A Class Divided Documentary Review

Movies and entertainment outlets speak volumes about the current state of a nation’s culture. Cinematic creations in the United States allow small voices to be heard and controversial issues to be addressed. However, a repetitive and monumental issue continues to be addressed, yet continues to persist in our 21st century culture, racial inequalities. Since the inception of the United States, black men and women alike have been disenfranchised at the hands of the “white man” in America. Instead of continuing the conversation today, the issue is continually silenced referencing the successes and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Nonetheless, an unfortunate reality looms upon this great land; racially based systems and structures continue to exist in 2015 the in United States. This paper synthesizes three films focused on racial inequalities in different time periods. Separate but Equal (1991), Selma (2015), and Crash (2005) illustrate how influential the Civil War amendments are, while serving as an uncanny reminder of how the racial prejudices during the 20th century continue to exist in our great nation today. Needless to say our nation has made great strides, but still has a long way to go.

The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, a teacher named Jane Elliott tried a classroom experiment on her third grade children in a small town in the United States. Elliott decided to treat the children with blue eyes differently to children with brown eyes. Her experiment was designed to demonstrate to her students how prejudice and racism feels and why it’s so wrong.

In the exhibition there was a video playing that discusses racial discrimination and how viola Desmond was treated like she was not a real person. It suggests that her story has changed history, fearless in the face of racism and injustice her story tries to break barriers between black people and white people.

Although there has been a lot of progress made over the past years, there are currently many various problematic issues in this world that are contributed to by discriminatory behaviour and belief systems. Back in 2015, MTV’s White People had the goal of bringing notice to that. The writer of the film, Jose Antonio Vargas, wanted to show caucasians that race was not just an issue for those of color; it affects everyone. The idea for the documentary was  excellent, but feel short when delivered. Part of that could come from poor editing, MTV’s documentary history, or even just the lack of variation in those interviewed. This film could’ve been a really good conversation starter, but the entire thing just felt rushed and left me feeling disappointed.

As soon as I read the prompt for this journal, the recent movie Get Out immediately popped into my head. As an avid cinephile, I was quick anxiously awaiting the release of the film. The wait was well worth it, as Jordan Peele’s Get Out exceeded all of my expectations and is certainly one of my favorite movies for the time being. What makes this movie so tremendous is the portrayal of race. Media is extremely influential in our beliefs, and film is no exception. Get Out approaches the sensitive topic of racism in current society, but with an extremely unique twist that provokes thoughtfulness. It is difficult to fully explain without completely spoiling the film, but the way the struggle between race and class is portrayed is both horrifying and eye-opening.

“A Class Divided”: When asked the question, “do you think you know how it feels to be judged by the color of your skin”, a few felt that they did. Initially the children were excited to participate in the blue-eyed/brown-eyed experiment, until they realized they would be the people being judged. Once the teacher announced that the blue-eyed people are the “better people” than the brown-eyed children, immediately voiced their disagreement. One blue-eyed boy stated, “My dad has brown eyes and he’s not stupid.”

Jane’s special project sparked when she told her young class of eight and nine year olds that blue-eyed people were smarter and were better than brown-eyed people. Blue-eyed children were allowed an extra five minutes at recess, could have extras at lunch, got to sit in the front of the classroom, and were greatly applauded for their successes. On the opposite spectrum, brown-eyed students were forced to wear navy fabric collars in order to be easily identified. The groups were forced into segregation and were not allowed to play with one another out on the playground. Even when a brown-eyed student is tormented, the exercise continues; it is all a part of the experiment. The next day, the children switched roles, allowing them to all comprehend the degrading and humiliating emotional aspects of being an “outsider”.

She broke the kids up by brown, and blue eyes giving the kids with blue eyes special treatment over the brown eyes students. This allowed the brown eyed kids to feel how colored kids are treated. The teacher put the blue eyed kids on a pedestal while treating the brown eyed kids with disgust, and unfair treatment.

