Whale Rider

Introduction

            Whale Rider is a story that talks about a young girl whose name Paikea on how she is struggle to the acceptance from her grandfather (Koro).  She is struggle to play the role what her grandfather expects her to be and the role that she believes she was born with. 

The story begins with the unfortunate incident when Paikea’s older twin brother and mother had passed away during birth.  Her father named her after the legendary ancestor Paikea; however, Koro did not recognize her appearance.  He denies Paikea as he believe that only the first-born male of every generation were allowed to take up the role of leader of the tribe.  Paikea had been left to her grandparents and being brought up by both her grandparents in the tribe.  Over the years as Paikea grew up, Koro no longer looked at Paikea with the same feeling of disappointment after a period of living together.  However, Koro still refused to treat her as the leader of the tribe.  But, Paikea believes that by sharing the same name with the ancestor, she firmly believes that it was her duty to lead the tribe and would not allow gender and Koro’s discourage statement to hold her back.  She tried a lot of other ways to learn to be the chief of the tribe.

There are several psychology concepts that may had demonstrated in this movie.  Below I will start to explain each concept one by one and show how it had been portrayed in the movie.  

Gender Identity

            As mentioned in the paragraph above Paikea was rejected by her grandfather.  The tribe practice patriarchal.  It is a social system in which males hold primary power and hold more predominant power over female like being the chief of the tribe.  Due to the culture that practice by the tribe, Koro invalidate Paikea’s significance in the family and to the people in the village.  But, Paikea did not believe in this culture and tried very hard to fit it so that she can grant the approval from her grandfather.  For example, she learned the Maori’s martial art from her uncle secretly; but, when her grandfather found it out, he was angry to Paikea as he believes that only male can learn it and it is specially prepared for the future leader.  Although Paikea perform better than other boy and did fulfilled all the requirement but Koro never accepted Paikea as his inheritance.

Need for recognition and acceptance

            Paikea behave like a boy to break the stereotype that Koro had onto her.  Her gender as being a female was destined and can’t be change, but there is something that still can change which is the ability.  She wants to prove to her grandfather on her ability is not being confined by gender and she has the ability to do what the boys can do and even can do better than them.  For instances, Paikea was able to dive into the ocean and retrieve the whale tooth that Koro had thrown in the sea and all the boy failed to do so. 

            Paikea did a lot of things that may seems to be not make any sense but the acceptance and recognition from Koro drove her to do it without hesitance.  This was being portrayed in the movie when Koro was depressed and was calling help from the ancestor when he did not found the right one to be the leader to lead the tribe.  Paikea saw that and wanted to help her grandfather.  She imitated the groan and tried to seek help from the ancestor although she did not know whether did this method work or not. 

Challenging Mindset

            The traditional mindset had been challenged and it changed until Koro realized that because of his stubbornness, he nearly lost his granddaughter and causes the tribe to lost the chief.  This remind me that people may not willing to change as change may indicate that they might do wrong in the past and need to step out from the comfort zone.  People will only realize the matter when it is too late to change and some irreversible events had happened.  I personally think that challenging is not an easy thing that everyone can do it especially in the conservative culture.  This is because conservative culture tends to have the stereotype that elderly will not admit their mistake in front of the young generation.  This happened in my family as well, although my mother is a well-educated person but she will not have admitted her false decision and always blame on others that lead to the situation become worse. 

This similar situation had reminded me on a book that I had read in the past that talks about every mistake is our own mistake no matter what is the reason behind it.  Although at first, I do not understand the analogy behind it and finally I get it right.  The analogy of this statement is that if we do admit that the mistake is the false that we had made, then we will have had the room of changing and improve it; however, if we blame it on others, we could not do anything and can only wait for other to change it.  To change others is not under our own capabilities but changing our own self is totally another different issue. 

Conclusion

            In a nutshell, the movie had brought a huge impact to me on the importance of family and community can grow further with harmony.  I believe that no matter what is the obstacles that we may encountered in our life, a family and the community stays together in harmony may help one and another to pass through it and move forward and become better compare to the past.  

