"Won't Back Down" stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as a pair of women who attempt to transform a failing public school. Though faced with complacent teachers, corrupt principals and intractable unions, the duo succeed in using "parent trigger laws" to form a "charter school". Such schools wrestle administrative control away from the state and toward other concerned parties.
A number of recent films have touted the merits of charter schools ("The Lottery", "Waiting for Superman", "The Cartel" etc). Most of these films are funded by millionaires, billionaires and conservative lobbying groups. All present charter schools as being "good alternatives" to "inept government schools" and their "corrupt teachers' unions". In reality, though, charter schools have become yet another means of further monetising society, many run for profit by corporations who have become expert at siphoning public money. Though conceived with good intentions – to provide more power and freedom to teachers – these schools have increasingly become a tool to break up public education, offer lucrative supply contracts to partner companies and rake in profits.
Unsurprisingly, most of these films delight in attacking teachers. Teachers, who are faced with increasingly slashed salaries and pensions, and who have repeatedly had their collective bargaining rights weakened (or outright abolished), are presented as villains. Rather than factors like poverty and under-funding, "failing schools" are exclusively "their fault". The cure? More privatisation. This has been standard operating procedure for several decades: make sure things don't work, wait for people to get angry and then hand the reigns over to private capital.
"Won't Back Down" is engaging, well-shot and features wonderful performances by Davis and Gyllenhaal. Like most films which pretend to be about "social issues" and "the contemporary problems of ordinary Americans", it is also superficial, sanitised, kowtows to the status quo and was funded by those with a clear agenda (conservative billionaires Rupert Murdoch and Philip Anschtuz). Today, the homogeneity of both the classroom and cinema are in many ways a result of similar systems of financing, distribution and exclusivity; capitalism's organisational models breed specific outcomes. The film co-stars Oscar Isaac and Holly Hunter. Both play unionists who learn the errors of their ways. Sneaky.
7.5/10 – See "Half Nelson" and "Detachment".
A number of recent films have touted the merits of charter schools ("The Lottery", "Waiting for Superman", "The Cartel" etc). Most of these films are funded by millionaires, billionaires and conservative lobbying groups. All present charter schools as being "good alternatives" to "inept government schools" and their "corrupt teachers' unions". In reality, though, charter schools have become yet another means of further monetising society, many run for profit by corporations who have become expert at siphoning public money. Though conceived with good intentions – to provide more power and freedom to teachers – these schools have increasingly become a tool to break up public education, offer lucrative supply contracts to partner companies and rake in profits.
Unsurprisingly, most of these films delight in attacking teachers. Teachers, who are faced with increasingly slashed salaries and pensions, and who have repeatedly had their collective bargaining rights weakened (or outright abolished), are presented as villains. Rather than factors like poverty and under-funding, "failing schools" are exclusively "their fault". The cure? More privatisation. This has been standard operating procedure for several decades: make sure things don't work, wait for people to get angry and then hand the reigns over to private capital.
"Won't Back Down" is engaging, well-shot and features wonderful performances by Davis and Gyllenhaal. Like most films which pretend to be about "social issues" and "the contemporary problems of ordinary Americans", it is also superficial, sanitised, kowtows to the status quo and was funded by those with a clear agenda (conservative billionaires Rupert Murdoch and Philip Anschtuz). Today, the homogeneity of both the classroom and cinema are in many ways a result of similar systems of financing, distribution and exclusivity; capitalism's organisational models breed specific outcomes. The film co-stars Oscar Isaac and Holly Hunter. Both play unionists who learn the errors of their ways. Sneaky.
7.5/10 – See "Half Nelson" and "Detachment".