“Bad Teacher”: A Cathartic Experience

I bit the bullet and saw Bad Teacher on opening night. Even though the trailer made me cringe, I knew from the moment I saw it that I would have to see it in the theater, and it would have to be on opening night, no matter how badly it bashed my profession.

The movie was better than I thought it would be. It’s not a great film. I wouldn’t even call it a good film. There are too many “comic” moments that rely on cruelty or sexual harassment or stupid jokes. But for the most part, the jokes in this movie are too broad and silly to give anti-teacher “education” “reformers” more anti-union fodder, and all in all, this movie will do much less damage to public education than Bill Gates or Waiting for Superman will.

And even though the movie wasn’t great, and even though this movie will likely be a more meaningful use of time, there were two things about it that I really liked.

1. Justin Timberlake was a complete twit.
From the Bad Teacher trailer, I got the impression that Cameron Diaz and Lucy Punch were the two conniving EVIL BITCHEZ of the movie (with Diaz as the straightforward bitch and Punch as the fake-nice bitch) who would suck sweet, hapless Justin Timberlake and Jason Segel into their vile women webs. Well, I wasn’t wrong about the women being conniving and trying to one-up each other, but Segel and Timberlake’s characters were different from what I expected. Segel, the gym teacher interested in Diaz’s bad teacher, was fully aware of the type of person she was and interested in her anyway, and managed to continue his pursuit of her without coming across as either pathetic or creepy. And Justin Timberlake was kind of…perfect.

Timberlake comes to school as the fresh-faced substitute, very green and eager to “reach these kids.” He seems innocent and naive in the ways of both romance and dealing with children. He’s very sensitive, tearing up and talking about how much he hates slavery when he’s on a field trip. But then he turns out to be a total fauxgressive nitwit. When he hears that Diaz is planning to get breast implants, he says, in utter seriousness, that people should do what they want with their bodies and he’s completely pro-choice, “except for abortions.” Later, he hooks up with Diaz (and I couldn’t help but wonder how uncomfortable those actors might have felt filming that scene) but dry-humps her so he’s not really cheating on his girlfriend, and anytime Diaz opens her mouth for some dirty talk, he tells her to stop talking. I was highly amused by this caricature of a seemingly sensitive progressive guy who actually turns out to be a sexist nitwit. It helps that Timberlake really committed to the part.

2. A couple of the teacher moments were spot-on.
I’m not going to claim that this movie is anywhere close to being an accurate portrayal of what it feels like to be a teacher. But there are two things about it that were so perfect I guffawed out loud and hid my hand in my sleeve so the rest of the theater wouldn’t stare at me.

– Cameron Diaz writing “Stupid,” “Stupid,” and “Are you fucking kidding me?” on poorly-written student essays. I have never done this, and no other teacher I know has ever done this. But I’ve wanted to. Oh, how I’ve wanted to. There’s nothing so singularly frustrating as taking extra time to help a student with hir essay, coaching the student through the introduction and thesis statements and body paragraphs, coaxing a decent essay out of said kid, only to receive a final paper where you see that the student has taken none of your constructive feedback and has only recopied the original, poorly-conceived essay to make it look neater. It makes me want to scream. Watching Cameron Diaz write “Are you fucking kidding me?” was pure catharsis, like watching my repressed dark side come to life.

– Faculty meetings. In the first scene of the movie, the faculty is saying goodbye to Cameron Diaz, as she is planning to leave the school after one year. (Spoiler alert: she comes back for year two.) The principal gives her a goodbye present: a $37 gift certificate to Boston Market. And lost it in my seat because that? Is so true. There are always collections going around the school for birthday presents and whatnot, and it was so clear that everyone in that faculty had given only $1 or $2 to a teacher they barely knew. It was priceless, and accurate.

No, I wouldn’t call this movie a brilliant comedy. But it did have a handful of brilliant moments. Not to mention Cameron Diaz wearing an Annie wig while going undercover. That was pretty funny.