Friday Night Lights.
How about books? Prep, Catcher in the Rye…
What about Scent of a Woman? Not about prep school per se but the protagonist is a prep school kid.
^^^Production Note: The boarding school scenes in Scent of a Woman were filmed at Emma Willard in Troy NY. I’ve visited a few BS over the years, and EW hands down wins the “kinda sorta like Hogwarts” in terms of architecture contest. And yes, I’ve been to SPS, Groton, Taft etc. For any prospective BS girls, I’d put Emma on your list for sure.
Back to the topic at hand, I don’t know that I’d consider the portrayal of BS in Scent of a Woman all that positive.
The light stoney buildings at Emma Willard are beautiful and have EW winning the Hogwarts award by a nose.
Hey 7D!
School stories in general since the 60s usually portray negative aspects, e.g. Dead Poets Society on the prep side, Heathers on the public. I think you’d have to go way back to find a few films with completely positive takes on boarding schools - Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Happy Years.
As a known SAS booster, I have to say that I thought DPS had a fairly favorable/romantic view of prep schools…at least the friendships and bonds that get forged.
The overly controlling parent who insists that junior go to med school [insert HYP+S/M here] part? Well, hey, at least it’s realistic, right? Some things haven’t changed, it seems.
Also restless virgins the movie on netflix.
@Agincourt - But even outside of films, press has been largely negative towards boarding schools. I am sure that a public school girl has accused an upper classman of rape. But that story doesn’t make it to the front page of the New York Times.
@SevenDad – DPS starts out looking like positive press for boarding schools for all the reasons you mention. But the end is pretty bad with suicides and the like. BTW - Puck was told that he had to go to Harvard and then medical school. So it is consistent with parental pressure today.
DPS had a pretty dark story but I think Robin Williams character was inspiring. And truthful. I had more than one teacher like that myself and I think my kids dp. SAS looked gorgeous. That was my first intro to it and I still recall it.
The SPS story has everything the NYT craves - criminal sex, class conflict and tweaking the elites (whilst simultaneously obsessing over them of course). Rape in public schools is framed entirely differently in the major media. That would be an interesting story in itself.