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Like Leslie I haven’t seen the movie and don’t plan to. Quite honestly, I rolled my eyes when I saw the trailer, thinking, ‘here we go again, another movie where a noble figure is introduced to an embittered inner-city school to save the poor savages who have been discarded from society.’ It seems like every few years, one of these movies pop up, like Dangerous Minds, Music From The Heart and Take the Lead which a teacher (in Take the Lead’s case, Antonio Banderas is a professional Ballroom dancer), who helps the children find their self-esteem, which apparently they never get from their friends or family.
Now, most of these movies are based on true-life events, but Hollywood’s decision to develop them into feature films is not because they really give a shit about the story, but it reinforces the belief by many that poor, minority students can only achieve aspirations when a bleeding-heart liberal sacrifices their upper / middle class trappings to help develop them into functioning individuals. And if students do not live up to society’s expectations after being ‘helped’ by a miracle teacher, then people can wash their hands and say, “see? We helped and they still failed. Not my problem.†People love to see that stuff, as it alleviates liberal white guilt and the stories are great for defending the assertion that people aren’t doing enough to help the indigents. And call me cynical, but I’m sure after the accolades that Michelle Pfeiffer received after Dangerous Minds caused many actors to consider similar roles as a way to get an Oscar nod.
I came across a post from the fabulous Nikki from Indigo Trails Of My Thoughts who, as a mentor to youth, has some interesting things to say:
Cuz the bottom line is that those movies ain't for me to see anyway. they're for all the folk out there suffering from guilt, for the folk who want something to make them feel better in the face of the socioeconomic inequality that many of them haven't had to experience first hand. those movies are for the folk who need that answer for the question of "what have white folk done for black and/or underserved folk" or to validate the ideals of a conservative government "cuz see, folk DO care and the citizens will take care of themselves. they don't need the government telling them to care!"
I didn’t grow up in the ‘ghetto’ or whatever popular catchphrase you want to call a neighborhood that is primarily populated by low-income people. I attended high school in the late 80’s in a middle-class suburb in Eastern Ontario, where students were considered poor if they lived in an apartment. As one of a handful of black students at the school, the teachers didn’t give a shit about any of us.
One of my black friends at school who was very ambitious and planning to attend college was told by her guidance counselor that despite her B+ average she should take a service job, “like working in a Cafeteria.†Despite the lack of support from the all-white faculty, all of my friends have gone on to have successful careers, primarily because of parental support and the unfortunate understanding garnered at a very young age that if they wanted to succeed, they would have to do it without the assistance of educators. And that is something that you will never see in a Hollywood film.
