Fruitvale Station Reflection

Fruitvale Station is a drama film based on the true incident happening at Fruitvale station. On New Year's Eve of 2009, the black man Oscar was shot by a police at this station. This film depicts Oscar's whole day before the incident.

Although this film is a condemnation of this incident and police, it does not show this to viewers straightforwardly. It just simply narrates Oscar's story and leaves viewers to judge and think about the incident. From the development of plot, we can see that Oscar has an infamous past experience for being imprisoned. However, he is trying to change his life and he is not like himself before. This film typically emphasizes several scenes of Oscar's last day, like sending his daughter to kindergarten and picking her up, saving the dog, selecting birthday card for her mom and discarding his drug. One thing particular is that when he fails to get the job in the supermarket, he still kindly helps the customer about cooking, while this somehow caused the tragedy at the station.

I think this film reflects the existing stereotypes about black people. Usually the dress or look can lead to bias easily. We cannot admit that there are some black people like Oscar who are striving in their lives to get away from their infamous experience. Not every black people in the midnight subway is as bad as we assume. We cannot determine a black people from our existing impression. Also, I think the film highlights the functionality of videotaping. If the whole incident is not recorded, maybe nobody will know the truth. Therefore, in the digital era, such racial problem may be resolved in a new way.