Forget Paris

            I still remember that when I was young, I did have the chance to watch those fantasy movies like Cinderella, Snow White etc.  All of those stories have one common theme which always portray the ending with a happy ending by showing that both the lead male and female actor will live happily ever and after.  As an audience, sometimes we will be curious on the what would be their life after the story end; however, the story always just end there and did not further explain the story.  Forget Paris is another story that emphasize on the life after married of a couple.  Forget Paris is

Summary

            Mickey is a professional referee who travels to France to bury his father.  In the process, he met Ellen who works in the Airline that handling the shipping of the Mickey’s father coffin to the Paris.  Their meeting occurred as the Airline had lost Mickey’s father during the travel; with it he had the chances to meet Ellen in helping Mickey to locate and retrieve the coffin.  Their started fall in love in a short while and even Mickey decided to delay his flight in order to have the chance to spend time with Ellen.  However, every sweet moment should have an end when Mickey was forced to return back to his country for the NBA.

            The returnment of Mickey had caused him to miss the chance to be with Ellen as she had married.  Mickey could not give up on Ellen and even lose his temper during his job that lead to him being suspended by NBA, so he decided to flew back to Paris to find Ellen.  The truth had shocked him as Ellen got married but separated; however, he is unsure whether Ellen will get back together with her husband or not. 

            At last, Ellen got divorced with her husband and quit her job in France and got married with Mickey.  They had spent a honeymoon period like they had in the past in the Paris when they had met.  After the honeymoon period, Mickey went to back work and Ellen takes an entry-level service job.  Ellen started to feel lonely and depressed as she hated her new job and she could only saw Mickey a few days in a month.  Ellen forced Mickey to quit his job and he compromise by taking a one-year leave of absence and started to working as a car seller. 

            Mickey was very unhappy with his new job and need to stay at home to take care of Arthur, Ellen’s father.  He revealed that he wanted to go back to become referee as he love his job very much.  However, as Ellen had climb up to the management and had been offered a transfer to Dallas, but Mickey refuse it.  As a result, Ellen decided to take on the offer to transfer to Paris.  Now, both of them did not have the chances to spend time with one and another as Mickey was busy with his NBA tour and Ellen was working in Paris. 

            Both of them could not stand the loneliness and the empty feeling without the company of the others.  Mickey decided to run to Paris to find Ellen and before he make it to the airport, he saw Ellen in the arena.  Both of them meet and reconcile at the middle of the court and decided to be together again. 

Analogy of Marriage

            I always heard that people describe marriage as ½ + ½ = 1.  However, I think that this analogy is incorrect in describing marriage.  This is because I believe that every individual should be a complete person but not a half person.  Marriage is a combination of two complete people who hope to life together.  Recently, I had heard another analogy in describing marriage which is the companions in the journey of life.  I tends to believe that this analogy is more suitable in describing it as I believe that a couple in a marriage is a companion who can company one and another to walk in their journey of life which contains a lot of up and downs.  I believe that there is no one single life is smooth and there is always up and downs that people need to experience and marriage allows the people to have someone in accompanying to pass through it. 

Myths of Couplehood

Marriage is not the only option that we have in order to keep going in life.  Being

single is not the bad things; however, I believe that rushing into marriage without proper planning is worse.  This is because we may have not prepare physical and mentally in stepping into marriage and this may lead to us to blame on it later in life.  As a result, it is advised that people need to focus on our journey before finding a companion.  Finding a companion is not the only thing that we need focus in our life.  I tend to believe that if a person who have live a full and complete live are more likely to succeed in getting the right partner later in life. 

            People who live an empty life tends to dependent and place unreasonable expectations on their behalf.  It is important that people do no start their relationship due to loneliness or other factors unless we think that we have ready to step in it.  People should not always have the idea to seek for perfect compatible mate as the criteria in seeking future partner.  There is no one who are perfectly compatible with one and another; as every people are brought up differently with different culture of background, personality, values and etc.  I believe that perfect mate should be the one who can adapt and compromise with one another by understanding what is the difference between the couple and empower the strength of the couple to minimize the conflict and gap between them. 

            In a conclusion, I think that communication is a very important element in a couplehood relationship.  Almost all the conflict start by having assumption.  People should not assume what other people think on the issue as it may not the truth.  Couple should also leave each other some space so that they are not stress with the close and intimate attachment. 

Why Mickey and Ellen had so many conflicts?

