Thursday, September 16, 2010

Person or Situation?

I did not know this documentary was available online. It is a Brazilian movie released in 2002, which was met with universal critical acclaim. It was voted as one of the ten best films of the year by The New York Times. And it won over 23 prizes worldwide, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural & Artistic Programming and the Amnesty Award in the Netherlands.
We do not have time to watch it in class. But I strongly recommend that you watch it here. To think about the power of the situation and how societies provide opportunities for the proliferation of certain situations (but not others). I look forward to your comments!

1 comment:

  1. Sandros' life and situation created the bad man he became. The opportunities offered to him only lead him down a path of despair and regret. The movie was like a lifelong Stanford prison experiment but real.
    When the police returned to the church and killed the children I was shocked. It is unfortunate that there were so many homeless children however what happened to personal responsibility and their parents. In this case his mother was murdered which is even more unfortunate because he probably wouldn't be in that bus if his mother was still around. Creating a life should be just as serious and taking a life. Social services didn't help either. There really isn't much you can do about overpopulation and government corruption. Those who generally care don have the power to change things and those who have power and wealth don't want change because change would strip them of their nice things.
    I don't understand why the police waited so long to do anything. The answer was clear the first second I saw the bus had a window. The man is endangering many people and removing him would save the people in the bus and other people from being late. I'm sure having that street blockaded inconvinced many people. From the utilitarian approach one sniper should have arrived on scene and killed the hijacker saving tax dollars and peoples time and lives. Immediately killing Sandros in this situation would of also deterred future hijackers and lower the overall rate of hijacking. The fact that he was a drug user also kind of makes him a drain on society but that was caused by his unfortunate upbringing. I'm also surprised at how lax the police handled the situation. I was very surprised that when the Sandros stuck his head out the window he was not killed and the conflict ended right then. Sandros only had 6 bullets and a small gun. The police acted disgustingly unprofessional. I also believe that the trained officer had mistaken his gun for a knife since he got in the hijackers face before shooting not only did he miss Sandros but he shot the hostage. The one part I do like is the crowds anger towards the hijacker and if I were the authority in charge I would of left him to the crowd and saved more tax dollars.

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