Hotel Rwanda vs. Erin Brockovich
Two Different Ways to Murder Thousands of People
Hotel Rwanda and Erin Brockovich are two provocative films that take a look at separate deviant acts but still present similar dangerous social problems. The conflicts that are portrayed are different in the means of operation but both share a similar end with the endangerment of thousands of people. We will examine how these deviant decisions affect both their societies and the reasons behind these atrocious acts.
Hotel Rwanda is a very graphic film filled with a tremendous amount of deviance and social problems. The Hutu tribe feels that the Tutsi should not be in power and the Hutu extremists try to overtake their position. The social problem is they want control over their part of Africa but do not have the proper means to go about it in a civilized manner. Without a proper education, a legitimate democracy, adequate money for food, water and shelter, the Hutu feel that they must gain power in order to better their lives. The only way they can do this is to commit a mass genocide against the Tutsi tribes. This event can be seen as a result of Robert Merton’s Anomie theory, or sometimes called strain theory. Merton’s theory “holds that crime increases – as do other forms of deviance – when the social structure prevents people from achieving culturally defined goals (e.g. Hutu bettering their lives) through legitimate means (e.g. an election). This gap between goals and means is called structural inequality or anomie”. (Tepperman 2010) The persisting structural gap that the Hutu were experiencing was stopping them from rising to prominent political positions within Africa and left their people feeling angry, worthless and forgotten about. Unfortunately, they turned to the ultimate form of deviance and began heartlessly murdering all the Tutsi people they came across. Quickly developing a mob mentality increasingly becoming more and more violent in large groups.
The Hutu began to show displeasure
Hotel Rwanda and Erin Brockovich are two provocative films that take a look at separate deviant acts but still present similar dangerous social problems. The conflicts that are portrayed are different in the means of operation but both share a similar end with the endangerment of thousands of people. We will examine how these deviant decisions affect both their societies and the reasons behind these atrocious acts.
Hotel Rwanda is a very graphic film filled with a tremendous amount of deviance and social problems. The Hutu tribe feels that the Tutsi should not be in power and the Hutu extremists try to overtake their position. The social problem is they want control over their part of Africa but do not have the proper means to go about it in a civilized manner. Without a proper education, a legitimate democracy, adequate money for food, water and shelter, the Hutu feel that they must gain power in order to better their lives. The only way they can do this is to commit a mass genocide against the Tutsi tribes. This event can be seen as a result of Robert Merton’s Anomie theory, or sometimes called strain theory. Merton’s theory “holds that crime increases – as do other forms of deviance – when the social structure prevents people from achieving culturally defined goals (e.g. Hutu bettering their lives) through legitimate means (e.g. an election). This gap between goals and means is called structural inequality or anomie”. (Tepperman 2010) The persisting structural gap that the Hutu were experiencing was stopping them from rising to prominent political positions within Africa and left their people feeling angry, worthless and forgotten about. Unfortunately, they turned to the ultimate form of deviance and began heartlessly murdering all the Tutsi people they came across. Quickly developing a mob mentality increasingly becoming more and more violent in large groups.
The Hutu began to show displeasure
Cited: Tepperman, Lorne. Deviance, Crime, and Control: Beyond the Straight and Narrow. 2nd ed. Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.