Fruitvale Station
After watching and reviewing the award-winning drama Fruitvale Station, we can see that capital played a tremendous role in Oscar Grant’s life. While there were many forms of capital in the movie, the ones I am going to focus on and that I believe had the biggest impacts on Oscar Grant are as follows: Economic capital, cultural capital, social capital, and symbolic capital. These are also known as Pierre Bourdieu’s Four Types of Capital.
The first capital I am going to discuss is economic capital. In the movie Fruitvale Station, its apparent that this type of capital plays the biggest role in Oscar Grant’s life. Oscar was working a part time job at a local grocery store at the time. His girlfriend, Sophina, was a cashier at
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Wal-Mart. Being in their early twenties and without a degree, they were barely bringing home enough money to make ends meet. After getting fired from his job for never showing up on time for his shift, Oscar turns to selling drugs just to keep some sort of income. Initially, he doesn’t tell Sophina because he knows it would be detrimental to their relationship. It seems as if there were problems with selling drugs in the past that could have caused this. Although Oscar is portrayed as a tough guy, we can see that he has quite the heart.
After receiving a phone call from his sister which ended with her asking for rent money, Oscar knew he needed more money. He sends a text to a buyer of his asking if he needs any marijuana. The buyer says yes and they agree on a meeting spot. After arriving, Oscar has a flashback to when he was in jail. This had a huge impact on Oscar which resulted in him pouring all the weed into the ocean. Later that day, he tells Sophina that he lost his job which causes an argument. “Food on the table, lights still on” is what he tells her, basically letting her know that he’s doing what he can to provide for his …show more content…
family. The next form of capital that played a large part in the movie is cultural capital. In my opinion, this type of capital is the main reasoning behind what eventually happened to Oscar. This form of capital entails more than just income and wealth, it involves language, dress, styles, and manners. Basically, every aspect of an individual’s upbringing. As we know from the movie, Oscar is portrayed as thug like. His language is very aggressive and vulgar. His dress is very loose and depicts his carefree attitude. One scene from the movie that depicts this “different” side of Oscar is in the grocery store where he meets up with his old boss, Emi. In this scene, Oscar is trying to get his old job back but his former boss lets him know that the position has already been filled by someone more reliable than Oscar. Thus, Oscar responds as follows: “I need this fucking job, bruh. You want me selling dope, bruh? You want me waiting for you outside, bruh?”. We can see how Oscars cultural capital could be harmful to his economic capital and, in turn, his social capital. Social Capital is the next form of capital that is very apparent in the movie.
This capital refers to networking and the connections that a person has. Oscar is shown as an extrovert through most of the movie. He never shies away from a conversation and is all around a very friendly guy, even to strangers. Two scenes really portrayed this to me in the movie. The first was in the grocery, where Oscar goes to buy some food for his mother’s birthday. While talking to Cato, he overhears a woman, Katie, who needs help with a party she is preparing. Oscar being the friendly guy he is, decides to help her by letting her talk to his grandma. This is important because later in the movie, just a few minutes before the new year, we see Katie again on the bus. She remembers Oscar from their interaction in the store and after getting his attention, they chat for a bit. Just moments later we see Katie recording the entire encounter between Oscar and the police, becoming his biggest advocate for these unjust
actions. The other scene that displays this form of capital is when Oscar is trying to find a bathroom for the ladies in the group to use. After coming across a store about to close for the night, he convinces the manager to let them in. Seconds later, a pregnant couple walks up asking to use the bathroom. After some more convincing, Oscar got the pregnant woman in as well. Oscar and the guy strike up a conversation about marriage and work which results in the guy telling him about his own hardships which are very relatable to Oscar. This results in the guy telling Oscar that if he ever needs anything to just let him know. The capital that seemed to have had the least impact on Oscar Grant’s life but still important, at least the way it was portrayed in Fruitvale Station, was symbolic capital. This type of capital focuses on materialistic things such as the size of a person’s home, what kind of car they drive, or the brand of their clothes. From what we can take away from the movie, none of this matters to Oscar. He lives a pretty simple life in a small apartment in Oakland, California where his girlfriend and daughter come to visit often. He drives an aged Mercury which he uses to drive Sophina to work and to take his daughter, Tatiana, to daycare. As far as apparel goes, he wears benign clothing such as blank shirts and hoodies. To me, this shows that Oscar cared more about relationships than things you can buy in a store. This could have to do with his economic capital. As I mentioned earlier, Pierre Bourdieu’s Four Forms of Capital had a great impact on the outcome of Oscar Grants life. In addition to these, his race also played a part in his life chances. So, what if things were different? What if Oscar Grant was a white male with the same types of capital? This is where I see the largest inequality and I believe many others would agree with me. Had Oscar been a white male, none of these forms of capital would have played any part in him getting detained and eventually, shot, in Fruitvale Station. He wasn’t arrested because of how much money he had or how wealthy he wasn’t. He wasn’t arrested for living in a small, rundown apartment or for driving an older car. Simply put, he was killed because he was a black male and the police saw him and his friends as a threat to everybody else in the station. This, and many stories like this, are the reasons behind movements such as Black Lives Matter and are why we as a country need to stand together to finally eradicate racial profiling and inequality once and for all.