            Mickey and Ellen always argue with one and another as they always have high expectations both of them had of each other, as they would always highlight their magical week in Paris, and would say how both of them had changed so much since the time they first met. Because of this, their current relationship was neglected leaving it to crumble because of Mickey and Ellen’s lack of focus on their current situation at hand.  Their relationship did not work well was because of the high expectations coupled with wrong intentions held by both Mickey and Ellen. Why I say wrong intentions is because when the two met each other, both of them were at their lowest points in their lives with Mickey struggling with his career, and Ellen separating from her husband. When one gets into a relationship in order to conceal the wounds of past pains, the outcome can be less than ideal especially if both partners are not willing to work with each other in order for both parties to grow and heal from their past wounds.  That’s why I believe that high expectations and only focus on the past is the factors that may lead to conflict between the couples.  Couple who always focus in the past may not move forward and may tend to blame on the other half for not having this and that. 

Conclusion

            In a nut shell, this movie had taught me the importance of communication in working on the relationship.  Relationship is not one-sided and it always need both parties to work hard together to pass through all the up and downs.  In the end, just like any other kind of relationship, if we want to make it successful, it would require a lot of work from both partners with communication being key to success. 

Strictly Ballroom

            Musical movie is always one type of the movie that capture my attention.  This is because musical movie had broken my stereotype toward the typical movie that only focus on the acting but it also emphasis on music elements.  High School Musical Series was the first time I started in be in touch with musical series movie.  Soon later, I started to fall in love into this similar type of movie.  I thought that the first musical movie that I had watched is the first release of the similar movie in the history.  This perception stays in my head until that day, I get the chance to watch Strictly Ballroom.  Then only I realize that musical movie had already started release in the 90 centuries. 

Summary

            Strictly Ballroom is a romantic comedy film that talks about how an Australian ballroom dancer, Scott struggles to establish his style of dance that he had invented to win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship.  The style of dance that he had invented had not been recognized by anyone as the people think that he is against the rule that Australian Dancing Federation had set.  Only one of the girl, Fran, a beginner dancer who just start to learn dancing in Scott parents’ studio that support Scott decision and thinks that his style of dance is better than the normal step that everyone is following and had made an offer to dance with him.  However, Scott reject Fran’s offer to dance with her as he thinks that she did not have the qualification to dance with him as he started to dance since young and had become a professional dancer unlike Fran as a beginner.  After a lot of up and downs, Scott finally had taken on the chances to dance with Fran in the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix and forget about the winning the competition.  Lastly, the action that they done in the competition had grant them a lot of recognition from the people in the crowd that means a lot to Scott and Fran which are heavier than winning the competition. 

            In this movie, it had well demonstrated on how social influence had impact on people life.  There are three main components in social influence which are compliance, conformity, and obedience. 

Compliance

            Compliance is defining as change of one’s behaviours because of other people’s directing or asking for change.  The change may not involve a change in attitudes or beliefs of another person.  Compliance is developed by three factors which are mood, reciprocity, and reasons.  This is demonstrated in the film when the Liz complies to Scott with his new steps in taking part in a dancing competition.  This can be showed that Liz did not agree with Scott decision as she blames on Scott for being so disobedience and did not follow the rule that are set by the Australian Dancing Federation that lead to lose in the competition.  Liz are forced to complies to what Scott desired in as there are limited time left to decide on whether did she want to follow to Scott’s step and also there is rule that female dancing partner should follow the male dancing partner in dancing. 

            Besides that, Scott also comply to the rule in following the rule that are set by the authority.  At first, he was not convinced by the influence of authority, his mother as he believed that it was against his principles in dancing.  However, Barry, the presidents of Australian Dancing Federation told Scott the fake story to trigger his emotion to persuade him to dance with Liz with the official step.  At the end of the story, Barry even “beg” Scott to win the champion to help his father to make the dream come true that his father had lost the opportunity when he was young.  In the end, Scott comply to Barry as he thinks that by helping his father to realize the dream is more important than dancing on his own style.  This shows how mood, reciprocity, and reason become the factors that why Scott will comply to Barry’s instruction. 

Conformity

            Conformity is the tendency that people alter their behaviour because of group pressure.  People will change their own behaviour to match with the rest.  In the film, it shows that most of the dancer in the movie tends to conform to the rule if they want to stand a chance to win.  People will not against the rule and against the norm as it may result them to be the odd one and may lost the chance to win the competition.  In the worsen condition, it may also result in the dancer to lose their career life as a dancer. 

