Tuesday, February 12, 2019

What are the power imbalances in Twelve Angry Men?

Twelve Angry Men was written by Reginald Rose in 1954 as a television drama and later revised and adapted into a feature film and play. The "twelve angry men" of the title are jurors in a murder case. The defendant is a nineteen-year-old of Puerto Rican descent who is accused of murdering his father by stabbing him with a knife.
The first power imbalance is racial. All of the twelve men on the jury are white, and the defendant is Hispanic. Many of the jurors invoke racial stereotyping in their initial assessment of the young man's guilt.
The second main power imbalance is class. The men of the jury are middle or lower-middle class, and the young defendant is from a poor family living in a tenement building.
Another imbalance is age, with the men of the jury being significantly older and more established in their lives and careers than the young man.
The final imbalance is a structural one within the justice system: the jurors have power over the defendant's fate, and the defendant is essentially powerless.

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