Media Literacy class review

Rating: 7/10 (1 October 2012)

Dog Day Afternoon is a film based on an article from Life magazine about a robbery that occurred in the seventies in Brooklyn. A man named Sonny and his accomplice Sal attempt to rob a bank to come up with money for Sonny's gay lover's sex-change operation. Sidney Lumet does a great job directing this film, essentially recreating the actual robbery that occurred in New York. Sonny's character seems very masculine throughout the opening sequence, he immediately takes charge. The cliché bank robber always tries to scare the bank teller into rushing to the vault, much like what Sonny does. The irony in the film is that Sonny is revealed to be a homosexual so his masculinity is feminist. Sonny's gay lover Leon goes on a rant to the police officers that Sonny is a crazy person when he is around him, but he is a good father to his two children that he has along with a wife. This provides a parallel to Sonny's character, he has two personalities, and this could be said about all people who are bi-sexual or sexually confused. Lumet uses the bank as Sonny's place of negotiation, inside the bank is where Sonny feels protected from the police. Although Sonny steps outside the bank to make some negotiations, his accomplice Sal stays inside. Sal represents the paranoid friend in cliques that is constantly over-thinking their decisions. Regardless of their personalities, both Sonny and Sal can be classified as first time crooks. Sonny can also be classified with Sargent Moretti in the sense that they are both male roles demanding things from each other in order to get their way. Some obvious examples of grouping I could come up with were the actual hostages and the Brooklyn police department. The reason Sonny had hostages was because he was determined to get the money and he needed collateral. Sonny's determination could be looked at as crazy. I interpreted his determination as love for himself. He was trying to prove that he could get what he wants, which was for Leon to undergo the operation. In a way, it seems he wanted the operation more than Leon. An alternative to this viewpoint could be that Sonny loves Leon and will stop at nothing to get him what he wants. Love makes you do crazy things and Leon often refers to Sonny as crazy. If you think about it this way, it alters Sonny's character from a crazy man to a man crazy about another man.