Lorenzo Colbert Jr. Essays (519 words) - Films, Tsotsi,

Lorenzo Colbert Jr. 10-11-16 AFST 236 Reflection Paper Tsotsi The movie is basically all about one person, Tsotsi , but still finds a way to show a full picture of the state of South Africa today. T he c haracters of the movie includes only one white person in the movie, the detective who works for the rich black family in order to find their child, then there is the o ne rich black family and a bunch o f poor black people. It even has hundreds o f background characte rs without a story at all but I believe they still count . Boston is the only person in Tsotsi's gang sh own to have even some type of education, unfortunately he is too poor to continue his education in college, this gives us a clue as to what the economy of an average person in South Africa is like. But at the same time the rich family is black, which shows us that apartheid is a thing of the past, black people are no long er necessarily poor . F ew individuals can rise to the top now, but the general population is still poor. T he key points of the movie are most likely revolving around the oppositions of rich and poor, black and white and good versus evil. Something you see in almost every movie yet this plot still seemed to surprise me. There is a clash between the rich and the poor as Tsotsi and his social circle has to struggle for survival while it is shown in the movie that the rich black people are almost overflowing with a surplus of food and generally material goods. Meanwhile it may not be obvious at first, but there is a fight between the social standing of black p eople and white people, it may not be a direct fight, but during the conversations between the detective and the rich people you can see the father display a superior authority, this is mainly because he is the employer of the detective of course, but still relevant to see. These small exchanges of authority displays the dir ection in which South Africa is headed, but the overwhelming amount of po or and lack of care for the man murdered in the train shows that there is a long road ahead of the country, really contrasting their cruel daily lives to the stable and safe lives we live in Europe. By the character development that Tsotsi receives during the movie, it is shown that although he is initially cruel and heartless, it is not because he is truly a bad person, but rather because of the conditions he had as a child. This shows a firm belief that there is good things even in the darkest of times it just needs a chance to shine, so although South Africa is a poor country and hideous things happen on a daily basis, this is not because the people of the country are inherently evil, but rather because of their conditions, with the right push it will become better.