Bad Teacher

It is now a high time, then, to bid goodbye to Ms. Virtuous innocent female protagonist and say hello to Miss nasty foul mouthed, mean-minded and dedicated only to her narcissistic pursuits one. Woman characters in the past years in movies or in teleseryes are appealing only when they are self-deprecating, when they allow themselves to be the butt of the joke. She also have to be a little pathetic, a loser at dating with a recently failed baking business in her past. Bad Teacher is hardly the perfect picture, it was funny, entertaining, and seemingly has a bit morals and the character broke the mold of protagonist in a refreshingly different way.

The single note is struck early when the protagonist Miss Halsey played by Cameron Diaz drawn to the profession by the classic motives of short hours, summers off, no accountability, is seen in front of the class applying her patented pedagogical methods, show the students a movie, fall asleep at her desk, hit marijuana. She does not even care about her job as a nurturer of young minds. Her trend almost always in short, tight dresses and stiletto heels, her bloodshot eyes hidden behind black Ray-Bans, she looks, frankly, used dissipated, hungover, her make-up smeared, her wide mouth looking unusually lewd. She is not anyone we aspire to be, or even anyone we want to be friends with. She frees us from the tyranny of relatability: She is a flagrant, unrepentant fictional character, perhaps the scariest thing a woman in a modern movie can be. None of that good-girl stuff for the character. Our approbation means nothing to her; what she really craves is our disapproval. Another ghastly scene in the movie is when her rich fiancé dump her when his mother or he himself found out her true nature, and then she determines that the best way to find herself a rich husband is to buy herself bigger boobs. Surgery is expensive; money must be raised. Every scene is contrived to make you say, "That is a bad teacher”.

So, the movie is one broad joke on the theme of how-bad-is-she repeated over and over, and most of the early reviews have complained about its coarseness and vulgarity. Yes it may show nasty deeds that will make some teachers react and students laugh, but will give them an education like no other because there is always a room for improvement--the best thing I like in this movie.  The characters manage to go through kind of development over the progression of the movie. Although that she is not punished for breaking almost every law there is, ethical and legal, she is not rewarded either. With the protagonist in particular ending up in a very different place (as a guidance counselor) than where we initially find her and even coming to care for some of the kids as her sneaky ministrations threaten to unravel. Where she ends up is very satisfying and even touching.

The production values were a lot higher than I expected. The pace never get dragged too much and whenever one segment of the lead role scheming was done, another segment was speedily introduced in order to keep us laughing and keep us from thinking too hard about the utter absurdity of what we are watching. Plus, with an environment as ripe for an exploration of misery, alienation and downright nastiness as a school, it in fact manages to portray the place as quite a happy institution, with the worst event being a mistimed declaration of love for a girl which is quickly fixed.