A Class Divided - Movie Review Example

Mrs. Elliot intentionally declared the brown-eyed pupils lesser intelligent, slower, and dumber than the blue-eyed pupils. Therefore, the blue-eyed pupils would perform better academically as compared to their counterparts. This classification is generally similar to the stereotyping of whites and black. Black people, represented by brown-eyed pupils are mistaken to be dumb while white people are assumed to be very intelligent. For this reason, where whites and blacks co-exist, more privileges are accorded to white people while blacks are maltreated.

 Eliot’s discrimination truly created a no-win situation for the inferior group. On each day, the superior group (blue-eyed pupils) was accrued long recession time and priority during mealtime and showered with praises making them more motivated than those in the inferior group. She selectively interpreted the outcomes relating to the kind of enforcement offered to the pupils. On the first day when the blue-eyed pupils were treated lavishly, they performed better and treated the brown-eyed pupils harshly.

When the conditions were reversed on the second day, the outcome was also translated because of the reversed conditions. The negative and positive labels placed on the two groups of children became self-fulfilling prophecies right on the day they were made. Mrs. Jane Elliot herself claimed that the children had spontaneously changed from being the wonderful, marvelous, thoughtful, and cooperative children that they were too nasty, vicious, and discriminating beings in a span of fifteen minutes.

The blue-eyed children performed poorly on the day they were meant to be the inferior group while the brown-eyed pupils also shone on their second day. To an extent, the labels extracted the kind of behavior that was witnessed from both the inferior and the superior groups. At the end of the exercise, the children had actually felt the impact of hurting others, being hurt, and why that discrimination was really inhuman. They looked at each other as a family after learning how hurtful it was to be discriminated against.

My number one takeaway from the film centered correlates with inequality and the driving factor. The film is centered on an institution being central to inequality. This matches the theoretical approach that explains social stratification (Keister & Southgate, 2012). However, in this case, racial affiliation is the source of stratification. The negative implication of the film discredits David More functionalist perspective that inequality can benefit society. The role that institutional frameworks play in breeding racism and discrimination is the point on which the classroom setup was chosen (Keister & Southgate, 2012).

The film agrees with Keister & Southgate (2012) that some social groups are more advanced than others due to discrimination. This has led to an increase in the gap between the rich and the poor. Having learned these concepts, it is quite easy to draw differences between the film lessons and the theoretical phenomenon, the ancient versus contemporary inequality. One thing I learned about myself is that my very own mindset may be the tool encouraging racism and discrimination. Bearing in mind that discriminatory behavior is fostered in the mind and the perspective people have on each other, I realize that I can either perpetrate or avert inequality.