12 angry men paper
12 Angry Men Paper
9/17/13
The movie “12 Angry Men” is about a murder trial set in the mid 1900’s when the American legal system had very different rules from what it has now. The trial is about a 16 year old boy who supposedly murdered his father late one night in New York City. He was from a slum, with a history of problems with the law, including knife fights. The jury is made up of twelve white men who are supposed to deliberate about the boy’s fate when he is Latino. In the beginning of the movie it’s very clear that eleven of the twelve jurors have already decided that he was guilty, the only one who said not guilty is juror number eight. Juror number eight believes that you can’t send someone to die without even talking about the case first. As the movie goes on they discuss the different parts of the case and one by one the jurors begin to change their vote to not guilty. The first thing they discuss is the knife that was used to kill the father, then they discuss the time it took the only man on the floor below to get to the door after he heard the body hit the floor. After that they went on to deliberate more about previous things talked about, until finally they talked about the women who actually viewed the killing through a passing L train. One of the jurors remembers that she had indents on the sides of her nose indicating that she wore glasses, so they come to the conclusion that she couldn’t of seen anything since she wasn’t wearing her glasses while lying in bed. Once they finally call for a last vote they come to the verdict of acquitting the boy. All twelve jurors finally agree on the decision of not guilty.
Throughout the entire movie there are many different dynamics at work among the 12 jurors. One of the main dynamics is that the boy is Hispanic during a time when racism was a natural part of society. You can clearly see that racism, and stereotyping played a huge part when even before they started deliberating eleven out of the
9/17/13
The movie “12 Angry Men” is about a murder trial set in the mid 1900’s when the American legal system had very different rules from what it has now. The trial is about a 16 year old boy who supposedly murdered his father late one night in New York City. He was from a slum, with a history of problems with the law, including knife fights. The jury is made up of twelve white men who are supposed to deliberate about the boy’s fate when he is Latino. In the beginning of the movie it’s very clear that eleven of the twelve jurors have already decided that he was guilty, the only one who said not guilty is juror number eight. Juror number eight believes that you can’t send someone to die without even talking about the case first. As the movie goes on they discuss the different parts of the case and one by one the jurors begin to change their vote to not guilty. The first thing they discuss is the knife that was used to kill the father, then they discuss the time it took the only man on the floor below to get to the door after he heard the body hit the floor. After that they went on to deliberate more about previous things talked about, until finally they talked about the women who actually viewed the killing through a passing L train. One of the jurors remembers that she had indents on the sides of her nose indicating that she wore glasses, so they come to the conclusion that she couldn’t of seen anything since she wasn’t wearing her glasses while lying in bed. Once they finally call for a last vote they come to the verdict of acquitting the boy. All twelve jurors finally agree on the decision of not guilty.
Throughout the entire movie there are many different dynamics at work among the 12 jurors. One of the main dynamics is that the boy is Hispanic during a time when racism was a natural part of society. You can clearly see that racism, and stereotyping played a huge part when even before they started deliberating eleven out of the