Weekly Film Blog (#9)

Grace Is Gone. Grace was gone even before the military soldiers dropped by at Stanley's house to inform of her death. For Stanley, living in a life without Grace, alive or dead, was a place that is equivalent to not living at all. Stanley was seen to be in a daze or a state of nothingness, enclosed and shut off from reality. He struggles with his emotions and allowing healthy communication to take place. (Not wanting to share his experiences of Grace in the support group, not allowing his children to watch the news). This seems to become more prominent when the actual death itself was informed to him. He denies any entry for the military men and when he did, did not further acknowledge them or ask about the situation surrounding Grace's death.

Grief makes people do things. Why did Stanley decide to do things on a whim? Asking the girls where they wanted to go and decided that Enchanted Gardens was the perfect opportunity to be at instead of facing the fact that he has to tell them of their mother's death? Control Theory explains that we have a deep need to control our lives. It is the behaviours we do in attempt to gain control of our lives. News of death may have hit Stanley in the face, but he responded by wanting to take control of his situation, although at the same time we observe that he is also behaving out of denial. This would be explained by the buffer effect of social support, where people feel less stressed when others support their decision. Through this difficult times, Stanley relies on the daughters to support his decision making making him feel less guilty of the news delay. Want to go to Enchanted Gardens? Sure why not!

As grief and death is the central theme of this film, it demonstrates the different types coping styles displayed by each family member. Stanley's method of coping was denial (although he knows Grace is gone he continues to call her and leave voicemails to her), Heidi was surprisingly calm for her age which makes me wonder if she low key knows what was going on and represses the negative thoughts or just simply is a very calm and collected girl. Judging by her responsible actions of wanting to call the teachers to make sure they had their homework sent in, Heidi takes the role of the responsible role that Stanley clearly wasn't able to be. Dawn showed coping through her small gesture of remembering her mom at certain times of the day in order to have a certain sense of connection with the mother. Maybe its a placebo effect but it has worked on Dawn so far judging from her cheerful character throughout the film.

I also like to observe how Stanley goes to every stage of grief throughout the who film. From shock and numbness to yearning for comfort. To despair and disorganization to  reorganization and recovery. A way for Stanley to display his inner turmoil is by physical distress. He is seen coiling on the floor after the news was delivered and again in the grandmother's house, he was seen rolled in catatonic state of depression. Stanley was emotionally shutting down and not progressing through the stages of grief. Until, he remembered that he had daughters he needed to deliver the news to that suddenly he made it a way to turn the events around him to fill the void that Grace has left him. He become preoccupied with trying to be the fun and spontaneous dad. He choose to go Enchanted Gardens because it was the last place he and Grace had a horrible encounter and going there was his constant reminder that he was doing this for the daughters. In despair and disorganisation, Stanley is in despair that he doesn't know how to tell the girls, even telling voicemail Grace that they deserve to know. Lastly in reorganizaion and recovery, after the trip to Enchanted Gardens, he knows that he must tell the daughters eventually. I like how he chose to pull over and talk to them on the beach side rather than waiting to go home and deliver the news in the home because somehow, I feel like at the beach, it is like a neutral ground where even if there is sadness that comes from the news of the mothers death, it will not be associated with the home that they are happily living in right now.

In the end, the movie is excellent in portraying a man in grief.

Weekly Film Blog (#8)

Sybil. Oh Sybil. Being in a one-way amnesic relationship with her multiple personalities shows to be exhausting and confusing for this traumatised women. This defence mechanism that she built up for herself was due to her childhood trauma of being abused by her schizophrenic mother which explains her fear of hook-like objects and wash clothes.
A lot of the times, the movie shows the multiple personalities's own struggle. Marcia is hopeless and wants to kill herself and Sybil. Vanessa is conflicted with her feelings for Richard. Peggy the frightened kid that craves for the warmth of a mother figure. Vicky that wants to help out Sybil but is afraid of telling due to the others. However, these personalities only emerge when Sybil is in distress and conflicted with her repressed memories. 

