Memo to Hollywood: The American public will not pay to see a movie that demonizes teachers’ unions and public schools, while touting the glories of privatization.
“Won’t Back Down” was supposed to be the movie of the year. It had nonstop promotion by NBC’s Education Nation, big-name stars, a stint on Ellen’s show, and a glitzy opening at the New York Public Library.
What was the result?
The movie opened to the worst box-office of any film in wide distribution in thirty years (in 2,504 theaters).
Most theaters dropped it after its poor opening weekend, but it hung on in 513 movie theaters.
Last weekend, the film had box-office receipts of $138,709.
This averages out to $270 per theater, barely enough to pay the ticket-seller.
But the film won’t die.
It will now be shown for free wherever an audience can be gathered to sell the idea that parents should seize their public school and give it to a charter operator. At last report, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was planning free screenings across the nation. Now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can claim to be part of the new “civil rights” movement, the one that wants to privatize your public schools. It is only fitting for the Chamber to join the “civil rights” movement of our day, since they missed the last one.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They can control the message, bully the teachers, abuse the children, but they can’t force me to part with MY hard earned money. We have families and supporters and we talk to each other. No one was intersted in their propaganda crap.
If you want to see a movie about a REAL public school with REAL kids and REAL teachers, check out this trailer.
Viola and Maggie…if you can find a theater you can see what really happens in our public schools.
Also, check out the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes….puts WBD to shame:
http://www.brooklyncastle.com/
Link to Rotten Tomatoes:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/brooklyn_castle_2012/
On the flip side, an antidote to WBD is the crowd and critic pleasing “BROOKLYN CASTLE” which spotlights all the wonderful possibilities that a public education can provide. Finally! Take a look at Andrew O’Hehir’s Salon.com article that mentions both films: http://www.salon.com/2012/10/17/brooklyn_castle_a_glimpse_into_the_inner_city_middle_school_where_chess_legends_are_made/
Of course the Chamber of Commerce would pick up the film: kids are big business, and the opportunities to exploit them during school hours are tremendous.
Keep an eye on where these screenings will be and plan to conduct informational picketing each time. It only takes a few people to hand out flyers and talk to people.
Diane,
Can we use this space to let people know when they will happen in each city or town?
yes!
Last week in Los Angeles, the only theater chain still showing WBD was the Regal chain… and that chain is owned by… Philip Anschutz, the same billionaire out to privatize schools, bust unions, and who paid the $20 million bill to make WBD, and millions more to promote it.
I just checked, and, starting two days ago (Fri., Oct. 19), it’s gone even from Regal. While Philip may be a propagandist and a school privatizer, he’s also a capitalist… and yet another week of empty theaters was something even he could no longer stomach… especially when other and newer films would pull in—comparatively—much bigger bucks.
The school reform cult has massive amounts of money to throw around because it is backed by so many billionaires. The billionaire Carl Icahn is opening up his charter schools and was cited in The Daily Princetonian (he’s a 1957 PU alumnus) as believing “…that ultimately it would better serve the students if education was more privatized.” Really!? Icahn should open up a chain of private schools not publicly funded charter schools. It’s fine if he wants to donate $20 million to Princeton, a private institution, but it is so offensive that he can use his wealth and power to deform education and destroy public education with his corporatist philosophy.
WBD will be one of those movies you can legally stream for,free, or it will be shown on airplanes, because no one will watch it otherwise.
What you don’t tell us is about the 513 theaters still showing “WBD” … how many are Regal Cinema’s owned by Phillip Anschutz the producer and the financier? The loss from his wallet on this film is less than we lose by burning our toast and throwing it out.
