[Marxism] A Marxist Movie: "Half Nelson"

[guava tree]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 9:16 PM, Jay Moore <pieinsky at igc.org> wrote:

> I"Half Nelson" is set in a gritty neighborhood of NYC


Here's an interesting non-marxist, but interesting contrary view to mull
over (by Armond White, who always has intriguing, but often disturbing
opinions):


Wednesday, August 16,2006 Strung-Out Drugs and race divide junior high

Half Nelson

Directed by Ryan Fleck

 The title Half Nelson suggests the choke hold that white liberal
condescension has on social progress. It's intended to identify political
struggle, but the film inadvertently demonstrates constriction by foolishly
making a sanctimonious hero, Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling), out of a New York
high school history teacher who is also a crack addict.

Dunne is a crackhead Conrack—to reference Martin Ritt's 1974 film that
movingly recreated author Pat Conroy's attempt to change the patterns of
America's 1960s apartheid school system. But movie humanism has been
steadily scoffed at since Conrack; typically through dismissive attitudes
toward socially progressive films like Ritt's, Stanley Kramer's (The Defiant
Ones and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?) and Elia Kazan's (Pinky and
Gentlemen's Agreement). In their place, a series of new, grotesquely
condescending movies—from City of God to anything starring Samuel L.
Jackson—trumpet whites' hidden resentment about blacks' troubling,
irremediable social status.

full: http://www.nypress.com/article-14196-strung-out.html