To think Miss Honey in Matilda is overly personal?

[JustAnInnocentQuestion]

I was watching Matilda recently (the better first one) and realised how overly personal Miss Honey is with Matilda. Firstly, she visits her parents at their home. Surely it would've been better to call them or invite them to see her at school? Later, she invites Matilda to her home. I know Matilda's parents don't care about her, but I wouldn't want a teacher to visit me at home without prior notice or take my child to their home.

You probably also don't want your child to have magic powers like Matilda.

But even most children recognise that it's just a story.

Yes- that bit where the teacher takes a personal interest in a neglected child is so far fetched and calls into question the integrity of the documentary makers.

😂😂

It's just a film with creative license to make it more enjoyable

if it happened in reality for one thing there’d be a damning Ofsted inspection and Miss Honey would probably be a person of concern in a safeguarding investigation for overstepping professional boundaries. Obviously just fiction though 😂

What were your thoughts on Miss Trunchbull out of interest?

It’s set in the US so teachers are held to different standards.
yes it would be a safeguarding concern but so would the parents leaving their 4 year old alone and a 6 year old not going to school.

I think there'd definitely be a lado referral about miss honey and she would be suspended for taking children home with her.
Fortunately it's just a story and you don't need to worry about it

The film is set in the US. The novel isn’t.

I'd be more concerned about miss trunchball to be honest 😆

The book was written in 1988. The lines of appropriateness was different then. I am roughly the same age as Matilda and it was not out of kilter - especially in a village.

And if anyone is worried about Miss Honey’s activities, how do they feel about a Headmistress swinging a child around by her plaits, locking children in a spike-encrusted cupboard, and sadistically forcefeeding a child cake in front of the whole school while he tries not to vomit it up?

I think Miss Honey would get struck off 😁 Taking a pupil to her house? Taking her to live with her without social services involvement?!

All these comments about Miss Trunchball are making me laugh 🤣🤣

Cause yeah, in this fictional tale, Miss Honey is really the biggest issue? 🙈

You also can't adopt a child willy nilly but yeah Miss Honey going to the house rather than inviting them to the school is the big problem with the story.

Yes, that’s the problem with what’s going on in that school for sure. Not the headmonster.

Ofsted would have a field day.

I saw the musical recently and yes, Miss Honey is a fucking safeguarding NIGHTMARE.

I mean obviously Miss Trunchbull is much worse, but she's clearly positioned as the villain, whereas Miss Honey is the saviour figure...

And not the Headmistress hammer-throwing a small girl over the wall of the playground because she doesn’t like her hairstyle???😀😀

Back in the 90s my sister’s teacher came to our house!

A much maligned woman, way ahead of her time.

Don't whatever you do read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She has girls from her class round at hers for tea on a Sunday. I can't remember what else she does but it did seem to be really abnormal!

Personally, I feel that Mr Twit should have been charged with attempted murder after the incident with Mrs Twit and the balloons.

I’m sure the book was set in the U.K. wasn’t it? So the point made above about American teachers is irrelevant. Miss Honey took Matilda to her home and visited her parents in the book.

She encourages them towards fascism, encourages one to go to fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil war, and tries to make another one have an affair with a married Catholic teacher (from what I can remember, the one she encourages doesn’t, but a different one does, and dumps him to convert to Catholicism and becomes a nun…?)

Brilliant novel!

It's a book written in the 80s and expectations have massively shifted. There were no DBS checks, for example and part of the reason a small number of teachers etc got away with abusing kids is because they were assumed to be the good guys. And there simply wasn't the scrutiny over their behaviour that there is now. Plus it's a book written by a man born in 1916 educated in the British public school system.

Add to that the fact that Matilda is sort of set in the real workd, but sort of set in a fairy tale world. I don't think you can fiddle the mileometer by attaching a drill to the car wheel like her father does.

I do get frustrated with clear illogical procedure in some fiction, but really not here. I think all that is a long way to say 'dramatic license is a great thing in storytelling'.