Swing Kids (1993) Movie Review

History 18 – A: Western History

Two Sides of a Coin

In 1971, a team of researchers from Stanford University conducted an experiment that aimed to study the psychological effects of giving societal roles to perfectly healthy (mentally and physically speaking) men. The results of the experiment were very shocking as those who were given superior roles started to demoralize, dehumanize and beat those who were given prisoner roles. Instead of the planned 14-day execution, the experiment was quickly shut down due to participants becoming more absorptive and ‘prisoners’ starting to show signs of mental and physical sickness. Experiments like those make one realize that being given a role of superiority affects the way we human beings think. More often than not, the role itself grows on us until we reach a point when we actually start to think and believe that we are indeed “more superior than the others”.

Roles really play a big part in our lives. Put races, racial discriminations and other sort of classifications this world has in the picture makes Earth even more chaotic than it already is. We see countries, ethnicities and the like fighting each other as if we do not breathe the same air, are composed of the same chemical elements, and live in the same planet, all because of racial supremacy.

There are many events in history that have proven this to be true. How we are classified since birth by the society and the situations we are in have the ability to influence how we shape or re-shape ourselves and how we decide what to do or not do.

Let’s not deny the fact that each and every one of us was given a ‘classification’ since birth, which practically dictated our role or where we stand in the society. I myself won’t deny that I was raised in a family that has a ‘special dislike’ towards those who are slightly ‘different’ from us, and I am almost certain that most families have that sort of mentality too. Whether we admit it or not, at some point in our lives,...