Why Dallas ISD Shouldn’t Have Taken Any Students to See Red Tails For Black History Month
Some of the Tuskegee Airmen in 'Red Tails.'
The Morning News is all over a breaking story that today Dallas ISD took about 5,000 fifth-graders to see the movie Red Tails, about the exploits of the famed Tuskegee Airmen – the first black American combat pilots – during World War II. Reporter Matthew Haag’s blog post is right to ask why only boys were taken to the show. (The DISD spokesman says there was only so much space available at the theater, so the girls were left at school, with principals given the option of showing them Akeelah and the Bee.)
I am less concerned with the differing treatment of the genders in this situation than I am with the fact that any kids at all were taken, by our public school system, to see Red Tails. Â I gave it a so-so, better-than-a-kick-to-the-teeth review on FrontRow. The movie’s not very good. More importantly, it’s not a history lesson. It’s more like propaganda.
George Lucas, who produced the film and had championed a project about the Tuskegee Airmen for decades before Red Tails got made, basically says as much in this appearance on the Daily Show. He wanted to make a flag-waving, patriotic pean to wartime bravery, in the spirit of some old mindless John Wayne film. While there’s no doubt that these pilots achieved some heroic feats during WWII, the movie makes it seem as though they did so while suffering almost no losses.
I realize our elementary school history lessons often teach us nonsense anyway. We lead kids to believe that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree. That Paul Revere deserves full credit for warning Lexington and Concord that the British were coming. That Ronald Reagan single-handedly defeated the Soviet Union (Kidding, of course. Everyone knows it was Pope John Paul II who brought down the Iron Curtain.)
But if we’re going to show children overly romanticized portraits of our history, can’t they at least be in better films? What happened to watching Glory – the edited-for-schools version – during Black History Month?
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16 comments
Propaganda: it starts wars, it ends wars, it writes history
I’m sure the girls were just baking cookies and doing communications training for sports journalism.
So, hang on. Let’s tap the brakes here. I have seen the movie. It takes liberty with a number of events involving that group that never happened. That’s cool. It’s entertainment. Gotta fluff it up. It’s sorta like seeing Red Dawn, it gets you pumped up on haterade.
The unforseen irony with the DISD is that at one time they had a Daniel Chappie James Learning Center. Named for the commanding officer of the Tuskegee Airmen, the 99th Pursuit Squadron. Featured in the movie. DISD closed that school in 2006. Renamed it Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School, Of which ZERO students were allowed to attend. Because they were female.
My family paid a heavy price in World War II. As a small child, I was taken to Sunset High School and shown a plaque in the atrium with my namesake, my grandfather. I was told how I could never ruin his name because he gave his life for his country. Learning later, he was killed outside of Pisa, within site of the Leaning Tower. That hot day in 1944, his company killed 200 Waffen SS in a pitched battle on the Arno. He was the only casualty that day, calling in mortar fire on the SS, the same SS that ruined Rome with war crimes.
I had a great uncle who was a B-17 pilot, graduate of Sunset. He was shot down twice. Once over Sweden, once over France. He arrived at Stalag Luft III, the Great Escape camp, the day after the Great Escape. Half of the DISD Sunset High School Football Team was already in the camp! Austin played Sunset in 1942 for the State Championship football game, and most of both teams were POWs of the Luftwaffe at Stalag Luft III.
Why DISD shouldn’t have taken any kids? That’s easy: it’s a movie in a theater and the DISD should be teaching kids in classrooms. Showing movies in school, regardless of how good or bad it is, is a waste of time. Dragging kids out of school to go see it in a theater is an even bigger waste of time and money. This is even worse after seeing the report that the district could lose its title 1 funding due to a failure to provide proper tutoring. There should be a deep house-cleaning at the DISD. Maybe the state needs to take it over (a la Wilmer-Hutchins) to fix this mess.
Why is everyone overlooking the fact that this movie is rated PG-13…5th graders are 10 and 11 years old (unless they have been held back).
…implications of sex between two partially clothed people, profanity and obscenities fill this movie.
The fact that a public school system would allow this is disgusting.
Poor choice of movies for educational purposes DISD!!!
It would seem that DISD is not able to make good decisions on any level. Our district has NO money, the last super pissed it away, our test scores are near rock bottom, we are closing schools and DISD is sending kids to the movies….boys only !!!!!! Maybe the state should take over the district….this would be a reality check for sure.
I’m just upset that so much money was paid towards the event.
Glory is a fine film to show in schools – however, I don’t believe I watched it until my Soph. year in HS. I understand that the girls will be bussed at the end of the month to meet mentors and talk with them, however, I don’t believe it will cost $57,000 to do that.
So, if DISD didn’t have to pay the $57,000 I wouldn’t have thought of it as that big of deal. But with budget cuts, I don’t understand why they would spend that money.
