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The effect of family on society
Cultural values of african american culture
Positive and negative impact on society through change in the family structure
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The film A time to kill published in 1996 by Joel Schumacher is an American crime drama which promotes human rights and strong moral values among African Americans and southern whites. . The film, which is based on John Grisham’s fictional novel tells the story of an African American man who takes the law into his own hands to protect his daughter and the subsequent generations from racial discrimination. Carl Lee Hailey a heartbroken father, avenges his daughter’s brutal rape by shooting the men responsible for the crime against Tonya Hailey, however this leads to a civil uproar. A variety of values and attitudes which are represented too the audience through film techniques are the strong value of family, the attitude courage and the violation …show more content…
Family values are traditional cultural values which a passed on through generation to generation. Carl Lee Hailey’s family has always been close to his heart and since the dramatic events his daughter was put through it’s made him realise just how important they are. An example of valuing his close family is Carl Lee organises a meeting in jail to confront the organisation of money, which was meant to go towards his family, however instead has been told it would help his court trial. “How much of that cash you offering my wife and kids?” are the brave words Carl Lee states towards the leader of the church. “Oh, that moneys to pay for Lawyer fees and stuff like that”, “That aint what you told the church now, is it?” Through this scene the tension builds between Carl Lee Hailey and reverent Isaiah Street through Schumacher’s use of direct dialogue and complete silence throughout the scene. The value of family is clearly promoted to the audience and it’s clear that Carl Lee isn’t just doing this for himself, but for his family and the rest of the African American population. Together the use of film techniques and dialogue, promotes the importance of family no matter how hard life can be. Family must always come first and is a clear value displayed throughout A time to
Another aspect of the film that depicts a positive image of family is the family’s support for Wayne. Although Wayne is serving an eight year prison sentence for armed robbery, Darryl, Sal, Tracey, Steve and Dale are still proud and supportive of him. Dale regularl...
Family structures are complex because although they can be dysfunctional at times, they also provide individuals with a lot of guidance and deeply rooted values. This movie helped achieve the course objective of taking a personal exploration of African American cultural experiences for several reasons. Aside from being based off of Spike Lee’s life, Crooklyn was the reality for black families across the country during that time period. Families had to battle several oppressing factors in addition to trying to keep their heads above water. Having a functional family in the city is by no means easy, and the movie Crooklyn effectively depicts that truth. While there were a lot of negative connotations shown there was also emphasis put on how strong the black family is. In my opinion, the film signifies familial strength because although there were a lot of factors against them, such as money issues and negative influences, the family remained united, prevailing all of those things. In addition, it is important to acknowledge the significance of Troy’s trip down south to see her aunt. Her trip allowed her to mature into a young lady, which ultimately prepared her to take care of her younger brother after her mother’s death. This showed that people outside of an individual’s immediate family that contribute
For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within these points there are a few main arguments that I would like to point out. The first argument is the belief that you will need to accept the street code to get through life. The other one is the belief that people on the street need “juice”. For the rest of this paper we will be looking at each one of main points and arguments by going through each chapter and discussing it.
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
Do the Right Thing is a dramatic comedic film that was directed by Spike Lee. The movie was released in 1989. Lee served in three capacities for the film: writer, director and producer of the movie, Ernest Dickenson was the cinematographer and Barry Alexander Brown was the film’s editor. For this film, Lee garnered together some notable actors and actresses, including Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Rosie Perez, Samuel L. Jackson, John Tuturro and Martin Lawrence. The setting of the movie is in Bedford-Stuyvesant; which is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. This particular neighborhood is made up of several ethnic groups that include African Americas, Italians, Koreans, and Puerto Ricans. The movie takes place on a particularly hot day during the summer time. The extreme heat causes tensions between the different races in the neighborhood. In this paper, I will attempt to show how mise-en-scène, camera work, editing, and sound are used to convey “explicit” and “implicit” meaning in one scene in Do the Right Thing.
Richard Wright’s novel Native Son and Oliver Stone’s film Natural Born Killers are works that focus on the act of murder. Native Son deals with the large impact that race has on the way society sees both white and black communities. Natural Born Killers shows how one’s past and the media one is exposed to can affect ones view of violence. Throughout both the novel and film killing becomes natural to the characters due to the way society has conditioned them.
A Time to Kill is a story based primarily on justice. The story is based around the trial of a black man named Carl Lee Hailey, who is accused of murdering two unarmed white men in the middle of a courthouse. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about many themes including a child's innocent perception of the world, a man's shame and the lengths to which he will go to regain his pride, and at the root of it all is a matter of justice. To Kill a Mockingbird features a trial in which a black man named Tom Robinson is accused of raping and beating a white woman. The main connection between the stories is a matter of racial prejudice. Neither of these trials would have even occ...
