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The biography, Just Mercy was published in 2014 by author Bryan Stevenson.  In 2019, the award-winning book was developed into a movie in 2019, winning multiple awards for its story and message.  This analysis will focus on the film version of this story.

The movie’s story follows the life and work of Bryan Stevenson, a recent graduate from Harvard Law School.  After graduation, Stevenson passes up corporate, high wage earning, jobs to rather move to Alabama and defend inmates who were wrongly accused of crime and others who could not afford representation.  Now, why was this film so successful?  While Stevenson helped exonerate numerous inmates, the film focuses on the relationship that Stevenson formed with Walter McMillian, highlighting the injustice and power struggle that plagued the justice system of southern states deep into the 1900s.

Understanding the injustices that the movie depicts is quite simple; black men in America were overwhelmingly charged for crimes that they did not commit and were not given fair representation by adequate lawyers.  Just Mercy uses both visuals and storylines further emphasize the depth of the injustices against black men.  Speaking first of the visual aspects, some of the most memorable scenes of the movie come as death row inmates line up at their cell doors, making any noise they can in support of a soon to be executed fellow prisoner.  These scenes gave insight to vastness of injustice that had happened.

The film made it seem that every prisoner on death row there was falsely accused through moments like this.  In regard to the storyline, the storyline attempted to further uncover the history of injustices in the case of McMillian.  The way that this movie depicts the injustices that existed reminded me of Spivak’s description of a subaltern.  As women were left voiceless in Spivak’s India, the black man was left voiceless in prison systems across America.

With injustice comes power, and power was expressed numerous times in Just Mercy.  Most memorably, the countless times that McMillian and other inmates were beaten or physically abused by white prison guards.  My mind immediately went to Hegel’s master slave paradox.  It was so disheartening to see this be lived out in modern times, but necessary to fully develop the power struggle that existed.

Now when Bryan Stevenson shared this story, and it was transitioned into a film, what was his intention in writing this biography?  What message did he want to be taken away?  I think that the intent was clear, develop an awareness of the injustice and power that existed in the late 1900s in the justice system.  As far as the message, I think Stevenson and the film writers wanted to make a case for the necessity for change in the ways black men have been treated for far too long in the justice system across the United States, and a powerful argument against the death penalty.

For my Text Review I have chosen the very popular film Horton Hears a Who. The film is based off of the book of the same name by Dr. Seuss. In the movie, the main protagonist Horton finds a flower with a speck. With his large ears he can hear the very small people of who-ville, but nobody else can seem to hear them. Horton must protect the flower as some say there cant possibly be any people living on it. Many people try to destroy the small flower as Horton goes on a long journey to place the flower where nobody can touch it. By the end of the movie, the flower is saved when the Who’s cry out and somebody other than Horton can finally hear them. The movie ends with the other animals apologizing to Horton and everybody accepts that the Whos are people too.

The movie as well as the book both have the same lesson of equality. This can be related to the self-Other construct. All of the animals believe that since they cannot see the Whos, and that they are different, that they are less than them. They use their own concept of their own existence to define the existence of the Whos. This is challenged by Horton, who speaks for equality, when he says, “A person’s a person no matter how small.” The whos can also be considered subalterns. As they are very small they have absolutely no way to better themselves or voice that they are there. Without the aide of Horton they would have been wiped out. They eventually gain a small voice, thanks to Horton, and this saves them from burning in a pot of oil. Overall, while this is technically a children’s story, it can still teach us as adults. All people matter and deserve respect and opportunity. I think it’s great that kids have this story to teach them that from a young age. Its interesting that such a simple story can contain elements that relate to our social theories.

The movie I want to analyze today is Blade Runner. Made in 1982, the movie is a dystopian science fiction movie set in 2019 LA. The plot of the movie is that there are ‘synthetic humans’ made by a large company called Tyrell. The synthetic humans, also known as replicants, are used essentially as slaves on other planets in work colonies. A group of these replicants escapes from the planet they were working on and have returned to Earth, where they are tracked and killed by Rick Deckard(who is played by Harrison Ford). At the start of the film, Deckard meets a replicant named Rachel who has been given false memories and believes she is human. The key here is that replicants and humans are virtually indistinguishable other than a test Deckard has that does not necessarily always give the correct answers. The main premise of the movie works around the replicants that Deckard finds and the emotional struggle he goes through regarding the ethics of killing the replicants and possibly Rachel as well.

I think the movie really hits an idea of what it means to distinguish humanity, whether through race, gender identity, or in this case what defines a human. The replicants’ work is justified by the Tyrell corporation as they are engineering and not truly human, but their sentience and ability to live is very real as well as their impact on those around them. I think that the movie looks at the injustice of what happens to the replicants as a way of showing how we can be cruel and assume intentions for those who we dehumanize. We often focus on clear lines of an Us vs Them, a Self vs Other, and as those lines get blurred people see how those lines are often drawn in violent and cruel wats. From looking at the way race has been dealt with in the world, we see that as more people realize that race is a social construct the violence and oppression that has been placed on folks of marginalized races is senseless and systemic. But it is only when those who are in power make the connection to start including those who they classified as Other as themselves that they can start to understand the ways that oppression works. Deckard starts off the movie set in the idea that he can distinguish himself from replicants. He truly believes that their struggles and needs are those of an Other that he does not need to care about. But as he meets more of the replicants and learns of their struggles and pains he starts to blur that line and struggles to make the Self vs Other that allowed him to hunt the replicants in the first place.

For my text review, I chose to look at the film Queen and Slim. This film was release in 2019, and it covers issues of race relations and identity. In the movie, a black man and woman, nicknamed Slim and Queen respectively, experience problems on a first date when they are pulled over by the police leaving a diner. The situation escalates when the officer asks to search Slim’s car and the three get into an argument over the traffic stop; eventually, Queen– a defense attorney– is shot in the leg by the officer, and Slim takes the officers gun and kills him. A majority of the movie follows the couple on their run from the police, meeting random people along the way. The film covers a wide array of topics, but most prominently the film examines the relationship between black Americans and the police. In my opinion, the common theme throughout this movie is confusion; this confusion comes from both the characters being in an unfamiliar situation, and from their conflicting ideas of right and wrong. On one hand, Slim had shot and killed a police officer during a traffic stop, but on the other hand the couple was being harassed by the officer, and both Queen and Slim understand that one of them would likely have been killed by the officer. The issue in the movie that translates to real life, as well as the topics we’ve discussed in class, is the problem of black men and women being treated with force by police in America. Time and time again, we have seen incidents on the news where unarmed black men and women have been killed as a result of an escalated situation with police. This film, however, displays a different outcome to that common situation. Also, there are multiple scenes that make the two main characters– and the viewer– question their opinion on the fictional situation. In one scene late in the movie, the couple takes their car into a small auto shop, where the owner– a black man– recognizes who they are; the owner tells them bluntly that he doesn’t agree with what they did because he feels it just gives police officers more reason to react inappropriately to black men and women. The owners son, however, sees the couple as heroic; while on a walk with the couple, the auto shop owner’s son, Junior, tells the couple that, no matter what happens to them, they’ll be okay. He says, “Because then you’ll be immortal. I wanna be immortal too… I just want people to know I was here.” This quote was the most powerful moment in my opinion. In this class, we have discussed identity thoroughly. In this film, the two main characters experience problems that make them question their identity. Eventually, they come to understand that their incident was seen as a way for black Americans to fight back, not literally by killing police officers, but by calling out the injustices they have become all too familiar with.

42 is a 2013 film about the first African American to play in the Major Baseball League, Jackie Robinson.  The movie begins in 1945, when Brooklyn Dodgers owner, Branch Rickey, is searching for a black ballplayer to sign to his team.  Rickey selects Robinson, who is playing in the African American league on the Kansas City Monarchs.   One of the first scenes shows Robinson’s team being denied access to a gas station’s washroom because of the color of their skin.  As Robinson leaves the gas station calmly, he is approached by a Dodgers scout who invites him to Brooklyn.  Robinson is warned that he must keep his temper in check because the public will attack him for breaking the color barrier that had existed in the MLB.  When Robinson joins the Dodgers, many of the players immediately sign a petition.  Robinson is bullied throughout the movie by his teammates and by the manager, Ben Chapman.  Chapman’s actions give the team some bad press, so a higher-up manager requires Chapman to pose with Robinson throughout many press photos.  In Cincinnati, Robinson is booed by the crowd until one of his teammates, Pee Wee Reese, consoles him in front of the crowd.  In a game versus the St. Louis Cardinals, Enos Slaughter “accidentally” spikes Robinson with his cleats.  Robinson faced a lot of criticism throughout his career in the major league, but was able to keep his cool when it would have been very difficult for him to do.  He inspired many, and changed hearts and minds.  Robinson was challenging the One-Other relationship that had been established not only in the MLB, but in the country in general.  The racist and violent actions that I mention in the latter are a testimony to how difficult altering that relationship is.  I’d like anyone who has seen the film to think about how even in sports — where, in my opinion, the sole focus should be on winning the games — racism still penetrated so deeply.  It is an attestation to how deep-rooted these racist ideologies were in the country only 75 years ago.