Alana Snyder

The Purge is an annual day where no laws apply, even murder is legal, for the people to “purge” the bad urges out of them in order to minimize crime. The Purge takes an interesting standpoint from the eyes of both a high-status family as well as a lower-status African American male. It would be expected that in the movie, the people of higher status and capital don’t participate in the purge and remain safe inside their gated homes. In contrast to this, the homeless African American would be expected to die since he has no home to protect himself and would also be expected to participate in the purge because of his race and low-class status. In the movie, this man finds his way into the home of a wealthy family to try and survive the night. Some of the high-class family members spend the purge trying to protect this stranger that is in their house from the purgers outside, though some family members see him as a threat. At the end of the movie, the opposite of what one would expect occurs: the high-class neighbors and family end up participating in the purge and some of them die. Along with this, the low-class stranger survives and only participates in purging to stay alive rather than because of his class or race. The contradiction of the movie is what makes it so enticing. The film proves the point that survival is not just about social status and wealth. Regardless of the amounts of expensive security measures in place, purgers are still able to break through and create chaos, dysfunction, and death in high-class areas.