Media, Teachers, Lawyers--Which Despised Profession Makes for the Best Movie Poll?

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I'll have lots of time on my hands soon and would like to do a movie poll--don't think there's been a non-click genre poll in a while. All three of these would leave lots of room for opinion as to what does or doesn't belong. Some people hate that; that's my favourite thing about genre polls. I have a strong preference for movies about media but would be happy to go forward with one of the other two.

Poll Results

OptionVotes
legal (courtroom dramas, films where lawyers figure prominently) 17
media (print, TV, internet) 9
education (films about teachers, films with lots of classroom scenes) 4


clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 20:57 (four months ago)

Should we assume that the first category is intended to be movies about journalists, and not "Hollywood fellates itself" movies-about-moviemaking?

Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:11 (four months ago)

I consider movies-about-movies a whole other thing (some great ones, though). I was thinking of newspapers and TV primarily--His Girl Friday and Network to name two obvious examples--maybe something like The Social Network, maybe even something about a news-focused photographer (can't think of anything offhand). Magazines, too, if there's anything...there are definitely films pertaining to The New Yorker.

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:17 (four months ago)

Teachers are a despised profession?

Hmmmmm (jamiesummerz), Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:21 (four months ago)

Looks like someone was the teacher's pet

H.P, Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:21 (four months ago)

Politicians would have been a better pick.

Please play Lou Reed's irritating guitar sounds (Tom D.), Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:23 (four months ago)

As a 35-year public-school teacher, I always say that most parents a) complain about teachers in general ("summer vacation! summer vacation!"), although b) they mostly like their own children's teacher. We had a premier in Ontario 20 years ago who worked hard to turn parents against teachers, and he was pretty successful.

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:25 (four months ago)

(xpost) We already had the political-movie poll...a poll about politician-movies would just be a narrower version of that.

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:27 (four months ago)

Went with media.

Classroom movies are often too sappy for me.

Courtroom dramas have to strain to make something visually boring out to be exciting.

Press/news movies have a sense of urgency, it feels like something important is about to break.

Cow_Art, Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:27 (four months ago)

Not a necessity--and some movies do it very awkwardly or pompously--but media films that try to reflect on the role of the media, or media ethics, are plentiful. Sydney Pollack's Absence of Malice is a good one.

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:30 (four months ago)

In the post-Trump era, such refections are kind of from another universe.

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:31 (four months ago)

Another good one: Medium Cool.

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:32 (four months ago)

media or courtroom

I think we're all Bezos on this bus (WmC), Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:39 (four months ago)

maybe even something about a news-focused photographer (can't think of anything offhand)

Nightcrawler, with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Saturday, 15 March 2025 21:51 (four months ago)

That's right, forgot that...There's also a Joe Pesci movie about Weegee, and probably a documentary or two.

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 23:03 (four months ago)

And gossip columnists, geez--Sweet Smell of Success.

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 23:04 (four months ago)

By the way, I think public perception of teachers--grade-school teachers, anyway--went up during COVID. "Hey, maybe not so easy." (I swear there were/are parents who think a classroom is just like it was in 1952, with 27 kids sitting at their desk with their hands folded on top, paying rapt attention to every word.)

clemenza, Saturday, 15 March 2025 23:08 (four months ago)

voted "legal" but only because of _My Cousin Vinnie_

Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, 16 March 2025 00:50 (four months ago)

Well as to education, there's To Sir With Love (1967), The Paper Chase (1973), The Breakfast Club (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989), Good Will Hunting (1997), The Class (2008), and The Holdovers (2023) among many many others.

Educators are not despised at all, and media is not despised. Lawyers and Doctors are despised.

Dan S, Sunday, 16 March 2025 01:27 (four months ago)

speaking for myself, i despise lawyers and journalists but not teachers or doctors

budo jeru, Sunday, 16 March 2025 01:43 (four months ago)

Hasn't the Republican Party been exploiting anti-teacher sentiment that's out there for decades? Get rid of the Department of Education, ridicule teachers unions, etc.--always took that as really directed towards teachers. Where I am, the Premier I alluded to earlier, Mike Harris, was explicitly and unambigously anti-teacher, and for a few years, he took a decent percentage of the public along with him.

