Movies, Music, TV, & News O MY (revised)

 

Movies:

Urban

Lean On Me

Based on a true story of an urban community in Patterson NJ, it shows how Joe Clark (the principal) made a difference in one school bringing education back to the students by removing the troublemakers, drug dealers and gang members. He restored hope and unity to the students of Eastside High. This story shows that it only takes one person who really believes in change and consistency to make a positive difference.

 

Sub-Urban

Pretty in Pink

This movie is about a girl who is from a low income split family from the wrong side of the tracks who is subjected to peer pressures when asked to the prom by the popular wealthy boy. She is ashamed of where she comes from and his friends are disgusted that he can be dating a girl who is lower on their scale according to popularity and money. They try to break through the biases and date anyway but in the end the pressure gets to be too much. It shows that a school can be very diverse no only culturally, but economically as well, which can also make a gap in the sociability.

 

Rural

Napoleon Dynamite

This movie is about a boy who is socially out-casted in school because of his “goofy and strange” persona. The school population is primarily white until Pedro moves there from Mexico. Napoleon tries to welcome the newcomer by taking him under his wing helping him run for class president. Pedro’s character shows how different cultures can uphold conflicting views of what is acceptable in school because he doesn’t understand why he got into trouble for beating a piñata of Summer, another candidate, when that is tradition in Mexico. It depicts that people in these rural areas are “behind” from the entertainment industries and culturally mixed fast-paced city life.

 

Music:

Urban

Linkin Park: Hands Held High

“When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die” This song doesn’t have to do with education directly, but more of the poor urban communities. The government is corrupt making wars to get our country out of greedy debt to make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. The gap between the economic levels is growing rapidly. It is the people from these communities that are going to war because some of them rationalize that they are going to die on the streets anyway, they may as well get a good education, go to war and have a chance at life. Sometimes, this is the only outlet for those who are too poor to get an education, or didn’t receive a good education at the urban school they attended and therefore do not have the grades to go to college, so the military is the only way.

 

Sub-Urban

Pink Floyd: Another Brick in The Wall

“We don’t need no education; we don’t need no thought control.” This song is about the educational oppression from the government’s mandated form of education, which tries to mold school children into mindless drones of society. Specifically, Roger Waters means, “we don’t need [THIS] type of education.”  It is high school aged students saying who needs school; why can’t we think for ourselves? At the end of the song he says, “if you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding”, implying that there are consequences…I may be pushing it, but if you don’t do your work and studying you can’t get good grades.

 

Rural

Alice Cooper: School’s Out for the Summer

“School’s out for the summer…school’s been blown to pieces.” My reasoning here is pretty disturbing. First, that Marilyn Manson was from a rural community and he grew up listening to ACDC and Alice Cooper – the music of the devil, according to some. He eventually took Alice Cooper’s image and music steps further into a modern-heavy metal. (I had independent reading in high school and we had to choose an autobiography and I chose him).  In this type of music, image, generally speaking, has a lot to do with the type of music listened to. The connection - Columbine happened in a rural area with high school students dressed in the “all black” and trench coats, the image of Alice Cooper’s/Marilyn Manson’s music.

 

TV

Urban

Everybody Hates Chris

About a young African American kid who grows up in a very stereotypical black household. He goes to school in an urban community and gets blamed for everything whether innocent or guilty. His struggles come from his perception as a school aged student in an urban area.

 

Sub-Urban

The Simpsons

This TV show depicts a middle class family with two middle school aged kids, one being the “brainy and smart” (Lisa) and the other (Bart) who gets into trouble frequently and rebels against the teachers, principal, and school. 

 

Rural

South Park

The cartoon is based in a rural community and the characters make fun of every culture equally. It is a very controversial show. “Chef” and “Token” are the only black characters in the show and they play racist and stereotypical parts. There are other cultures that are demoralized depending on the episode. I feel in most cases in rural schools, there is not a melting pot of cultures and the tendency to become racist, naïve, or stereotypical comes into play because there is only this generalization/assumption of the culture on the television.

 

News:

Urban

U.N. Predicts Urban Population Explosion – NY Times 2009

“By next year, more than half the world’s population, 3.3 billion people, will for the first time live in towns and cities, and the number is expected to swell to almost five billion by 2030, according to a United Nations Population Fund report released yesterday.” This means that communities are going to become more diverse and crowded, which will lead to a rise to the already over crowded schools, making a good education even harder to attain.

 

Sub-Urban

Photo Id cards – Ridgefield, N.J. 2002

In an attempt at securing the safety at Ridgefield Memorial High School, one year after I graduated, students were asked to wear photo identification around their necks. Also, police officers roam the hallways to monitor the traffic in and out of the school. I believe that this action was based as a reaction to September 11, since the school is only a few miles from NYC.

 

Rural

Columbine Massacre, Denver, CO 1999

Two bullied high school students went into their high school in Denver and started shooting everyone from classmates to faculty. There were 12 fatalities. They had been plotting their attack for over a year acquiring arsenal over the internet. This shows that our perception of quiet rural towns can be very distorted and that in this digitally enhanced world, technologies such as the internet can yield some terrible information when in the hands of the wrong people.