"White Man's Burden"

As a person who knew nothing about White Man's Burden before watching it today in class, I assumed it would be in some way about student welfare.  Obviously it wasn't.  Then I was confused about why the racial stereotypes were switched and, I confess, I did not realize they had done it on purpose to make a statement until we discussed it.  An embarrassing fact, but true nonetheless.

Ever since AP Psych my junior year in high school, I've been working very hard on the "Fundamental Attribution Error" and I think it has changed the way I sympathize with people.  For those who don't know, the Fundamental Attribution Error is a psychological theory which states that people overestimate the effect of a person's disposition in their behavior and overlook the situational factors.  An example of this would be someone cutting in front of you in traffic.  You automatically assume that that person is a total [insert word here] when in fact they might be rushing to the hospital to see their significant other that just returned from the army with a debilitating injury.

Anyways, I try to combat the Fundamental Attribution Error by creating vivid descriptions of the situations people are in when I really want to hate them for being [insert word here]s.  I think this may have skewed my view of the characters in White Man's Burden.  I felt sympathy for John Travolta's character throughout the movie.  I had some problems with his kidnapping the president of the company, but then I realized he probably was having a mental breakdown being away from his family and was so frustrated by his life situation that he couldn't think clearly.  We shouldn't look down on people who make bad life choices, we should help them find a way out.

Ok, let's get legit people, I felt sympathy for every single character in the movie.  Maybe that's why I cry all the time, because I have too much sympathy and I read too far into things.

John Travolta's wife:  I felt bad for her because John Travolta wouldn't let her work when she wanted to.  However, he said something in the movie about "how are you doing" which I read into to mean that she had had some kind of health (maybe mental health) issue that could have been brought on from too much stress and he was just trying to keep her healthy.

John Travolta's wife's mother:  Even though she acts awfully towards John Travolta, it is possible that she was just really pissed about her daughter having married him in the first place and now that she had to come rescue her daughter she still couldn't believe that he was around and such a schmuck for getting them into that situation.

Lionel (the manager at the factory):  Lionel was just trying to keep up his reputation with the president.  He had to let John Travolta go even though he respected his work and might have promoted him to foreman.  It's possible that he misunderstood what the president was saying about the delivery boy, and thought he was required to fire him in order to follow instructions.

The president:  He used nice words about the delivery boy even though he was rather vague about what steps the manager should take.  His wife was also a bit touchy about showing up for the modelling thing and I felt kind of bad for him.  Oh and also he got kidnapped.

The skinhead (?) that got shot:  He was probably peer pressured by his situation to join a gang and his friends helped him develop life skills so as not to just die from a lack of love.

The old man who shot him:  His restaurant used to be a profitable business, but because the gangs came there all the time he no longer made money and was tired of them attacking people.  A momentary judgement had a lasting effect.

The moral of the story is that I try to see every point of view everywhere, and that's why I was at 92% on the opinion scale on that sheet about our personalities that we got back the other day.  I disliked the movie in general because it made me sad and uncomfortable inside.  However, I feel that way about anything that has any form of "literary merit" which is why I hated AP English.  Aight.