Interpretive Analysis or Freedom Writers
Name: Kyle Zuniga
Course: ENG1014-2
Course Instructor: Carmencita Romero
University of Belize
Freedom Writers is an inspirational American film produced in 2007 about a young and idealistic, untrained high school teacher, Erin Gruwell, who went beyond her call of duty to reach out to her class of delinquent and indocile gang bangers. The film is based on a true story as it is recounted in the diaries of Miss Gruwell and 150 “unteachable” and “at-risk” students from Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California.
This film is powerful, intense and captivatingly moving as it touches one of the hottest topics in modern day society, racism. Racism was one of the strongest themes behind the film, not only did it exist between the students but also among the teachers. Some of the teachers were angry. They loathed the mere thought that inner city kids were coming to ‘their’ school, giving it a bad name. Most they didn’t care about the kids at all because it wasn’t kids they saw just thugs and gangsters. In a dramatic scene Mrs. Gruwell was seeking assistance from a senior teacher to get books only to be told off about the teachers suffer. The idea of integration was quote “a lie” and even though the school had many different races and culture the segregation was evident by simply walking outside into the school yard and observing how students were systematically peered with only those of their kind. In one specific seen a young black male simply moved from his “territory” and crossed “borders” into what was considered the Latino’s ground and just that simple, seemingly unproblematic gesture was act of disrespect and became the base of a racial fight in the school yard. The class room proved to be no different; the invisible borders that divided the cultures could clearly be seen. In one instance Mrs. Gruwell asked one black male to switch with a white boy and the class up roared and the racial tension...