Zadekpedia12 Angry Men is a film discussed by Bob Zadek on The Bob Zadek Show as an expression of the principle that speakers must be permitted to speak and listeners have a right to hear what they say. Zadek described it as one of the greatest American movies ever made and, in a later episode, as the best movie ever made. The excerpts do not present the film as a topic of any episode in its own right; it appears as an illustration introduced by Zadek in episodes whose subjects are elsewhere.
The film as Zadek describes it
Zadek said the film was made in the ’50s and was funded by Henry Fonda, with a budget of $700,000. He called it a movie that is supportive and respectful of American values and, besides being beautifully written, the one to watch for that purpose. He noted that the whole movie takes place in a jury room and that he would not go into the plot, since the plot is not much and it is the principle that matters. California’s New Union Gag Order Violates 1st Amendment (2020)
As Zadek recounted it, the film concerns 12 jurors asked to decide the fate of a minority young man accused of committing a murder. The jurors, he said, are a cross-section of American men of various walks of life, and in the film they are all male. At the start the jurors are fairly convinced the murder was done, and a first vote is 11 to 1 in favor of conviction, which Zadek said would have been death to the alleged perpetrator. A discussion follows, and Zadek described considerable bias among the characters: some strongly biased against the minority alleged perpetrator, others more neutral. When some jurors begin to express the view that they should go slow and look at the evidence, the more bigoted jurors respond aggressively that everyone knows he is guilty. California’s New Union Gag Order Violates 1st Amendment (2020)
Zadek singled out one juror—a meek middle-aged man—who speaks up and says to the bigot, “No, no. Let this man speak. I want to hear. Let this man speak.” Zadek declined to spoil the plot, saying listeners could probably guess it, and identified those words as the theme of that morning’s show. In his reading, implicit in the request to let the person speak is the need for fairness, for democracy, and for civilization to go forward. He stated that speakers must have the right to speak and, far more importantly for the show, that listeners have a right to learn what the speaker wants to say; once the speaker is denied the right to speak and the listener the right to listen and to have access to information, he said, we are doomed. California’s New Union Gag Order Violates 1st Amendment (2020)
Use in the Section 3550 episode
The film supplied the title and framing of a segment on California’s Section 3550, a statute Zadek described as prohibiting public officials from making statements that might “deter or discourage” union membership. The episode’s guests were Terry Pell of the Center for Individual Rights and school board member Jeffrey Barke, who explained how the measure violated the First Amendment rights of both officials and the citizens they serve. California’s New Union Gag Order Violates 1st Amendment (2020)
Guest Jeffrey Barke responded to Zadek’s review by thanking him on behalf of himself and his wife, saying they now had a movie to watch on Netflix that night and that he did not think he had seen 12 Angry Men before. California’s New Union Gag Order Violates 1st Amendment (2020)
Use in the jury trial episode
Zadek returned to the film in a discussion of the right to trial by jury, calling it the best movie ever made and naming Henry Fonda. He told listeners to stop listening to the podcast, turn it off, put it on pause, go watch 12 Angry Men, and then come back, adding that he had to sneak that in and that he loved Henry Fonda’s portrayal. The remark came as he pressed the point that the jury trial was crucial to the founders and to those who built the system of government, invoking the people who died at Valley Forge to protect the right to be tried by a jury of one’s peers. What happened to the right to a trial by jury? (2022)
Across episodes
Two episodes touch the film: the 2020 episode on Section 3550, where Zadek made it the theme of the hour and Barke said he had not seen it, and the 2022 episode on the right to trial by jury, where Zadek recommended it in passing while discussing Valley Forge and the founders. The episodes show no development in the treatment; the film is invoked the same way each time, as a statement of the principle that a speaker must be heard.