The Savior Trope

“The Savior Trope and the Modern Meanings of Whiteness” by Name title argues that the cinema has always been cater toward an ideology of the white supremacy. Freedom Writers self-evidently appear as a majoritarian narrative by having Hilary Swank starring as Erin Gruwell who play as the enthusiastic young teacher who help change the lives for her students of color, but along the movie there is a subtle switch of importance from the teacher to these students as they struggle for changes. As it goes, the film takes the same approach of a “white savior” movie to gain more audiences, but in actuality it is a disguise to get people to watch the movie and reconsider the issues of stereotypes and racism, which shifted Erin Gruwell as one of the supporting

Therefore, it does appear to support the majoritarian narrative due to it actuality in their representation of the white versus people of color. Journalist Nicholas Kristof confirm of using the “white savior motif” to gain more audiences to read about foreign countries, such as Central Africa, by involving some Americans into his writing so that he could get more people to pay more attention about the crisis that is happening around the world (Name 3). In other word, it is the way to gain a wider audience to watch the movie and hopefully bring the awareness of this current ongoing racial crisis in the United States.

Freedom Writers (2007) is a representation of the majoritarian narrative along with its counterstories. Eva Benitez, starring April Lee Hernandez, appears as one of the main character in the beginning of the film where she explains about the American dream. The cinematic display of the American Barbie doll as having blonde hair, blue eyes, and idealized as a price item of femininity as compare to the Latina doll in which Eva says “in America, a girl can be crown as a

With her innate sense of humanitarian compassion for the students of color, Erin choose to work in the high school due to the highest integrated program in the district. Mrs. Campbell, the head of the department, seems oddly polite and reserve about her opinion regarding Erin’s enthusiasm. The scene sets the tone of white superiority as they continue to discuss about the “voluntary integration” that resulted for the lost of 75 percent of their “strongest students”, and the fact that majority of their lower income students had to “travel 90 minutes each way” with public transportation to attend school on a daily basis. As they speaks about these issue, they dismiss the struggles of these student have undergone, which appear to be uncaring and “invisible” to them. As Erin proudly announces that her father was involved during the Civil Right movement, she talks about how she aspire to follow her father’s footstep and studies for law school to become a lawyer, but when she was watching the Los Angeles riot in 1992 on television she changes career to becoming a teacher, instead. Erin believes that “the real fighting should happen here in the classroom”. This conceptually connects to Yosso’s idea regarding the CRT for the commitment to social justice in education by