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Essay / Fighting the System in 12 Angry Men and A Time to Kill the lawyer and the jurors) of the film. The post-classical era film 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957) and the post-modernist film A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, 1996) feature a determined protagonist who finds truth and meaning in societal paradoxes while overcoming strong adversity. . However, the genre shift of legal drama between the post-classical and post-modernist eras (as seen in both films) from a character-driven genre to an expository character genre is attributed to the paranoia caused by forces such as McCarthyism in the 1950s and America's internal conflicts and distrust of government in the 1990s. The drama genre dates back to the early 19th century and lays the foundation for the characters and the t intrigue as evidenced by today's legal dramas. “The destiny of the dramatic hero or heroine was to learn Christian resignation while preserving moral purity in the face of great trials and tribulations” (Cawelti 38). The idea of good versus evil, good versus evil, stems from the belief that being "good" meant having a strong faith in God and the resulting courage to act on His good intentions. This genre myth spread until the mid-20th century and served as the basis for early legal dramas. However, Cawlti argues, the emphasis on God was removed from the moral equation to "seek other ways of asserting transcendent moral truths in a secular, naturalistic world" (47). Regardless of the inclusion or exclusion of God in the myth drama genre, the consistency of the main protagonist "doing the right thing" and "fighting the unjust...... middle of paper...... nge within this genre. Paranoia due to McCarthyism in the 1950s and general fear and ultimate distrust of domestic affairs in the 1990s changed both the presentation of the legal drama and the message it conveyed to audiences. What began as films focused on the protagonist's goals and motivations has evolved into an expository look at the world we all live in, and the prejudice, evil, and suffering that still exist (often because of our legal system rather than in spite of it). It was undoubtedly the personal tastes of the audience that ultimately influenced the genre. Fear and paranoia will always be prevalent in American society: these emotions have become a way of life, as our culture evolves, so will our own perceptions of these issues. propel the subject and, in turn, the protagonist's fight for justice in legal melodrama.
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