I have never seen Philadephia before, but I thought that this movie was a really good one and a great addition to this class. I looked up a little bit about the movie and read the this was one of the first (second really, but the 1st one is less known) movies to discuss the rights of gays and to talk about AIDS. Discrimination is at the core of the film, and the message is very strong. Tom Hanks does a very good job portraying someone with AIDS, and really brings an image to the screne of what AIDS really looks like. Denzel was another interesting character based on his evolution through the movie. He starts out as a person who does not understand much about AIDS and gays, except for that he wants nothing to do with them. With this in mind, he views Andy as the disease and something that he should further distance himself from. His character goes through a change when he starts to become connected with Andy. He starts to see Andy as a human being, and sees the struggle he is going through. While the point of his character is to by the lawyer and to win the case, he brings a different point of view to the film that was very important in the story-telling factor. Despite some of the stigma he encounters by taking the case, he is doing wonders for this movement, and I think he realizes this. At first he seems to be in it for the money, but I think that he understands how important this is when the trail reaches its conclusion. The film does a good job to help you connect with the characters. You are supposed to feel like you are in Andy's shoes, and you are supposed to feel empathy for him. If this film was created now I do not know if it would have been as epic or important to the time period. It would still have an impact, but the point of the film was to show that gays and lesbians are people too, and just because they have a different sexual orientation does not mean that they are less vauable as people. Nowadays I feel like there is less stigma towards the gay community, and people now understand that people can get AIDS without being gay.
The movie was really moving and I really enjoyed it. This movie was very good for the time and could have a great impact on those who still feel homophobic.
I saw Philadelphia a long time ago, so I remembered some of the movie but not a lot of it. It was one of the better known movies to first tackle this issue. I think the acting is stellar in the movie, both by Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. I think this movie really shows the slow progression made by Denzel's character, and how he begins to accept Andy. I think overall the part where he puts the mask on Andy's face in the hospital really shows the evolution of his character. There was no way at the beginning of the movie he would even want to touch a person with AIDS, but by the end, he is able to reach out to Andy and his partner, as well. Yes, he was acting as a lawyer for a good portion of the movie, but he also changed as a result of the case and the issues involved. I think the movie also shows how we can go through the process of seeing a person as part of an outgroup, but we can remove them from that category and bring them into an ingroup. I think Denzel's character was finally able to accomplish this by the end of the film.
On a side note, the camera angles in the movie are also very deliberate. Some of the time you are "looking" through Andy's eyes, but quite often, the camera is right in a character's face. It seems, to a certain extent, that you are right in the action, which helps the movie. And at the end of the movie, the scenes of Andy's childhood do drive home the point that we all have a childhood, and we should look beyond the disease and stigma to really understand that.
There are several different aspects of this film that are excellent sources of analysis in terms of the psychology of prejudice, stigma, and discrimination. Rather than going over a lot of these, however, I'm going to focus my blog on one of the smaller, yet equally important themes of the film (which I don't believe we really brought up in class on Thursday): Attitude formation through being around like-minded individuals (or at least believing you are around like-minded individuals).
We have all experienced this before: Someone says something that you tend to agree with and then after discussing the concept with this like-minded person (whatever it might be, not necessarily a social issue) both you and the other person walk away with more polarized opinions about a certain topic. In my opinion, this process is what leads to groups like the KKK, extremist religious groups, and far left and right politically oriented people. Research has shown that when discussing racial attitudes, one's prejudice (high or low) tends to become more polarized when discussing their attitudes with like-minded people (see Myers & Bishop, 1970). This idea might help explain why the people of our country are becoming so divided politically compared to decades of the past, but this is a topic for another day. :)
So what does this have to do with the movie Philadelphia? There is a scene in the bar where a guys makes a joke towards Denzel's character defending a homosexual. When he says this, people around him start giving him high-fives and laughing (essentially, giving him positive reinforcement for his bigotry-esque comments). This is a very small interaction in the movie that I think has bigger implications for real-world situations than we tend to realize. These kinds of situations are happening ALL THE TIME (I know you're all thinking of times when someone made a joke about a certain race, religion, or whatever where everyone got a kick out of it). I believe it is these types of situations that are perpetuating the issue of racism, prejudice, and hate towards unlike-minded groups. Group polarization can be very influential in our formation of attitudes towards certain types of people. THIS IS WHY DIVERSITY EDUCATION IS SO IMPORTANT! Allowing people to interact with others they normally would hold prejudices towards is a great way to break down one's polarized way of thinking. This just so happens to be the case in the film as well, where Denzel holds prejudices before the trial begins but after having meaningful contact with a homosexual he appears to have deviated from the extreme (although he still may hold mild prejudices toward gay people).
