#gotta love how all of these were done with varying degrees of effort based on how much time/energy i had lmao

[retros-artandstuff]

eyebrow twins

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Dangerous Minds

Those of my readers who haven’t known me long may not know that I was once a corps member of Teach for America. I taught 10th and 11th grade English for about 5 weeks, then I was told on a Friday about my “involuntary transfer” to another school in the district, where I’d be teaching 7th and 8th grade English instead. I went from having about 110 students to about 190. My classroom had no books (textbook or otherwise), no pencils, no paper, no markers or chalk, but it DID have one of those folding lamps that come out of the ceiling at the dentist’s office. The kids had been in there for 5 weeks with a rotating roster of subs; they’d done no schoolwork of any kind. I was teaching in a very poor area of the city, and my students were predominantly Black and Hispanic. One of my 10th graders wrote his first personal essay about getting shot the previous year. I say all this to tell you that when Chad asked that I review Dangerous Minds, the 1995 adaptation starring Michelle Pfeiffer of the true story of Louanne Johnson’s experience teaching in inner city schools in California, I was prepared to laugh it off as a cringey, Lifetime-movie representation of my experience. Is that what I got? Well...

For the most part, what I got was a ball of anxiety in my chest. It’s well-worn territory, obviously. A teacher bonds with their students from the wrong side of the tracks, and ends up learning just as much from them as they learn from him/her. Usually poetry or music features heavily as a tool that can set the students free from the depressing circumstances of their lives. Depending on the rating, usually a student dies, and the teacher learns just how Important their job is, so they commit to it even harder even though it pays no money and garners no respect from the administration who just doesn’t “get it.” But these cliches and stereotypes and broad strokes exist because at their core, they’re true, and they make me anxious and uncomfortable and I can’t laugh at them or Michelle Pfeiffer being a Nice White Lady because I’m too busy being angry about the systems we put in place that straight up abandon so many kids, all in the name of white supremacy.

Some thoughts:

Oh we’re starting right off the BAT with “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Fantastic news. Two things I associate so strongly with this song is skating around the skating rink in 2nd grade and buying the Weird Al cassingle of “Amish Paradise” and wearing it out. 

Ooh, the score was composed and performed by Wendy & Lisa! Love that, you don’t see nearly as many film scores as you should composed by women.

God, the salary is $24,700 a year and Louanne acts as though that is appealing - I can’t tell if that’s because it was 1995 or because teacher salaries are so dismally low that this feels like a good salary?

This scene in which Louanne goes into her classroom for the first time and the kids are all shouting at her and getting in her face and sexually harassing her and throwing paper balls at her is giving me stress hives. 

Also her friend Griffith (George Dzundza) saying, “You wanna teach, so teach! All you gotta do is get their attention” is rather disingenuous. Trust me, you can have their attention, and still not be able to teach. 

I’m excited to see Sally-Can’t-Dance from Con Air as Raul (Renoly Santiago). He’s honestly fantastic in this, with a tough exterior but a sensitive and gooey inner sweet boy. All of the teens give pretty solid performances, but he’s a real standout.

I recognize this is based on a true story and Louanne Johnson’s lived experience, but I am not sure it’s wise for any teacher, regardless of grade or subject, to be teaching her students how to fight each other. Or taking them to dinner on what looks to outsiders like a date. I know some people have a problem with the bribery (giving her students candy for speaking up in class) but I have no problem with it - you get paid to do all the dumb stuff you don’t want to do at work, why shouldn’t kids be compensated for going to school if they don’t want to be there? External motivation goes a long way to building up internal motivation.

Mm I do love me some Courtney B. Vance, but he’s such a quiet, condescending ass in this. It’s a different vibe than I’m used to seeing in a principal in a movie like this. 

Ooh, Griffith grading papers and saying “What a fuckin’ idiot” is a real mood. 

