Film Analysis Of The Film 'Out In The Night'

The film, Out in the Night documents a 2006 case in which a group of young African American lesbians were accused of gang assault and attempted murder. The film portrays how unconscious bias, institutional discrimination and racism contributed to the convictions of seven African American lesbian women. Three of the women pleaded guilty to avoid going to trial, but four did not. Renata Hill, Patreese Johnson, Venice Brown, and Terrain Dandridge maintained their innocence and each were charged with several years in prison. I cried through out the documentary because it dawned on me that it’s not safe for women, especially gay women of color. The four-minute incident occurred in Greenwich Village where Dwayne Buckle sexually and physically harassed

The women fought back and stabbed him because he was choking them and causing serious harm. Dwayne Buckle beats women and is homophobic. The film reveals that Dwayne Buckle posted on a website his views on same-sex relationships. He states, “We are not saying all gay causes are wrong. But we don’t feel it’s the same as civil rights, seems more like devil rights to us…80% of serial killers are homosexual”(00:29:28-00:31:02). The jurors disregarded this information even though it’s a clear motive for his behavior that night. The jurors in the case did not get the full picture of what occurred that night but they along with the media and prosecution went on racialized fears of gang violence. The media and prosecutors described the women as violent gang members. Attack of the Killer Lesbians, Lesbian Wolf Pack Guilty, and Girls Gone Wilding, were all articles from the New York Post and New York Daily News that portrayed the women as vicious thugs. What we view to be true in the media is in many ways a social construct. The media usually paints a one sided picture that we should claim to be

“These identities are constructed through various social institutions and structures-e.g, family, media, education, law, economics, religious institutions, the state, housing, transportation, architecture-that position us not just differently but inequitable as well. Thus, identity categories affect our sense of self as well as our life chances profoundly”(Braithwaite and Orr). Americas criminal justice system basis itself on double standards, hypocrisy, and institutionalized racism. It is unbelievable to me that Patreese served the longest in prison, a whopping seven years for a misdemeanor charge. The other women only spent two to three years in prison. I feel so terrible for all the women but especially Patreese who lost two brothers and Renata, who lost her mother and lost custody of her son. I feel extreme anger for the judge and prosecutors involved in this case. “Race is a social, economic, and political system of division and inequality. We know that racial categories are artificial because each year that the United States has taken a census (every ten years since 1790), there has never been a census that has used the same racial terms from a previous census. Each census a different set of terms are used, showing that the United States government cannot even agree on what the racial terms should be”(DeMello). We are living in a dysfunctional