Preview

Philadelphia

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
301 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Philadelphia
In the movie, Philadelphia, Denzel Washington plays a well known African American lawyer. His character is a heterosexual male with a wife and a new baby daughter. At the beginning of the movie, he has very negative feelings towards homosexuals. As the movie continues, his character evolves and his feelings towards homosexuals and people affected with AIDS changes.
When Tom Hank's character asks Washington to represent him in court, he becomes very uncomfortable around Hanks. After Hanks reveals he has AIDS, Washington becomes very distant, and fearful that he could contract the disease from being around him. Washington even visits the doctor to make sure he wouldn't contract AIDS. Washington speaks negatively about homosexuals to his wife and others.
Washington runs into Hanks at the library where Hanks is researching for his court case. He was blackmailed by the company he worked for because they were also, like Washington, afraid of the deadly disease and his homosexuality. Hanks tell Washington that he hasn't found anyone to represent him in court, and Washington agrees to represent him.
As Washington begins to work with Hanks on his case, Washington becomes more tolerant for people affect by AIDS and homosexuals. Washington begins to view Hanks as a friend, which would have never happened with his feeling towards homosexuals before. When Washington was asked out by a homosexual in the drug store, he got really upset, but his views towards homosexuals in general weren't nearly as negative as the beginning of the movie. By the end of the movie, Washington begins to view people with AIDS as humans and he doesn't just look at the disease they have, worrying that he might get it. Throughout the movie, Washington's character evolves into a more open minded and tolerant

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The film depicts the Stonewall Riot; the event in LGBT history often credited with uniting the LGBT community into one movement. The riot consisted of an ethnically diverse group of LGBT people: homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender people, drag queens, etc. This raises the question as to why the hero of Emmerich’s movie is a straight-passing, white male.…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    4.) George is handsome, yet impoverished and nondescript. He's relieved to see Tom for Tom had agreed to buy a car for him. George is desperate for money to make his wife happy and take her out west.…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    . The movie, which illustrates the Tuskegee Study conducted by a group of southern doctors in 1932, tells the story of a group of African-American men who are being unknowingly studied to see if untreated syphilis reacts the same way in African-Americans that it does in white men. At first, treatment is given to them but once the funds for the study are cut and treatment is no longer made available for 14,000 men, the study goes on without them knowing they have stopped receiving medicine. Miss Evers is told that once the government realizes they have continued the study, they will likely re-obtain funds within a year but the study goes on for ten additional years without treatment. The affected men are simply given placebos and then observed. They are also given spinal taps (which are referred to as "back shots" so the men will think they are part of the treatment.) Even though penicillin becomes available, they are refused administration of such because of a rumor that it could kill them and the fact that the doctors do not want the results of the study being tampered with. Most of the men die, and some go crazy; very few are left alive at the end of a ten-year period. The end result is that yes, untreated syphilis affects both African-Americans and whites alike.…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When whit is playing cards he comments to George about Curley’s wife .”ain’t she a loo loo?” he also comments that’s she gives men “”the eye. “George asks if she has caused any trouble. Whit comments on Curley’s worries about her attitude to men…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Lathe of heaven essay

    • 2200 Words
    • 9 Pages

    George senses that Haber wants to use him, but because of his congenitally passive nature and fear of his uncontrolled dream states, allows the therapy to continue. After a few therapy sessions George seeks legal help so he can stop the therapy and really get cured. That's when he meets the lawyer, a black female who clicks and snaps and wears bangles and brass buckles and is reminiscent of a black widow spider waiting in her office when George arrives. Though outwardly very different (George is slight ,fair and quiet) they experience an inner chemistry and George later dreams that she is his wife, but at…

    • 2200 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Curley's wife

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages

    George has a bad impression on curley's wife. He says " well I think Curley married a tart" as in he suggest her as a woman who dresses or behaves in a way that is considered sexually or flirtatious.he also says " don't even take a look at that bitch " " Jesus what a tramp" " I see 'em poison before" this shows that he totally think and consider her a a negative and also being mysogenistic.…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    omam notes Essay Example

    • 1640 Words
    • 7 Pages

    (a) Extract : Ch. 2 ‘The boss turned to George. […] I’d shoot myself.’ Look closely at how George speaks and behaves here. What does it reveal about his character?…

    • 1640 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    woman, and George killed him, he's the only one who seems to know why he done…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    aids insult him because he is dumb and deaf. However, little do they know that Chief is…

