Dangerous Minds coursework

In this section I am going to write about Emilio, who comes from a broken and poor family where nobody cares about education. He is the fighting type of guy, who enjoys hitting people as he says to Lou Anne after a fight with Raul. He is also the type of guy who likes to flirt with new teachers. This is shown when Lou Anne enters the classroom for the first time he tries to flirt with her and tries makes her feel uncomfortable in his presence, in front of the whole class. He normally wears a dark shirt with the buttons undone showing his body to make him look strong. This tells us that he is a hard person who shows off his strength by showing his body and by fighting with people.

Emilio reacts to Lou Anne with a smile and lust in his eyes. Gazing at her body as she walks into the classroom. After she takes some of her things out of her bag Emilio walks up to her very slowly and looks at her whole body. He also remarks by saying that (that bitch was too ugly to eat, I fed her to my dogs. but I’ll eat you.) meaning that she is better looking than the other teacher. At the end of the film he is not the same. He is willing to cooperate with her after she gets the other two boys suspended and tell his parents good things about him. Then other kids start to cooperate as well. Also at the end when he tells her that someone is trying to kill him. She tells him that he could come to her house with her, and he eventually agrees to go with her and tells her the whole story. In the start of the film Emilio is a villain who wants to stop Lou Anne from staying. But towards the end of the film he is shown as a typical heroine which is a reward to Lou Anne. One of the reasons why he doesn’t do what the rest of the class does is because he is the leader of the class. The class does what he does. So if he didn’t cooperate then the class would also not cooperate.

Most of the kids that Lou Anne teaches are people that come from a rough and dangerous part of the society. Most of them come from broken families or from a family where the dad beats his wife. After the fight Emilio says to Lou Anne that “it felt good to hit him in the face”“I like to hit people.” Here he is shown as a hard and tuff man. He is shown as the type of guy that likes to inflict pain on other people whom he does not like. Here he is wearing a black leather jacket and a thin tight vest to show his strong hard body. This is also a way that shows how strong he is. In this part of the film Lou Anne is playing the part of the mother that Emilio might not have. Also, she is playing a part of a helper as she is trying to know the situation and sort it out. She said that she will save Emilio’s life but in the end she is not able to and Emilio ends up dying and she does not fulfil her promise.

The director represents the teenagers in Lou Anne’s class first by showing how bad and disobedient they are and then slowly through the film shows how they change and cooperate with the teacher. Also by the end, all of the teenagers have realised the American Dream that if they work hard and put in effort they can change their lives.