One film which supported this hopeful ideology in overcoming bleak realities to be successful was the highly acclaimed documentary “Testing Hope: Grade 12 in the New South Africa” shown on March 25. Directed by Molly Blank, the film set in Nyanga, South Africa follows several young students in their lives at school as well as at home. Recently freed from the oppressive system of inequality known as apartheid, or separateness, South Africa faces a new set of challenges that may have been unseen before the change in policy. Though it is not officially national law any longer, many of the black citizens of South Africa still suffer from inequality economically, socially, and academically, among other things. The same opportunities that exist for their white counterparts are not easily achieved options for many of the children of Grade 12 in Nyanga.
As shown in many shots of the film, the schools are dilapidated with missing or broken doors and windows. Old and outdated technologies serve as further burden for the students to bear. This is directly opposed to the schools that the upper class, white children enjoy closer to Cape Town, with shots showing the students in a nicely furnished air conditioned classroom, each with a computer at his or her desk. The dreary contrasts between the two schools serve the audience’s understanding of how bleak the conditions are for the black students in Nyanga. Given all the trials that young black students must overcome, still more hardships present themselves in the households. The houses that the students go home to are run-down, often nothing more than some tin walls erected to serve as shelter over a dirt flooring. The families seem as broken as the houses, with no sign of a father figure around for the young men and men attempting to get out of the streets and pursue a higher career by means of education.
The high school degree that these students seek only can be awarded once the students pass the Matric Exams with a satisfactory score. The problems they have to overcome in relation to other white students who are better off financially, socially, and economically bring up ideological issues of equality. Therefore, rhetorically speaking, the most appropriate method to analyze this film would be ideological criticism. To precisely pin-point the Ideological themes that the film maker is communicating, a more extensive analysis would be necessary. However in a brief surface level look at the film, it appears that the contrast between the niceties of upper class life as opposed to the life of the black students relentlessly seeking an opportunity for success offers the idea that equality should be for all. The intense focus on the life and struggles of those poor and downtrodden contending for better test scores and a better life for their family communicates that although the laws of Apartheid have been changed, inequality still most definitely exists and a major overhaul in the infrastructure of South Africa is essential to rectify the plaguing problems of inequality.
