Our Common Nature #6 : As seen in the movie... #3

Our Common Nature #6

Hi everybody, Mary here.

So, here is the third movie we'll be analysing in this Our Common Nature series, an American movie made in 2010 by Paul Scheuring, featuring Adrian Brody and Forest Whitaker. Without further ado, let's get started, shall we ?

As seen in the movie... The Experiment

If you thought that power couldn't corrupt a man and create horrible things, then you should definitely watch is movie.

This movie is based on the Stanford Prison Experiment that was made by Philip Zimbardo at the Stanford University between 14-20 of August, 1971.

This experiment was trying to find out whether giving powers to some people and force others to be submissive was actually effective.

24 people were tested for this experiment, all men from the middle class. They were supposed to be the most reliable people and have the least problematic behaviour.

In the end, guards (even if initially prohibited from using physical force on the prisoners) had been briefed the day before to use menacing techniques, intimidation, threats, and any kind of behaviour in order to make the prisoners... well, feel like prisoners. They were asked to treat them like sh*t and not as humans, and refer to them with their number tags and not their names. They were even given a guard costume, a wood baton to ensure their supposed "authority" and sunglasses to prevent eye-contact. Basically, they were the bad guys, acting like heartless robots.

The prisoners, on the other hand, were given white simple clothes, a number tag and a chain on their wrists, to make it even clearer that they were not treated like humans and more like pieces of sh*t. Basically dehumanised and reduces to nothingness, and their status was supposed to show their vulnerability and weaknesses, and the fact that they were "lesser human beings" than the guards themselves.

What happened was the following : multiple rebellions, prisoners going crazy (one of them had to be escorted because of madness), the guards repressing said rebellions and using physical force to ensure that their "authority" is respected... Instead of lasting for two weeks, it only lasted six days, with Zimbardo closing it himself.

Although there were multiple controversies in this experiment (Zimbardo having the double role of chief of the prison and also the experimentator, him not closing the case earlier despite the desperate situation, him getting too involved in the experiment to see the damage), what's the most important is the feedback people were asked at the end of the experiment.

While many guards were upset of seeing the experiment ending, they still believed that what they were doing was right, and that their "authority" was legitimised by the roleplay established by Zimbardo in the beginning.

The prisoners suffered from a very big trauma and feelings of being dehumanised, treated like nothing and hopelessness. Seeing authority as unfair, they tried to support each other and stay collective, until the bitter end.

The movie is a more graphic depiction of the experiment made for the sensationalism and Hollywood gaining money, but it's a very interesting move nevertheless.

As we can see, power DOES corrupt individuals to the core, until the point where they impose their perception of reality on others. All the movies that were saying "power is the root of all evil" are right. Well, maybe it's not the only factor, but it's very interesting to see how power shapes us as human beings to put against "the rest" instead of with them.

Anyways, that's it for now ! As usual, please tell me if there are any mistakes or inaccuracies, and I'll see you very soon with the next post in this series !

And as usual, our last word : KIDNEYS !