@beccalyn: We were shown ‘Glory’ in the 7th grade. It was an edited cut that excised some of the bloodier shots of the battle scenes. But you’re right that some parents might still object to having it shown to fifth-graders.
@JDS: “Implications of sex between two partially clothed people, profanity and obcenities” makes it sound far worse than it is. It is the mildest scene implying that sex has occurred imaginable. Yes, the man has removed his uniform top and is wearing a tank top. I suppose that does make him partially clothed.
I guess what I don’t understand is, why is all this money being spent to take kids to a movie–whatever it is? I have never heard of kids being taken to a movie in school before…what a waste of the equivalent of one teacher’s salary for 3 hours.
Broad brushstrokes used to instruct! Movie may not have details that does history justice! My hard-earned money used to [narcoleptic seizure ... roll tape] http://youtu.be/Qh2sWSVRrmo
@Eric Celeste: You missed the point.
“Broad brushstrokes used to instruct,” that’d be like showing 1776 to a class about the writing of the Declaration of Independence.
Red Tails isn’t even that. Watch what George Lucas told Jon Stewart and it’s clear he didn’t give a damn about history. He wanted a movie that made people feel good about the Tuskegee Airmen. His aim was purely to celebrate and lionize them. We’re not talking about a movie that simply “may not have details.”
And if we insist on telling our children lies about history, however pleasant the lies, let’s at least expose them to a much better film.
Oh, fiddlesticks, Jason.
They’ll learn here was a World War II, that we fought in it, against the Germans, and that we won. They’ll learn that black pilots fought gallantly and after their return they were repaid with more of the same old racism and segregation. None of which are lies, so far as i know.
Given the miserable showing on various surveys of what school kids do and do not know, that’s a whole lot.
I remember in the late 1940s being shepherded to various movie palaces for “lessons” in history. These visits awakened my curiosity and somehow over the years since I have managed to learn that John Wayne did not win the West, that we took it from the Indians; that the Crusades were an exercise in international geopolitics, not a sacred war against the pagans (I went to a Catholic school) and that our founding fathers squabbled a lot and were not always very noble.
A school field trip is not a graduate seminar.
My only objection to DISD’s recent outing is its blatant and ham-fisted sexism. While i do believe that the genders should be educated separately in their elementary to high-school years, I can’t imagine what might have been in the movie that would not have been useful to girls, who do grow up, despite the best efforts of some educators, with an interest in history, and who often enter military service and, some of them, even become fighter pilots.
I think it’s wonderful that these kids got to see this movie on the big screen. I think the fifth grade is the perfect age to do so. It’s refreshing to see kids on an actual field trip. I’m sad that so many criticize this field trip since we all used to go on field trips of varying educational value. I think it shows passion on the part of the teachers who took them. It is unfortunate that the girls didn’t get to go.
@ Aaron……..you must be part of the problem at DISD.
@Bill Marvel: Guess you haven’t seen the movie. Red Tails does not cover the pilots’ return to the U.S. after the war. It ends soon after a climactic battle, with a scene that serves as a short epilogue. And in that scene? SPOILER ALERT, I guess:
In that scene the entire squadron is standing at attention in full dress uniform on a tarmac, facing an equally large group of white soldiers. The white C.O. announces that the Tuskegee Airmen are receiving a special unit citation for bravery. Then the entire group of white soldiers salutes the Airmen, and the Airmen salute back. Roll credits.
This ending, and really scenes throughout the movie, give the impression that the Airmen were able to change the racist attitudes of the white soldiers as soon as they performed a single act of derring-do. Aside from one stubborn guy at the Pentagon, even white soldiers who say the nastiest things during the movie are almost immediately singing the praises of the Airmen a scene or two later. It leaves the impression that racism melted away as soon as the Airmen got the chance to show what they could do (and how they could do it far, far better than the white soldiers because they had the ability to make personal sacrifices and to be virtuously unselfish, unlike – apparently, according to the movie – every single white combat pilot in the Army Air Force.)
That’s the history lesson the movie delivers.
I’m sorry if your childhood school dragged you to theaters to see features that were both lousy history lessons and lousy films. I’m glad any damage done wasn’t long-term.
The more I read and think about this, the worse it gets. The DMN points out today that by sending the boys but not the girls it likely violated Title 9. (not that I’m a fan of that piece of legislation) The title 1 funding folks were surprised to hear the DISD thought this was an okay use of the funding. (it isn’t)
Topping it all off: Irving and Grand Prairie ISD are sending 1,300 8th graders (boys and girls) to see this movie today and they’ll have a real Tuskeegee airman there to talk about it. THAT’S educational. It was also done on a weekend, not a school day.. and it was paid for with private donations.
The DISD needs to go away for good. Carve it up and let the suburban school districts take over those schools. It’s a good bet the education of the kids in Dallas would improve by leaps and bounds.