The Hope and Despair of Education
Introduction
For several decades, television and films has delivered both entertainment and information to individuals. Thus, as a society bombarded by the representation and possibly influenced by the media, it is therefore essential to consider the messages rooted in this films or television within the context of popular culture.
The movies Dangerous Minds and Dead Poet Society opens up issues such as identity and stereotyping. Therefore, in this paper I will be looking at the juxtaposed concept of identity and representation using the school films Dangerous minds and Dead Poet Society. Furthermore, I will be using textual analysis as the methodology, while incorporating theories in cultural studies to compare and contrast the ways in which mass media portrays popular culture.
Dangerous Minds vs. Dead Poet Society
The Dangerous minds film opens up with a preview of an inner city impoverished neighbourhood where destitution and drug deals is an everyday affairs. On the other hand, Dead poet’s society opens up the rich urban setting, depicting the power of uniqueness and a high level of discipline. Also, the choice of music used in Dangerous mind is in juxtaposed with the choice music used in Dead poet society. The song choices in both movies reflects characters that appear in the film. That is the use of the song, Gangster’s Paradise relates to the inner city street life and gangs which was portrayed at the beginning of the Dangerous mind film. Whereas the song choice used in the Dead poet society film represented peace and class. I will be using the following themes Tradition and Honor in analysing both movies.
The film Dead poet society, is about a group of boys from elite backgrounds attending Welton Academy with great expectations from their parents. The Dead poet society tells a story about the English teacher Mr Keating who motivates the students through his poetry class. Mr Keating teaches the students to be creative, there by bringing out the uniqueness of the students, despite the fact that most of these kids already have their lives planned for them by their parents. Mr Keating, used the critical thinking approach in teaching the student. He made the students think outside the box. Meanwhile, the Dangerous mind film tells a story about how the character LouAnne get her first teaching job in a inner-city school in northern California after working as a marine for nine years. LouAnne is faced with students who are mainly minorities from working poor families, with no seeming concern in education. Thus, seemingly absorbed in their social position, the students appear to lack self-confidence in their ability to be more than they are because of the circumstances surrounding their birth and this poses a challenge to LouAnne being able to teach the class.
LouAnne uses karate as an introductory method of teaching the students because she believed this method would make the students pay attention to her. However, the students returned back to their former behaviour of being noisy in class when LouAnne tries to teach the curriculum again. Though, I liked the fact that both Mr Keating and LouAnne used a different teaching techniques contrary to the status quo. I personally, found the LouAnne approach gruesome because I felt like the karate approach simply justifies how the mass media portrays African Americans and Latinos as being violent by nature. I am not saying that I totally disagree with LouAnne’s teaching technique but I believe that teaching methods used by teachers in schools should not portray what we as individuals creates as popular culture and uses the mass media as a tool to enforce.
Tradition
The first theme introduced in Dead poet’s society was that of tradition. This tradition theme was established at the beginning of the film by the showing of the history of the school, the speech given by the principal during the start of a new academic year and also the lightening of candles which represented the light of knowledge. This light of knowledge simply portrayed the fact that the school was a high-class school where students are expected to achieve good results. On the contrary, the tradition presented in Dangerous minds conveyed a tradition of danger to the body and to order. This could be seen on the school school walls having negative words written all over which shows a complete disrespect for rules and also a glimpse of flowers depicting a grave representing violence. The introductory glimpse from the both movies is a clear indication of Representation.
Representation plays a key role in the society. Baldwin (1985) and Hooks (1992) talked about how African Americans and Latinos are being portrayed in the society. According to Hooks, the media portrays what the society wants to see, in other words the society controls the media. For example in movies, when a scene is showed and does not depict what is the societal norm, most likely that movie will not be accepted by the society and receives a lot of criticism Furthermore, Dolby also emphasises that the high class is often seen as an authentic and stable entity in our present day society while the inner city or poor were seen as rough and unstable.
Honor
Honor is another theme found relevant in both movies. The kids in the Dangerous minds film lacked honor in the sense that they did not believe in themselves and had lost their self-esteem. A typical example is the case of characters like Rao and Eminio who thought the only way to get respect was through fighting. Rao and Eminio were intelligent students but they didn’t know to ask for help from the teacher because the school had lost hope on them. However, in the Dead Poet’s Society film the students had high self-esteem. It was obvious that the school had already instilled honor into the student. Honor in this context means identity.
Identity is one of the issues that cultural studies is concerned about. Baldwin (1985) argues that empowering a child with the ability of taking responsibility of his/her own success will boost the child’s self-confidence. The Dead poet’s society shows how the students understood the fact they (students) were from the elite society, they (students) have to identity with the elite social class. However, I was observed that some of the students such as Neil and Todd tried to go out of the status quo, but the strong force from the parents prevented them which resulted in Neil committing suicide. On the other hand the students from Dangerous minds, owing to their background already identified with violence. Although, Rao’s parent valued education, Rao’s environment made him loose his sense of identity. The Dangerous minds film portrayed student who had lost hope of what life is all about. There was a feeling of rejection from both the school environment and the society at large portrayed in Dangerous minds film.
Identity is something that is unique to each of us. Identity ‘is not merely a matter of playful experimentation or “personal growth”: it is also about the life-or-death struggles for self-determination that are currently being waged in so many parts of the world’ (Buckingham, 2008). Thus, Marxist theory debates about agency/ free choice and determinism/power. For example, when a child is born into the working class then he/she will learn that they are and will be working class and vis versa. As a result the child is force to identity with either the elite social class or inner city social class with little or no opportunity for free choice. This example was portrayed both in Dangerous minds and Dead poet’s society movies with character Neil, Rao and Eminio.

Conclusion
There were similarities because both movies addressed how popular culture comes to play in the educational system. Dangerous minds and Dead poet’s society brought to lime lights students that wanted to question the status quo, but the hegemonic effect both from the society, parents and school was a huge hindrance. For example the issue of identity, I observed that both the inner city students and elite students were been oppressed by identity. Neil wanted to be a film director but his parents wanted him to identity with the status quo by becoming a doctor. Also Eminio life was already determined by the community he was born into, thus identifying with the gang life was the only way he knew. Also, there was a contract in Dangerous minds and Dead poet’s society films. The Dangerous minds and Dead poet society films did not appear to have anything in common in terms of the audience and genre, which is inner city vs. elite background. Dangerous minds and Dead poet’s society used different racial group in conveying elusive understanding of culture through the use of the mass media. The elite and inner city representations is what the society today still faces and there is a need for liberation.