Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), Dir. Justin Lin
Synopsis: Living in the suburbs is all too boring for a group of Asian-American high school students whose good grades and leadership has set them on the path toward a prestigious college and future. As they challenge the world around them through criminal activity, they begin to discover the thrill and danger of fighting against the norm and setting their own boundaries.
Analysis: In Better Luck Tomorrow we see the danger of having the model minority stereotype in our society and the extremes that some Asian-American students will go through to form an opposition to it. Through this film one can see that high expectations and standards are not always a good thing especially when it begins to dictate the lives of students as they are making their way through schooling.
The movie starts out with a survey of a cookie cutter suburb where the streets are silent and the houses are identical along the block. This kind of neighborhood reflects the Asian Americans featured in the film and how each of them felt that they had to excel and be the leaders in their school. Ben, the protagonist, begins the movie by practicing his new SAT word, punctilious, meaning “marked by or concerned about precise exact accordance with the details of codes or conventions.” This is very telling of him and his friends who are the model students in their schools with the good grades and the best college applications. For example Ben is employee of the month at his job each month and one of his friends is in a variety of leadership positions including editor of the newspaper.
In his study of a high school with Asian Americans such as Ben and his friends, Lee (1996) writes, “Of all the Asians at Academic High, Asian-identified students were most like the model minorities described by the media – quiet, respectful of authority, and hardworking” (p.31) . This model minority stereotype is the reality for many Asian American students including the ones depicted in the film. As one can see, outside spectators like the media construct these expectations but as a result these students feel that they either must conform or fight against these ideals.
In the film Steve remarks on how he wants to be like Ben and “break the cycle,” referring to the boy’s new criminal activity that distinguishes them from the respectful, law abiding Asian American “majority.” This cycle is the traditional path of an Asian American in society who does well in school and then goes to college to pursue a successful career in a field such as medicine. The boys in the film feel the need to “break this cycle” because they do not want their life to be so predetermined and to have their good grades be the only thing that defines them. In this way they form an “oppositional identity” that fights against what people expect of them and battles against the institution of their race.
Noguera (2006) writes, “Black students from all socioeconomic backgrounds develop “oppositional identities” that lead them to view schooling as a form of forced assimilation” (p. 52) . Though this film does not speak about African Americans, one can see how these Asian-American students were forming an identity that was against the norm, or oppositional, because they did want to follow the mold that was created for them. They began to do things like taking drugs and selling cheat sheets because it allowed them to fight back against the establishment and the rules that they felt they had to live by. They, like Noguera’s example of Blacks, see school as an institution that places them in a category with certain expectations involved which makes these students want to work against it.
As one can see this film allows us to see the danger of putting students in categories, even if the associations seem to be positive. Though it is a movie, one can argue that this film highlights the problems of Asian Americans in schools and how their conceptions of themselves can negatively impact their schooling experience and their lives.
- by Ryann & Stany
***
Chain Camera (2005), Dir. Kirby Dick
Synopsis: What happens when you give ten students cameras, tell them to film whatever they like over one week and then pass the cameras on to their friends for another week, continuing this “chain” for one whole year? This documentary answers just that, exposing the daily struggles facing teens at the 4,192-student Marshall High School in Los Angeles. Director Kirby Dick gives viewers a close look inside the private lives of sixteen of Marshall’s most dynamic individuals.
Analysis: This film, shot in 1999 but released on DVD in 2005, portrays issues confronting both urban and suburban teenagers—including sexuality, drug abuse, identity formation—in the best, most dramatic way possible: by letting teenagers document their own lives firsthand with no limitations. Director Kirby Dick puts it best in his interview found in the Special Features portion of the DVD, when he spoke of the feeling of empowerment given to these teens in the form of a video camera, since they felt they had previously been denied a voice or sense of inclusion in society. The sixteen students highlighted in this film use the cameras in a “confessional” sense, admitting hidden truths such as bulimia, homophobia, a lack of intimate experiences with the opposite sex, medical conditions in the family, low self-esteem, and other sensitive topics not usually expressed as openly.
