To what extent are the characters in the Urban Stories you have viewed victims of a more dominant social and political ideology?

‘La Haine’ and ‘Princesses’ are all Urban Stories that have characters who considered victims of a dominant social and political ideology. Both films show this in different ways because they all discuss about different social issues and also are from two different cultures. The characters in these films reflect this and often shown as victims of this ideology.


In ‘La Haine’ (1995), the three main characters; Vinz, Saїd and Hubbert are all victims of this ideology. They are all from different ethnic backgrounds and culture and are all living in one big americanised estate on the outskirts of Paris. Their culture and the Americanism creates a lot of diversity between the estate and the centre of Paris. We can see this when Saїd, Vinz and Hubbert all go to Paris. When they first get there, they don't know what to do with themselves as they don't fit in and its not like how their estate is. The policemen in Paris are considered to be 'polite' by Saїd. However back at the estate, thats a different case. The police are more corrupt and are much more violent towards the citizens there. At the end of the film, Vinz becomes victim to the cops as one of them shoots him accidently. Characters in La Haine are also real life victims of abuse, e.g. the character of Adbul.

In 'Princesses' (2005), the characters, Zulema and Caye are both victims of this ideology. Both characters are prostitutes living in Madrid. Caye is very secretive about her job and hides what she does from her family. She also has no father figure which may have help to cause her to go down the road that she did. Zulema is more of a victim than Caye is due to the amount of abuse she gets from men with more authority and the fact that she is an immigrant. Zulema is found multiple times throughout the film by Caye after being abused and raped by the man who is supposed to be sorting out her papers that allow her to stay in the country. The only way for her to get her papers is to doing the opposite of what she wants which causes her to be physically effected. Later on, in the film she finds out that she has HIV and in revenge she makes sure that her abuser gets it. Unlike Caye, Zulema manages to escape and goes home to her family.