Favorite movie about a social issue?

[chuckman1]

Generally these movies have deeper meaning than "watch and have fun".

I like movies about social issues so I figured I'd ask your favorite. These can be documentaries, fictions, whatever you like.
Also please say which social issue your movie is about.

My favorite movie about a social issue is Menace II Society. It is a movie about poverty, drugs, gangs, broken homes, and the struggles of the ghetto and gangster life. It felt more realistic than any other "hood movie" I saw.

 

[Dalisclock]

I always thought Metropolis was an interesting take on the Labor Movement....especially with all the religious/symbolic imagery.

 

[Skatologist]

Well if we're talking about subtext about a film like Mars says, I'd say Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is my favorite film with at least one social issue subtext. That being racism in post WWII America. I've decided it's likely my favorite, or at least one of my favorite films.

Wouldn't know what film whose core is focused around a social to the point you'd call it its core however. Will need to do some thinking on that.

 

[Silence]

12 Years a slave was pretty good.

 

[Silvanus]

City of God, Philadelphia, The Last King of Scotland are all fantastic movies centred strongly on social/political issues.

A huge number of movies will tackle social issues, but usually in a way complementary to a larger storyline being told for its own sake.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Does Chinatown count? Great movie.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hmmm...Breaker Morant?

Though, people argue over the message of that movie, whether they were innocent, or whether they were guilty, but so were the people condemning them.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

The definition of what counts as a "social issue" would surely be up to interpretation... I mean, is Blade Runner about 'social issues'? What about Munich? A History Of Violence? Gattaca? Sofia Coppola's Somewhere?

Looking at my DVD collection it doesn't seem I have many typically mundane 'social issue' films. Lord Of War kinda counts, I suppose, but then that's not exactly a great or favourite film. Hell, Captain America: The Winter Soldier could probably count, too, as the 'this isn't freedom, this is fear' throughline is particularly apt for today's world/society.

 

[Mechamorph]

If you want something couched in comedic terms, then for me its Idiocracy. The celebration of mediocrity, the extremes of the Dunning-Krueger syndrome, the shallowness of modern society and the notion that people should live *down* to the mean are all very insidious ideas that have gotten too entrenched in society for my liking.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Minority Report is a good one, with a message about what happens when the police get too much power and overreach too far. Especially with the morality relating to punishing someone for a crime they haven't committed yet. The message that apparently got dropped was: The idea punishing someone for a crime they'll commit, instead of preventing the crime from happening, is obviously stupidity at it's height.

The problem I have with media that addresses social issues, especially directly, is that they tend to come off as preachy, if not so targeted they're just preaching to the choir. Partly to blame for that is the fact that writers and creators have a very nasty habit of injecting personal political stances, thus abandoning any sort of objective view points in totality. This can lead to shaming of dissenting opinions, while playing to fallacies like the; "wrong side of history" card. The biggest issue with this sort of politicking a social issues messages is that it's often made unapproachable, while trying to hammer the message into the audience with the subtly of a neon pink chair in a room of muted colors. That coupled with the holier than thou mentality of telling the audience disagreeing makes them awful human beings who don't deserve a voice, just makes social issue messages in media generally irritating in the extreme. Worst of all is that they often miss the entire point of the message they're trying to send, like when they use a cisgender male actor to play a trans woman, or a cisgender female actress to play a trans man. Their heart might be in the right place, but by doing it that way they subvert any positive message by reinforcing negative stereotypes, because they should be casting in the opposite manner.

 

[happyninja42]

I had trouble actually remembering movies with that distinction, but thankfully some other posters mentioned a few that I remembered. I think Gattaca and Minority Report were good examples of this. I would also throw in that other movie based on a Phillip K. Dick novel Impostor. It had a great story about what makes us human, and if everything about us is perfectly copied and made into a living being, is it any different from us in any way?

capcha: shows me a picture of a banana, and tells me to describe it from dropdown, sadly, no entry for "Atheist's Worst Nightmare"

 

[Asita]

Minority Report is a good one, with a message about what happens when the police get too much power and overreach too far. Especially with the morality relating to punishing someone for a crime they haven't committed yet. The message that apparently got dropped was: The idea punishing someone for a crime they'll commit, instead of preventing the crime from happening, is obviously stupidity at it's height.

I fail to see how Minority Report supports that message. The system in place worked spectacularly and - at least as presented in the film - likely had a lower false conviction rate than real life does due to the nature of the system (the only innocents at risk of incarceration were those who had a serious - but not 100% - chance of committing the crime in question) and very little in the story could be put on the heads of the officers in Precrime, making "a message about what happens when the police get too much power and overreach too far" a very poorly supported message. How desperation born from the best of intentions can lead to terrible decisions? Yes. How much personal freedom is worth giving up for protection? Yes. Questioning what, if any, sacrifices (real and/or potential) are worth making in our efforts to stomp out crime? Yes. The need to vet even what we believe to be near certain truths? Yes. The need to judge our methods based off of whether we'd feel them fair if we were the ones they were employed against? Hell yes. A warning against the police getting too much power? Not so much.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I'm going to go with Babel and its commentary on the problems simple miscommunication can cause and how some struggles are still universal despite cultural differences.

 

[Dizchu]

I very much like Children of Men. While the film is set in the future, the themes it explores seem to reflect today's world with brutal honesty. The idea that the UK is this "last bastion of hope" seems to be how groups like the EDL and UKIP like to portray the country. Actually, sometimes the Conservatives like to use that sort of rhetoric, referring to refugees as "a swarm". It's actually quite horrifying.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Minority Report is a good one, with a message about what happens when the police get too much power and overreach too far. Especially with the morality relating to punishing someone for a crime they haven't committed yet. The message that apparently got dropped was: The idea punishing someone for a crime they'll commit, instead of preventing the crime from happening, is obviously stupidity at it's height.

I fail to see how Minority Report supports that message. The system in place worked spectacularly and - at least as presented in the film - likely had a lower false conviction rate than real life does due to the nature of the system (the only innocents at risk of incarceration were those who had a serious - but not 100% - chance of committing the crime in question) and very little in the story could be put on the heads of the officers in Precrime, making "a message about what happens when the police get too much power and overreach too far" a very poorly supported message. How desperation born from the best of intentions can lead to terrible decisions? Yes. How much personal freedom is worth giving up for protection? Yes. Questioning what, if any, sacrifices (real and/or potential) are worth making in our efforts to stomp out crime? Yes. The need to vet even what we believe to be near certain truths? Yes. The need to judge our methods based off of whether we'd feel them fair if we were the ones they were employed against? Hell yes. A warning against the police getting too much power? Not so much.

Basically all the things you listed are the effects of police overreach, I.E. living in an police state where thought crime is imminently punishable. Punishable in a really inhumane way too... Being put into stasis forever? That's a fate worse than death. Also it highlights corruption, because they intentionally buried the Minority Report, the titular event of the movie, to hide the fact that the system is flawed. Also as part of police politicking, corruption, and overreach... The system can be influenced and fooled under the correct circumstances. Because it means that the police could frame anyone up, at anytime, for a reason other than that person potentially committing a crime. Also take into account that being able to arrest someone for a crime they have not yet committed, no matter how strong or compelling the evidence and suspicion, is an egregious overreach. If only because no crime has yet actually been committed, that's a fundamental violation of someone's rights, especially when we're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law. At least in places that don't employ the Napoleonic Code.