Most of the rest of the movie is centered around her students relating to other characters and historical figures in the books Erin introduces them to, and it is through relating to those fictional and non-fictional characters, and learning to articulate their own stories through writing, that her students are able to find refuge, and work out the shit life has put them through. And that's all she does throughout most of the rest of the movie, which is the only thing a teacher of abused students really can do. Erin's entire developmental arch is resolved in the first act: she realizes she can't fix her students, and the only thing she's able to do is introduce them to people in history and in literature that will help them understand their own situations. White Savior movies, throughout all three acts, center the entire movie around the white savior, and their selfless struggle to fix the lives of the colored people around them through the awe inspiring power of white culture, but Freedom Writers, instead, directly acknowledges white culture is the reason these kids deal with the bullshit and the abuse they endure, shifts its focus away from Erin, and primarily focuses on the challenges her students face, and let's them be the center of their personal struggles. The second act of typical inspirational movies are always kicked off by a "turning point" moment, such as the scene where Erin goes off about how a holocaust happens in her big "get real" moment, but, instead of going straight to the stuff where the white lady fixes all their troubles with the power of white culture, and these lazy, undisciplined, disrespectful inner-city kids finally buckle down and apply themselves with the help of their white savior, instead, Freedom Writers starts revealing more details from her student's life stories, and Erin quickly realizes she's not going to save anybody. When Freedom Writers begins, we see Erin start out as a stereotypical white savior, a wide eyed white lady who thinks she's going to help all these kids in an inner city school turn their lives around through the power of education, and then, of course, we see her endure discouraging obstacles, there's an embarrassing scene where she tries to relate to them by breaking down some lyrics from a Tupac song, and they all immediately see through her bullshit, she almost gives up, she hits a breaking point that leads into one of those "white person gets real on those disrespectful inner city school kids' asses" moments, and then things begin to turn around. Chief among the issues I take with that comparison, is the fact that this white lady savior figure, Erin Gruwell, learns very quickly that she isn't going to save anybody, which is something typical white savior movies never acknowledge. There are some issues I take with Freedom Writers, and it's not a masterpiece, but I find it somewhat unfair that the only reason anybody still remembers it, is because it's being derogatorily compared to The Blind Side or Radio in lists about formulaic white savior movies. Maybe I've started thinking about it again because I often see it alongside The Blind Side, Radio, The Help, and Dangerous Minds, on lists about lame "white savior" films.
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And I also find it odd that to this day, it hasn't really diminished in my initial thoughts, I still think it's a really solid film.
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Sometimes things that I liked from years ago creep back up into my thoughts, and I revise what I think of them now based on what I remember from them.Įspecially now more than ever, I'm not a fan of inspirational movies, and I never really think about other inspirational movies I saw from years ago around that same time (such as Gridiron Gang, We Are Marshal, or Pride), so I find it somewhat odd my thoughts will linger for a minute every now and then on Freedom Writers, years after I've seen it.
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I know I've seen it at least once since then, maybe even twice, but I know it's been at least 8 or 9 years since I last saw it.
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I saw it in theaters 11 years ago, and I really liked it then, though of course I was in the 8th grade and what you liked in middle school doesn't really count for much. For some reason I've been thinking about the 2008 film starring Hilary Swank, Freedom Writers, recently, and I'm not exactly sure why.