Mayank Choudhary
PSYC 348 Developmental Psychology- Adolescence
Dr. Kathleen Boyle
April 9, 2016
Film Commentary
This paper includes commentary on two movies namely ‘Short Term 12’ and ‘Dear White
People’. I chose these two movies because they had completely distinct themes and according to
me the issues depicted in both the movies are on some very serious but sensitive topics.
MAJOR THEMES
Short Term 12 is a very emotional, but not necessarily sad movie. It is about the life of
kids in Foster Care centers. This movie is recited through the eyes of a character from the movie
whose name is Grace. She works at the Foster Care center for teens and is a solicitous and stern
forewoman. She is very compassionate and understanding towards the residents and is
experienced enough to learn their behavior and act accordingly.
Dear White People is a movie which is mainly based on racism (which exists) and depicts
Blacks perception of Whites. A student leader namely Sam goes all the way to “bring the black
back” to Winchester University (which had a majority of the white population) as many incidents
were happening on campus which involved racism towards African-American students. There
were many racist comments made in the movie which I will talk about later in the paper.
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Childhood plays a very important role in shaping our lives, and if the childhood is
disturbed then it could affect the whole life of an individual. Same was the case for two of the
main characters in the movies Jayden and Marcus. Marcus’s mom used to behave with him in a
very violent way and he was not allowed to do anything that we wanted to do. This might have
had a huge impact on how he behaved in the Foster Care center. He rarely talked with anyone
and started getting indulged in illegal activities such as drugs. This shows that Marcus’s social
development was not the same as of an average teenager. Jayden’s case was kind of similar to
Marcus’s. Jayden was in a perturbed relationship with her father. She had a very indignant at first
when she started living at the Foster Care center. She didn’t talk to anybody and tried to escape
the facility center once. Her relationship with her father must have served a very important role
in her adverse social development.
The movie ‘Dear White People’, is totally based on racism. The main character that was
