Sociology Midterm - Video Analysis

1. Summary: The film I chose for this analysis is The Long Walk Home, directed by Richard Pearce. This film is about Odessa, an African-American maid in the Thompson family’s household in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1950s. On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks ‘refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled.’ Ms. Parks was arrested and there followed the Montgomery Bus Boycott when the entire African-American population refused to ride any of the city buses. Odessa supports the bus boycott and starts walking to work. Miriam Thompson finds herself in the midst of the civil rights revolution when she helps Odessa by picking her up and driving her to work at her home two days per week. When Mr. Thompson stays home sick one day, he finds out about Miriam driving Odessa to work and makes Miriam call Odessa to tell her she will not be picking her up. While Miriam complies the first day, that evening she tells Mr. Thompson she will be running the household as she see fit which includes picking up Odessa. The following day, in addition to picking Odessa up, Miriam signs up to become a driver in the organized carpool system during the boycott. The movie comes to an end with a group of white men mobbing the carpool lot. Although frightened, Odessa, Miriam and the other African-American women there stand up to the men in a peaceful protest by holding hands and singing.
2. Relevant Concepts and/or Theories: The Functionalist Perspective theory is represented in The Long Walk Home. A functionalist perspective is the sociological approach that views society as a stable, orderly system. In this film, the whites are perfectly content with society the way it is and feel it is right and the way it should be. They encourage the segregation of the whites from the African-Americans, and want the African-Americans to ‘know their place’ and stay in it to maintain these societal roles. The African-Americans, in contrast, want an end to segregation on the buses, in hospitals, schools and society as a whole. There is also symbolic interactionist perspective seen in this film. The mob scene at the end with the white men intimidating and scaring the carpool group shows directly the prejudice of the whites toward African-Americans. Last, the conflict perspective is also represented in The Long Walk Home. This perspective views groups in society as engaged in a continuous power struggle for control of scarce resources. This is represented in one scene of the movie where the Thompson’s are having Christmas dinner with their extended family. They sit around the table discussing the ‘coloreds’ moving in to ‘their’ neighborhood; how no one will be safe and the days of not locking your door would be over.
3. Application of Relevant Concepts and/or Theories: Stereotyping, discrimination and racism are all present in The Long Walk Home. At Christmas dinner, which was cooked by Odessa, one of Mr. Thompson’s aunts stereotype the African-American maids by saying how ‘lazy the coloreds are.’ She commented they would only do what was necessary and would go no further. In the next scene we see Odessa walking miles home all the way across town. In this movie, the subordinate group are the whites and the subordinate group are the African-Americans. You are continually reminded of the class or group separation by seeing the poverty of the African-American area of town versus the high-end white neighborhoods and the segregation shown on the buses. In another event, some racist white boys attack and hit Odessa’s daughter and son for having darker skin and being ‘idiot coons.’ This is one of many examples of racism being a factor. The ultimate clash of the subordinate (whites) and insubordinate (African-Americans) groups comes at end of the film with the mob seen at the carpool lot. This shows racism, discrimination and stereotyping all in one. It is amazing to me to see both how far and how little we have come as a society.

Works Cited 1. “Rosa Parks.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 24 February 2015. Web. 08 March 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks. 2. Kendall, Diana. Sociology in Our Times. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print. 3. The Long Walk Home. Dir. Pearce, Richard. RBA, 1990. DVD.