The Movie 12 Angry Men - Essay Example

The courthouse in which the movie was filmed was filled with 12 men all of who seemed to be of the same race and the same general age. It seems that the only difference between the jurors is their social and economic backgrounds which the movie illustrated on it could influence a person’s mindset and judgment. For example, Juror 5 shared the “slum upbringing “ as the young boy being charged, which allowed him to relate to his living conditions but another juror like Juror 4 seemed to judge the boy harshly based on where he was raised. Juror 4 even as far to say… “ If you live in a slum you become a slum”. These statements indicate the biases of the jurors due to their backgrounds that reflect in their faulty reasoning as well as their erroneous judgment. When these prior biases and prejudices were overcome, however, the jury begins to realize the error in their reasoning that finally led them to vote for the non-conviction of the boy.

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They are many reasoning and thinking errors in the film. Some of the thinking errors identified in the movie, “12 angry men” was being closed-minded, prejudiced, and impatient. We identify these as thinking errors because it demonstrates how our faulty judgment just like the case of the jurors is influenced by their background to erroneously judge the case of the boy. An example of the thinking error of being impatient was when one of the jurors does not want to engage in a lengthy discussion about the case for fear of running late for the baseball game. Another thinking error in the film was being closed-minded and prejudiced. This was shown in the case of Juror 3 whose estranged relationship with his son affected his judgment in the case of wanting to convict the suspect just because of his strained relationship with his son. Another is juror 10 who is prejudiced against the slums dwellers as killers and people who could not be trusted and concluded that people from poor backgrounds are more likely than others to engage in criminal activity and therefore voted to convict the child. These thinking errors would have persisted if not identified and corrected by Juror 8.

In the same manner, we have to identify a common thinking error and then correct that error. One way we can overcome a common thinking error is by looking at the whole picture so we can view and appreciate its details. In the movie “12 angry men,” the jurors looked at the whole picture to find every little detail by re-enacting the crime scene. The 8th juror recreated the floor plan of the apartment, while another juror timed him to see how long it would take an old man who suffered from a stroke to run only to find out that he could only walk slowly. This revealed the error of how could he have gotten to the door to see if the boy was able to run down the stairs in fifteen seconds. This was later identified as an error as the jurors concluded that the old man, who was a witness, would not have been able to reach his door in fifteen seconds after re-enacting the scene. This proves that we have to look at the picture more than once to see if things are there or not. Read More