Interpreting a few moments of the Movie from an Interactionist perspective !
In the first scene we notice that the teacher (Ms.Johnson) is being shown in to the vice principal’s cabin for an interview for the post of a teacher. We see that the vice principle is in the midst of her daily ‘routine’ interacting with two people at a time, one on the phone with somebody and the other person in her office, trying to give away some signed papers or something. Her action has some amount of ‘civil inattention’ where she is not trying to get involved deeply either with the person on the phone or with the person who is standing before her. The next scene we see Johnson’s friend interrupting the vice principal to tell her that Ms. Johnson has come to see her, to which she seems a little disturbed as she would have to get out of her routine of that ‘hustle-bustle’ with which she seemed to have settled for that moment and get out to put up a different face altogether to meet up with a person whom she has not met before. I get a sense that for the vice principal to shift to that character is an effort from another zone and that is getting her worked up. However, when he insists that she is already in the office, she resigns to that situation and hangs up her phone saying she would call the person at the other end, later and comes forward to greet Ms. Johnson as she steps into the vice principals office. While they sit down to further their conversation, the vice principal is searching for Johnson’s c.v. and when she finds it she starts commenting about her varied qualifications, her experience etc. in a rather hurried tone. While Johnson looks a little more composed and even manages to steal a look through the chamber at her friend, she is quite desperate. Desperate to get the job just as the vice principal is desperate to hire her. So we see a ‘negotiation’ happening between both the parties where they don’t delve deep into their private spaces. For eg., when she asks why Johnson quit when she was so close to being certified, she hesitatingly tells her about her impending divorce with her husband and immediately, the vice principal without probing into her personal life much, she tells her that it would not be a problem to get her an emergency certificate and asks her when she could start. Johnson is surprised that she is being offered the post and therefore questioningly asks “start”?, , the vice principal tells Johnson of 3 teachers quitting prior to her and that she would be filling up a vacant slot of full time academy teacher. She is again startled at the full time position and tries to tell her that she didn’t think that it was full time job but a part time position and when the vice principal tries to explain, Johnson cuts her short and asks her what an academy teacher is. Here we see a sign of desperation where she does not want to get into the intricacies of the role or position etc and again negotiating with the Vice Principal. Finally she is happy that the position is offered to her and agrees to start off right away and so is the principal happy that she has accepted the offer and hands over the curriculum, syllabus etc. to Ms. Johnson to start off.
We see in the movie how different people – students, faculty, other staff etc. are busy with their daily routines. We also see how body language of her friend, Ms. Johnson and the vice principal brings about a certain identity of them and how things are conveyed through facial expressions, gestures, nudging etc. When the teacher enters the class, we see the students behaving indifferently, clearly expressing with their body language or symbolically that they are least interested in her and carries on with their disruptive activities showing a sign of dominance. A student called ‘Emilio’ also tries to be sexually abusive by threatening to eat her, again showing his strength and dominance over her. Her reaction first laughing perhaps he was just funny and later being scared with his advances shows clearly how she couldn’t even negotiate with him. However, we find later how the teacher thinks through the night to get over this situation by dressing up differently and saying that she was with the US Marines and how she draws the attention of the class and slowly winning over every students’ attention and affection. The behaviour of the students in that fashion clearly indicates that they were being labelled as notorious by all previous teachers and hence they resigned to that perception unwilling to change and perceive that every other teacher would behave the same way.
A truly inspiring movie that has touched my heart, apart from learning a few concepts of the micro social and symbolic interactions.
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