Sep 4, 2015
When Dangerous Minds was released in 1995, we were all
too young to realize it was not breaking any new ground. So while
it was just the latest entry in a long line of films that utilized
the "save our students" story template, it still felt super duper
important when we watched as kids. Now that we're all grown up,
it's pretty easy to recognize that this is no Lean on Me
or Stand & Deliver. At its best, Dangerous Minds
is a tone-deaf oversimplification of what the real LouAnne Johnson
actually experienced. At its worst, it's an insensitive misfire
that betrays its source material and basically turns the whole
situation into a cartoon.
Topics include: Coolio's hit single "Gangsta's Paradise" and the
part it played in keeping Dangerous Minds in the zeitgeist
for the past two decades, the fact that Jerry Bruckheimer seems to
think he's making To Sir, With Love but probably would
have been more at home with something like The Substitute,
the actual methods Johnson used to make the curriculum more
relevant for her students (spoilers - it wasn't with Bob Dylan
lyrics), deleted scenes, awkward endings, why the truth was so much
more compelling than this fiction, and much much more!
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