I realize this is a bit of a jumbled rant, but I hope I got my point across about this very subtle, small scene in the movie. You can probably point to other examples of this in the film as well, but I chose to focus on this one instance in which attitude polarization seemed to be fairly evident.
Philadelphia, in my opinion, is an example of when Hollywood is a powerful force for good. Especially when this movie came out, the AIDS epidemic was reaching new levels of crisis. It was referred to as the gay plague and because of this, the two were conflated into an almost synonymous relationship. Homosexuality was therefore met with disgust, hostility, and as much social distance as possible because of the feeling that it being gay is just as contagious as AIDS.
Philadelphia uses a very humanistic story to wrestle with the very real AIDS-phobic and homophobic feelings of the day. You come to identify with Andy (Tom Hanks) who is dying but is courageous every step of the way. There's also Denzel's character who experiences some great transformation along the way in coming to befriend Andy and increase his tolerance toward gays. There's also the pragmatic aspect of a legal injustice being done on the part of the firm. So those who may not even be as tolerant could find some merit in the fact that a law was being broken, and identify with the underdog who is being discriminated against.
Philadelphia remains one of my favorite movies because of the social commentary it provides. There are so many valuable and provocative elements that affect at least temporary emotional change in the audience. The thing I have come to appreciate about this movie though, is that I can now identify all of the tactics that it uses on a psychological level. And it certainly does have distinct themes such as shifting group boundaries, attribution bias, stereotyping, and prejudice that all support this powerful plot.
This was my first time viewing this film but I have known for a very long time that it is regarded as an extraordinary film. I now know why. Philadelphia is not another standard Hollywood film that prays on sex, violence, and crude entertainment. It is a film that truly plucks the heartstrings of every person who comes across it. First, it raises awareness of prejudice and discrimination. By being a main stream movie that does not just have prejudice as an overtone, but as the major focal point, this film brings to the big screen a visualization of prejudice. Secondly, it does not deal with what most of us view as the "standard" subject of discrimination and stereotyping. Philadelphia only VERY briefly mentions the topic of race, and in this case it was actually used evidence in a trial trying to compare racial prejudice to what this film was about. This movie is about homophobia and prejudice surrounding homosexuality and AIDS. It was incredibly intriguing to me that these were the focal points, mostly because this had never really been done in a film prior to this (and has hardly shown up since!). However, thanks to Cassy's research I did learn that this was technically the 2nd film to focus on this subject.
With very realistic depictions of AIDS, discrimination, court cases, and homophobia, Philadelphia was a fantastic example of the power that Hollywood holds. There is hardly any better way to get a wide spread deployment of tolerance and awareness. Through such films as this, it is possible to lessen the blow of prejudice and to help raise awareness of such issues.
