Murder Of Matthew Shepard Analysis

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Following the murder of Matthew Shepard, there was no single or common reaction from the public. Various emotions surfaced throughout the country as the town of Laramie Wyoming became the center of brutal hate crime. In the film, a number of residents from the town of Laramie gave their opinions on the topic of homosexuality, and what they believed to be the common attitude toward gays. Most said things along the lines of Laramie is “live and let live”, they said that they might poke fun at homosexuality here and there but it never went beyond that. A few of the residents that were interviewed made it clear that they were completely opposed to homosexuality but still saw the murder of Matthew as a tragedy, and did not believe any human being…show more content…
Aside from the focus on the murder, people also had their personal opinions about Matthew and his character, including a woman who expressed her anger about Matthew being portrayed as a saint through the media, and how she believed he wasn’t as innocent as he was made out to be due to rumors of his promiscuity and spreading…show more content…
The amount of coverage that Matthews murder received gave a lot of people the idea that his death was of more importance than the death of others in the town. It overshadowed other stories because unlike other murders or deaths, it was motivated by one boy’s sexuality and categorized as a hate crime. It served as an eye opener not only to the people of Laramie but also to the people of the country because discrimination against homosexuals was in some ways a social norm ( and still is), but because someone had actually been murdered because they were homosexual, this was considered by most to be downright unacceptable. In today’s society when you hear that someone was shot to death, it might get a couple days, or a couple minutes of media coverage and then the story will soon fade away, but when you hear that someone was shot and the motivation of the murder was race, or sexual orientation it is often more publicized and gains more media coverage. Although the media makes it out to seem that one’s person’s life is more valuable than another’s, what it comes down to is America’s response, if the media believes that America will have a greater response to one story, that is the story that will be the focus of the media. Many people were shocked and very

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