The film I am doing my term paper on is on the film “Colors”. It is about an experienced cop (Officer Hodges) and his rookie partner (Officer Mcgavin) patrol the streets of East Los Angeles while trying to keep the gang violence under control. There are so many gangs, so well-entrenched, the police are all but helpless to bring about any fundamental change in the situation. While watching this movie, it was easy to make connections with readings and lectures from class. The movie is filled with race and law in the late 1980s of Los Angeles and so many scenes stick out throughout. The story of the two cops, on the other hand, is not exactly new. Hodges who has a realistic assessment of the situation and knows that he sometimes has to bend the …show more content…
There were lots of aerial camera shots showing the gang neighborhoods on the outskirts of L.A., as though banished from mainstream society, a subtle depiction of the social dynamic of why outsiders join gangs in the first place because of their neighborhoods” (Jared). He states that neighborhoods who tend to be run downed have racial tensions and have higher crime rates. Colors shows how many races fight one another and how racism is around us and the problems that are faced are only getting …show more content…
In the meeting it starts off with a police captain says “our kids are dying because of colors, our kids are dying over red and blue”. Then Vietnam vet says “The police ain't never gonna get anywhere, man. Shaking people down, shining the lights in our eyes, treating all of us like criminals, because of where we live. And right in front of our kids”. As soon as he says that the gang mentor says “the dope dealer has the Mercedes Benz instant money and women…it’s the values they respect it’s the parents duty to educate them guide them and society’s to give them jobs”. I completely agree with this scene but it was ironic because in our society it hard to get jobs with a criminal record and the influences in a neighborhood can have an effect on the kids. As Colors becomes a film with a diverse sense of gangs in LA it stands out as an eye opener even if it came out 30 years