This was my first time viewing this film but I have known for a very long time that it is regarded as an extraordinary film. I now know why. Philadelphia is not another standard Hollywood film that prays on sex, violence, and crude entertainment. It is a film that truly plucks the heartstrings of every person who comes across it. First, it raises awareness of prejudice and discrimination. By being a main stream movie that does not just have prejudice as an overtone, but as the major focal point, this film brings to the big screen a visualization of prejudice. Secondly, it does not deal with what most of us view as the "standard" subject of discrimination and stereotyping. Philadelphia only VERY briefly mentions the topic of race, and in this case it was actually used evidence in a trial trying to compare racial prejudice to what this film was about. This movie is about homophobia and prejudice surrounding homosexuality and AIDS. It was incredibly intriguing to me that these were the focal points, mostly because this had never really been done in a film prior to this (and has hardly shown up since!). However, thanks to Cassy's research I did learn that this was technically the 2nd film to focus on this subject.
With very realistic depictions of AIDS, discrimination, court cases, and homophobia, Philadelphia was a fantastic example of the power that Hollywood holds. There is hardly any better way to get a wide spread deployment of tolerance and awareness. Through such films as this, it is possible to lessen the blow of prejudice and to help raise awareness of such issues.
This movie is extraordinary for several reasons, including the excellent performances by the actors and the many sensitive issues it manages to explore effectively. It provides us with a kind of case study that illustrates many of the physical and social aspects of the disease known as AIDS, including the progressive physical deterioration of people who have it, and the general disruption of the relationship of the person with society as a whole. Due to the conspicuous symptoms of the illness in its advanced stages, a person with AIDS becomes stigmatized, that is, the person becomes the bearer of a kind of mark that distinguishes from the rest of “normal” people. This condition results in negative reactions from people who perceive the mark, who will tend to avoid the stigmatized person, which might ultimately lead to, using the words from the movie, “a prejudice that exacts a social death that precedes the actual physical death”.
Stigmas related to physical appearance elicit strong and automatic emotional reactions, including aversion and fear, which might lead to immediate reactions of avoidance (Jones et al., 1984). Evolutionary psychology has explained these reactions in terms of their function to protect people from becoming infected with diseases that can threaten survival (Neuberg & Cottrell, 2006). However, as with most automatic reactions regarding stereotyping and prejudice, the mind over generalizes and makes errors. The case of AIDS is a good example of this process, because people automatically wish to avoid people with this illness, even though they do not represent a direct threat to health. This movie effectively shows how costly these errors can be for both the victim of stigma and for the rest of society. It also shows the potential gains of overcoming these errors, in particular, through the example of the relationship between Denzel Washington’s and Tom Hank’s characters that proved to be enriching for both.
The film Philadelphia is and extraordinary movie that touches on the importance of life. It is very unfortunate that many people through out the world our facing a death sentence do to AIDS/HIV despite age religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation. What can we do to prevent the spread of AIDS/HIV, use protection every-time we have sexual encounter, and get tested every three to six months and keep a list.
The Film was made to bring awareness in my eye and to show how people are discriminated against do to living with this illness as well as to show the prejudice that everyone has towards people with HIV/AIDS such as there gay or lesbian, in reality but do have it due to blood transfusions, unprotected sex, or sharing intravenous needles or syringes.
AIDS/HIV our more then what people think it is it effect the memory, deterioration of the body,and survival other different sings and systems and the stigma where as all people with HIV/AIDS are gay or homosexual.
the fact the Joe played by D. Washington played a role that showed his prejudice, and the stereotypical alpha male showed how men who have a homophobia really do react toward homosexuals. The fact that men are okay with lesbian, I can say it is do to a fantasy. But for most men when it comes to another man they are turned off and sicken to the idea of two men being erotic with each other.
the fact that the court system is discriminant, and the institutional racism of the government to banded donor blood from gay men is unconstitutional. But how am i to say that. I would recomend this film to anyone who thinks or has a bias towards men or women who are living with AIDS/HIV..
I thought that this was a good movie, and brought a new light to the idea of AIDS and homosexuality and the stigma between both. I think that people still pair the two instead of thinking that they are separate from one another. Philadelphia showed a lot of stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice towards homosexuals. I thought another poing was stigma and how uneducated people are when it comes to things like AIDS. Everyone likes to judge someone else without really knowing the story behind it. I thought that Joe Miller wasn't educated about AIDS but the fact that Andrew was a homosexual, he paired the two together. But then as he got to know Andrew and ended up going to the hospital and the doctor telling him about how AIDS is transmitted from one person to another.
