Independant Study

“In Long Beach, is 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.

Freedom Writers focuses on a true story in 1994 where a first time teacher (Hilary Swank) faces a group of students who have been considered by the government as “un-teachable, at-risk” teenagers. The movie represents street wise kids who have all witnessed fights out breaking in front of them as well as murders of their own friends and family. Stuart Hall (1977) talks about the way black people are characterized in the media; “…their ‘locations’ are the familiar real-life settings of ghetto, street, police station and drug-bust.”[3]This goes to show how each character in the movie also falls within this categorisation of what Stuart Hall refers to as being a representation of black people within movies, which helps support the fact that people from ethnic minorities are there to become objectified in negative ways.

The institution of the texts is a highly recognisable institution, ‘Paramount Pictures.’ Paramount Pictures teams up with ‘MTV Films’ to bring to its audience ‘Freedom Writers.’ The movie had a domestic total gross of $36,605,602[4], which supports that it was a very successful movie. The fact that Paramount pictures are such a hugely successful establishment shows that the movie was used as a mainstream distributor so many people would have watched the movie anyway. However, teaming up with MTV films would interest people from different backgrounds who would not have been that interested in the movie to come and watch it. This is due to the fact how the soundtracks used in the movie such as ‘Keep Ya Head Up’[5] and the soundtrack ‘I have a dream’ [6]is from a rap genre which would be targeted at people within a multicultural society and perhaps specifically people from a more ghetto and urbanised area. The fact that the institution is MTV films also supports how people from the urbanised areas are more likely to watch the movie, as it is a music based institution, meaning it will contain a lot of music that would usually appear on this mainstream channel. As people from ethnic minorities are usually associated with hip hop, grime and rap music, the stereotypes given to them of being associated within crime and drugs, sticks well and supports the negative representation of them within the community.

A theorist, Richard Dyer, talks about how ‘stars are important.’ Freedom Writers has used this approach in attracting their audiences to view the movie. Mario – a famous R‘n’B artist, plays one of the lead characters in the movie as ‘Andre Bryant’ who is represented as one of the teenagers who has just lost hope. Coming from a ‘typical broken home’ as a lot of black people are shown on screen, he struggles to maintain a good record at school, and as he sells drugs when he is out of the classroom, he just cannot find time to finish his school work. Andre – In fact, all of the characters in the movie are shown as dumbing one another down. All of the characters in the movie are portrayed as to have lost hope and are represented to be at school, because they have to and not the case where they feel that they want to.
Erin (Hilary Swank) is represented as determined to change the ways of these students and that is when she starts to personally buy books for them. When she learns that the students have no idea what a Holocaust is, she makes them study ‘The diary of Anne Frank.’ “When I write I can shake off all my cares, My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived!”[7] The students are then given the opportunity to keep a diary themselves and then later understand the ease of writing out all of the feelings, hurt and pain they had kept inside them for so long, just like Anne Frank did, write everything our before her on blank pieces of paper, helping her emerge from what was going on around her. Their life, written on paper felt so excellent, causing them to begin changing their lives around. This part in the movie helps change the common stereotypes which are given to people from ethnic minorities. The fact that these students are prepared to leave the gang crime and swap it for books, goes to show how knowledge is something which acts like a tool in the movie and how all these negative stereotyped students really needed was someone to pay attention and not ‘dumb them down’ and classify them as ‘dangerous’ and ‘useless.’
“Racial stereotypes are among the most readily employed in the media.”[8] It is right to say that the stereotypes within contemporary society are supported with what is actually a representation of something which has been ‘constructed’ in the media. The media continuously reinforces stereotypes given to people from ethnic minorities, such as black people are always associated with drugs and gun crime. The “Oriental stereotype” of the people from the East being chaotically violent and of Asians being regarded as the ‘Other’ due to them lacking the qualities any average – in fact an average WHITE man would have.
However, although these negative stereotypes have been put forward in the media continuously, movies such as “Coach Carter (2005)”[9], “Honey (2003)”[10] and Freedom Writers challenge these assumptions. These movies all contain the Proppian Hero/Heroine who depicts the grimy scenes of the ghetto which are based at the centre of these characters hearts and then learn to interact with them in such a way that they are able to change everything around to favour these rebellious teenagers. The thing in common in all three movies is how we as an audience get a fairly accurate representation of street life. The way the characters go in their every day-to-day lives and struggles of not having money as they are from the ‘hood’, the neglect they face from people outside their race and social status. The movies also help support the stereotypes given to people from ethnic minorities, however they are also challenged and as the movies come to an end, all three movies have shown the characters have changed their lives around, from the stereotypes given, to someone who can now be accepted in society and by not being judged on their skin.

