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In the movie "School Ties" racism was shown through eyes of a Jewish teen at a catholic private school, where he was a minority among the ignorant students who had spent their whole lives at boarding schools. It also tried to portray this teenager, David, as the hero who triumphed over his inner demons as well as society's. The movie did a nice job of portraying David as the hero only on too major of a scale, because he was only a minor hero as compared to his roommate, Bruce. The prejudices that David had to face were all because of ignorance, at first when no one new he was Jewish they looked down upon him for belonging to a lower class on the social structure. This was shown first when he had to be a waiter / bus -boy, at the meals in order to stay at the school, Dillon saw him and began to laugh at him. The boys in this school never really knew anyone under theyre social structure except for what rumors had told them and what their parents had said.
The second prejudice was that of the hatred towards Jews. Again all of the boys were openly admitting to never have met a Jew before, and yet they all "knew" what a Jew would act like in any situation. They let stereotypes sink into their minds rather than actually waiting till they had met one for themselves, and learn from that person. They then used these stereotypes to persecute David by twisting and stretching their thoughts in order to be used as a weapon. David was small town boy who was hardened by prejudices and a low-income working class lifestyle. His chance for a better life was his acceptance to a private Catholic school his senior year for his football skills.
His first major character flaw was shown in the first ten minutes of the film when he fell to the level of the biker gang that was making fun of him for being a Jew and got into a fight with them kicking their butts. His second character flaw was accepting advice from his coach and not telling of Judaism faith. I myself believe that religion should have no impact on friendships, but if you feel you have to hide your beliefs, then you must have feelings of inferior qualities. His third flaw would be not admitting his faith when being insulted by rational human being, before the brainwashing of hatred flew in. His third final flaw was when he the girl.
When a friend has feelings for a girl that you know of, you stay away from the girl, no matter what until your friend is comfortable with the situation of you two being a couple. He wasnt a bad person because he overcame a lot and was focused on his goals, he eventually learned to stand up for his believes, and was labeled the hero. Although as you can see from these flaws he was not the hero he deserved to be on screen. The real hero was Bruce. He overcame a taught prejudice, which is as hard has breaking a bad habit.
He at first was hurt by the supposed lie, but he stuck his unblemished neck out for David with no sound reason other than being a friend, a true friend. His friendship persuaded two more ignorant guys to the light of truth, and with that he changed two lives, hopefully. To show he was the real hero of the movie his character would have to be enlarged by about ten percent, using more scenes like the one in the den where he delivered his powerful speech. Maybe giving an insight to his inner struggles would allow his character to become bigger too. Both were heros in the movie, having to overcome the ignorant in mind while looking deep in themselves to discover who and what they were on the inside. David was a lesser hero because he tried to change people with his fist, while Bruce used his used his words to change people.
In the end the true hero received no credit, but just knew inside his good deeds. Bibliography:
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