![]() ![]() Gruwell draws a parallel between the students’ lives and the Holocaust. This deficit lens through which the students are depicted culminates in scene where a frustrated Ms. 164) like those depicted in Freedom Writers are “quickly constructed as problems - “at risk,” behavior problems, savages” (p. She adds that students seen as “needy and deficit” (p. They believe that the goodwill and energy they bring to the classroom will be rewarded by enthusiastic, appreciative students, who will comply with their requests and return the love they purport to give their students” (p. Ladson-Billings writes, “I regularly see prospective teachers who approach teaching with romantic notions about students. Gruwell during her jarring early encounters with her students, which mirror illustrations given by Ladson-Billings in “Yes, But How Do We Do It?” (in Ayers et al., 2008). The audience is meant to sympathize with Ms. Gruwell tries in vain to connect to her students through curriculum which tokenizes her students’ identities, like a lesson about internal rhyme in a Tupac song, while the students react harshly and dubiously. Gruwell, cast as protagonist, seems to want to combat the deficit lens of her students that other teachers and administrators take, the students’ behavior seems to justify it through routine fights, social segregation by race, and an utter disrespect for schools and teachers. The movie continues this image within Woodrow Wilson school. Throughout the movie, this stereotype is reinforced: nearly every scene depicted in the Long Beach community of the students involves either violence or drugs in the context of gangs. ![]() The scenes reinforce associations between urban minority cultures and criminal behavior described by Kitwana in “Race Wars” (in Ayers et al., 2008), as he explains how media coverage and pop culture serve to perpetuate stereotypes of black youth as members of street gangs, and eventually, of prison gangs. These opening scenes establish an immediate sense of turmoil inherent in the Long Beach community, serving to devalue the students’ communities and distance their identities from those of the viewer. We kill each other over race, pride, and respect. She continues, “We fight each other for territory. A student narrates, “If you’re Latino, or Asian, or Black you could get blasted any time you walk out your door,” as she and another student are unexpectedly chased then shot at while walking down the street. They are painted to be both victims of and participants in the devastating and seemingly senseless crime that pervades the town of Long Beach, and racial conflict becomes an immediate explanation for the unpredictable violence. Gruwell’s students are very much a part of this community. The community in which new-teacher Erin Gruwell’s classroom is situated is depicted as a “war-zone,” while “gang violence and racial tension reach an all time high” (read on screen). The movie opens with a scene of violence and chaos. In this paper, I will demonstrate how the deficit lens through which the students of Freedom Writers are portrayed to the audience and seen by their teacher, as well as the ironic motif of storytelling, both give way to an invalidation of student identity, supported by the culturally prominent “white savior” narrative theme. Much like the perspective taken by my own school towards the “less fortunate” that we would so often “help,” Freedom Writers depicts a group of minority students from Long Beach, California as needing the help of a caring, more fortunate teacher. Upon rewatching, however, I have swapped my lens of service for a lens of critique, utilizing course readings and experiences in my field placement as a groundwork for analysis. They needed our help, just as the students in Freedom Writers needed Erin Gruwell’s help.Īt the time, I wasn’t thinking critically about the content of Freedom Writers, nor about the implications of how it was shown to my class. Freedom Writers acted as an exemplar of charitable service as we were preparing to launch into our yearly coat drive for public elementary school students in our area. If there was one thing my school hoped that we would take out of our education, it was that there are people less fortunate than us, and we need to help them. At the time, we watched Freedom Writers through the lens of charitable service, a theme rampant in our dioceses’ curriculum. I was attending a Catholic school with a predominantly white student body regarding the honors-level English class in which I watched the movie, I remember only Irish and Italian Catholic students. I first watched the movie Freedom Writers in my seventh grade English class.
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