If you were to take lessons from 12 real angry men, you’d probably end up scorching through town committing senseless acts of violence as if you were on a perpetual Grand Theft Auto “Rampage” task. Of course, this is real life, so you’d probably end up doing less illegal things like stamping an innocent spider into a hairy paste or kicking pigeons to death with steel toe boots drenched in bile. That’s decidedly uncool (and somewhat frowned upon in wider society), so you’re much better off sticking to lessons from fictional angry men instead.
The 1957 film 12 Angry Men is slightly unusual, in
that pretty much the entire thing takes places in one stuffy room. It’s about a
jury (who are, incidentally, pretty angry) who have to come to a decision on
the case of an 18 year old Puerto Rican boy who is accused of having stabbed
and killed his father. The evidence is pretty damning, with an established
murder weapon and two witnesses pointing to the boy’s guilt, and only an
apparently shaky series of explanations to back his case up. The jury are
informed that if they rule guilty, the judge will have no choice but to issue
the death penalty, before being shown to the deliberation room.
The film is awesome
(and on YouTube), so watch it if you have an hour and a half
spare. If not, I’m about to monumentally ruin the plot for you anyway. I’m sure
it’s customary to write the word “spoilers” in size 48 neon-coloured capitals,
but this will do.
It’s really about the
concept of “reasonable doubt,” which states that you can’t convict someone as
guilty unless you can prove it comprehensively. To establish reasonable doubt,
you’ve got to approach problems reasonably, and each of the 12 key characters
serves as a lesson in how to do that.
Juror #8: Always Ask Questions
To start the deliberations, the jury decide to conduct an introductory vote. Eleven vote guilty, and a lone man – Juror #8 – votes not guilty. To reach a final decision, the jury has to be unanimous, so the rest of them set about trying to determine what’s wrong with him so they can socially bitch-slap him into agreeing with them. He doesn’t feel comfortable deciding someone’s fate without considering the possibilities, and calls the credibility of the witnesses, the “unique” nature of the murder weapon and several other details into question.
Juror #8 shows the
value of asking questions before accepting things as truth. He has good reason
for his questions – for example, he picked up an identical knife to the murder
weapon for cheap from a shop in the boy’s area. Instead of accepting the
surface-level argument which points to the boy’s guilt, he asks questions and
encourages the jurors to think more deeply about the case.
Even when he is
massively outnumbered, he remains a bastion of reason. By refusing to accept
any testimony or piece of evidence without analysing it carefully and always
asking questions to reveal the truth, Juror #8 is ultimate hero of the story.
Juror #9: Use Your Senses
Juror #9 is an
unassuming old man. He is also a sharp observer, probably the least angry of
all the “angry” men and downright awesome. His role early on is somewhat
subdued, with pretty much the only clue to his astuteness being his ability to
recognise Juror #10 as being “a dense, racist tumour on the mind of society.”
That may not be an exact quote, but I’m sure that’s what he meant to say.
Later on, watching the
bespectacled juror sat opposite him rub the bridge of his nose, he recalls
something from the case. He notes the deep impressions left on either side of
his nose where it makes contact with his glasses, and remembers that the
eye-witness had the same imprints. He describes her making the same gesture
intimately, and notes the thick make-up she wore.
He teaches us about
observation, and more importantly, about giving consideration to what you see. Juror
#9 realises that the eyewitness needed glasses, and that she didn’t wear them
to the trial because she wanted to look her best. This means that her ability
to see the murder is called into question, one of the key pieces of evidence
for the boy’s guilt.
Juror #5: Use Your Existing Knowledge
If you’re
investigating a stabbing, the angle of the knife wound is very very important. Thankfully,
in this case the murderer opted to leave the flick-knife sticking out of the chest
of the victim, so it was pretty obvious it had been plunged in from above. However,
the logistics of this (with the father being considerably taller than his son)
aren’t clear, and the group set about testing their theories.
Juror #5 grew up in a
slum, and witnessed plenty of knife fights in his youth. He watches the tense
“test” stabbing demonstration and realises a mistake. He points out that
flick-knifes are designed to be operated underarm, so anyone familiar with them
would never use them in the psycho-style downward stabbing motion.
He shows how your
experience, whatever it’s in, can be valuable to analysing information. It’s
not like he spent hours Googling knife-fighting techniques, he just picked it
up in the course of his life. When something doesn’t quite match up to your
existing knowledge, it’s time to ask yourself why not. This train of thought
led to Juror #5’s moment of brilliance.
