Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption: Prisons After Leaving Prison

Student: Maximilian Pühringer

Course: Topics in American Cultural Studies Carceral Cultures

Paper Proposal part II

1. Research Question

• How does the film portray prison’s impact on people’s behavior and morals within the prison walls?

• How is the power hierarchy within a prison depicted in the film?

• In how far are prisoners condemned to a second class existence after leaving prison?

2. Working thesis

In my paper I will show that the environment, and conditions in prisons depicted in the film “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, as well as an innate or acquired characteristic of the correctional and inmate population have severe impacts on people’s behaviour, by promoting aggressive/submissive behaviour.

3. Arguments

• A

Furthermore, how the guards and inmates lose their individuality and mostly act out of a group norm which they are put into. It also showed me how little effect the prisoners have on what happens to them during their incarceration. The prisoners in the mock prison recreated in this study gave up responding to the guards because of their unpredictable decisions and sheer random behavior.

4.2. Cecil, D. (2017-03-29). Prisons in Popular Culture. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology. Retrieved 19 Dec. 2017, from http://criminology.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264079-e-194.

This article focuses on the ability of popular culture to entertain and educated people on some level. The article argues that people’s perceptions and understanding of an issue can be influenced by the images and messages contained within common representations. The prime focus is on the depiction of prisons in movies, because we rarely have first-hand knowledge of how prison life is, and what happens inside prison walls, therefore, we have to rely on second-hand knowledge in shaping our perceptions of prisons. By relying only on such sources, people are likely to have an incomplete and inaccurate perception of penal institutions and the living conditions and life in

The Shawshank Redemption is mentioned as a film which gave the audience a glimpse at prison life. People tend to believe such films accurately depict a life behind bars, and they often tell stories of injustice and leave the audience rooting for an inmate hero. The main themes in the Shawshank Redemption, which I will also work on in my paper are according to this research – an inmate hero, cruel prison workers and inmates, institutional violence, and an escape. I also took this piece of research to further investigate how prison is represented in movies, and what their relationship to reality is like.

4.3. Moore, D. (2017-09-26). Prisoner Experiences. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology. Retrieved 19 Dec. 2017, from