My brain, and other frightened rodents.

[attackfish]

So I got an assignment to critique a certain movie and analyze what it says about teaching, and because I am who I am, I few into a little bit of a panic, you know, the "oh my God, oh my God, how do I do this?  I have no idea how to do this!" kind of thing.   And then I just gave myself a long look in the mirror and said to myself, "Honey, you're in fandom.  This is what you do."

And now it's done, so there.

Comments

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

My favorite satirical take on inspirational-teacher movies is Mad TV's "Nice White Lady" skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVF-nirSq5s

But there are good ones out there, even the ones that fall into the Nice White Lady trope. I liked Dead Poets Society and One Thousand Violins. I don't remember any with teachers of color or anyone the least bit non-WASPy, come to think of it.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

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.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember thinking while watching the Nice White Lady video, "This pretty much is Dangerous Minds." At least One Thousand Violins is a decent movie.

Ooh, I had no idea they made To Sir With Love with Sidney Poitier! It's going on my to-watch list. The dearth of cool black women teachers on the screen makes me haz a sad, since my favorite teacher when I went to school in the States was black.

I'm so sorry to hear about your experience with Dead Poets Society. D: I hate spoilers as much as the next guy, but couldn't he have just quietly excused you from the movie? I guess that might have required him to act like a human being and everything and was way too much trouble.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry it's taking so long to get back to you. I'm not ignoring you, I'm just in the middle of midterms, and am a little buried.

Sidney Poitier as a West Indian teacher who comes to a poor, mostly white London school to teach. It's very teacher movie-esque, but that makes sense, since it helped create the formula in the first place.

The cherry on the awful person cake was that he tried to give me detention for walking out of his class, and called me a baby who couldn't distinguish fiction from reality. He was a nasty piece of work in a lot of ways. This was just the worst example. He also had no sense of irony, having us watch DPS, since he was all about telling us to shut up and do as he says.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

Hey no worries. I just assumed that was as far as the thread went for you. Good luck with midterms--we're done with the semester now, I guess your system is different.

Oh wow, that's... a serious amount of douchebaggery. o_O He's like Snape without the redeeming characteristics.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I'm taking a summer semester. No summer break for me. *sad sigh*