Recent films in the James Bond series and the Hunger Games series have taken entertaining and sentimental versions of stories about violence in the struggle between the established state and rebels against the state. The craft of the moviemaker lends heroic stature to one side in this fight, thus justifying the use of violence. In these movies,…

Courtship is a fertile setting for culturally defined strategies. A common form of competition is criticizing the other group for being inadequate mates. Stories about romance between human beings and non-human participants allow such criticism. Movies about men finding mechanical partners are common. Non-human females are seen as more…

Minority groups are often justified in being watchful for the difficulties that negative reputations can bring on them. The necessity for discovery and discussion of serious issues within a minority community is real, but the resistance to such a candid approach is founded in their position of vulnerability and the power of old stereotypes. Two…

Criticizes the movie "Schindler's List" as portraying the Holocaust in a profane manner. The author suggests Schindler is a bad choice as a protagonist because his story distracts the audience from the real victims. He views the choice of a non-Jew in a heroic portrayal of this type as one culture's way of popularizing another culture's…

A new movie version of Shakespeare's classic troubling comedy, "The Merchant of Venice" (Brokaw, Cowan, Navidi, Piette, & Radford, 2004), has appeared, bringing up an ancient issue of the possible bigotry of the greatest writer in the English language. Shakespeare's plays about minority characters in the Venetian Republic have caused more and more…

Two contemporary films, "Braveheart" and "Rob Roy," depict Scottish ethnicity from a rather narrow perspective. The positions that are sentimentally admired when attributed to white natives of Scotland are horrifying when expressed by contemporary peoples of color. These films raise interesting questions about the true nature…

Reviews three contemporary movies, "Sleepers,""Girls Town," and "Slingblade" in which the common thread is abuse of helpless children by patriarchal authorities, adult white men who assert power over young people. In all three movies, the anger of the young people and their friends suggests respect for the…