More Than A White Savior Film

  A majority of the articles and blogs I read regarding racial issues in Freedom Writers all seem to point to the same idea.  Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) is a White Savior directing her students in the right path.  Mrs. Gruwell shows up to school, turns around the curriculum, focuses solely on the students, and ultimately gives them the push they need in order to reach their potentials.   Furthermore, a majority of the authors who wrote these articles strongly disliked the movie because it was just another White Savior movie with no diversity pertaining to the story board.  Predictable.
 However, I did find one article (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/film_and_history/v039/39.1.petersen.html)  to be particularly interesting.  Not only did the article point out the obvious fact that Mrs. Gruwell was a white savior, but it also analyzed subtleties in the movie that pointed fingers to broader racial issues.  For example, the pearl necklace on Mrs. Gruwell's neck acted as object representing the nature of the children she was about to face.  Gruwell shows up on the first day at work and the department head comments on her nice pearl necklace but recommends she not wear it in class.  Indirectly the department head is commentating on the homogenized delinquent behavior of the ethnic children Gruwell is going to be teaching, presenting the possibility that the students may steal the necklace or not obey her authority because she is superior to the children.  The whiteness of the pearls also brings up a bigger racial issue in the movie.  Whiteness being represented as cleanness.  This may be a stretch or over analysis, but the department is primarily white, and the students, specifically the troubled ones in Gruwells class are all ethnic.  The department puts no effort in these students because they have "ruined" the schools top tier rank, so they try to cycle the students through school until they drop out.  Then the White Savior comes into play.  Gruwell is the only white person of authority in the film who treats the students as individual people rather than a group of "trash" being recycled through the school system.
  For my essay I want to possibly concentrate on the only white student in Gruwell's class, while also touching on whiteness in the film.  With these racial issues so present in the film, why do you guys think people adore the film so much?

Freedom Writers

      I chose to pursue the topic of White Saviors by watching the film Freedom Writers.  The main character, Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank), acts a white savior for a group of freshman students from rough neighborhoods neglected by the educational system.  Other teachers at the school believe the kids in freshman English are hopeless, however Mrs. Gruwell believes she can interest these students by showing them that she cares about them in the classroom and outside.  Going against all wishes and policies of the school, Mrs. Gruwell works extra jobs in order to provide the students with books and field trip opportunities that the school does not provide.  By believing in these students, Mrs. Gruwell acts a savior to their well being by encouraging and interesting them in education.  Without Mrs. Gruwell the schools pattern of letting these students down would have continued.  The students would have also remained in their current positions, and continued down the wrong path in life, the same paths in which their families and siblings have gone down.  Mrs. Gruwell changes the students’ lives and gives them something to work towards in order to better themselves and become successful in the world. 

      On a side note, the movie was supposedly based off of a real story.  This is the picture of the real class known as the "Freedom Writers":