1990: To Sir With Love

January 9, 2022

By AHNZ

For actor Sidney Poitier who died in January 2022, the star of the film To Sir With Love (1967.)

Krypton Factor Dignity Culture, as AHNZ terms it, was the last New Zealand Dignity Culture of the C20th. We had a mainstream culture with a low time preference, strong national pride and identity. We solved problems with reference to abstractions such as the Bill of Rights Act or other trusted institutions of our body politic. We didn’t ‘chimp out’ but discussed problems as adults in open debate. Our sensitivity to slight was low which allowed wider freedom of speech and quality journalism of national and international events. It was possible to respond to Maori customs with the masterful Ancestors of the Mind (1989,) to allow non-state TV networks, a 150th national anniversary expo, a This Is The Moment Auckland Commonwealth Games. Queen Elizabeth came down to visit and tour the country. Kiri Te Kanawa came home and gave a massive Dignity Culture concert. Rachel Hunter ate Trumpet ice creams on TV for Tip Top. The kids watched The New Adventures of Black Beauty, the adults had banking sold to them using national pride.

At times like these school teachers are accorded high standing as representatives and transmitters of a good and great culture. No wonder Lean on Me (1989) and Dead Poets Society (1989) belonged to such a time just as To Sir With Love (1967) to an earlier one. No wonder that New Zealand embraced as number 1 a song in 1990 that was a cover of that Sidney Poitier film from so long before. One of our own (if an immigrant,) Ngaire Fuata, sang a song of love, gratitude, and respect for the essential Dignity Culture masculine figure. At other times, such as times to come, that would be unthinkable.

“But how do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume? It isn’t easy but I’ll try…A friend who taught me right from wrong, and weak from strong. That’s a lot to learn. What! What can I give you in return?” – the lyrics

“Ngaire’s To Sir With Love was a bona-fide smash, spending 5 weeks at Number One and the biggest-selling NZ single of 1990. ” – slydogmania, Youtube (2010)

“These impossible redeeming characters have been played by Sidney Poitier (To Sir, with Love, 1967,) Morgan Freeman (Lean on Me, 1989,) Robin Williams (Dead Poets Society, 1989,) Albert Finney (The Browning Version, 1994,) Michelle Pfeiffer (Dangerous Minds, 1995,) Jack Black (School of Rock, 2003,) and Hilary Swank (Freedom Writers, 2007.) Often they have really great soundtracks to help sell this redeeming message that State schools really could/can work.” – Kindergarten Cop Cancel, NZB3

As per usual, the wheel of history turned.

We promptly exited appreciative and exalted sentiments like these for an era where sir would be literally chased into jail in the person of male teacher Peter Ellis (1991.) That same year Kate Sheppard’s portrait replaced that of Queen Elizabeth II on the front of the New Zealand ten-dollar note. By 1993 Television New Zealand’s top quality current affairs broadcaster, Lindsay Perigo, quit his station over what it had become and said it had now become “brain dead.” New Zealand now experienced a Victimhood Culture every bit as potent as the Dignity Culture that spawned it.

Writing in a Victimhood Culture times it seems impossible to think that teachers, especially male teachers, could again recover the kind of respect that engendered ‘To Sir With Love’ in song or movie form. However, those times will come again and in the 2020s decade. What would be ideal, really really great, would be if New Zealand could produce its own songs or films to express the Dignity Culture aesthetic rather than cover the songs of others. That would make us not only a New Zealand Dignity Culture anew but take us a great step forward in being our own people rather than the Cultural Colony (of USA, UK) we keep on self-identifying as.

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