The review in the New York Times of the anti-union film makes an important point: when people loudly insist that “it’s all about the kids,” you can be sure that it’s not.
As A.O. Scott puts it, “A movie that insists, repeatedly and at high volume, that ‘it’s all about the kids’ might just cause you to wonder what else it is about, and this one is not shy about showing its ideological hand.”
Surely, you have noticed how often the corporate reformers use terms like “children first,” “students first,” “children come first,” when they have something else in mind.
For one thing, they want to persuade the public that teachers are not interested in the well-being of their students. Only the corporations and the mayor really care about your children, not their teachers.
They have very deliberately claimed brand ownership of the word “reform,” even when they are peddling GOP dogma that’s forty years old.
More standardized testing=reform.
More shuttered schools=reform
Lower standards for teachers=reform
More private management=reform.
For-profit schools=reform.
What do they really want?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not a good review for Won’t Back Down here:
http://entertainment.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/28/14138575-soapy-wont-back-down-gets-a-failing-grade?lite
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The times they are changing. This critical review of the “wont back down” corporate education infomercial (hardly qualifies as a film) would not have made it to the NYT two years ago. Criticism and an organized response to the infomercial clearly influenced some of the mainstream critics and redefined the public debate on the film. Kudos to all those who “didn’t back down” to the corporate education juggernaut—even when it masquerades as art.
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Diane, I found the links to two MSNBC morning shows. Chris Hayes has a short segment called Now We Know where he spends a short time explainig the backers of WBD. It is brief, but he did give it some time. I hope the link works.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46979738/vp/49222542#49222542
Also, Melissa Harris Perry spent a bit longer discussing the referee lockout and the hypocrisy of Scott Walker defending the refs while previously dismantling the collective bargaining rights of a primarily female union while leaving the police and fire unions alone. A female Wisconsin politican spoke about the TFA rookies and made the same comparison we made earlier this week.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46979745/vp/49223151#49223151
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Interesting change with this movie. The purveyors of this propaganda film seem to have realized that people actually like teachers. Rather than vilify the teachers in this film, they make them heroes and have chosen to vilify the union. They have separated the teachers from the union which in reality can’t be done. The teachers are the union, and it represents their views on how to improve education. It is not some fictitious negative influence on teachers telling them not to stay after 3pm to help kids.
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Well, except for the teachers who complain, most of them, and lock a kid in a closet, text all day, shop on the Internet, force them to wet their pants, allow them to fall asleep in class…yeah..other than that they were all great teachers. This is propaganda trash.
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Anytime someone proclaims too loudly about “what about the children?” you can almost always be sure that the children are the last thing they are thinking of.
Those in power want to say that teachers asking for better working conditions and compensation somehow is working against students. One of the sayings I often see are teachers saying “Teachers working conditions are students learning conditions” That is true.
However, the suits don’t particularly care about teachers working condition or students learning conditions because the students are not their children. They are other people’s children and mostly low income and minorities so the suits have a very minor interest if at all.
What they really want is control.
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I was struck in reading the reviews of Won’t Back Down that the screenwriters apparently thought it was a good idea to call their version of the parent trigger a “Fail Safe” provision. Perhaps they should consult the original book or movie. The term was applied to procedures designed to assure that nuclear war could not begin by accident — in other words, even if events seemed to be leading the country to disaster, a Fail Safe system would prevent us from going over the cliff. What happens, of course, is that Fail Safe provides no protection at all. A nuclear strike is ordered and (spoiler alert) both Moscow and New York City are destroyed. Did the Won’t Back Down screenwriters understand the irony when they chose the term Fail Safe to describe their version of the parent trigger?
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The producers (Waldron Media) has and used the big dollars to heavily promote Won’t Back Down on all the shows. I think the movie critics are tired of political movies being promoted as entertainment with a cause. From coast to coast, the critics reviewed the acting and the story and most give it a D+…the billionaire could not pay off the critics as he could the television “news” and “entertainment” shows.
