The film “Coming to America” by filmmaker John Landis, presents a dilemma faced by an African prince regarding his country’s culture and traditions. Although the film is not based on any real country, persons, or events it may affect certain individuals as they may relate to some of the issues presented within. Coming to America takes place in two different countries. One of them being Zamunda Africa a fictitious place and the other Queens New York in the United States. The main characters I will focus on primarily are Prince Akeem and his father King Jaffore of Zamunda Africa and Cleo McDowell along with his daughter Lisa McDowell of the Queens New York. Prince Akeem has approached his twenty-first birthday and now is troubled by a prearranged …show more content…
According to our assigned text, Ethnocentrism is defined as a tendency to think that out own culture is superior to other cultures (Martin &Nakayama, 2013 p.5). We can observe this through various clips throughout the film. The African characters namely the father of the prince believe their culture is superior to that of the American characters and I understood this to be a representation of ethnocentrism. In addition, differences in economic classes are represented as well within the film. Just as our text explained, there is a disparity that exist among classes although they tend to go unacknowledged (Martin & Nakayama, 2013 p.14). In the film “Coming to America”, there are several observations I made that relate to both ethnocentrism and economic class disparities. For example, King Joffer blatantly states “our son cannot consort with such a girl” which can be viewed as ethnocentrism and economic class disparity. King Joffer offensively refers to the Americans as being beneath them in the following quote “The man is beneath me and so is his daughter” which suggests the economic disparity between the two and are unacceptable from his standpoint. Furthermore, King Jaffore attempts to buy off the Americans thereby insulting them in stating “I know you have been inconvenienced. I am prepared to compensate you. Shall we say one million American dollars”. The American father, Cleo is immediately insulted and infuriated replying to him that he did not care whether or not he was a king in his country and his money was not acceptable. Cleo stated angrily “you cannot buy my daughter”. Furthermore, Cleo stated “this is America” in an attempt to possibly make him aware that their standards were not necessarily welcomed or proper in America. Again these examples display ethnocentrism and economic disparity from what I gathered from the text. The
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's ethnic group or culture is superior (Leeder, 2004). In order to gain citizenship David Aldwinkle was subject to investigation by inspectors to prove he was culturally Japanese. These investigations included interviewing his neighbors,
Ethnocentrism is defined as judging a different culture exclusively by the principles and values of one’s own customs. This is one o the major problems that the Lee family faced while being treated….. Before reading this novel, I had no idea what Hmong culture was or that it even existed, as I’m sure that was the same case with many of the health care team. The tragedy in the novel stems from the lack of awareness to the Hmong culture and the opposing beliefs of treatment between the medical staff and the Le...
Latinos beyond Reel documentary film presented how US news and entertainment media portray Latinos. Latino American is an ethnic minority group of whom origin was from Latin America or Iberian Peninsula. Latino American is the fastest growing population in the United States. However, media has had negative effects for the Latino community. News media and entertainment had strongly influenced the perception of non-Latino about Latinos. These media portrayal of Latinos had implications for real world perceptions of Latinos.
Silas Lynch, who is presented as the antithesis of Ben Cameron and the main villain of the film, represents the dangers of letting a black person have freedom and power. Lynch, who has been told by Austin Stoneman that he can be the equal of any white man, uses his new political influence to terrorize the white population of Piedmont, and to supplant his black biased agenda over the traditions of the south. In one of the more outrageous scenes of the film, Lynch’s black supporters actually block white voters from reaching the ballot box during an election, effectively denying the historical struggle of African American voters to gain proper suffrage rights by reversing the roles in the film. This scene is also used to make the viewer feel sympathetic toward the Ku Klux Klan when they deny African Americans the ability to vote at the end of the film. At the beginning of the reconstruction period, Ben Cameron feels powerless and frustrated.
The movie Older Than America is an informational narrative of the treatment of indigenous people in the United States. The fourth cinema is a movement in which people of indigenous backgrounds tell the stories of their people, in a realistic and less Hollywood style. The Movie, Older Than America, is set both in the present and in the recent past, and explores the conflict of identity which plagues many native people. It poses the question; does it wipe the war paint off the lens? My answer to that is yes, it more than scratches the surface of the mistreatment of “Human Beings” by Euro-Americans. The demonization of the Catholic Church, and its duplicity in the abuse of its power over helpless children was the overriding story in this film. In this film the Catholic Church is representative of the United States
The Latin American film genre is one of the most known genre worldwide and one of the most popular and successful of all of the genres in this business around the world. Yearly a number of productions from Latin America become favored and demanded successes, often-earning high levels of recognition and recommendation. In foreign film categories and in events and functions such as the Oscars, which are very highly respected around the world, Latin American films are awarded and praised and unquestionably make audiences sit on seat’s edge to bear mind films being produced in countries here. Latin American films are most likely to be as successful as they are because of the mixture of all of the elements, which their cinema provides, including
I started taking drugs at the age of 14. The first drug I had was LSD, and it was given to me by my father. He had an abundance of them. He worked for this guy named George. When I was 20 my doctor put me on Zoloft for anxiety. He did not tell me how addictive it would be. I am now on many drugs such as oxycontin, cocaine, vicodin, methamphetamine, and many other opiates and narcotics. I have tried to get sober and have gone to support groups, but I did not actually want to stop. As soon as I left I went back to drugs. This is just one out of millions of stories of people who have become addicted to psychotropic drugs in the United States. In the documentary American Addict 2 - The Big Lie, released in 2016, Sasha Knezev depicts how the pharmaceutical
Youth have a certain quality and charisma that has made making films about them not only an interesting endeavor but also fundamental to cinema (Shary, 2002). Representative of hope and change, children are viewed as the future. Youth culture, with its ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ kind of dynamic, suggests that children are also the future of film. For decades the film industry has relied on young audiences for patronage and also looked to youth for inspiration and just the kind of material that makes a relevant and refreshing script (Shary, 2002). Youth-oriented film has subsequently become a genre all its own (Shary, 2002). A history of American youth cinema would indicate no different. It is thus interesting to explore youth-oriented films and how films across time, namely Lolita (1962), Marathon Man (1976), Rain Man (1988), Kids (1995), and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), have depicted youth culture, specifically the theme of “Coming-Of-Age.”
The film West Side takes place in New York City where a Polish- American gang, referred to as the Jets, competes against a Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, to own the neighborhood streets. The central theme of this film is passionate love that defies friendships, family and other factors. To add to that, the dominating genre of the film is a musical involving drama and romance.
Throughout times there has been this belief that one’s culture is better than others. We believe that our traditions, food, clothing, and customs are superior to those in other cultures. This belief system is called ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism originates from the Greek words “ethnos” meaning “people” and “Centrism” meaning “center” (“What Does Ethnocentrism Mean?”). This means that one’s ideas and values are centered on the superiority of their own group. Having an ethnocentric attitude changes how we view other cultures and limits our capability to be culturally relative to others not a part of our own.
The movie I decided to analyze for this course was American History X (1998), which stars Edward Norton. Though this movie isn’t widely known, it is one of the more interesting movies I have seen. It’s probably one of the best films that depict the Neo Nazi plague on American culture. The film takes place from the mid to late 1990’s during the Internet boom, and touches on subjects from affirmative action to Rodney King. One of the highlights of this movie that really relates to one of the key aspects of this course is the deterrence of capital punishment. Edward Norton’s portrayal as the grief stricken older brother who turns to racist ideologies and violence to cope with his fathers death, completely disregards the consequences of his actions as he brutally murders someone in front of his family for trying to steal his car. The unstable mentality that he developed after his father’s death really goes hand-to-hand specifically with Isaac Ehrlich’s study of capital punishment and deterrence. Although this movie is entirely fictional, a lot of the central themes (racism, crime punishment, gang pervasiveness, and one’s own vulnerability) are accurate representations of the very problems that essentially afflict us as a society.
America has come a long way with how people are treated as opposed to how things use to be not so long ago. In the film American History X (1998) we see how some parts of America were not adjusting to change in their towns which resulted in violent outbreaks and many deaths. Although throughout the movie we see the main character, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) that at the beginning of the film is in a “white power” gang and later transforms as a character to protect his brother and the rest of his family from being hurt and corrupted by the racist world that they were living in.
Ethnocentrism can be defined as an individual’s belief that the ethnic group or cultural they identify with is superior to all others. “The ethnocentric person judges other groups and other cultures by the standards of his or her own group” (Schaefer 34).
The Associate is an entertaining movie that brings forth gender disparities in the workplace. Whoopi Goldberg, Laurel Ayers, portrays a financial analyst who has been stuck in a position that does not give her true credit for all of her hard work and talents. The Associate exemplifies the sexism that is occurring in the workplace through satiric wit and a strong story line.
Ethnocentrism, as stated above, means the belief that one’s own culture is above and beyond all other cultures. Although this is somewhat of a shallow definition, it still provides an adequate explanation of a very complex issue. We see ethnocentrism every single day, in all aspects of life. The United States of America is a prime example of ethnocentrism is action. The people of this country have a tendency to disregard other cultures, instead believing that American culture is the only way to go. This is not to say that this is how everyone thinks, although most people, at one time or another, have had thoughts along these lines.