4/5
12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose is a play about a teenager who’s accused of killing his own father. While the jurors vote is 11 to 1, juror 8 works to prove that the child is innocent. This play was so easy to read because it was interesting to watch as Juror 8 used logic and common sense to dismantle any argument given to him. Everyone loves an underdog story. What made the story so interesting however was the amount of unconscious bias. Jurors 3 and 11 who were the main antagonists only arguments were race/age related. I believe that the author’s point of doing this was to expose how a lot of people think even to this day.
My only complaint about this story was how Juror 3 was painted as the bad guy and Juror 8 was the good guy. I think this forced readers to automatically think that the child was innocent as opposed to forming their own opinion based off of the evidence provided. I think that in almost every real life situation there’s never a good or evil, because everyone will do what they believe is right which causes the good/evil narrative to be inaccurate. Overall this story paints a powerful image about how there’s still racism, sexism etc. in many people who might not even realize it. It’s also a story about speaking up and defending your opinions just as Juror 8 did.