Theme Of Racial Prejudice In The Film 'In The Heat Of The Night'

830 Words2 Pages

The movie I have picked for this assignment is called “In the Heat of the Night” that was produced and released in the 60s. There are a ton of ways the theme of racial prejudice are depicted in the film I watched called “In the Heat of the Night” but I have picked two to discuss for the first question. One part was when Tibbs tracks down the abortionist, who reveals that someone had paid for Delores to have an abortion, which back then abortions were frowned down upon to whereas today, anyone can go and get one and technically not be judged. While attempting to interrogate Delores, he is confronted with racial slurs by the person who has impregnated her and killed the victim in a robbery to get the money for this abortion to take place, the …show more content…

But Tibbs proves to Purdy that it was Ralph Henshaw not Sam who impregnated his 16 year old little sister. Another example of racial prejudice I noticed in this film “In the Heat of the Night” was when Lloyd files charges against Sam for getting his 16 year old sister Delores pregnant and Gillespie arrests Sam for the murder. Purdy is insulted that Tibbs, a black man, was present for his sister's interrogation about her sexual encounter with Sam, and he gathers a mob to get his revenge on Tibbs. This has caused emotional pain on the family and the persons accused of being the father. It shows what colored and white people were going through back in the day and how hard times were. This only makes a person stronger and helps them grow as a person. Being a teen mom is difficult and the fact that she has been impregnated by a colored man will only make this pregnancy more difficult than it has already …show more content…

This is when they marked a goodbye to the Jim Crow laws (racial segregation state and local laws enacted after the Reconstruction period in Southern United States that continued in force until 1965 mandating de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern U.S. states (of the former Confederacy), starting in 1890 with a "separate but equal" status for African Americans and the crumbling of the Race Wall and the so-called "color barrier".) "In the Heat of the Night" shows an Old South doomed to final defeat due to moral bankruptcy. This movie shows multicultural casting, which also portrays that it is okay to have colored and white people in the same movie all getting along and working together. It is very important that this film has been made because this film shows how hard it was for colored people and white people to get along but how it was possible to do so to make a film. I am normally not a huge fan of movies from back in the days (anything older than fifteen years old) because of the poor quality and how different their point of views are. But because racism has happened before, I actually enjoyed

Open Document