Critiquing the representation of social justice

After working with and writing on your chosen representation, critique the version or manifestation of social justice as defined/illustrated.  How does this depiction of social justice conflict with or work with the legal system?



Social Justice can be defined as equity in terms of distribution of wealth, rights and resources within society. The movie Blood Diamond attempts to uncover the lack of this in third world countries as a direct result of the actions of first world countries while demonstrating the advantages people have for having white skin in certain societies. The movie highlights a practice which according to the law is considered smuggling and thus by those means cannot be considered social injustice, however, it is chain reaction caused by this smuggling that makes the practice unethical and socially unjust.

The manifestation of social justice in The Blood Diamond is made explicit through the film's plot and central theme, however, throughout the movie, the characters which are well developed and considered 'heroes'  are predominately white. One could argue that one of the protagonists of the movie is 'Solomon' is black and hence make a point that the sufferings of that community are well represented. However, the scenes in which the sufferings of Solomon are shown are often extremely short and are constructed in such a way that the person from the same community is villainized. Moreover, most of the movie focuses on the white protagonist Danny Archer helping out Solomon, thus portraying the latter a dependent and also as powerless. With dialogues like "Without me, you're just another black man in Africa" being frequent throughout the movie, it does raise awareness about the reality of the situation, however, it fails to provide any solutions.

Comments

  1. Nick M14 November 2017 at 10:24

    It seems like The Blood Diamond falls short in its social justice narrative in much the same manner as To Kill a Mockingbird. Both seem to emphasize the role of the 'white savior' who steps in and 'fixes' the injustices that afflict a minority group. Why do you think this is such a common issues with movies and books that deal with social issues? Does the 'savior' narrative make a work simpler and therefore more 'digestible' for the public audience?

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  2. Anonymous6 December 2017 at 18:42

    Aye Myat Mon

    The Blood Diamond has portrayed the typical, Hollywood "white saviour" plot, just as the movie I chose, The Help, did as well. It is unfortunate that movies still illustrate inaccurate and undesirable plots like this. Why do you think this occurs? What are some positives about this movie's portrayal of social justice?

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