Freedom Writers reinforces the stereotypes given to the characters within the movie. This is created through the usage of props and characters clothing. The way the characters dress is in loose and street wise clothing. The male teenagers all wear hooded tops, which itself has a negative connotation stuck to it, as well as baggy jeans falling half way down their waists and loose baggy t-shirts, which look more like dresses! These are the typical clothes a teenager would wear; however, they are specifically worn by teenagers within the ethnic community and less likely to be worn by a white boy, within the same age range and perhaps even same society. The stereotypes of being violent are also supported through the usage of props which are given to these characters. The characters are seen holding weapons like knives and guns in some scenes, which strengthens the negative views of people, on the people that are being categorized here as the ‘Other’ as they are simply not like us.
“Violence only begets violence”’[11] It is always vital to remember how a person’s actions are always based upon something they may have come across in the past. Similarly, in Freedom Writers, the reason why these students are so out of control could be as they have seen one another as the ‘Other’, because they are not like them. They are different to them, they do not act and behave the way their specific ‘people’ act and behave, causing the segregation between one another.
Colonialism played a major hand in the fact that it was ok to be racist. It was used to justify oppression and was seen as socially acceptable. This reflects on the way that as well as colonialism, the way that some historical issues prevailed was also a reason why it is still ok to categorise people from ethnic minorities. As the text is polysemic it all depends on the audience’s social, cultural and educational background; however it has a purpose of challenging the assumptions made of the stereotypes the movie holds. However, movies such as ‘Get Rich Or Die Trying (2005), continuously reinforce the stereotype given to people from ethnic minorities. This is due to the way the characters are represented. Marcus (50 Cent) the lead role, is represented as a street gangster, his job is to kill. When black people are portrayed like this is the media, the representation is always degraded, as it helps fulfil the present stereotypes, and movies like these gangster films, do not really help the representation of these black males in the media. However, the changing point in the movie of when he finds his hidden talent of being able to sing and become a singer is a point of change for him and shows how he himself has now seen the light and wants to put it away, but just like in Freedom writers, when the students are constantly faced with struggles he is also unable to do so straight away.

Movies such as “Get Rich or Die Trying (2005)” [12]are seen as films belonging to a gangster genre. They follow the typical generic codes associated within this genre. These movies also use a repertoire of different props which aim in helping the genre fall in place. Weapons such as guns and knives are used within gangster films; similarly these props are also used in Freedom writers. This does not mean that this movie falls within this genre however, it does follow the typical codes and conventions of a gangster film. “The contemporary gangster film best embodies the ambivalence of film-makers towards ethnicity and race.”'[13] Winokur (1991) states a fact here, as more and more contemporary movies which are based within the gangster genre draw film makers towards ethnicity and race. This goes to show how the media is putting out new entertainment through an issue such as racial profiling and racism to become acceptable when the outcome is only just to viewing it, rather than using it as something to perpetrate in reality. The fact that the media is such a powerful tool, it acts as manipulating us into believing what we see on screen is a picture of what is happening in the real world, and it goes to show how as a naive and passive audience we are also injected with these thoughts, making ourselves believe the negative assumptions made against people from ethnic minorities.

There are many different social issues which have also been an influence to the way people have been represented from ethnic minorities. “Racist behaviour is based on centuries of economic exploitation and has been deeply embedded in European culture.”[14] An issue such as Black Slavery in the 1930’s is perhaps a main real reason to why the black people are shown as being under the whites. Why it is the case of the white being the rich and elite and blacks being second priority and not as good. A well known hegemonic theorist, Marcuse says how the media ‘indoctrinates and manipulates’ us. Similarly, with issues such as black slavery and Martin Luther King’s plans of liberation, the idea of the blacks rising above these specified stereotypes of the blacks just not being good enough are confirmed to be mistaken.

