Images of Teachers

Crume, Mary Adams Tanzy, 'Images of Teachers in Novels and Films for the Adolescent, 1980-1987.' Ph.D.

Crume predicates her thesis on the idea that "literature and film serve
as vehicles for portraying and transmitting a culture, its values and attitudes."
She tests the commonly held notion that teachers are maligned in fiction and
popular arts, "depicted as fools, villains," and other unflattering stereotypes.
Dealing with American novels and films produced between 1980 and 1987 she
concludes that portrayals of teachers are diverse, although fiction writers tend
to treat teachers more sympathetically than film writers. She notes that both
mediums "presented a mixed view of American schools that minimized their
academic functions and highlighted their roles as social settings and battlegrounds."
Essentially Crume finds that teachers are not consistently impugned
in either medium, although filmmakers are less sympathetic to the profession
and the people in it than novelists.