The stuff in this movie really happened. Yeah, they cheated. On the other hand…
Cheating ought to be a synonym for capitalism in the dictionary. And the film more or less touts this as its subtext. Cheating in a world where the odds are stacked against millions just for being born on the wrong side of the tracks is not necessarily wrong in my view. Here the moral narrative is likely to revolve around dasein. In some contexts I believe it is reasonable to rationalize it.
And it is telling that in order to prove the kids cheated those investigating them resorted to cheating themselves: they lied to them. To each of them they claimed all the others had “confessed” and named him/her as the “ringleader”.
CHEATERS
Written and directed by John Stockwell
[b]Jerry: What did Dante say was written on the gates of Lucifer’s “shop”.
Jolie: "Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
Student: That’s what it should say on the door to this school.
…
Irwin Flickas: It was a multiple choice test. Nobody told me you could only pick one answer!
…
Jerry: Benjamin Franklin said: “The only way 3 people can keep a secret is if 2 of them are dead”. Let’s see if we can prove him wrong.[/b]
They didn’t
[b]Jolie: This isn’t about cheating, it’s about winning. And as we all know winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing
…
Jolie: If you’re going to cheat, cheat smart.
…
Jerry: You wanna know why you should do this?
Paul: Course we’re gonna embarrass ourselves in front of the entire city?
Jerry: Because no one thinks you can. Because you don’t think you can.
Paul: Sir, we know we can’t.
…
Jolie: Dr. Plecki is amazing. He’s a really good teacher.
Darius: Well, what’s he doing here then?
…
Darius: Well, if we could get the tests, I’m sure Whitney Young has them too.
Jolie: Of course they do. Doesn’t the decathlon have their offices at Whitney Young? I mean, you do the math.
Dominik: So, two wrongs would make a right?
Darius: No. Two wrongs make it even.
…
Jerry: Why don’t you investigate, you know, Young’s scores from the past nine years? You won’t, because you’re in bed with them.
Joan: Are you questioning my integrity?
Jerry: I don’t need to question your integrity. I call your office, the phone rings at Whitney Young
…
Jolie: Why did Adam and Eve get in trouble in the first place?
Student: They ate the apple, baby.
Jolie: They ate from the tree of knowledge. They just wanted knowledge.
Jerry: God was testing them.
Jolie: But He didn’t tell them why. He was just, “I’m in charge here. Do what I say.” He said, “you can eat from any tree, just don’t eat from this one.” So, of course, what are they going to do? It’s human nature.
…
Jerry: Guys, this is crunch time. Nothing is supposed to get in the way of your studying. If you have to stay here all night, then…
Darius: Wait a second, Dr. Plecki, I don’t know what world you’re living in…I appreciate your optimism but the fact of this is no matter how hard we study and work for this Young is going to take this thing for the tenth year in a row. So if Dominik wants to keep his job and Agnieska wants to make sure her sister gets fed tonight instead of studying cytoplasmic binding proteins all day, that’s just…[long pause] Look, I love the dream you gave us. No, I really do. But there’s a certain point where you just have to wake up and realize, you know, it’s just a fuckin’ dream. It’s just a dream.
…
Jerry: Why don’t you go upstairs and tell those kids if they want to be in a basketball tournament, we’ll throw money at ‘em, but if they wanna be in an academic tournament, they are on their own.
…
Basketball coach: Jerry, what’s your record?
Jerry: My record?
Basketball coach: Yeah. You 0 and 4, 0 and 6? We’re 11 and 0.
Jerry: Congratu-fucking-lations.
Basketball coach: Yeah, well that’s why I get to use the machine.
…
Jerry: I’m a teacher so I’m supposed to spout the same platitudes you’ve heard a million times before: “Cheaters don’t prosper.” “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” Well, this may not be approved curriculum, but guess what. Winning does matter. Cheaters do prosper. I used to run a business importing Irish crystal and let me tell you what happens when you don’t pay off the right people or inflate sales claims or be creative with your accounting. You don’t stay in business very long. Try telling the truth on your loan application, you won’t get one. This is a results oriented world. Do you think Bill Gates fired the guys who brought him the Apple operating system code? He probably promoted them. Do you think he would ever send his kids to a Chicago public school?..They call Witney Young a public school. Uses public money. But what it is is a private school. These kids get the best education our tax dollars can buy. You get to go to school here if your parents know how to work the system. Maybe they don’t even live in the city limits so they keep a mail drop in Bucktown or they lie about their address…their income…their ethnicity.
…
Mother: How could you do this? How could you betray those kids?
Jerry: It’s not that simple, Mother.
Mother: Yes, it is. It’s that simple. Teachers don’t teach kids how to cheat.
Jerry: Believe me, those kids didn’t need any instruction.
Mother: Yes! Yes they did. They needed someone to tell them that it was wrong…Your father was so proud when you became a teacher. He never cared how much money you made…He lived a decent honest life.
Jerry: Yeah, and look what happened to him. He got screwed. He had this bullshit immigrant notion that if he worked hard enough and wanted something bad enough, all his dreams would come true!
Mother: No! All your dreams would come true. That’s why he worked so hard in that factory…inhaling those diesel fumes so you wouldn’t have to.
Jerry: The minute he got sick, they laid him off! They took his pension, they took his medical insurance! They killed him! They fucking killed him! That was his reward! That was the reward he got for all his hard work!
…
Jerry: Obviously, we made some mistakes.
Jolie: Getting caught for one.
Jerry: No, no, no. This isn’t about getting caught or being punished. I look at what we did as a kind of civil disobedience. Or maybe that was a mistake. Maybe I owe you an apology. I don’t know anything anymore. I just know that sometimes you need to break the rules in order to change them. And things will change because of this.
Paul: They’ll make the tests harder to steal.
Jerry: Yeah, probably…But they’ll also have to justify holding a competition that isn’t a real competition where the same yeam wins year after year. They’ll have to justify warehousing you while a chosen few get a quality education.[/b]
Of course those in power have always been particularly adept at rationalizing what they do not do for the poor and the working class.
Jolie [narrating]: People always ask me, “Having gone through everything you went through would you do it again?” And I always give the same answer. “In a heartbeat.” I learned more about the way the world really works from my nine months on the decathlon than most people will learn in a lifetime.