Warner Independent Pictures has picked up the rights to the Tom Perrotta novel, The Abstinence Teacher.
Due in stores next year, the book is about a divorced sex ed teacher forced by religious conservatives to teach abstinence, reports Variety. While fighting for the freedom to keep touting the joys of sex, she falls for a born-again soccer coach.
This sounds like a take on “Inherit the Wind” dealing with the contraversy of church in our schools.
In Inherit the Wind, a teacher dares to teach Evolution in the Bible Belt and is fired and ends up in court with him fighting for his freedom of speech. Not to turn this into a religious debate, but I can’t help but draw some paralells here. In the end of the movie he is still fired, but the charges of “corrupting the youth” are dropped.
So now we have a SexEd teacher fighting for the rights of sexual freedom while once again the conservative religious leaders are depicted as the “bad guys” forcing him to teach something he doesnt agree with.
Only time will tell how this story will unfold, the book isnt even out yet. Perhaps the lead character will see a good reason to teach abstinence, or perhaps he will fight for the freedom to teach about sex without teaching lifestyle. Who knows?
Interesting that the book is not even published, but Warner Independent Pictures has already jumped on the claim.
Tom Perrotta is above simplyfing conservatives as “bad guys”. If you’re at all familiar with his work, you’d know he’s a very humane and empathetic writer. You can bet this will be much more about the personal struggles of the characters than him taking sides on the sex education debate.
It’s not unusal nowadays for some pre-published book to get a studio deal. However, I’m sort of puzzled as to this book (and film’s) themes. Abstinance by ITSELF should be an interesting topic to explore in a film, as a contrast to the misconception that all teens are “doing it”. Why not just have a film regarding peer pressure?
So the Sex Ed teacher falls for the Born Again Soccer Coach. Can I get an amen? Actually what I’m looking for is a “So What?”. If two folks like each other that much and the biggest question is if one side caves in and waits until a walk down an aisle, or the other side surrenders and scores some goals of his own…
Yeah, it sounds rather dumb to me. The biggest conflict is…oh those nasty Christians forcing their will on me! What a cheap shot. Is the sex ed teacher going to say… Abstinance does not work, it * isn’t * a choice of one’s free will? Is the sex ed teacher going to look like, say, Angelina Jolie, who really wants to teach the kiddies the beneifits of Karma Sutra?
Or maybe I’m reading this all wrong…and this is a ‘Christian” slant, Warner Indep. just creating some friendly competition with Fox’s recent indie label launch?
Actually, y’ really want to know, something? Creation/Evolution debates are still strong today, and a common misconception is that the Religious Right wants “evolution” out of public schools – they don’t. They just want the “theory” of creationism also given some small, if not equal time. Macro evolution {the transition of one species changing into another] has never been proven, and never been observed. That’s why it’s called “the theory of evolution”. In any case, whether you agree or not- “Inherit The Wind” or something like it, should be a new pic for theatres or TV.
It could use a model like “Dead Man Walking”, which presents two sides of an issue, but leaves the audience to wonder, think, and respects their intellect enough to make up their own minds.