Metropolis
Metropolis is a film that depicts the future of Germany throughout the clear division of social classes. As a psychology major, I watched this film with the mindset of attempting to analyze the character development between all of the main characters. For instance, Maria is the protagonist, Freder is the mediator, and, of course, Joh Fredersen is the antagonist who leads the upper class. Joh Fredersen, father of Freder, is a power hungry villain who views the working, lower class as expendable. He overworks these people and gives them numbers instead of names to symbolize their insignificance within society. For the majority of the movie, Fredersen does not care what happens to the lower class. However, toward the end of the movie, Fredersen's character develops. At 2:07:24, a scene with Joh Fredersen begins and he begs to know where his son is. The "Skinny Man" he is speaking to responds by saying "Tomorrow, thousands will ask in fury and desperation: Joh Fredersen, where is my son ---!". This scene is when Joh Fredersen finally understands the wrong he is doing. He feels what it is like to not know whether is son is in danger or not, just like he has left thousands of parents believing their children died in the flood he caused. This event allows Fredersen to see that the lower class are not just people devoid of value and worth. Now, since he can understand what the lower class adults are enduring, he is willing to listen to the mediator and shake the hand of a lower class man, signifying equality.
Despite how cruel and evil Joh Fredersen's motives and actions were throughout the movie, his want to protect his son, Freder, helps humanize him with not only the lower class, but also with the viewers of this film. I think adding this character development helps to reinforce the idea that it is hard to understand what someone is going through until that person goes through it themself. Oftentimes, like Fredersen did with the lower class, people judge others because of materialistic and superficial qualities instead of their personality and values. Because the lower class were poor and Fredersen was not, he did not view them as his equals and thought he was better than them. In today's society, there are still people who believe race, religion, gender, class, physical appearance, etc. are things to judge someone on when that is not true. As soon as Fredersen was put in the same position he put others in, he understood how those parents must have felt and was able to, in a way, connect with them and change his mindset.
This is so cool how you focussed on Joh Fredersen's character development! I honestly didn't even pay any attention to that so it's super cool hearing your insight, especially being a psychology major. I also focussed on how the movie focused on the loss of humanity and finding the sources of our humanity that we cling to. The only thing that maintained Joh Fredersen's humanity was his love for his son, which ultimately motivated him to strive for equality.
ReplyDeleteI think it is really interesting how we both picked on the character development of Joh Federson. Nursing and psychology majors do overlap to some extent and this is just proof of that! Joh putting himself in the shoes of other people thankfully worked in this situation as his mind was open to accepting and understanding how those people lived. However, in this day and age there are some ignorant people who are desensitized to people living in lower classes and refuse to put themselves in other people's shoes because they believe fully their actions are what got them to where they are today. It is really still a topic for debate whether people in lower class are there soley because of their actions or because if there is a predisposed advantage upper class may have at birth.
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