One instance in the documentary that may be particularly disturbing to viewers is a discussion on racism held between Mena and two of her friends. Mena was born in Ethiopia and expresses anguish and frustration when others assume that she and her people run around naked and communicate using clicking noises. “That’s why I don’t like Mexicans,” she complains. When her Black friend asks if only Mexicans had made those comments to her, she answered that they were not all Mexican; in fact, just one of her Mexican schoolmates made this comment to her, while the rest were white, Asian, and Black. Despite this qualification, her friend continues to make insensitive comments about Mexican people: “You know how they [Mexicans] are,” he says, “They like to think that they’re white and better than everyone else.” It can be inferred that Mena and her friends tend to avoid interaction with members of other races, with the exception of the occasional exchange of such poorly-worded racial generalization.
These comments reflect the concerns expressed by Douglas Kellner of the pedagogical and controlling role that the media has on “dramatiz[ing] and legitimat[izing] the power of the forces that be,” and in showing youth “how to react to members of different social groups” (2003) Kellner refers to the ways in which “culture reproduces certain forms of racism, sexism and biases” against others and endorses a critical cultural studies approach to counteracting the false impositions by the media without any prior prejudices. Mena’s social group also demonstrates the effects of personal identity searching in adolescence on her choice of friends. As Beverly Tatum explains, Black youths think of themselves in terms of race “because that is how the rest of the world thinks of them (1997)” Mena’s case is just one example of how Chain Camera reveals the often hidden struggles facing teenagers in today’s world.
-by Edwin & Alison
***
Crazy/Beautiful (2001), Dir. John Stockwell
Synopsis: In Crazy/Beautiful, Kirsten Dunst plays the tortured and incredibly rich Nicole Oakley. The young woman falls in love with Carlos Nunez (Jay Hernandez) the “All-American” Mexican American. The two begin a whirlwind romantic relationship that challenges class and racial norms.
Analysis: Crazy/Beautiful is a movie that blurs the lines of what we have come to expect as racial identities in young adults. In the movie, Nicole Oakley is a rich, white teenager with a history of depression, drug abuse, and poor school habits. In contrast, Carlos Nunez is a Mexican American football player, without a track record, and with good grades and ambition to be a pilot.
In the film, Carlos is the real twist of the story. He comes from a poor home, with only a Spanish-speaking mother, and a brother who has made nothing of his life. Yet, Carlos attends a very nice school. He has white friends as well as other Chicano friends. He appears to be very well adjusted. Carlos seems to defy some of Pedro Noguera’s discussion on Fordham and Ogbu’s work of “oppositional identities.” Noguera writes, “According to these researchers, Black students who perform at high levels often are ostracized by their peers as traitors and ‘sell outs’ and are compelled to adopt a ‘raceless’ persona to avoid the stigma associated with membership in their racial groups” (Noguera 52), but Carlos’s Chicano friends only begin to ostracize and treat him differently once he begins dating “the white girl.” It seems as though for them, the school, the football, the grades, don’t make him any more white, but the girl does. At first, they are interested and intrigued by the relationship. They joke around with him, tell him how nice it is, but when the relationship starts eating away at the amount of time that they can spend with him, they begin to notice color. At one point in the movie after he has spent so much time with Nicole that his grades begin to fall and he talks back to his mother for the first time, his brother stands up and says to him, “you can be anything…and you’re going to throw it all away for that white girl.” It really seems as though he is saying that Carlos is starting to lose himself in order to attain acceptance from her. In essence he is trying to achieve whiteness. At no point in the movie did I ever feel as though Carlos was adopting a “raceless persona.” In fact, signs of his race were thrown at the audience repeatedly.
Another thing that I found interesting about the film was the way Carlos’s friends interacted with one another. It is true that he keeps his friends separate, for the most part, his white friends at school, his Chicano friends at home, but there is one scene where the two come together. The white friend sees Carlos and his Chicano friends eating together at a table comes by and tries to pretend that he’s “down.” He finally insults one of them by calling him a “g.” The interesting thing about this scene is that it doesn’t necessarily start in a way that is offensive. It is clear that the white friend is both ignorant and just trying to be friendly at first, but there are some things that he can’t understand. This ties in clearly with Beverly Tatum’s “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria.” Tatum’s answer to this appears to be: because no one else really understands them and I found this scene really emphasizes that. The white friend comes to the table because he sees Carlos as a friend, a fellow football player from school and wants extend himself in a friendly manner but there is this invisible barrier of disconnect. He can’t get in. He couldn’t sit at that table even if he truly wanted to because he doesn’t know how to get to the crux of who they are.
