Introduction to Sociology
Date: 2/15/09
Mrs. Oliver-Williams
In the beginning of the movie Tsotsi role in society is the gangster. Him and his gang lurk around the urban area of South Africa looking for people to mug. In this movie you can see how his sub-culture has a effect on him also the conflict theory by Karl Marx and Web DuBois comes to play. The conflict theory states that Conflict is a part of our progression. It actually causes the change. The with the main character in this movie is a young man who plays the role of a gangster hiding the fact of his traumatic experience at a young age, when his abusive father killed his mother and kicked the family’s dog. This experience changes him and makes
him more of a harsh person. Later on him the movie Tsotsi commits a robbery for a woman’s Mercedes-Benz he takes the lady out of her car and shoots her then takes off with the car. What he didn’t expect was the lady had her baby in the back seat of the car. When he realizes the baby in the back seat of the car he follows a woman with child home and forces her at gunpoint to feed the child. This might sound like a very hostile act to some but why would a “gangster” put a gun to a woman to feed a child that is not his. This shows a change in his way of thinking because now he is thinking of another life other than his. Then he goes back to the house where the baby lives with his gang as an attempt of robbery but in actuality he is going to get the babies bag from his room. Now he goes back to the lady for the lady that he put at gunpoint to feed the child for another feeding and she realizes that the baby is stolen and tells him to give the baby back he already took the woman’s legs at least give her back her child and he listens. Now you can see how the conflict theory comes to play he changes from a gangster to a father of a stolen baby now he’s listen to a woman he hardly even knows to do what’s right for that child’s life. He leaves is counterculture (gang) and does the right thing knowing that he will be going to jail for kidnapping, car theft and attempted murder.