The themes of poverty, racial inequality, extraterrestrial runaway slave, and Afro-American are central to the narrative of the 1984 film The Brother from Different Planet. Throughout the film, the audience can see the nuances of racial difference and class division. The young protagonist an incognito life in The Brother from Different Planet and the director John Sayles used an extraterrestrial transformer as a metaphor for addressing the issues of pennilessness, injustices between the lower Manhattan workers and Harlem workers, escaped laborer from the different planet, and naturalized citizen. Sayles insinuates the contemporary attitudes in four interrelated dimensions of urban life: the economic, the political, the symbolic, and the demographic. …show more content…
In another scene of poverty, we can see how the residents are dressed in lower Manhattan and Harlem. In the opening scene, the camera pans across the Manhattan skyline, then ended with the Statue of Liberty behind the main character which emphasizes the segregation of the social classes. We can see how the young lead is dressed as a slave while traveling near Ellis Island and searching for food in garbage can to survive. He ended up in Harlem and his African American appearance helped him blend in with the residents of the neighborhood. His clothing material is similar to slaves from the 1800s. Brother is a term used to describe the African American and the slavery thematic is used often. Moreover, we can see how the central character was portrayed as disoriented because he experienced the fear and stimuli from his slave …show more content…
One of bar scenes show how the men in black said they worked for the immigration center and have the right to capture the protagonist but they were lying. The black community was willing to resist the oppression from the Caucasian men in black. When the man in black asked a black character named Fly, if he has a green card, he was stereotyping the black man. Fly responded “green card?...my people built this country…you ever been to South Carolina?...my people built that…all I know is when they got off the boat there was nothing there. Now there are shopping malls…” This quote is one of my favorite because of how Fly’s response had demonstrated his pride concerning his African heritage and roots. He was clear that his people were not to be portrayed as immigrants. They were brought to America as slaves against their will. Although they were at America before most immigrants arrived, they are portrayed as second-class
In the article “Twoness in the style of Oscar Micheaux” by J. Ronald Green critiques the common theme of twoness which was a common debilitating dilemma for black film in America concerning American Social Codes. African Americans face the possibility of two identities at the same time but somehow resolve individually for her or himself. The point is made that African Americans are American citizens, but are hindered by the color line which sets them up to be positioned to understand two sides to the American hegemony. Hegemony consists of leadership or domination, either by one country or social group over others. American black cinema acquiesced in segregation, placed white cupidity off limits as theme, rehashed white Hollywood stereotypes
The criteria of this essay are just used to inform the readers about what black people had to endure during slavery. Also, showed how whites treated black people. The movie also showed how black people had to deal with how white people treated them.
Considering the circumstance of racial inequality during the time of this novel many blacks were the target of crime and hatred. Aside from an incident in his youth, The Ex-Colored Man avoids coming in contact with “brutality and savagery” inflicted on the black race (Johnson 101). Perhaps this is a result of his superficial white appearance as a mulatto. During one of his travels, the narrator observes a Southern lynching in which he describes the sight of “slowly burning t...
...y. The stranger helps build a society, where the seventh son, or African American, is seen to devalue or hinder a society (Du Bois, 10; Simmel, 149).
...ck males may have been their own worst enemy in trying to succeed and create opportunities for themselves. Allowing themselves to be pit against each other, there was no hope of propelling their status while they did not support one another as a whole race. Turning their anger toward each other rather than the white men who had put them in these situations, the struggle of black men transitioned from the fight for justice as a people to a war with other black men, so as to boost themselves in the eyes of the white man. They furthermore allowed themselves to be manipulated, mocked, scorned, and beaten, yet still stood up afterward to do what they were told. As inner-conflict combined with complete oblivion to the racial situation grew, Ellison criticizes African Americans of the time for not banding together and recognizing the problem that was social inequality.
The theoretical frameworks can be applied to movies, like The Blind Side, in order to show how the media portrays people of different social classes. Films also send cultural messages about social class to the audience, thus, reinforcing stereotypes. This essay will analyze how Kendall’s frames depict a lens that will then be applied to John Lee Hancock’s 2009 movie, The Blind Side, which features African American actor Quinton Aaron as Michael Oher, the homeless high school boy with the potential to become a football star, and white actress Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, the wealthy upper middle class wife of the football coach. When Leigh Anne is driving home with her husband and sees Micheal walking on the side of the street, she pulls her car over and asks him if he needs a place to stay and takes him in. Throughout the movie, Leigh Anne helps Micheal realize his full potential as a student and a football player. By analyzing scenes in The Blind Side using Kendall’s theoretical frameworks of how the media portrays class, we can see that the media negatively stereotypes the poor in
...about the effects slavery had on blacks even after it was over, and how living in its shadow made it hard to be a man. The situation between Dave and Mr. Hawkins illustrates how he could not be a man because Hawkins was basically making him a slave for the next two years. Dave jumping on the train going someplace else illustrates his hopes of leaving his poor, miserable life in hopes of a new better life where he can be a man. On the surface the story seems to be a simple story about childhood disobedience, but it is much more than that.
