MovieChat Forums > The White Shadow (1978) Discussion > [ potentially ] valuable life lesson by ...

[ potentially ] valuable life lesson by ' sybil banning ' / joan pringle

posted 19 years ago by w112th
3 replies | jump to latest

per recollection, the sybil banning character counseled a student struggling with the inequities of prejudice as follows:

' in life, there are four groups of people :

those who like for the right reasons,
those who like you for the wrong reasons,
those who dislike you for the right reasons, and
those who dislike you for the wrong reasons.

of these four, there are only two groups to be concerned about :

those who like you for the right reasons &
those who dislike you for the right reasons '

[–] librachashjesu 19 years ago

BTW, Sybil's last name was 'Buchanan'.

[–] sweet1310452 19 years ago

I remember that episode, One of the Boys, about the student who was teased because they thought he was homosexual. Very good treatment of the subject matter. What I liked about it was that the boy was not necessarily "gay", just unsure of himself. The stereotypical thinking of his peers (and his own family) were what was creating the conflict more so than anything that he had done. Room 222 had a similar plot in 1972. The issue here was more that of narrowmindedness on the part of others than the young man being gay or queer.

I noticed that the guy was blond and of course white Anglo. I wonder how a plot like this would play out on a show in 2006 with a non-white student who is questioning his sexuality?

[–] jpm4444 19 years ago

During the show, they dealt with prejudice (they were'nt allowed to eat at a private golf club), they had suicides and deaths from drugs (remember the girl that jumped from the top of a school building while high), VD, death, gambling, etc....

This was one of my favorite shows.

Ellen Corby, grandma of the Waltons once said that every show needed that one stern hard ass character to even everything out. She changed her character and the show went with it. Sybil did the same thing. She was sure of herself, stern, and very straight forward. Great role.