WAYLAND - The high school administration decided this week not to show a comedy about a Jamaican bobsledding team during the school's annual Winter Week amid concerns about how the film portrayed the Jamaican men.
Students were set to watch the 1993 Disney movie "Cool Runnings" on Wednesday as part of a week of activities following midyear exams. The film follows efforts to start Jamaica's first bobsledding team.
"The movie is not really overtly racist," Principal Allyson Mizoguchi said. "It is the subtlety of stereotypes in the movie."
It, for example, portrays the Jamaicans, who travel to Canada, in a "fish-out-of-water" context, picking up on differences in culture and climate, she said.
The decision prompted outrage from some students, who argued the movie is about the characters' efforts to prove wrong those who doubted them, Wayland Student Press Network reported.
"I think high school students are mature enough," senior Mackenzie Barber, who watched the movie when she was around 7 years old, told the Daily News.
Wayland High School is a welcoming environment and watching the film won't make students more likely to stereotype. Racial insensitivity can be discussed through conversations in addition to the movie screening, Barber said.
She worries the school is tiptoeing around the topic.
"As high school students, these are things we should be exposed to," she said.
Mizoguchi agreed that high school students could handle the movie, but Winter Week is not the appropriate venue since there is not adequate time for discussion, she said.
The Student Council picked the movie, which Mizoguchi initially supported. But, after publicizing the selection this week, some staff questioned whether it was appropriate given that the portrayal of the men may advance racial stereotypes. Mizoguchi decided not to screen the movie on Tuesday. There was insufficient time to set up the screening of a replacement or have the Student Council select a different movie, she said.
Winter Week is a longstanding tradition, while the movie screening is a relatively new feature. The school has screened "Apollo 13" and "Selma" during past winter weeks. Students partook in some supplemental discussion about "Selma," which chronicles Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965. Screenings are designed to bring the school together around a movie with a positive message, Mizoguchi said.
Students are asking important questions about "Cool Runnings," and being critical consumers of media. The staff has talked to them about the difference between a drama and a comedy such as this one where viewers laugh at the bobsledders, she said.
In school on Wednesday, students learned about the bobsled team, explored articles that discuss racial stereotypes in "Cool Runnings" and discussed the cancellation, Mizoguchi wrote in an email to parents Wednesday.
"While our students did not have a chance to experience 90 minutes of comedic relief in the form of an all-school movie, many of them have engaged in valuable discussions and have thought critically about the information they consume whether they agreed with the decision or not," she wrote.
Brian Benson can be reached at 508-626-3964 or bbenson@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @bbensonmwdn.