“Since when has the Board of Education done anything for us? We barely get fuckin lunch” is legit. The lunches my students were served in summer school were some of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen. One day it was spoiled milk, white bread, and pickles. And one of my students put his in a microwave that was hidden in the back of my classroom behind some dividers and left it for a week. And just so you know, as stomach-churningly awful as that sounds, the day I found “pickle man” as my student called him, isn’t even in my top 5 worst days teaching list. 

I like Griffith, and I’m glad Louanne has a friend, but frankly I’m not that interested in these interludes between them - they really feel like they slow down the momentum from the scenes of her in the classroom slowly earning the kids’ trust. The pacing is kind of a mess, because the most dynamic sections all revolve around the kids in the classroom, and I feel like that only makes up about a third of the movie. 

One thing I know for sure is you do not get in the middle of a fight between students. I have a friend who worked in the same district I did who interrupted a fight and got punched in the face because of it. And her principal blamed her. 

Oh wow the way the soundtrack picks up when Emilio finally engages in the class is some kinda cheesy. And it continues through the rest of the scene to a distracting degree. Oh Wendy and Lisa, I hoped for better. 

Can I just emphasize that to reach these kids, Louanne uses her experience as a LITERAL MARINE by demonstrating she can kick all their asses, and then she bribes them by paying for 25 kids to go to an amusement park for the entire day with her?

Also, even if they like and respect her now, I call bullshit at any scene in which ALL of  the kids are A) sitting in their seats or B) silent, and especially C) both. 

Um suddenly feeling some weird vibes with Louanne and Raul having a dinner date at this fancy restaurant by themselves. Also, the double standard here is pretty telling - there’s no way this scene makes the movie if Louanne had been a male teacher and Raul was a female student.

Wait wait wait, she’s also loaning Raul $200? Like, is this why I didn’t make it as a teacher? Because I wasn’t a former Marine taking students to amusement parks and fancy dinners and lending them money? I was 25 and could barely afford rent. Maybe teachers who have enough money to take care of themselves are better equipped to take care of others. Idk, I’m just spitballin here.

Oh “Gangsta’s Paradise” is happening again! We already heard the whole song over the opening credits but now it’s happening again about 3/4 way through. I mean this song is definitely the best thing about the film, so I get it, but it feels weird that they think we wouldn’t notice it playing to completion twice.

Michelle Pfeiffer is doing everything she can to make this movie feel less cheesy and more real. Like, you can tell she’s really trying with her performance. Of course, it’s not like the character is a huge challenge acting-wise, but she is definitely committed to the part and can walk the line of both accessible and tough. 

This scene where Louanne tells her class she is not going to be there next year, that what happened to Durell and Lionel and Callie and Emilio made her too sad to stay has not aged well at all. And it’s certainly true to life, and I say that as someone who did the same thing. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s a reality - the fact that I’m a nice white lady is exactly the reason that I can choose to leave when things get too hard. Just because the kids convince her to stay at the end in this very rushed “all’s well that ends well” way doesn’t sweep this scene under the rug, and it shouldn’t. 

Ope, “Gangsta’s Paradise” shows up one last time in the credits for good measure. 

Side note: after the film, I researched Louanne, and she’s still teaching, which honestly made me emotional (in a good way). And I’d like to point out the racist ass bullshit the studio and screenwriter Ronald Bass pulled by changing the poems the students read to Bob Dylan lyrics when Louanne originally used rap lyrics from popular artists in ‘89-’90 to teach the kids about poetry. 

Did I Cry? No, but I did get heartburn from anxiety flashbacks.

This genre of film is easy to mock and parody because it tells the same story and hits the same beats to the point that they’ve become cliche. Ultimately, the truth at the heart of the movie (which is the un-nuanced and candy-coated depiction of Johnson’s real memoir, My Posse Don’t Do Homework) is that high schoolers crave someone who will see them and validate them, someone who is willing to put in the effort. The quality of the package that truth is wrapped in varies, and this one certainly leans in hard on stereotypes that feel like cheat codes rather than any real illuminating depictions of living teenagers. But as cringey as it is to watch, maybe it’s not a bad thing to remember that all people - including those who are trapped in poverty and all the cruel injustices that entails - want to be seen and valued for who they really are. 

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