48 Hrs.

Posted: March 26th, 2020

48 Hrs.

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48 Hrs.

The film, 48 Hrs. focuses on the efforts of the protagonists, a white police officer, and an African American criminal, towards the incarceration of the antagonists responsible for committing a murder against two other police officers. Despite its disposition as a buddy cop film, 48 Hrs manages to capture the issues that affected American society at the time, specifically organized crime and racial prejudice with the latter primarily perpetrated by the white police officer against the criminal he is expected to cooperate with for effective results. As an outcome, the film is laden with instances of race-based prejudice and racial integration. The events that occur in 48 Hrs allow the audience to view and acknowledge racial bias, and to consider assimilation as a positive aspect.

The accurate nature of the film is largely represented by the way it illustrates race relations between white Americans and African Americans in the 1980s. At the time, Blacks began experiencing positive ties with other ethnicities including white people that were associated with the gains that were made by the Civil Rights Movement between the 1950s and 1970s. The situation is illustrated by the way the black protagonist, Reggie Hammond, can cooperate with his white counterpart, Jack Cates to apprehend a killer. Nonetheless, the recurring conflicts between the protagonists from a racial perspective further illustrate the racial tensions between police officers and African American communities, especially in the 1980s and 1990s as exemplified by events such as the Miami Riots.

One of the theories that can be applied to analyze the film’s effect on the audience involves the Social Identity Theory. According to Tafjel (1979), the theory posits that groups within which individuals occupy comprised a significant source of self-esteem and pride. Such groups provide people with an idea of societal identity. In this respect, the audiences will most likely associate with their respective race group based on the way Hammond and Cates manage to set their differences aside and capture the murderer, Albert Ganz. In addition to this, the audience will associate positively with both characters due to the way they manage to handle racial tensions despite its regular occurrence in the 1980s among law enforcement officers and minority groups.

Alternately, the Social Learning Theory may also be used to assess the film’s impact on the audience. Accordingly, the premise argues that people within the social context tend to learn via direct instruction or observation (Bandura, 2002). The audience may be influenced to act in a racist behavior based on the way Cates initially referred to Hammond as a “watermelon” and a “convict” further exhibiting instances of racial prejudice in the film. In addition to this, the audience may be affected by Hammond’s actions because they stem from his perspective as a law enforcement officer hence the power he holds over Hammond who is a criminal.

To this end, it is evident that the audience may be influenced to view racial prejudice and integration positively due to its representation in the film, 48 Hrs. Foremost, under the Social Identity Theory, the audience may be influenced to associate with their racial group as an outcome of the way the protagonists relate with one another – amid racial tensions – to pursue a singular objective. Consequently, under the Social Learning Theory, the audience may choose to observe racist behavior positively due to the way Cates recurrently stereotypes Hammond in the initial parts of the film. These theories clearly illustrate how the audience may be affected to view racial prejudice and integration in a positive manner.

References

Bandura, A. (2002). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Tafjel, H. (1979). Social identity and intergroup relations. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.