Spike Lee is brand name when it comes to the film industry. When you try to ask any group of people their opinion about this man, you will probably receive numerous positive responses from the film community as well as the African American community. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) is a film that illustrates how racial conflict can become a reality while showing the repercussions that come with racial segregation. Spike Lee uses a number of tools to write and produce the film in order to ensure the message reaches his intended audience in the best way possible. The use of location, soundtrack, and dialogue is abundant in this film. Therefore, this film analysis paper is for Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989). It is a film in which racial segregation ignites riots in a neighborhood dominated by the black population. The heightened scene of this film analysis is where Spike Lee throws a trash can and it is from this that hell breaks loose and riots begin.
The change in a social class is something that is shown in every day life and the media. It is the American Dream to move upward in society. The movie Sweet Home Alabama is a prime example of social mobility in the main character. The main character Melanie Carmichael left her small town Alabama home and achieved an impressive upward social mobility. She began her life as a daughter of a respectful working class family to become a world famous fashion designer in New York City. At the beginning of the movie, Andrew, the mayor’s son, proposes to Melanie. She says yes, but before she can marry him, she has to clear up a not so final divorce with Jake, her high school sweetheart she left behind. Melanie is now caught between two classes and two cultures, the working class that she grew up in and the upper class she has now placed herself in. As the film continues, her dilemma will require her to acknowledge and reconnect with her mother who lives in a trailer park while still trying to impress h...
In Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee employs Atticus’s strengths and weaknesses to point to the integrity of his character and roles in the novel. Atticus displays his integrity courageously in his positions as a father, lawyer, and member of the community. Reflecting on the moral of the story, Atticus represents the integrity that leaves an impression on his audience – he ends up teaching his audience. It’s inevitable not to walk away without the new perspective of what it means to judge someone before he remembers, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 39).
In the movie, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Callie Khouri directs something of a powerful story between a mother and her daughter. The movie Life as a House (Wrinkler, 2002) tells something of the same; of a father and the fight for the love of his son. The two movies both portray the fight between parents and their children. The commonality between father and son and mother and daughter is portrayed through the troublesome children and the problems that they face together. The “abuse “ that these children have received has formed them into the people they are today. What these characters had become is something that they do not want to be. As we age, we begin to discover the importance of family as depicted through Life as a House and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
The theme that is similar is, revenge. In A Time To Kill, Tonya Hailey, a 10-year-old African American girl is raped by two white racist rednecks. Her dad, Carl Lee Hailey soon seeks revenge on the two men, Pete and Billy Ray. Carl kills Pete and Billy Ray with a rifle as the two guys are headed to their courtroom for what they did to Tonya. In To Kill A Mockingbird Tom Robinson, an African American was charged for rape by two white women. Tom Robinson wanted to seek revenge, but not violent revenge. He wanted to get revenge in the courtroom, and to prove that not all African Americans are violent and
To Kill a Mockingbird, the novel by Harper Lee embodies a work of Southern literature, set in the 1930s in a small town in Alabama. The book’s genre exemplifies a coming-of-age historical fiction story. The narrator, a young girl named Scout Finch, describes the lessons she and her brother Jem learn when their father, a lawyer named Atticus, defends an African American man who stands accused of raping a white woman. The novel’s premise revolves around the efforts of a father raising his children and guiding them in their moral development. Along the way, the book deals with the themes of courage, prejudice and maturity. These three concepts are defined differently by Atticus than by most of the other people in the town where he lives. According to Atticus, courage means doing what remains as right and resisting what remains as wrong, even if other people oppose you. In contrast to the prejudice of the townspeople, Atticus believes it important to treat everyone equally. Maturity, in Atticus’ view, refers to having a sense of conscience and seeking to protect those who remain innocent. As these definitions show, Atticus Finch displays a strong sense of ethics. His goal as a parent remains to pass his values on to his children. This paper will argue that Scout and Jem learn the true meanings of courage, prejudice and maturity through the influence of their father and the example he sets for them.
One of the more prevalent themes of this movie is racism, and how prejudicial mindsets ultimately lead to one’s own demise. The movie outlines how racism, among other things, can adversely affect someone’s judgment. After the father died, we see how the family gradually deteriorates financially as well as emotionally after Derek (the older brother played by Edward Norton) turns to a neo Nazi gang for an outlet, which eventually influences his younger brother Danny (played by Edward Furlong) to follow down ...
... is the brutality of hate and racism. The emotions running high in the movie makes it powerful and moving and the death of Derek’s younger brother Danny Vinyard is shocking enough to bring tears to many viewers’ eyes. The movie ends with Danny’s voice reading his paper out loud and he ends his paper with a very important quote by Abraham Lincoln. This quote shows how Danny’s, as well as Derek’s, mindset changed from the beginning of the movie to the end. When hearing this quote it leaves the viewers in awe that Danny finally started to look past his hateful ideologies but ends up dead because of the lifestyle him and his brother decided to lead. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained we must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature”.