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Gay and lesbian discrimination
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Discrimination Against Homosexual
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In the movie Philadelphia, Tom Hanks plays a lawyer named Andrew Beckett., a homosexual with AIDS. Beckett believes the real reason his employer let him go was because of his sexual orientation and disease. He felt that he had been wrongfully let go and looks to Joe Miller to take his case. Miller is homophobic and initially declines Beckett’s case. Fortunately, Miller decides to take his case and ultimately helps Beckett win the case.
The main diversity issue in Philadelphia is discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is the gender that a specific person is attracted to. Beckett was discriminated upon because he was seen as different, just because he was a homosexual. This movie definitely showed how society seems to single out those
who do not fit the role that is seen as “normal.” Throughout the movie, Beckett is seen in an extremely negative light and is treated as such. There are several interactions in this movie that show how some people view homosexuals. In the pharmacy scene, when Miller finds out that the man he is talking to is homosexual, Miller completely changes his attitude and begins to insult and harass him. While this example is a bit extreme for society at this point in time, this problem is not solved. Today, people are still harassed for being homosexual, so much so that it sometimes leads to mental illnesses such as depression. Society has come a long way in regards to sexual orientation discrimination but it still has a ways to go. As we become more accepting of others for their differences, this discrimination should, hopefully, become an issue of the past. Just recently, the United States Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional for states to prohibit gay marriage. Unfortunately, some still disagree with this transition into acceptance. Personally, I believe that while some may not see it as “right,” I feel that it is not a good basis for discrimination. It is wrong to treat someone a certain way based on their sexual orientation. A possible solution to this diversity issue could be educating the public on sexual orientation. This would allow those who do not accept different sexual orientations to see that it is not harmful to them. Philadelphia is a great example of discrimination based on sexual orientation. It shows that are real problems facing homosexuals and other differing sexual orientations. It is important for society to recognize this diversity issue and make a concerted effort to accept others, even in spite of their differences.
This movie begins by depicting a bright articulate young lawyer named Andrew Beckett at work. Then the scene rapidly changes to Andrew at an AIDS clinic. You know at this point that Andrew Beckett has AIDS and a horrifying future as you see scenes of men with hollow expressions, open sores and skeleton-like features. It becomes obvious that Andrew was not telling his boss or coworkers that he has AIDS. Later we discover that he concealed this disease because he was afraid of being fired and people’s fear of him as a sick gay man.
The movie Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington depicts two lawyers fighting for the symbolic loss of the one of the lawyers who has contracted AIDS in the 1990s. Tom Hanks plays as Andrew Beckett, who successful made partner in upscale firm is fired because of his virus. The types of losses portrayed in this film are normal and complicated grief due to symbolic loss and actual loss due to death.
Discriminating gender roles throughout the movie leaves one to believe if they are supposed to act a certain way. This film gives women and men roles that don’t exist anymore, during the 60s women were known to care for the family and take care of the house, basically working at home. However, a male was supposed to fight for his family, doing all the hard work so his wife didn’t have too. In today’s world, everyone does what makes them happy. You can’t tell a woman to stay at home, that makes them feel useless. Furthermore, males still play the roles of hard workers, they are powerful compared to a woman. However, in today’s world a male knows it isn’t right to boss a woman around, where in the 60s, it happened, today women have rights to do what they want not what they are
In the movie Gattaca the main character Anton was discriminated against because of his gene makeup. Anton never even had a chance in the society in Gattaca because the potential employees of companies were not tested on their skills or knowledge but on their physical and mental possibilities. The same society also used derogatory terms for people like Anton. Just because his parents decided that he would come into the world naturally instead of through gene therapy or alteration. Terms like “faith birth'; and “invalid'; were used against Anton. I think gene therapy has it promises, but when used in the fashion as it was used in the Gattaca I think its progress should be carefully monitored. Right now sheep and other animals are being cloned. Soon primates and Humans could be cloned. I think we should further investigate human cloning for research on the parenting process and other physiological experiments that can only be used now on identical twins separated at birth. These experiments when used could be used to gain insight on what our genes determine in our personalities. I also think that the achievement of us humans cloning ourselves would be a great achievement for the entire human race such as it was when we landed on the moon in 1969.
Later one, two young African Americans males leaving a diner walking passed a white couple and the woman clutches the man’s arm and move closer. So, Some of the diversity dimensions that I found were related more to characteristics such as age, gender, race, religion, education, income, language within the movie and portrayed the social class discrimination, as well as gender discrimination. Throughout the film, there were some racial lines of tension between all races and against each other such as White on Persian, White on Black, Black on Black, White on Hispanic, Hispanic on Asian, Asian on Black, and White on Asian, Persian on Hispanic.
In the book West Side Story by Arthur Laurents there were many prejudices. Prejudice is a favoring or dislike of something without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge. There were prejudices in West Side Story that had to do with the types of people, their races and sex. Sometimes prejudice can be in small doses and can be meaningless, other times prejudice can be very serious and cause death.
The movie ‘Philadelphia’ explores prejudice against having AIDS [also being homosexual]. In the film, Andrew Beckett (played by Tom Hanks) is a lawyer with a huge opportunity as a lawyer in front of him. When he finds out he had AIDS he chose not to tell his firm mentor about either his disease or his sexual orientation. Andrew is fired for, as his firm members claim, ‘incompetence’ however we can see it is more. Andrew was fired because he had AIDS and was assumed gay (at this time AIDS was know the ‘gay disease’). The movie shows Andrews struggle to be treated equally.