A thought that I had in the movie and that we discussed in class that was surprising, was that race wasn’t a factor in the movie. The real idea was homosexuality and AIDS. The only part in the movie was in court when they brought the lady up who worked for the firm and how she had been commented on for her “ethnic” earrings. I thought that this was a good movie and it related to a lot of topics that we had learned in class. Tom Hanks really threw himself into the role of a homosexual AIDS patient, which I thought made the movie realistic.
I had never seen Philadelphia before watching it in class. I'm glad I had the opportunity to watch it because it is a great movie to elucidate issues that still surround homosexual prejudice today. It did a good job of letting the viewer get to know the characters and see their personal lives as much as the scenes in the courtroom. This is important because it allows us to remove Andy from the stereotypes associated with homosexuals and see a personal transformation in Joe's character. Although Joe is prejudice against gays and may still show some biased attitudes towards them at the end of the movie, he becomes aware of his biases and understands that even though he disagrees with Andy's lifestyle on a personal level, he recognizes that they deserve the same rights as everyone else. This is a first step that many people still need to take today--they may not agree with homosexuality personally, but they need to realize they can't take other people's rights away for that reason.
The trouble with homosexuality is that many people still don't understand the biological and genetic causes. Instead, they attribute their sexual preference to a choice when it is likely as natural for a gay person to have feelings toward the same sex as it is for a heterosexual person to be attracted to the opposite sex. What people don't understand they fear--this fear activates a threat response that leads people to act in prejudice ways and endorse stereotypes. Andy had it even harder because he also had the AIDS virus. There is research that demonstrates people show the strongest signs of prejudice when interacting with a person who is disabled or displays obvious signs of disease. This is believed to be due to an evolutionarily adaptive mechanism that motivates people to avoid threats of disease or harm to the in-group. Interestingly, they also tend to blame people for the affliction, even in cases it was not their fault. This kept happening in the movie--people blamed Andy for contracting the disease due to his risky behavior. Thus, he was experiencing homosexual prejudice along with stigma associated with poor health.
I think the movie would not have been as interesting if Joe's character was White. I think the fact that Blacks as a group encounter discrimination helped build the dynamic of Joe and Andy's relationship in the movie. It was also interesting that a person who experiences so much prejudice themselves would be one to endorse prejudice against other groups. However, this again relates back to the fact that everyone in the movie was portrayed as a regular human being--we all have certain biases and none of us are perfect, but we all share the common innocence of childhood before the world shapes us into hateful, prejudiced creatures. We have to realize the influences that cause us to judge and overcome them to reduce prejudice against all people.
The movie Philadelphia outlined a great deal of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination issues dealing with a man who was homosexual and had the AIDS virus. This movie came out around the time frame in which homosexuality was not being accepted in society and AIDS was being discovered as a deadly disease. Since the AIDS virus was new to society, this caused people to use prejudice and discriminatory behaviors as a result of this.
This was an excellent choice of movie to talk about in this class. I actually enjoyed the movie because it did what it was designed to do by opening up people minds about homosexuality and about how they are being discriminated against in society. Another thing I found to be intriguing was how this video was a big eye opener to me about how we can pass judgment on people so quickly without knowing who the person is inside. Sometime different situations my cause a person to stereotype, but by being aware of them will help you in the near future with reducing stereotypical beliefs.I personally was awakened about some negative prejudice feelings I had toward homosexuals and by watching this movie, it help me actually point out some of the feelings and how I could deal with them. This may have the same affect on another person if they become aware of their negative prejudice feelings.
