Les Misérables Blog Post

Prior to starting the film, as a class it was beneficial to grasp an understanding of how we define communication ethics. To begin we first identified communication as, “the process of giving information and someone receiving and understanding it, from interrlogue that shares information of meaning and expression of one thought from another.” Secondly, we defined ethics as; “the systematic process setting/ individualized; a set of social or cultural standards of how to treat others; morality with loopholes. Combining the two, communication ethics is the ability to understand other individuals by holding, sharing, understanding moral values, standards, and contexts that have influenced who we are and how our moral standards are created.” During several scenes of the beginning of Les Misérables, several areas of communication ethics were found.

To begin, the first scene of the movie demonstrated a significant power difference between the slaves and the rulers. For example, the slaves were clothed in ratted cloths, pulling a large heavy rope through muddied waters, while simultaneously being yelled at by those in higher power. This short clip demonstrated a large difference of cultural standards in relation to morality and communication. A large disconnect of the meaning of the message from the receiver to the sender was evident throughout this scene. Additionally, the upper authority fails to address the slaves by name exposing cultural and class tension. This scene in particular gave an accurate representation of how a set of social or cultural standards of how to treat others is based on one's upbringing and societal norm. Further into the film, Fantine (Anne Hathaway) displays a significant struggle of the gender dynamics between the her factory boss and herself. To illustrate, while Fantine was working in the factory, she mentioned to the boss she needed money for her child, her boss was stunned that she had the audacity to request such a favor. The dominance over Fantine, and the other women in the factory, displayed a harsh reality of the struggle women experienced during this time period. During the first few scenes of the movie, it is evident of how vastly different communication ethics during this time period was in comparison to today.