            Moreover, conformity level tends to increase when there has confident confederate.  This is shows when all the dancer tends to dance according to the rule except Scott and Fran as the appearance that Barry shown to the audience is so powerful and confident that cause the people to be afraid to go against him.  However, in the last scene of the movie, Scott’s father, Doug stand up and clapped for the performance for Scott and Fran had been performed in front of all the audience in the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix competition.  His action had influence all the audience stood up and clapped for Scott and Fran.  This conformity demonstrate on how the minority can influence on the majority with the criteria that the minority need to highlight a great confidence and consistency in his action. 

Obedience

            Obedience is an action that follow the authority by the an individual.  It is demonstrated in the movie when Fran was threatened by Scott’s mother, Shirley to go away and left Scott to dance with Tina or Liz so that he gets the chance to win the competition.  The appearance of Shirley had demonstrated obedience by Fran as Shirley is the authority that had the higher power in deciding things that forced people to believe in her. 

            Aside from that, Barry also tends to be the authority figure that portrays a powerful person that give instruction to the people.  With it, the people will then follow the instructions that are given by Barry blindly.  People will not investigate on the reason behind on why the authority figure had come to the decision in given these instructions to them. 

Why it is named Strictly Ballroom?

            The director decided to name the movie as Strictly Ballroom and dancing is the main elements in the movie.  This is because dancing is one the expressing art where people can showcase their state of minds freely; however, ballroom dancing is one type of dance that allows the dancer to dance freely with a certain condition.  Past research did found out that dance is associate to confidence, mate-selection and social bonding.  Strictly Ballroom might indicate that dancer who dance in the ballroom is being stereotype within a set of rules unlike street dancer who can express freely without any restriction. 

Impact

            In this movie, the main message that are being sent to the audience is how social influence had plays an important role in influence people.  As mentioned in the above, I did explain on how the social influence is playing the important role in the movie.  Aside from that, there is also one sentence that wake me up as an individual which is “A Life Lived In Fear Is A Life Half-Lived”.   This states that people who always have the fear in his or her heart will always stop him or her in stepping forward so it is no longer can be consider as living in a meaningful life.  This has reminded me that people should not be coward and should always tried our best to do anything that we intended to no matter what is the final outcomes of the actions.   There is always stereotype that people have toward us and have a lot of opinion that they have and hope that we can follow.  This might stop us from trying that may lead us to regret on not grabbing the chance to trying in the future. 

            This sentence also reminds me that once I have a friend said that “if we did not do it when we are still young, then when we will have the chance to do it later in life”.  This has encouraged me to do many things that I used not dare to do in the past and has resulted me who I am today.  Being an introvert, I always do not dare to step out from the comfort zone but with this encouragement, I started to stepped out from the comfort zone and know more people by joining club and society.  With this experience, this had help me to know a lot of precious friend that can help me and guide me when I was down.  I think that I would regret if and only if I did not dare to follow my heart in doing things that I want to. 

Conclusion

            In a conclusion, I think that people should never be afraid of making a change or simply being different than everybody else.  Conformity is not a must to be a bad social influence, but it is definitely not a wise choice in letting conformity to get in the way being an obstacle of achieving something which we believe in.  

Eat Drink Man Woman

Eat Drink Man Woman is a Taiwanese film directed by Ang Lee and distributed in the 1994.  Ang Lee, one of the well-known Chinese directors who famously known by his Hollywood sensational movie ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, has perfectly portrayed the concerns of conflicting familial relationships as well as a culture of suppressing one’s personal thoughts and feelings with extravagant traditional Chinese cuisine as a portrayal medium in this movie. The main two elements in this movie is the food and man-woman relationship.  Food as one of the essential element that keep us alive had been used in the movie as one of the symbol to portray family unity whereby all the family member will eat together every Sunday.  I think it is a brilliant idea of using this scene as it seems to be simple yet important medium to illustrate the most typical Asian family’s culture.  For example, my family also practice this culture that whenever we are having dinner together we need to wait for all the arrival of the family member before starting to have the meal.  As the Chinese New Year had just passed, it also did reminds me on the Chinese Reunion Dinner as all the family member will come back and sit together to have the meal together as the symbol of family unity. 

Summary

            ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’ (1994) tells a story of Lao Chu, autocratic single father of three daughters who is also a chef that has spent most of his time preparing and cooking incredible great-looking and mouth-watering food (even audience also feels the hunger and urge to consume those foods shown in the movie, I am one of them) in the big restaurant who has lost his sense of taste. Despite his loss, he is still a national treasure when it comes to Chinese traditional cuisine recipe and he relies most of food-testing part on his partner who is also his best friend, Wen to tell whether that dish he has made is mouth-watering or eye-watering.

