“Freedom Writers“
A reaction paper By M. Test
Since my genuine reaction to this movie cannot be fully expressed by simply and directly answering the questions on the syllabus description, I am going to divide this paper into the three segments that were outlined on it and provide a paragraph to articulate my thoughts for each category.
1. My Personal Reaction
The moment I saw the “MTV STUDIOS” logo in the opening credits, I knew what I was in for given the subject matter of the film (integration in the modern day education system). I knew exactly what to expect; another melodramatic heap of dung with the common egalitarian message that all people. are exactly the same, and that their “uniqueness” comes from the color of their skin and their cultural background; not from their actual character.
I could not stand the way that the movie generalized all the different races of students to fit the social idiosyncrasies of their respective ethnic groups. For example all the black kids came from “the hood”, all the Latino kids (all Mexican if I remember correctly) reflect an unusually deep intimacy with family. The one Asian student who gave an account of her life experience had been put in a refugee camp. The only two white people in the school who weren‘t antagonists ( Hillary Swank and the white kid) could not curb their enthusiasm around their more “with it” classmates, and simply could not help themselves from being lame and making awkward comments. “ LETS PARTAAAAAAAY HAW HAW”.
2. Relevance
The only relevance this movie has is that it probably made masses of people feel good after watching it. However, I don’t see how it could have a profound or life changing impact on real life inner city youths who find themselves faced with the circumstances of the students in the film. I found it unrealistic how the lives of the entire class changed overnight because of one teacher.
In real life all of the outside negative cultural influences always hold stronger than the influence of some do-gooder who wants to change them and make the world a better place.
This movie did not contribute at all to my already founded understanding of what it means to be successful, although it did give an example of a basic rule of success. For anyone to be successful, they need to be positive and functioning people with faith in themselves and a bright outlook for their own futures.
3. Responsibility
The only virtue of responsibility that this movie has is that it gives an idea of the circumstances most inner city youth have to deal with. It portrays real problems that have to be faced by real kids every day and it is good that the movie points this out for us to be socially aware of. However it is absolutely powerless in making any difference to change people and change the circumstances that exist.
It is a simple-minded movie made for simple-minded people.
People in general are ignorant regardless of race, class or social standing . The type of person this movie portrayed in its entirety are common IGNORANT people. The same people who were ignorant in the beginning of the movie, end up being equally ignorant in the end. Now instead of hating each other based on their differences, they “love” each other based on their lowest common denominators.
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