12 Angry Men is one of my favorite plays, and I really like having to read it in 10th grade.
There are so many layers to this story and discussing plays can be tricky because there can be dozens and dozens of different interpretations of the story and the messaging behind the show and so on.
12 Angry Men tackles a lot about the legal system, doing what's right, prejudices, and so on. But something that I JUST realized the other day (and it's probably super obvious to you guys so I'm sorry if it's really blatant but I just never noticed), is in how we all influence and sustain system designed to keep certain people down.
In the beginning the jurors all just wanted to get it all done with as soon as possible and get back to their lives. Juror #8 is the only one with any sort of integrity and wants to do his duty with any semblance of gravitas. The fact that a lot of them just brush off the Teenager because of his lower-class background and his [ambiguous] ethnicity shows that although I'm sure most of them aren't openly racist and, at the very least, don't tolerate *extreme* bigotry as shown from Juror #10 during his rant, they still are complicit in upholding this specific aspect of the judicial system that actively harms minority groups that we still witness to this very day.
What do you guys think? Was it THAT obvious and I'm just really slow? I wanted to try and discuss something that wasn't super blatant haha
by ColdStoneSteveAustyn
1 Comment
I’ve not read or seen the play. I’ve watched the movie many many times.
To be brief, and among other things, it strikes me as a depiction of hope, that a single person can have the power to make the system work, but also that the system sometimes requires that person to stand up to force it to work.