Crazy/Beautiful is a film that attempts to flip race issues on its head by examining relationships on the level of love, but it can’t really ignore the small levels of interactions at the lunch table or interactions between friends. It can only present a world where, for two lovers, race is nothing and for the rest of the world, it is everything.
- by Alana & Yaa
***
Freedom Writers (2007), Dir. Richard LaGravenese
Synopsis: “Their story and the one person who changed their lives…their future.” –— Pearl-wearing and idealistic, a young teacher faces the biggest challenge of her life when she steps into a classroom full of rowdy and tough inner city kids, raised on high gang violence and who only know broken family relationships. Battling a corrupted school system, teacher Erin Gruwell dedicates her life to these kids, making sure that they are rewarded for any positive change. Soon these once rowdy, disobedient kids learn that with the right attitude, they can make desired improvements to drastically change their lives.
Analysis: Although it is a mainstream, urban, domestic film, Freedom Writers stands out as a film that is crucial and central to the study of youth, race, and education in film. Similar to other films, such as Dangerous Minds and even, Blackboard Jungle, Freedom Writers touches upon several ideas, including the theme of “autonomous utilitarian individualism” in urban school films mentioned in Robert Bulman’s Hollywood Goes to High School and upon the idea of racial support systems in schools mentioned in Beverly Tatum’s Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. According to Bulman (2005), “utilitarian individualism is that strain of American individualism that celebrates hard work, materialism, and individual self-sufficiency. In the urban school films, middle-class teacher-heroes insist that their impoverished students become utilitarian individuals…” (p. 19). Freedom Writers is no different: a middle-class teacher hero is embodied by Hilary Swank as pearl-wearing and idealistic Erin Gruwell and the impoverished students are present in her rowdy class. This same idea of a “teacher-hero” is also visible in the aforementioned urban school films Dangerous Minds and Blackboard Jungle. This teacher-hero is often portrayed as the “light” for the students and tends to instill in her students’ minds and indirectly, in the viewers’ minds, that if they work hard in school, and set high goals for themselves, they may be able to take full responsibility for escaping the culture of poverty and gang-violence (Bulman, 2005, p. 19). This idea is problematic because it often fails to take into consideration other unavoidable factors in the lives of these youths. Living in inner cities is not easy and if impoverished minority students attempt to embody this utilitarian individualism mentality, then they risk losing their racial support systems within their community and in their respective schools. These support systems often tend to understand the struggles of same-race individuals and provides for a way for these individuals to discuss race issues concerning them in safe environment. This ties back to Tatum’s reading as she explains that white people often do not understand the struggles of, for example, a Black or Latino person and tend to dismiss any racial concerns of their minority peers and thus, the minority tends to seek the “black table” or same-race groups for support (Tatum, 1997, p. 59). In accordance with this idea, Eva, a Mexican-American female student in the film boldly states to her white teacher that she hates white people because she cannot comprehend the idea of a white person being supportive to her needs or not over-exercising their authority for their own selfish benefits. Eva sits with her Mexican-American friends in one specific corner of the classroom and the other racial groups do the same. The white teacher-hero, not-understanding, in essence, the negative implications of disrupting these “borders,” does it anyway and only succeeds in aggravating the racial tension in her classroom. In an idealistic way, this conflict is only remedied by impractical schooling methods in this film and most urban school films. It is important to recognize that this film only proves the ineffectiveness of portraying urban youths as “good” if they embody the utilitarian individualism mentality and of trying to integrate them with other non-understanding racial groups in every aspect of their social and academic lives.
-by Karen & Laura
***
Girl Trouble (2006), Dirs. Lexi Leban and Lidia Szajko
Synopsis: Waking up every morning not knowing if you might be in jail by the end of the day is a terrifying way to live. For Shangra, Stephanie, and Sheila it is a part of their daily routine. This film profiles three girls who are entangled in San Francisco’s juvenile justice system. For four years, this film follows each girl as well as Lateefa, a young visionary attempting to guide these girls in the right direction.
Analysis: For a fourteen year old selling drugs to try and care for herself and her homeless mother, a 16 year old teenage mother who has a warrant out for her arrest, and for a 17 year old addicted to drugs, reaching “rock bottom” does not just happen once. Instead, over a period of four years, it seems that these girls find themselves in hopeless situations more often than not. Their encounters with institutions like schools and the juvenile justice system have not served the purposes of educating and rehabilitating these three youth. Instead, they are all drop-outs who are caught in cycles of re-offending.
