School of Rock

Summary: The movie is about a wannabe Rock Star, Dewey Finn, who gets kicked out of his band for being over the top when it comes to his guitar solos. At the same time his roommate Ned and Ned’s girlfriend, mainly Ned’s girlfriend, pressure Dewey for rent money. With Dewey not being able to get the money, since he got kicked out of his source of income, he decides to impersonate Ned and take a substitute teaching job at a prestigious private school. It is clear he anticipates this to be an easy job where the students only do recess all day. But after he hears some of his students playing in music class, he begins to formulate a revenge plan. He will put his own band together, using the students that have musical talent and other skills that could prove useful, they will play at battle of the bands, show his old band what is what, and give his roommate the rent money. Everything goes according to plan, the students are on bored, the principal even allows them a field trip (though she didn’t know it was for an audition), but it all comes crashing down when Ned receives a paycheck for a job he was not doing, Ned’s girlfriend called the cops and they got involved during parent’s night. Dewey flees the authorities leaving the students upset. Despite everything, the students decide that they still want to perform in the battle of the bands. They sneak out of school and get Dewey in a school bus. They play Zack’s song at the show. They don’t end up winning, but they all have a good attitude about it, even Dewey. The students end up losing their substitute, because he has no license, but Dewey starts an after-school music program that they all attend.

Stereotype 1: Zack

Zack is the typical student who has parents with outrageous expectations and put all sorts of pressures on the kid. The stereotype is that they are the cool kids who are in everything and do well in school. The reality of that is the students probably aren’t happy because they never get to do what they want to do and are constantly worried about not living out their parents expectations and failing them.

Stereotype 2: Tomika

Tomika is an African American who sings gospel music. The truth of that stereotype is that in the African American culture gospel music is a big deal, but that doesn’t mean every black middle schooler loves gospel music or sings gospel music.

Stereotype 3: Lawrence

Here we have a smart, musically gifted Asian kid. Lawrence fits both stereotypes of being smart Asian- good at math and the sciences, and an artsy Asian- drawing Anime or playing every musical instrument under the sun. The truth of this stereotype is that some Asian kids are good at math-just like every other ethnicity, and some Asian kids are talented in the arts-just like every other ethnicity.

I was most like Summer in middle school. I think this because during that time in my life I was still figuring things out, but what I knew I could do for people to like me or take notice of me was to be good at school and to please all the adults around me.