There Was No One Coming With Enough Power to Save Us”
Waiting for “ Superman ” and the Rhetoric of the New Education Documentary
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12465010 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paige M Hermansen (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 511-540 |
| Publication date | 2014-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Rhetoric and Public Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1094-8392 • E-ISSN: 1534-5238 |
| Publisher | Michigan State University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.14321/rhetpublaffa.17.3.0511 |
| OpenAlex | W2032100220 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 5 |
The critically acclaimed 2010 documentary film Waiting for “Superman” depicts American public education as a fundamentally flawed system and argues that privately managed charter schools are the best solution to our country’s education crisis. This essay argues that Waiting for “Superman” is significant because of how successfully its argument for charter schools appealed to a broad and politically diverse audience. After tracing the rhetoric of contemporary pro-privatization education reform from the Reagan administration’s 1983 A Nation at Risk report to current pro-charter-school reform efforts, this article aims to demonstrate how the film’s populist overtones, packaged in a traditionally liberal medium, work to strategically conceal the filmmaker’s neoliberal agenda
Argument (complex analysis · Art history · Charter · Media studies · Political science · Power (physics · Rhetoric · Sociology · Superman · Theology · Critical Race Theory in Education · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Public Administration
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,71 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |