Movie Analysis Essay on Beverly Hills Cop

Introduction

"Beverly Hills Cop" is a movie by Martin Brest that stars Eddie Murphy as Alex Foley. Alex Foley is a Detroit cop who is out for revenge after his best friend, Mikey Tandino from Beverly Hills, is killed while visiting him in Detroit by a man named Zack. Foley follows Zack to Beverly Hills, where he gets assigned Billy Rosewood and John Taggart from the Beverly Hills Police Department to watch over him. Foley also sought the help of longtime friend Jenny Summers. Summers helps Foley uncover that the mastermind behind Tandino's death is a man named Victor Maitland, who is also Summers' boss. Maitland is a drug dealer who uses his art gallery, Summers' workplace' to clean his money. He ordered Zack to kill Tandino because he allegedly stole from him. Foley, Summers, Rosewood, and Taggart have to work together to put an end to Maitland and Zack's drug operations. The movie uses the themes of social class, gender, and racial differences and segregation to portray the characters of the officers and their aids.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Racial segregation is also used to portray the sensitivity of the topic. After arriving in Beverly Hills, Foley takes up residence in an elegant hotel that is well above his budget (Brest, 1984). However, his arrival was unexpected, and he plays the racial card to get the receptionist to agree to him taking up residence in the hotel. The use of racial cards displays contemporary issues that plague American society. The receptionist's reaction to Foley's threat means that racial discrimination is illegal in the country. But the fact that Foley was bold enough to use it as a tool to get his way shows that it is a common occurrence. It also shines the light on how the racial card can be misused by specific individuals to give them an unfair advantage in certain situations. Unfortunately, Foley should know that using his skin color as a means to get his way undermines the cause and efforts being made to eliminate racial discrimination. He also exhibited behavior that fits within the rational choice theory. According to the method, individuals choose to undertake criminal behavior because they think it would be less costly and more rewarding (Paternoster et al., 2015). It is a matter of choice as these people are not forced into criminal behavior. Foley might think that his circumstance forced him into such behavior but had an opportunity, and only took the option because he felt it was more accessible and more rewarding.

Social class and racial segregation are two overreaching themes in the movie that have been interwoven together. Foley is booted through a plate glass window and instead gets arrested by two police officers, for disturbing the peace (Brest, 1984). The incidence carries overarching themes of class segregation by his color. Despite the apparent fact Foley is the one who has been physically assaulted, he ends up being the one getting arrested because of his appearance. As a black person, the officers automatically assume that Foley is the one on the wrong and the one who doesn't belong there. Studies conducted by Meares (2015) indicate that black people are more likely to get stopped and frisked by law enforcement agencies as compared to white people. Foley's protests and tries to tell the officers he is the one who is wronged, but all they see is a black man going where he is not supposed to. The incidence marks one of the most apparent instances of racial discrimination in the film.

The window incidence borders on one of the sociological theories that address culture. According to cultural transmission theory, norms are ideas, and ideas are transmitted through social interaction (Eerkens, Bettinger, & McElreath, 2017). When applied to the film, shared beliefs and collective norms, such as crime, is taken as a culture. For Foley, his belonging to the black community creates a probability that he might share their patterns and ideas, which, based on the officers' reaction, crime is included. The African American community has high crime rates, which is being taken as a sub-culture, where crime as the sub-cultural values that are transmitted from one generation to the next.

Furthermore, the people inside the art gallery had assumed that he could not afford the art pieces inside the gallery because of his color. They assumed his financial situation because of his color. After getting arrested, Foley asks them why they would arrest someone for getting thrown out of the window (Brest, 1984). Instead, Taggart says that they have six witnesses who said they saw Foley break into the gallery, started 'tearing up the place,' then jump out the window (Brest, 1984). The accusation is conforming to the typical stereotype of associating black people with crime. According to Hurley, Jensen, Weaver, & Dixon (2015), the issue of criminal justice and law enforcement has been trivialized along racial lines. White people are likely to have the feeling of being in danger or less unsafe in the presence of black people because of stereotypes that associate black people with crime.

The officers are also presented as enforcers of certain forms of discrimination. When the officers arrived to arrest Foley after being thrown out, the window, they were depicted as the enforcers of the overarching racial discrimination present in the film. They were encouraging that kind of behavior and cementing the stereotypes that always place black people on the wrong (Hurley, Jensen, Weaver, & Dixon, 2015). The director was trying to communicate a more indirect message. The message is, the people tasked with the protection of minority rights are the ones at the forefront of stepping on them.

Taggart also told Foley that they are more likely to believe a crucial local businessman compared to a "foul-mouther jerk" from out of town (Brest, 1984). Once again, the cultural transmission theory comes into play. The prominent businessman, happens to be rich and white, hence a representation of the patriarchy, and white supremacy. Taggart assumes Maitland is exposed to ethical, cultural values that were learned from his family as well as those he associates with. The officer's response portrays them as enforcers of these forms of discriminatory systems that prioritize the welfare of rich white men while undermining the well-being of minority groups such as women and people of color. One should be forgiven for mistaking Foley to be the enemy despite being a fellow officer. Being a police officer doesn't help his case. They keep treating him as a suspect even after knowing that he is a police officer.

The film is also exploring some common themes associated with sexism and gender differences in the film. The main female character, Jenny Summers, helps his friend Foley to solve the murder of their mutual friend, Mike. Taggart and Rosewood were assigned to Foley because they still view him as a threat, although he is a fellow police officer. On the other hand, they do not perceive Summers as a threat despite being seen with Foley and known to work with him. Their perception borders biological theories that associate criminal behavior to biology. Based on biological theories, Foley would appear as more of a threat when compared to Summer's because of their biological differences. According to Banarjee, Islam & Khatun (2015), more men are likely to take part in crime as compared to women. Despite the scholarly backing, the officers' decision needed to be guided by the evidence they had collected. In the absence of proof, Summer was just as much as a suspect as Foley.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the film uses comedy to depict some controversial areas of policing and multiculturalism. The underlying themes behind the various scenes can be used to advance the study of criminology. The issues and concepts explored in the film have a theoretical perspective that seeks to understand their causes and how they can be enhanced or eliminated. They highlight the issues that police need to look for while interacting with society.

References

Banarjee, S., Islam, M. J., & Khatun, N. (2015). Theories of Female Criminality: A criminological analysis. International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, 7(1).

Brest, M. (Director). (1984). Beverly Hills Cop [Film]. Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films

Eerkens, J. W., Bettinger, R. L., & McElreath, R. (2017). Cultural transmission, phylogenetics, and the archaeological record. In Mapping Our Ancestors (pp. 169-184). Routledge.

Hurley, R. J., Jensen, J., Weaver, A., & Dixon, T. (2015). Viewer ethnicity matters Black crime in TV News and its impact on decisions regarding public policy. Journal of Social Issues, 71(1), 155-170.

Meares, T. L. (2015). Programming errors: Understanding the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk as a program, not an incident. U. Chi. L. Rev., 82, 159.

Paternoster, R., Bachman, R., Bushway, S., Kerrison, E., & O'Connell, D. (2015). Human agency and explanations of criminal desistance: Arguments for a rational choice theory. Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, 1(3), 209-235.