Film Analysis: Dead Poet's Society

Many Americans reach out to movies for entertainment nowadays. Movies are often made to convey a message or most people come up with their own interpretations of these films. Audiences who have seen the animated film Lilo & Stitch see the importance of family and to get a view of a family who has been lost then stitched back together. People who have watched Dead Poet’s Society learn why it is important to cease the day. These films address important emotional issues in our society. But even movies with a narrow focus can provide important points of view. For example, Avatar not only displays love and relationships, it focuses on the political issues of environment and how we need to respect it. Crash shows its viewers the hot topic of racism …show more content…
Yet some people do not believe this is the case. Michael G. Lacy and Kent A. Ono, editors of “Critical Rhetorics of Race,” say, “He makes it seem as if we cannot escape race, and we cannot escape racism. He gets caught up in the notion of racial essentialism that he lambasts and gives us few, if any, alternatives to ‘you look different than me, therefore you are treated differently.’ ‘Biological conceptions of race,’ Stuart Hall tells us, ‘have greatly receded in importance.’” Lacy and Ono believe that this film does not show that there can be an improvement of racial relations in the United States. They even say that it is not even a major problem in today’s era. Lacy and Ono’s interpretations are misguided. In today’s world, racism is rampant. This is proven with recent events such as the Ferguson riots. Crash does not only show that there is racism in this time, but that race relations are taking steps forward in improvement. Haggis does not set racism up to be un-escapable, quite the opposite, actually. Many others agree with this view. Craig Outhier, author of “Crash ' Takes a Peek under the Race Card,” says, “Haggis doesn 't want to perpetuate stereotypes, he wants to defuse them. And so we glimpse the humanity behind the rancor -- a sad tapestry of isolation, neglect and hardship that 's so chaotic and bewildering that race is often blamed as the architect.” Outhier says that Haggis want to show people that there are reasons behind racism and stereotypes, fixable reasons. In the film, many characters see the error of stereotyping and racism. A specific example of this is the story of Officer John Ryan, played by Matt Dillon. The officer begins the movie as an ugly racist, whose views are influenced by his ill father, who the officer believes was cheated by minorities. Further throughout the story, the officer molests a young African American woman in front of her husband on a routine