First paragraph again!!

In Long Beach, it all comes down to what you look like, it’s all about colour.”[1]

Does the movie ‘Freedom Writers (2007)’ reinforce common stereotypes of people from ethnic minority backgrounds?

It has almost become somewhat of a tradition, for ethnic minorities to always be related within a circle of violent behaviour. The media constantly targets youths from different minorities in ways where hegemony uses culture to promote power. In this case it would be the ruling by cultural influence where white people have the power and dominant control over people from ethnic minorities.
Set in Long Beach, California, Freedom Writers (2007) puts forward this negative stereotype of people within the ethnic community belonging to a vicious crime filled environment. The characters within the movie belong to a segregated community, where each race is divided into separate tribes. The students are represented as a central point to the movie, and the way they struggle to break free from the chaotic atmosphere around them to emerge as one, putting away the elements of the ‘Other’, and accepting their classmates for who they are rather than their ethnic backgrounds. “Racism is like a poor kid who grew up needing someone to hurt.”[2] This quote implies that racism is something which affects someone in such a way, that the outcome would be to hurt someone. Perhaps this is the reason, why the action of the youths in this film was due to all the segregation between them. Freedom Writers holds strong stereotypes of people within the African-American, Latino, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Caucasian race to be associated with violence, gun/gang crime and drugs which has therefore resulted in people believing in these given stereotypes.

[1] ‘http://www.celebritywonder.com/movie/2007_Freedom_Writers102.html
[2] ROSE (1989) cited in SHOHAT, E. and STAM, R. 1994: ‘Unthinking Eurocentrism: multiculturalism and the media’ pg.21, London: Routledge