While watching the movie, Les Miserables, I found out few unfair or unethical contexts of communication among the characters. First, there was a strict hierarichy among poeple based on their status and this was shown well between Jean Valjean, a prisoner who was prisoned for ninteen years, and Javert, one of the high-ranked inspector. The communication between them was never interactive, but Javert unilaterally commanded and yelled at Valjean. Javert treated him as a slave and completely ignored his identity by calling him 24601. Furthermore, Jean Valjean always carried a yellow ticket-of-leave, which represented his status of a thief, and this got him trouble having a normal communication with other ordinary people. For example, people in many work places never listened and ignored Valjean and kicked him out of their places only because he had a record of thief. In other words, Valjean never had a chance to express his situation and feelings to anybody at that time.
The second thing that I witnessed in the movie was unethical situation of communication that women were in at that time. Women are the typical examples of low classes in the era and Fantine was one of the main characters that showed this well. She was working at the factory but, soon, kicked out without no money because the other co-worker women accused of Fantine's illegitimate child. She was desperate and eventually went to become a prostitute, being sexually attacked by men. In the scene where she sang and cried after one of her customers left, I could see how miserable and impossible the situation is for women to express their feelings and communicate with somebody else. For them, crying alone is the only way to be true themselves and this hierarchical social structure made the unfair communication setting.
Excellent examples of the communication hierarchy. It was sad to see so much pain in so many characters. When Javert admits he was born in a prison you almost feel bad for him that he is so angry at the world, it answers some questions but also makes you wonder if has experience why is he now so cruel?
ReplyDeleteSadly women today and prisoners today are still treated poorly in some cases. There is a quote that says something like "Everything changes, yet nothing ever changes."
Yes, people in low hierarchy had a hard time to deal with their hidden emotion, so Fantine couldn't other way to express her emotion other than crying alone. Her coworker did not like her and she had no place and nobody to talk about her hardship. If she could have had ethical communication with someone else, her situation had been better. Also, the sad truth is that since she was a prostitute, the police did not listen to her. It was too sad to see her death before her daughter grew up.
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