At the beginning of the film Finding Forrester, Jamal Wallace, a sixteen-year-old from the Bronx, appears to be significantly influenced by his friends, playing basketball and purposely disguising his academic abilities to fit in. This group pressure leads Jamal to break into the home of a man who is revealed to be the renowned author William Forrester, and the two form a unique relationship. By the end of the film, Jamal has given Forrester a renewed sense of life and friendship, while also finding the confidence to embrace his intelligence and passion for writing. Author Solomon E. Asch’s article “Opinions and Social Pressure” argues that while agreement is an important part of society's function, it can have a negative effect when it is rooted in a feeling of duty to …show more content…
Forwarding to a foul towards the end of the game, Jamal is chosen to shoot free throws to bring home the victory (Finding). As Jamal walks up to the free throw line, the scene focuses on the crowd, specifically Crawford and Jamal's family and friends, all of whom expect him to score (Finding). This serves as a representation of the pressure placed on Jamal to make his family proud, impress his friends, and comply with Crawford's desire for him to cease his pursuit of higher education. After Jamal misses the first basket and steps up for the second, the scene becomes silent, simultaneously showcasing Jamal's hesitation and cutting to Crawford and Jamal’s friend Claire, who both silently encourage him to make the next shot (Finding). This movement serves to draw the audience to focus solely on Jamal, also revealing that he is truly alone in making the crucial decision of what path to follow. He then again purposely misses, confirmed by a previous scene in which he repeatedly made fifty free throws, ultimately declaring his choice to continue to pursue writing
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is an overused cliché that has been analyze by many people. The movie Finding Forrester, by James W. Ellison, shows this theme in a more analytical manner. The movie focuses on an unusual relationship between a young man, Jamal Wallace, and a famous writer, William Forrester. Jamal is expected to fail in school and only excel on his basketball career, except he excels in both and never stops trying to achieve his dreams. He is faced with several obstacles, including racial comment and stereotypes assumptions by his teachers, peers, and mentor.
Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of Glencore, once said “I stopped focusing on people being different, and started treating everyone the same way.” An authority figure refuses to acknowledge the differences in people, and treats different individuals the same way. Authoritarian figures have shut down people, mostly kids, who are different for years. Striving to reach a conformity in society, they refuse to recognize the uniqueness of every individual. Similarly, in the short story “Antaeus”, the main character, T.J., is evidently different from the rest of urban society, much to authority’s disliking. In Borden Deal’s short story “Antaeus”, the author uses the main character ,T.J., to demonstrate that when man is different from the rest of society,
To conclude, it is proven during numerous instances found in Harper Lee’s award-winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, that societal pressures and the rigid rules and boundaries that society sets can overwhelm anyone of any class, race or background. It is unjust to assume anyone’s character by their set status but unfortunately, negative after-effects immediately take place as soon as one tries to step out of their preordained place. As Mayella Ewell, Scout and Jem Finch and Atticus Finch were the examples of this bitter truth, there are many other characters affected by the societal impacts on everyday life in the novel.
During the duration of Émile Durkheim’s life from 1858–1917, he established himself as one the founders of social psychology, otherwise known as conformity. Throughout history, society has steadily presented new ways of thinking and behaving while expecting the populace to behave accordingly. That mentality is as strong as ever in today’s culture, by advertising rational and irrational concepts of majority demeanor and point of view. Individuals feel as though they need to act in uniform with the better part of their peers. Primarily since the mid 1930’s, studies performed by psychologists on individual and group conduct have become more popular and gone into greater depth. Conformity has both lethal and beneficial potential based upon the
This book is written in first person point of view. The main character, and narrator, of the book is Gene Forrester. I know this to be true because the story is told with words like “I” and “Me.” It also shares Gene’s thoughts with us and gives us his opinions. “I knew, perhaps alone knew, that this was false.” (73) There is almost no author bias about events. Gene does not express many opinions of important things in his life, like the enemies in WWII. “This enemy who never attacked that way- if he ever attacked at all; If he was indeed the enemy.” (204) The only major opinion expressed is that Phineas was not a very trustworthy and loyal person. This could be considered bias, as many students at Devon would most likely argue that Phineas was a kind person and a good friend.
