Critical Media Analysis- Analyzing the students of Stand and Deliver
Stand and Deliver brings us into the world of a group of Hispanic students in an East Los Angeles high school. Jamie Escalantes enters their lives as the new math professor on a mission to teach the students AP calculus. The movie itself delivers a story of resiliency and the embodiment of underrepresented students fighting against society’s views on Hispanic youth.
Unfortunately, what the movie also brings to the forefront are traditional stereotypes of Hispanic students. Since media is “one of the most powerful and extensive systems for the circulation of meaning”(Hall, 1997), viewers watching Stand and Deliver will continue to believe in popular culture’s depiction that Hispanic youth can be nothing more than criminals and uneducated civilians.
Claim 1: Hispanic students are often perceived as uneducated
The stereotype of all Hispanic students being uneducated is fully present in the film Stand and Deliver. While the film does show testament to the fact that students can engage in learning if there is a supportive figure pushing them towards that learning, there is still an underlying stereotype present.
Not only are the students immersed in the stereotypes the faculty at the school make it clear to Mr. Escalantes that he won’t be able to “teach algorithms to illiterates”( Stand and Deliver, 1988). With the lack of enthusiasm from the faculty at the school the students begin to take on the ever present self-fulfilling prophecy. If no one believes in them, then they don’t believe in themselves. As the students become present in their work and engage fully in Mr. Escalantes teaching of calculus, they become more confident in their abilities, that is until the results are produced from the AP exam. The AP exam brings back the stereotype of the uneducated Hispanic student. The testing administration have doubts that the students could have all gotten above average scores on their exam and initiate an investigation making sure the students were not engaged in cheating practices. “Those scores would have never been questioned if my kids did not have Spanish surnames and come from barrio schools. You know that” (Stand and Deliver, 1988).
While Mr. Escalante has complete faith in the students it is clear others, alongside the testing administration, do not believe in their innocence. Even the head of the math department Mrs. Ortegas states that “they would have gone to any lengths to please you (Mr. Escalantes) and that “most people who get caught today are guilty” (Stand and Deliver, 1988). Both statements insinuating that she did not believe in the student’s ability which then perpetuates the stereotype of uneducated Hispanic students.
In Stand and Deliver (1988) “we are immersed in something, surrounded by it” and then we begin to accept the stereotypes “as just part of the real and natural world” (Hall, 1997). The image begins to produce knowledge about “what we know about the world” because of how it is presented in the media (Hall, 1997). What this stereotype has in common with the others about Hispanic students is that it reduces the ethnicity to a “one sided superficial and exaggerated depiction” (Trevino, 1985). People who may never had an experience with someone of Hispanic ethnicity may be lead “to expect certain experiences in particular situations” (Reynolds, 2014). Thus allowing an American population to continue to believe in the stereotype of the uneducated Hispanic student.
Claim 2: Hispanic students regardless of ethnicity are compiled together as criminals.
The second claim focuses on the common stereotype of Hispanic youth as gang members and criminals.
From the beginning of Mr. Escalantes interactions with the students we are introduced to Angel and his posse of gang banging friends.
Mr. Escalantes continues to have run ins with the criminal aspect of students particularly on his first day when his car radio is stolen. While we see Angel start to leave his tough exterior outside in the real world he still continues to have issues with his so-called friends throughout the movie, most likely due to the fact that he needs to keep up a tough exterior with the homies. After hearing the results of the AP exam, Angel goes back to his tough guy ways and manages to get the police involved. As the cops interact with the two students Angel says “yeah that’s all you know” (Stand and Deliver, 1988) insinuating that the cops would have an unconscious bias towards Hispanic youth. It has been seen that “in recent years Latino youthful gang members have emerged in film as updated modern ramparts of the Mexican bandit” (Trevino, 1985). This stereotype of the gang banging, criminal Hispanic youth continues to be a stereotype that “spills over from one genre to another” (Romero, 2008). “These stereotypes cluster around a small set of negative meanings including barbaric, greaser….lawless and violent” (Romero, 2008). Even as Angel tries to depart from his negative stereotype he still manages to continually fall back into his ways through his neatly placed tattoos and his ability to tell a convincing story
“Hardly ever have Latinos been portrayed as people in control of their lives, capable of standing up for their rights or having an interest in their future” (Trevino, 1985). Instead the news media portrays Hispanics and other minorities in a negative light or “stereotypically as criminals, gang participants…or as is commonly the case they are dismissed altogether” (Sizemore & Milner, 2005). It continues a long standing tradition of popular films portraying minorities “in ways that are consistent with traditional stereotypes” (Dagaz & Harger, 2011). While Stand and Deliver tries to fight against the stereotype of the criminal Hispanic it also continues to reinforce the gang member stereotype through its depiction of Angel and his homies. Not only does this movie skew the ideas of non-minorities watching the movie it also allows young Hispanic students to engage in a story that will “help them understand more about” themselves and “the way that they fit into the world”(Marron, 2015). Unfortunately it happens in a negative light.
Conclusion
“Negative media portrayals of minorities stimulate racism; perpetuate discrimination, stereotypes, myth and social distance and create negative self imagery” (Sizemore & Milner, 2005). Even with the touching sentiment and message of resiliency and “ganas” in Stand and Deliver, negative media portrayals of Hispanic students continue to be depicted within the film. There is so much more “complexity of a struggling people” like Hispanic youth, but ye t films continually allow a stereotypical undertone to be present. “There is two kinds of racism, Mr. Escalante. Judging a group because they are a minority and not judging a group because they are a minority” (Stand and Deliver, 1988)
References
Dagaz, M. & Harger, B. (2011). Race, gender, and research: Implications for teaching from depictions of professors in popular film, 1985–2005.
Hall, S. (1997) Representation and the media [PDF document]. Retrieved from http://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Stuart-Hall-Representation-and-the-Media-Transcript.pdf
Heldiz, Adriana. (June 29, 2017). Please stop talking about “Stand and Deliver”. Voice of San Diego. Retrieved from https://www.newamerica.org/weekly/edition-170/please-stop-talking-about-stand-and-deliver/
Marron, D. (2015) Why Stories Matter. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoAeAbOg1gw
Musca, T. (Producer), & Menendez, R. (Director). (1988). Stand and Deliver [Motion picture]. United states: Warner Bros.
Reynolds, P. J. (2014a). Representing “U”: Popular Culture, Media, and Higher Education (Introduction: pp.1–11)
Ricardolarablog. (March 17, 2017). Latino students in the US as seen through mass media [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://lookinginthepopularculturemirror.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/latino-students-in-the-us-as-seen-through-mass-media/
Romero, M & Margolis, E. (2008) The Blackwell companion to social inequities. MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Sizemore, D & Milner, W. (5 July 2005) Hispanic media use and perceptions of discrimination. The sociological quarterly: Official of the Midwest sociological society, Volume 45(4), 765–784. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.2004.tb02313.x
Trevino, JS. (1985). Latino portrayals in film and television. Jump Cut, no. 30. Retrieved from https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC30folder/LatinosFilmTvTrevino.html