Teacher Stereotypes in Contemporary American Film Master’S Diploma Thesis
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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools Lucie Sobotková Teacher Stereotypes in Contemporary American Film Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Jeffrey Alan Smith, M.A., Ph.D. 2017 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Jeff Smith for his ideas and helpful advice provided while writing this thesis. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………...…………….. 1 1.1. Criteria for Evaluation …………………..………………………………… 3 2. Stereotypes and Stereotyping …………………………………………..…………… 5 2.1. Disadvantages of Stereotyping ……………………………………….…… 6 2.2. Stereotyping in Film …………………………………………………...….. 8 3. Friendly Teacher …………………………….……………………….……………… 9 3.1 Common Stereotypes of Friendly Teachers ………………………………. 10 3.1.1. Remembering Names of Students …………………...…………. 10 3.1.2. Appearance and Public Relations ………………………..…….. 13 3.2. Teachers as Experts in their Field …………………………………...…… 17 4. Teacher as a Leader ………………………...………………….………………...… 20 5. Depressed, Diseased and Burned out Teacher ……………………………..………. 33 5.1. Important Life Events and Tragedies ………………………………….…. 35 5.2. Negative and Unsupportive Environment …………………………….….. 40 6. Teacher as an Object/Subject of Sexual Desire ………………….………………… 47 6.1. Relationships at High School ………………………………………….…. 49 6.2. Relationships at University ………………………………………………. 56 7. Teachers with Ironically Reversed Roles ………………………………………….. 59 7.1. Teacher as Main Character …………………………………………...….. 59 7.2. Teacher as Support Character …………………………………………..... 63 8. Historical Background ………………………………………….…………………. 66 8.1. Films from the 1950s ……………………………………………………. 66 8.2. Films from the 1960s …………………………………………………….. 69 9. Conclusion ………………………...……………………………………………….. 73 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………..………… 76 English Resumé …………………………………………………….………………… 79 Czech Resumé …………………………………………………………….………….. 80 1. INTRODUCTION This diploma thesis attempts to analyze how teachers are portrayed in contemporary film. The topic is, however, very broad and it would be complicated to come up with more concrete results unless using criteria to limit the sample. Therefore, this thesis will only consider contemporary works (from the ‘90s onwards) made by American production and starring teachers who teach English literature, linguistics or subject related to this. The thesis will be briefly introduced with theory about stereotyping and how it simplifies the perception of film. Stereotypes often carry specific expectations which can be helpful, but also harmful to the understanding of the character. The main body of the thesis consists of an analysis of 13 films. These are sorted into five categories based on similar patterns that occur in them. First analytical chapter introduces a friendly teacher. It lists qualities that these teachers have, for example being very popular among students, making jokes all the time, always looking nice and tidy or having many friends. There are also several stereotypes linked to this character, for example remembering names of every student in class, despite being about a hundred of them there. These teachers often appear in film when their occupation serves as a background to their story line or they are not main characters. These traits are represented by films The Mirror Has Two Faces and Still Alice. There is also another subchapter which shows a teacher as an expert in her linguistic field in the film Arrival. Second analytical chapter introduces a teacher leader. These types of teachers are very frequent and this category is represented by films Renaissance Man, Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers. They all have similar plot development. A 1 person without experience (eligible to teach) lands a job as a teacher among very uneducated students. They suffer with behavioral problems and often have violent outbursts. They have a very bad relationship at first, but this improves through the film and they slowly become very popular among them. The teachers improve behavior of that class and often sort their personal problems. The other traceable patterns include one student who is smarter and has more potential than the others or personal struggle of the teacher with wanting to leave, but they get persuaded and stay with their class in the end. Third analytical chapter introduces teachers who take no pleasure in their work anymore. In films Detachment and A Single Man one can see teachers who are not happy in their lives. Personal tragedies and losses of loved ones have marked them in a significant way. Being tired of their job and feeling burned out is also frequent. These films are very dramatic and scarcely have a happy ending. Fourth analytical chapter discusses teachers who are involved in romantic or sexual relationship with their students. This topic is still somehow controversial, especially at high schools, so it is always twisted to fit the patterns of socially acceptable norm. The film Never Been Kissed is about a student and her teacher who fall in love, but in reality she is an undercover reporter, who is much older than him. In The English Teacher, the student who is involved with a teacher is only visiting, years after his graduation. Elegy is an example of this instance at university and still the teacher waits for the semester to end before entering a relationship with his student. The last analytical chapter is dedicated to teachers whose role in film functions as a source of entertainment and their behavior is purposely overdramatized and ironical. These teachers behave badly towards their students and speak very disrespectfully to them. This teacher has a main role in a film Bad Teacher, where she 2 hates her job very much and she does it only to earn money to afford plastic surgery and marry a rich man. In 10 Things I Hate About You, there is a teacher who has a very minor role, but he is still very easily observable. He functions as the only person who can tone down the behavior of the main characters who are loud and argue with each other. He is also very funny. The thesis concludes with a short example of how the portrayal of teachers in film developed through the years. There is an example from the 1950s called The Browning Version, which is very different compared to the situation nowadays. The students are being held very strictly with the etiquette and behavior towards the teacher. As the 1960s approached, the situation changed a lot and films like To Sir, with Love started to occur. This was a fundamental film to the entire category of teacher leaders and has a very similar pattern to them. 1.1. Criteria for Evaluation To achieve a throughout analysis, there must be some criteria applied to narrow down the choice of films for evaluation. When focusing on films with teacher characters in them, there is tremendous amount of points for analysis. With more criteria applied, the results are more detailed and there are plenty of possibilities for another teacher- related research, for example in different country or of different subjects. For the purposes of this thesis and its limitations, the focus is as follows. The country of origin of the film was set to be American. Production or distribution has to be primarily American, not exactly the protagonists or setting. There are many school subjects that can be taught and all of them require a different approach and methods. Also, all of them have their own, identifiable 3 stereotypes. In this thesis, the teacher’s area of studies revolves around English language, with branches such as linguistics, literature or general high school English education based on local canon. Originally, all the teachers in this research were thought to be university teachers. However, this restricts the research sample too much and there would be only limited amount of data to work with. In light of these circumstances, there are university and high school teachers involved. The last criterion is a time limit of production of the chosen works. There are 13 films in this analysis, all of which have been released from 1990s onwards. To specify, the oldest film was made in 1994 and the newest in 2016. There are also two films which have been used to provide a background on development of teacher stereotypes in film, one from 1951 and another from 1967. 4 2. STEREOTYPES AND STEREOTYPING Stereotypes have been a part of human life since the early ages. They slowly spread with the development of technology, radio, television and now are unimaginable part of the film industry. Stereotypes help people with orientation in this world. When considering stereotypes that people carry which are not distributed by the media, one can be a subject to stereotypes as well as the one who creates and follows them. According to Stereotypes and Stereotyping, “one of the more basic functions of stereotypes is to provide useful information about others.” (20) Subject to this could be how a person looks, behaves or speaks. “Before stereotyping can take place, an individual must be seen as a member of one or more categories to which stereotypes may apply.” (Schneider, 64) When meeting an individual, we immediately place them into a specific category, which are mostly universal. We can immediately see the person’s gender, height, weight, skin color and after some time, they might reveal their religion,