Linda,
Thanks for the links. I enjoy all of your posts. 🙂
When this writer went to see, “Won’t Back Down”, I was one of the crowd of two people in the entire theater. The resulting review of the move itself is available on http://www.newswithvews.com
Thanks, Mary Thompson. This IS revealing, folks: Even people with far-right, ultra-conservative views are rejecting this laughable, obvious propaganda fest—albeit for different reasons from most of us.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Thompson/mary100.htm
Look. It’s an awful film, AS a film; terrible acting, storyline, plot, script, etc. The C of C could PAY people to go, and they wouldn’t do it at this point; Two Hours of Our Life is too much, unless they’re offering at least $50 for each of those hours…
In fact, if anyone from the C of C is reading this, you can start the bidding there. You’d probably get a lot of takers if you paid us the $50 per hour; but we’ll make no guarantees about how much of it, if any we’re going to take seriously.
Did you know that there is already a SEQUEL in the works?!?!
Special Preview: Won’t Back Down II: The Sequel
Won’t Back Down II: The Sequel
After credits roll, fade up on school office. A worker is taking down a sign that says “Adams Elementary” and putting up one that says “KKIP Super Success Academy.” In walk Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Nona Alberts (Viola Davis), smiling and chatting, clearly excited by changes in the school.
They enter the principal’s office, where they are greeted by the new school leader, Geoffrey Barth-Moskowitz (Anthony Hopkins). He stands and shakes their hands.
Geoffrey: Jamie, Nona, how good of you to come. Welcome to the KKIP Super Success Academy!
Jamie: Thank you so much, Mr. Barth-Moskowitz!
Geoffrey: Oh, please, no need to be formal; call me Geoff.
Jamie: The school looks wonderful, Geoff! I can’t believe how many new computers you have!
Geoffrey: Well, that’s all part of the generous funding we receive from the KKIP Foundation; we are able to spend more per pupil than Adams Elementary was.
Nona: Really? Why couldn’t we get that money before when we were a public school?
Geoffrey: Oh, I think you’ll find our funders are far more amenable to giving money if the schools match their ideologic predilections. Now that you ladies have pulled the “parent trigger” and brought us in to take over this school, you’ll find there are many changes coming.
Nona: Yes, well, that’s one thing I wanted to ask you about. I figured that we would have a few computers in every classroom, but it looks like there are enough so that every child will have his or her own. Isn’t that a little excessive?
Geoffrey: Oh, not at all. You see, KSSA is now a “blended learning” school. We’ll be delivering content to our customers… uh, sorry, “the children”… digitally, using software developed by K9 Inc. In fact, K9 Inc. will be running the entire school from now on.
Jamie: Wait a minute; this school is supposed to be non-profit. K9 is a for-profit company.
Geoffrey: True, but that was easy enough to get around. We merely set up a non-profit shell, with a board of directors sympathetic to our point of view. And the state and city politicians are all in our pocket… uh, I mean “on our side”… anyway.
Jamie: But that’s not what we wanted at all! When we used the parent trigger, we thought we were getting a community-run school!
Geoffrey: Oh, Jamie, I’m sorry to tell you this, but all you did with the trigger was force a change. No one said you would have any say in what that change would be. No one made clear who would make the decisions about how the school would be structured or who would run it. No one had a procedure to appoint a board of directors. I’m sorry Jamie, but when you allowed this school to be converted to a charter, you gave up many of your rights as both a taxpayer and as a parent.
Jamie: Well, I’ll go the local school board! They’ll force this charter school to have parental involvement!
Geoffrey: My dear Jamie, you didn’t think this through, did you? Charter schools offer you “choice”; they do NOT offer you “involvement.” If you don’t like the way we do things at KSSA, you can “choose” to leave; that’s what school “choice” is all about. But your local district, even though it must give us money to run the school, has no say in how we run the school. We are, in effect, our own district now.
Jamie: Well, I don’t like it, but it must be better than what we had before at Adams Elementary. So I’ll just enroll my daughter and see how it goes…
Geoffrey: Ah, about that. I’m afraid I have some bad news: I’ve asked you here to help “counsel out” your daughter.
Jamie: WHAT?!
Geoffrey: Yes, unfortunately, your daughter has a learning disability, isn’t that correct?
Jamie: Of course; she’s dyslexic. That’s the whole reason I organized the “Parenttroopers,” because her needs weren’t being served by those awful unionized teachers!
