The most dependable thing about watching movies for the
Sunday “Bad” Movies is that there will always be tropes. Every bad movie is
filled with tropes. There could be one big trope that the movie is based
around, or a bunch of smaller tropes that play into the story. Writers write
what they know, and many of them know movies more than anything. They know the
structure. They know the basic elements that go into a good story. They know
the tropes that they could use as a crutch to tell a story.
Only the Strong used a trope as a major crutch to
bring a relatively unknown martial art to Hollywood. Louis Stevens (Mark
Dacascos) was a soldier who was stationed on a tour of duty in Brazil. When his
tour ended, he returned to his hometown of Miami and visited his former high
school. He approached his old social studies teacher, Mr. Kerrigan (Geoffrey
Lewis), with a proposition. Twelve of the worst students would participate in a
new class where Louis would teach them capoeira, a Brazilian martial art. Through
learning capoeira, they would learn to respect and protect one another. They
would also protect their neighbourhood from the gangs that were overrunning it.
The new teacher cleaning up a school trope was all over Only
the Strong. Louis Stevens was the new teacher. He had gone to that Miami
high school during his teenage years and experienced the gang influence
first-hand. This experience, combined with the time he had spent in Brazil
learning capoeira, inspired him to strive for something better. It inspired him
to return to his high school and clean things up.
Cleaning up the high school began with the students. The
high school had a low graduation rate. If he could take twelve of the most
troubled students and turn their lives around, it would prove that capoeira
worked as a sort of focusing tactic. The students would learn capoeira. They
would bond and become better people. The focus that they put on capoeira would
teach them the foundations of what they needed to also focus on their
schoolwork. In the end, they would get better grades and the graduation rate
would rise. The plan could then be implemented on a larger scale to get more
students involved and raise the graduation rate even higher.
Of course, tensions would have to come to a head with the
local gangs. Though the students were the primary focus, there had to be an
outside force working on them. The gangs had gotten into the school, which is
why the teens were so troubled. The gangs would fight back if someone gave the
students inspiration and a reason to not work for them. Thus, Louis Stevens had
to face off against the local Jamaican gang and the local Brazilian gang, whose
leader was the cousin of one of the students and knew capoeira.
Almost every element that could be included in what’s called
a Save the Students storyline was present in Only the Strong. There was
the new teacher, Louis Stevens. He used to be a student at the school. There
were gangs, a low graduation rate, and students who had given up on themselves.
There was a student who said that the teacher didn’t know anything about them,
only to become one of the teacher’s strongest supporters at the end. The
teacher even got into a literal fight with the people bringing down his
students. It was all there, all on show, in Only the Strong.
Many movies have used this story trope. Some early examples
included To Sir, with Love and Blackboard Jungle, both featuring
Sidney Poitier. It came into frequent use in mainstream movies throughout the
1980s and 1990s with movies like The Principal, The Substitute, Sister
Act 2, and Lean on Me playing into the trope. Things cooled down a
little bit after that. Every once in a while, a movie or television show would
pop up with Save our Students being the basic story, though. It continued to
happen, just to a lesser extent.
Coach Carter was a good example of the trope. Ken
Carter was the new basketball coach at Richmond High School. When he first came
to the school, he didn’t get respect from some of the players. The most notable
was Timo Cruz, who left the team almost immediately. Ken Carter set a few rules
for anyone who wanted to be on his team. They had to attend classes, sit at the
front of them, and maintain a 2.3 average. They also had to call their coach
and teammates “sir” and dress up for game days. If they didn’t follow the
rules, they would be off the team.
There were a couple reasons that Ken Carter set the rules.
The team he came into was an unruly, rude team with no respect for themselves
or others. The “sir” and the dressing up would provide some respect. It would
teach the team manners so that they weren’t mistreating people in their daily
lives. It would also give them a sense of unity, bonding them into the team
they needed to be. The academic things were because it was tough for people
from their school to get into college, especially athletes. If they could get
their averages up, even the little bit from a 2.0 to a 2.3, it would get them
that much closer to college.
