In that film, Richard DadierвЂ™s students are a diverse bunch rife with conflict because of their different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Blackboard Jungle at least tries to address racial and ethnic differences in a meaningful way. By having the students exert prejudice upon their teacher rather than make any explicit mention of how the education system overwhelmingly fails black and Latino students in turn, the students are largely responsible for their own failures. The disconnect between a white teacher and his or her nonwhite students is a recurrent feature of these films, but the structure of Dangerous Minds bungles it more clumsily than usual. They call her вЂњwhite breadвЂќ in one scene, the grandmother of two of her students calls her a вЂњhonky bitch.вЂќ Facing such resentment, LouAnne has her work more than cut out for her. The students, meanwhile, are largely portrayed as fatalistic about their own lives and antagonistic toward their teacher because sheвЂ™s white. (ItвЂ™s an unlikely speed bump, considering her background as a Marine.) She walks out in the middle of her class to vent to the colleague and friend who helped her get the job in the first place: вЂњI canвЂ™t teach them!вЂќ At home that evening, a montage shows her diligently reading a book called Assertive Discipline and eventually reaching an epiphany-sheвЂ™ll project authority and command respect by donning a leather jacket and wowing the kids with karate instructions. LouAnne, for her part, is initially portrayed as a fragile woman whose students easily break her composure on Day 1. Throughout the movie, Dangerous Minds portrays a dynamic between LouAnne and her students-of the doting authority figure and the infantile teenager-that borders on parody. Smith renders the dire station of this particular group of students with an unsubtle brushstroke, setting up LouAnne for an even more triumphant вЂњvictoryвЂќ than the teacher-saviors who came before her. (The scene only bursts into color as they arrive by bus at their school.) In deploying that harsh cinematic technique, director John N. Dangerous Minds takes this notion a step further: Over the rebellious strains of the Coolio hit вЂњ GangstaвЂ™s Paradise,вЂќ it channels The Wizard of Oz and opens with the grainy black and white imagery of an impoverished California neighborhood, painting a dour, bleak scene of life for the kids we are about to meet. (The trailer for Up the Down Staircase explicitly asks what Sandy DennisвЂ™ character-вЂњa nice girlвЂќ-is вЂњdoing in a crazy place like this.вЂќ) In 1955вЂ™s Blackboard Jungle-one of the pioneers of the genre-new teacher Richard Dadier (Glenn Ford) arrives at the school and looks around bewilderedly at the kids who are smoking, playing around, and dancing to вЂњ Rock Around the ClockвЂќ-which in 1955 passed for a rebellious, raucous song enjoyed by wayward youth. The point is to emphasize the cultural dissonance and long odds the teacher faces by positioning him or her as a fish out of water, and by positioning the students who come from these neighborhoods as at-risk youth.

In movies like Blackboard Jungle, Up the Down Staircase, and Stand and Deliver, the eventual hero teacher is seen walking, driving, or riding the bus to his or her first day on the job.

The drama, loosely based on the memoir My Posse DonвЂ™t Do Homework by retired-Marine-turned-teacher LouAnne Johnson, doesnвЂ™t just stick to a well-worn path in heightening the genreвЂ™s worst tropes so effusively, it elevates the condescendence and, more embarrassingly, the white-savior narrative that so frequently rests at its core.Дangerous Minds starts off like most save-our-students films: with a depiction of a broken, or at least not particularly affluent, neighborhood. Dangerous Minds stands out from its predecessors and many of the films that followed as a particularly egregious example of the inspirational-teacher idiom, particularly when it comes to its feel-good oversimplifying of two of its themes, pedagogy and race.

Coolio gangsters paradise movie