Ava Duvernay: Documentary Analysis

In Ava DuVernay's first feature films I Will Follow and Middle of Nowhere, her directing takes a large turn. Her narrative decisions make for many underlying meanings in the latter, while the former shows a much more ametuer approach to storytelling than we are used to from the Oscar-nominated director. The differences between I Will Follow and Middle of Nowhere illustrate the large and necessary changes this director made to earn her first award nomination, and skyrocket to notoriety shortly thereafter.

Primarily highlighted in the documentary is the idea of mass incarceration as “The New Jim Crow”, a phrase popularly used by author and civil rights advocate, Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. As many already know with it being a significant part of American history, the Jim Crow era was a time of intense racial segregation of African Americans from whites with the former having drastically inferior positions in society. Many of the discriminatory practices that were upheld in the Jim Crow era, including discrimination in housing, jobs, and voting are illegal now if applied to blacks, but are perfectly legal when applied to prisoners, many of whom are

To dig deeper into this overrepresentation of black criminality, we have to look at the loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment, which allowed slavery as a form of punishment in the prison system. The policymakers recognized the opportunities to acquire forced labor through mass incarceration and made use of the perpetuating cycle of racial formation, where representations and the actions of the institution often reinforce each other. The structural institution, or the policymakers in this case, used overrepresentation of black criminality to racialize crime. The overrepresentation of racialized crime then validates the need of criminal laws and their unequal application across racial groups. In the end, the institution created the false representation that justifies its actions which further feed the representation. The vicious cycle introduced racial discrimination into the justice system and guided the process of mass incarceration.

The 13th characterize our criminal justice system and political institution as unfair and a racist system of oppression for certain color of race. This film gave me a better understanding of how the prisons were treating their prisoners. I was not aware that prisoners were forced into being treated and considered to be slaves. While watching this documentary I was able to understand that the country in which people called land of the free, it's not really the land of the freedom if this system treats prisoners as slaves. While watching the 13th I saw a particular case in which a group of African-American tennagers were arrested and accused of a crime that the system did not have concrete evidence of, but they were still arrested and spent

The documentary “13th” is very telling about the problems with the prison system and society's view of African-Americans. After the end of slavery, the economy too a hit because of the lack of labor needed for the industries. To solve this problem, people turned to prison workers, because it was cheap labor that weren’t protected under the 13th Amendment. This amendment abolished slavery and indentured servitude, but left the clause of criminal punishment. Because of this loophole, and because whites were very much still in control of society soon after the 13th Amendment was passed, police forces began going after African-Americans in order to fill prisons and satisfy work forces.

The documentary 13th by Ava DuVernay was a visual masterpiece. The documentary provided its viewers with an array of information that spanned throughout centuries and was eloquently executed in less than 2 hours. The central focus of the film was about how the 13th amendment shaped this country and its prison system. The 13th amendment was the building block for mass incarceration and as time has gone on, new laws and amendments strengthened the process for more people to get incarcerated. Slavery benefited the country as a whole and as the Civil War was winding down, slavery was coming to an end. As the documentary states, the South especially relied heavily on slavery for their economy to sustain. After the passing of the 13th amendment, slaves were freed and it left the South’s economy in shambles. A stipulation within the 13th amendment, that states “Neither slavery not involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been dully convicted, shall exist within the United States.” In turn, mass amounts of newly freed slaves were arrested and deemed criminals. Being criminalized reduced them back to a lower status in the United States, and unfortunately reignited slavery in a new kind of form. The film was not only educational, it also provided its viewers with knowledge about why there is such a disparity in mass incarnations amongst people of color compared to their white counterparts.

The documentary 13th featured on Netflix discusses the heavy topics of slavery and mass incarceration in our Criminal Justice System. The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution freed the slaves and prohibited slavery, unless it was a punishment for a crime. Making criminals an exception to this protection made them slaves to the state, again. There has been an immense continuation of slavery through the criminalization of behavior of African Americans in our society and through our Criminal Justice System practices. Convict leasing, lynchings, disenfranchisement, Jim Crow, and the War on Drugs are all systems of oppression that can be seen in today's practices that allow for this perpetuation of slavery, currently recognized as mass incarceration.

