Blog 1- Les Mis

How does communication ethics play out in the film?

In the first segment of the film, Les Miserables, communication ethics played a major role concerning power and status.  Between the characters played by Hugh Jackman and Russel Crowe, the film started off by demonstrating with powerful visuals that Jackman played the part of a slave as punishment for his crime of theft.  Crowe played the role of the inspector/police officer that held a significantly higher social status than his counterpart.  After Crowe asked Jackman to retrieve the French flag from the water he addresses him solely as a number rather than a name which not only dehumanized Jackman, demonstrating their significant difference in 'power', but it showed through communication that Jackman was not worthy (did not have enough status) to bear a name, yet Crowe did because of his lack of a criminal background.
  Though, the power did not remain in Crowe's hands.  After Jackman transformed into his other alias and became mayor of a successful town, it became clear that the power had now shifted to the former slave.  Not only did Crowe have to take orders from Jackman, when Crowe admitted to wrongly (yet not to his knowledge, correctly) accusing the Mayor of being a criminal, he asked for the Mayor to punish him and even bowed in his presence when Jackman refused to offer punishment.  Through both verbal and nonverbal communication, the power shift became very clear and by looking at these power and status differences, each party was spoken to and treated in a significantly different manner; thus the ethics of communication was dramatically altered simply by the status that each character held.