#007 Forget Paris (1995)

"Relationships last not because they were destined to last. Relationships last long because two people made a choice to keep it, fight for it and work for it." -unknown-

       There are people who believe that love and life partner are destined by fate, while some are not. A friend of mine once said: "Anyone can walk into your life due to any kind of reasons. That is happen. But in order to keep the relationship, it requires build and manage." And I agree with this. For example, anyone can sit around you on the first day of university orientation week. You may start a conversation with different people at that time, hanging out with different groups of friends, and after all these years, who stayed around you or who do you choose to stay with? I believe are those you build and manage the friendship, which requires all of you to make certain sacrifices, understandings, adaptions to work things out, rather than those just happened to talk to you in group assignment.


With a romantic film title, "Forget Paris" is a romantic comedy that shows the realistic part of love and marriage after "honeymoon period". Mickey is a NBA referee and he met Ellen, an airline executive, in French. Two of them fall in love to each other quickly and want to commit in the relationship, but they face many challenges. Major challenges which involve their life decision and planning included giving up their favourite job to compromise and please the other one, leaving their favourite place or perhaps their comfort zone to stay together, compromising their quality time due to different job nature, how they support each other when they get to know they have low probability to have children, which always lead them to question about whether they were making the decision too fast or they were not meant to be together.

       Social Exchange Theory suggested that people make comparison in evaluating positive as well as negative outcomes in any kinds of relationship (Lange, Kruglanski & Higgins, 2011) while one is expecting the same effort or reward from the partner as he or she invested in the relationship. In other words, if one is putting efforts in the relationship, the other one is expected to put in the same level of efforts in return. By evaluating and balancing the positive and negative outcomes, the equality contribution occurs in the relationship achieves Equity Theory (Hat field, Traupmann, Sprecher, Utne & Hay, 1985). This can be illustrated by a Mathematical formula:

Rewards (Positive events) - Punishments (negative events) = Outcomes

       People tend to increase the positive outcome by investing more rewards to reinforce the one who treat them equally, meaning if they receive same level of effort from the partner, they are willing to make the effort to produce positive outcome (functional relationship) too. However, if the punishments happen to be more than rewards, which brings a negative outcome (deficit relationship), one would probably invest more in punishment to "punish in return" (Hat field, Traupmann, Sprecher, Utne & Hay, 1985). When Mickey and Ellen face challenges, they unintentionally take turns to compromise as they remember the sacrifices made by the other one. Yet, while they view each other "care less than I do", they started not to compromise anymore.

       At the end of the film, it is happy to see the couple still willing to work things out for the relationship. It shows the reality of love and relationship which involve understandings, acceptance, sacrifices, and the "real self" to live together. I was encouraged by a mentor of mine. She viewed a wedding ceremony as a community, which each and everyone of the guests have the responsibility to help the couple maintain the relationship and commitment as they were invited to witness the couple make their vows in the wedding. Therefore I was glad to see in the film, friends around show support to Mickey and Ellen whenever they face problem in their marriage. I wish my friends and family can be my support and help my husband and I to keep an eye on my marriage in future, suggesting constructive advice, not just make the marriage happen only, but build and manage it.

References

Hatfield, E., Traupmann, J., Sprecher, S., Utne, M., & Hay, J. (1985). Compatible and incompatible relationships. New York, NY: Springer.

Lange, P. A. M. V., Kruglanski, A. W., & Higgins, E. T. (2011). Handbook of theories of social psychology: Volume Two. United Kingdom, UK: SAGE Publications Inc.

Picture from Google

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#006 Strictly Ballroom (1992)

"Who are you living for? What are you living for?"

       For few moments in my life, I did question myself about this. Am I living for myself, be who I am and getting closer to how I wanted to be, or I am living a life fulfilling others' expectations?

