Montayj79

Arguably, the war on poverty in America (President Lyndon B. Johnson), though one of its goals was to break the cycle of dependency, in fact did the opposite by creating incentives and decentives that penalized work (raises led to loss of benefits) and rewarding nonmarriage.

Hollywood tends to take it a step forward, by focusing both on the war on poverty the religious exploitation of blacks during The Peculiar Institution. As a result, popular black sitcoms, such as Good Times and What’s Happening! specifically from the 70s (a key era in black empowerment) focused on the idea of being good (morality v immorailty). By appealing to the message in The Willie Lynch Letter of focusing on the woman and using her as a buffer, these shows keep the main black family from taken advantage of opportunities because they may be somewhat "immoral." (see episode 4, season 1 of Good Times for an example).

What is your take on this idea?

The 2008 film, American Violet highlights some wicked practices of the criminal justice system when it comes to plea bargaining. Using this film as well as the real story that took place in Hearne, TX (as opposed to Melody, TX as portrayed in the film), what racial and social realities do we find in such movies? Why do films portray false evidence in instances where they do not necessarily have to? (For example, the film depicts only 2 ACLU lawyers rather than even remotely mention that it was a team working on the case). Finally, does the film provide an accurate depiction of America’s plea bargaining system or is it an exaggeration?

How can a character, such as Shakespeare’s’ Othello, be compared to characters in film. For instance, what similarities (physical, psychological, etc) does Othello have to characters that kill on film, such as the characters from the 1995 film, The Usual Suspects.

The focus here should be on what drives these people to kill. Explore economics, manipulation, and corruption. Obviously, these two works have easily identifiable differences, but the objective is to dig into the psychological to show how their different circumstances leads them down the same road. In other words, think of Othello as a character in The Usual Suspects (or vice versa, one of the characters from The Usual Suspects in Othello’s place).