TALKING POINTS #2: RESTORATION OF ORDER

“Hip-hop Sees No Color: An Exploration of Privilege and Power in Save the Last Dance“

Leslie A. Grinner

Race/Gender/Media: Considering Diversity across Audiences, Content, and Producers

Rebecca Ann Lind, ed.

Allyn & Bacon (2009)

Pages 180-187

Certainly, Save the Last Dance follows the same formula as have so many Hollywood movies before it, using an “order, disorder, and restoration of order” narrative structure. (P 181)

I appreciate this boiled-down synopsis. The phase of “order“ precedes the movie for the most part. Sara (white) was a student and ballet dancer living with her mother in the suburbs with the goal of attending Julliard. Derrick (black) was a Georgetown-bound student “rising above” his urban South Side Chicago lifestyle where he has an unwed teenage mother for a younger sister and a juvenile delinquent for a best friend.

The phase of disorder is prompted by the death of Sara’s mother, forcing her to move to Derrick’s neighborhood where she befriends him at school and becomes romantically involved with him. Disorder is characterized by clichéd cultural and racial clashes between Sara and her fellow students, including Derrick.

I find the restoration of order to be the most interesting of the three phases.

The producer (filmmaker, author) has chosen characters and circumstances to change, sets forth a disruption, and ultimately chooses to remove her characters from their circumstance and place them within another of her own construction.

So what ideologies are revealed through the restoration of order chosen by the producers of Save the Last Dance?

Grinner does not expound upon this as much as she does the first two phases (order, disruption) but does offer the following analysis of the film’s conclusions to reinforce the SCWAMP ideology rampant throughout the film:

• “Malachi falls prey to a life of crime and ends up in jail” (P 184)
• “Derrick runs away from (criminal activity) to support Sara during her audition” (P184),
• Derrick’s goodness is marked by his rejection of Blackness in the form of both Malachi and Nikki and his selection of whiteness in the form of Sara” (P 185)
• Sara’s father becomes a “good father” by the film’s end (P 186)
• Derrick is accepted into Georgetown
• Sara is accepted into Julliard

Grinner establishes that much of the SCWAMP ideology runs throughout this film – Derrick is rewarded for adhering to the ideology characterized by the domination of straightness over homosexuality, of Christian values, of whiteness over other, of physical able-bodiedess over dis-abledness,  of masculinity over femininity, males over females, and property-holding over the capital-less.

Much of Grinner’s analysis points to the SCWAMP superiority complex, but does note that with respect to able-bodiedness, “physical ability is highly valued in (this) film dedicated to dance…in fact this is the only area where Blackness is considered superior because it is Sara’s mastery of hip-hop that ultimately secures her acceptance to Julliard.” But Grinner is right to quickly point out that blackness – particularly male blackness - has long been associated with superior physicality and athleticism, often at the “exclusion of other attributes.” (P 185)

Question/Comment/Point to Share:

For those that know the film – can you identify any of its attributes without abandoning the SCWAMP framework? One of my thoughts: learning hip-hop increased Sara’s capital – ultimately the film seemed to view hip-hop as a valid art form that increased her value as a dancer.