Half Nelson: Reversing Roles

In his article, Dyer associated whites with "order, rationality and rigidity" and blacks with "disorder, irrationality, and looseness" (145). Moreover, white as the norm "has carried on as if it is the natural, inevitable, ordinary way of being human" (141).

We see these theories in the beginning of the film Half Nelson. Half Nelson is about an eighth grade history teacher, played by Ryan Gosling, who teaches students who are mostly black and Hispanic. From the beginning, it seems like a typical movie about a white teacher changing the lives of minorities. The movie is unique, however, because although it does show examples of the stereotypical black character, it also exposes the "disorder, irrationality, and looseness" in the white character.

The film is one of a kind in that it is actually the minorities that impact the life of the white character, rather than it being the other way around.