Comments

1. Niki wrote:

   From a general perspective, The performances were top-notch and it was a good movie. I did like how the movie turned the whole “well-meaning white teacher goes into the inner city and shows black kids the way” thing on its head and I like that the ending was kind of left open to speculate. I don’t think Dray needed Mr. Dunn as much as he needed her. What was going on with her kind of held up a mirror to his own behavior. I don’t think he immediately put the crack pipe down after all that, but I think that at least for that moment, he decided to do the right thing.

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:17 am ¶

2. Kate wrote:

   I really do not think its a typical “White liberal teacher saves ghetto kid with heart of gold” type movie (ugh). By the end of the film, its obvious that the true “savior” is the young African-American female student, not her white male crack-addict teacher. Spoiler alert: Drey saves HERSELF from choosing a life of drug dealing, and Drey saves her teacher from spiralling out of control and beyond reach with his addiction.

   I disagree with the mention of “broken homes.” Yes, Drey came from a single-parent home. Yes, her brother was in prison. But her mother, shown to be a cop, is not “irresponsible.” She has to work long hours to provide for Drey, and that’s why Drey often has to take care of herself alone. It’s not like the mother is out drinking instead of being with her daughter. Drey’s mother is shown to be more conscientious than Dan (the teacher’s) parents, whose one scene portrays them as tipsy, remote and confused as to why Dan would want to teach in an inner-city school they condescendingly describe as a “zoo.”

   I really feel that while it would be easy to misunderstand or pigeonhole “Half Nelson”, it really is far more sincere and more realisitc than the average inner-city school movie. In fact, as high school movies in general go, its far better.

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:27 am ¶

3. Neil wrote:

   i walked out on this film, precisely because it seemed to be about a white man showing a black kid the way. maybe i missed the point of the film, but up to the point where i watched, it didn’t seem as if the the fact that he was a crack addict gave him any less of an authoritative air, in the eyes of the director, not in the eyes of the film, if that makes any sense.

   and what was with those blackface dolls in the drugdealer’s house? was that ever resolved?

   this movie just pissed me off at the time

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:35 am ¶

4. Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:

   Hey Kate, just to clarify, by “irresponsible parents” I was referring to the absent dad, not her mom.

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:41 am ¶

5. Latoya Peterson wrote:

   Artistically speaking, I loved it, and the friends I saw the movie with did as well. It was nice to see something a little closer to reality – that the person who is supposed to be your savior needs to be saved from themselves. I also liked the loose ending – problems like that aren’t solved through a little bit of introspection.

   I understand what you are saying about the “black people need to be saved from themselves” bit – however, I am willing to give this movie a pass on it. (1) The realism is uncanny – they did quite a bit of research into what kind of home lives these kids have, and presented it in the same fucked up normalcy that happens in real life; (2) like Nikki said above, the viewer is left with the impression that Dray is going to be fine; (3) the story seemed to me to focus more on the humanity of the subjects (moral failings and moral victories) than trying to impart one of those uplifiting messages I find so annoying.

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:44 am ¶

6. Dart_Adams wrote:

   I saw it completely differently and I’m a black man and a writer who pretty much watches films and looks for those cliched themes.

   The white teacher was in NO position to show his student (or anyone else for that matter) “the right way” since he couldn’t even keep his own life together. When he was trying to protect her, she was going along with him and checking on him regularly because HE wasn’t doing so well. It mostly seemed like she was trying to help him out as opposed to he other way around.

   I also felt the director was sure to show parallels between the home lives of both characters and you come to the conclusion that while the White teacher had all the traditional earmarks of someone from a “good, solid home” that you would assume would NEVER become a crack user/abuser and here his student is living in an area rife with it and involved in the trade to a degree herself and she doesn’t even want to touch the stuff. I got that point right away.

   As for “irresponsible parenting”, if you watch the film closely, it alludes to you that the teacher probably didn’t fit in well with his family and their dynamic for whatever reason. The scene where he ate with his family raised a bunch of potential questions.

