Agent Cody Banks, A movie of excellence?

You are so right. There is so much education the public still needs. A school bus driver overheard two of us talking about a child’s difficulty reading and she asked sincerely why normal children sometimes can’t read. She said she understood why special ed children can’t read. I asked her what assumption she was making about special ed children. “Well, there is something wrong with their brain.” I guess most of the research says there is something “different” about the brains of non-readers, but too many people still think reading is about intelligence. NOT

Your school bus driver didn’t have the vocabulary to express it, but to me it sounds like she was asking the difference between mental retardation (“something wrong with the brain”) and LD (“normal kid who can’t read”). I would tend to treat this as an intelligent person seeking knowledge, and a chance to inform the public about the fact that yes, LD students are “normal” and often quite bright. If you get a chance, you might talk to her again.

I did nicely discuss that otherwise bright children can have reading difficulties. The bus driver was just a recent example of what I have always noticed. The general public thinks that special education students have low IQs. In my job as a resource specialist my students had average or above average intelligence but were significantly delayed in reading skills. I would say that difficulty with reading was what was keeping the majority of them in special education for their entire school careers. And to my frustration none of the research or the sequential programs that are available were used to teach these bright children to read. It was just more of the same teaching methods that didn’t work before. My son has gifted intelligence, but struggles with reading and writing. It has been a continual battle to get equity for him. Fortunately, for him, he is very verbal and it is hard for most people to deny his intelligence. Amazingly it was hardest for special ed directors, principals and teachers to think that a smart child can’t read and maybe it has to do with how they continue to teach.

hear hear Angela! our principal suggested to me that my kid wasn’t learning to read because maybe “she just isn’t very bright” -oh to be wired for sound! it does seem that alot of research has been done, and there are alot of good techniques ( we LOVE Linda mood bell)- but the schools-sheesh- they sp ed room seemed to be the regular class- only smaller- and then with kids with quite divirgent issues lumped in there - .
Our special ed director suggested I was remiss having kiido in sp ed she test scores were so high (for ex- reading @ 14th perecentile when cognitive pontential(?) pegged him at 85th percentile)- however she also thought graduated high school as a functional illeterate was aokay too- sheesh!

pretty damn sad and even more telling regarding special education today and attitudes about it. Get em out! Easy to say,not easy to do.

First off, thanks for the heads up. I certainly wouldn’t accidently want to bring my two special ed children to see this!

Who has seen the movie? I don’t really want to support the movie by seeing it but I want to make sure the scene (or scenes) did occur and to be as specific as possible about it when complaining.

Thanks
Barb

I took my 3 children this past Tuesday, (off day for parochial schools-Bishop thing) & the comments “Are you in Special Ed?” were directed to Cody a few times by pretty girls when he couldnt get up the guts to talk to them. It was a definite put down & it was acknowledged by other moviegoers in a not so kind way. My son has hearing difficulty & is in special ed. I saw tears running down his face, asked him if wanted to leave & he said it would not be fair to his sister. I emailed MGM, Film Advisory Board & John Stossel (abc). MGM sent me back a form letter stating the movie won an award & Codys victory with the ladies is a major obstacle to overcome, essentially shows children they can overcome their difficulties. MGM is so far gone, comparing getting up the guts to talk to a pretty girl to LD struggles is the most ***inine analogy of all time. We will not be going to MGM park this summer, refused their free tickets to 3 bad movies, boycotting MGM until they formally remove those lines from the movie. The put downs added NOTHING to Agent Cody Banks but it did give the green light that Hollywood/pretty girls think its cool to put down Special Ed kids. My children deserve a better example. If I had known beforehand, we would have gone bowling. This movie is NOT worth it.

Oh god Chris. If I could of spared your beautiful boy this type of pain, I would do it instantly. All I can say,is I made my stand…. My kids made their stand
( they wrote their letters too!). Anyone else?

Thank you for the kind support. I did enlist the help of my child in writing the letters to MGM, Film Advisory Board & John Stossel. Cannot say for sure but I think it helped to express his feelings about the comments. I hope it helped him to know that his mom was furious & not going down without a fight.

To receive a FORM letter back from MGM -showed the level of disrespect for both parent & special needs child. We are not expecting any reply from the film advisory board as I am sure they are probably funded by the studios. Not much of an award if it can be purchased. I hold out hope that John Stossel will pick up this issue & run with it. From what I read, he also had difficulty in school.

Who ever thought that movies made in Hollywood reflect the way we live or respect human beings??? Start with the movies that put down people of different cultures, James Bond’s treatment of women, etc etc. We don’t go to the movies expecting them to reflect our values. Good Luck in trying to influence the film industry.

