This movie was very much the Nice White Lady trope, and at least to my eyes, was also a horrible movie. Given the teacher's notes that prompted us very strongly to look at the portrayal of race, I'm thinking/hoping that she wanted the shredding I gave it. The phrases "white savior," and "borders on unintended parody" were used. Not to mention fairly fairly lengthy descriptions of why the stereotypical portrayals of the students, and their success or failure being all about their white teacher were a problem. Dangerous Minds is really the quintessential Nice White Lady movie, and even aside from that, it just isn't a very good movie.
Anyway, I have to do this with two movies, and the other is To Sir with Love and that definitely has a non-WASP for a teacher, and aside from anything else, is as good an excuse as any to watch Sidney Poitier being his awesome, poised, incredibly good looking self. Actually, since there are a fair number of coaching movies on the list of choices, there are at least three with black men as the teachers, Which shows me how much more comfortable we are with black men as coaches than as teachers of academics.
I could have watched Dead Poets Society instead, but after my first exposure to it (my 9th grade Literature teacher had us scheduled to watch it, and nothing was going to interfere with that, not even a kid a year ahead of us, who happened to be a very close friend of mine, committing suicide by gunshot to the head two days before. He also didn't believe in spoilers for any reason, which meant that just after I finished explaining to the school councilor that no, I was not a suicide risk, and there was no pact, and that paper I had him sign earlier was a petition to not hold pep rallies during school hours, I went into class and without warning, got to see another kid kill himself with a gunshot to the head.) I am unable to watch it.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-06-17 12:59 pm (UTC)Anyway, I have to do this with two movies, and the other is To Sir with Love and that definitely has a non-WASP for a teacher, and aside from anything else, is as good an excuse as any to watch Sidney Poitier being his awesome, poised, incredibly good looking self. Actually, since there are a fair number of coaching movies on the list of choices, there are at least three with black men as the teachers, Which shows me how much more comfortable we are with black men as coaches than as teachers of academics.
I could have watched Dead Poets Society instead, but after my first exposure to it (my 9th grade Literature teacher had us scheduled to watch it, and nothing was going to interfere with that, not even a kid a year ahead of us, who happened to be a very close friend of mine, committing suicide by gunshot to the head two days before. He also didn't believe in spoilers for any reason, which meant that just after I finished explaining to the school councilor that no, I was not a suicide risk, and there was no pact, and that paper I had him sign earlier was a petition to not hold pep rallies during school hours, I went into class and without warning, got to see another kid kill himself with a gunshot to the head.) I am unable to watch it.