Cameron Diaz plays a woman who is supposed to be the protagonist of Bad Teacher. Her goal in the film is to raise money for breast augmentation surgery. She has to resort to theft and extortion because the rich man she was going to marry realizes that she doesn’t love him. This set-up seems formulaic; a character with a major flaw learns the error of her ways through a series of misadventures. Bad Teacher’s writers throw a curveball, however.

We do not see the protagonist grow in any way. We see her embezzle money from a school fundraiser, tell a pre-teen that he won’t “get laid” until he turns twenty-nine because he often wears a sweatshirt given to him by his estranged father, and practically date rape a school official in order to force her class to cheat on a standardized test. She realizes Justin Timberlake is bad in bed and settles for Jason Segel. This is her entire character arc.

One teacher, Ms. Squirrel, loses her job, her boyfriend and suffers a nervous breakdown after Cameron Diaz plants drugs on her. There is no retribution for Ms. Squirrel. It seems as though the screenwriter expects the audience to feel that she deserves punishment for liking the book Eat, Pray, Love.

Beyond the nonexistent ethics of the script, Bad Teacher has a few funny moments. The aftertaste that the movie leaves is repulsive, however, and I would only recommend it for fans of slasher films.

This movie features the 2010s’ version of the anti-hero: the psychopathically inconsiderate protagonist. The film comes bundled with a trailer for the similarly titled Horrible Bosses, also a comedy, in which three men plot to have their bosses killed. After seeing Bad Teacher, I honestly wonder if they succeed. We should all stop and think about what movies like this imply about Hollywood’s perception of the American public.