Robert Bulman's Hollywood Goes to High School

Pedro Noguera, a phenomenal urban sociologist and a professor at New York University confronts the problems which exist in our nation’s education system in his book, City Schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the Promise of Public Education. Noguera describes what he views to be the main problems facing urban education and suggests strategies for improvement. From years of experience as a teacher and school board member, he reflects on what he believes to be the real problems. Noguera blames the school’s failures on students, parents, and teachers which leads to blame local government officials or policymakers. Noguera states in City Schools and the American Dream, “The central argument of this book is that until there is a genuine commitment to address the social context of schooling — to confront the urban condition — it will be impossible to bring about significant and sustainable improvements in urban public schools” (pg.6). Noguera believes that we must address the central problem to make any type of solutions for improvement.

Through the production of various films, an audience is given a glimpse or a rendition of what the world might be like during a specific time and place in history. It is through this we are able to gain insight and form opinions about the past and then make the corrective action about the future. Throughout this entirety of this class, we are shown that throughout different time periods there were ways in which gender, race, and class shaped and molded the foundations of our society. Ultimately these films helped us conclude that gender, race, and class are the foundations in which social interactions are built on and provide people with parameters on how to live and interact with one another. Embedded in different parts of society in the past

In the writing Fremont High School by Jonathan Kozol he discusses the reality of urban schools and how they are unable to obtain the proper education. At Fremont High School children are not always able to eat during their lunch period, the proper education needed for college is not obtained, the school reflects institutional discrimination, and the building is overcrowded limiting course offerings for children.

     In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol documents the devastating inequalities in American schools, focusing on public education’s “savage inequalities” between affluent districts and poor districts. From 1988 till 1990, Kozol visited schools in over thirty neighborhoods, including East St. Louis, the Bronx, Chicago, Harlem, Jersey City, and San Antonio. Kozol describes horrifying conditions in these schools. He spends a chapter on each area, and provides a description of the city and a historical basis for the impoverished state of its school. These schools, usually in high crime areas, lack the most basic needs. Kozol creates a scene of rooms without heat, few supplies or text, labs with no

This movie is a great example of social groups, leadership, culture, norms, society, nature and nurture, and social lives. This movie represents how the American culture chooses our social class in society. Some sociologists believed that lifestyle choices are an important influence on our social class position (Giddens, 209). Our class position is the way we dress, where we eat, where we sleep, and how we relax (Giddens,

Looking at the socially or culturally history of the United States, many historians use Hollywood films as a primary source. I also used many films such as Easy Rider (1969) or Dance, Girl, Dance (1941) to support my historical thesis paper and to make the topic more vivid by using the images of the film. Even though, some people think that films are accurate and authentic in its depiction, it is important to mention that films are still fictional. Directors and actors are responsible to make us believe their story, but this story does not have to be necessarily true. In that way, fictional films cannot be used as historical evidence in terms of how things looked like during that specific

Every person in society is dramatically different from one another, yet some people manage to find their place. But what is to be done with the people who don’t fit the status quo, or who don’t fit into society’s ideals? The American society is dominantly constructed by three main aspects: race, class and economics. In Louis Alvarez’s and Andrew Kolker’s documentary, “People like us: Social Class in America”, they thoroughly discussed and examined these three ideas and how they operate in the American culture. Race, class and economics all shape the experiences people have and in the film, all three structures are interconnected in how they impact the lives of people. One way they all can impact lives is how the media socially frames what we

The comparison of J.D Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, and Burr Steers’ 2003 film Igby Goes Down facilitates youth’s tendency to not conform in order to find a sense of individual identity and rebel against the social expectations of the time. An examination of the transition from early 1950s conservative America to the early 21st century, a period of expanding multinational enterprise, reveals small change in societal values and an overall negative image of the pressures to conform. Consequently, Salinger through literary devices and Steers, through cinematic techniques, similarly explore the search for individuality and the fallacy of the American Dream through the predominant concept of nonconformity.

