This essay outlines the presence and nature of prejudice and discrimination, exploring their causes and effects in the texts "The Green Mile", "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Bend it Like Beckham".
Prejudice and Discrimination In Texts
In the film The Green Mile and the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, which display racial prejudice, and the film Bend It Like Beckham that addresses sexism, authors have drawn the conclusions that prejudice and discrimination can be caused by stereotyping and the need to conform to a socially accepted view. This often results in marginalisation, division and isolation of the victim. This has been done in the contexts of novel and film, using narrative and cinematic techniques appropriate to the various texts.
The novel To Kill A Mockingbird set in the deep south of America during the depression and published in the 1960's during the emergence of the Civil rights Movement.
Screenshot of To Kill a Mockingbird(an American mo...
President George W. Bush awards the Presidential M...
Film producer Alan J. Pakula with Lee; Lee spent t...It was written for Negroes to raise awareness and change attitudes from prejudice to tolerance.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, all Negroes are viewed collectively, as inferior savages without use, rights or feelings. They are all seen as dangerous and violent. Mr Ewell shows this when he uses language reserved for animals to talk about Negroes in the courtroom "I seen that black nigger ... ruttin on my Mayella!" (p190) and again with "...lived down yonder in that nigger-nest..."
They are viewed as less than people, displayed when Scout consoles Dill who is upset with the injustice in the courtroom by saying that "...after all [Tom is] just a Negro..." This quote too shows the insidious nature of the prejudice, as it has infected Scout and Dill, innocent children.
The prejudiced attitudes of the townspeople are further displayed through characters acting as foils to one another. When the...