Synopsis In the movie Selma directed by (name), tells the story about Martin Luther King Jr and the journey from conflicts of interest to boycotts leading to the violent walk to Montgomery. Risking lives and freedom just for the ability for people of color to vote. Keep in mind that voting for everyone is the constitution but down south their deliberately breaking the law because of the disapproval or someone’s skin color.
Going through so much pain just to get the presidents attention to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which would be one of the most significant victories for the civil rights movement that forever would alter history a slow change but a change for sure. Throughout the movie you see a lot of Marx’s theory from estranged labor to structure of class. Introduction Karl Marx has formed many theories but the ones that relate to Selma is class theory.
Class theory gives an individual’s position within a class hierarchy is determined by his or her role in what they produce to society and claim that political and ideological consciousness is determined by class position. In many scenes of the movie you can see the separation in class due to people down south not liking people of color. In the Selma, the white people, feel entitled and think that because they make more money because of the laws are structured they’re in a higher class. In one particular scene, Martin meets with the president and talks about the list of his demands to better the life of colored person.
The president gets irate and disagrees to any of Martins demands; however a few moments the president’s advisor attempts to make a plan to silence Martin but the president declines. In another scene the Governor of Alabama halts the march through Selma that ended up causing a massive scene from police brutality for the world to see. When questioned on what happened his response was that’s how things work down here and that’s how my people like. Knowing the law and the constitution he tried his hardest to keep blacks from voting just because felt as if the whites are superior to those of color and are in a higher class.
When Karl Marx made up this theory I don’t think he thought that people would use his thoughts in a negative way or any of theories for that instance. Throughout the beginning of time there has be two groups the oppressed and oppressors and there never seems to be a change in how that plays out. As the big get bigger the smaller remain the same. In the movie Selma the environment is during a critical moment in time the Civil Rights Movement where black people are just trying to be seen as humans and being able to vote.
Through many laws that were placed people of color weren’t able to do anything without the possibility of death being the consequence. Thus evidently alienating us from doing what everyone else can do. Alienating someone from doing the same abilities you can do because of their race is a part of Marxs theory. From the four pinpoints of Marxs estranged labor there is one that connects to Selma to the T, “Similarly, in degrading spontaneous activity, free activity, to a means, estranged labour makes man’s species life a means to his physical existence.
An immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged from the product of his labour, from his lifeactivity, from his species being is the estrangement of man from man. If a man is confronted by himself, he is confronted by the other man. ” (Tucker 1978:77) The existence as a person of color working everyday to live right and is alienated due to his color being confronted by a man fuelled with hate isn’t the right way of life. We the people working everyday contributing our labor to public and private means to make the world a better place nd at every chance what you’re working for is being taken away.
To think if Marx was alive now and see how the world turned out I don’t think this was the vision he had implemented with his word. The words he said aren’t being followed to benefit any one but top crowd of the world. Essentially the world is looked at as two class those who are property owners and those who are property-less workers. (Tucker, 70) With that being said | don’t think he thought that people would categorize that and put you in a class you can’t get out of due to economical positions or using the law against you.
If I were Marx at this moment I would have thought my class structure has failed. I would have thought because of how class has ruined people lives now being able to let people jump from class to class. The movie depicts the class struggle and what is wrong with it. The aspects that have failed was the opportunity to rise in classes. That also lies on the government and its intervention to ensure that. Also I would think that my words weren’t listened too.
Marx stated “Do not let us go back to a fictitious primordial condition as the political economist does, He assumes in the form of fact, of an event, what he is supposed to deducenamely, the necessary relationship between two thingsbetween, for example, division of labour and exchange. Theology in the same way explains the origin of evil by the fall of man. ” (Tucker, 71) This wasn’t followed in the movie because they wanted to continue living in the same oppressed state instead of progressing.
Those troubled times everyone went through during Selma is still currently still happening till this day with class structure and alienation due to race or sexuality. Selma has Marx theories in aspects of estranged labor to alienating a worker who would people of color from a labor; a labor that is their god given right and in the constitution to vote therefore the worker is satisfied. In the movie they’re fighting to get their right to vote a right and disseminate the racial tension as well. To further elaborate in Selma the main issue that plagues the world know is racial inequality due to their ethnicity and culture.
The drive to stop one race from succeeding or climbing the ladder joining prestige classes complicates Marxs theory. In Selma there was a scene where the cops were chasing a family into a store beat them, degraded them, and murdered the son all because of their participation to vote. A thing they the people have to work for it’s their estranged labor. It complicates Marx theory because of the estrangement. One race having intolerable power against people of color so they cannot achieve a revolution is the reason it doesn’t render with the great mass of humanity (Tucker 1978).
Not being able to do something with political power in your territory always trying to hold you back from peaking over. Physically assaulting and mental haunting the minority group and treat them less in equal how is one supposed to grow. At every chance to superiority you do all that you can in attempts of achieve such glory to be on the same pedestal. That is just one of many ways that it complicates Marx Theory with all that I mentioned about the race and ethnicity and the problems that is within each of those categories.
The way people are treated and plotted against those actions stop us from being a better workers in in society. In my opinion I would try to change that outcomes of what occurs. I would be able to have the ability to eliminate class hierarchies and create and equal platform. The outcome of the world could have been different if some of what Marx said we follow as a guide through life. We could have possibility achieved an increase in the quality of life throughout the universe. In Selma there are many scenes that don’t fit any of Marx theory. No way for an uprising in people of color.
Dr. Martin Luther King was assembling powerful up rise in a non-violent manner. Proving that man with color can rise and change the world. That is what Selma is about in its entirety but it represents the will to push. The worker doing its best even when being alienated provokes Marx theory. All in All Marx’s theories are always against the fence when it comes to this movie or even to use in real world time. To conclude, the movie Selma about the racial tension in the south and how they treat people of color when only trying to vote isn’t what Marx Wanted.
Through demonstration many scenes in this movie proves the theory of class to be deem inadequate due to the fact that theirs no way out when faced with oppression. Another thing this movie connects with Marxs theory is estranged labor through alienation of the workers, the workers would be people of color and what they are working for is the right to vote. That alone shows you how flawed out Marxs theories are. I say that only because this is based on a real life event that still pesters the world today.