       "Strictly Ballroom" introduced a family of ballroom dancers in Australia that own a dance studio, passionately teaching ballroom dances and actively participating dancing competitions. The father, Doug, manages the dance studio while the mother, Shirley, teaches the dance. Their children, Scott (young adult) and Kylie (school age children) had been training to dance since childhood.

Scott is a talented dancer not only can master perfect ballroom dance, but creatively establishes his personal style of dance steps. However, the Australian Dancing Federation forbids "unusual dance step" other than formal ballroom dance, not to say accepting other dances in Pan-Pacific Grand Pix Dancing Competition.
Scott has a big dream to win the championship in the competition, as told and influenced by his mother and the president of Australian Dancing Federation. He represses his desire to establish personal-styled dance and conforms to the people in the dance studio. He upholds the values and standards of the dance studio and the competition (perhaps people involved such as his mother, the president, judges and audiences) to dance "properly", even though he feels not like to do so.

       Social Psychology explains this situation as conformity, a social influence or group pressure that changes one's behaviour or belief in order to fit it (Myers, 2010). In this movie, all of the dancers in the competition conform to the dancing norms and social norms that "ballroom dance should be like that". Scott, once fit himself into the majority and live a life of "his mother's son" by practice and sharpen the skills to dance Ballroom. Even Scott himself believed that he should do certain things that fit to the expectations of the society to be the best dancer and he would find value in that.


Until he meets Fran, a beginner dancer in the studio who inspires him to pursue dream and who he wants to be. Both of them explored each other's dancing potential throughout the secret-after-class-practice, and Fran's family introduce authentic Spanish pasodoble steps to Scott. Scott enjoys the happiness and freedom to dance and decided to dance with Fran in Pan-Pacific Grand Pix Dancing Competition, uniquely in their ways, and introduce a new dance other than ordinary Ballroom dances.

       The family relationship in Scott's family shows an example of obedience. As compared to conformity, obedience happens when there is an authority figure or person with higher power making an order, one will behave in response to the order made (Myers, 2010). Shirley often orders her husband and children to follow her instructions, her ways of doing things, her approaches to solve certain problems. Doug the husband always obey her to avoid quarrel. Although Scott wanted to dance freestyle, he still practice the formal Ballroom dance and at the end obeys to dance with another dancer in Pan-Pacific Grand Pix Dancing Competition instead of Fran, and win the championship so that Shirley is happy with it. However, after he found out some truths and dark-side about the competition, also with his father's support to follow his heart and dance the new dance with Fran, Scott changes his mind and disobey the order by his mother.

       In my personal growing experience, I tended to live up the expectations of others. I tried to be the quiet girl because the elderly hold the stereotype that a girl should be quiet, while I am an extroverted person. I tried to achieve those achievements according to the adults' definition, instead of my own definition and values of achievement. It did not seem much significant in childhood, until I grow up as a teenager who started to question about life worthiness and meaning. Throughout the experimenting around, I used to conform society norms about beauty, intelligence, behaviours, attitudes and other aspects that are just "not me". Most of the time I struggled because my beliefs and values were not sync with social norms. It takes time for me to understand, embrace and explore to who I want to be. For example, it is perfectly fine if I want to wear T-shirts and jeans to university without make-up, also if I want to wear a dress and put on some make-up just to walk around in the mall, rather than following fashion trends that does not suit me at all. My parents and I grow together as a family, understand the importance of uniqueness as an individual thus they now appreciate the uniqueness in me and be proud of who I am. The changes make me feel safe to voice my opinions and stands whenever there is a dilemma, also make critical judgement in problem solving, not easily fall to conformity, "inappropriate" obedience and compliance.





References
Myers, D. G. (2010). Social Psychology (11th ed.). United States, US: McGraw Hill.



