The school of rock

[scarbo87]

Well....

I'm guessing most of you have either seen or heard of this movie, and like me, I am guessing, as a classical music connesiour, you were at the very least displeased.

Here is a movie that produced not only one of he biggest grosses in history, but also , attracted one of the largest groups of youth in history, and sent the entirely wrong message to youth : Classical music is crap.

Now, for those of you who haven't seen the movie, i'm not gonna give the whole summary of it or anything, but trust me in that it was very anti-classical.
My little brother (who lives in a different universe than me)
and all his kid friends..loved this movie!As did millions of other kids. These kids may have been kids who don't or aren't sure if they like classical music, but after seeing this movie, were more convinced than ever that they did't like it and that is was "lame music"

I have nothing against pop music, and I thought the moive was imaginative and had good acting, but It really angered me that they went out of their way several times to try to prove that classical music is crap. And it had a BIG influence.

sorry for the lenght of this post....but it's been on my mind for a long time

Scarbo

[mound]

I laughed my a** off at that movie! and I love classical music.. I do see your point though in retrospect, I hadn't thought of that at the time though..

[chopiabin]

That's why I didn't go see ths movie.

[cziffra]

Given that i've just attained a reputation for obnoxiousness, i will happily proclaim this as the biggest heap of sh*t i have ever been subjected to in a theatre.  I liked that fat *** that acts in it BEFORE i saw this movie but now, i can not stomach him, no pun intended.  

What was the message to this movie?  Be a bum with no prospects who filches off other people because they're too weak to defend themselves, and then illegally take charge of a group of impressionable young minds and convince them that learning about world cultures is less important to singing and playing music that was written by drugged up morons?  Even though most of americas problems could be solved with a little bit more of an understanding about things like world cultures and actually working towards something meaningful, nevertheless, you should be an arse and make ridiculously over the top gestures to kids who had the misfortune of thinking they should look up to you and value your ridiculous opinion, because you are a cool and hip social reject dependant on other's kindness to make up for your own shortfalls as a human being.  

[mound]

what was the message? There was none. You still think there's supposed to be a message in any of the cr*p pop culture spoon feeds us? C'mon now.. It's a farce, laugh at it and accept that it is not intended to guide.. (though, I do agree with the unfortunate fact that the lil' ones do look up to this kind of trash.) Nevertheless, I didn't see it in the theatre, a friend's sister rented it, I watched it, I laughed.. I took no social commentary from it, nor did I expect to.  (is it any worse than anything else kids are exposed to these days?)

ps. cziffra: I do totally agree with your statement.

-Paul

[Saturn]

When I was younger, all the other kids made fun of me, so now I am bitter and I lash out at the world on internet forums.

Sorry man.  Life sucks, doesn't it?

I also find irony in that you seem to advocate tolerance toward and understanding of "world cultures", yet you refer to rock music as being written by "drugged up morons."  Drugged up they may have been, but morons they were not.

Why is this thread in Performance?

[Pierre_Bezuhov]

to anyone who says that rock is better then say Rick Wakeman clasically trained pianist Ritchie blackmore classical music enthusiast. the list goes on. many succeessful rock artists have classical influences. I is also the best way to learn theory. Rock is not a bad gnere but within it there are many bad musicians i am sorry to say.

[thomas_williams]

I have not seen this movie but I don't like the impressions I have gotten of it.  I first learned about it on the From the Top website.  In case you don't know, From the Top is a radio show hosted by Christopher O'Riley and featuring teenage and preteen classical musicians.  The article on the show's website talks about two of the performers in the movie who both were previously featured on From the Top (playing classical music, of course).  I find this disturbingly ironic.

You can read the article at www.fromthetop.org/sl_pages/sl_rr_schoolofrock.html.

[glBelgedin]

I thought the movie was pretty funny. I don't think it did any harm either, anyone who can have their life swayed by a comedy isn't going to be listening to classical music anyway.

Also, in addition to Rebecca Brown and Robert Tsai, the kid who played lead-guitar in the movie is also classically trained, if I'm not mistaken.

[Goldberg]

Although I side with cziffra's frustrations, I must say glBelgedin is absolutely correct. In general, what people need to realise is that movies typically don't affect society; instead, movies tend to reflect society--this is a particularly important argument with regards to movie-inspired violence, etc., but I also think it may be applied here. People have had an increasingly downward-looking view on Classical music since the 1920's on (well, roughly--you know what I mean) and School of Rock is merely a representation of what we musicians view as ignorance and disrespect, and what others view as normal comedy. Because the regular view is that any "classical" piece of music is only for stuffy, boring snobs with no life. Truth is, those "snobs" are typically not snobs at all but cultured people of above-average intelligence who are in short supply and should be treated with deference. I question a society that looks down upon people who are generally smarter and more observant than average.

But, that's how things are now in our perpetually declining world, and movies--which are generally made to make money--aren't often going to opt to portray emotional classical musicians as respectable people that viewers should model themselves after; such movies won't show, that is, except in small indie movie theatres and to select crowds of the rare cultured people.

So, it isn't the movie's fault at all. It's irritating to think about it, to say the least, but unfortunately we're stuck with it. Unless musicians somehow band together (which would be difficult seeing as we're all so bloody disorganised haha) and start a sociopolitical movement about the good of classical music. lol, it's not going to happen. So, grit your teeth, flick the world off, and return to your keyboards! Tally ho...