The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
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The first two films are comedies, and Shackles is a gritty prison
drama not for the faint o f heart. In all three films, teaching English
becomes a joum ey o f self-discovery for the teachers. Renaissance Man
offers a compelling example o f how these characters discover themselves
and a talent for teaching they didn’t realize they had. Rago does not think
o f him self as a teacher, let alone an English teacher. W hen he is told
about the job, his first reaction is to emphasize that he’s never taught
before. “I can’t do this,” he teils the clerk. But as far as the Michigan
Unemployment Office is concemed, a m aster’s degree from Princeton is
all that he needs to be a teacher. When he arrives at his new post, he
finds him self teaching a small d ass o f recruits who are performing
poorly in their regulär training program. Their drill sergeants have
concluded that the recruits are un-teachable because they “have sawdust
for brains.” However, a special program has been implemented by the
base’s commanding officer, who believes that if the recruits can be
helped “in the brain department,” i.e., if they leam to think better, they
will perform better in their training. Rago’s job, his immediate superior
teils him, is to “get’em to think a little better on their feet.” This is their
last chance for a Stint in the army: if they cannot complete the course
successfully, they will be discharged.
When he first conffonts his d ass, Rago, as is typical o f the
protagonists in these films, has no idea what to do. W hen the lone female
Student in the d a ss asks him what he intends to teach them, Rago replies,
“That’s a good question. Anybody got any ideas?” At this point, he does
not really care about his students, a rowdy bunch that cannot sit quietly.
W hen a fight almost breaks out moments afiter the d a ss begins, he
stemly teils them: “You don’t wanna to be here and I don’t wanna to be
here, so let’s just make the best o f this, okay?” But he has difficulty
following his own advice. After a couple o f days he tries to get out o f his
new job by calling a former advertising colleague and vows that he will
do anything, even write school papers for his friend’s children, to escape.
Rago fumbles around for a few days, and it is not long before he
figures, as the Army does, that the students in his d a ss are too dense to
leam anything. But he suddenly has a small success. He gives them an
in-class reading assignment after which they are to talk about what they
have read. One o f them is reading a comic book. While they are reading,
he reads Hamlet, and when they ask him about what he’s reading, he sees
an opportunity to reel them in with reverse psychology. He pretends to
be reluctant to discuss the play with the