Civilising injustice

Dangerous Minds
Starring Michelle Pfieffer
Reviewed by Sujatha Fernandes Dangerous Minds is a film about empowering young black and Chicano people in the US by giving them the tools to think and fight against the cycle of violence and poverty that keeps them at the bottom of society's hierarchy. Michelle Pfieffer teaches a class of kids who have been through some of the worst that the system throws up. The film is about her individual battle against a system which has no concern for these students. It is also about her battle to convince the students they need an education to escape from the rut society has created for them. Dangerous Minds is a feel-good Hollywood movie rather than an attempt to portray real life in the ghettoes. The romanticisation of Pfieffer destroys any credibility the film may have had. One minute the students see her as an evangelical type trying to relieve her middle-class guilt, and the next they are fawning all over her, their "shining light". It is Pfieffer's mission to civilise these students, to give them an understanding of "culture" and an appreciation of "great" poetry and canonised poets. The irony is that the real poetry that the students use to communicate and express themselves — the rapping, hip-hop and street poetry — is relegated to musical background for the film. The main point of the film is contained in Pfieffer's attempts to convince the students that they do not have to be victims, they choose to be victims. Yet the depiction of poverty, alienation and violence in this film suggests otherwise. The social pressures of family, teenage pregnancy, drugs and unemployment do not point to the bright, hopeful future for these young people that the film suggests, nor is it clear that they could move out of this situation simply by choosing otherwise. While the film's resolution is typically happy, there are many questions left unanswered. What about the millions of other young people living in US ghettoes who don't have the choice of an education? What about the system that continues to squeeze more and more young people onto the streets into a life of violence and poverty? As long as the crisis for young African-Americans and Chicanos in the US continues to grow, Hollywood will need to keep making films like Dangerous Minds to try to convince us of the lies that individuals can choose their destiny and that we don't need to challenge the system.