Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “Lean On Me”

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The Truth vs. The Movie

When the movie finally hit theaters, people who knew the real story were disappointed to see that the film took several liberties with the impact Joe Clark actually had at the school. In the film, a significant amount of time is dedicated to showing how Clark helped improve test scores at Fair Eastside. But in reality, that was completely fictitious. Clark never improved test scores during his tenure. In fact the school was never even in jeopardy of being taken over by the state because of the district in which it’s located. And while a liberty that grand might have bothered a lot of people, Joe Clark didn’t seem to mind.

“It’s an industry. It’s a business. It’s entertainment. And the design of entertainment is to make people happy. There’s enough sadness in one’s life. Once in a while you must extract a reasonable facsimile of glee, as factitious as it may be.”