Here's the link to the article and blog from CNN: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/28/dems-call-for-overturn-of-arizonas-immigration-law/Since we mentioned this in class, I thought I should…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100428/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1831 I just got through reading this little slice of heaven and it is infuriating. Republican Tim James, who…
I have never seen Philadephia before, but I thought that this movie was a really good one and a great addition to this class. I looked up a little bit about the movie and read the this was one of the first (second really, but the 1st one is less known) movies to discuss the rights of gays and to talk about AIDS. Discrimination is at the core of the film, and the message is very strong. Tom Hanks does a very good job portraying someone with AIDS, and really brings an image to the screne of what AIDS really looks like. Denzel was another interesting character based on his evolution through the movie. He starts out as a person who does not understand much about AIDS and gays, except for that he wants nothing to do with them. With this in mind, he views Andy as the disease and something that he should further distance himself from. His character goes through a change when he starts to become connected with Andy. He starts to see Andy as a human being, and sees the struggle he is going through. While the point of his character is to by the lawyer and to win the case, he brings a different point of view to the film that was very important in the story-telling factor. Despite some of the stigma he encounters by taking the case, he is doing wonders for this movement, and I think he realizes this. At first he seems to be in it for the money, but I think that he understands how important this is when the trail reaches its conclusion. The film does a good job to help you connect with the characters. You are supposed to feel like you are in Andy's shoes, and you are supposed to feel empathy for him. If this film was created now I do not know if it would have been as epic or important to the time period. It would still have an impact, but the point of the film was to show that gays and lesbians are people too, and just because they have a different sexual orientation does not mean that they are less vauable as people. Nowadays I feel like there is less stigma towards the gay community, and people now understand that people can get AIDS without being gay.
The movie was really moving and I really enjoyed it. This movie was very good for the time and could have a great impact on those who still feel homophobic.
I saw Philadelphia a long time ago, so I remembered some of the movie but not a lot of it. It was one of the better known movies to first tackle this issue. I think the acting is stellar in the movie, both by Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. I think this movie really shows the slow progression made by Denzel's character, and how he begins to accept Andy. I think overall the part where he puts the mask on Andy's face in the hospital really shows the evolution of his character. There was no way at the beginning of the movie he would even want to touch a person with AIDS, but by the end, he is able to reach out to Andy and his partner, as well. Yes, he was acting as a lawyer for a good portion of the movie, but he also changed as a result of the case and the issues involved. I think the movie also shows how we can go through the process of seeing a person as part of an outgroup, but we can remove them from that category and bring them into an ingroup. I think Denzel's character was finally able to accomplish this by the end of the film.
On a side note, the camera angles in the movie are also very deliberate. Some of the time you are "looking" through Andy's eyes, but quite often, the camera is right in a character's face. It seems, to a certain extent, that you are right in the action, which helps the movie. And at the end of the movie, the scenes of Andy's childhood do drive home the point that we all have a childhood, and we should look beyond the disease and stigma to really understand that.
There are several different aspects of this film that are excellent sources of analysis in terms of the psychology of prejudice, stigma, and discrimination. Rather than going over a lot of these, however, I'm going to focus my blog on one of the smaller, yet equally important themes of the film (which I don't believe we really brought up in class on Thursday): Attitude formation through being around like-minded individuals (or at least believing you are around like-minded individuals).
