"It will have your looks and my brains"

Wow, Blackboard Jungle. Blatant hating on teenagers, I do believe. I'm pretty sure that Americans had some anxiety about rock 'n' roll loving teens. That much is very very clear in this film.

Whenever I hear the song Rockin' Around the Clock, the absolute last thing I think of is mis-behaving teenagers. But I guess back in 1955, this was considered to be a rock song that was turning kids into hoodlums.

As soon as this movie started and the plot was laid out, I was reminded of that Michelle Pfeiffer movie Dangerous Minds. I believe the song Gangster's Paradise was the them song of that film. Rap was considered the scary music for teens at that time. Of course, there is the well-meaning teacher, coming into the inner city high school, determined to make a positive difference for the kids. At first, there was nothing but trouble, but then thankfully, some of the kids turned their lives around.

In class, we talked about Ms. Hammond and I believe she was called a "whore". I'm so frustrated by the portrayal of women in films such as these. There are exactly two women in Blackboard Jungle. One is Ms. Hammond. She is the typical working woman of the 1950s. She is a woman out of the home, which in a movie like this means she is not a conventional America woman. Which also means that she is overtly sexual. Which obviously means she has to be portrayed as a slut because we can't have positive sexuality in American films.

When Mrs. Dadier suggested that maybe Ms. Hammond deserved her almost-rape, I was livid. A lot of people talk like that about women. If they happen to dress in a way that shows off their figure, if they like men and are obvious about it, it is assumed that they somehow deserve to be raped or disrespected. It drives me absolutely crazy. But I think that is a common sentiment in our society. It's really unfortunate.

And then the second woman of the film. Mrs. Dadier. Ugh. She is the obedient, stay-home, blonde wife of the 1950s. At first, she frustrated me because she was insecure and jealous in her marriage. And THEN, when she actually apologized for letting her husband down by having a miscarriage, I almost lost it. I found her to be weak and frustrating. I hate that there is the annoying weak woman and then the slutty strong woman. Why can't we just have strong, intelligent, positive female characters?

Moving on from my rant... I really liked Miller. At first, I barely paid attention to when he was in the bathroom, questioning another student about making another boy cry. I guess I didn't realize that he was the one who said it, but I do remember liking that someone said it at all. But then Mr. Dadier enters the bathroom and Miller antagonizes him. I liked how he called him "Chief". That would have driven me crazy if I were Dadier. It's like when people my age or younger call me "hon". It's very condescending. So, as I said in class, at first Miller seems like a punk just like the rest of the kids in the school. However, I started to feel differently about him.

Dadier singles Miller out as a leader. However, he also believes him to be a problem child. That is kind of bizarre. He looks to him as both the problem AND the solution. Dadier suspects Miller in a lot of the bad acts that occur when it actually turns out to be West. I hold a bit of pity for West. One of my first thoughts about him was that his parents must not have loved him enough or else he would not be acting out as much. West says later that he is acting out so that he won't be accepted into the military. I don't really buy that. I think he is just a very troubled young man and does bad things in order to get noticed.

I think that West was jealous of the relationship between Miller and Dadier. And I do not agree with the reading. I don't think it's because West is gay or anything. I think that West is truly the character who needs to be rescued. He is obviously very troubled and lost. He should be the one that Dadier is trying to rescue, not Miller. He is jealous of the attention Dadier is giving to Miller and that is why he does so many things to get Dadier's attention. Yes, he does really bad things to get his attention. And Dadier is still oblivious to it. It's really sad, actually.

Overall, the sexism in this film really frustrated me. But I appreciated the interracial aspect of it. I liked that one of the main protagonists is Miller, a young working-class black boy. Dadier views Miller as a problem, but I think that the audience can see just how good Miller really is. The film shows the cultural anxieties of the time. Integrated schools probably scared a lot of Americans. Rock 'n' roll and juvenile delinquents definitely were a fear. That is very apparent in this film.