Fridae

"Inspired by true events", Won't Back Down advocates the parent-trigger cause to both sides of the political divide in America in the form of a Very Inspirational Film, wherein ordinary parents, out of love and concern for their children's well-being and education, take over their children's public schools and restructure them as chartered schools.

Does it matter that though 'inspired by true events', the film is more of a how-to manual of instigating and carrying out a school takeover than how to run a school that you've just taken over and fired 90% of the teachers? Should it matter if the film expects us to be inspired by the courage and protectiveness of the parents in this movement, rather than by the success stories of schools that have undergone such radical restructuring? Oh wait. There aren't any success stories to date. Some of these charter schools have even failed completely but should that get in the way of an inspirational film?

But what an inspirational film Won't Back Down is. We have Maggie Gyllenhaal as a single parent working two jobs in order to support a dyslexic child who isn't getting the special care she needs in her elementary school, Viola Davis as apparently the one teacher in school who isn't malicious, stupid, or lazy when it comes to education or even supervision of children, and Holly Hunter as a head of the Evil Teachers' Union more interested in protecting bad teachers than protecting children. The leading women of this film provide you with all the fair and balanced perspective you need. It just takes concerned, active parents and true educators to take back our schools and school our children properly. That, and all the fault of declining educational standards can be laid at unionised, tenured teachers.

But back to the questions I raised. Yes, it does matter even if this is a work of fiction touting itself as a film inspired by true events. It matters even more when this is an advocacy film and how-to manual masquerading as an inspirational film. Won't Back Down reeks of irresponsibility, intellectual dishonesty, and an open disregard for the facts on the ground.

And the fact is, the prescriptions of the parent-trigger movement are anathema to both classic conservatism and liberalism, and its growing popularity points towards a cancer in the public imagination. On the left, the real problem in education is the lack of cultural capital among the lower classes that live in the inner city, and the orthodox leftist treatment is for vastly increased state funding of education and a liberalised curriculum. On the right, the real problem in education is the culture of poverty and poor, overworked parents unable to pass on positive values to kids, and the orthodox treatment being early childhood intervention via generous school vouchers for children to offset their parental disadvantage.

Won't Back Down plays like a standard inspirational film where the little people struggle against uninterested and self-interested bureaucrats for a cause they believe in. Yet the more the film runs away from the facts, the more it attempts to posture as an inspirational drama, the more hollow and self-serving it comes across despite the stellar work of its principal cast.