   Watch it again…and this time WATCH IT. You’ll catch what I mean.

   One.

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:58 am ¶

7. Natasha wrote:

   I just watched this movie a couple of weeks ago, and it left me with some unresolved feelings too. Overall, I think it was less “black people need to be saved from themselves” and more “black people are just like everyone else, in that they have complicated lives, emotions, and motivations.” The teacher didn’t save Drey, she saved herself, and helped the teacher along the way.

   I agree with what Kate and Dart wrote about the families: Dray had a loving and responsible single mom who was pretty in tune with her daughter’s needs, and Mr. Dunn had a stereotyical “intact” family, who he didn’t connect with, and which didn’t prevent him from becoming an addict.

   I loved this movie, I thought it did a fabulous job of showing just how complicated all this race/class stuff is, and that being white, liberal, and of moderate means doesn’t make you a hero. It also showed that having a drug addiction doesn’t make you a bad person. I appreciated the messages of this film just as much as I appreciated the lack of a preachy tone. We can have this discussion because the film didn’t make a point of telling us what to think.

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 12:42 pm ¶

8. ahg wrote:

   In the end, doesn’t she save him?

   For me, that was the key. The movie basically depicted the self-aggrandizing and hypocritical fall of the white male leftist who thinks he can save the world, and makes the point that in the end it’s the black poor little girl that needs to save him (and the left).

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 1:06 pm ¶

9. Janine wrote:

   I thought it was a lovely little film, and well-intentioned … but you know what they say about the road to hell.

   What the film does, unwittingly, is actually play into another stereotype, that of the Magic Negro, who exists solely to save white people from their lost and soulless selves. The child here is not Magic of course, in the way that Will Smith in that terrible movie or that bald brother in that stupid Steven King movie with Tom Hanks (sorry, but I couldn’t get through it and have wiped the name from memory) was, but the idea is the same. Namely, as Alice Walker wrote, white people think black people possess the secret of joy. That is, even though white folks may have all the money, power, privilege, etc, it is black people who somehow hold the true secret to life and thus whites need to get down and get funky in order to be saved. Many, many books and films fall into this category, in which the black character exists only to save, or redeem, the white character. I don’t think that was the intention here, and I actually liked the film in some ways. But let’s see what we see.

   Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 1:08 pm ¶

10. brad wrote:

    I didn’t see the movie as being about a child from a broken home. The reality is that it is normal for children to live in a one parent home. The movie didn’t indicate whether her parents divorced, never married, or the father died.

    In terms of the mother, she seemed very loving and supportive.

    Realistically, Drey was far more mature and decent a character than the teacher character–who almost assaults his would-be girlfriend.

    The movie rang true. It wasn’t a “white savior” pic.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 2:28 pm ¶

11. Winn wrote:

    Janine,

    I see your point, but I think the character portrayals were more nuanced than the Magic Negro stereotype lends itself to. Drey doesn’t possess the “secret of joy”; she is simply clear-eyed and tough-minded in a way Dan has never had to be. I also think that Drey is a fully realized character with a complex and fully explored life, hardly needing to be “saved” by Dan, nor existing solely to save him. I think the filmmakers managed something more complicated and honest than either the “white savior in the ghetto” or “Magic Negro” tropes would ever suggest. Plus, Ryan Gosling is simply one of the best actors on the planet (don’t believe me? Check out his first major film, The Believer, in which he magnetically plays a Neo-Nazi who is secretly Jewish, or his latest, Lars and the Real Girl), and he is almost matched by a superb performance from Shareeka Epps. Check it out for the performances alone.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 3:00 pm ¶

12. Orville wrote:

    Although “Half Nelson” attempts to frame itself as subversive to the whole white liberal saves the day. This movie claims to be different because the white male teacher is a drug addict. And the black girl Drey she is “supposed” to save him even though she’s just a kid.