Since Coach Carter was a sports movie, it didn’t have
quite the same amount of the Save the Students trope elements as some other
examples. What it did have made it apparent that the trope was a major part of
the story. Ken Carter was the school’s new coach. The graduation rates were low,
and Ken Carter would push to improve them. The students were unruly, and he
would teach them some respect. Even the gang element got in there. Timo Cruz
was hanging around with his drug dealer cousin. Ken Carter got him out of
becoming a criminal after Timo saw his cousin get shot on the street. The coach
turned the lives of many of the players around.
Another recent movie that played into the Save the Students
trope was Big Brother, a 2018 film from Hong Kong. Henry Chen was a new
teacher at an underfunded school in Hong Kong. He was assigned a class of
unruly teenage students and whipped them into academic shape through his
different style of teaching methods. There were a few students he specifically
targeted because they had tough home lives, which led to their acting out in
school. He was going to help them academically and in life.
Henry Chen helped his students through investing in them
outside of their scholarly lives. One of the students wanted to be a musician,
so he took the student to a riverside restaurant to sing for the patio patrons.
He helped one student bond with her father by having them go-kart together. He
pushed the father of two twins to work on overcoming his alcoholism. With the
other student, he showed him that there were better ways to live than joining a
gang. He was very hands-on in their lives. That hands-on approach helped them
become better students, ready to learn with open minds and open hearts. Their
newfound openness to learning led to higher grades, which then led to the
school getting better funding.
Many elements of the Save the Students trope were present
throughout Big Brother. The students had given up on themselves, as so
many students in so many of these movies have. The teachers had given up on
them, too. Henry Chen was a new teacher and knew that he could make a
difference. He had gone to the same school when he was a teenager. When he was
helping his student out of the gang life, he ended up fighting the local gang.
On two occasions, mind you, because the gang also came to the school to stop
the students from taking their test. The gang leader had been Henry Chen’s
rival as a child, only he was the good student and Henry was the bad. It was
all there.
Save the Students is one of those tropes that can be seen
through generations and generations of films. It has been around since at least
the 1950s. The story concept has been told through drama, action, sports, and
comedy. But the basic idea always appears. A new teacher takes a group of
troubled students and brings them together to be better for themselves and the
people around them. The teacher could be an actual teacher. They could be a
mentor brought in by a teacher. They could be a coach. It doesn’t matter. What
matters is that they care about the students.
Many tropes have been used as a crutch in movies featured in
the Sunday “Bad” Movies. That’s the way that movies work. People will write
what they know, using what they’ve seen, because it’s easier. Few tropes have
been as inspiring as Save the Students. This trope gives people hope. It shows
them that they can get closer to their dreams if they put their minds to it.
The teacher may have inspired the students, but the teacher also inspired the
audience. Everyone finds some hope when they watch a Save the Students story.
Nobody will find hope in these notes, but they’re here if
you’re interested:
- Only the Strong featured Joe Bucaro III, who made an appearance in Ed (week 11).
- Sergio Kato returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Only the Strong, after being featured in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (week 300).
- Have you seen Only the Strong? What did you think of it? Have you seen any other movies with the Save the Students trope? Which one is your favourite? You can discuss them with me on Twitter or in the comments.
- You can also get a hold of me on Twitter or in the comments if you have any suggestions of movies I should be checking out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts. Feel free to let me know because I’m always looking for suggestions.
- Sunday “Bad” Movies is on Instagram. You can check out the account and see all the pictures and videos and things that get posted there.
- That does it for this week, which brings us to what is coming up. The next movie will be a movie with a few notable cameos and a rare lead role from director Peter Berg, in a movie he didn’t direct. 1989’s Never on Tuesday will be coming up next week. I’ll see you then, with another post.
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