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It isn’t at all difficult to find out who the people are who truly put children first: They are the parents who care for their sons and daughters (as opposed to deserting them or sending them to live with relatives for the purpose of convenience) and the professionals who devote themselves to the direct care of children: teachers, pediatricians, pediatric nurses, social workers, etc. Our people are not “dumb” and they know who cares for the children in their lives. Thankfully, the media is finally beginning to see the light.
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I am still impressed that some critics pointed out the deliberate racial tones of this movie.
The names of the 2 schools.
The racial makeup of the school board members and how they cast their votes
The bad teacher vs. the Davis portrayal.
The Union heads.
Funny that the same people who produced this movie and try to sell reform as a “Civil Right” are the same people changing voting laws, immigration laws, and women’s right to choose laws. They also fight against equal pay for women. They are against Gay marriages. And they support the “Stand Your Ground Law” that got young Trayvon Martin killed!!!
Would Maggie, Viola, Holly and the other stars who appeared in this movie also make films with those messages and go promoting it on every talk show? Most likely not. But attacking teachers seemed politically correct?? Knowing the truth behind the message of this film (and it’s not about The Kids!) and the horrible reviews, these actors should fire their agents and managers. But first they should apologize to the parents who fight hard every day against “The Parent Trigger” law and to the teachers because we are not the enemy.
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I wonder if Maggie, Viola, Holly et al are receiving plenty of emails, and have become aware of the vast political commentary, negative reviews, etc. By now they must realize, as Davis Guggenheim likely did as well, that they inserted themselves into a mighty shihtzu storm. This may be the first time in their acting careers they are having to defend a role they were merely playing. I doubt most actors have to do that very often.
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Given the fact that in the US, companies with shareholders have a legal duty to try to make money, it shouldn’t be any mystery that these companies’ motive is the profit motive. Small investments in buying access to school boards and state legislators and governors offices (through campaign contributions) or to school superintendents (through various corporate gifts) can pay off handsomely with contacts for tests or charters.
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It’s sort of like how you can almost count down from the time someone starts preaching about the evils of homosexuality to the time they’re found playing footsie in a men’s room or renting a “boy” for a vacation. The louder they preach it, the shorter the time.
The more and louder these privatizers hype “for the children”, the more sure you can be they’re doing something behind the scenes that is definitely not for the children.
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“We’re from the private sector and we’re here to save the children” is the latest version of “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”
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Another way to say it, “We care for the right price.” The new version of “The Price is Right.” We win, we don’t care about you.
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Expressions like “it’s all about the children,” like the words in its policy counterpart, NCLB, have always masked the anti-science, anti-woman, anti-Enlightenment education certain ideologues hope to impose on all American children through a hastening of public education’s demise via homogenized and scripted test-driven curricula. Ironically employing the empirical data gathering tools of the Enlightenment to destroy the finest product of the Renaissance-Humanist- Enlightenment continuum, public education, these folks hope to return us to a pre-modern age–one in which the devine rights are reinstated for our new kings: corporate interests, big business and the religious right. Even a word like “privatize” is loaded, masking as it does the desire to homogenize all discourse around coorporate interests and those of the religious right–assuming those are distinct entities. What we need is a new Inherit the Wind movie, fictionalizing the great moment when the ACLU hired Clarence Darrow to defend an educator they set up to defy TN curriculum guidelines on the teaching of evolution. (Hard to believe we are still fighting this battle in the 21st c..) However, we need the ACLU to fund the defense of a tax payer who, in a grand act of Thoreuean Civil Disobedience, refuses to pay taxes that fund vouchers that fund religious/anti-woman/anti-science private education. Such a movie could be a great piece of social satire, with ACLU execs conferring on how they need to pick someone other than a teacher this time…as teachers are part of the 47% who do not pay taxes.
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So mayors, politicians, and companies know what’s best for you and your child. Jeez, how did we get along all these years without their help?
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Just like in sports, when they say it is NOT about the money…you know it is ALL about the money…this is about everything but the kids.
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