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My Cousin Vinny: Critical Legal Theory and American Legal Realism

Introduction

Movies have been the best source of entertainment and the most popular form of performing arts. The film industry is used for various purposes except entertainment; movies are used for marking legacies of legends and historic icons such as Troy or The gladiator. The movies are also used to highlight social issues. Movies are used for the purpose of visualizing future or unexplored parts of the world such as Star wars and species. The movie business is also incorporated to transform imaginary characters into real life for e.g. Sherlock Holmes or the Batman. One of the prime serving of the film industry is to produce lesson oriented movies in different subjects of life. The subject range varies from medical, political, personnel to law subjects.

A lot of movies have been produced on the subject of law and have attained significant critical acclaim and box office revenue. Movies like 12 angry men, the rainmaker, the Firm and My Cousin Vinny are amongst the top movies on the subject of law as rated by IMDB. This paper will be analyzing the movie My Cousin Vinny under the sections of Critical Legal Theory and American Legal Realism (IMDb, 2011).

Discussion

American Legal Realism

The debate of American Legal Realism began as early as 1881 when for the first time Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior attacked the normal legal practice in his publishing of The Common Law. According to the advocates of American Legal Realism the judge makes his decision in the context of books of law, previous cases and does not take into account cases of morality political situation and social harmonies. They debate the case should be decided in the context of current evidence rather than recorded books and the case should be judged while taking in account the no legal issues of the case.

American Legal Realism is a philosophical ideology which attacks the classical legal theory of the nineteenth century according to which the judicial system, judge and the lawyer proceed towards a case with the basic rules of law without defining the social, political and moral backgrounds behind a crime investigation.

According to the theory of American Realism a case should be judged on practical cases and the judge should provide the result according to the circumstantial evidence. Whereas, the classical theory suggests that a judge is not the law maker and he gives his verdict according to the law formulated by the law makers (Faralli, 2010).

Critical Legal Theory

It was a movement initiated in the 1970s and 1980s to break the class dominance and legal injustices occurring on the people of lower hierarchy because of class dominance and economic strength. It was a movement which challenged the existing legal institutions to benefit the human personality and bring in equality in the society.

The actual finding stones of Critical Legal Theory or Legal studies connect itself with the theory and principles of American Legal Realism. The Critical Legal Theory activists ...