For example, the very fact that he is in a position to go out and study the other (poor people) puts him in a position of superiority. One of his butlers describes this quite effectively. He says “the subject is not an interesting one, the poor know all about poverty, only the rich would find the topic glamorous.” This concept ties in quite well with contemporary practice. American culture tends to glamorize cultures they see as inferior. There is a yearning to see what it’s like on the other side but the ability to do this is one sided. The most relevant example of this I can think of is gentrification. This is the act of wealthy people moving into urban neighborhoods in order to experience a different culture. There is something quite objectifying about having the struggles of your everyday life become a topic of study, as Sully attempts in the film. One of the problems with this, as the film highlights, is that the ability to this is just another privilege the wealthy have over the poor. It would be nearly impossible for one the tramps in the film to dress up like Sully, walk into his house and have a day in the life of a Hollywood

David Fincher’s 1999 film Fight club raised many questions, both within itself and about the world that it critiques. On the surface, Fight Club pushes a very simple, predictable rejection of consumer culture and societal norms, while extolling the value of masculine power. However, as the viewer becomes immersed in the surreal nature of the film, deeper and more layered criticisms of American values are steadily revealed and examined. By nature, modern society needs introspection and self awareness in order to properly function and progress. Artistic creations like Fight Club exist to pose important questions about the value systems of society and its members, thus encouraging complex reflection and progressive thought.

My choice of film is a television show. The film that I have chosen to analyze is One Tree Hill. One Tree Hill is a television show that ran from 2003-2012, it was based in North Carolina and displayed the journey of two half-brothers and their relationship on and off the basketball courts and their relationships with friends and family in their small town. For the 9 years that the show ran, it covered many different political and societal conflicts that happened during its time. The shows audience was primarily teenagers and young adults, due to that they tended to cover the issues and topics that would interest that audience. Some of the topics include: the rise and fall of friendships, relationships with parents, death, depression, sex, and the pressure that consumes young adults to succeed. I would not say that the film criticized an aspect of society, they never singled out a particular point and

What are the costs of living in a success-driven, consumer-oriented, image-obsessed society? This challenge to contemporary America’s suburban culture finds a voice in Sam Mendes’ 1999 movie American Beauty. The film’s complex subtlety underscores its implication that subtlety itself is a casualty in our society. American Beauty’s tagline exhorts viewers to “look closer,” but the film expresses ambivalence concerning what is revealed by closer inspection. On one hand, protagonist Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) and his young neighbor Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) speak of the unappreciated beauty surrounding us; however, Lester also begins to question the values of a world that seems perfect but is actually a

When one thinks of an exceptional school, they typically think of a school in a good neighborhood with wonderful teachers. But what about the children in neighborhoods with failing schools? In the 2010 documentary, Waiting for Superman, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim brings awareness to the failing school system in low-income communities throughout the United States. Instead of prioritizing his research on statistics, the documentary is focused on following the educational journey of five students; Anthony, Francisco, Daisy, Bianca, and Emily all face the struggles of the failing public education in low-income neighborhoods. In the documentary, Guggenheim and his film crew make the viewer aware of “dropout factories”, “academic sinkholes”, and many other issues that today's children are facing in neighborhoods with failing public schools. The children are waiting and looking for someone to save them from the disastrous schools that that are heading towards. Guggenheim uses visual pacing of clips and animations in his dramatic film to build his argument for education reform and the change that needs to be made to ensure that all students get a good public education.

In Davis Guggenheim’s 2010 documentary “Waiting for Superman”, producer Lesley Chilcott paired with Paramount Vantage and Participant Media to create a film that documents America’s failing public education system. Although the United States has tried to improve the education system in the past, it is seen that the desired outcome has yet to unravel. This film has been screened at schools- such as the College of the Holy Cross- and by the Saratoga Film Forum with a discussion about the film after to inform citizens of the faults in our educational system. The central claim or position of the film is that America’s public education system is unsatisfactory, even though student spending has increased per student. However, it is seen that students’ results have flat-lined with no improvement since 1971 in reading and math. Even though this film focuses on statistics on America’s public educational system, there is an emphasis on personal anecdotes.

Twenge proves the ethos problems within her research. Movies are a big part of the attitude of the young American’s today because it changes the level of values and thoughts. It results in no social rules and learning to be independent. There are many shows and movies where the attitudes of the actors are poor and it will encourage viewers to change the way they act because it will make them seem like a better person.