Never thought I would attend a childrens movie in which the studio gave a thumbs up to picking on children with disabilities. Definite put down at the expense of special needs children.

For an industry that revolves around big money, witholding money, writing letters, taking a stand & telling other parents of ld, disabled, ill children is a pretty effective start. Other parents may be able to avoid watching their special needs child be the butt of a joke.

I do not expect Hollywood to ever have morals, values. But I do expect a childs movie to exercise some restraint, control over the content.

nt

What a shame, my kids and I really enjoy ‘Malcolm in the middle’ and were looking forward to this movie.

The movie ‘Never been kissed’ with Drew Barrymore has a similar incident, Drew’s character is so out of it socially and the popular girls ask her if she is in sp.ed

So many people who don’t understand the purpose of sp.ed and the kids who are in it. When we see the teachers and principals uneducated, is it any wonder Hollywood is even further down the knowledge track?

I will add my 2 cents on this though. I agree that it is unnecessary to the movie and just hurtful to kids who are in sp.ed.

Amy

My children looked forward to seeing Malcolm & Lizzie in this movie too. They have been Disney headliners for years. We were completely unprepared for those hurtful comments & the ignorant comments they inspired in the audience.

It was nasty, not needed to carry this movie. A PG rating does not mean you can expect to pay for cruel insults to children at a childrens movie.

I gotta tell you,my 13 year old said,” what a poser the girl is!,with stupid comments like that who would want to talk to her?”

I gotta tell you,my 13 year old said,” what a poser the girl is!,with stupid comments like that who would want to talk to her?”

you know- we did go see it toay- the TWO sp comments- were oddly unfunny- no on laughed. slipped by my kids whew! write those emals though

Along with the poor Special Ed film comments…I am getting very angry at hearing the dyslexic and ADD jokes, movie/tv humor etc. They are dumping the entire weight of social humor on the group they think is least organized to fight it. I’d love to see a law suit filed for everytime the media/film industry pokes fun at the topics or in this case what they see as an available minority group. They still don’t get it…and I suspect we will see more film fun aimed at special ed etc.

Thanks for the warning! I thought the movie sounded kind of shallow anyway so I probably wouldn’t take my kids to it in the first place.

I generally look for films that have a lot of depth and thought or clever humor (sadly, it’s not always easy to find worthwhile movies nowadays).

Unfortunately Phil there is no law against it. Believe it or not. It isn’t against ADA or 504. While we have all the laws in the world preventing discrimination in the physical sense. There is NO provision in place to prevent anyone from calling us names.

To be sitting there with your child and not expecting this there is now way to guide. You can’t very well take it back once your child has already experienced this type of what could only be called humiliation.

„,

Hi Socks,

I didn’t post about it here, only over on the NLD boards, but unfortunately, we didn’t have the choice to just boycott the movie, because we went to see it right when it first hit the theaters.

We had the very uncomfortable experience of sitting though the moive with my two LD kids and two of their non-LD friends. Fortunately the two friends are really nice kids, and didn’t make an issue of it, but my kids were needlessly and unfairly embarrassed.

BTW, the comment isn’t only made by a kid to another kid. At another point in the movie, an adult makes the exact same comment to the “hero”.

Karen

They didn’t even respond to me with a form letter.

I hope that means that they got so swamped with letters that they gave up trying to respond.

Karen

Sorry, put-downs have been part of humor since dawn eternal, and they aren’t limited to special ed folks.
Yes, the movie hurts. Hearing a kid at school refer to a broken VCR as “LD” hurts. It is, however, a shared load.

A mom on the GT/LD email list did know of an answer (I can’t remember whether she personally got it or not) — an apology and a promise that there would be more sensitivity in the future — and it has been making the rounds, with email ddresses.
I do think they’ve felt inclined to add something else to the list of “politically incorrect” things to poke fun at, and that’s a good thing :-)

Greetings,

I always check “Plugged In”, Focus on the Family movie review at family.org. Here’s what they said about the incidence in the movie:

• other negative elements:
When Cody gets tongue-tied because he doesn’t know how to talk to girls, Natalie (and another girl) ask him if he’s in “special-ed.”

Blessings, momoMO

Definitely a shared load Sue. In reference to my post just prior to this. I find it incredulous that while it is illegal to discriminate against a black person,it isn’t illegal to call him a name.

Hi socks,

Nor is it illegal to call a white, yellow, brown or red person a name.

Thankfully the Freedom of Speech is one of our inalienable rights. Yes, the movie industry has the right to have characters make crass, insentive remarks. With that right comes the consequences. We have the right to protest and boycott the movies that contain these remarks (also, think Dixie Chicks). I wouldn’t want the alternative (think 1984).

Blessings, momoMO