In American history, many men and women have been confronted with hardships such as inequality and discrimination. The early American colonist had to fight for their rights: this applied to white men. African American men would have to wait another 90 years befor their rights. Women would have to wait even longer.. Three documents that express a similar desire to obtain freedom, equality, and independence are “The Declaration Of Independence,” by Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration Of Sentiments,” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and finally, “A Disappointed Woman,” by Lucy Stone. The rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos, logos, diction, analogy, and imagery, help contribute to the authors arguments regarding the themes of freedom, equality, and independence. “The Declaration of Independence,” is an outstanding model of how rhetorical strategies can be used to express the needs of equality.
This movie is a wonderful production starting from 1960 and ending in 1969 covering all the different things that occurred during this unbelievable decade. The movie takes place in many different areas starring two main families; a very suburban, white family who were excepting of blacks, and a very positive black family trying to push black rights in Mississippi. The movie portrayed many historical events while also including the families and how the two were intertwined. These families were very different, yet so much alike, they both portrayed what to me the whole ‘message’ of the movie was. Although everyone was so different they all faced such drastic decisions and issues that affected everyone in so many different ways. It wasn’t like one person’s pain was easier to handle than another is that’s like saying Vietnam was harder on those men than on the men that stood for black rights or vice versa, everyone faced these equally hard issues. So it seemed everyone was very emotionally involved. In fact our whole country was very involved in president elections and campaigns against the war, it seemed everyone really cared.
Comparing the 1960’s to the world we live in today, people who are “different” in society are treated poorly. There are many ways over the years people who are divergent have been acted towards. From wide ranging of racial, religious, and sexual to minimizing as simply wearing the same clothes for 2 days. The book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button takes place in a summer of 1960 Baltimore. Roger Button and his wife were a very rich couple who owned a Hardware Company. Henceforth, having a 70-year old baby was not a word you wanted out. People who are wealthy and well-known always have a reputation to uphold. In this 1960’s scenario it would be “Whose son went to the best university” or “Whose son scored more points in the football game”.
Andrew Beckett was a successful homosexual lawyer up until he was diagnosed with AIDS, where he was then fired. After his termination, Andrew seeks the help of another lawyer, Joe Miller, so that he can sue his old employers for wrongful termination. Miller’s feelings toward homosexuality and the AIDS disease are negative things that shouldn’t exist and each go hand in hand together. However, Miller decides to cast these beliefs to the side in order to defend Beckett in his case. An example of how Miller gave up personal comfort is when he met Beckett at a library while reading. Miller confronts Beckett about his case and learns Beckett still doesn’t have a lawyer and decides to assist. At this point in the movie, Miller decides that he must cast away his own beliefs and comforts in order to do what is right in society. When Miller sits down with Beckett to discuss his case this shows how he is now standing alone and interacting with a man who has a deadly disease, while others simply move away. This initial act of reaching out sets how Miller will act open-minded during the rest of the movie toward Beckett. Towards the end of the movie during the case Beckett is asked if the lesions on his face were visible at work, in which the lawyer representing Beckett’s old bosses hands him a mirror and the lesion on his face is barely visible. After this, Miller goes to the stand and asks Beckett to remove his shirt in order to show some lesions that were comparable to the ones on Beckett’s face at the time. This act shows how Miller has cast away all personal comfort and stood alone in order to bring justice to a man who has been wrongly terminated from his job; a termination that was not caused by poor performance or action, but simply because a man had the AIDS virus.
In the late 1980s when the film was created, the LGBT community faced many stigmas. Subjects in the film spoke about the harsh treatment that they endured due to stereotypes. People in mainstream society were not fully comfortable with the idea of homosexuality due to its lack of publicity in the media. It was rare at that time to have homosexual characters on television, and many athletes and professionals did not come out due to fear of judgment. Because of this, people who were openly part of the LGBT community faced discrimination. The Harlem ball circuit allowed the subjects to embrace their sexuality and come together as minorities. The mutual bonds that the minorities shared provided a judgment-free zone to enjoy themselves and form lasting
Discrimination is “the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things.” On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was ordered to give up her bus seat to a white passenger and refused. This act of opposition defied all normalities for the average black woman. The treatment of a woman who was black compared to the treatment of a white woman in that age was completely discriminatory. Rosa Park’s strength to influence justice against racial segregation has slowly influenced justice against all discrimination. “The Help,” a 2009 novel written by American author, Kathryn Stockett, is a story about African-American maids working for white households in Jackson, Mississippi set in the early 1960’s. “The Help” depicts these women as individuals similar to Rosa Parks, who want to influence change and equality. Through “The Help,” the reader can relate the thoughts and views of the characters to our society today, particularly on the grounds of race, class and gender.
The purpose of the film was to show that no matter what skin color you are what only matters is who you are on the inside. The movie fails in this attempt to display a political statement in a comedic manner in the sense that in reality it depicts that people need to be aware that we should be equal regardless of skin color but it makes a mockery out of the fact that we are not equal in a non-hysterical manner. This movie is not a comedy in the sense that the jokes are funny because they truly are not funny especially for those who face these discrimination issues daily. The movie is basically promoting conformity in the idea that we all know that equality is a far stretch and that we are not there yet so let us just deal with it and turn it into a mockery.
Discrimination is a resounding theme in The Merchant of Venice (Meyers). All of the characters are affected by inequality. This inequity is evidenced clearly in Shylock, the Jewish usurer. He is treated with scorn and derision by all the characters. Shylock’s misfortunes stem not from poor attributes or even a poor background; it stems from the fact he is Jewish, and what is more, he is impenitent of that distinction. If he had been more daunted by Christian influence, he might have been forgiven, as Jessica is subjectively exonerated. He is not contrite and it is believed that his appalling birth cannot be absolved (Bonnell).