Dr Wilbur is a psychiatrist that has an earlier interest on dissociative identity disorder (DID), how she strongly viewed Sybil's symptoms and diagnosed her with multiple personalities made me wonder if she could have had a different diagnosis if she wasn't so invested into rushing her biases. Even when she called her colleagues to discuss of the matter, she was already certain that it was multiple personalities. I believe that it would be more reliable and valid if Dr Wilbur were to consult another psychiatrist to further understand Sybil's symptoms and have a second opinion on her diagnosis. Other than that, even if it was multiple personalities, Dr Wilbur showed great interest and care into making sure that Sybil would understand her current state of conditions, although slight unethical. Dr Wilbur clearly is very invested in Sybil's condition. Often you can see that she is comfortable enough to bring Sybil into her own home. Is this normal for psychologists back then? Do they do sessions in an area where that is personal to the psychologist? Adding on to this, Dr Wilbur can be the confrontational type when the situation gets hot, verbally aggressive with Sybil and it makes me wonder if all the counselling skills we learned in second year was just for theory. Since I have no experience in these types of confrontations, I feel pressured to learn more when it comes to dealing with situations like when Sybil is in distress and panicking. 

I find that stereotypes is also enforced in the movie. The father of Sybil thinks negatively of the mental health institutions, even so much to denying that the existence of the mother's mental health problems. If the father wasn't so fearful of the stereotypes, Sybil's whole condition would have been avoided. Another person that went with the norm is the family doctor. He knew that Sybil had been going through physical torture but he kept quiet. Why? Because maybe he thought it was a small town and he didn't want people to talk and meddle in someone else's family affairs. 

Coming back to Sybil and her multiple personalities, it is very interesting to see how each personality emerge and share a part of Sybil through their own perspective. Whether or not these personalities are made up or if they are real, the actor that plays Sybil makes is very convincing. The idea of switching off one's own mind and being occupied by another in distressful times is a very interesting phenomenon. In my opinion, Peggy was the girl that she was during those times of childhood abuse and we see that she is often comforted by Dr Wilbur when Peggy is in distress. Vanessa is the more adult Sybil that she could have been if she hadn't gone through the ugly childhood nightmares. I believe that if Sybil wasn't so scared of everything she could have been Vanessa. Vicky is the scared teenager that seeks to please everyone, the other personalities, the guards at the gate, at one point even Dr Wilbur. While Marcia is the hopelessness within Sybil that just wants to end it all. However, I can only speculate this because at this point we observe that as Dr Wilbur further investigates on the personalities that it does tie to her past selves and memories. 

What really got my interest was the fact that Sybil confessed to faking her multiple personalities. At that point of the movie, I'm already baffled. This is because she has not yet met the other personalities, yet when being questioned by Dr Wilbur she was able to mimic Vanessa's accent. How does she know Vanessa has an accent?!?! So is she telling the truth? What is really happening here? 

I am still curious as to if dissociative identity disorder is an actual diagnosis for these symptoms. Because in some cultures, especially for Malays, if you have someone else in you that means you have the jin or whatever supernatural beings that you've upset... or inherited from family lineage. There are very few traditional families that would believe that it's not the works of Satan, because this culture has been passed down through generations of social learning and it is difficult to break that norm. Hopefully, now that there are other alternatives, people can consider that it's not the jin that's possessing them but their childhood trauma holding them back. 

Weekly Film Blog (#7)

