Legal dramas offer audiences the opportunity to enter the world of the courtroom beyond the dramatized emotions reflected by the characters (typically the lawyer and juries) in the film . The post-classical era film 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957) and the post-modernist film A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, 1996) consist of a protagonist determined to find truth and meaning in social paradoxes while overcoming strong adversities. . However, the shift of the legal drama genre between the post-classical and post-modernist eras (as seen in the two films) from a character-based genre to an expository character-based genre is attributed to paranoia caused by forces such as McCarthyism in the 1950s and America's internal conflicts and distrust of government in the 1990s. The drama genre dates back to the early 19th century and lays the foundation for character and plot as reflected in today's legal dramas. “The proper destiny for the dramatic hero or heroine was to learn Christian resignation while preserving moral purity in the face of great trials and tribulations” (Cawelti 38). The idea of ​​good versus evil, right versus wrong, came from the belief that being “good” meant having a strong faith in God and the resulting courage to act on one's good intentions. This genre myth carried over until the mid-20th century and served as the basis for the first legal dramas. However, Cawlti states, the emphasis on God has been eliminated from the moral equation to "seek other means of affirming transcendent moral truths in the secular, naturalistic world" (47). Regardless of the inclusion or exclusion of God in the myth drama genre, the main protagonist's consistency in "doing the right thing" and "fighting the wounds... in the middle of the paper... within this genre" . Paranoia due to McCarthyism in the 1950s and general fear and extreme distrust in domestic affairs in the 1990s altered both the presentation of the legal drama and the message it conveyed to audiences. What began as a film focused on the protagonist's goals and motivations has transformed into an expository look at the world we all live in and the prejudices, evil and suffering that still exist (often because of our legal system rather than in spite of it). Without a doubt it was the personal taste of the public that influenced the genre. Fear and paranoia will always be prevalent in American society – these emotions have become a way of life. As our culture evolves, it will be our perceptions of these issues that push the subject the issue and, in turn, the protagonist's fight for justice in legal melodrama.