Phoebe in Wonderland
I rewatched Phoebe in Wonderland last night - it's one of my favorite movies; it's about bright, imaginative ten-year-old Phoebe, who wins the lead in her school's production of Alice in Wonderland.
There's a lot to like in this movie. Phoebe is wonderfully portrayed, as is her whole family; I particularly like her relationship with her mother, who set aside an academic career to raise her family and still has doubts about her decision. It's an unusually complex and complicated portrayal, which is unusual, I think, with mothers in movies.
Also, the settings are just gorgeous. The school auditorium seems appropriately cavernous; Phoebe's house is inviting and surprisingly realistic (you could imagine people living there); and the neighborhood, when they walk through to trick-or-treat, looks like the neighborhood such a house would be in.
So there's a lot to like about the movie, but I don't watch it often because of Phoebe's drama teacher. Oh, God, Phoebe's beloved drama teacher is a terrible, terrible teacher. I can totally believe that Phoebe loves her, but I have no idea why the movie expects us to share this affection.
Phoebe's drama teacher is the sort of teacher who creates a seemingly free-wheeling, do-what-you-want structure to her classes; but clearly she's not-so-secretly judging her students all the time when what they want to do isn't what she thinks they ought to want to do, if they were truly imbued with the spirit of Art, or whatever. Those who don't are, as she explains to Phoebe, "the awful normals," and who cares about them?
The underlying belief seems to be - the awful normals don't have feelings like us sensitive types, so it's perfectly fine to direct one's teaching at the 5% of the class that will get it, and be brusque and irritable with those who don't.
And you can see it drives the other 95% of the kids (aside from Phoebe, who totally gets it) nuts, because the drama teacher does clearly have specific expectations which she withholds from them for her own capricious reasons. She doesn't want to have to teach her students anything; she wants them to already be something, and she has no time for the ones who aren't.
It makes perfect sense that Phoebe loves her, because Phoebe does get it, and when you do understand a teacher like this it makes you feel tremendously special. But surely its possible to make the sensitive types feel special without making the rest of the class feel like chopped liver?
There's a lot to like in this movie. Phoebe is wonderfully portrayed, as is her whole family; I particularly like her relationship with her mother, who set aside an academic career to raise her family and still has doubts about her decision. It's an unusually complex and complicated portrayal, which is unusual, I think, with mothers in movies.
Also, the settings are just gorgeous. The school auditorium seems appropriately cavernous; Phoebe's house is inviting and surprisingly realistic (you could imagine people living there); and the neighborhood, when they walk through to trick-or-treat, looks like the neighborhood such a house would be in.
So there's a lot to like about the movie, but I don't watch it often because of Phoebe's drama teacher. Oh, God, Phoebe's beloved drama teacher is a terrible, terrible teacher. I can totally believe that Phoebe loves her, but I have no idea why the movie expects us to share this affection.
Phoebe's drama teacher is the sort of teacher who creates a seemingly free-wheeling, do-what-you-want structure to her classes; but clearly she's not-so-secretly judging her students all the time when what they want to do isn't what she thinks they ought to want to do, if they were truly imbued with the spirit of Art, or whatever. Those who don't are, as she explains to Phoebe, "the awful normals," and who cares about them?
The underlying belief seems to be - the awful normals don't have feelings like us sensitive types, so it's perfectly fine to direct one's teaching at the 5% of the class that will get it, and be brusque and irritable with those who don't.
And you can see it drives the other 95% of the kids (aside from Phoebe, who totally gets it) nuts, because the drama teacher does clearly have specific expectations which she withholds from them for her own capricious reasons. She doesn't want to have to teach her students anything; she wants them to already be something, and she has no time for the ones who aren't.
It makes perfect sense that Phoebe loves her, because Phoebe does get it, and when you do understand a teacher like this it makes you feel tremendously special. But surely its possible to make the sensitive types feel special without making the rest of the class feel like chopped liver?