The Blaxploitation genre came forward in the early 1970’s where the movie ‘Shaft (1971)’[15] was the first movie belonging to this genre. This genre is specifically targeted at Black people of where the films within it tend to take place in an urbanised setting referred to as ‘the ghetto’. Blaxploitation films contain many negative stereotypes of black people, of which certain characters are portrayed in being associated with drugs, gun crime, and violence. Similarly, Freedom Writers also contains elements of this specific genre. The characters are all represented to be involved with crime as they have this hatred and this ethnic disgrace towards one another, where they are seen as being racist towards one another by the way they live their lives. The fact that all of the characters behave in such a racial way towards one another, goes to show how they themselves do not care about the issues of racial profiling and discrimination towards one another, as that is the way they have been brought up. It does not affect them. Theorist, Levi Strauss’s binary opposition theory comes hinted out at this point as people from a certain background will not associate within someone from another
Background, In this case, The Cambodians were against the Latino’s which was like Good vs. Evil, yet all of the people were innocent and only guilty for having this grudge of spite against each other as they were trying to fight for their own place in ‘their America.’

The movie Shaft does not contain specific indication to racism yet some of the characters behaviour involves them being prejudice. A scene where Shaft puts his hand out for the taxi, and the driver stops ahead of him where the other passenger is a white man. This portrays how there is a ‘fear of the black man.’ This is also reflected in ‘Freedom Writer’s’ where in one scene, Erin makes the students swap their seats, so she can divide them from the tribes they sit in. She asks Ben (the only white boy in the class) to go to the back (where all the black people are seated) and he instantly says ‘I can’t go back there.’[16] This shows the strong stereotype black people hold of being involved in violence as well as being socially unaccepted within people from another society.

To finish, Stereotypes do still exist within contemporary society and those given to ethnic minorities are seriously negative representations of these people, as they are categorised and targeted by the media regularly. This goes to show how the media acts as a major source, which controls the stereotypes given, making the stereotyped feel out of place and pushing them to the edge. This categorisation of people from ethnic minorities only just shows how we are living in a white dominated society, of where people from ethnic minorities don’t have as much respect in society as much as an ordinary man would have. The stereotypes are used to label specific people from a different culture to our own. This label is stuck to them in such a way that it affects the way they carry out their normal lives and continues to be a reason for the media to target them on a regular basis. The movie Freedom writers does reinforce these common stereotypes, however only to a certain extent. By the end of the movie, the students who were at the beginning labelled as ‘unreachable’ students are represented as intelligent and wise at the end. This goes to show that although the negative stereotypes are given to people from ethnic minorities, the media does in a way help to change this by introducing movies such as freedom writers and showing the way the stereotypes can change. Most importantly, although the media does change the stereotypes of these people, it is essential to remember that if there were no stereotypes in the first place, then there would be nothing to change within movies like these. Although the movies are purely made for entertainment purposes, people do reflect on them and compare them to what they see in reality, which helps create the realism.
Word count: 3012
[1] ‘Freedom Writers’ (2007)
[2] ROSE (1989) cited in SHOHAT, E. and STAM, R. 1994: ‘Unthinking Eurocentrism: multiculturalism and the media’ pg.21, London: Routledge
[3]Hall, Stuart (1977): Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, (1977) pg.271, London, New Delhi. Sage Publications
[4] DOMESTIC TOTAL GROSS FIGURE:http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=freedomwriters.htm
[5] SHAKUR, TUPAC:’KEEP YA HEAD UP’ – 1993 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Ya_Head_Up
[6] COMMON ft WILL.I.AM (2007): ‘I Have A Dream’, soundtrack Freedom Writers
[7] FRANK, Ann (1947) ‘The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank’
[8] Representation handout: pg. 79
[9] Coach Carter (2005) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coach_Carter
[10] Honey (2003) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_(2003_film)
[11] ‘Get Rich Or Die Trying’ (2005) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Rich_or_Die_Tryin%27_(film)
[12] Get Rich or Die Trying (2005)
[13] WINOKUR (1991) cited in STRINATI, Dominic (2000) : ‘An introduction to studying Popular culture’ pg.61, London: Routledge
[14] Essential word dictionary: AS/A- level Media studies, pg. 125
[15] ‘Shaft’ (1971)
[16] FREEDOM WRITIERS; Hunter Parrish