Movie Review
This is an excerpt from the paper...
John Sayles’ Lone Star is as much sociology as it is cinema. The film portrays the lives of many individuals across three generations living in a Spanish border town called Frontera, itself Spanish for border. The film opens with the discovery of the skeletal remains of what is presumed to be the former hard-nosed corrupt Sheriff of Frontera, Charley Wade. Charley used to instill social structure and order on the people of Frontera with the barrel of a gun and an open pocket. The discovery of the remains is significant because it occurs on the eve of the dedication of a monument to the Sheriff who took over after Wade’s death, Buddy Deeds, the father of the present Sheriff, Sam Deeds. Rumor runs rampant in Frontera, and Sam is worried that his father may have been responsible for Charley’s murder. His determination to resolve the situation sets the film in motion, but before it is resolved we will come to understand the lives of many people in the town. Frontera’s social structure and social environment is controlled by the 10% of the town’s population that is white. The other inhabitants of the town are minorities, and their status and role is perceived as less than that of the whites in charge. This multi-ethnic mix creates a lack of social integration among the members of the town. Stereotypes against blacks and Mexicans abound, and the social setting is segregated. Blacks have their own pub and seldom are whites and minorities se
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ther. Mercedes is a respected business woman in the community despite her being Mexican. Unlike the negative portrayal of Mexicans who sneak across the border, she is considered a “good” Mexican even though we find out she came to America in the same way. Mercedes’ money and prestige make her “Spanish” not Mexican. Her daughter Pilar wishes to date Sam, but her mother is opposed to the match. At one point Pilar says to Sam, “All my mother does is work. That’s how you get to be Spanish.” However, showing how racism and prejudice know no ethnic boundaries, Mercedes is one of the most overt racist guilty of stereotyping in the film. She routinely calls the border patrol to report illegal immigrants and she often chastises Mexicans who refuse to assimilate into white culture.
The point of Mercedes’ character is to show us how people are typically not all good or all bad, but a mixture of the two and that ethnicity has little to do with which quality they exhibit a majority of the time. This is pointed out through another estranged relationship in the film, that of Otis Payne and his son, Del, a military officer. Del is prejudiced against his father because he feels he was not a good father to him when he was growing up.,
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Otis Payne, Pilar Cruz, Frontera Sam, Thats Spanish, Eliado Frontera, Star Sam, Otis Paynes, Lone Star, Im Apparently, Wade Charley, power elite, lone star, social structure, white power elite, blacks mexicans, spanish border, people frontera, refuses accept, otis paynes, racism prejudice, sam mother,
Approximate Word count = 1375
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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