Blog One: Les Mis

Q: How does communication ethics begin to play out/show in the beginning of the film?

A: For this particular activity, I had to define communication and ethics. For starters, I'm defining communication as a transmission of a message, exchange of ideas, or interaction. Specifically, for Les Mis, communication is based upon structures of power and oppression. Secondly, ethics is going to be defined loosely as morals, empathy, respect, civility, and right versus wrong.

Now, the very beginning of the film opens on a scene that perfectly embodies the portrayal of communication ethics within the film as a whole. The whole song ("Look Down") centers on the idea that these men cannot look at Javert - let alone talk to him at all - because there is a system of power and oppression that discourages free flow of communication between individuals, particularly between individuals of different class levels. We see this on an interpersonal basis in the first interaction between Javert and Valjean. "Retrieve the flag," Javert says. It is without barely looking at Valjean that Javert orders him to complete this humanly-impossible task. It shows that Javert has a complete lack of respect for these human lives because he sees them as lowly.

Another fantastic example of communication ethics in Les Mis is the comparison of Javert and the Bishop. These two men represent opposite sides of the spectrum of communication ethics. Javert represents a lack of communication ethics. He is cold, unfeeling, and revels in his power over other people. He seems to wallow in the glory of his words carrying far more weight than theirs. The Bishop, on the other side, represents ethical communication at its finest. Despite lying to the guards/police about Valjean's crime, the Bishop displays empathy and civility toward Valjean and gives him a chance at redemption, something Javert and the rest of the community had denied him as a criminal.

The songs of this film are openly voicing the unethical communication present in the plot, particularly the song "At the End of the Day". The people of Paris (and France) are singing about the literal lack of communication between classes in the hierarchical system of French politics and how their suffering is a direct effect of that lack of communication. The prostitutes, for example, are a visual representation of the higher class taking advantage of the lower class. In the scene with Fantine, the male customer literally takes her without even speaking a word to her. There is no communication, so how could it possibly be ethical? Again, Javert plays a distinctive role as the image of unethical communication. When Fantine is accused of lashing out, Javert does not even listen to her side of the story because she's low class. There is no communication and, if there is, it is superficial.