Napoleon Dynamite is one of the best movies portraying loneliness and nerds. It is the story of Napoleon in high school and his lonely adventures. All the main characters feel separated, misunderstood, and have nobody to relate to. Napoleon has no friends and lives in his own fantasy land. He is avoided by everybody. His brother seems to be mislead, wanting to be a cage fighter but staying home all the time hopelessly trying to find love and attention on the internet. Their grandmother is never there for them, though she lives her own life right beside them. They live next to a huge field, reinforcing their isolation. Practically every home in the film is
One of Bourdieu’s central arguments is that what we refer to as “capital” is actually the collective product of four sub-types of capital: economic, social, symbolic, and cultural. Although these different types of capital are distinct categories, they intersect to create the more mainstream idea of capital. Similarly, Hill Collins and Bilge break down the broad idea of power into smaller components in order to examine how power operates, and how its tied to
Society is faced with various problems that hinder the development of its communities. These issues affect the society in a numerous of ways and has a major effect on the citizens of the community as well. Social adversities causes grief and is also the cause of crimes and other miscellaneous activities that occur in inequitable areas. In the film, Fruitvale Station, there are abundant amounts of these adversities and societal issues that are illustrated. Fruitvale Station is a great example of a film that shows accurate social issues that occur in today’s society. The movie demonstrates issues of inequality, racial prejudice, gang involvement and also unemployment. It also shows how the people who are forced to live with these issues, fight for survival to maintain to see another day.
The film Clueless praises the white rich feminine voice. The film begins with high school students from Beverly Hills shopping, partying, and spending money as the kids in America. This economic capital is unrealistically flaunted as the normal life of a teenage girl. Cher’s father, as a lawyer, earns $500 per hour. His occupation allows Cher to have a jeep, designer clothes. Her economic status puts her at the top of the academic social hierarchy. Her persuasiveness and popularit...
After experiencing a traumatic car crash, Michelle, the protagonist of director Dan Trachtenberg’s film 10 Cloverfield Lane, wakes up in an underground bunker owned by a man named Howard. Howard claims to have saved her from a widespread chemical attack that has contaminated the air, with his bunker being the only place to take refuge for the next couple of years. Yet as the film progresses, Howard’s controlling and threatening demeanor eventually brings Michelle to escape, allowing her to come across the actuality of the situation outside the isolated bunker. Throughout the production, Trachtenberg arranges close frames, manipulates the camera’s focus, and chooses specific lighting to create an ominous tone that mystifies and disturbs viewers.
Gender and Race play the most prominent role in the criminal justice system. As seen in the movie Central Park 5, five African American boys were charged with the rape of the a white women. In class decision we’ve discussed how the media explodes when it reports cross-racial crimes. The Central Park 5 were known everywhere and even terms were being made up during the process such as wilding. Also, during one of the class discussions it was brought up that victims of crime are of the same race of the perpetrator. However, the media likes to sensationalize crime of the victim being of a different race, because it makes for a good story. By doing this, the media does create more of a division of race. As seen in the video Donald Trump was trying
The Forms of Capital (1986) written by Bourdieu address the concepts of cultural and social capital. From his point of view, he believes that cultural capital is something that is equipped by oneself and, as a result, reproduces economic capital. The two capitals are directly proportion to each
2. Is the decline of social capital as important as Putnam argues? Why or why not?
Social capital, economic capital, cultural capital, and leadership all play a role in the lives of people everyday. It is important for people to keep these factors in mind because they can use them to their advantage and be successful. If people do not know they have the ability to use these, then it could potentially hurt them and keep them from being successful. For a college student, the social, economic, and cultural capital can either lead the student to success or failure during and after college.
Cultural capital has great power through the control and maintenance of traditions, expected and accepted roles and behaviours, notably gender roles, important artefacts, language, institutions and services (Navarro, 2006). Of these, two essential contributors being educational facilities and religious institutions (Navarro, 2006). Finally, economic capital holds power through property and literal financial capital or monetary resources, this empowers individuals to have some degree of agency and autonomy (Navarro, 2006). This gives power to individuals to interact with higher classes, or form part of such, to purchase and interact with goods and services that are valued by the society and in turn receive respect and enhances social status (Navarro, 2006).
Falk, I. & Kilpatrick, S. (2000). What is social capital? A study of a rural community. Socialogia Ruralis, 1(40), pp. 87-110.
When Bourdieu discusses cultural capital he is referring to knowing; for instance, what to talk about in a certain context. Capital means resources, so someone with large cultural capital has a lot of experiences in the world and are perceived as knowledgeable and able to converse about an array of diverse topics. Cultural capital can be learned, which is why education for Bourdieu is the first determent, over and above class origins. People who are not from a higher class, but have been immersed in education, can conduct one’s self in a manner where someone cannot distinguish their economic and social origins. Culture is not individualized; it is all
Pierre B (1961) Culture Capital Cited, Taylor P ; Richardson Jr John; Yeo, A, (1995), The class structure and educational attainment, Sociology in Focus, pp.297, Ormskirk, Causeway Press.
Luis Gama Dr. Caffee RSSS 304 December 8, 2015 Prisoner of the Mountains Sergei Bodrov dose a extremely brilliant effort at capturing the complicated relationship between Russia soldiers and their Chechn captors in his 1996 movie, Prisoner of the Mountains, which takes place during the First Chechen War. The movie revolves around the capture of two Russian soldiers Sacha and Vania by a Chechen father Abdoul-Mourat who wants to trade them for his son captured by the Russian army. The movie mainly focuses on the lives of people who are caught in the cross fire between Russians and Chechens. Bodrov's main approach to the subject lies in the disappointment of all these people; although they all yearn for any human relationships they may develop in order to escape the grim reality of war.
There are various influences on everyone’s lives while growing up. I believe the greatest of these influences is the neighborhood you grew up in. I grew up in a quite large, welcoming neighborhood. While living in this neighborhood, I was outgoing and remarkably talkative. Making friends became second nature to me. Playing outdoors from sunrise to sundown playing sports or exploring the outdoors with my friends became a daily routine for me. I was outgoing, talkative, and active. I believe this is the result of the neighborhood I grew up in.