This film offers insight into the lives of four young women living in the poorest areas of the Bay Area. In his research on the disparity within Bay Area cities, Noguerra (2003) shares his observations of how people in positions of authority treat members of lower economic classes. His example of the attitudes of school officials toward their poorer constituents shows the types of similar attitudes many of the authority figures in this film express toward the three girls in the juvenile justice system. For Shangra, her public defender is very confrontational when addressing Shangra’s poor decisions. Instead of taking the approach of trying to understand the lack of judgment by a 14-year old staying on the streets with her mother and getting caught selling drugs, her lawyer laughs at Shangra when she confesses to returning to where she stashed her drugs when escaping an arrest. This lack of understanding coming from the person who is her only means of staying out of jail, places Shangra in a situation where she feels even more hopeless and abandoned by the “system”.
A similar situation occurs with Sheila when she meets with her lawyer to discuss her options after accidentally shooting her brother while they were both under the influence of drugs and alcohol. When she proposes the option of a drug treatment program her lawyer completely dismisses her with his response: “you’ve had every chance in the world and you continue screwing up.” Instead of recognizing her legitimate plea for help with an existing drug problem, he reprimands her for her actions for which she is already visibly remorseful. In Stephanie’s experience, she periodically meets with her public defender and is always confronted with only one option, turning herself in. While this may have been her only legal option with a warrant out for her arrest, her lawyer’s approach was less than understanding and sympathetic toward Stephanie’s priorities as a teenage mother. For all three of these girls, their interactions with the people in positions of power were frustrating experiences that only served as setbacks.
In his analysis of Hollywood’s depictions of urban schools, Bulman(2005)points out the bias embedded in films that use a middle-class individualism perspective. And while there is control of how these lawyers are portrayed by the filmmakers, it is still noteworthy that the lawyers and other people in roles of power are approaching these youth with a middle class individualism perspective. This only serves to alienate the young girls and further complicate their journeys. In his book, Noguera(2003) explains how parents in poor urban areas depend on schools to keep their children safe. Unfortunately, these three girls fall into the group of young people who have not had schools serve that role and now they are in need of another institution to serve as a safe haven.
- by Sera & Esther
***
George Washington (2000)
Synopsis: George Washington is a touching and lyrical portrait of the pain of growing up, of the complexities of friendship, of life in a run-down, rural North Carolina town, of first love, and of desperately wanting to be a hero. After eccentric and introspective George and his friends witness the accidental death of their companion Buddy, at their own hands, they must come to terms with their responsibility, the challenges of adulthood, and the limitations of their small town existence.
Analysis: From the very first scene of David Gordon Green’s George Washington, we know that this is not your typical coming of age film. It opens with a close, long shot of Nasia and Buddy in the process of breaking up. “Can I tell you I’m sorry,” he asks her. “Do you even love me?” she asks. He rubs his head and looks mournful through his thick glasses. She tells him he acts like he’s an eight-year-old, and she’s looking for a more mature man. He reminds her, and perhaps us as well, that they’re both 12. This scene is handled with such sensitivity and intimacy, refusing to pander or mock these young people with big emotions. The film continually dives into the complex emotional landscape of children on the brink of adolescence and the weight of feeling love, heartbreak, and tragedy for the first time. However, it seems to perpetually divert from the issues of racial identities, which seem to bubble underneath the surface.
From the heartbreak of Nasia and Buddy comes a long sequence with poetic and sweeping voiceover by Nasia about their economically depressed, North Carolina town. As Green’s camera sweeps over the rusty factories grown over with vibrant green vines, and a racially mixed group of labors hammering on an old train car in slow motion, one feels the sense of this place as haunted with a long history of social trauma. Nasia’s narration explains that: “The grownups in our town never had a chance to be kids.” Immediately, we think of tropes of other films about the South, the uncomfortable dynamics of racial tensions and a legacy of segregation and violence. However, the film defies our expectations and explicitly mentions race only once, and merely in a passing, inconsequential reference. We are somehow taken aback that in the racially mixed group of friends, no questions of racial identities emerge. It is striking that wiry, stoic Sonja, a white girl, can stand alongside lumbering, garrulous Vernon, an African-American boy, as partners. But in Green’s sensitive and honest telling of their story, it feels true. Perhaps, the message is that the innocent world these friends inhabit, is one free of racial tension. Or perhaps, that identifier is not yet a salient identifier, but we are to feel its presence waiting for them as they get older (Tatum 54).