Geoffrey: Yes, it’s funny that. Unions, like those in Chicago, have demanded that districts hire more special education teachers to serve students like your daughter. But they’ve been criticized for protecting those teachers from layoffs and evaluation systems that could penalize special education teachers. [Update: more here.] Ironic, no?
Jamie: Whatever. All I want to know is why you think my daughter won’t do well here!
Geoffrey: Well, Jamie, we here at KSSA base our school on best practices. We look at the best charter schools: after all, Education Secretary Duncan himself has said we should close poor performing charters and emulate the best ones. New Jersey is leading the way with this line of thinking; look at this:
You see how the “successful” schools – the ones Governor Christie touts as exemplary – have fewer children with special needs? And fewer children who are in deep poverty? And fewer children who don’t speak English at home? That’s our plan as well; “counseling out” the children who keep our test scores low.
Jamie: But you can’t keep my child out! The law says you have to accept every child!
Geoffrey: Every child who applies at the right time and right place, you mean. We’ve made that considerably more difficult.
Jamie: I don’t care! I won’t back down! I’ll get her in this school, you’ll see!
Geoffrey: And what then, Jamie? What happens if she doesn’t fit in? If she isn’t compliant with our strict disciplinary policies? If you can’t contribute the significant “voluntary” parent contribution, or pay your child’s discipline fines?
Jamie: But my child has an Individualized Education Program! You have to follow that!
Geoffrey: Yes – but we get to decide how to implement it. And if that means your child gets more suspensions than the other students, well…
Nona: Don’t worry, Jamie, we’ll work this out. After all, I’m the principal now…
Geoffrey: Yes, about that; I’m afraid there’s been a change, Ms. Alberts. KSSA will not be requiring your services as an administrator.
Nona: WHAT?!
Geoffrey: Yes, well, I’m afraid that when K9 Inc. was given the contract to become the school’s charter management organization, all personnel matters fell to them. We have decided we need a truly transformational leader, so we are bringing in a young graduate of our KKIP Leadership Academy. Don’t worry, he has nearly two years of experience in the classroom…
Nona: But I was going to run this school! The parents love me! I’m the best teacher at the school!
Geoffrey: That may be true, Ms. Albert, but I’m afraid their voices are irrelevant here. In any case, a blended learning environment keeps costs low by cutting staff; someone had to go. Now, if you’d like to reapply for your job as a teacher here, we’ll see what we can do. Of course, you’ll have to take a pay cut…
Nona: A pay cut?! I just got a divorce; I can’t afford a pay cut!
Geoffrey: Ms. Albert, you’re asking me to put your interests above the students; even worse, you’re asking me to put your interests above the interests of K9 Inc.! If you’re not prepared to work longer hours for less money, I don’t see how you will fit in here.
Nona: But I have years of experience! You need people like me on the staff!
Nona: But I have a son with a brain injury at home! I can’t work longer hours than I already am!
Geoffrey: My word, what a selfish attitude. I can see you don’t have the proper love of children it takes to work at this type of successful school.
Jamie: “Successful”?! You’re counseling out students who are difficult to teach, burning out your staff, putting resources into corporate profits instead of the classroom, disempowering the community – and you dare to say you’re “successful”?!
Geoffrey: I think our test scores will speak for themselves – especially after we have the students drill-and-kill on them…
Nona: Well, we’re not standing for this! This isn’t what we wanted when we pulled the trigger!
Geoffrey pushes red button on his desk.
Jamie: We won’t back down! We’re going to take back our school, again!
Two very large men enter.
Geoffrey: These ladies were just leaving; escort them off the premises. If they attempt to reenter the grounds, call the police.
Nona: You can’t do this! This is our school!
Geoffrey: Not any more.
Jamie and Nona are dragged out, yelling. Barth-Moskowitz turns and looks at camera…
Fade to black.
ADDING: Darcie reviews the original. It ain’t pretty.
Damn. I guess I better cancel that order at the Maserati dealer. Well, babe, that’s showbiz…