"Death Experiment" is a film adapted from real experiments. The famous "Stanford Prison Experiment" is a research team led by American psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971 in a simulated prison located in the basement of the Department of Psychology Building at Stanford University. Regarding the human response to imprisonment and the psychological research on the influence of imprisonment on the authority and behavior of prisoners, the guards and prisoners are all undergraduates at Stanford University. The prisoners and guards quickly adapted to their roles, step by step beyond the preset limits, leading to dangerous and psychologically harmful situations. One-third of the guards were evaluated as showing "real" sadistic tendencies, and many prisoners were emotionally traumatized, and two of them had to withdraw from the experiment early. In the end, Zimbardo was warned about the increasing anti-social behavior in this subject and terminated the entire experiment early.
The experiment in the film is to recruit young people from the society to participate voluntarily, with a heavy payment of 4000 marks as a remuneration. Twenty people and 12 were prisoners, and 8 were prison guards. In just a few days, an incredible repertoire was staged in turn.
After reading it, my most intuitive feeling is that the personality defects of a person will be magnified in a specific environment, making human nature more distorted. On the first day of the experiment, the prison guard who played the former "Elvis Presley" suddenly found number 77 to do push-ups after turning off the lights. The main reason for his behavior is his own personality defects, impulsiveness, narrow-mindedness, and retribution. The continuous strengthening of his identity awareness makes him aware of and use the rights in his hands, and this right has become an accelerator for him to implement revenge. . No. 77 Fahd turned up for a prisoner who didn't drink milk during the day, which made him very shameless, and his character made him have to take revenge. Maybe in normal life he is just a prudent person, and he does not do anything secretly. Even if he is not in such a specific environment, I think if someone offends him in this way, he will still retaliate. The rights brought by the prison guard status gave him the opportunity, and the environment only played a supporting role. The deteriorating environment made his character even more distorted, becoming an accomplice of Burris, and finally even attempting to rape a female researcher.
Among these prison guards, there is a "chief" with the most perverse personality and even some abnormalities, Burris. He and Fahd are the central figures of the two opposing organizations and the focal point of the entire conflict. A series of collective provocations led by Fahd caused the prison guards to use water pipes to humiliate them, exposing Burris's coldness and despicability. Subsequently, Fahd deliberately angered him, which indirectly caused the guards to escape the supervision of the researchers, and carried out cruel physical and psychological revenge on Fahd. The character of Burris is full of flaws. It can be seen from the movie that he is withdrawn, cold and cruel, his stench makes him laughed at and excluded by others, and his heart is both inferior and narrow. In such a special environment, the constantly intensifying contradictions have exacerbated the distortion and perversion of his personality. His incitement and pressure on the prison guard team eventually resulted in a series of bad behaviors that insulted prisoners and dragged away the mattresses of prisoners who made mistakes. , Let people sleep on the concrete floor; as an insult, some prisoners were forced to go naked, were posted with mocking words, were put in horrible black boxes, and so on.
There is also a character whose personality is resistance to specific situational factors, that is, Bash, the prison guard who is engaged in the profession of teaching. He is another stark example. He has a kind and gentle personality and refuses violent behavior, but in that environment, under the pressure of the group, he had to obey and participate in the first revenge against Fahd. He regrets it very much, and the goodness in his character has been resisting the evil from the outside world. When Burris discovered and retaliated after the incident that helped Fahd spread the message, his fragile heart was finally on the verge of collapse, and in the end, the kind and honest he actually brutally killed a prison guard. His sorrow is that he has a kind character but does not have a strong heart. Instead, the weakness in his character is used by a specific environment to become an accomplice to his tragedy.
Through such an experiment, we see the fragility and helplessness of human nature, and the film cruelly shows how human nature is on the verge of collapse. At the same time, we should also see the strong side of human nature. Fahd’s unremitting struggle in the black box is enough to give us a huge shock. In such a dark and small space, anyone’s heart will be greatly tested. If a person’s The will is not strong enough, and the character is not strong enough to survive such a harsh environment. People who are weak in spirit are probably suffocated to death in it. This reminds me of a fragment of "The Shawshank’s Redemption". Andy was also fined for a month in imprisonment on the wall. Only a small window can see a little light. In the dark world, he can endure loneliness and resist inner struggles. How much courage is needed to convince yourself to survive in such an environment! As Andy said, "Hope is a good thing." As long as there is hope and a firm belief, you will be able to survive. For Fahd, his love for his girlfriend, his commitment to his friend (the person who was tied up after being injured), and his love and hope for life are all his strengths to persevere. Through this film, we should not only see the ugliness of human nature, but also find positive power, and this powerful force also comes from ordinary human nature. The inner strength is the real strength, and we can still break through the waves in a specific environment!
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