Presenting the first Jumbo* of 2015, and it’s a lulu.
A jury convicted Sheila Kearns, a former substitute teacher in Columbus, Ohio, of four felony counts of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. For some inexplicable reason—she reportedly told a colleague that “those kids see worse” at home— had shown the film “The ABCs of Death” during five periods of a Spanish class at East High School in April 2013.The movie consists of 26 chapters, each representing a graphic death and representing a letter of the alphabet: “E is for Exterminate,” “L is for Libido,” ”O is for Orgasm,” “T is for Toilet,” and so on. You know, perfect classroom fare.
Kearns earned her Jumbo for swearing in court that she had no idea what the movie—titled “The ABCs of Death,” remember—was about. Her attorney said she never would have knowingly showed it. One of her students. however, testified that Kearns watched the 129-minute movie, which presumably would have given her a pretty good idea that it was about, uh, death. And ABC’s….
After watching the movie the jury became convinced, its foreman told reporters, that Kearns might not have been aware of the movie’s content the first time she showed it, but she would have figured it out by by the second, third, fourth and fifth showings.
Can’t slip anything by these twelve!
*Jumbo: a Jumbo is a special Ethics Alarms award for conduct that emulates the gag from the Broadway musical and film “Jumbo,” in which Jimmy Durante, as a circus clown trying to steal an elephant, is caught red-handed by a sheriff, and asked, “Where are you going with that elephant?” “Elephant? What elephant?,” Jimmy replied.
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Facts: Seattle PI
Ethics Alarms 
I be done seen most everything, till this.
Was the movie in spanish?
No!
But is this response in Spanish? Now I’m just confused.
Si.
She just really liked the movie and wanted to share her passion with her captive audience. Lazy and stupid, but that’s the level of accountability in public schools. I’ve watched probably 100 movies from grades K-12 for no reason other than teacher laziness. Twister, The Rocketeer, Home Alone 2, most of the Disney cartoons, the 80’s animated Transformers and GI Joe movies…most times there’s some pretext to education (you’re reading the book so here’s the movie while I read my novel and take a smoke break!), but not always.
In hindsight, you wonder why there’s not that atmosphere that most of us have at work…where you’re actually worried about the boss catching you not doing your job. No worries about a principle walking by and seeing that you just decided to treat the class to a movie on taxpayer time, for like the 5th time?
She really liked the movie: she just had no idea what it was about. Hmmm...I guess I felt that way about “El Topo” and “Moulin Rouge”…
This story makes me wonder if a substitute teacher somewhere has shown the movie “God Bless America” to some high school class. Trying to imagine the fuel that experience could add to the fires of certain teens’ fantasies (and possibly, to some teachers’ fantasies) is disturbing.
It’s why my kids are in parochial school. Much more accountability to parents. We rarely watched movies, but when we did, they were literally film movies; grainy black & white things that were so boring, I would pray for an Islamic terrorist to run in and shoot me in the face. They were educational though, and directly related to the topic at hand.
When I was in school, watching a movie was a rare treat. The only ones I remember were the Bell Telephone Science Series in elementary and intermediate school (everyone loved those!) and, when I was in high school, a presentation of the classic “Julius Caesar” with Sir James Mason and Marlon Brando. I guess I was just cursed with teachers who believed in classwork and who had a sense of decency besides. I actually liked “The Rocketeer”, for example, but can someone tell me how this silly, but harmless movie has any bearing on serious schoolwork? This teacher should be booted out for that reason alone. The subject matter she presented is another and grimmer issue.
When I saw the credits for “Julius Caesar”, I nearly lost it. Marlon Brando as Marcus Antonius? Turns out he did a credible, if accented, job. All during the soliloquy I kept expecting him to shout “I cudda been a contender”.
Marlon went through a period in which he intentionally took roles to prove he could do anything—like what in the remake (“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”) became the Steve Martin role in “Bedtime Story.” Like Johnny Depp, he over-reached and could be self-indulgent, but there was a reason why Laurence Olivier said Brando was the greatest actor he had ever seen. Brando was amazing until he just started phoning it in and collecting checks…kind of like Robert De Niro today.
I guess Brando and Louis Calhern went a long way to mitigating the popular belief that you had to be British to do Shakespeare. Note, too, that popular character actor Malachi Throne played the part of the Roman rabble rouser at the funeral. I sometimes think that Brando’s entire career could be summed up by his famous line from that film. “Mischief, thou art afoot”!
It’s a good definition of MB’s attitude, that’s for sure. He didn’t respect his own profession…like Robert Mitchum, Brando thought acting was a lame and undignified occupation for a “real man,” but unlike Mitchum, he was ashamed of it, and sought to validate his work by challenging himself. The real problem was that acting came easy for him, sort of like music came easy to Mozart, and baseball came easy to Babe Ruth. We tend not to value our skills that come easy to us, which is why, for example, Robert Benchley drove himself crazy wanting to be an actor when he was a naturally gifted humorist, and why Freddy Mercury kept stretching into other music forms. It’s the same instinct that pushes the immensely talented to stretch their talents, and that makes the rest of us miserable.
That’s an interesting take on it, Jack. I’ll bear that in mind if I’m called upon again to deal with actors or filmmakers. Thanks for that insight.
I occasionally play ” The Devil’s Rejects” or “Hobo With a Shotgun” to my toddlers, to remind them of what may happen if they fail to worship me or do their chores.