Anyway, maybe a separate thread. I was trying to come up with a pithy title for this one, and nuance/explanations weren't part of the equation.

clemenza, Sunday, 16 March 2025 02:43 (four months ago)

A couple more offbeat media films (I'm lobbying here): The Truman Show and Quiz Show.

clemenza, Sunday, 16 March 2025 03:03 (four months ago)

The VHS cover art to the movie Teachers, an apple with a fuse in it, always stood out to me at the video store. At some point I watched it while still pretty young and I liked it a lot. I have no idea what it’s actually like as a movie.

Cow_Art, Sunday, 16 March 2025 03:55 (four months ago)

Plenty of people despise teachers I think, mostly for cuntish reasons but also because some teachers are cunts. Gotta love a field that lets us vote for Zero de conduite and If... tho

Zurich is Starmed (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 16 March 2025 08:38 (four months ago)

Voted media because I think it’ll produce a more varied set of nominees.

paper plans (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 16 March 2025 12:29 (four months ago)

press

discussion about whether things are in a genre are great, allowing every ridiculous argument to pass is not but we shall have all that fun when the time comes

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Sunday, 16 March 2025 13:09 (four months ago)

What do you mean of course Die Hard counts it's got that reporter in it

Zurich is Starmed (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 16 March 2025 15:10 (four months ago)

the mountaintop beacons in LOTR

tuah dé danann (darraghmac), Sunday, 16 March 2025 15:37 (four months ago)

Movies about the legal profession can take advantage of their adjacency to movies about crime and detection, e.g. Erin Brockovich, which audiences can't seem to get enough of. Their ace in the hole is the drama of guilt, innocence & punishment, so there's always a way to heighten the suspense.

Movies about journalism can do a similar trick. They almost always occupy a sub-niche of the mystery/detective genre, but with too little gunplay and physical danger to compete on a head-to-head basis.

Making teaching and classrooms fascinating or entertaining is possible, but an uphill battle, so most scripts cluster around the problems of the students more than the struggles of the teachers.

more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 16 March 2025 16:55 (four months ago)

Rooting for media, but there are quite a few teacher-centred movies, aren't there? To Sir with Love, Up the Down Staircase, Blackboard Jungle, Être et avoir, The Teacher's Lounge, etc., etc.

clemenza, Sunday, 16 March 2025 17:22 (four months ago)

The Piano Teacher lol

paper plans (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 16 March 2025 17:31 (four months ago)

omg

I think we're all Bezos on this bus (WmC), Sunday, 16 March 2025 17:31 (four months ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System, Sunday, 30 March 2025 00:01 (four months ago)

Fifteen or 20 votes here would suggest it's worth going forward; ten or fewer, maybe not.

clemenza, Sunday, 30 March 2025 01:06 (four months ago)

i went with legal because court fights are easily engaging, even if every movie gets courtroom scenes wrong.

adam t (dat), Sunday, 30 March 2025 11:11 (four months ago)

michael clayton
the insider
12 angry men
reversal of fortune
my cousin vinnie

movies about the press are too often adaptations of articles where the writers are the heroes, because writers write them.

with education there are some "minutiae of the process" movies that i like such as truffaut's the wild child but too often they are filled with cliches and stereotypes. also i can't watch movies set in high school because of personal trauma.

adam t (dat), Sunday, 30 March 2025 11:22 (four months ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

System, Monday, 31 March 2025 00:01 (four months ago)

Very good turnout...surprised at the result, but okay; give me a couple of weeks and I'll get a nomination thread for courtroom/lawyer films underway.

clemenza, Monday, 31 March 2025 00:45 (four months ago)

you...can handle the truth

gestures broadly at...everything (voodoo chili), Monday, 31 March 2025 00:48 (four months ago)


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