The opening paragraph of the story contains a metaphorical passage: "I stared at it in the swinging light of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside"(349). This reference is significant because it is a contrast to the dismal society that the narrator and his brother Sonny live in. The darkness is the portrayal of the community of Harlem that is trapped, in their surroundings by physical, economic, and social barriers. The obvious nature of darkness has overcome the occupants of the Harlem community. The narrator, an algebra teacher, observes a depressing similarity between his students and his brother, Sonny. This is true because the narrator is fearful for his students falling into a life of crime and drugs, as did his brother. The narrator notes that the cruel realities of the streets have taken away the possible light from the lives of his brother and his students. The narrator makes an insightful connection between the darkness that Sonny faced and the darkness that the young boys are presently facing. This is illustrated in the following quote:
The eldest brother who is also the narrator of the story gives the reader a glimpse into their lives and the struggles that he and his younger brother Sonny go through. Through the narrators eyes Baldwin does a wonderful job showing how the brothers grew up to lead different lives but are both still struggling from the hold that poverty in Harlem has on them. Baldwin shows how both “the narrator and Sonny are both imprisoned and also free in exactly opposites ways” (spark note). For example, Sonny has physically been imprisoned due to his addiction to drugs but was able to escape from Harlem and create his own life through music. Whereas the narrator is physically free but trapped in the housing projects of Harlem which he clearly hates. It is Baldwin’s unique style of writing that has the characters asking themselves the question, “Does one embrace the hand that they are dealt in order to live or does one bow down and allow it to consume them?” Baldwin shows how each brother at different times in their life allowed for it to do both. For instance, in the beginning Sonny seemed to be consumed by his suffering which led him down the path of drugs but by the end he had embraced it and let his suffering playout through music. The narrator on the other hand seemed to embrace everything that he was dealt and did the best he could to better his life.
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
While the novel consists of graphic and even disturbing description to set the scene, this is one of the most powerful statements in the novel. It shows the horrid conditions that the economically unfortunate are forced to endure in the city of Harlem. The last sentence, “That is Harlem” almost conveys a sense of normalcy. As if the reader feels anything, the last emotion the reader should experience is a feeling of surprise. If anything, the reader may be getting a creeping feeling in their gut that these people are essentially doomed. All hope has been lost. The individuals across the Hudson are no longer living, but merely trying to
...ith money on the floor and tell the blacks to get the money. The blacks dive on the rug, only to find that it is electrified. The whites push the blacks onto the rug so that the whites can laugh at the black people’s pain and suffering. This demonstrates the stereotype of whites in charge of blacks and blacks being submissive to the whites. The white people are forcing the blacks to do something for the whites’ entertainment. The narrator wants to overcome these stereotypes and have his own individual identity.
The main character is completely alienated from the world around him. He is a black man living in a white world, a man who was born in the South but is now living in the North, and his only form of companionship is his dying wife, Laura, whom he is desperate to save. He is unable to work since he has no birth certificate—no official identity. Without a job he is unable to make his mark in the world, and if his wife dies, not only would he lose his lover but also any evidence that he ever existed. As the story progresses he loses his own awareness of his identity—“somehow he had forgotten his own name.” The author emphasizes the main character’s mistreatment in life by white society during a vivid recollection of an event in his childhood when he was chased by a train filled with “white people laughing as he ran screaming,” a hallucination which was triggered by his exploration of the “old scars” on his body. This connection between alienation and oppression highlight Ellison’s central idea.
"I have never seen any part of the world where it seemed to me the masses of Negro People would be better off than right here in these Southern States"
The narrator is constantly attempting to escape the racial profiling by everyone around him. The failure of this attempt is apparent by the inability to get rid of the broken pieces of the bank, which represents the inability to escape from the stereotypes he is affiliated with. The narrator repeatedly alludes to the fact that he is generalized because of his black heritage and therefore, invisible to society. This is especially clear when he finds the cast-iron bank. The bank is in the shape of a black slave with stereotyped features. The fact that it was a slave with a generous grin, eating coins, was demeaning. It frustrated the narrator that this was a comedic object, plainly made for the entertainment of white society at the expense of the black people. The fact that the bank is “a very black, red-lipped and wide mouthed negro” (Ralph Ellison, 319), ...