The Stanford Prison Experiment – You’ve heard about this experiment in passing or maybe it was a footnote in one of your college or high school classes (maybe not so much outside North America, but you know what? USA = the world. So get on board everybody else). Stanford professor sets up a 2 week experiment where several Stanford male students act as prisoners and other Stanford male students act as the prison guards. It all goes to shit fairly quickly and by day 6 the experiment is stopped.
What we witness is the abuse of power and abuse of authority and how we are influenced by the position we are given. How you are viewed affects you as well as how you view yourself. “Hey hey hey. I got this uniform, shades, and baton? Feels niiiiice. Feels powerful. It yells authority. Control. I liiiiiike this.” And before you know it you lose yourself and who you are and become your position. It’s really fun to see how the bullying, psychological abuse and emotional abuse keeps ramping up. Some prisoners lose their minds quickly. Others try to be goody two shoes in hopes that they will be spared, mostly. Not all prison guards let their position fully take over who they are outside of the experiment. But those who do, hoooo boy. They run with it and never pull back. My favorite are the lanky tall dude who seems like a bit of a well mannered goober in real life, but once he gets a little taste of having absolute authority… well let’s just say people like him should never be put in such positions haha. And the king guard has to be the guy who dons a cowboy accent and attitude. He really lives for this shit. It’s beautiful in the most twisted way.
I like Ezra Miller and Tye Sheridan the most as the prisoners. Ezra gets a good little choking scene here. I hear he recently applied this to a fan in some random country? :p . The main professor and his staff deal with what they see. Slowly but surely they become more uneasy with how things are going. The main professor doesn’t want to stop things even though they are getting out of control and even he is starting to be less of an observer and more of a “head of jail” type of dude. I think it’s the culmination of everyone speaking to him over time and then him witnessing what he does just before he pulls the plug that convinces him “alright, c’mon what are we doing here, really?”
It’s an enjoyable ride. Kinda goes by like that. You know exactly what you are getting into, but seeing it play out is quite enjoyable in a sick way. Abuse of authority, abuse of power and how quickly one is able to succumb to it.
