The fight against discrimination continues with the second part of the epic timeline covering forms of discrimination from the era of slavery leading up to present day. Where the first part ended with the passing of the emancipation proclamation in Lincoln, the second part of the timeline picks up in the late 1800's with the rise of Mahatma Gandhi, the Jewish and Japanese discrimination during world war ll, and ending with the battle against communism in the early 1950's. For the second part of this epic timeline showcasing the different forms of prejudice in society, we have the following films:
Gandhi 1982, Europa Europa 1990, Come See The Paradise 1990, and Good Night Good Luck 2005
With slavery abolished, a whole new realm of discrimination arises and spreads throughout the 20th century, beginning with Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 classic Gandhi. The film is a biography of Indian civil rights leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, a lawyer with the philosophy of nonviolent protesting who became the famed leader of the Indian revolts against the British rule . Ben Kingsley is astonishing as the iconic historical figure, giving you goosebumps from being so good at playing the part; it may be Gandhi's actual spirit that jumped back inside him during filming.
The next film tackles the issue of discrimination towards the Jewish community by the Nazi's in World War ll. The twist however, is in the film Europa Europa, a young Jewish boy is desperate to conceal his identity from the public that he becomes a Nazi to protect himself against the acts of violence that are being aimed towards the Jewish. This subplot introduces the concept of someone hiding their identity, which is a terrific foreshadowing for later films in the marathon, such as Boys Don't Cry and XMEN. Hilary Swank plays a lesbian who hides her identity from people by passing off as a male and Anna Paquin's character hides the fact that she's a mutant from society in XMEN.
The film after Europa Europa, titled Come See The Paradise, deals with the issue of discrimination towards Japanese Americans in World War ll. Starring Dennis Quaid, the film deals with an American who falls in love with the daughter of his boss at a movie theater in Little Tokyo. The father soon finds out about the relationship between the man and his daughter and forbids them from seeing each other again. They decide to escape to Seattle, but are separated by the authorities when it's decided that the Japanese be placed in internment camps like war prisoners. This film is significant because it deals with one of the shadier aspects of American history and shows one family's struggle to remain together in a society that is rather narrow minded.
The final film of this second part of the timeline is George Clooney's Good Night Good Luck. In this film, the conflict of the communist witchhunt is introduced with Senator Joseph McCarthy hunting down all supposed communists living in the United States, threatening to expose them with a list he claims to have. This becomes a personal battle for broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow played by David Strathairn in his quest to bring down Senator McCarthy. The communist hunt works well with the film XMEN, because that film deals with Senator Kelly using the same scare tactics as McCarthy towards identifying Mutants living in the United States. The parallels even goes as far as having Kelly claiming to have a list of identified mutants living in the US and finally declaring "We must know who they are and above all we must know, what they can do." Whereas the first part of the timeline dealt with the moral and legal issue of slavery, the second part deals with different forms of racism that emerged in the early portions of the 20th century.
No comments:
Post a Comment