip too, even though he is a bit more frightened now!)