Film Review on Dangerous Minds

Ratings

The film is good, and it has a big impact on the viewers especially if viewer/s have passion for teaching. The films rating is based on its suitability and appropriateness of the following:

Standards

For standards I will give a rating of 5, it’s because they use the standards well. Looking on the script, the actors and actress they use standards in a box and also use the standards out of the box. It’s the reason it’s 5. They balance the film in terms of standards. For example, standards of the film when we say it is in the box, it doesn’t have to use harmful words and they did it by inspiring viewers with some lines of the script. I remember the lines from Ms.Johnson when she said that the brain, our mind is like a muscle, on the other hand they use the standards out of the box by using words like f*ck, sh*t and other words to portray that the students she handle are notorious.

Acceptable Filipino Cultural Norms

For this area I’ll give a 2 thumbs up, yes it’s 2 because some of the cultures in the content of the film shows Filipino spirit in terms of being thoughtful. Pfeiffer portrays her character with spirit. If you’ll be a part of the movie, you will never notice that there is camera taping. She portrays the character as thoughtful inspite of the situation, she has a passion for the students to learn and to be equipped. This shows a Filipino culture and spirit. Normally we say “Kung gusto may paraan” and I think she portrays it in terms of finding ways to help out the kids in some problems and also teaching them not to give up. Although at the end she is already giving up but the passion is there that even the students shows her the lesson of not giving up.

Another Filipino culture I saw that makes me rate it 2 is the part where Johnson and Raul ate in a restaurant and make a deal. This shows the culture we usually know as “Bayanihan” why? Because the boy have problem because of the jacket, and Ms.Johnson gave her a favor with a promise and also to persuade him not to cut class. We can see in this part the filipino trait of being helpful in times of problems.

Values

It is the best part to rate, the values. For me it is rated 1, it is the highest rating for me. The reason is the film really impart the essence of being a teacher. It’s not easy to teach but if somebody has passion doing it, things go very easy.

The strategy she use also shows values, one of the values I notice is perseverance, in the way she persevere in the class, situations and what the students do to her doesn’t intimidate her and make her give up, but she really equipped the students to also persevere and not to give up whatever circumstances they have. She use Bob Dylan’s lyrics to show and equip students for the real world. Another thing I saw for values is the part where students asks for price and she said that the price is learning. That she is preparing and equipping the students in this unsafe world through learning.

Exceptional Scenes

Acculturation

Acculturation means exchange of cultural features that results when group of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first hand contact. Now the scene I saw that depicts this meaning is the scene where Johnson goes to Raul’s house. Why? Because there’s an exchange of culture in that part, especially when she asks passers by in an Spanish language. American culture and Mexican culture are present in that scene and the language also depicting cultural features of the two said country.

The scene shows the Mexican culture in terms of building houses. The setting was located at California and in some parts of it, there are populations of Mexicans and Spanish people in that place. Their cultures, architectures and beliefs are exchanging in that scenes as Johnson goes there. There are different movements of camera angles like pan, tilt, tracking, etc. And I saw in these scene the “tracking” where the subject is followed by camera or simply use to follow movements across the frame. Louanne is walking here in this scene and the cam movement is tracking as it follows her and the good thing is they capture the acculturation in this scene. As the frame continues to follow her, we can see the people, culture, the way Mexicans communicate, their style of living, their architecture in that particular scene exchanging form Americans cultural beliefs as she talks to the boys parents. We can see the diffirences of Mexican from American culture in the way they speak and they express their thoughts.

The second scene was the time when Ms.Johnson also goes to Callies house, you can see there the difference of American, African-american. And you can differentiate both of them to Rauls culture as Mexican. There is really an exchange of ideas, culture and the way they accept, entertain and talk to peoples.

Third scene is on the first part, when she first entered the school. Her culture and the culture of the students exchange in some areas. In other words, Ms.Johnson was at “culture shock” at first.

