Based on a novel, The hate u give is a film featuring two African american teenagers from a predominately black neighbourhood in Garden Heights but attend a predominately white private school. The film shows the way society uses stereotypes of black people to justify violence and racism against them. One night the two teenagers, Starr and Khalil are driving back from a party when they get stopped by white police who order Khalil to get out the car, he follows the orders eventually, soon after he reaches back into the car to get a hairbrush but the officers mistake it for a gun and shoot Khalil to death. There is a stereotype that black men are more dangerous or threatening and the police killing Khalil reinforces what some people think even though he was innocent. The old stereotype as well that black people are inferior to white people is reinforced when the jury do not charge the officer, this ends up in protests around the neighbourhood as the people are so angry as the white police officer gets away with the murder! The police come in riot gear to stop these protests again showing the threatening stereotype people have of black people. This causes tension between Starr and her white friends too and she sees some racist behaviour from them saying she's different and they don't see her as a bad person demonstrating stereotypes are learnt and can be passed on through generations. At the funeral, Starr's mum says something really important and that Khalil's murder is the 'same story just a different name' showing how it isn't unusual to hear stories like this and it has happened a lot so it's important that this was released to make a white audience realise how they do have privilege and these stereotypes are not accurate and can be unlearnt. At the end of the film we see Starr stand up for what is important to her and fights to keep Khalil's memory alive.
12 years a slave is a film that is based on a real life story, in the film Soloman Northup a free African american man from new york is kidnapped in Washington in 1841 by two white conmen who offers him a job opportunity as a musician. The stereotype that black people don't get as many opportunities is reinforced in this as even though he has to move away from his family for this job he is willing to do it to follow his dreams. However, this was just a trick and Soloman ends up getting sold into slavery. Northup was put to work on plantations in Louisiana for 12 years before being released. The film explores the injustices black people faced in slavery and how inhumane they were treated and how they were degraded, luckily this isn't the case now but it's important this film had this representation so people could learn about the history of slavery and acknowledge everything that happened. Slavery created the stereotype that made many white people think black people were inferior and they were superior to them which is still portrayed in certain movies today like the example above. It does somewhat start to show some supportive movements of anti-slavery from the north which represented that people knew this was wrong and tried to change the conditions. There was one guy called Samuel Bass who was white and talked to one of the slave owners (who was also white) about the horrific working conditions. The fact he was white once again reinforces the stereotype that black people are inferior and that many white people thought they shouldn't be allowed to have a say in things.
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