Another observation worth mentioning...

[phoenix_kevin]

It's interesting this comes up in the posts. My wife and I have 
talked about this scene and it is a very British moment. Corporal 
punishment happened alot in British schools, still does in some. My 
father-in-law who grew up in Britain noticed this scene in 
particular when he saw the film recently, he said it was very much 
typical in most schools. 

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, Karen <kchuplis at a...> wrote:
>
> 
> On Friday, January 27, 2006, at 09:09 PM, Sue Wartell wrote:
> >
> >
> > I loved the twins in this scene, but personally I
> > thought Snape's behavior was way out of line with his
> > character.  He can be mean and nasty, but he has
> > always been physically aloof, and having him wandering
> > around smacking kids just didn't fit my conception of
> > the character at all.  My impression of the character
> > as Rickman portrays him is that he avoids any form of
> > connection - including physical contact - with others.
> >  I haven't seen the movies nearly as often as many of
> > you, though, so that may be my bias from my reading of
> > the books coloring what I remember from the films.
> 
> I think that this was a particularly "British" scene. I have a 
feeling 
> that this might have been a typical scene in an older British 
school. 
> That was something I loved about the last two films but 
particularly 
> this one is that it had a very Etonian feel (or my impression of 
such 
> from reading British novesl anyway) about it. I've never felt that 
> Snape would connect in an affectionate way, but I certainly 
wouldn't 
> put this past him :D
>