In some ways, one has to read race into this story, it feels like it is a conflict broiling underneath the surface of Green’s tranquil film about childhood friendships. It is most apparent in the dreams of its sensitive, and introspective protagonist, George, a young African American boy. At the start of the film, Nasia informs the audience that George hopes to be president of the United States, and throughout we see a portrait of President George H. Bush on the wall of George’s bedroom. The juxtaposition of Bush’s portrait with the poverty of George’s life, serves as a stark reminder of the facts of our society, that George’s dreams are simply dreams. It seems entirely unlikely that George will be the hero he hopes to one day be.
However, the film does not suggest that his quirky individualism and far-fetched dreams are useless, and in this way counters the trend that Bulman points to about the promotion of a more “utilitarian individualism” in regards to urban students of color. It seems to celebrate his uniqueness in the final moments of the film, a possible dream sequence, in which a film crew interviews George, as if he were already president.
- by Dan & Jessie
***
High School Musical (2006), Dir. Kenny Ortega
Synopsis: “Breaking the status quo.” When the star basketball player and the star academic decathlon girl secretly decide to audition for East High’s annual musical, they are faced with obstacles from friends and family. Together, Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez must work hard to prove true to themselves and prove to their peers that although trying something new may be scary, and although they may seem like they are complete opposites, the best option is to always follow your heart.
Analysis: In contrast to previous movies watched and analyzed in the study of Youth, Schools, and Race in Film, High School Musical is set in a suburban, predominantly white population. This being the case, and because it is a Disney movie aimed towards a younger crowd, the central conflict of the plot line is substantially “milder” than those movies set in urban neighborhoods. As was discussed in class and as Bulman mentions in Hollywood Goes to High School, mainstream suburban high school films tend to be centered around problems such as following your heart or not being allowed to do something you truly love, or relationship problems, in contrast to urban films, where students’s conflicts are those of self versus institution, race, society, and economic status (they don’t have the choice of “following their heart;” they’re simply trying to be motivated to make it through high school). High School Musical is no exception to this concept. The main conflict for the protagonists is the fear of being accepted by their peers, which brings us to a more recent trend studied- that of social cliques and how they are portrayed in films. High School Musical’s foundation is that of exploring how social cliques potentially divide in the high school setting, and trying to break away from that. HSM revolves around the stereotypical cliques in high school- the popular jocks, the ditzy cheerleaders, the smart kids, the overdramatic theater geeks, the stoner skaters- and how outrageous it is to mix groups, or “break the status quo.” Disney effectively stereotypes these groups by having, for example, most of the cheerleaders be Caucasian females always dressed in their cheerleader outfits, and constantly talking about boys and saying “Like, oh my god!” In fact, there is one scene where Gabriella’s smart African-American friend passes by a group of cheerleaders, turns to Gabriella, makes sure she is watching how to grab their attention, begins twirling her hair, changes her voice to a high pitched tone (a “white” voice) and tells the cheerleaders, “Like, oh my god, isn’t Troy Bolton the cutest?!” Gabriella and Troy, though, serve as the storyline’s “ideal” taboo duo when they obviously show interest in each other. Disney pushes the limits even further when they both publicly show their hidden talent- singing and theater- against the will of those closest to them. Clearly, they are crossing those boundaries that had been marked for so long by their own peers. This visits the topic of having hidden identities that most people are unwilling to share because of fear of negative judgment. Although Disney tried to do away with many of its own stereotypes of being an undercover racist media source, there were still traces of racial stereotypes and under-representation during the musical. Gabriella Montez, for example, was portrayed as a very soft-spoken, virginal, smart Latina, while the star of the basketball team, Troy, was the son of the Caucasian coach, and his “sidekick” was the loud African-American who thought only about basketball and his team. The most obvious area of skepticism was how unevenly racially distributed East High was, at least in the leading roles. The Caucasian students, as usual, outnumbered all others, and although viewers saw a couple of African Americans taking lead roles and a Latina (surprisingly), there was no trace of Asians, aside from the Asian principal of East High. This demonstrates how long of a way to go film and television must go to clearly adapt to the changing demographics and roles of race in urban neighborhoods, as well as suburban neighborhoods.