We have all experienced this before: Someone says something that you tend to agree with and then after discussing the concept with this like-minded person (whatever it might be, not necessarily a social issue) both you and the other person walk away with more polarized opinions about a certain topic. In my opinion, this process is what leads to groups like the KKK, extremist religious groups, and far left and right politically oriented people. Research has shown that when discussing racial attitudes, one's prejudice (high or low) tends to become more polarized when discussing their attitudes with like-minded people (see Myers & Bishop, 1970). This idea might help explain why the people of our country are becoming so divided politically compared to decades of the past, but this is a topic for another day. :)
So what does this have to do with the movie Philadelphia? There is a scene in the bar where a guys makes a joke towards Denzel's character defending a homosexual. When he says this, people around him start giving him high-fives and laughing (essentially, giving him positive reinforcement for his bigotry-esque comments). This is a very small interaction in the movie that I think has bigger implications for real-world situations than we tend to realize. These kinds of situations are happening ALL THE TIME (I know you're all thinking of times when someone made a joke about a certain race, religion, or whatever where everyone got a kick out of it). I believe it is these types of situations that are perpetuating the issue of racism, prejudice, and hate towards unlike-minded groups. Group polarization can be very influential in our formation of attitudes towards certain types of people. THIS IS WHY DIVERSITY EDUCATION IS SO IMPORTANT! Allowing people to interact with others they normally would hold prejudices towards is a great way to break down one's polarized way of thinking. This just so happens to be the case in the film as well, where Denzel holds prejudices before the trial begins but after having meaningful contact with a homosexual he appears to have deviated from the extreme (although he still may hold mild prejudices toward gay people).
I realize this is a bit of a jumbled rant, but I hope I got my point across about this very subtle, small scene in the movie. You can probably point to other examples of this in the film as well, but I chose to focus on this one instance in which attitude polarization seemed to be fairly evident.
Philadelphia, in my opinion, is an example of when Hollywood is a powerful force for good. Especially when this movie came out, the AIDS epidemic was reaching new levels of crisis. It was referred to as the gay plague and because of this, the two were conflated into an almost synonymous relationship. Homosexuality was therefore met with disgust, hostility, and as much social distance as possible because of the feeling that it being gay is just as contagious as AIDS.
Philadelphia uses a very humanistic story to wrestle with the very real AIDS-phobic and homophobic feelings of the day. You come to identify with Andy (Tom Hanks) who is dying but is courageous every step of the way. There's also Denzel's character who experiences some great transformation along the way in coming to befriend Andy and increase his tolerance toward gays. There's also the pragmatic aspect of a legal injustice being done on the part of the firm. So those who may not even be as tolerant could find some merit in the fact that a law was being broken, and identify with the underdog who is being discriminated against.
Philadelphia remains one of my favorite movies because of the social commentary it provides. There are so many valuable and provocative elements that affect at least temporary emotional change in the audience. The thing I have come to appreciate about this movie though, is that I can now identify all of the tactics that it uses on a psychological level. And it certainly does have distinct themes such as shifting group boundaries, attribution bias, stereotyping, and prejudice that all support this powerful plot.
This was my first time viewing this film but I have known for a very long time that it is regarded as an extraordinary film. I now know why. Philadelphia is not another standard Hollywood film that prays on sex, violence, and crude entertainment. It is a film that truly plucks the heartstrings of every person who comes across it. First, it raises awareness of prejudice and discrimination. By being a main stream movie that does not just have prejudice as an overtone, but as the major focal point, this film brings to the big screen a visualization of prejudice. Secondly, it does not deal with what most of us view as the "standard" subject of discrimination and stereotyping. Philadelphia only VERY briefly mentions the topic of race, and in this case it was actually used evidence in a trial trying to compare racial prejudice to what this film was about. This movie is about homophobia and prejudice surrounding homosexuality and AIDS. It was incredibly intriguing to me that these were the focal points, mostly because this had never really been done in a film prior to this (and has hardly shown up since!). However, thanks to Cassy's research I did learn that this was technically the 2nd film to focus on this subject.
With very realistic depictions of AIDS, discrimination, court cases, and homophobia, Philadelphia was a fantastic example of the power that Hollywood holds. There is hardly any better way to get a wide spread deployment of tolerance and awareness. Through such films as this, it is possible to lessen the blow of prejudice and to help raise awareness of such issues.
