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The True History Behind ‘Freedom Writers’
What about the millions of other classrooms out there whose stories go unheard?
As a teacher in inner-city Baltimore, the movie Freedom Writers has a very mixed reputation, to say the least. Some see the movie as inspirational, but others see it as a white savior movie that implies that all inner-city kids need is a white savior teacher who can change their lives.
It’s a Hollywood movie that sensationalized what it means to be an inner-city teacher. Having just survived my first year — I realize that I have to do all the things that Hilary Swank, the actor that plays the real-life Erin Gruwell, didn’t do: put boundaries between work and your personal life, realize that you can’t save your students, and not ruin your marriage or relationship because you are so sucked into your work.
In real life, however, Erin Gruwell actually did do some great work at Woodrow Wilson High School (whose name a Change.org petition is now urging to change) in Long Beach, but real life is, of course, more ambiguous than the movie. Gruwell did a lot of good with her student, but other teachers in the school did too. She was the only one that got mass media attention, and it’s not like she didn’t deserve it, but other teachers deserved it too.
Here’s the true story behind Freedom Writers.
Backlash within the Long Beach Community
The true story is a balance between the reactionary perception that Gruwell manipulated and used her kids’ academic success for personal gain, and the white savior narrative that she changed her students’ lives.
Today, Gruwell is a professor at the California State University at Long Beach, but she and the movie came under a lot of criticism because of depicting the school as a “beaten-down, inner-city nightmare” in the words of Gina Piccalo at the Los Angeles Times. It depicts teachers as being bitter and burned out, and students as carrying guns.
“Anyone who knows Long Beach knows the high school is nothing like that,” Long…
