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Educating Jenny
Embedded in my childhood is the fuzzy memory of a VHS tape called Mr. T’s Be Somebody…or Be Somebody’s Fool. It was your typical star-studded 1980s public service announcement for kids, in which Mr. T, sporting an array of cutoffs and mounds of gold chains, extolled the virtues of resisting peer pressure, respecting one’s mother, and, of course, getting a proper education.
Invoking his famous catchphrase, Mr. T made his purpose clear in the opening musical number: “If you don’t want to be a crazy fool, you better study real hard and stay in school!”
Lone Scherfig’s new film An Education (this week’s selection in the AEC’s Independent Film Series) isn’t as bleedingly obvious as Mr. T, but both films are PSAs for the same message: Stay in school and life will be better!
Jenny Miller (Carey Mulligan) is a bright 16-year-old girl with high hopes of going to Oxford to read English after graduation. It’s the ’60s, and she lives in a suburb of London with her stodgy father and complacent mother (Alfred Molina and Rosamund Pike) who dream of her Oxford future in more »
