Skin: About the Film and Issues Covered in It - Movie Review Example

Running head: Skin (2008) Skin (2008) Institute’s Skin (2008) About the film and issues covered in it Skin is a British-South African movie released in 2008. It is directed by Anthony Fabian. The film basically revolves around Sandra Laing, a South African girl who has white parents. She is brought up by her parents like any other white girl would be. However, reality strikes when she is admitted to school and is not accepted by parents and teachers. She herself also does not feel a sense of belonging there. The State officials declare her as “colored” and she has to leave the school. However, her father, Abraham Laing, rebels against this declaration and it becomes an international story. The family receives attention globally and the law has to change their decision under pressure from media. Therefore, Sandra is once again classified as white. Skin looks into the problem of racial injustice in South Africa. It relates the story through such a person’s view who is not even politically motivated yet has to experience the injustice that apartheid’s cruelty makes her undergo. The movie relates the apartheid system and how unequally it judges people, costing them their family and dignity. Extreme racial discrimination is seen in the film and it is ridiculous the way the system allows one person get full citizenship while his own sibling is denied the same advantages due to them having different hair and skin color and texture as that means racial mixing of some sort. The director, Fabian, has not just touched on the topics related to governmental policies and institutional prejudices but, rather, has also delved into the challenges of Sandra struggling to get a place in such a country where she is not given even her basic rights. He also does not make the film belittle the white Afrikaners but actually shows that they are also, in fact, victims of such a system where one kind of people are privileged while the others are not given their rights. It is also shown that even though they are against racial mixing, they deny basic rights and discriminate people, they also have a heart and ability to love. Institutional discrimination Discrimination basically means any kind of a distinction, restriction or preference made on the basis of natural factors like race, color, descent or origin, and this distinction leads to the discriminated group not able to enjoy basic rights that everyone is entitled to. Discrimination becomes institutionalized when the laws and regulations of a country recognize and reflect it. For instance, since 1948, Israel and South Africa are two countries where institutional discrimination has been a practice and has deeply affected the indigenous population in every aspect of their lives. In the film Skin, institutional discrimination has been portrayed very widely. There is a scene in this film where Sandra is not accepted by her new school. They say that she does not belong there and even the parents do not want their children to mix with people like Sandra. Therefore, she is “tested” by the State officials who declare that she is colored. In view of such a declaration the school officials expel her and she has to leave. This is where institutional discrimination has played a part. The discrimination again Sandra is so high that the laws of the State have decided to interfere in her life and not give her the right of education in her school of preference. That is, the discrimination has become official. White privilege White privilege means to have the privileges that a person of another race may not, due to racial discrimination. For instance, in South Africa the blacks could not enjoy the basic human rights while the white people were at an advantage regarding this. They can enjoy proper accommodation, and have no restrictions on whichever school they wish to enroll their children in, the places they want to go to and basically circumstances relating to every aspect of life. Blacks were not that lucky as they did not have the “white privilege”. In Skin, Sandra is seen to enjoy white privilege for the beginning of her life. She has white parents and, although she herself is black, she is brought up as any other white girl was in those days. The other black children went back to their make-shift homes every evening, which did not even have enough space or a proper running water system. Sandra, however, was very lucky and a good accommodation with proper sanitation. Regarding education as well the white children were taught by learned and well-paid teachers, while all the education that the blacks received was the one teaching them unskilled manual jobs. The white schools were funded three times more than the black ones. Again, this was the white privilege demonstrated in the film. Even the white servants were better off than the black ones. Although Sandra had been enjoying the white privilege all her life, reality struck when she was actually stepped outside her house and entered the society. She was admitted to a school for whites. However, the teachers and the parents of other children were strongly against her, not to mention the bullying she suffered at the hands of her fellow class mates. While not stopping them from such a behavior, the teachers themselves participated in it and often subjected Sandra to corporal punishment for no rhyme or reason. Sandra was then inspected by state officials and termed colored. She was expelled from her school. The white privilege for Sandra had ended, although later on her father did fight for her and after sometime she was again termed as white. Social distancing Gabriel Tarde was the first person ever to use distance in sociology and he did so in his The Laws of Imitation, referring to class difference. This is exactly the meaning that will be considered in this discussion of the film Skin. Whites have a stereotype against the blacks and it was much more prevalent in the previous times. This stereotype is common and natural; however, the problem results when the prejudice is taken too far and the other race is negatively affected, as has been the case in Skin. Sandra has had to experience social distancing due to her skin color. She had white parents and siblings; however, her own skin color was black because of which she faced a lot of discrimination from the society. The very first time she experienced such discrimination was at her school. The children around her bullied her, the teachers punished her for no reason, and the parents of the children complained against her. They did not want her around them as, according to them, she was inferior to them due to her skin color. Such a concept of oneself being superior to the other race is also common and was a wide practice throughout the film. Although Sandra had been able to get back to the same school after her father fought against the law, she was not able to get the same respect and dignity as others of equal standing, for example, her own white brother. Every white person preferred to be at a distance from her; they did not make friends with her nor did they like to talk, play or share stories or things with her. All this was a result of social distancing. They “distanced” themselves from her due to her mix race and skin color. This was plain discrimination indeed, but no one stood for her and she had to struggle to make her place in society. Read More