Perspective:

Movies Paint an Interesting Portrait of School Bus Drivers

By Ryan Gray | Senior Editor

I was watching the movie Forest Gump recently and something dawned on me:

Why does Hollywood have a love affair with the curmudgeonly school bus driver?

In the aforementioned 1994 Oscar winner for Best Picture, Best Actor (Tom Hanks) and Best Director (Robert Zemeckis), we very early on meet Dorothy Harris, school bus driver, who welcomes little Forest on his first day of school. Welcome perhaps is the wrong word. Shock and awe is more like it.

As the dim-witted young Forest pauses at the bottom step, no doubt contemplating the lifelong adventure he is about to embark on, Dorothy crudely asks in between smacks of gum, "Are you coming along?"

She looked like she had just chain-smoked a carton of Virginia Slims and her make-up appeared painted on with a roller. And those eyes; she'd seemingly kill you rather than look at you.

If I was welcomed by my school bus driver that way at age 6, heck even now, I probably would cry.

Of course this is a dramatic effect designed to prepare the audience for the unfolding story, and it's a testament to the acting of Siobhan J. Fallon, who plays the school bus driver.

Still, when I review that scene, I wonder to myself if the fictitious transportation director is aware of how this dour-faced woman is welcoming her first-years.

I could survey 1,000 moviegoers and maybe two or three out of the bunch would make a similar observation. The vast majority would most likely stare blankly back and wish me a life. But how do such portrayals effect how and what the public thinks of school bus drivers?

Thanks to our friends at Internet Movie Database Inc., imdb.com for all you Web surfers out there, you can virtually catalog every movie or television production that has featured the American yellow school bus or represented one of the (now) 500,000 drivers entrusted each school day with our children. In fact, searching for the phase "school bus" returns 58 listings, more evidence of the yellow school bus replacing the little red school house in American lore. But more often than not those drivers featured are like Gump's Dorothy, or are so obviously naïve that it makes you wonder what kind of driver may be in charge of your child.

And in the movies, school administrators are not much better.

In the seminal 1986 teen film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," the much-maligned Ed Rooney has a rather humorous run-in with a school bus. Too make a long story short, the title character cuts school with his beautiful girlfriend and his geeky, goodie two-shoes best friend to drive around Chicago, attend a Cubs game, eat at a snooty restaurant, attend a museum, and impersonate Wayne Newton in the city's German Day parade. Rooney, the high school principal, suspects foul play and sets out on a wild goose chase to catch Bueller in the act.

In a spoof of Hollywood's finest chases meshed with teenage rebellion, Rooney is always seemingly one step behind. He eventually drives to Bueller's house to gather evidence of school skipping. He proceeds to break into the family house after being chased around the yard by the family Rotweiler. But he is soon caught red-handed in the kitchen, and subsequently karate kicked in the head, by Bueller's sister. As the sister runs upstairs to call 911, Rooney makes his escape, only to discover his car being towed. Meanwhile, Bueller barely makes it home and back into bed before his parents walk into his bedroom to check on his health.

As the closing credits roll, the audience catches up with worse-for-wear Rooney walking the boulevard of broken dreams, presumably back to school. A school bus loaded with high school students on their way home soon pulls up, the doors open and so does the driver's mouth. Comedic genius ensues.

"Hey Mr. Rooney, what's going on? Did you get in a fight? Want a lift?" she asks, as she continues to drive the bus but without both eyes on the road. Rooney stops, says not a word, undoubtedly weighs his options, and reticently boards the bus to blank stares from dozens of shocked students. His clothes muddy and ripped, his nose bleeding, he says not a word but his eyes belie a slew of choice words bubbling below the surface. It is hard to tell who is more horrified, Rooney or the students.

He finally reaches an aisle with an empty seat, right next to an especially nerdy young girl who greets him with, "I bet you never smelled a real school bus before" before offering him a Gummy Bear candy that has "been in my pocket . they're real warm and soft."

As he sits and ponders the ridicule, he glances up to read a cheery bit of school bus vandalism on the school bus ceiling: "Rooney Eats It." No, not the Gummy Bear, but his pride, and certainly some other choice things that I won't repeat.