History Film / AkeelahAndTheBee

* FriendlessBackground: Dylan isn’t shown to have any friends. However he does warm up to Akeelah. It’s implied that this is partially his father’s doing.

* AlwaysSecondBest: Dylan was said to have been in second place for two years in a row. [[spoiler:He ends up becoming co-champions with Akeelah at the end of his third try]].

** At the Washington DC hotel the day before the National Scripps Spelling Bee, Dylan's father shoos out Akeelah for trying to invite Dylan over for a slumber party. Mr. Chu also expresses his contempt towards Akeelah for being black, refusing to see his son lose anything to her be it the spelling bee or Scrabble games.

Akeelah (Keke Palmer) is a young black girl from South Los Angeles, trying to cope with her father's death and her stifling environment. She's quite intelligent, but performs poorly in school due to the work being boring and unchallenging. Principal Welch wants her to enter the spelling bee and work her way up to the Scripps National Bee because their school's funding was severely cut due to low test scores, leaving the school in squalid conditions. She's entered into her school spelling bee in order to avoid detention for missing school, and she easily wipes the floor with the competition, almost bored out of her mind by the ease and simplicity of the words. Dr. Larabee (Fishburne), an English professor, sees her potential and begins to coach her for the more advanced Regional Spelling Bee. Hesitant at first, Akeelah shrugs off his help, fearing that performing well will isolate her and label her as a "brainiac", but her love of words can't be denied, and so she agrees to compete. After barely scraping by the district bee (advancing to the next round only because her older sister sees a parent in the audience mouthing the answer to her son), Larabee begins intense practice, having her not only memorize words at a blinding pace, but also having her become familiar with etymology and the ways that words are constructed.

* FriendlessBackground: Dylan isn’t shown to have any friends. However he does warm up to Akeelah.

* AlwaysSecondBest: Dylan was said to have been in second place for two years in a row, and he got in second again for the third time later in the film.

* TrainingFromHell

* GracefulLoser: Javier in spades. When he is eliminated from the competition, he just grins cheekily and begins to theatrically bow to his public in an epic LargeHam fashion, all in good humor. (He's lost previous spelling bees and achieved lower-ranking places in the past)

* StrawmanHasAPoint: When Akeelah get scolded by her mother, she's right when she points out how she hates her school and that ''nobody'' cares because she performs poorly in school to prove her point.
--> '''Akeelah:''' Mama, I ''hate'' Crenshaw. It is ''so'' boring there and nobody cares.

* ArrogantKungFuGuy: Dylan’s attitude towards the other students who have participated in the spelling bee comes off as this, but it's not entirely his fault, his father is forcing him to outperform all the other students.

* FreudianExcuse: The only reason Dylan comes off as arrogant is because his father is [[EducationMama a headass when it comes to academics]]. Dylan’s father wants to live vicariously through his son. Akeelah realizes this and sympathizes with Dylan.

* ChekhovsGun: In this case, a Chekhov's Word. Earlier in the movie, Dylan asks Akeelah to spell "Xanthosis" to see how good she is, and she starts it off with a "Z". Dylan mocks her. Later, at the National Bee, [[spoiler:the word that she purposely spells wrong happens to be "xanthosis"; again, she starts it with a "Z". Dylan instantly knew that she spelled it wrong on purpose because he was the one to teach her that word.]]

* TheBully: The two girls who make fun of Akeelah.

* InsaneTrollLogic: Dr. Larabee attacks Akeelah's pleas for silence during her spelling practice (when a Rottweiler was barking) claiming that the audience is going to be just as loud during the bee. Larabee is absolutely wrong, the audience is ''not'' allowed to be cacophonous.

* ThrowingTheFight: Attempted, but then defied. [[spoiler: In the final round, Akeelah deliberately misspells "xanthosis" because she figures Dylan needs to win the spelling bee more than she does because this is the last year he’ll be able to be in the National Spelling Bee and it’ll make his father proud of him. However, Dylan realizes what she's trying to do and deliberately misspells the word himself because he doesn’t want her to sabotage herself out of pity for him. He also doesn’t want to prove anything to his dad and he wants to win fair and square. They then both agree to just give it their all, and they both end ip winning at the end]].

* TakeAThirdOption:
** Akeelah and Dylan are each hesitant to win, as it would mean the other would lose. So instead, [[spoiler: they both win]].
** [[spoiler: ThrowingTheFight]]

** Dylan's father Mr. Chu fits this, though, and it's hinted he's trying to get his son to win in an attempt to live through him, as "he's never won anything in his life."

* ChekhovsGun: In this case, a Chekhov's Word. Earlier in the movie, Dylan asks Akeelah to spell "Xanthosis" to see how good she is, and she starts it off with a "Z". Dylan mocks her. Later, at the National Bee, [[spoiler:the word that she purposely spells wrong happens to be "xanthosis"; again, she starts it with a "Z". Dylan instantly knew that she spelled it wrong on purpose because he knew for a fact that she wouldn't make that mistake twice.]]

** Subverted with Akeelah's mother, to the point that she thinks the spelling bee is completely frivolous in regards to her daughter going to school, not realizing that studying and bees go hand in hand.
** Dylan's father fits this, though, and it's hinted he's trying to get his son to win in an attempt to live through him, as "he's never won anything in his life."
* ForbiddenFriendship: Mr. Chu (Dylan's father) restrains Dylan from interacting with Akeelah, who wants to befriend Dylan. He contemptuously sees Akeelah as just "a little black girl" who competes against Dylan in the spelling bee.

* GracefulLoser: Javier in spades. When he is eliminated from the competition, he just grins cheekily and begins to theatrically bow to his public in an epic LargeHam fashion, all in good humor.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Dr. Larabee at first forces Akeelah to spell more words after she already won her school's own spelling bee, and then he outright refuses to coach her calling her "insolent". And then when Akeelah's mother chews him out for this, Dr. Larabee tries manipulating her with the words "I beg to differ" in a soft tone.

Akeelah (Keke Palmer) is a young black girl from South Los Angeles, trying to cope with her father's death and her stifling environment. She's quite intelligent, but performs poorly in school due to the work being boring and unchallenging. Principal Welch wants her to enter the spelling bee and join the Scripps National Bee because their school's funding was severely cut due to low test scores, leaving the school in squalid conditions. She's entered into her school spelling bee in order to avoid detention for missing school, and she easily wipes the floor with the competition, almost bored out of her mind by the ease and simplicity of the words. Dr. Larabee (Fishburne), an English professor, sees her potential and begins to coach her for the more advanced Regional Spelling Bee. Hesitant at first, Akeelah shrugs off his help, fearing that performing well will isolate her and label her as a "brainiac", but her love of words can't be denied, and so she agrees to compete. After barely scraping by the district bee (advancing to the next round only because her older sister sees a parent in the audience mouthing the answer to her son), Larabee begins intense practice, having her not only memorize words at a blinding pace, but also having her become familiar with etymology and the ways that words are constructed.