Back to School Part Two

By: ANDREW HERSHBERGER
Date: Sunday, June 09, 2002

In the first part of our interview with Skip Elsheimer, curator of the A/V Geeks Educational Film Archive, the film-curiosity historian discussed his recent teaming with Fantoma Video in order to bring a series of classic classroom films to DVD. The resulting discs, called THE EDUCATIONAL ARCHIVES, have proven quite popular among connoisseurs of oddball cinema. Today we conclude our chat with Skip as he explains that there's more to these films than simple kitsch value.

Part 3: Classroom Movies as Social History

With MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 emphasizing the cheesiness of the classroom film, one might think that Skip's efforts to preserve these films is merely for humorous presentations, a way to laugh at the past. This proves not to be the case. As historical documents of the ways of our culture, you can see a lot about the times through these movies. Behind the outdated styles and methods lies a progressive attitude that was quite daring for its day.

"I think

a lot of these films, even though they are kitschy, they are kind of visionary and progressive," says Skip. "We look at them now and say, 'Oh, this is ludicrous, what were they thinking when they did that?' But, what they were thinking was they were being very progressive in trying to address issues that weren't discussed before. You know, talking about kids that are shy, saying things about popularity instead of just kind of letting it happen. They were really trying to help people out, trying to educate and we have the hindsight of looking and saying, 'Wow, that looks really stale,' and, 'That looks really kind of absurd.' But at the time that was something."

While they may have been progressive in their day, many student films proved, in hindsight, to be ineffective in the way they tried to help kids, particularly in regards to student films dealing with social interactions. While many of these films tried to tell the kids that their social groups could expand if they followed certain steps, the intricate realities of human nature proved otherwise. Skip, however, defends the films on this point.

"Do I think that the way to educate people is to show them, 'Well, this is what you do to be popular,' and give you three easy steps on how to do it? No, I don't think that [the filmmakers] were smart in trying to do that, but I do give them credit for trying."

Naturally, the period that these films were released in was of a different time and a different mindset than we are accustomed to today.

"Back then, based on what I've read, it was all about the great society, people fitting in," he says. "So it was important to fit into a group... and the whole idea of a teenager was forming [into something new] then from before [World War II]. Teenagers were very, very different before the war. So some of these films are tying to address that as well. For example, WHY VANDALISM [one of the shorts on THE EDUCATIONAL ARCHIVES VOL #2: SOCIAL ENGINEERING 101] is trying to look at the symptoms of vandalism. It's really trying to figure, 'O.K., these kids are just not delinquents, there is a reason behind their delinquency.' [These kinds of films] don't necessarily offer solutions that work, but at least they're trying to address it, trying to get at it, because prior to these, there [weren't] people talking about it."

Even as

things progressed, educational films were prone to get carried away with ideas. Skip provides an example: "In the '70s, girls can do anything and they're really pushing this [in the films]. Instead of saying boys do this and girls do this, [it's] girls can do anything. But it's so over optimistic that we can see through that and say, 'Wow, you totally screwed a generation by making them.' Like FREE TO BE YOU AND ME. It was a film that came out in the '70s and its [intent is to be] very self-esteem building and it's trying to break gender biases that are taught to children. You watch it now and you can see the value in it, but you can also see that it set up kids for expectations that there is just no way that society can fulfill."

With all the student films available, not all of them are so dated. Skip mentions one that he feels actually stands up well today, even if it is a downer.

"There's a really depressing film called SOCIAL ACCEPTABLITLIY," he says. "It's basically saying regardless of what you do to try to fit in, you fitting in or not fitting in is really based on how popular your parents are. Watching that it seems a little bit more accurate then some of these other films. You know, knowing the mechanics of popularity, one of the factors is who you hang with, what cliques you're part of... [And what the film is saying is that] a lot of it has to do with your social status and these other weird things [like] what street you live on and what your parents do for a living."

Part 4: Presenter Appreciation and Viewer Appreciation - Not the Same

As an individual wrapped up in the classroom film scene, Skip has not only developed his own preferences for certain material but he has also come to appreciate just what grabs an audience. Sometimes, the two are not necessarily the same.

"[I tend]

to go for very general films that are aimed towards a specific trait or that deal with something very, very specific," he relates. "But [I don't see them as being] necessarily viewable or watchable for other people."

As for the different classroom film subgenres that he enjoys, among his personal favorites are "VD" films (though don't expect a DVD release of those films too soon - as Skip says, "The big problem would be getting the rights. A lot of these companies still exist and they would want some sort of royalty cut."). He also likes "Safety" films ("because they tend to be very explicit and exploitive") and a certain type of film for young kids. Regarding the latter, he says, "There are a bunch of films that are made for very young kids that don't have a point besides getting kids to talk about what they saw on the film. There's a whole series by Encyclopedia Britannica called "Let's Go" or "Let's Do" and [they're] just these very short vignettes of kids walking around doing things or little themes. Some of them are realistic and some of them are kind of surreal, and the idea is you show the film and the teacher asks kids what did they think and they have them create their own stories so it's a film that's designed just to generate discussion."

Sounds interesting, but how does Skip's audience respond to such movies?

"They hate them," he says. "Because they're wanting there to be some sense of what is going on, like, 'Oh, here's an educational film, so there is a lesson to be learned,' and they just cannot tolerate having a film that's just there to have people discuss what they saw. I tend to like a lot of those films because they make my audiences crazy."

Asked if there are any genres he doesn't like, surprisingly considering they make up half of the first EDUCATIONAL ARCHIVES disc, SEX & DRUGS it's drug films.

"They're kind [IMG6L]of shooting fish in a barrel," explains Skip. "It's very, very simple to put together a drug program, [but] that's something that people ask about. 'Oh, do you have the old drug films?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' and I show them occasionally, but really... it's the same thing over and over again. I know that that's what [the people] want to see so I'm not going to deny them that, but if I had picked it, I would show different films."

So overall, what is it about the educational film that has resulted in such cult popularity outside of their originally intended venue? Skip offers up an idea: "[People] forget a lot about the recent past... or the only images they have are television history, that the '50s are like HAPPY DAYS and the '60s are like THE WONDER YEARS, and they forget there were other things going on, other issues, so it's kind of neat to look at these, to unearth these things and say, 'Oh yeah, I remember that. Oh yeah, that was totally something I had forgotten about and that was an issue back then.'"

Not only

is it great to have these films to look back on, but it's also great that we have someone like Skip Elsheimer to take us back home again - even if for some of us it was never our house to begin with.

Note: In addition to his DVD releases, Skip presents his "live" shows whenever possible. For more information be sure to check his site at http://www.avgeeks.com.