Whale Rider. It was made clear in the beginning of the movie that Koro, the grandfather and leader of the tribe was displeased with the birth of a girl as the firstborn. Koro displayed no joy in the human life was brought into the world, but sadness and mourning (singing the Maori chants) to the still born twin boy. He continues to deny Paikea of her rightful position as the next chief because of her gender. In many parts of the world this format of leadership is preferred. Males have been dominating the command center right from the earliest of history. The long lines of pharaohs of Egypt were men (with the exceptional of a few women a thousand BCs later). The Malay Peninsula had a history of male dominated positions such as Laksamana, Temenggung and Bendahara. This exemplifies that the male was considered to be the superior gender and females were a lesser importance. From a psychological evolutionary perspective, the core assumption is that the human mind is the product of evolution through natural selection. Our ancestral leaders assumed the role food hunting and food sharing practices and men often take such positions (Vugt & Ronay, 2013). It is no surprise that Koro also seeks a male leader to represent the next tribe chief. It is a global phenomenon. It has been ingrained within the culture of Maoris through decades of social learning. It was passed down to the tribe just as Koro's lessons towards the firstborns of the tribes. The boys learned that certain traits are needed to become a strong leader just as Paikea was constantly reminded that it was not in her position to meddle in men's affair. This is how gender roles are learned, that is through these repeated social learning. Despite that, Paikea was not the typical tribe girl that follows orders. She has determinism, a strong drive to learn to achieve her goals. She knew how to take advantage of the situation around her, for example, to ask for Rawiri's help in the taiaha lessons when a angered Koro dismissed her off the marae grounds. She did not 'sit at the back' as ordered by Koro during the ceremony and this shows that is does not conform to the cultural norms. She is seen giving the Maori entrance chants (which are typically done by boys I'm assuming by how Koro's reaction when Nanny asked her to do it). She also led the first culture concert at the beginning of the movie, surrounded by all boys on the stage.

Koro's constant displeasure with Paikea seem to fuel her drive even more. This could be because Paikea was in her identity vs role confusion stage of Erikson's stage of development. She is trying hard to hold on to her roots despite being denied several times. In multiple occasion, she displayed talent, patience and understanding of her whole situation. It was probably because she felt a stable self-efficacy, believing in her competence enough to succeed. In a scene, she did not hesitate to jump into the depths of the ocean to retrieve the whales tooth which can only be explained that she knew she was confident enough to get the pendant (with an additional lobster!). On the other hand, Koro's self-efficacy was stable during the course of the lessons. He feels competent and believes he can find the next leader within the first born boys of the tribe, even seeing Hemi as a good potential, but declined as the last test of leadership was a failure. He turns depressed and calls for the ancient whales to guide him in his quest. From here, we can observe that the people of Maori believe in an outer force in shaping their destiny. In a way, we can say that they have an external locus of control. Especially when the beached whales turned up. Koro believed that they were a sign of a bad omen and maybe a sign of his failure. 

A theme that I relate on a personal level is the struggle of being recognised as a successful female in the eyes of a male. Being in a Malay culture, it is similar yet not completely parallel to Paikea's situation. We are expected to be the supporter and not leader of the family. To understand and act our roles out as the females that take care of the family. Even outside of the family, men expect a certain kind of attitude and behaviour from girls. I admire people, girls and boys, that can stand out and proceed not to live the stereotype despite the backlash they receive. Leadership is an admirable trait that left me in constant awe throughout the whole film, especially more from a culture that I am new to. I find it surprising to see that even thought they are very rooted into their culture such as they speak the native language, follow through rituals and traditions and are close knit within the community. However, they are still modern enough to be able to adapt to the community outside their culture. By this, I mean in comparison to the Orang Asli that are living secluded from modern world. There is one Orang Asli community smack in the middle of the metropolitan Kuala Lumpur yet they do not adapt well ie choosing to still cook using actual fires rather than technology. 

In conclusion, we should always try to give people a chance to prove themselves first before going with our preconceived notions regarding a matter. Sometimes it may surprise us and sometimes it will have us go through cognitive dissonance and deny any of it just like Koro did, but at least if we even consider to open up the possibility of something new, then it is a step towards a better and positive personal growth.

Reference:

Vugt, M. V., & Ronay, R. (2013). The evolutionary psychology of leadership: Theory, review, and roadmap. Organizational Psychology Review, 4(1), 74-95. 