-by Jessica & Pilar
***
Kelly Loves Tony (1998), Dir. Spencer Nakasako
Synopsis: With a video camera in hand, Kelley Saeteurn and Tony Saelio themselves capture first hand their difficult and emotional journey through everyday life in urban Oakland, California. Kelly is a straight-A, high school graduate aspiring to go to college; Tony is a high school drop out whose previous runs with the law spark a pending deportation trial. This video diary depicts the struggles of this young Mien couple as they navigate through the challenges of parenthood, family obligations, gender roles, educational opportunities, and culture.
Analysis: Kelly and Tony’s gripping and raw narrative dramatically shatters many traditional portrayals of youth and education, namely the problematic model minority stereotype of Asian Americans. Kelly was born in a Thai refugee camp as her family escaped from Laos before eventually settling in Richmond, California. Tony, whose family is also Mien like Kelly, has a “bad” reputation: a high school drop-out and gang member, who, “when not fighting…[is] out stealing to make money” and spends a good part of his youth in jail. Rather than confirming the stereotypical image of economically and academically successful, hard working Asian Americans, Kelly and Tony affirm the immense diversity in experience, background, and opportunity among the Asian American community. Instead, they seem to resemble what Stacy Lee (1996) coins as the “new wavers,” described as the “antithesis of the Asian model minority” and “a culture of resistance” (p. 35) . Tony seems to be the epitome of a “new waver” – from a poor, working class family and complete rejection of the “nerd image” with his life of crime. Although Kelly is also from this socioeconomic and ethnic background as well, she, however, recognizes the value of education as a pathway to a “better life” for her family and does eventually graduate. As the same time, she still does not fit the image of the “model minority” because of her socioeconomic background and life circumstances – she exists in an interesting and uncertain place on this spectrum. Despite her value of education, however, she still faces tremendous obstacles in attaining the college degree she desires, shattering yet another belief that the “American dream” is achievable and accessible by all, including immigrant youth.
Interwoven with these issue of racial identity development and academic achievement is another issue that Kelly, being a women, that serves as a tremendous barrier to her educational goals: traditional gender roles in both Mien and American society. Kelly’s struggles epitomize what Lopez (2003) describes as the overlapping, intersection and fusion of race and gender: “race is gendered and gender is racialized” (p. 20) . Kelly recognizes that she needs to get her degree before it’s too late, but she frustratingly confesses that no one seems to understand this goal of hers not only because of the generational gap between herself and elders in her culture, but also because the high priority of her role as a mother and soon to be daughter-in-law over her personal goal of education. She describes that in Mien culture, her family “gives her away” to Tony’s family, who is responsible for the wedding and with whom the new bride lives. She must balance going to school while cooking, cleaning, and doing house chores to “prove” to Tony’s family that she is a good daughter-in-law. Near the end of their narrative, she becomes pregnant again with her second child. She chooses to stop school and do what is expected of her – focus on having the baby. In a heartbreaking monologue, she expresses the immense regret she has and the difficult future ahead. “You can’t change the past, but your can try to change the future,” Kelly often says. This mantra, however, only affirms the immense challenges that Asian American immigrants face in navigating through a society that denies their struggle.
- by Michael & Diana
***
Mad Max 3: Beyond the Thunderdome (1985), Dirs. George Miller and George Ogilvie
Synopsis: Mad Max is back in this final installment of Mel Gibson’s action-packed, post-apocalyptic Road Warrior trilogy! In an attempt to recapture his car in the deserts of post-nuclear war Australia, Mad Max ventures to the hive of scum and villainy known as “Bartertown,” ruled by the evil Aunty Entity (Tina Turner). After barely surviving a one-on-one deathmatch with the giant Master Blaster, Max joins forces with a savage tribe of orphans to save the day!
