Of all the types of Hollywood teacher representations listed by Shannon and Crawford, I think Jack Black's character of Dewey Finn is most likely an Agent of Social Change. At the same time, he also embodies The Loner fighting "against the often-oppressive school to help their students."
While he is presented as the irresponsible outcast during the opening minutes, once he gets in front of the children, he suddenly has a mission and a reason for coming to school beyond scamming some rent cash. Where School of Rock departs from Shannon and Crawford is that it doesn't show Dewey Finn as a teacher who is robbed of a life outside school, but rather his life outside school is what informs his life and passion in the school.
The social change Finn is after is to educate the kids about the importance of "sticking it to the man." Okay, so it isn't exactly Ben Kingsley in "Gandhi," but as my favorite radio personality used to say, "accept the premise, and you'll enjoy the bit." For teachers, that is a bit more difficult than for the general audience. No way such a thing could ever happen, right? But once you get past that, the movie works on several levels.
One of the value assumptions that underlie the portrayal of Dewey Finn in School of Rock is that teachers who relate well with kids and connect with them on a cultural level are unacceptable to parents and administrators. This assumption is reinforced by the speech the principal makes to him about not being taken seriously unless you stop being “fun” and are a bitch. While the movie's basic premise is beyond ridiculous, it does hew closely to its mantra of “stick it to the man.” By extension, being rebellious is not only fun, but liberating.
The children were set free from the drudgery of conventional school days and methods of learning, the parents were forced to reconsider their narrow points of view, and the two uptight females were given the opportunity to either embrace the value of the school of rock, or be permanently uncool.
In this movie, the use of pop music most certainly buttresses the type of Agent of Change. Most of the songs used are songs celebrating rebelling "against the man" in order to follow the rock dream. The song that best exemplifies this and demonstrates the value of this, as well as the role of the Agent of Change, is the song written by the guitar playing student. It reminded my of a song written and performed by one of my sons when he was in a high school punk band. It was a screed against his high school, with lyrics like: "I don't care anymore, you're wasting my time, the thing that I have the least of...."
The fact that Zach the guitar player is able to move from a boy who is completely under the controlling thumb of his father to a guy who not only can identify and articulate his frustrations, but can put them into song, is attributable directly to Dewey Finn. While the movie is obviously not realistic, it still reinforces the audience's idea that teachers can (should?) inspire kids to not only learn, but move to a place where the education goes beyond the curriculum and into managing feelings and relationships in their homes. I think this falls more into the category of mystifying, not clarifying, the teaching profession and life in the schools.
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2 years ago
Hi Joe,
ReplyDeleteI liked your interpretation of the movie. I saw ths movie for the first time last week for this assignment and after reading several people's blogs, I think I may have been a bit harsh in my review. I think you are absolutely right about the underlying message in the movie about creating inspiration and focussing more on managing feelings and creating relationships over content. This is a goal of early childhood moreso that content as well. Is it a documented goal of k-12 too do you know?