Social Transformation

I saw this on the last part of the film. Social transformation to me is the scene where the students encourages her to go back and not to give up. Watching the whole story we can see that the beginning depicts a life of trouble. Actors and actress first portrays the character as notorious, even though two of them didn’t make it to the last part because they stop studying and even though Emilio died, the students in the last part are transformed socially in terms of their status as a student. How dit the students encourage her to go back, because they show that they are transformed, or simply they show that they learned a lot from Ms.Johnson’s assignment of poem reading.

They encourage her by using also na personification used in each poem like “Tambourine Man”, “Light” and they said that she must focus on them who are left to study and finish their schooling. A scene that really shows “Social Transformation” to me.

Another scene that shows social transformation is the scene where students first want to discussed what happened to Raul, Gusmaro, and Emilio and she discuss about choice then Emilio suddenly participate. The time he interrupt and said “Read those lines you’ve just read again.” Thats the time transformation come in that scene. Emilio used not to participate in the early part of the movie but from that scene, he became interested to participate in that class and he start the discussion where they all participate in the discussion. And the cause of this participation is where Emilio participate first.

There’s another scene that shows this transformation is when the class studied hard and have eagerness in reading poem during tha Dylan-dylan contest. It’s a good scene where the librarians are confused because the students are known to be notorious but on that part they all studied inside the library.

Human Rights Violation

For the exceptional scene about human rights violation, I transcribe the script of that scene for me to illustrate how it became a human rights violation and later I will elaborate, and here it is:

Louanne is talking with her two students and suddenly. . .

Boys’ mother:            Get on inside, clean up that pigsty of a room.

Ms.Johnson:             Hi. I’m Louanne Johnson…I’m the boys’ teacher.

Boys’ mother:            I know who you are, you’re that white-bread bitch messin’ with my

                                    Babies’ minds.

Ms.Johnson:             I beg your pardon?

Boys’ mother:            My boys don’t go to your school no more, and that’s gonna be it.

Ms.Johnson:             You took them out of school?

Boys’ mother:            You’re damn right I did…I saw what they were bringing home-poetry

                                    shit…A waste of time, they got more important things to worry

                                    about.

Ms.Johnson:             Don’t you think that finishing high school will be valuable to their

                                    future?

Boys’ mother:            That’s not in their future…I ain’t raising no doctors and lawyers here

                                    they got bills to pay…Why don’t you just get on outta here…Go find

                                    yourself some other poor boys to save.

The script transcribed above illustrates human rights violation. It is a human rights for everyone to study and have a good education but the way the students rights are violated by their mother and the fact that she even stops the good future her boys might have if they continued to study. That sense to me that this scene shows human rights violation.

Another scene is when the school policy states that Callie must stop or go to another school because of the situation that she is pregnant. It is her right to stay and study even she is pregnant. But the schools policy violates her right as a single mom.

Third scene is when Emilio is found dead, why? Because everyone has a right to seek help from everyone I perceive that he wanted to seek a help from the principal but the principal send him away because he didn’t knock. The main point is Emilio can say sorry later but the principal would have listen first before but instead of listening to what Emilio wants to say, he sends him out because of not knocking. So when Ms.Johnson knows that he’s dead she said to Ms. Nichols “What would you like me to say, that if you don’t want to die remember to knock.”

Conflict Analysis

The conflict used in this film is human vs. society where Ms.Johnson conflict source is social traditions or concepts of the school and the students. And the conflict analysis approach that is used is the Harvard Approach, this approach emphasize the difference between positions (what people say they want) and interests (why people want what they say they want). It argues that conflicts can be resolved when actors focus on interests instead of positions, and when they develop jointly accepted criteria to deal with these differences. This means that the conflict present in the film shows on dealing with differences of people. From Ms.Johnson to her students, the interests of the society, and the situation where they are.

Ms.Johnson fights for the rights of her students as the society against her. It doen’t literally means the society or group of person but the source is the social traditions and concepts and the situation. For example, she is fighting the rights of Callie against the social traditions of the school, another thing is she is against the tradition of knocking first before entering which she actually thought as the reasons for Emilio’s death.

Those scenes stated above shows the conlict of her character against the social traditions, and this also shows the Harvard Approach for analyzing the film because the story focus on the differences of peoples, the interests and positions of characters and actors.