Analysis: “Thunderdome” is not a movie that directly deals with youth, schools, and race, but the same analytical lens can be applied to the film. From the very beginning of the movie, Max can be understood fundamentally as an authoritative teacher figure of whiteness standing in a sea of nonwhite savagery. When Max enters Bartertown, we are exposed to a “horrific” vision of a post-apocalyptic trade post in a formerly modern Australia, appealing to the right-wing white anxiety of growing American diversity. The people of Bartertown wear various forms of tribal gear of many non-European cultures: masks, skulls, tattoos, coolie hats, etc., and the entire navigation of the market space is reminiscent of the imagery perpetuated of Arab and Moroccan traders. What’s more, Bartertown is ruled by the dominatrix figure of Tina Turner’s Entity, a manipulative black woman whose selfhood is very clearly masculine and Amazonian. Mel Gibson’s Max is the protagonist of Western sanity who exhibits not just mental superiority to the Bartertown people, but physical superiority, able to outfight scores of these people with speed and wit. He represents Giroux’s (2002) “angry white man,” (p. 137) a beacon of Western hope in a nightmarish future dominated by non-European savagery and incompetence.
What is particularly fascinating, however, is Max’s interaction with the tribe of children, who rescue Max from the desert after his ostracism from Bartertown, and take him to a rare, water-rich sanctuary. The battle-ready children are clearly a reference to Peter Pan’s Lost Boys, having constructed their own myths and legends from bits and pieces of first world artifacts and culture (e.g. they call an old picture of Sydney “Tomorrowmorrowland”). When they discover Max, they believe that he is their messiah, an airline pilot they have called Captain Walker, and that he can take them home. Max, at first, rejects this role, insisting, the children should say in the sanctuary, explaining that the world outside is ruled by warlords and thugs like Aunty Entity. One of the child leaders decides to leave for Tomorrowmorrowland, and Max is forced to make a show of strength, shooting his gun just over her shoulder, and eventually tying her up. Eventually a cadre of children run off into the desert to seek Tomorrowmorrowland themselves, only to be swallowed by quicksand; Max rescues them just in time.
The children, intriguingly, are an all-white group but dressed entirely in “tribal” gear of some kind, no doubt reminiscent of the Australian aboriginal cultures. Max eventually does come to care about them, and in order for them to succeed to find their promised land, they must listen to what he says; failure to obey his wisdom results in their possible death. Again, Max is much like the urban school teacher as described in Bulman’s (2005, p. 51) model, representing the middle class virtue of reason. But these children, as savage child-soldiers, also represent a certain anxiety about children losing their own childhood; in this post-apocalyptic world, these all-white kids become savages. This is the danger with the absence of reason—the indigenization of those who should be innocent. There is a moment in the film when two children discover a dusty phonograph and listen to it for the first time after Max turns it on, and it plays a French language lesson, with the children listening in awestruck wonder. The West, it appears, offers the realm of civilization and safety, the realm where children can become children again. Through all of its metaphorical encoding, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome not only entertains, but reinforces white middle class supremacy.
- by Takeo & Ikira
***
National Collegiate Debate Championship (2004), Produced by College Sports TV
Synopsis: While their friends are enjoying Spring Break, the America’s top 78 college debate teams converge at the National Collegiate Debate Championship in a grueling four-day battle to claim the national championship title. The world of elite debate, with its 400 words-per-minute speeches and 70-pound tubs of evidence, is as intense as any on-field sport. Along the way, glaring race and class differences became apparent as Louiseville’s Black debaters radically argue for an inclusion of personal experiences deep into the tournament.
Analysis: The documentary 2004 National Collegiate Debate Championship follows the most highly anticipated debate tournament of the year, the tournament that teams have fought all season long to earn a spot to compete in. According to the film, most of the elite debate community is white and privileged. In this 58 year-old tournament, the limited speech time has pushed the rate of speaking – 400 words-per-minute – to the point that the untrained ear cannot process, which serves as an additional barrier to participation for debaters who did not have the opportunity to compete with their high schools. One team, however, decides to break away from the norm in an effort to make the debate community more inclusive and aware of alternative experiences. Louiseville is the unranked underdog in the blood bath that is the National Debate Tournament.
With two black female debaters using rap music as evidence and personal experiences as persuasion, Louiseville seems to be playing “a completely different game.” Their introduction of personal experiences as arguments is an explicit challenge to the dominant notion in the debate world that evidence has to be introduced in a certain way and only certain sources constitute legitimate evidence. They further argue that debate as an institution has become exclusionary and its great inertia for the status quo is preventing the activity from diversifying. In fact, their style and approach of using personal experiences, having grown up around poverty and crime, are also criticized by scholars such as Shelby Steele and John McWhorter, who argue that “African Americans suffer from a culture of ‘victimology,’” which emanates from “a lethal combination of this inherited inferiority complex with the privilege of dressing down the former oppressor” (Noguera, 2003, p. 42). Instead of portraying themselves as victims, Louiseville’s debaters have asserted their right to compete in the same forum with an alternative and more personally and socially relevant style.