Weekly Film Blog (#6)

Forget Paris. Remembering Paris was the exact reason why Mickey couldn't let go of Ellen. Mickey was a lonely man who had to bury his father in a country that he had never been before only to find out that the coffin was lost in between the transit. His encounter with Ellen was sarcastic and humorous at the same time, which attracted both to each other and led Mickey to work harder to impress Ellen with his wit and humor. Something that I personally feel that is a deceiving stage of any relationship. It is when they start to put extra effort in impressing the person of interest whether it be a friend or a potential lover, and that is the level of expectation that you put yourself into believing the in that person. Mickey made himself be the humorous, romantic and loving man that he was in Paris and that front was what attracted Ellen the most. However, coming back to America, the life that was expected by Ellen given by Mickey was not the same as she imagined and lived in Paris. This could also be explained by each other's mate value that is a determining factor of a mate choice (Shackelform, Schmitt & Buss, 2005). This initial infatuation and passionate love they experienced in Paris, where they continued to pursue and find each other attractive enough to be the other's potential mate that they decided to get married despite the lack of knowledge on each other's lifestyle and habits. 

Interestingly, married couples usually go through a honeymoon stage in the earlier part of their marriage but in Mickey's and Ellen's marriage, the start of their marriage was already the post-honeymoon stage. Ellen showed discontent with Mickey's choice of home and how Mickey had to constantly be on tour and away from Ellen. It was not the life that she imagined it to be. This dissatisfaction on her part started to bring up conflict within the relationship. Ellen brought up 'sacrifices' that she had made coming back to America and asking Mickey to do his part and make his sacrifices for her. In this, the process of social exchange was not balanced out between them. Ellen feels that the relationship is costing her more than it was rewarding her. Interdependence Theory suggest that we evaluate the outcomes of our relationships with two criterias: (1) what we expect from the relationship and (2) how well we can do with other partners. Initially, Ellen was married but separated with her husband and she saw Mickey as a romantic opportunity. It was mentioned that Ellen was deciding whether to go back to her husband but she did not know what to expect of her first marriage with the French dude. At that time, meeting Mickey and spending a great time all over Paris made her weigh her options of how she could have been better off with Mickey instead (comparison level for alternatives). Shortly after, Ellen married Mickey and her new outcomes (living in LA alone and depressed) were below her comparison levels (living romance in Paris), and that is why she is dissatisfied. The same thing happened to Mickey after negotiating with Mickey and making him sacrifice a year off the NBA season to work as a cars salesman, Ellen was happier, however, Mickey started to find dissatisfaction in his new routine. He was one of the best referee in the NBA and to be out of the season and working as something that was lacking fell short of his comparison levels.

The next stage of any marriage is the reproduction of an offspring. For a while, in the midst of their differences they had a common goal and that brought them closer than they ever were in their marriage. Unfortunately, their inability to conceive a child forced a emotional and physical wedge between them. It is especially more when Ellen decided that she wanted to work in Dallas in a new position in her job. Mickey shot down her idea instantly and that made her decide that she will go to Paris instead. How did this decision come about? In Interdependence Theory, there is another level of comparison which is comparison level for alternatives. It describes what we can achieve elsewhere and the lowest level of outcomes we will accept from our current partners. Whether we know it or not, we are constantly comparing our relationships with others and see if we are getting the best out of the relationship, whether the rewards and costs are worthwhile. In Ellen's perspective, if Mickey was not going to help her pursue her dreams in Dallas (the lowest level of expected outcome) then the alternative was to leave him and pursue her career in Paris on her own. This did not come easy for Ellen, seeing how much she was devastated when leaving Mickey but she had weighed her cost of leaving Mickey and having the offer of a life in Paris was far more rewarding (or so she thinks).

In the end, marriage may not be the best solution for some infatuated partners. It must be because the movie was filmed a decade ago, so the stereotype of having the need to marry the person you are in love in is heavily perpetuated. In the current world now, the idea of co habitation is acceptable and widely practiced by Americans. Couples communicate more because of the advancement of technology, something that was not a luxury back in 1995. Paris, being the capitol of romanticism and sophistication, adds to the fire of any relationship and that could be a risk because not all croissant fuelled romance can be long lived. 

Reference

Shackelford, T. K., Schmitt, D. P., & Buss, D. M. (2005). Universal dimensions of human mate preferences. Personality and Individual Differences, 39: 447-458.