The main characteristics of movie teachers - részlet

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„The role of the teacher […] is one of decision maker, mentor, and coach. The teacher plans and supports activities […] helps students activate the appropriate prior knowledge […] As a mentor, the teacher serves as a model […] By supporting students with such activities as shared reading, literature discussion circles, and response activities, the teacher plays the role of coach.” ⁹

Defining a teacher is very hard because there are different cultural ideas and expectations, education and experiences. So, films also image very different teacher roles and not just because of the different nations where these films were made. In the movies which took part in my study, the teachers are paedophiles, heroes, lovers, victims, killers, losers, body-builders, perverts, sadists, Martians, artists and hippies. It is questionable if it does make any sense to study movies, where teachers are Martians or protagonists of comedies like ’High School High’, but extremities are important if we want to show all the niceties.

There are several roles where the teachers can occur in the movies. It is interesting that people in most of the professions can occur in supporting roles where it is not important what they do, but in the case of the teacher figures it is usually important and determines the figure what their job is. I used the films where the fact that the teacher is a teacher important, to do this study (But: I used the comedic films also, because I think that the comedies where the stereotypical characteristics are highly enlarged can show best what these stereotypes are). In these movies these characters are usually protagonists or play important roles in the plot. It is also easy to recognise that this fact usually a positive thing, so if this characters are teachers they are engaging like Wayne Collins in The Gift (Sam Raimi, 2000) or Sam Lombardo in Wild Things (John McNaughton, 1998). Ironic, but these two are anti-heroes, cold blooded killers. This example shows that the positive thinking about teachers does not mean that they are good persons in all of these movies.

These movies are good examples; they show that if a teacher is the ’bad guy’ his fall is much harder, because of the positive thinking about them.

This example is an extremity. Usually, the teachers are heroes not debauched anti-heroes. The most famous and most popular movie-teacher is (I think) Robin Williams’ character in Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989).

Dead Poets Society

„He's fun. He cares. He half-jokingly (but only half-) tells the boys that literature was invented to woo girls. He does quicksilver impressions of John Wayne and Marlon Brando. He stands up on his desk -- to get a different point of view on things -- and tries to get his students to follow his example.”¹⁰

Some experts think that John Keating is an incarnate stereotype. Famous critic Roger Ebert says in his book ’I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie’ that: „There is also a curious lack of depth to his character, compared to such other great movie teachers as Miss Jane Brodie and Professor Kingsfield, Keating is more of a plot device than a human being.”¹¹

But, there are not just dramas in cinemas. It is important that if we study anything about movies that we have to study it in all genres of films, because this is the way to get the real image. For example if I study only romantic movies where teachers take part I should think that teachers are always great heroes and very sensitive men and/or women.

Slashers

Teachers’ role in ’slashers’ is also an interesting thing. The slasher film (also known simply as slashers) is a sub-genre of the horror film genre. Typically, a masked, psychotic person stalks and graphically kills teenagers or young adults who are (…) typically involved in premarital sex, drug use, or other illicit activity ¹². These teens are usually in a camp or a similar location (away from home) and they are away from adult (adults are usually teachers, who are somewhere else or already dead) supervision. The fact, that usually these teachers are the first victims shows that kids want to ignore their teachers, and they are the ones who are ’expendable’ and not so important in their lives. Peers are far more important. But these movies can show that teachers have an important role in these kids life. It can exemplify that if the teachers (or adults at all) are absent and teens are ’free’ (sex, drugs and rock ’n roll) it is very dangerous, they can even die.