In the course of their Cinderella run, the Louiseville debaters developed a unique identity that embodies both the oppositional stance and emissary outlook that Tatum (1997) describes (p. 61-64). Tatum talks about the “in your face quality” that oppositional identities can take on, which others may perceive as “threatening” (p. 62). In the same way, the Louiseville debaters develop an oppositional identity to the dominant way of debate. At the same time, the two female debaters also become emissaries, plowing through top teams to a stunning finish in the quarterfinals and arguing for increased inclusion of the minority community that is often excluded from this prestigious tournament. Rather than becoming raceless, they instead present their race and the experiences that come with having their skin color in an overt fashion that asks the judges and opponent to rethink the way they conduct debate. In response, the top seeded team in the country slows down their speech to engage in a dialogue that is still bound by the time constraints and speech order of policy debate. Ultimately, Louiseville is knocked out of the tournament, but the fact that they advanced to the elite eight shows that they have made their mark on a community that has the potential to change.
- by Henry & Rachel
***
Thirteen (2003), Dir. Catherine Hardwicke
Synopsis: Sex, Lies, Drugs, Crime- How far will Tracy go to be popular like queen bee Evie? This dark coming of age tale follows thirteen year old Tracy on her quest for acceptance. Tracy’s mother watches in horror as her little girl spins out of control.
Analysis: In this film, Tracy redefines what it means to be White in an urban, working class context. She violates the white privilege stereotype by changing her straightlaced image to be more like the popular (presumably Latina) girl at school, Evie Zamora. The audience first senses Tracy’s discomfort with her racial identity in the scene at the beginning of the movie where Tracy walks through a sea of students of color and they mock her, calling her “puta” (meaning slut) and “bitch.” The camera then follows Tracy’s gaze to a group of popular girls, including Evie, who are dressed provocatively in tight jeans and shirts that bare their midriffs. This triggers Tracy’s transformation; she morphs from sensitive poet to lascivious Lolita in a matter of days by changing her clothes and stealing a wallet. The film documents Tracy’s physical and emotional modifications on her path to be accepted, popular, and identical to Evie. These changes dismantle her conventional whiteness and essentially make her more like a stereotypical hypersexualized female of color.
Tracy’s violation of her expected racial performance raises some interesting questions about interpretation. Should the audience deduce that exposing nice, wholesome white girls to out of control Latina girls in an urban atmosphere automatically corrupts them or should they infer that there are aspects of Tracy’s racial, social, and personal identity that go against traditional renderings of whiteness? I would argue the later. Tracy’s socioeconomic background and home situation set her apart from “hegemonic narratives of ‘white’ middle class ‘normal’ youths (Lopez, 2003, p.24) .” Her parents are divorced, her mother is a low income, recovering alcoholic dating a recovering junkie, and the film implies that neither parent went to college. Tracy’s experience exposes the rarely explored realm of whiteness without privilege.
The lack of discourse in this area complicates Tracy’s identity formation, as well as how her actions are perceived by the audience. Tracy’s whiteness is not, “a signifier of middle class resistance to… integration,” (p. 136) as Giroux (2002) suggests but rather vulnerability towards peer pressure and risky behavior typical of most teens in inner city, majority minority schools. Her struggle is an overall comment on a youth culture that is becoming increasingly focused on growing up. The film demonstrates the influence that material objects and advertising exert on teenagers with close ups of fashion boutiques and billboards that dot Melrose and Sunset boulevards. Pressure to be cool, hip, and popular interferes with achievement and schooling. This phenomenon often transcends racial boundaries and can have dire effects on all students as they transition from childhood to adolescence.
Thirteen raises the critically important issue of reevaluating whiteness as resistance and possibility (Giroux, 2002, p.165). Had Tracy’s parents, teachers, and administrators anticipated the prospect of teenage rebellion typical of students of color as something that could affect a seemingly “normal” white girl, she might have been spared her ordeal.
-by Jessica & Jarreau
