Research Paper on:
Henry Giroux/Dangerous Minds

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
this country is a thing of the past. They believe in equality, honor the memory of Martin Luther King and have been careful not to pass on the legacy of  racial hatred to their children. Therefore, if blacks, Hispanics and other minorities are still not satisfied or continue to remain trapped in inner-city ghettos it is-somehow-their fault, because they get  dont pay attention in school or drop out of school or simply refuse, rather stubbornly, to act in what mainstream society defines as meaningful. This is essentially what various commentators  on race, such as film reviewer, Henry Giroux, are trying to convey. Their message is particularly difficult for the white mainstream to hear because it negates so many assumptions that  are so completely entrench as to be oblivious to the people who believe in this ideology. In his film review of Dangerous Minds, which stars Michelle Pfeiffer as real-life  teacher Louanne Johnson, Henry Giroux is scathing critical of the filmmakers approach because the film "attempts to represent whiteness as the archetype of rationality, authority and cultural standards" (Giroux 46).  The films premise proposes that a " mix of compassion and consumerism" served up in management doses will somehow motivate inner-city minority adolescents who long ago emotionally gave up on  academic as being relevant or meaningful to their lives (Giroux 46). The plot of this movie is obviously the story of a plucky, caring white woman (the good guy) up  against uncaring, dogmatic authority (the black principal) as well as the apathy, anger and obstructive behavior of her students (bad guys). Girouxs complaints with the film stem from his  understanding of the films hidden agenda, which is to "recover the ideology, culture and values that construct whiteness as a dominant form of racial identity, besieged by subordinate racial identities