Most notably, of the major effects of the Dred Scott decision were the passing of the 13th and 14th amendments that went into the constitution. The 13th amendment stated that: Neither slavery no involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction (A22). The 13th amendment abrogated the basic legal disability underlying black subordination in the south, and was the actual instrument that end two hundred year of chattel slavery in America and made blacks free under law (Weiner 188). In most recent news, a recent documentary has been released by Ava DuVernay about the 13th amendment that explores modern slavery within the prison

In 1865, the 13th amendment outlawed slavery in America, setting free thousands of African Americas confined by the vigorous hands of enslavement; however, many people are unaware that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before in history. In fact, slavery still exists in not only America but in 136 other countries, as well. Over 15 thousand women and children in the United States, alone, are currently being held as slaves to physical exploitation. Albeit, many people, including myself, are determined to end the repugnant pain and suffering many women and children are being forced into just miles from our homes and work places.

The thirteenth amendment states that unless you’re criminalized, you’re free. So if you’re put in jail that doesn’t apply to you. Slavery was abolished for everyone except criminals. Duvernay exhibits how slavery has been maintained in practices since the end of the American Civil War through actions such as criminalizing behavior and enabling police to arrest poor, freedmen. African Americans were arrested for things as simple as loitering and then while in prison, had to provide labor for the state. The 13th describes mass incarceration in the prison system as a negative reaction to the civil rights movements. The prison system continues to be racist and violent, however in ways that are continually evolving. Starting in the 1940’s, the amount statistics of the amount of prisoners rises slowly, but steeply. A rise in the numbers began during the Civil Rights movement and continues into todays society. The more we see the protest for rights increase, the harder the

The documentary titled 13TH, is in reference to the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and how it had the ability to end slavery for African Americans, however, this end of slavery led to a mass incarceration of individuals, predominately people who are African American. DuVernay (2016) made it a point to make it known to the public the shocking reality that 1 in 3 African-American males are expected to go to prison in their lifetime while it is expected that only 1 in 17 white men will go to prison in their lifetime. This targeting of African Americans, mostly males, is the overarching plot of the film which is filled with numerous instances in history that prove they are targeted to go into the prison system. 13th is compiled

Netflix's new narrative thirteenth couldn't have aired at a greater, more important time. Just before the most critical and unnerving race in latest memory, during the Black Lives Matter development, in a year loaded with unspeakable disaster and racially charged police mercilessness, the most recent movie from applauded Ava DuVernay is a necessary, calming punch to the face that expressively contextualizes the present province of America and one of its most imperative issues. Merging chronicled film with talking heads of government officials and activists, the film looks at mass detainment in the United States, particularly of minorities, through the perspective of the thirteenth Amendment, which states, "Neither subjugation nor automatic bondage, aside from as a discipline for wrongdoing whereof the gathering should have been properly indicted, might exist inside the United States, or wherever subject to their locale."

Be honest, “13th” is the first documentary film I have ever seen before. Before I watched it, I though it must be very bored and uninteresting. On the contrary, I was totally attracted by the beginning of this documentary. I was extremely shocked by the first investigation report, “The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but 25% percent of the world’s prisoners.” What does that mean? One out of four criminals in our whole world are Americans. Because of that, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. That is unbelievable; and astonished me. I could not understand why a country that is so powerful and wealthy has the top rate of criminals in the world. Furthermore, I tried to figure out how the government

The movie starts by stating that one in four black men will serve in prison at least once in their lives (Duvernay).This immediately clues the viewer into what this documentary will be talking about, at least on a surface level. Most of the movie is filled with interviews from experts on the prison system in America from liberal activists to republican conservatives, all have something to say about imprisonment in America and very little of it is good. The movie recaps the struggle colored people have endured throughout their lives in America from the early days of slavery, to the days of Jim Crowe and finally to modern day prison life and how it is just another form of slavery. One of the main focuses of the film is that the great and might Thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves and made them American citizens also contains a loophole that strips them of these very rights. The amendment contains a small snippet about how no man may be stripped of his rights except when charged as a criminal (Duvernay). This simple exceptional clause acts as the only way to currently enslave another human being in America, convict them and put them away so you can own their body and soul for life. This clause is where the movie gets it’s name Thirteenth. There isn’t much else to say about the movie without giving away too much, despite being a documentary this movie contains heavy emotional

The 13th argues that racism has evolved in a way since the war to where it is now with certain laws in place that increases the likelihood of minorities getting arrested and it also show how black people were portrayed in the late 20th century.