Juror #11: Watch for Inconsistencies
Juror #11 is a
European refugee, and is somewhat nervous about his English. He makes notes through
the deliberations and the trial, and comes up with an important point. The boy
was supposed to have stabbed his father at midnight, yet he wasn’t caught by
the police until he returned home at 3am. His alibi was that he was at the
movies, but the fact that he couldn’t remember which films he watched left the
jury assuming it was a lie.
But Juror #11 spots an
important inconsistency in the story. If he had committed the murder, would he
really go back three hours later? Unless he wanted
to get gang-raped in prison, you wouldn’t imagine so. It’s suggested that he went
to get his knife back, but Juror #11 points out that if that was so important, he
wouldn’t have left it in the corpse’s chest in the first place. Since it had already
been wiped clean of fingerprints, the murderer clearly hadn’t forgotten about
it entirely.
If a story is littered
with inconsistencies, there is obviously something wrong with it. In this
example, taking his alibi as truth removes the inconsistencies, explaining his
return and giving credibility to his story.
Juror #2: Stand up For Yourself
Juror #2 is so timid
that the same actor was the voice of Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh. He’s
overshadowed by the block-headed Juror #3 sitting beside him, and it isn’t till
he is denounced as a “sadist” and a “self-appointed public avenger” that Juror
#2 finds the strength to express his true views and vote not guilty.
There is no point
agreeing with other people just because you think they are more powerful,
important or physically stronger than you. Hiding your opinions for this reason
is basically being bullied; instead of meekly spluttering whatever the bully
tells you to do, stick up for your own views.
Juror #6: WWSD (What Would Socrates Do?)
You don’t have to be
overbearing to make a difference in an argument. Socrates wandered around ancient
Greece, “polluting” the minds of the youth, feigning mental simplicity and
almost drawing his own arguments out of the people he was talking to. Juror #6
is hardly noticeable in the film, and is generally described as being a bit
dim. It’s as if he’s struggling to keep up throughout the proceedings, but he
actually makes some important points.
His biggest moment is
when they learn the eye-witness has glasses. The murder took place at midnight,
so the woman must have been in bed. When Juror #9 points out the impressions,
it sets #6 thinking. Eventually he pipes up, saying “this may be a dumb
thought, but” before pointing out that people don’t usually wear glasses to
bed.
This was the final
piece in the puzzle of the eyewitness, who saw something that mounting
arguments indicate didn’t happen, and it was provided by a simple painter. If
you want to get your ideas across without being overbearing, take the Socratic
approach like Juror #6.
Juror #7: Rushing Will Only Hold You Back
The main aspect of
Juror #7’s character is that he loves baseball, and he has a ticket to a game
due to start later in the day. He doesn’t want to be there, and directly complains
the most in response to #8’s call for deeper analysis.
From his point of
view, life is pretty annoying. He has tickets to a game, but his ridiculous
civic duties have thrust a life-or-death decision on him, and his fellow jurors
aren’t exactly speeding things up. He’s visibly frustrated throughout,
evidently willing things to move faster so he can still make the baseball.
Because of this, he
goes with the majority at the beginning, assuming that #8 will eventually give
up on his righteous aims. It isn’t until a storm forces the game to be
cancelled that #7 actually appraises the facts of the case. His decision was
rushed because the only priority was getting it over with. As a result, he
spends most of the time exasperated and painfully wrong.
You can’t rush clear
thinking. Getting to the truth takes as long as it takes, and it won’t hurry up
just so you can make your sports game, watch your favourite programme or be on
time for any sort of social or professional engagement. If getting the answer
is important enough, put everything else out of your mind.
Juror #12: Consider Your Choices
Juror #12 is a smarmy marketing executive who
spends the majority of his time in the deliberation room shoe-horning
cringe-inducing “jokes” from his office into conversation. He treats the case
like light entertainment, being quite happy that he got a murder and not
something boring.
After seven other jurors change their minds, he
starts to pay some attention to what’s being discussed. He follows a
back-and-forth like an open-jawed, slobbering Labrador chasing a ball being thrown
between its owners, changing his vote with every point made.
To him, it’s the equivalent of Murder, She Wrote stopping at periodic
intervals and asking him for his verdict on which of the characters is guilty.
At first, he can safely follow the majority, but as things even up he hops
between the two mindlessly. He shows us that being undecided isn’t a bad thing,
and when you form an opinion you should have reasons for it. Otherwise you’ll
share a character trait with a stereotypically-depicted slimy American
marketing executive. Nobody wants that.
