Topic > Analysis of the documentary Trouble The Water

The documentary Trouble the Water is the story of Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband, citizens of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, as they survive Hurricane Katrina. The film opens with footage taken by Kim before the storm actually hits. In it, he goes around asking his neighbors what they are doing about the storm to find that those who can leave are, and those who have no means to leave stay. Kim herself mentions several times during interviews with her neighbors that she will stay because she has no means to evacuate and no money to help herself and her loved ones get out. After the interviews we are shown footage of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordering the evacuation of the city. However, no evacuation transport was arranged and all public transport was closed, leaving those without their own transport stranded in the city to endure Katrina. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Kim continues to document the storm through amateur videos that show it getting worse and worse. The winds and rain become violent causing damage to his neighbors' homes and his own. News footage of a reporter in the storm is shown in the midst of filming for further proof of how intense and dangerous the storm is. The journalist hides behind a garbage can for shelter and when he gets up to go back to safety even he can't resist the high-velocity winds and rain. The journalist is thrown against a wall. After this segment the documentary continues. Kim shows the flood damage to her home and how they had to move into the attic to escape drowning. Soon after he finds out from a remaining neighbor that the levees have broken and that is why the flood is so bad. Two by two, their neighbor brings people from his house that is slowly but surely below to his house across the street, which is at less risk of flooding up to the top. After the storm subsides, though, is where the documentary really begins to evoke the problems faced by the citizens of the Ninth War both during and after the storm. Using the sociological perspective, it becomes very easy to understand why these problems only affected the citizens of the Ninth Ward and not those of the citizens of New Orleans as a whole. The sociological perspective is how sociologists study how groups and societies influence people. In this case, it can be applied to demonstrate why the most privileged groups in New Orleans, those who did not live in the Ninth Ward, were able to evacuate before Katrina and receive help quickly after her death, while the less privileged groups, how Kim and those others living in the Ninth Ward were left behind during the evacuation and left without help for weeks after the weather cleared. The social standing of Kim and his neighbors was one of the main reasons why they were overlooked by the rest of society. The Ninth Ward was a community populated mostly by African Americans and as a result was seen by the rest of society as the poor, uneducated, low-income, and dangerous neighborhood that it was. The story can be blamed for the stereotypical view and, in turn, reality of the Ninth Ward as sociologist C. Wright Mills describes it as a flow of events over time that provides people with their orientations in life. In other words, external influences from society become part of people's thinking and motivations over time. The history of slavery in the South and the idea that there were races superior to the African Americans who lived therethey never truly ceased to exist in Southern states like Louisiana, and as a result the Ninth Ward emerged as a lesser community of people of lesser value to the rest. of the company for this reason. In Trouble the Water, there are many examples where the sociological perspective, and more specifically the conflict theory found within it, can be used to analyze and explain why things were the way they were for Kim and his community, and not for those of other more privileged communities. Karl Marx developed conflict theory when he saw the poor masses working for the elite few. He concluded that in all societies class struggle was fundamental to human history because those few who had control exploited those who did not. Basically, those who have no more money, power, education and social prestige than the elite few are in constant class struggle with those few for resources, wealth, power and prestige. This struggle is what causes the conflict that the theory is based on, which is the documentary that Kim made about how she and her neighbors were treated before, during and after Hurricane Katrina in this case, because it made their public and highly debated issue. so that their need for change also became public. Before Katrina hit New Orleans, it was expected to be a devastating category four or five hurricane, capable of causing mass deaths and damage, as seen in the documentary when Mayor Nagin ordered evacuations. Although evacuations were ordered, no consideration was given to those who did not have cars and who only had public transportation if they could afford it. Those who were privileged and wealthy enough to own cars and afford the gas to use them could leave because they had the means to do so, while those without wealth and privilege were left behind to survive on their own because even if they could find the money to pay the public transport, was closed. In Kim's pre-storm footage, when he asks his neighbors what they will do, most of them say they will stay because they can do nothing but wait and hope for the best. As the storm begins to intensify, it is clear from home footage that no one had even checked to see if the Ninth Precinct had been evacuated and no precautions of any kind had been taken to help those forced to remain there due to lack of safety. meant leaving, they were left to their own devices. The food and water they managed to get before the storm was all they had to live on for however long the storm took to pass, and it wasn't much. During the storm the damaging winds and rain became increasingly deadly. for Kim and his neighbors. In the footage caught on camera, Kim talks about having to move to the attic to avoid drowning in her rapidly flooding home and then pans outside to show that the flood conditions are very real as there is water covering most of the stop sign outside. on his way. They move the remaining food and water they have and everyone with them up there, even as the waters continue to rise. In the next scene captured by her camera, Kim sees her neighbor swimming towards her house as conditions improved using a punching bag as a flotation device. He informs them that the levees just three blocks away from them have broken. Two by two he helps move men, women, children and disabled people from Kim's house to his. Once they are safe there, Kim captures the underwater disaster that was his way into the Ninth Ward. As shown, there is nothing to listen to except the recordings of.