Principal As PAL? Not in Pop Culture
"The princiPAL is your PAL," according to the old spelling mnemonic. Not so in pop culture, though. In fact, most fictional school principals are anything but pals.
"It's not a good story if the principal is nice," said Nell Minow, a syndicated columnist known as Movie Mom, who writes about what kind of entertainment is appropriate for youngsters. "There's no tension. If a kid triumphs over a principal, who is the authority figure, it's a good story. It all goes back to the fairy tales, when kids fought giants."
Principals are the Rodney Dangerfields of the education profession: They don't get no respect. With a few exceptions, fictional principals are ineffective dullards at best, downright witchy at worst.
Principal Trunchbull in the 1996 movie "Matilda" carries a riding crop instead of a broom, but rivals the nastiest of the Disney witches. "Use the rod, beat the child--that's my motto," Trunchbull tells her terrified students. She swings little girls by their pigtails, calls the new kids "fresh meat," throws darts at her pupils' photographs and locks kids in the chokie, a closet lined with shards of glass and protruding nails.
"My idea of a perfect school is one in which there are no children at all," Trunchbull says.
Principal Jindraike CQ in the 2001 movie "Max Keeble's Big Move" is as humorless as he is clueless. He thinks the opposite of "encourage" is "excourage," and barks, "Look it up!" when a student questions it. He forgets to turn off his video camera after broadcasting his morning announcements, so the students watch him stick pencils up his nose and tell himself, "I'm a walrus!"
In the 1986 movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," Dean Rooney is a beady-eyed, bone-headed doofus who is easily outsmarted by the teenagers who control his high school. By the end of the school day, he has managed to split his pants, get his car towed, be attacked by a Rottweiler and misplace three of his students.
Double the nastiness
The 2001 movie "Recess: School's Out" has not one nasty principal, but two. The former principal, Dr. Benedict, returns to seek revenge on the current one, Mr. Prickly, who took his job. Benedict plots to eliminate summer vacation. This, he reasons, will increase test scores and make him such a hero, he will be elected president of the United States. The school's 4th graders overthrow Benedict, with little help from Prickly.
In the 1987 movie "The Principal," teacher-turned-principal Rick Latimer does morph from naive to street-smart as he finally outwits the gangs who run the school. But Latimer is a disreputable character from the start. He gets his "promotion" as punishment for beating up his wife's boyfriend.
Among the few films that portray principals positively is 1990's "Kindergarten Cop." Stern Miss Schlowski uses a bullhorn and stopwatch to monitor fire drills. But she is kind and patient as the new teacher (an undercover cop played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) learns the ropes.
"Lean on Me," from 1989, is one of the few films that has a principal hero. Based on a real-life principal, Joe Clark exemplifies the term "tough love" as he takes the reins at troubled Eastside High. He expels the troublemakers, rids the school of graffiti and gets the students to pass a state proficiency examination.
Real principals not offended
Are real-life principals offended by their fictional counterparts?
"No, we don't take it seriously and no, we are not outraged," said David Turner, executive director of the Springfield-based Illinois Principals Association and a former principal.
"Most of the shows that portray principals as buffoons are sophomoric; they're not `60 Minutes.' An ounce of truth and 20 pounds of fiction--that's what sells.
"In fact, most principals are respected members of the community. And I'll tell you a little secret. Because of where we work and who we work with, we actually understand kids better than a lot of other adults do."
Turner even has a favorite bad-guy principal: Mr. Carter in the 1982 movie "Porky's."
The negative portrayal of principals also is apparent on the small screen, a prime example being Principal Skinner on "The Simpsons." Nicknamed "Skinny Boy," he lives with his overprotective mother. His love life is next to nil, save for the time he makes out with a teacher, Mrs. Krabappel, in the janitor's closet and his ill-fated romance with Patty Bouvier, one of Marge Simpson's twin sisters. Mostly he exists to be the butt of the teachers' and kids' jokes. When he does speak up, he usually says something ridiculous, such as, "I have caught word that a child is using his imagination, and I've come to put a stop to it."
TV has more good guys
Compared to films, though, TV shows appear to have more good-guy principals.
"An extremely positive, respected, patient leader" is how "Boston Public" executive producer Jason Katims describes principal Steven Harper. "He gives a sense of hope in a school where there are a lot of problems," Katims said. "He doesn't always go by the rules, but he finds solutions."
In the 1993-2000 TV series "Boy Meets World," the tweedy Principal Feeny is stiff but fair. In one episode he even delivers a principal joke. When a student asks why he should tell Feeny who helped him cheat, Feeny says, "If I punish two instead of one, I get a bonus at the end of the week."
With few exceptions, children's fiction loves to hate principals.
The "Captain Underpants" series by Dav Pilkey, which was first published in 1997, sets the pace. Fourth graders George and Harold hypnotize the mean Principal Krupp, who turns into Captain Underpants. Clad only in a cape and white briefs, the Captain flies out the window, singing, "Tra-la-la."
In Mike Thaler's "Bad Day at Monster Elementary" (Avon Books, 1995), Principal Potts sweats through the day, his glasses askew, as The Thing throws up in the hall and the Invisible Boy vanishes. He regains his composure as he watches the school bus take the kids home. "Then," writes Thaler, "he froze in horror as he looked out the window. He had forgotten that tonight was ... PARENTS' NIGHT!"
Principal Russo in Catherine McMorrow's "The Jellybean Principal" (Random House, 1994) is an ornery guy who responds to students' requests for help by shouting "Scram!" He locks himself in the school's cold-storage room, where he hides his jellybean stash. When the town's firefighters have to rescue him from the freezer, all he has to say for himself is "The red ones are my f-f-favorite."
Among the few children's books that portray the principal as a pal is "Mr. Lincoln's Way," by Patricia Polacco (Philomel Books, 2001). Principal Lincoln figures out how to reach Mean Gene, the school bully, through Gene's interest in birds. In the process, Lincoln (who is African-American) dispels a few prejudices that Gene (who is Caucasian) inherited from his bigoted father.
Hubie in Mike Thaler's "The Principal from the Black Lagoon" (Scholastic, 1993) imagines Principal Green as an ogre as he heads toward her office. Inside, he has heard, there's a paddle with poisoned spikes. "The rug is red," Hubie thinks to himself. "That's so the blood won't show." When he meets the kind and pretty Green, he can't believe his eyes. "She's a master in disguise," he thinks.
Comic strips get in the act
Even comic strips harpoon principals.
Named for a kind of noodle or dumpling, Principal Spaetzle in Jef Mallett's "Frazz" plays second fiddle to the strip's protagonist, Frazz, the janitor.
"Spaetzle has all the credentials, most of the skills and nary a clue," Mallett said.
To temper Spaetzle's bumbling, though, Mallett makes his principal good-hearted.
Watching the children high-five Frazz, Spaetzle ponders his plight:
"A bachelor's, a master's and a PhD ... nine years of teaching ... two decades of managing staff, tweaking budgets and juggling schedules as an administrator ... and about one-tenth the respect afforded the guy who just chased a bee out of the lunchroom."
— Leslie Mann
The principal portrayal? It's not flattering
Chicago Tribune
2003-11-09
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/custom/educationtoday/chi-0311090279nov09,1,4059872.story?coll=chi-businesseducation-hed
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