This was my first time viewing this film but I have known for a very long time that it is regarded as an extraordinary film. I now know why. Philadelphia is not another standard Hollywood film that prays on sex, violence, and crude entertainment. It is a film that truly plucks the heartstrings of every person who comes across it. First, it raises awareness of prejudice and discrimination. By being a main stream movie that does not just have prejudice as an overtone, but as the major focal point, this film brings to the big screen a visualization of prejudice. Secondly, it does not deal with what most of us view as the "standard" subject of discrimination and stereotyping. Philadelphia only VERY briefly mentions the topic of race, and in this case it was actually used evidence in a trial trying to compare racial prejudice to what this film was about. This movie is about homophobia and prejudice surrounding homosexuality and AIDS. It was incredibly intriguing to me that these were the focal points, mostly because this had never really been done in a film prior to this (and has hardly shown up since!). However, thanks to Cassy's research I did learn that this was technically the 2nd film to focus on this subject.
With very realistic depictions of AIDS, discrimination, court cases, and homophobia, Philadelphia was a fantastic example of the power that Hollywood holds. There is hardly any better way to get a wide spread deployment of tolerance and awareness. Through such films as this, it is possible to lessen the blow of prejudice and to help raise awareness of such issues.
This movie is extraordinary for several reasons, including the excellent performances by the actors and the many sensitive issues it manages to explore effectively. It provides us with a kind of case study that illustrates many of the physical and social aspects of the disease known as AIDS, including the progressive physical deterioration of people who have it, and the general disruption of the relationship of the person with society as a whole. Due to the conspicuous symptoms of the illness in its advanced stages, a person with AIDS becomes stigmatized, that is, the person becomes the bearer of a kind of mark that distinguishes from the rest of “normal” people. This condition results in negative reactions from people who perceive the mark, who will tend to avoid the stigmatized person, which might ultimately lead to, using the words from the movie, “a prejudice that exacts a social death that precedes the actual physical death”.
Stigmas related to physical appearance elicit strong and automatic emotional reactions, including aversion and fear, which might lead to immediate reactions of avoidance (Jones et al., 1984). Evolutionary psychology has explained these reactions in terms of their function to protect people from becoming infected with diseases that can threaten survival (Neuberg & Cottrell, 2006). However, as with most automatic reactions regarding stereotyping and prejudice, the mind over generalizes and makes errors. The case of AIDS is a good example of this process, because people automatically wish to avoid people with this illness, even though they do not represent a direct threat to health. This movie effectively shows how costly these errors can be for both the victim of stigma and for the rest of society. It also shows the potential gains of overcoming these errors, in particular, through the example of the relationship between Denzel Washington’s and Tom Hank’s characters that proved to be enriching for both.
The film Philadelphia is and extraordinary movie that touches on the importance of life. It is very unfortunate that many people through out the world our facing a death sentence do to AIDS/HIV despite age religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation. What can we do to prevent the spread of AIDS/HIV, use protection every-time we have sexual encounter, and get tested every three to six months and keep a list.
The Film was made to bring awareness in my eye and to show how people are discriminated against do to living with this illness as well as to show the prejudice that everyone has towards people with HIV/AIDS such as there gay or lesbian, in reality but do have it due to blood transfusions, unprotected sex, or sharing intravenous needles or syringes.
AIDS/HIV our more then what people think it is it effect the memory, deterioration of the body,and survival other different sings and systems and the stigma where as all people with HIV/AIDS are gay or homosexual.
the fact the Joe played by D. Washington played a role that showed his prejudice, and the stereotypical alpha male showed how men who have a homophobia really do react toward homosexuals. The fact that men are okay with lesbian, I can say it is do to a fantasy. But for most men when it comes to another man they are turned off and sicken to the idea of two men being erotic with each other.
the fact that the court system is discriminant, and the institutional racism of the government to banded donor blood from gay men is unconstitutional. But how am i to say that. I would recomend this film to anyone who thinks or has a bias towards men or women who are living with AIDS/HIV..
