Mary Dalton's research interests focus on critical media studies with particular emphasis on Hollywood cinema, sitcoms and the depiction of teachers in popular culture.
Mary M. Dalton ('83)
Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation Fellow and Associate Professor Department of Communication
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Mary M. Dalton's latest book, "Teacher TV: Sixty Years of Teachers on Television," co-authored with Laura R. Linder, is scheduled for publication in September. This summer, she spoke at a conference at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, on how teachers are portrayed on American television and at a conference in Athens, Greece, on how the disabled are portrayed on television. Her documentary, "Martha in Lattimore" (2005) — about the life of alumna Martha Mason ('60), who has lived in an iron lung most of her life — was screened at an international film festival in Athens. Her books include "The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed" (2005, co-edited with Laura R. Linder) and "The Hollywood Curriculum: Teachers and Teaching in the Movies" (1999, second edition, 2004). She has also written and directed eight documentaries. Dalton received her bachelor's degree in speech communication and theatre arts from Wake Forest in 1983 and an M.A. in broadcasting/cinema and a Ph.D. in cultural studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
WNYC radio interviews Mary Dalton »
How did you become interested in studying how teachers are portrayed on television?
My best-known scholarly work is probably the book "The Hollywood Curriculum: Teachers and Teaching in the Movies." My newest book is an outgrowth of that and an anthology I co-edited on situation comedies. Television is a recent research area for me, looking particularly at depictions of race, gender and sexual orientation on TV. It's counter intuitive but in significant ways television portrayals of teachers have been more progressive than film. For example, we saw a complex positive portrayal of a gay teacher on television (in 1995's teen drama "My So-Called Life") before we did in film.
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So how are teachers portrayed on television?
There has been a double standard with regard to gender. Since the 1950s, male teachers have been shown having a rich personal life with a commitment to good teaching. Devoted female teacher characters have generally not been written in a way that includes intimate personal relationships. By 2000, in "Boston Public," Lauren Davis and Ronnie Cooke have sexual relationships without negative consequences, but incredibly this barrier still exists in movies.
You've also written about the differences in how movies and television portray black teachers?
This is another reason that television has been a more progressive medium than film in many instances. Movies have tended to cast white teachers as saviors in inner-city schools in a way that privileges their experience and marginalizes the experience of their students. On television, "Room 222" had an integrated cast although it seldom dealt explicitly with race in storylines. It's a bit surreal in a sense, because the show suggests a perfectly integrated school, where race is seldom an issue. Of course, the series was on the air from 1969-74, and the racial climate in the United States was anything but placid. In "Boston Public," on the other hand, teachers deal with racial tension and bias regularly and openly. The cast is multicultural, and situations that arise related to race, gender, social class and sexual orientation may seem a bit melodramatic — especially compared to a show like HBO's "The Wire" — but they are addressed directly.
In what ways has the portrayal of teachers on television changed?
There have been many teacher characters on television, but if teaching has been shown at all, it has mostly been superficial. Helen Crump was hardly ever shown teaching in "The Andy Griffith Show," and Gabe Kotter played everything for laughs in "Welcome Back, Kotter." "The Wire," however, is a completely different story. It examines education in a larger cultural context and critiques the educational system without losing entertainment value. "The Wire" and "Boston Public" before it are two examples of how television has come to deal with racial identity and schooling in more progressive ways and with more complexity than what I like to call the 'Good Teacher' movies.
You also spoke this summer at a conference on how the disabled are portrayed on television. How are people with disabilities portrayed on television?
For most of the history of TV, they were absent. You might recall Dennis Weaver's limp in "Gunsmoke" or Raymond Burr's wheelchair in "Ironside," but these were exceptions. The first disabled character played by a disabled actor in prime-time television was in the sitcom "The Facts of Life" in 1980. At that time, roles featuring disabled characters were normally limited to guest staring roles.
How has that changed?
In 1989, Chris Burke, an actor with Down syndrome, began playing a character on "Life Goes On." More recently, you have characters such as Keri Weaver on "ER," an emergency room doctor who happened to have congenital hip dysplasia, though her disability was not a central focus of the story. President Bartlett on "The West Wing" had multiple sclerosis but was re-elected to a second term even after his condition was revealed to voters. Current characters with disabilities include Gregory House on "House M.D.," who walks with a cane.
One interesting trend is the number of characters with 'invisible' disabilities, such as Temperance Brennan on "Bones," who is on the autism spectrum but extremely high functioning, and Adrian Monk on "Monk," who has obsessive-compulsive disorder. More characters are written with disabilities now than in the past, but the disabilities aren't always as visible. One notable exception is "Friday Night Lights." In the first episode, the star quarterback broke his neck, and the series showed him going through rehab and coming to terms with the fact that he would probably always be in a wheelchair. The show handled this beautifully.
Why is it important how the disabled or teachers are portrayed on television?
Media influences culture and culture influences media. We learn a lot about ourselves culturally and how we construct various identities from what we see in the mass media. There are individual influences, too, of course. I think that the scripts we see repeated regularly on film and television give us a sense of the limitations and possibilities we might expect for our lives.
How do you involve your students in your research?
Kaitlyn Ranney ('07) took my sitcom class and pushed me to include something in my new book about "Saved by the Bell," which I had never seen. Another student, Laura Riddle ('08), wrote an essay on "Our Miss Brooks," and I quoted her in the book. I had other students, especially Jon Kolnoski ('08), pushing me to write about "The Wire." He was really on to something important. The last chapter in the book is about "The Wire" and current educational policy. If you're studying media, you have to learn from students because they're engaging media differently than we are. Students constantly make me aware of things I need to know but would probably miss out on if I didn't learn from them.
What was the reaction to "Martha in Lattimore" when it was screened in Athens?
It was the first time this documentary has been screened outside of the U.S., and it was warmly received. Documentary and Disability is an international festival with films literally from all over the world. But the point of most of these films is not so much about the disability, but about the people. When viewers see the film I hope they see Martha as a person quite separate from her disability. The iron lung is just a device that helps her breathe. I've found that people are very moved by Martha's story and touched by the community surrounding her. It's really a story that transcends cultural differences.
Is there a common thread to your documentary subjects?
I am interested in stories about interesting people, people I admire, and the communities that nurture them. Two of my films have Wake Forest connections — "I'm Not My Brother's Keeper" involves Wake Forest students who participated in the Winston-Salem sit-ins in 1960, and "Martha in Lattimore" includes a section on her time as a student on the Reynolda Campus. Four of them are about North Carolina folk artists; one is a personal documentary ("Dalton Got Hit," made after her son was hit by a car): one is about knitters; and my newest one is about a textile mill and mill village (in Jamestown, NC, where she was born and still lives). A somewhat less obvious concern is social justice and trying to disrupt viewers' preconceptions about other people. Sometimes this is pretty subtle, and other times stereotypes are openly challenged. I am very lucky to be able to do this work.
— Kerry M. King ('85)
Office of Creative Services
