Allyza Mae Columna
Professor Prado-Robledo
Sociology 101
8 July 2018
Media Analysis Paper
The First Purge by Gerard McMurray introduces a new idea where society violently works out its issues. The movie portrays the experimental purge set in Staten Island, New York in the year 2021. The new totalitarian government named the New Founding Fathers of America explains that the purpose of the purge is to push crime rate below 1% and restore the American economy. On the day of the purge, all crime in America, including murder, is legal for 12 hours. The movie discusses many sociological issues such as overpopulation, poverty, racism, and drugs.
One of the sociological issues shown in the film is overpopulation. At the beginning of the movie, the government explains that purging will be great for America because it will allow people to express their feelings, including hatred and violence they often keep within themselves. However, as the movie progresses, the leaders reveal that one of the true purposes of The Purge is to help reduce overpopulation and overcrowding in the United States. In addition, the government pays people to participate in the purge and kill as many people as they can. The movie discusses that killing people will not only help with overpopulation but will also lower unemployment and poverty rate. This reasoning can be connected to the Malthusian Theorem, the theory that the population would expand faster than agriculture and will eventually outnumber available resources such as land and food. Towards the end of the movie, they announced that the purge had many advantages such as more resources, more jobs, and a better economy rate.
Social Stratification, the division of society into different groups arranged by social class, was also portrayed in the movie. To illustrate, most of the characters who died during the purge are African-American while the purgers were mostly white men. The government tried to exterminate people of color first because they were in the lower class. In addition, the movie also showed men wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods to portray decades of racist violence in American history. The movie was trying to convey the theme of white violence against black communities. The movie demonstrated social stratification by showing classification of people based on their race and social class.
The movie had amazing casting and all the characters were very realistic. The main character of the movie was a young African-American drug dealer named Dmitri who decided to sell drugs to get out of poverty. The message the movie wanted to convey was some people choose to do illegal activities because of money. On the other hand, Dmitri was far from the typical media portrayal of a drug dealer who only cares about drugs and money. Because of Dmitri’s business, he had many guns hidden and he supplied many people in his community weapons to help defend themselves and stop the purgers from killing people of people. Ironically, the drug dealer became the savior of the night who protected his people.
Social change is promoted in the movie The First Purge by encouraging communities to always work with each other rather than fighting each other. At the end of the movie, the community reconnected with each other and promised to always defend their neighborhood. It shows that the best way to contribute to social change is by the collective action of many people. To change a culture that has been happening for a long time, people need to work together toward the same goal.
This class enabled me to see the movie with the sociological lens. It impacted my life by allowing me to think about how much violence is being used in the Philippines today. For example, the Philippines is currently on a drug war and President Rodrigo Duterte orders death penalty to all drug dealers. In addition, Some of the sociological concepts portrayed in the movie such as social class, inequality, and racism are present in today’s society. Although the purge will probably not happen in real life, I think the movie is interesting because it shows a different approach and solution to many problems our society is facing in real life.