Movie Bias Research Paper

9 Pages 2323 Words

a not so attractive, overweight, shameless woman chaser. He unabashedly propositions every beautiful woman within arms length. His preoccupation with beautiful women and nonexistent love life also seems to affect him at work. During an office scene, his friends empathize with him about being turned down for an expected promotion. However, Hal can only talk about being rejected by his beautiful neighbor, Jill. They tell him quite honestly that he is a kind and generous man who is sees women in an extremely superficial way. They criticize him for only dating young, beautiful girls who have nothing in common with him and are not interested in him. Hal shakes his head in disbelief and tells him that they can’t blame him for having “standards”. This scene is important because it establishes for the viewer that Hal has many redeeming qualities.

The turning point of the story occurs when Hal is trapped for two hours on an elevator with Tim Robbins, an inspirational speaker. Before the elevator breaks, Hal recognizes Mr. Robbins and starts questioning this wealthy, successful and attractive man about his love life. The directness of Hal’s questioning is appalling yet Mr. Robbins senses that he is a kind and sensitive man. Mr. Robbins spends the next two captive hours trying to explain to Hal the concept of inner beauty. Hal doesn’t seem to understand the message even when Mr. Robbins tells him that the way he looks at women is “a bit shallow”. Finally, the inspirational speaker gives up and tells Hal that he will give him a gift. He asks Hal to think of one of his most shallow moments and then places his hand on Hal’s face and yells “Come out of there”! Mr. Robbins tells Hal in a very quiet, mesmerizing voice that he will no longer see and judge women only by their physical beauty. He further informs him that th...