O’Leary 1

Kelsey R. O’Leary

Professor Joshua Samson

Film 1070 Diversity Course, FLM 1070

23 February 2019

Midterm Essay, comparison of two similar films

The film ​Cesar Chavez ​made in 2014,​ ​shares very similar themes with a film made

in 1999, called ​Our Friend, Martin.​ ​Our Friend, Martin ​is animated, but shows a few

​ hich is all live-action. Both

non-animated scenes in certain flashbacks, unlike ​Cesar Chavez, w

follow the story of the young leaders, Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. These films

follow important events in their lives, the films depict and relive these experiences so we could

see them as they did, first hand.

Now because ​Our Friend, Martin ​is the film I'm comparing to the film we saw in class,

Cesar Chavez​, I want to give a brief idea on what it is about. Two kids in 1999 are best friends.

Miles, our protagonist, and his best friend Randy. Let me note that Miles is black, and Randy is

white, this will be important later. Both kids are about to go on their middle school field trip at

Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, to the Birth home of Martin L. King Jr. Museum. Miles,

is failing his classes miserably because he wants to play baseball. Long story short, they end up

time traveling through the highlights of Martin's life and feel acquainted with him, Martin is their

friend. ​See what I did there?

These films were not produced in Hollywood, but share some similar Hollywood trends.

The endings, though they didn’t give a “Happy go lucky, everything is rainbows and sunshine”

feel, they did try to shine a brighter light for the future in the end. These films tackle the theme of
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Kelsey R. O’Leary

Professor Joshua Samson

Film 1070 Diversity Course, FLM 1070

23 February 2019

racism. Both the groups in ​Cesar Chavez ​and ​Our Friend, Martin ​rose up to form a union, they

organized. Cesar and Martin also both believed in non-violent methods, just like Ghandi. Though

both leaders strived for non-violent means of equality, their end goals had significant

differences.

Cesar’s goal and mission was to organize the workers and build a movement, to gain the

right to not only organize in the first place, but to better the wages for their work. In ​Our Friend,

Martin​, it was easier to organize as black and white people were already segregated, and forced

to be put into their own communities, there was no choice. Chavez begins as a young community

organizer who goes into the fields of his fellow workers to tell them ​"Si, se puede." (​ Cesar, ​Cesar

Chavez (2014) ​) translated into the English phrase, meaning “Yes, it can be done.” He did so

through tireless marches, boycotts and strikes of the grape fields, and long fasts. His wife, Helen

Chavez, had even been thrown in jail for a night or two in response to striking after police made

it clear that the mention of the word ​“Huelga” ​or Strike, would not be tolerated. Because she

went without a fight, this particular scene was mild compared to the other methods of violence

they had endured. Upon returning she expressed to Cesar that it was a good thing, as she met

many like minded people who had done nothing wrong, who looked up to Cesar and wished to

organize with him.

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Kelsey R. O’Leary

Professor Joshua Samson

Film 1070 Diversity Course, FLM 1070

23 February 2019

In ​Our Friend, Martin​, The film animates Martin Luther King Jr. through all stages of his

life and shows a majority of all his towards his dreams and goals; When he was a kid at twelve,

his early twenties, and his late thirties. In one scene, the film shows a meeting of his while

working as a minister in a church about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott was set off

after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus and was therefore imprisoned, as law stated

that black people were required to give up their seat to a white man or woman if they needed

(wanted) it. As a result, black people were banned from riding buses. During this meeting,

Martin is alerted that his house has been bombed, he then races home to find his wife and

newborn daughter have escaped unharmed. As a result, this creates an uproar in front of his

home where his friend Turner, announces that they will attack the perpetrators with weapons in

retaliation.

However, Martin stops them, reminding the crowd of Gandhi. How he stood his ground

peacefully to exile the British colonies from India without violence, and how he spread the

teachings of love for his enemies. The film also follows the events of the Birmingham Riot of

1963, the March on Washington Movement, and Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination.

As observed, we know the film refers to all of Martin Luther King Jr’s Civil rights work,

it can be understood by the references in the film that his end goal was integration of all races, as

he saw all people as his brothers and sisters. He wanted segregation to end, period.
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Kelsey R. O’Leary

Professor Joshua Samson

Film 1070 Diversity Course, FLM 1070

23 February 2019

If we take the two films and consider their timeline when comparing them, we can

determine that though similar themes are shared, the depiction and methods of discrimination in

Our Friend, Martin​ took a harsher turn. In ​Our Friend, Martin,​ it shows the violence and

retaliation was worse, and the consequences took a larger toll. As an example, remember when I

mentioned 12 year old Martin? When playing baseball with two white boys, and Miles and

Randy, the mother eventually came out and scolded Martin, mentioning that the only “hanging”

Miles and Martin would be doing in the future would be from a tree. The film even offered an

alternative perspective of what the future would look like, had Martin Luther King Jr. never

completed his efforts for civil rights.

