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Identification Through Socialization: Antoine Fuqua's Training Day

Peter Berger, a professor of Sociology at Boston University, introduces the relationship that exists between society and the individual in his book, Invitation to Society. He finds that’s society is an “external reality that exerts pressure and coercion upon the individual” (30), and the reason why this will always remain true is because, “we want to obey the rules” (30) and “we want the parts that society has assigned to us” (30). As humans, we are beings of our surroundings, and if placed into a society that lacks unwritten rules, socialization would not occur. Also, society is not just a factor in shaping what we do, but also who we are as people. It is difficult to break beyond these factors since our personal identifications are not self-determined and therefore we have little self-control over what happens. Berger calls these factors “powerful pressures”, that have the ability to “ensure that the proper responses are indeed forthcoming” (31). There is a constant underlying desire to obey rules and follow our socially assigned roles simply because we undergo pressures to fit in that are both external and internal. Role theory can be characterized by the simple statement: “Identity it socially bestowed, socially sustained, and socially transformed” (33). This means that society assigns, maintains and changes our identities during the process of socialization, which can eventually lead to an entrapment “by our own social nature” (44). Berger says this is because of “strong pressures toward consistency in the various roles [one] plays and the identities that go along with these roles” (37). Once the individual is assigned a role, they are expected to maintain and embody all aspects of this role, which guarantees that proper socialization will occur.
Berger’s theory is directly applicable to Antoine Fuqua’s 2001 film, Training Day. In this dark version of a typical “Buddy Movie”, veteran narcotics officer Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) takes his novice...