He is persistent and firm of his Sunday-must-eat-together weekly dinner and insists his daughters to attend every week; however, the daughter perceived it as Sunday-torturing dinner.  In the movie, it portrayed that the purpose of having this Sunday dinner is to bring announcement.  At the beginning of this film, the daughter perceived family is not a happy place as there is some misunderstanding that happen between them and his father. There are generational conflicts between father and daughter as well as tension between sisters depicting difference of traditional expectations and desires of women seem to revolve around this family.  The main message of this movie that the director would want to pass to the audience is that the dinner table will always be the place where everyone can communicate, share their inner thoughts, and express themselves. 

Perceptions about the movie

The story portray the time settings in the early 90 where this is the period that Asian may still having the conservative mindset that when the girl reached the certain age and it is the time for them to get married.  This type of mindset can be trace back to the past when the past ancient time when the emperor dynasty still exists.  At that time, people may get married at the very young age and some may even become mother at the age of 16.  This may not have showed any big deal at that time as the role of a woman is to get married and to carry on one’s ancestral line.  However, people nowadays the role of woman had been twisted that they are no longer the child production machines and may be able to get education to get the same standard of equality as man do.  In the movie, the main character is the father who still have the old mindset that woman should get married when it is the time.  However, three daughters may not have the same thinking as the father had as they did believe in the faith that they will only get married when their Mr. Right has come.  This portrayed what current generation think about marriage as people nowadays are more heavily rely on faith as compared to the past. 

            Besides that, this movie also consistently showed some expected yet unexpected moments.  In the movie, audience tends to expect that there are some climaxes that the daughter may get married; however, the audience may not know guess the reason behind it on why they are getting married in the rush.  Not to forget the last part when the main character, Lao Chu had reveal his secret that he falls in love with his daughter’s friend and decided to get married with her.  It tells the audience that everything in the reality that there is always chance that we might get some unexpected events happen no matter how well that we have prepared for it.  It reminds people that we need to have the room for change as things may not go as what he had think about it. 

            Lastly, another main element in the movie is the man-woman relationship.  There are several kinds of relationship that are evolve around people in the world beside than sex as we known.  In the movie, it portrayed the father-daughter, siblings, sex, love, and friend relationship.  All this kind of relationship are basically the relationship that most of the people may experience it in their lifetimes.  People need to understand that whenever there is relationship, there will be conflict.  The most common conflict that people should have experienced will be the generational conflict where it usually happens between parents and children especially when the children are in teenage years when rebellion may take place.  This can be showed in the movie where the relationship between father and daughter are so tensed as both sides may not be able to understand one and another.  The misunderstanding and miscommunication may eventually become the factors that lead to conflict.  Generational conflict is common as the views of the parents and children may not be the same due to different social experience that they have faced.  I love the way this friction is portrayed in a sense that it is so real till it can be related to our social and familial environment as well. For example, l used to have some formed of conflict between my parents and me.  This happened when I was in my teenage years when my parents insist not to buy me a handheld device when it is so common in those day and everyone in the school has it except me.  There is once we had a big fight as I wanted it so badly till I even secretly bought it with the pocket money that I had saved up for quite a period of times; but, my parents had found out and decided to throw it away.  At that moment of times, I think that my parents are no longer in love of me and they are someone who are unreasonable as they did not provide any explanation.  This conflict has been unsolved and brought it forward till when I reached 18 years old where I received my first handphone.  Soon, I realized the reason behind it when my parents insist for not giving me a handphone when I was young.  This is one of the case that I have personally experience where miscommunication may develop into conflict and luckily it had resolved. 

Conclusion

            In a nut shell, this movie had portrayed a strong message on family relationship.  As what I had understanding family by definition means the first group of people, related by blood that have the first contact with us when we step onto this Earth.  I also do believe that family is not only being grounded by the blood related by also others like friend who can be as close as family members.  The average lifespan of human is about 75 years old, but we might not have the chance that we can spend every moment with the person that are significant to us.  In short, I think that we should appreciate all the years that we have left with not only family but also the person that we think had played a crucial role in our life.  As I believed that life is so fragile that anything can happen within a spilt second.  Hence, always cherish the moments that have spent together as for tomorrow, you may not have the chance to show your love to them anymore.