The movie "The Trial of Seven Gentlemen in Chicago" is adapted from real events. In 1968, the anti-Vietnam War sentiment in the United States was on the rise, and various protests were in full swing.
There are countless American movies with this theme, and "Forrest Gump" mentions both the Vietnam War and the anti-war demonstrations.
The beginning of the film is that the leaders of the protest organized their entry into Chicago, but the film omits the description of the parade and directly enters the plot of the trial. The protest is reproduced through flashbacks, which makes the film very rhythmic and enjoyable. excellent.
In fact, from the beginning of the movie, the intention of this trial was improper. It was a political trial, not only in the overall situation of government representatives vs civil rights representatives, but also internal struggles.
Under the Johnson administration, the then Attorney General ruled that the protest did not violate any regulations; when Nixon took office, the new judicial official felt that the previous office deliberately resigned an hour after his appointment was embarrassing. The new official The three fires who took office took the protesters who had been found innocent before.
Although the title of the movie and the media at the time referred to the trial as the Trial of Seven Gentlemen (Chicago 7), eight people were actually interrogated.
1. Bobby Seale-Leader of the Black Panther Party-Black People's Rights Representative
The eighth person is Bobby Hill, the leader of the Black Panther Party. As a representative of the black people's rights, he suffered more malice than the remaining seven gentlemen. The reality is more exaggerated than the movie. In the movie, he was tied up and silenced during the trial, and the reality is that this happened more than once.
After Martin Luther King was assassinated in April 1968, racial riots broke out in various parts of the United States. The then presidential candidate Robert Kennedy (JFK's younger brother) attended a rally after learning of King's death and encouraged supporters to continue fighting for the ideal of nonviolent resistance.
In June of the same year, Robert Kennedy was also assassinated. It is also mentioned in the movie that if Robert Kennedy is elected, the world will be a little different.
2. Tom Hayden & Rennie Davis-Campus Student Leaders-Representatives of the White Left Elite
As the student leader of the campus, Tom Hayden, played by Freckles, has the same anti-war intentions as other protesters, but he is trying to start with winning the election, and in the final analysis, it is resolved from within the system. He is not really against the government. It is against this Nixon administration.
And he eventually entered the system and was later elected to the California House of Representatives.
The quarrel between Tom Hayden and Abby Hoffman in the film clearly shows the two positions. Tom Hayden believes that the problem can only be solved by winning the election, and Abby Hoffman is ridiculous about this idea of appealing to the government. of.
What Tom Hayden was worried about became a reality. When future generations mentioned the protests of this period, the first thing that came to mind was the new hippie movement represented by Abby Hoffman.
3. Abbie Hoffman & Jerry Rubin-Youth International Party (YIP) Representative-New Hippie Representative
Now we see that many anti-war movies are mainly about hippies that look like high. The film "Making Woodstock Music Festival" directed by Ang Lee shows us a group of "Don't war" hippies.
At the beginning of the movie "Watchmen", there is a scene where people insert flowers into their guns, and this is also from the very gimmicky "flower power".
In 2019, a teenager directly smashed an egg on the head because of an Australian MP Fraser Anning's inappropriate comments on the mosque shooting in New Zealand. This incident was widely reported by the media. The boy was also called an egg boy. Zi Dahuo was interviewed on the show and was well received by many people.
A teacher at the time asked us to express our views on this incident in class. A South Asian girl directly said that this kind of thing was only satisfying the media, but overwhelming the original incident. People stopped discussing the whole story of the mosque shooting. He stopped paying attention to the discriminatory remarks made by government officials, but started to wonder who this boy was.
When a certain event is widely disseminated by the media, the benefit is to make the audience of the event wider, and the more remarkable feature is that it will dispel its original seriousness.
This is like more people who pay attention to entertainment gossip than national events. When a national event becomes a topic in the streets, it must increase entertainment in the process of dissemination.
And Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin are indeed the darlings of the media. Their movement has indeed made the anti-war consciousness more widespread among the public, but their show activities that have won the favor of the media have eliminated the efforts of other progressives.
As Tom Hayden said, when people talk about anti-war demonstrations, the first thing people think of is hippies.
4. David Dellinger-Social Activist-Representative of extreme anti-war activists
David Dellinger represents activists who strictly observe non-violence, which is why he constantly apologizes after punching the guard in court, which is contrary to the values he has always held.
He opposed all forms of war, not only the Vietnam War, but he also refused to enlist in World War II.
5. John Froines & Lee Weiner-Anti-War People-Innocent Backdrop
The remaining two hardly have too many shots, they are pawns used by the authorities to judge and condemn sentences.
Because the official actually wanted to convict the above five people, they chose the seven-person trial and selected two of them to appease the conscience of the jury.
Various movements in the 1960s were vigorous, not only the anti-war demonstrations, but also the black civil rights movement, the ERA feminist movement headed by Gloria Steinem, and the gay movement based on the Stonewall riots.
After the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969, the hippie movement reached its peak and then declined, while other sports seemed to end.
Decades have passed, and the world looks more enlightened and tolerant, but nationalism is on the rise again. White supremacism has risen in the United States under the leadership of Sichuan Jianguo, and just like the TV series we usually see in our country, Its scale and depth are not even more advanced than the works of many years ago.
Fortunately, we can still see such a movie.
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