Good Teachers, Bad Teachers, and Transgressive Comedic Performance in Popular American Cinema

Abstract

Academic work that analyzes transgression in popular visual culture has primarily been confined to the exploration of horror (Carroll 1980; Jancovich 2002), pornography (Williams 2004; Church Gibson 2004), and screen violence (Hill 1997) as genres which centralize corporeality and affect. Yet comedy remains an equally important, if comparatively neglected, genre in which transgression is an essential constituent of its form and function. The central aim of this chapter is to examine the transgressive potential of female performance and feminist humor in comedy. By exploring Cameron Diaz’s performance as Elizabeth Halsey in Bad Teacher (Kasdan 2011), this chapter explores the ways in which the film employs humor to demystify teaching as a cultural experience synonymous with pleasure, altruism, and feminine normativity.