Non racial prejudice?

Because Puerto Rican is not a race, it's a nationality/ethnicity. To increase the number of white people they would technically fall under the white category. That is why this was about ageism and classism.



I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.- Bette Davis

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Most movies about prejudice seem to be about racism. Was there a specific reason why they decided it to be about ageism(these kids these days) and classism(him being from a really poor neighborhood) and nothing to do with his race?

Well, the writer, Reginald Rose made whatever choices he wanted, so you'd have to ask him.

But this isn't really a movie abut racial prejudice. I think it's pretty clear that a major theme of the film is to show how the various backgrounds of the jurors affect their ideas about the case. That includes their biases and prejudices, and their personalities.

So, we have a vacillating advertising man, going whichever way the wind blows, a man who considers himself coldly logical, a man who grew up poor in the same slum as the defendant, an immigrant, a man who is embittered by his bad relationship with his son, an elder, etc.

And there is a bigot who hates the defendant's ethnic group -- juror #10, Ed Begley's character.

We never know the defendant's ethnic background, although the casting of John Savoca implies that he is Hispanic. If we never saw him, I think much of the dialog could make us imagine that the defendant was of any group that was given a hard time by the majority population.

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I thought the kid was Italian/Spanish.

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