“Not Just Made for My Pure Entertainment”: Social Justice Movies as Tools for Fueling Consciousness, Conversations, Change

Abstract

Social justice movies can offer nuanced depictions of causes affecting a society. Following the murder of George Floyd, issues surrounding racial inequality once again rose to the fore and captured widespread attention. With a recognition of this, we undertook a study to understand viewers’ perceptions of social justice movies that center on racial injustice against the Black community and the influence these movies have on audiences’ understanding of racism. Our results reveal that social justice movies fulfill a crucial function of allowing people to reflect on social injustice, especially as there are limited “formal” opportunities to learn about racial inequality. Additionally, in spite of fictional and real-life accounts of racial injustice, respondents are hopeful–though that hope is tempered–that truly, there will be equal rights among both Black and White people in the U.S.