When a teacher appears as a supporting character, they're usually portrayed as self-important and clueless. But when the teacher is the main character, they're inevitably a source of inspiration. In fact, Hollywood romanticizes teachers so much that even somebody pretending to be a teacher, as Jack Black does in School of Rock, changes things for the better.

The first thing that has to be established in movies like this is the setting. If the teacher is to inspire the apathetic and disenfranchised, it'll be set in a public school (Blackboard Jungle, Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds). If they're inspiring students who are stuffy and uptight, it has to be set in a private school (Dead Poets Society). School of Rock falls in the latter category, with Dewey Finn (Black) turning an elementary school class into a Rock band while at the same time teaching them the value of rebellion. The problem with this admittedly fluffy movie is that it relies too heavily on assumptions.

Dewey believes that Rock isn't just music, but a lifestyle and philosophy. If people would just listen to and play real rock, they'd be more passionate, less restrained, more likely to question authority. We're expected to automatically agree, even though the film itself doesn't provide any convincing arguments.

Dewey is a failure — a lovable one, of course, but a failure nonetheless. Not only does he get kicked out of his own band, but he's reduced to impersonating his roommate (Mike White) in order to get a job. He's also a mooch, though this is downplayed: his roommate's wife (Sarah Silverman) continually demands Dewey pay his way or leave, but she's portrayed as shrill and off-putting (no stretch for Silverman) in a shameless attempt to make her requests seem unreasonable. Most importantly, Dewey is a hypocrite. He preaches the importance of Rock and its antiestablishment attitude, yet his only goal is to win the Battle of the Bands; seems he wants validation by some kind of authority after all.

But even if Dewey had been a success, the movie still ignores the question of whether he has any right to foster his dead-end attitudes on others, especially impressionable children. In typical Hollywood fashion, we're supposed to be rooting for Dewey because he represents what many of us supposedly want: to be rebels playing by our own rules. But like Captain Kirk arrogantly changing a planet's political system because he doesn't agree with it, Dewey takes a captive audience and manipulates them into striving for what he wants in life. The wishes of the parents, who are paying for this private school, are dismissed. Since the parents are stuffy prigs, it's okay that a complete stranger has disrupted their influence and lessened their impact on the development of their own kids. (ASIDE: It seems a little too convenient that all these parents — these relatively young parents — would be so dismayed at their kids playing Rock music, fifty years after Elvis.)