The film Dead Poets Society was written by Tom Schulman and was produced in 1989. The film was directed by Peter Weir. The main characters I will be focusing on are as follows: John Keating, Neil Perry, and Todd Anderson. These characters are played by Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, and Ethan Hawke. This movie is set within an all boy academy full of teenagers facing stereotypes, but a group of students including Neil and Todd find Keating to be a hero by inspiring them to overcome the obstacles. Every character in this play deals with his stereotypes and obstacles, but Neil and Todd are two of the best for this example. These boys find themselves fighting obstacles with poetry while trying to keep each other inspired. Later in the film, the society loses one member to the stereotypes he’s facing from his father. Neil and Todd both struggled with stereotypes towards who they are and stereotypes from their families but saw Keating as a hero due to his inspiration.
Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) was forced to go to the academy by his father. Neil had a dream of becoming an actor instead going into the medical field like his father had planned out for him. His father would not accept his son as being an actor. He stereotyped Neil as not being a man because he loved theater. Throughout the beginning of the movie, Neil‘s father makes remarks towards Neil becoming a doctor and following the path he has chosen, He ignores Neil every time he brings up theater and states that no son of his would be an actor, His father does not know that Neil has been given the lead role in a school play, but knows he auditioned for it. Neil is inspired by the way John Keating (Robin Williams) teaches them to look at poetry and seeks his advice, After being given the advice of telling his father what he truly wants to do, Neil decides to play the lead role of the play he auditioned to be in.
His father shows up at the play and is disappointed that his son could embarrass him by being an actor. Seger (1987) states that being broken can take forms that are emotional, physical, and psychological (p. 339). Neil Perry faces all three of these forms as his friends and teacher begin to accept him while his father and mother stereotype him as being more feminine. This broken feeling that the stereotyping gives Neil leads him to committing suicide after his father forces him to leave school for being in a play. This allows the film to bring in a healing myth to the film. A myth that suicide fixes one student’s problem and allows the other to grow and heal. This tragedy leads the other member of the society, Todd, without his best friend. Neil was one of the two people who influenced Todd to open up to those around him and battle his own stereotypes and fears. Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke) faces stereotypes with being the shy quite type. Other students make jokes about him plotting a mass murder or that he‘s the silent type who could murder his family for no reason.
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Todd does not start opening and speaking until after Neil includes him in the group that becomes the Dead Poets Society. Seger (1987) explains that a non» hero who is humble, innocent, simple, or young becomes a hero (pp.335-336). In the film, Neil is seen as a mythical hero because he gave up trying to convince his father that he was wanting to follow to his path. In this process, Todd found strength and courage. For Todd, one of his heroes dies at a young age giving him the courage to be himself and overcome all the stereotypes surrounding himt Neil and Keating help Todd to realize that his parents cannot make him be like his brother, but to be an individual. Keating loses his job because the parents force the society members into saying that Keating had been teaching them to do what they wished to do Todd gained the courage to stand against the school when Keating had to clean out his office by standing on a desk and saying, “Oh Captain, My Captain.”
This is one of the most famous lines from the movie. At the beginning of the movie, this is something Todd would not have done. His stereotypes came from his fear of speaking in front of the class and from his parents hoping he would become a writer. Keating and Neil both inspired him to release his anger through poetry. Neil and Todd both saw Keating as a hero for the ways he taught poetry and the inspiration he gave students towards their own lives and towards poetry. John Keating becomes a new English instructor at the academy and is not liked by many because his way of teaching is found strange, The group of boys who become the Dead Poet‘s Society are the first students to take a liking to the teaching style and find it very inspiring. The boys did not find poetry interesting until Keating showed them that poetry could be used for anything.
After Neil commits suicide, the school chooses to fire Keating because of the way he has been teaching the boys, A substitute English instructor takes over and the class fights to show how inspired Keating has made them. Keating is another mythical hero in this film. Although he inspired his students, one of them chose to commit suicide after taking Keating’s inspirations and advice to be an individual and take his own path. Keating made individuals out of all of the students in the English class he had been teaching for months. Seger (1987) claims that heroes get help from unusual sources during theirjourneys. At one point, Keating gains more confidence once a group of his best students bring back a society he was once a member of. Keating would have to hide his ways of teachings with the help of his students when other instructors or administration was around his class room, Keating taught the boys carpe diem which means to seize the day; it was his way of telling the boys to live life one day at a time.
In the end, Keating was a hero to all of the boys in his class and they followed one by one after Todd stood on his desk. Keating is a mythical here for all of the things he went through just to complete the task of inspiring boys to enjoy poetryt Dead Poets Society (1989) uses stereotypes and heroism to show how myths work within a film. Neil and Todd went through the healing myth process while Keating and Neil were both mythical heroes. This film is very inspiring due to the drama, comedy, tragedy, and the overall relation to a normal teenager’s life. I would recommend this movie to anyone who is going through a fight with stereotypes, rumors, or bullying. This film is one that can inspire anyone to overcome any obstacles and be honest to the individual you are I gained a life moral from this movie the first time I watched it the moral is this: be true to who you are and nothing can become an obstacle.
