Elton Bates

Mr. Elton Bates is one of the antagonists of the 2003 movie Freaky Friday. He is Anna Coleman's sadistic teacher and a former schoolmate of her mother Tess. Personality

He seems to hold grudges for long periods of times as he was still upset about Tess Coleman rejecting him 20+ years ago. Even though Anna was innocent, he took his pain out on her as she was Tess's daughter not caring whether or not she did good on any of her assignments and failing her. He would even send her to detention for small reasons such as making a sly comment that he was bald behind his back.

Although he seems to be much lighter to his other students as he gave a B on a pop quiz to a student who gave a very poor answer.

According to Tess, when he was in High school he was weird.

History

Elton Bates attended Griffin High School with Tess Coleman. He had a crush on her and asked her to the prom but she turned him down. Starting a grudge that would last well into his adult years. He eventually became a English teacher.

Freaky Friday

When he becomes the English teacher of Tess's daughter Anna, Mr. Bates does anything he can to torment her. He gives her F's on all her work despite good quality, sends her to detention when she tries to ask about her grade, and get's on her back when she talks to her love-interest Jake. Anna talks about Bates treatment to her mother, but Tess (who is not aware that it is the same Bates she knew) doesn't believe that her English teacher is out to get her.

When Tess and Anna switch bodies, Tess attends Mr. Bates class as Anna and notices that he looks familiar. He gives the class a pop quiz and gives a student who gave a poor answer a B but "Anna" who gave a detailed analysis a F. When "Anna" confronts him he claims that her performance was poor and claims whats done is done. At that moment Tess realizes who Bates is and why he is so mean to Anna. Tess scolds him for tormenting an innocent high school girl over a petty grudge against her mom and tells him to let it go or she will inform the school board. She also reveals that the reason she said no to him was because she already had a boyfriend and he was weird. To which Bates gets a guilty reaction on his face.

What happened afterwards is unknown but is assumed that he stops being unfair to Anna afterwards.