I thought that this was a good movie, and brought a new light to the idea of AIDS and homosexuality and the stigma between both. I think that people still pair the two instead of thinking that they are separate from one another. Philadelphia showed a lot of stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice towards homosexuals. I thought another poing was stigma and how uneducated people are when it comes to things like AIDS. Everyone likes to judge someone else without really knowing the story behind it. I thought that Joe Miller wasn't educated about AIDS but the fact that Andrew was a homosexual, he paired the two together. But then as he got to know Andrew and ended up going to the hospital and the doctor telling him about how AIDS is transmitted from one person to another.
A thought that I had in the movie and that we discussed in class that was surprising, was that race wasn’t a factor in the movie. The real idea was homosexuality and AIDS. The only part in the movie was in court when they brought the lady up who worked for the firm and how she had been commented on for her “ethnic” earrings. I thought that this was a good movie and it related to a lot of topics that we had learned in class. Tom Hanks really threw himself into the role of a homosexual AIDS patient, which I thought made the movie realistic.
I had never seen Philadelphia before watching it in class. I'm glad I had the opportunity to watch it because it is a great movie to elucidate issues that still surround homosexual prejudice today. It did a good job of letting the viewer get to know the characters and see their personal lives as much as the scenes in the courtroom. This is important because it allows us to remove Andy from the stereotypes associated with homosexuals and see a personal transformation in Joe's character. Although Joe is prejudice against gays and may still show some biased attitudes towards them at the end of the movie, he becomes aware of his biases and understands that even though he disagrees with Andy's lifestyle on a personal level, he recognizes that they deserve the same rights as everyone else. This is a first step that many people still need to take today--they may not agree with homosexuality personally, but they need to realize they can't take other people's rights away for that reason.
The trouble with homosexuality is that many people still don't understand the biological and genetic causes. Instead, they attribute their sexual preference to a choice when it is likely as natural for a gay person to have feelings toward the same sex as it is for a heterosexual person to be attracted to the opposite sex. What people don't understand they fear--this fear activates a threat response that leads people to act in prejudice ways and endorse stereotypes. Andy had it even harder because he also had the AIDS virus. There is research that demonstrates people show the strongest signs of prejudice when interacting with a person who is disabled or displays obvious signs of disease. This is believed to be due to an evolutionarily adaptive mechanism that motivates people to avoid threats of disease or harm to the in-group. Interestingly, they also tend to blame people for the affliction, even in cases it was not their fault. This kept happening in the movie--people blamed Andy for contracting the disease due to his risky behavior. Thus, he was experiencing homosexual prejudice along with stigma associated with poor health.
I think the movie would not have been as interesting if Joe's character was White. I think the fact that Blacks as a group encounter discrimination helped build the dynamic of Joe and Andy's relationship in the movie. It was also interesting that a person who experiences so much prejudice themselves would be one to endorse prejudice against other groups. However, this again relates back to the fact that everyone in the movie was portrayed as a regular human being--we all have certain biases and none of us are perfect, but we all share the common innocence of childhood before the world shapes us into hateful, prejudiced creatures. We have to realize the influences that cause us to judge and overcome them to reduce prejudice against all people.
The movie Philadelphia outlined a great deal of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination issues dealing with a man who was homosexual and had the AIDS virus. This movie came out around the time frame in which homosexuality was not being accepted in society and AIDS was being discovered as a deadly disease. Since the AIDS virus was new to society, this caused people to use prejudice and discriminatory behaviors as a result of this.
This was an excellent choice of movie to talk about in this class. I actually enjoyed the movie because it did what it was designed to do by opening up people minds about homosexuality and about how they are being discriminated against in society. Another thing I found to be intriguing was how this video was a big eye opener to me about how we can pass judgment on people so quickly without knowing who the person is inside. Sometime different situations my cause a person to stereotype, but by being aware of them will help you in the near future with reducing stereotypical beliefs.I personally was awakened about some negative prejudice feelings I had toward homosexuals and by watching this movie, it help me actually point out some of the feelings and how I could deal with them. This may have the same affect on another person if they become aware of their negative prejudice feelings.