Author(s)

Qihan Xie ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Institute of Education, University College London, 19 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1H OAW, UK

Corresponding Author

Qihan Xie

ABSTRACT

Educational films often frame teachers as transformative agents, particularly when working with marginalized students. This essay critically examines the "white savior" trope in two contrasting films: the American Freedom Writers and the French The Class (Entre les murs). Rather than offering a binary judgment, this analysis argues that both films occupy an ambivalent position. They simultaneously challenge the trope by highlighting student agency and teacher fallibility, while reinforcing it through narrative structure, character centralization, and emotional framing. Drawing on Hughey's analysis of white savior cinema and Green and Brock's theory of narrative transportation, this essay explores how these films resist and reproduce racial hierarchies. The analysis reveals that even as cinematic representations evolve toward more collaborative portrayals, they risk normalizing the notion that educational transformation depends on exceptional white individuals, thereby obscuring structural inequalities.

KEYWORDS

White Savior Narrative; Educational Cinema; Narrative Transportation; Student Agency; Critical Race Theory

CITE THIS PAPER

Qihan Xie. Between Guidance and Salvation: Reconsidering the White Savior Narrative in Freedom Writers and the Class. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2026). Vol. 9, No.1, 72-76. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2026.090110.

REFERENCES

[1] Hughey MW. (2014). The White Savior Film: Content, critics, and consumption. Temple University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/32624 
[2] Hughey MW. Cinethetic racism: White redemption and Black stereotypes in "magical Negro" films. Social Problems, 2010;56(3), 543-577. 
[3] Green MC, Brock TC. Narrative transportation: Exploring the role of immersion in storytelling. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000;79(5), 701721.

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