I watched this:
Conrack
Conrack is a 1974 DeLuxe Color film in Panavision based on the 1972 autobiographical book The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy, directed by Martin Ritt and starring Jon Voight in the title role, alongside Paul Winfield, Madge Sinclair, Hume Cronyn and Antonio Fargas. The film was released by 20th Century Fox on March 27, 1974....
The story follows a young teacher, Pat Conroy (played by Jon Voight), in 1969 assigned to isolated "Yamacraw Island" off the coast of South Carolina and populated mostly by poor black families. He finds out that the children as well as the adults have been isolated from the rest of the world and speak a dialect called Gullah, with "Conrack" of the novel's title being the best they can do to pronounce his last name....
Decently made, interesting setting, well acted, pretty formulaic - tender and tough inspiring teacher from the outside, rough kids in some fashion, skeptical families, oppressive bureaucracy unwilling to change. Coulda been
To Sir, with Love, but with moonshine and mosquitos.
I wouldn't have posted here, but it is formulaic in another way. I linked from it to:
White savior narrative in film
The white savior is a cinematic trope in which a white character rescues people of color from their plight. Certain critics have observed this narrative in an array of genres of films in American cinema, wherein a white protagonist is portrayed as a messianic figure who often learns something about him or herself in the course of rescuing characters of color.
The narrative trope of the white savior is one way the mass communications medium of cinema represents the sociology of race and ethnic relations, by presenting abstract concepts—such as morality—as innate characteristics, racial and cultural, of white people, rather than as characteristics innate to people of color. In the praxis of cinematic narrative, the white savior usually is a man who is out of place within his own society, until he assumes the burden of racial leadership to rescue non-white foreigners and minorities (racial and ethnic) from their plights. As such, white savior stories "are essentially grandiose, exhibitionistic, and narcissistic" fantasies of psychological compensation.
...
Types of story
Inspirational teacher...
Man of principle ...
Nothing earthshaking there, I was thinking some of these things watching
Conrack, though it's good to get reminded. Then, I scrolled downs to
List of films. Holy crap, look at all of them!
Avatar, Cool Runnings, The Green Berets, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Matrix, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Three Kings! That's not to say that they're automatically "bad" or should have been made differently, but my perspective has been broadened.