Paper Example on David: A Journey to Freedom and Friendship

The movie David is the story of an eleven-year-old boy, Daud, who grew up in Brooklyn and is of Muslim descent. He chooses to hide his identity from his peers. He makes friends with some Jewish boys who, due to a series of events, assume that he is Jewish and mistake him as their own. He forms a unique bond with Yoav, one of the Jewish boys. With time Daud experiences a sense of freedom, pleasure, and friendship that he has never faced before and briefly, enjoys what it feels to be a carefree boy his age in Brooklyn. However, his life takes a turn when the boys find out his true identity, and he is left alone, and his world is shattered. He is left struggling, alone, trying to come to terms with his position in the world as determined by the world.

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The movie is exciting and informative, and I feel informed on how different religions have been stereotyped, especially between the Muslims and the Jews, given their history. It was encouraging to watch Daud relate with the boys out of the bonds of his religion and share a different experience because it shows that belief should not define how people connect. However, I feel like the boys abandoned him and made him feel isolated because of what they were told about the Islam religion. They judged him based on his faith rather than his personality. He was a good person at heart, despite that they had shared in their friendship, the disparities that existed between their religions clouded the opinion of him. The movie was a good experience for me. It was relevant given that as I prepare for the career world, I would need to be made of different biases, not only based on religion but even on other factors such as race. As such, there are those individuals who would not want to associate with me because of these factors. For example, before the boys knew that Daud was Muslim, they engaged with him and even welcomed him into their fold as one of their own. However, after they discovered his religious decent, they abandoned him and wanted nothing to do with him. To me, I believe this was not fair to Daud as he did not form friendships out of religion, but because there was a lot of good in him.

The movie depicts what Karl Marx described in society’s view on religion and how it perpetuates inequality. Religion has often been viewed as a social institution because it includes different beliefs and practices that meet the needs of society (Power, 2017). The two religions in the movie have different perceptions of their origin and their ideas, and conflict theory would best explain the theme of the film. The Muslims have always wanted to show their superiority over the Jews, perhaps that is the reason why the boys feel the need to exclude themselves from Daud.

Conclusion

From the movie, I have learned is that religion is a social construct that has been affected by historical discord between the Jews and the Muslims. Through the film, it is clear that religion affects how people interact in society. It illuminates what happens in the real world, and the stereotypical notions that circulate in the universities, our homes, and even at work. David is an illustration of how I should not treat others, primarily because of their religion. It reminds me to treat people fairly at all times, no matter their place of origin.

Reference

Power, E. A. (2017). Discerning devotion: Testing the signaling theory of religion. Evolution and Human Behavior, 38(1), 82-91.