Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to watch 12 Angry Men, a film that I hadn’t seen before. The film was fantastic. It may not have included the fascinating characters and enticing special effects that (to some) equate to entertainment in the modern day, but rather depicted an interesting plot interwove with powerful themes. The general plot of the film follows this notion: an assortment of jurors in a courthouse are deliberating the murder trial of a teenage boy, from the slums, who allegedly killed his father. The bulk of the film surrounds the various deliberations the jurors face in making a final verdict. At first, there is only one juror, Juror 8, who votes “not guilty” while the remaining jurors all vote “guilty”. This initial vote of not guilty is enough to start a cascade of thought provoking discussions and arguments. Amongst these deliberations, I found fascinating the social and cultural themes that were alluded to in the film. For many of the initial jurors who voted “not guilty”, we can see inherent biases that are presented in the ways they present their arguments. We see one juror repeatedly stereotype of a teen from the “slums” —  as individuals who are violent and vile and comprise a lower echelon of society — to support the notion that he must’ve been guilty of the crime. Juror 8, the initial juror who had voted not guilty, points out several instances in which the other jurors depicted inherent bias and ignorance, often in their refusal to acknowledge alternative possibilities and theories as to what actually happened. Interestingly, some critics of the film believe the courtroom drama to be too infused with social and cultural ideals — to some extent, they believe the film is an inaccurate representation of what a real-life jury proceeds like, especially when referring to situations such as Juror 8 bringing outside research into the case deliberation (which is prohibited), and to the many wide assumptions & inferences the jury makes beyond the scope of reasonable doubt (such as the nose depressions on the women wearing glasses).