Juror #1: Focus Your Attention on the Problem
Juror #1 is a man with a meaningless position of
responsibility during the deliberations. He’s the foreman, and as a result
spends most of his time internally fretting about his new-found responsibility
like a schoolboy tasked with taking the morning register.
By becoming so invested in his job, he devotes
very little of his mental energy to the actual case – he’s too busy worrying
about when it’s time to call another vote or stopping the deliberation room
from turning into a bloodbath. He mindlessly returns guilty votes until he
takes a moment to actually think about what’s being said.
He’s not being stupid; he’s just too worried about
fulfilling his role as the foreman to fulfil his role as a juror. It’s easy to
solve a problem if you don’t even take the time to fully understand it, like a
crossword would be easy if you just scratched the word “piss” into every space
you could. Sometimes the clue will be “a golden shower involves a stream of
this liquid (4),” but you have no way of knowing unless you engage with problem
at hand.
Juror #10: Prejudice Cripples your Mind
Juror #10 is the aforementioned racist. The boy on
trial was brought up in a slum, so Juror #10 works on the assumption that this
makes him an animal, someone about as trustworthy as a starving bear. After
unleashing a rant to this effect (shocked that so many of his fellow jurors
have changed their minds), everybody in the room systematically turns their
back on him. Yes, that comes across onscreen every bit as bizarre and childish as
it seems.
He is socially ostracised, being moved to what can
only be described as the “racist” chair, sitting away from the others like a
naughty schoolchild. It obviously makes Juror #10 think; he realises he
pre-conceived notions about people from slum backgrounds are preventing him
from making an honest appraisal and changes his mind. There may also have been
some influence from Juror #5 who is from a slum, understandably annoyed at his
comments and happens to be an expert in the correct use of knives.
These prejudices aren’t just the typical racial or
religious varieties. Everybody hates the fact that politicians appear to make a
career out of lying, so it would be tempting to say that politicians are liars.
This implies all politicians are
liars, and if one was confessing their innocence you would immediately not
believe them. This is obviously a problem, because not even politicians lie all
of the time, and it’s at least possible
for one to be honest. You have to look at the facts, not your personal views.
Juror #4: Consider the Alternatives
Juror #4 is actually very reasonable, but it takes
him even longer than the racist to come around to the alternative viewpoint.
First, he questions the boy’s alibi. He was supposed to have been at the
movies, but he couldn’t even remember the name of the film he went to see.
Juror #8 approaches the problem in his ordinary, question-happy fashion and
gets Juror #4 to recount his past week one day at a time. Eventually, his
robotic memory fails him and Juror #8 points out that the boy would be under
emotional stress, which could obviously affect his ability to recall trivial details
like the star of the film he claims to have watched on the night. This doesn’t
flap Juror #4.
His main issue is the eye-witness. He still
believed in her credibility although she witnessed the murder though the window
of a passing train from across the street. This sole scrap of evidence was
enough for him to hang on for longer than the vast majority of jury, despite
everything which emerged to the contrary. After learning that she needed
glasses and wasn’t wearing them at the time, he realises his mistake.
Being tied to your opinion is very tempting.
Nobody likes to be wrong, but you can’t always be right. Juror #4 is
analytical, but once he’s reached his conclusion he ignores the new evidence
with all the flair of a climate change denier. It’s best to treat your opinion
as nothing more than the best approximation of the facts that you have; not
gospel truths. When new, contradictory information surfaces, you can take the
fundamentalist approach and ignore it or toss the old opinion out like a piece
of mouldy bread. It’s better to move towards being right than to sit around
being wrong.
Juror #3: Drop Your Emotional Baggage
As you’ve probably noticed, the jurors who took
the longest to come around to the valid arguments are the ones with deeper
issues than the individual case, and Juror #3 is no different. His issue is his
own son. They had a tumultuous relationship, and he was left hurt and desperate
for punishment. Since he couldn’t take it out on his son, he took it out on the
Puerto Rican boy.
When you need to make a decision, your emotions
are pretty much your kryptonite. Without delving into hypothetical
pop-psychology, you need a good understanding of where your biases may lie. You
can be resentful of whoever you want for whatever reason, but you should at
least acknowledge your issues and how they may affect your opinion.
Juror #3 is the last one fighting for a guilty verdict,
and it’s so close to his heart that you start to feel sorry for him. Unless you
think about how he’s approaching the decision, that is, in which case he’s a
colossal moron. The case has nothing whatsoever to do with his son, he’s just
so angry about it because the case is about a boy being mean to his father.
He breaks down into tears after realising his
mistake and changes his vote.