    • 1601 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    George, the former fiancé, is the first person that betrays Granny by jilting her at the alter. This is not only a betrayal of their marriage but also of the child that the reader can assume Granny was carrying. The painfulness of this betrayal is exemplified when the narrator states:…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Jim Carrey’s character doesn’t get diagnosed till later in life. Throughout his life he was always made fun of, but he just kept his anger inside. Charlie Baileygates has three mixed-race sons, which is awkward since him and his wife is the same race. When his wife leaves him for the black drawf limo driver that drove for their wedding it comes clear to him. After all this his anger built up inside was ready to come out, and it did, as Hank.…

    • 1451 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The usual depiction of Thatcher’s Britain is through the hardships of the working-class, yet Hollinghurst provides the other end of the spectrum. It has been argued that Hollinghurst presents a unified London through his novel The Line of Beauty , influenced by Hogarth’s line of beauty which encapsulates two contrasting tensions for one unified line. London as a hub of diversity and multiculturalism informs and is informed by the theme of duality in London, rather than a sense of unity, in order to conceive London’s opposites. The main example of duality is the contrast of the gay community with the majority straight society, which blends into class divide and in turn exposes the hypocrisy of the upper-class. This will be the focus of my essay; addressing the duality of London presented by looking at the character of Nick with the context of London’s gay culture, leading onto class divisions with their treatment of such cultures, and finally how the politics of the time reflect these dualities.…

    • 1348 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    the pact

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages

    George was one of the three young men talked about in the book. He spent fives years living in the Stella Wright Housing Projects with his mother Ella Jenkins Mack and his older brother Garland, for families with low-income. He said, "Our building was a graffiti-covered, thirteen-story high-rise with elevators that smelled like urine and sometimes didn't work." George had become responsible at a young age since his mother worked all the time; he stayed out of trouble, was very smart in school, participated in school events and surrounded himself with positive people.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mr Whitaker Essay

    • 1713 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Mr. Whitaker is an individual who embodies the characteristics of an ideal self-presentation, which is an image of how you wish to be seen by others (Albright 01/29/07). Therefore, the character is hardly honest and holds an interior mystery. In the case of Mr. Whitaker, he is a married man with two children and a successful career who finally reveals his secret that he is a homosexual. This long-kept secret reveals the reason as to why Mr. Whitaker is an example to the social theory of ideal self-presentation. I quote him when he said, "I did not want to hurt you or the kids, honey." Mr. Whitaker reveals that his posterior is a complete fraud, he did so because he did not want to hurt his family but much more hurt himself. He wished to hide his true identity as a gay man because he wished to be seen as the handsome husband with the perfect family. Also during another scene between Mr. Whitaker and his wife, he mentions that he would not be able to work, if his colleagues knew he was gay. At this point, the idea of an ideal self-presentation is unmistakably proven. According to the notes from Dr. Albright's lecture, people will present themselves as a different identity, due to job interviews, etc (01/31/07). With this in mind, Mr. Whitaker most certainly proved his rehearsed or fake identity, due to the conditions of the job he holds and continued to do so until his true identity is exposed, when his wife finds him kissing another…

    • 1713 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Philadelphia

    • 1056 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Philadelphia is a 1993 American drama film and one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to acknowledge HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, and homophobia. Andrew Beckett, who is played by the actor Tom Hanks, is a senior associate at the largest corporate law firm in Philadelphia. Although he lives with his partner Miguel Álvarez played by Antonio Banderas, Beckett is not open about his homosexuality at the law firm, nor the fact that he has AIDS. The day he is assigned the firm's newest and most important case, one of the firm's partners notice a small lesion on Beckett's forehead. Shortly thereafter, Beckett stays home from work for several days to try to find a way to hide his lesions. While at home, he finishes the complaint for the case he has been assigned and then brings it to his office, leaving instructions for his assistants to file the complaint in court on the following day, which marks the end of the statute of limitations for the case. Beckett suffers from bowel spasms at home and is rushed to the hospital. Later that morning, while still at the ER, he receives a frantic call from the firm asking for the complaint, as the paper copy cannot be found and there are no copies on the computer's hard drive. However, the complaint is finally discovered and is filed with the court at the last possible moment. The following day, Beckett is dismissed by the firm's partners, who had previously referred to him as their "buddy", but now question his professional abilities in light of the misplaced document. Beckett believes that someone deliberately hid his paperwork to give the firm a reason to fire him, and that the firing is actually a result of his diagnosis with AIDS. He asks several attorneys to take his case, including personal injury lawyer Joe Miller played by Denzel Washington, with whom he had been involved in a previous case. Miller, who is admittedly a homophobic and knows little…

    • 1056 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays