Juxtaposed Outcomes of the Trials

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These juxtaposed outcomes of the trials can be attributed to two factors unrelated to the plot. First, it reflects our nation's growing sensitivity toward stamping out racism. A black man prosecuted for a crime against a white person had terrible odds in the in the first half of the twentieth century. I understand Lee's novel was accurately portrayed, but A Time to Kill, the movie, strays from John Grisham's original at least with respect to the conclusion. The different endings also contrast the objectives of Harper Lee versus those of modern movie makers. Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement. This book was radically progressive for its day and successfully promoted social awareness and challenged racism with its honest depiction of goings-on in the South. Modern movie makers, on the other hand, are committed to creating movies that the mass public will pay to see, and the public expects movies to be entertainment, not propaganda. Lee wanted his trial outcome to be tragically compelling, while the makers of A Time to Kill wanted their audience to feel satisfied. Lee ties in another whole story analogous to the main story, but more light-hearted. By masterfully ending his novelry with the touching victorious resolution of this sub-plot, he leaves the reader/viewer hopeful without being pacified to the racism message.

Along with the traditional happy ending, A Time to Kill has several other characteristics typical to modern cinema with a mass public target audience. Most painful to me is Hollywood's preoccupation with sexy characters and romantic relations, no matter how irrelevant. No modern movie can be truly

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