In this video, I saw how the third grader kids’ behaviors change drastically towards the brown-eye color and blue-eye color classmates. I notice that it is up to an authoritarian figure in their life to remodel the kids’ entire view with regards to others based on their differences. In one of the segments, there was a blue-eyed child that said he felt better than they brown eye kids and smarter because that is what Mrs. Elliot, the teacher, had told them at the beginning of the class. He attitude changes significantly, he became rude and harsh. This lesson had turned the kids against the brown eye children making them to discriminating them and having prejudice against their classmates even though they have known each other probably for

This film helps me to shape my overall outlook at multicultural issues and problems we face as a society, in that it causes me to see people’s talents and accomplishments, based on work ethic, rather than on a person’s race. I believe that this film can help with the issues and conversations that this film speaks to, because many people can understand that courage and accomplishments can defeat stereotypes and

If I were a participant if one of Jane Elliott’s exercises, I would have expressed a variety of emotions. I would have felt frustrated by the way she belittled us and with the rules that she enforced. She enforced rules so that the blue eyed people would fail and for the brown eyed people to succeed. I would have also felt humiliated by the way she mocked the blue eyed people. I would have felt angry with her too for treating and talking to me as iI would have benefitted from participating in a similar activity, because of the lessons that were taught in it. The most important lesson is to treat others fairly and to not be ignorant. She makes this very clear when she says that she won’t feel sympathetic towards the blue eyed people, because there are people in this world who face this kind of treatment on a day-to-day basis.

Mrs. Elliot divided her all white elementary class by eye color. There was a “brown eyes” and “blue eyes” group, which made each group superior or inferior to each other. Mrs. Elliot performed the experiment, because she wanted to teach her students about racism and discrimination that was going on in the county, which was a major responded to the shooting of Martin Luther King in April 1968.Since Mrs. Elliot already divided her student by eye color. I think another way she could’ve divided her class is by hair color and

Jane Elliott, international famous teachers, lecturers, diversity coach, as well as the national mental health association outstanding awards winner, exposed the bias and prejudice, it is an irrational class system based on pure random factors. If you think that doesn't apply to you. ... You're in a rude awakening. In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King jr., 30 years ago, Jane Elliott designed the controversial blue eyes/brown eyes campaign. This is now famous, according to the participants' eye color, to refer to participants as inferior or outstanding, and to expose them to the experience of a few. Every person who touches on Jane Elliott's work, whether through lectures, seminars or video, has been dramatically affected.

The first reversal where the brown-eyed students were the bottom group and the blue-eyed students were the top group really accentuated the differences between the groups. The brown-eyed students were violent in the sense that a brown-eyed father kicked his son and another brown-eyed student punched a blue-eyed student in the gut. Jane Elliot focused on singular instances to stereotype brown-eyed people as a whole. It only took a single example of negativity for the blue-eyed students to adopt and apply that example to brown-eyed people as a whole. Brown-eyed students were liable to steal, violent, stupid, selfish, and were deserving of punishment.

She pointed out flaws of the brown-eyed group and seemingly better traits of the blue-eyed group that made her statement seem correct leading to a generalized prejudice. Elliot then made rules for the groups, including that of recess time, drinking fountain privileges, lunch privileges, and segregation on the playground, giving advantages to the superior blue-eyed group and disadvantages to the inferior brown-eyed group which is a small-scale simulation of societal and governmental oppression of minorities. The kids laughed at the “other 's” misfortune, two kids of each group got into a fight, and hateful things were said by the “good” group while a look and feel of disappointment, shame, and exclusion was shown by the “bad” group. The roles were effectively reversed on the second day by using the same methods. The brown-eyed group were more than happy to give their collars to the blue-eyed group. The situated identities of the children were changed by Jane Elliot, an authority figure, by declaring that people of one eye color were better than people of another. She pointed out flaws and supposed shortcomings that made the one group seem inferior and the other group adopted this generalized view. This turned into discriminatory rules and acts in the class and on the playground.