    I had problems with the elements of pedophilia and white male cultural domination in the film. I felt like the white male teacher could of raped the innocent black girl Drey at any moment in the film. The school dance scene was bizarre and scary.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 3:42 pm ¶

13. Janine wrote:

    Winn,
    You may be right. I’d have to watch the film again to give it a fair critique. But what I saw was that while the young woman’s character was more fully realized than typical in these stories, the focus was still on the teacher. He was the one who changed, who grew, who was opened to new possibility. At least as far as I recall.
    But really, in the scheme of things, this is minimal.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 4:57 pm ¶

14. lemure wrote:

    I completely hate the white savior movies, so believe me when I say this is NOT that kind of movie. I agree with commenters above, that this subverts that genre completely and successfully.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 5:26 pm ¶

15. Miss B wrote:

    I thought it was a great and really appreciated seeing it during my first year as a teacher. Also enjoyed seeing some of the students I’d worked with in the film. Like many have said, my impressions were far different from Carmen’s. What I took from it was that the kids often helps us more than we’re helping them, that they are not totally absorbed in their own lives and that they can and do reach beyond their immediate unfortunate environments.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 9:45 pm ¶

16. Miss B wrote:

    Oh.. and if a movie lets me feast my eyes on Anthony Mackie, then I immediately like it.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 9:47 pm ¶

17. Jennifer wrote:

    This movie really stuck with me–and like many of the other commenters, I’m really allergic to the “magic Negro” genre as well as the “white liberal savior/teacher” storyline. I do think that this film was complicated/complex and open to various interpretations, which could be part of Carmen’s (and others’ ambivalence)–because it is such a well done film and more nuanced that it allows for more open interpretation.

    The only thing I’d disagree with the other posters about is that I’m not sure either is “saved” at the end. I do get the sense that Drey will be OK–that she is a confident and complex figure who will have the strength and resources to survive and thrive in the world. But I feel the end of the film is ambiguous–that we don’t know whether Drey will ultimately stop her dealings with her brother’s friend (can’t remember his name) and we certainly (I certainly at least) don’t know if Dan will really get clean. While there is a sense of the possibility for redemption in the last scene–[SPOILER ALERT] and certainly Drey does, however briefly, offer Dan redemption by returning for him at the hotel and witnessing his ritual shaving–I’m not certain that either, in the short run, has been saved–and perhaps that’s also the point. That beyond just being subversive of race that the film is, perhaps, narratively subversive of our expectations of a happy and neat ending.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:18 pm ¶

18. Jennifer wrote:

    One more comment–I think what would have been truly subversive is if the filmmakers/publicity people had not put Ryan Gosling’s face/body so prominently on the movie poster/DVD cover. If the African American characters were brought forward and made larger and the white figure was put in the background — then maybe we could see the film as trying to do something truly different.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:23 pm ¶

19. Mike wrote:

    ” But ultimately, the message I got was that black people still need to be saved from themselves (drug-dealing, prison, crime, broken home, irresponsible parents).”

    Yeah that pretty much what it was all about, but hey give it point for having a white crack head, I mean how often do you see that on the tv? He was no Pookie but it will do.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 10:36 pm ¶

20. Tiffany Alice wrote:

    I bought the DVD before even seeing it, and I am so glad I bought it! I love it. I agree with Winn, when he/she says that acting is amazing.

    Also I agree with everyone that this is not that typical “Dangerous Minds” type movie with “whitey” saving the day. It is completely different from that kind of theme. I think the theme of this movie goes beyond race and more about us as human beings, individually. If that makes any sense.

    Posted 20 Nov 2007 at 11:06 pm ¶

21. Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:

    Miss B – ditto

    Posted 21 Nov 2007 at 8:38 am ¶

22. Julia wrote:

    This movie was nothing like what I expected.

    I don’t think the movie was about Black people needing a White Messiah as much as it was about Mr. Dunn seeking redemption through his career as a teacher….which almost makes Dray a “magical negro”.

    Overall, this film was a great lesson in the complexities of the human experience.

    Posted 21 Nov 2007 at 10:04 am ¶

23. Julia wrote:

    Ditto Lemure (which upon reading the dvd cover, I knew that this movie was about something else!)

    and Miss B (whew!)

    Posted 21 Nov 2007 at 10:07 am ¶

24. Christopher wrote:

    Okay, I haven’t seen this movie but damn, the white character is addicted to crack and he still gets to be the white hero saving the lost darkies in need of white guidance? he still gets to be in the forefront on the box cover, looking sincerely and intently with the darkies in the background. The message is still, oh, the white person has problems so he can relate to the darkies, the white person’s problems are a result of his complicated and tragic intellectual engagement with the world as a fully developed White Human, but the darkies are just drug-using and dealing apes who must be saved from their own degenerate hell that they can’t elevate from without white guidance. the ghetto=the jungle and black people = apes who need to learn sign language from whites so they can learn to communicate and interact with White Society… It’s time that we seriously look into radically abolishing these racial categories and the whole concept of whiteness and blackness, I don’t think we can use them without invoking what the terms were originally and always have been used as language for white supremacy…

    Posted 21 Nov 2007 at 3:40 pm ¶

25. DJ Black Adam wrote:

    I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The story was well written.

    Posted 21 Nov 2007 at 5:33 pm ¶

26. Kate wrote:

    Whoa #24. You’re making a lot of assumptions about a movie you admit you haven’t seen, based on the DVD cover. And no, the white male crack addict is NOT the white savior of the ghetto. Rather the young African American female character is his salvation. This arguably leads to stereotypes of the “magical negro” but there is no way to substantiate your claim of “darkies” and “apes.”

    The people who market and package promotional materials for movies are NOT the same people who actually write, direct and act in these movies. While I can easily understand having scruples with the DVD cover, it doesn’t reflect he film’s messages at all. Marketing is all about playing to people’s interests and curiousities, and rarely reflects the actual messages and intents of the material it is based around.

    You should seriously see the movie before going off on the DVD cover.

    Posted 21 Nov 2007 at 7:13 pm ¶

27. Jennifer wrote:

    I’m surprised at all the props given here. Those of you who called it as a “magic Negro” film hit the nail right on the head. Who cares if it shows a white man as a crackhead? Aren’t MOST drug addicts in the United States white and male? How is that anything new?

    Posted 22 Nov 2007 at 8:07 am ¶

28. Orville wrote:

    Yes the white male character is still a “savior” he’s viewed as a better father figure for Drey even though he’s a crackhead because he’s white. The DVD poster is important because why is Gosling’s photo right at the front of the DVD? Gosling does appear “innocent”, “sincere”, and “earnest” he certainly doesn’t look like a “crackhead” in the photo. Yet in the backgrond is Drey and Anthony Mackie and they look depressed and confused about their lives. They also appear in the background reducing them to “the other.” Half Nelson attempts to “frame” itself as not being a Magic Negro/White liberal teacher saves the day kind of movie but it fails. Gosling still comes off as a “hero” when he’s not his character comes off as the “good white noble man” saving the poor black girl. I also did not appreciate the pedophilia undertones in the movie I found that abhorrent.

    Posted 22 Nov 2007 at 5:05 pm ¶

29. evisruc wrote:

    I thought the film was fine. They had enough fortitude to actually address the “white savior” theme when Anthony Mackie’s character actually calls out Gosling on his protectiveness of Drey. He literally calls him out for thinking, “What’s white is right,” so I don’t think the creators could have intended it to be a white savior film knowing that.

    Posted 22 Nov 2007 at 6:11 pm ¶

30. Cynthia wrote:

    People seem to forget that this genre has been done with black teachers saving kids too. Lean on Me anyone?

    Posted 23 Nov 2007 at 4:27 pm ¶

31. Christopher wrote:

    Regarding Lean on Me….

    An excerpt from The Progressive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics by George Lipsitz…

    “Lean on Me opens with a montage that portrays the predominately black students and staff of Eastside High School as lazy, licentious, boisterous, and brutal. With stereotypical caricatures that hearken back to nineteenth-century minstrel shows and D. W. Griffith’s 1915 white supremacist film, The Birth of a Nation, Avildsen raises the specter of out-0f-control black bodies to set the stage for his authoritarian black hero. Lean on Me glamorizes the way Clark resorts to physical intimidation and verbal abuse to make teachers, parents, and students knuckle under to law and order as he defines them. The film attributes the demise of discipline in Eastside High School to the control over school policy won by black female parents and teachers as a result of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Like The Birth of a Nation, it summons up authoritarian patriarchal power as a necessary antidote to a broad range of misbehavior by blacks, ranging from lascivious attacks on white women to the laziness of public employees, from the uninhibited speech and body movements of black teenagers to brutal assaults on white authority figures and on “innocent” fellow blacks. Fusing elements of previous high school “disruption” films with the theme of the lone vigilante, Avildsen’s motion picture displays no awareness of the aspirations, experiences, or feelings of students, parents, and teachers, much less any acknowledgement of the actual social conditions they confront.

    As principal of Eastside High School, Clark illegally expelled large numbers of students from school on the grounds that he viewed them as troublemakers. He fueled fights between teacher and parent factions and–most important for his cinematic image–roamed the hall of his school carrying a baseball bat in order to threaten unruly students. These actions won praise from neoconservative pundits, but they did nothing to solve the educational problems facing the school and its students. Clark failed to lower the dropout rate, to improve academic performance, or to raise scores on standardized tests. Instead, his incessant self-promotion exacted serious costs on the school, which eventually became clear even to his patrons in conservative foundations.

    The Joe Clark portrayed in Lean on Me gave white audiences one more chance to blame the victim, one more opportunity to believe that the anguish in African American ghettos stems from the underdeveloped character of the poor rather than from routine and systematic inequality in resources and opportunities.

    Posted 23 Nov 2007 at 11:20 pm ¶

32. merq wrote:

    Orville:

    I’ve gotta say, I see equal degrees of sincerity, confusion, and desperation in the shots of Mackie and Gosling on the DVD cover.

    Cynthia:
    Not to pimp my own Racialicious post (listed under Classic Racialicous, ahem! I’m just sayin…), but here’s why I believe “Lean on Me” didn’t qualify:

    Morgan Freeman in “Lean on Me” (1989): Here, the students, though engaged in stereotypical activities, were much fuller characters– each with his own individual flaws, virtues, etc. Still a treaclefest, but it didn’t set up the students as creatures to be alternately pitied and feared. Plus, Freeman’s Principal Joe Clark is a bit of a tyrannical asshole (with a heart of gold, of course).

    In that post, I looked at a number of potential “Black Savior” movies, and analyzed why they did or (in most cases,) didn’t quite qualify. There were also quite a few brilliant contributions from readers.

    Feel free to take a look:

    http://www.mixedmediawatch.com/2006/08/07/the-white-savior-returns-has-it-been-3-years-already/

    Posted 24 Nov 2007 at 11:37 am ¶

33. Ange wrote:

    I own this movie, and have watched it several times (love Ryan Gosling) and I don’t see the pedophilia undertones. What I see is a teacher who develops a soft spot, for the student trying to save him. And a teenage girl developing a crush on the cute messed up teacher, she is trying to save. My understanding of the teacher’s character, is that his attraction to Drey, is not something he would have acted on. Teenage girls crush on the cute, young male teacher, everyday. Most don’t act on it.

    Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 8:13 am ¶

34. esperanza13 wrote:

    Has anyone ever seen To Sir, With Love? It was on TCM the other night, so my husband and I watched it together. It’s from the sixties, and Sidney Poitier plays a man from British Guinae (educated in the US) who goes to an inner-city London school, where he works with impoverished (primarily) white students to lift them up. Just an interesting reversal from what we normally see (white teacher going into a primarily African American community, to “save” the students”).

    Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 1:33 pm ¶

35. Orville wrote:

    Yes Drey clearly was sexually attracted to Dan she’s a teenaged girl that’s normal. However, its not normal for Dan to be sexually attracted to a young teenaged girl. The school dance scene clearly pedophila it was disgusting! I was so shocked the way how Dan grinded against Drey. I couldn’t believe what I was watching it was so offensive on many levels. On the one hand you have this very innocent girl Drey and her older yes attractive male teacher clearly making a move on her grinding on her.

    Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 2:57 pm ¶

36. Ange wrote:

    Men have and always will be attracted to teenage girls, It’s the acting on it that makes them pedophiles. My understanding of the character is, he would not have acted on it. He was not grinding on her. If that is what you consider grinding, then I can only assume you have never seen grinding. I have to ask, are most of the people who comment here, anti-social geeks?

    Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 5:32 pm ¶

37. Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:

    Ange, please chill with the dissing of people who comment on this blog. Again, I direct you our comment moderation policy, particularly these points:

    3. Don’t make personal attacks. If you’re not smart enough to win an argument without resorting to calling someone fat, stupid, crazy, or whatever, maybe you should work on your rhetorical skills.

    Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 5:41 pm ¶

38. Ange wrote:

    Carmen, it was not a diss, for me, it was a legitimate question. Culturally, I am not sensitive to a lot of things Americans are sensitive to. So forgive me for not being quite sure, what a person who was raised here, would find insensitive. This is still a learning process for me. So I saw nothing wrong with my question.

    Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 6:13 pm ¶

39. Ange wrote:

    I suddenly feel like a White person, whose every action and comment is scrutinized. Every comment taken out of context, even if it was not said with any malice.
    It is not a good feeling. It is a lesson learned, we should all get to wear each other’s shoe for a day. I am engaged to a man( who happens to be white) who only sees the good in others, he refuses to look for or acknowledge the “ugliness” in this world. I lovingly call him “man in a bubble” I think I need some time in his bubble.

    Thanks to all of you, I have grown some more.

    Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 6:45 pm ¶

40. merq wrote:

    Ange,

    You poor kid. I too know what it’s like to call someone a roomful of people a bunch of “antisocial geeks” and suffer rampant oppression, like the poor, historically disenfranchised white male population.

    I am not an American either, so I feel your pain. Where I’m from (as is the case in many non-U.S. countries), the phrase “antisocial geek” is actually quite the compliment.

    Posted 26 Nov 2007 at 8:46 pm ¶

41. michelle wrote:

    I agree with Ange about the grinding. I really don’t think that he was grinding on her. In fact, I think that the characters each got their own lens, literally and figuratively. It was clear that Drey had a crush on her teacher, however, when the lens was turned on Ryan Gosling’s character, I didn’t see those feelings being reciprocated. I think that part of the beauty of the film was that each character got a voice, a clear voice within the narrative of the movie. I don’t think we should collapse Drey’s view point with the view point of the film itself.

    That said, show me a movie that gets it pitch perfect when it comes to race. Did Monster’s Ball? I think that Half Nelson was problematic but in the scheme of racial themes, doesn’t it get at least a B? At least a Black woman got to do some serious work in a serious film…y’all the coulda cast Angelina Jolie as Drey, so maybe we should consider ourselves lucky. Maybe that is what us folks need to do…create a racial rating system, like the rating system for morality. That way we can debate the issue with more nuances already on the table, as opposed to the movie having to be mostly good or all bad.

    Posted 27 Nov 2007 at 1:30 am ¶

42. Elsie wrote:

    I think the school dance scene is supposed to show another way he is spiraling out of control. Also then it shows him using drugs, and his pattern is drugs goes with dancing goes with drugs goes with dancing etc, and he went into his pattern without thought. Another instance of showing the loss of control in his downward spiral.

    Just my thoughts.

    Posted 25 Jul 2008 at 6:39 pm ¶