In this scene,​ t​ he protagonist, Miles, and his friends Randy, Kyle and Maria travel back to

1941 and bring 12-year-old Martin to the present. However, only Miles and Martin end up

returning together. The present is now different as bringing Martin back caused an alternate

reality. Martin’s old home, is burnt down. Randy and Kyle are racists. And Miles’ middle school

is segregated and named after Robert E. Lee. The principal is also racist and mistreats Mrs.

Clark, their history teacher. Their friend Maria works as a maid and can't speak English, and

Miles and his mother live in poverty as she also works as a maid.

Martin Luther King Jr’s movement faced a significantly more difficult struggle, the work

he did lead to more risk in the time he lived, in the end, Martin was even assassinated. However,
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Kelsey R. O’Leary

Professor Joshua Samson

Film 1070 Diversity Course, FLM 1070

23 February 2019

I don’t want this to belittle how important both movements were, their movements and these

films just stood for different ends on history’s timeline.

Martin Luther King Jr. began the change, the fight for the end of segregation had never

been carried out before then. By the time Cesar had made his movement, a new wave of change

had already begun to form. In a metaphorical way, it opened up the gates of change. You could

say Martin Luther King Jr’s movement inspired Cesar Chavez to stand up for what he believed

in, and begin his own movement of change.

Now back to the point at hand, as I said earlier, because a change or movement like this

had never been seen before, the retaliation and resistance was all the more harsh and cruel in ​Our

Friend, Martin​, I’ll again provide another example of two different scenes from both of the

films to illustrate my point. We will begin with ​Our Friend, Martin​. In this Particular scene our

protagonist Miles and his friend Randy witness the Birmingham Riot of 1963, where the

protesters were shot with a fire hose, and german shepherds had been released on them. They

were being hit with about 150 pounds of water, and proceeded to suffer from attacks from

professionally trained attack dogs shortly after. In the film ​Cesar Chavez,​ one of the roughest

scenes was when a strike group was hit with pesticide after striking in front of one of the fields in

California. The scene was short lived, and seemed easier to recover from, it didn’t sit with the

audience as long, and moved onto the next act.

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Kelsey R. O’Leary

Professor Joshua Samson

Film 1070 Diversity Course, FLM 1070

23 February 2019

It was also more difficult to feel a great impact in ​Cesar Chavez,​ as the movement wasn’t

their only strong theme in this film. Family also had a large impact, as the film tried to also focus

on the effects the movement was making on Cesar and his son’s relationship. It made the

movement almost seem less important when they film showed what Cesar’s actions were doing

to his boy when he wasn’t at home, because he wasn’t there for him. In ​Our Friend, Martin​, we

see that Martin is a family man too, he has a wife and a kid, and even when he is younger we see

that Martin is a family man. But the family doesn’t seem as broken or impacted when Martin is

gone, and it shows in the film that his family is not holding him back, his wife even says that his

work is to important. Where ​Our Friend, Martin b​ rews a feeling of encouragement, in one of the

last scenes of ​Cesar Chavez​, Cesar sounds more or less guilty for everything he has done.

You could also argue that Miles life and background distracted from Martin’s focus in the

film. Where I agree that introducing Miles took a little long, and maybe some details could be

taken out from the film, I believe that the story did a good job of blending it all together. Miles’

story was a good, modern way to compare and contrast the events in the past. It was a great

method of showing what was accepted in the present, and how Martin’s efforts contributed to

that.

In conclusion, though ​Cesar Chavez h​ ad some varying themes that distracted from racial

discrimination in its film, and was not depicted as strongly as ​Our Friend, Martin,​ the film still
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Kelsey R. O’Leary

Professor Joshua Samson

Film 1070 Diversity Course, FLM 1070

23 February 2019

managed to share the long, emotional journey in an effective, informative fashion. Both films

left the audience with a greater hope for tomorrow. “A better tomorrow” as titled in the last scene

in ​Cesar Chavez​. They leave you with hope that if you fight for something together, you can

change anything. Even if it seems impossible.

Works Cited

Canana Films, and Keir Pearson.​ Cesar Chavez​.​ ​Canana Films, 2014

DIC Productions L.P. ​Our Friend, Martin​. DIC Productions L.P., 1999