¶ … Angry Men
The jury in Twelve Angry Men is not diverse in terms of ethnicity and gender, because it consists of twelve white males. The only diversity evident is with Juror 5, who has a social class-consciousness that is different from the other men due to his having grown up poor. This little "in" to the theme of prejudice is what helps Juror 8 eventually persuade the others that their hasty "guilty" verdict is based on prejudices rather than on the facts of the case. Moreover,, Juror 11 is also first generation immigrant, and this comes up later in as the jury deliberates.
Twelve Angry Men is squarely about personal bias. With the possible exception of Juror 8 (who might have personal biases of his own that did not surface in the trial), many men, especially Juror 10 but others too, have biases against people who live in slums and mainly Mexicans who live in slums. Juror 3 is biased personally against the defendant because he has preconceived notions about the father-son relationship. Several jurors have cognitive biases that prevent them from seeing the facts of the case, such as when Juror 4 fixates on the boy not remembering his...
According to the boy himself he had motivation as well as the means to kill his father. Perhaps most damning of all, the young man has no alibi. He says he was 'at the movies.' Saying he was at the movies seems like a convenient excuse, given that it is a dark place where no one is likely to have seen him. Furthermore, the defendant claims he cannot remember the
First, the men are deciding what is a black-and-white issue: innocence or guilt. Only Juror 8, played by Henry Fonda, tries to see shades of gray in the issues that arise during the trial. Fonda is dressed in white, which makes his defiant stance against the call for a guilty verdict seem even more pure, radical, and shocking. The defendant who is accused is non-white, while all of the
Juror 7 can be classified as a salesman who simply cannot wait to be elsewhere. The eighth juror is an insightful individual, who is also patient and who constantly strives to attain the truth. Juror 9 is the eldest and is a fair individual as well. Juror 10 is much like Juror 3, in that he is opinionated, intolerant and a racist. Juror 11 is an immigrant who expresses respect for the American system
Democracy: Hughes vs. Rose We celebrate democracy in America every day. Whether we are pledging allegiance to the flag or honoring the achievements of our nation's veterans, the idea that America is the greatest country in the world is something most people do not question. However, writers such as Langston Hughes and Reginald Rose have presented challenges to the idea that democracy is something which is good in a straightforward
Psychosocial Dynamics of Twelve Angry Men Social-Psychology of Twelve Angry Men As a portrayal of a microcosm of society -- enhanced by its drill-down into the 1950s era in which the plot unfolds -- few films are as excruciatingly accurate as 12 Angry Men. The story lends itself to analysis of team dynamics and conflict resolution techniques, with the promise of extending beyond explicit attributes, such as an all-male cast, and
Lumet's filmed adaptation of Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men focuses primarily on prejudice and the ways in which prejudice can obscure or distort one's sense of justice. The twelve jurors in the film all have their own personalities, their own backgrounds, their own histories, their own preoccupations: one wants to catch the ballgame and is willing to vote whichever way will get him out of the room sooner; another sees
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