Rosewood: Film Analysis
“Help me!’, screams Fannie Taylor as she comes running out from her house into the street. The neighbors in the all-white town of Sumner, Florida, rush to Ms. Taylor’s side to find out how to help this frantic woman. Ms. Taylor claims that a black man came to her home and attacked her, leaving her face bruised and beaten. Rather than suffer the consequences of her adulterous ways, Ms. Taylor fabricates a story with a black man as the assailant, provoking the already jealous white men of Sumner, who promise to find the intruder and see that justice is served. Based on a true story, “Rosewood” shows how racism feeds off of hate and ignorance based on nothing more …show more content…
In the beginning of the film we see one of the men who is a part of the angry lynch mob, on a fishing trip with his son. He tells his son, “Listen here, I don’t want you hanging around that colored boy no more.” The son looks confused and asks his dad, “Who Arnett?” To which the father replies, Don’t look right, my boy trailing around after a nigger.” Throughout the film this father, Duke Purdy, is teaching his son, Emmett that white people are superior and it is clear that the son does not understand how that can be true. Because this poor, white man cannot deal with black people thriving and doing better than him, he uses intimidation and brutal violence to cope with these feelings of insecurity. One way we observe his jealousy is in the scene when Duke is talking to a friend and says, “You know that he’s got a piano? A nigger with a goddamn piano. I’ve been working all my life, I don’t got a piano”. The friend comments that he does not even know how to play a piano to which Duke responds, “That ain’t the point”! It did not matter to Duke Purdy, who thought he was superior, that he did not know how to play the piano. It was a symbol of success and this racist man did not want any person of color to …show more content…
You can see the hate in his eyes as dad says to him, “I don’t mean to be hard on you boy. I just want what’s best for you. I want to learn you how to live in the world.” Emmitt yells “I hate you dad, you ain’t no man. I don’t know what you are.” Emmitt, once an innocent boy who was forced to witness cruel and violent injustice against the entire town of Rosewood, was refusing to let the racist teachings of his father be passed down to him. When a society fails to protect and serve all of its members equally, we see corruption and disorder with no justice at all. The entire town of Rosewood was gone, many lives were lost, and no one was brought to justice. What a sad, sick world we live
“Help me!’, screams Fannie Taylor as she comes running out from her house into the street. The neighbors in the all-white town of Sumner, Florida, rush to Ms. Taylor’s side to find out how to help this frantic woman. Ms. Taylor claims that a black man came to her home and attacked her, leaving her face bruised and beaten. Rather than suffer the consequences of her adulterous ways, Ms. Taylor fabricates a story with a black man as the assailant, provoking the already jealous white men of Sumner, who promise to find the intruder and see that justice is served. Based on a true story, “Rosewood” shows how racism feeds off of hate and ignorance based on nothing more …show more content…
In the beginning of the film we see one of the men who is a part of the angry lynch mob, on a fishing trip with his son. He tells his son, “Listen here, I don’t want you hanging around that colored boy no more.” The son looks confused and asks his dad, “Who Arnett?” To which the father replies, Don’t look right, my boy trailing around after a nigger.” Throughout the film this father, Duke Purdy, is teaching his son, Emmett that white people are superior and it is clear that the son does not understand how that can be true. Because this poor, white man cannot deal with black people thriving and doing better than him, he uses intimidation and brutal violence to cope with these feelings of insecurity. One way we observe his jealousy is in the scene when Duke is talking to a friend and says, “You know that he’s got a piano? A nigger with a goddamn piano. I’ve been working all my life, I don’t got a piano”. The friend comments that he does not even know how to play a piano to which Duke responds, “That ain’t the point”! It did not matter to Duke Purdy, who thought he was superior, that he did not know how to play the piano. It was a symbol of success and this racist man did not want any person of color to …show more content…
You can see the hate in his eyes as dad says to him, “I don’t mean to be hard on you boy. I just want what’s best for you. I want to learn you how to live in the world.” Emmitt yells “I hate you dad, you ain’t no man. I don’t know what you are.” Emmitt, once an innocent boy who was forced to witness cruel and violent injustice against the entire town of Rosewood, was refusing to let the racist teachings of his father be passed down to him. When a society fails to protect and serve all of its members equally, we see corruption and disorder with no justice at all. The entire town of Rosewood was gone, many lives were lost, and no one was brought to justice. What a sad, sick world we live