Film: Social Exchange Theory

What were Edwin S. Porter's significant contributions to the development of early narrative film? In what sense did Porter build upon the innovations of contemporaneous filmmakers, and for what purposes?

After viewing the first part of Legacies of Social Change: 100 Years of Professional Social Work in the United States, it seems evident that history continues to be presented from the view of those with power and does not acknowledge the downfalls of these movements. History, especially in the United States, is centered toward European and Western civilization and whatever benefits these groups. This film perpetuates this one-sided account of the history social work that worked to only help white people, while diminishing the challenges and progress people of color faced during this period. While one can argue that this film is dated, this is still occurring all throughout our history and has repercussions today. This can be seen with any

A CLASS DIVIDED Thirty years ago Jane Elliott taught the third grade in the white, Christian community of Riceville, Iowa. The day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed she planned an exercise that wouldn't just show her students what racism is - rather, it would give them first-hand experience of what it felt like to be oppressed for something out of their control. Elliott divided her class by the color of their eyes, marked them with armbands and proceeded to treat one group as if superior in capabilities to the other. The superior students performed better than they ever had before, while the inferior students' performance dropped. The next day, the third graders traded ranks and their performance reversed in accordance to their

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.

On April 5 1968 Jane Elliot preformed the historical experiment in her 3rd grade classroom separating blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. After the death of Martin Luther King her students raised quiestions and she wanted to think of a way to make her students understand what minorities in the U.S feel like. Jane believed that her students would understand what it felt like to be discriminated against by separating them by their eye color. She asked her students if they wanted to be treated like a person of color for a day, judging their peers by the color of their eyes. The students went along with it and that coined the experiment that would later be known as “A Class Divided”.

Rarely has a film impacted an audience and held the test of time as the film Gone with the Wind. I have always been curious if director, Victor Fleming and producer, David O. Selznick and screenplay writer, Sidney Howard knew what they were creating a masterpiece and how this film would have such an enormous impact on audiences for years to come. Interestingly enough there were some who thought the film should not be made, as Irving Thalberg said to Louis B. Meyer in 1936, “Forget it Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel” (Ten Films that Shook the World).

The route the children are designated to take, in addition, is specified in the writing to inspire in the audience fear. The segregated school for Black students is located within a mass of railroad tracks, warehouses, and red-light districts, all notably dangerous locations for children to be in. By specifically mentioning that Ellison had “forbidden words” added to his vocabulary, he implies that he had interacted with the many unsavory individuals in the area to the extent of learning immoral materials or skills (Ellison 4433). This emotional appeal enforces the idea that impressionable children are innocent and that their actions were forced upon them by the adults in control. It also appeals to the parental instinct to protect children and preserve their future. By being forced to maintain continuous exposure to dangerous environments and professions of ambiguous morality, the Black children are victims of tarnishing and possible injury by the White authority purposefully segregating the children to hazardous areas. The strategy in specifying the unfortunate circumstances the African American children are facing is for causing the White adults to appear as villains who impose professionals of socially denigrated on innocent children. In contrast, Ellison, despite not doing anything particularly virtuous, is designated the ‘hero’ to be cheered for along with all his associates and peers, who are also victims.

It was the day after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, April 5th, 1968, when third grade teacher, Jane Elliott conducted her first “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise in her classroom. Just two years later, her class project went viral, and she drew national attention when ABC broadcasted her story in a documentary, Eye of the Storm. After researching Elliott further, I discovered that her simple role playing exercise surely changed her life, and this publication kick charged her equality campaign in which she continues to advocate for today by crusading throughout North America and delivering lectures about the realities of discrimination.

From observing the thirds graders in Jane Elliot experiment a class divided. It helps you see through the lenses of a group of children who can identify the differences of problem and issues when your labeled as individual who is less than. And it also makes you wonder how racism is brought out of certain groups in this country. The video also demonstrates a certain number of key of key pointers when telling the children right from wrong. When explaining that the children were quite confused why a person who has a different eye color was treated differently in society. The children in A Class Divided demonstrated the characteristics of "Kohlberg’s Moral reasoning stage 3".

Elliott gave an excellent example of prejudice and discrimination to her 3rd grade pupils. She split her class in two groups according to their eye color. She set up the rules since the beginning, where the blue eyes group was superior to the brown eyes group and uses a color collar to make the inferior team more visible. It is heartbreaking to see little kids discriminating against each other within that little time and being mean to their friends. Also we see that the kids who were appraised performed better on their tests and work in general. Elliott repeated the exercise to the employees of the Iowa prison system. The reaction to the employees was similar to the 3rd grade kids. They started to prejudice and discriminate

Separate but equal has been a saying in the United States and all over the world for many years, but through history people have learned that this doesn’t really work; one group will always get more than the other; it will be unequal. The choice on how one treat people who are different from them is put on oneself. When surrounded by people who believe in and practice racial inequality, it is possible to be someone who doesn't treat people unequally due to the color of their skin. In both the film Powaqqatsi and the book To Kill a Mockingbird, one can see characters struggling with inequality and ultimately overcoming it. Characters in both the movie and the book unknowingly show jungian archetypes which are elements of the collective unconcsious.

Director Brett Harvey documentary, The Culture High is an interesting story that takes a raw and honest look that tears into the very grit of modern day marijuana prohibition to reveal the truth behind the arguments and motivations governing both those who support and those who oppose the existing pot laws. As we ask ourselves will marijuana be legalized in our lifetime? Or is the “war on drugs” really fundamentally affecting this country? This documentary states two reasons why the information on cannabis is kept from the public, either just one joint can cause psychiatric (mental illness) episodes similar to schizophrenia (a long-term mental disorder) or the addiction and how this drug can lead to another drug. The thesis that this documentary

, I formed many different impressions of the lady and what was going on. When the lady came walking into the station, my impression formation theory of her was that she was a bit more of the higher class, due to her physical qualities and elegant attire. She had an uncomfortable perhaps uneasy expression the whole time she was making herself aware of her environment. I felt as if she had not been in an environment like that before and was her selective perception had her very attentive.

Power binaries are a prevalent feature in all societies, past and present. One group in power holds the position at the top of the binary and, in doing so, pushes those who do not fit into the group to the bottom, socially and politically powerless. During the 1930’s in America, the most significant binary was the division between whites and people of color, specifically African Americans. (“Historical Context: Invisible Man”). Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man explores this time period through the story of an unnamed narrator struggling to find his individual identity as a young black man in a world that is constantly holding him down. The trials and tribulations the narrator endures and the people he encounters on his journey exemplify how the imbalanced power structure of a racist society will not truly allow even successful people of color to obtain substantial power unless they twist the definition of power itself.

​Released in 1988 by director Giuseppe Tomatore, “Cinema Paradiso” follows the life of a young boy in Italy who dreams of being a filmmaker. The road the boy, who eventually becomes a famous Italian film director named Salvatore Di Vita, takes to reach his goal is difficult and includes many sacrifices and trade-offs. Today, the film is widely regarded as one of the most popular foreign films ever to be released in the United States. Given that foreign films are fairly common in America, it is fair to consider why “Cinema Paradiso” received such critical acclaim, as well as relative mainstream popularity. “Cinema Paradiso” received critical and popular praise because the film includes several timeless themes