It all began when Jammal had the chance to transfer schools for better opportunities from grades to how he played on the basketball court. His old school never really thought about how different Jamal was from the others because Jamal never wanted to show how wise, or knowledgeable he was. As a community today, people are judged from where they come from and what they look like. To me, this shouldn’t matter; everyone should have the same amount of opportunities as one another. People may never know what someone is capable of if you don’t get to know who they are. Just as Berardinell (2000) says, “Although his streetwise background makes him a social outsider amidst a sear of rich, pampered kids, Jamal's performance on the court and in the classroom earns him the respect of many of his teachers and peers” (p. 1). Since he started this new school, he has been misjudged for his capabilities and creativeness on writing. Not only was Jamal the type of guy that liked to show his intelligence with others, but he always wanted to fit in with the crowd; therefore, he shut down the better opportunities he was given
Many people have trouble being apart of a society. These troubles come from trying to fit in, which is also known as conforming. Another trouble is trying to express one’s own style with one’s own opinion. This is a trouble due to the fact that many people have the fear of being frowned upon when being the black sheep of the group if one’s opinion does not correspond with other opinions. This is where one’s own sense of who they are, individuality, and trying to fit in, conformity, can get confused. A nickname for conformity is “herd behavior” which is the name of an article where the author relates animals that herd with people that conform. Many people have a different philosophy of this topic which will be expressed in this essay. An important
Therefore, he eloquently presents scientific facts and research in his essay to logically strengthen his argument. The way Gladwell structures where to place scientific facts and research is brilliant, for he introduces the research at a moment when the reader starts questioning the logic of his argument. In “Harlan Kentucky”, Gladwell starts with the story of the Howard-Turner Feud which was a violent feud between two families in the small town of Harlan; to serve as a backstory to the experiment that is going to be presented. This story of family feuds happened to happen all over the Appalachian region. Evidently Gladwell states that men from the Appalachian region were violent, due to their values which are based on defending their honor at all costs. After explaining all about the Appalachian region, Gladwell presents the reader with a famous study conducted by Dov Cohen and Richard Nisbett psychologists at the University of Michigan. These psychologists conducted an experiment trying to identify if the culture of honor is evident in young men in the modern era. The experiment monitored how young men reacted to being insulted. The result of the experiment resulted in “a clear difference in how the young men responded to being called a bad name” (Small Change) Ultimately, the difference between the young men was where they were from (Small Change). Young men from the north reacted to the
A distinct conscience is formed by the values and desires of one’s unique identity. However, common beliefs of societal standards can influence conscientious desires. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee introduces a young girl named Scout, who learns about the difference between social conformity and human conscience. Through this, she notices the conflict it brings: choosing to conform or stand with your desire. Through Maycomb’s discriminatory principles, Atticus’ actions against common beliefs, and Scout’s comprehension of Boo, Lee reveals how society’s standards and conformity hinders personal desires for righteousness.
Jamal Wallace is introduced in the film as a typical black teenage male who goes to a low class school in the Bronx and really excels on the court as a basketball player. He always plays basketball with his friends in the parking lot. Jamal is dared to go into the apartment of a recluse who watches them play through binoculars. Jamal is caught, running away in fright. Not too many people thought of him as being anything more than that, due to the fact that Jamal makes mediocre grades in his school in the Bronx, he does just enough to get by and to maintain a “C” average.
Growing up in a prejudiced environment can cause individuals to develop biased views in regard to both gender and class. This is true in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, where such prejudices are prevalent in the way of life of 1930s Maycomb, Alabama. The novel is centered around the trial of a black man who is accused of raping a white woman. The narrator, a young girl named Scout, is able to get a close up view of the trial because her father is defending Tom Robinson, the defendant. The aura of the town divided by the trial reveals certain people’s prejudices to Scout, giving her a better perspective of her world.
In outward conformity and in inward questioning, there is the power, the ability, and the motive to see and accept change. This change can be brought out by the tension that takes place between the two, and that change is the identity of a person; it is the difference between myself and the crowd. This realization can transform the world in a different sense: the sense of character.
He creates this tone to convey his purpose to the reader which is that prejudice is still an ongoing problem in American society, and that it will never be a thing of the past. Staples gives many personal anecdotes that are very somber; the readers are affected by this because they can emphasize and feel the prejudice that the victim, Brent Staples, faces. Although Staples is never delighted with the positions he is in, he never shows his resentment. In one part of the article, Staples said, “It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe old age of twenty-two without being conscious of the lethality nighttime pedestrians attributed to me.” (Staples, 2). Staples attributes that he knows many people in American society automatically assume that he is a threat to “their” society because of
Cialdini, Robert B, & Trost, Melanie R. (1998). Social Influence: Social Norms, Conformity, & Compliance. Interpersonal Phenomena. Retrieved from: angel.elmira.edu/section/default.asp?id=w114_PSY3010_01.
The Imitation Game is a phenomenal film that takes place during World War II in 1952, which won Oscar for best writing-adapted screenplay. It serves as a tribute to the life of Alan Turing, a great mathematician who worked with fellow mathematicians through the British Intelligence MI6 agency to crack the Enigma Code. That’s not all there is though, this story brings you a profoundly odd man who has many secrets who is supposed to be solving the secret code to stop the war. When looking at this movie through the lens of social conflict, we can analyze how society is an arena of conflict as well as change that looks at how the individual is affected. So in this case we can look how the main themes: sex & sexuality, deviance, along with gender causes conflict in Alan Turing’s life as well as other supporting characters.