Pictures from Google
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https://www.google.com/search?q=strictly+ballroom+1992&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZ0b3I4pHLAhXBYaYKHVL2CpEQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=-MrcgUzmkPX5WM%3A

#005 Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

       "Eat Drink Man Woman" presented a phenomena which may have experienced by every family in any generation: communication gap that occurs in the family due to lack of communication and disclosure. The father in the movie was an experienced Chinese cuisine chef who values Chinese tradition, with three daughters. It was a routine for the family to have dinner on every Sunday. The father would prepare the dishes more than just an ordinary dinner, perhaps a banquet. and all the daughters would make any arrangement to get back from work for the dinner. This family rarely talked to each other in daily life but only brought up some topics to talk in the Sunday dinner. Therefore, everytime someone was making an "announcement", it would be a decision than a discussion for the family. Gap occurred in the family as they did not disclose themselves to each other, whether among the father and daughters, nor the daughters as siblings as well. 

       Other than communication gap, I would like to talk about the characteristics of the three daughters.

       Alfred Adler proposed Birth Order Theory which by personality of an individual can be developed according to birth order (Carlson, Watts & Maniacci, 2006). In his theory, suggesting that the first born normally be attention of the family, can be either spoiled or responsible. The second child behaves as if in a race, often opposite to the first born. While the youngest tend to be more creative and outgoing as compared to the other siblings (Carlson, Watts & Maniacci, 2006). In the movie, the eldest daughter was a decent, passive and nurturing Chemistry teacher in a secondary school. The second daughter, independent, capable and somehow assertive, worked as an airline executive. The youngest daughter, youthful, energetic and immature, a student worked part-time job in fast-food restaurant. The eldest daughter felt the burden for the family since her mother passed away therefore behaved like a mother-figure to discipline her sisters and often stayed at home. Being the eldest daughter, the father, neighbours and friends pay more attention on her especially her marriage. As compared to eldest daughter's conservative perspective on romantic relationship, the second daughter was sexually liberated as she enjoyed one-night-stand. She was the one who carried the father's culinary legacy and tried to be the "son" her father never had. The youngest daughter was the "baby" in the family, naive and immature. Often offended her sisters when she talked without thinking much and felt into a complicated situation in relationship, also an unexpected pregnancy in romantic relationship. A few scenes captured how the father treated three of his daughter differently. When he waken up the youngest daughter in the morning before he went out for jogging, the voice tone was so much love and mischievous. However to the second daughter, it was a strict voice tone and to the eldest, more decent and polite voice tone. 

       I am the only child in my family. According to Birth Order Theory, it was suggested that the only child tend to have almost all of the attention from both parents, hence the child has a sense of uniqueness, feels special, at the same time likes the attention from adults (J. Sommers-Flanagan & R. Sommers-Flanagan, 2012). Not only being only child, being the only grandchild who carries the family name, I often being told that I am a special blessing to the family. When I was small, I enjoyed being the center of attention, receiving praises and claps by my performance on the “stage” (singing, dancing or acting on the table). Later in my schooling years, I actively participated and achieved in different kinds of competition, included singing contest, story-telling contest, public speaking and dancing, even in state level competition. I strive so hard to draw attention and proved myself. Unlike what is normally been thought that only child gets everything he or she wants and rarely share things with others (J. Sommers-Flanagan & R. Sommers-Flanagan, 2012), my parents did not raise me in that way. They would reason to me why we should or should not buy something, I would only get what I need. 

       Another point of view from Birth Order Theory, Adler viewed birth order psychologically rather than chronologically (J. Sommers-Flanagan & R. Sommers-Flanagan, 2012). He illustrated this with example of an eldest child with disability or sickness which reduce his or her ability, the second child has high tendency to adopt the characteristics which are associated with first born (J. Sommers-Flanagan & R. Sommers-Flanagan, 2012). As in the movie, the second daughter viewed herself as "the son her father never had", she intended to carry the role to take care of the family. So, she worked hard to earn and turned down company promotion to Amsterdam in order to stay with her father. I always long to have little brother or sister as I love kids so much, maybe because being the only child, I feel lonely and boring playing alone. My cousin was born when I was seven and my life began to change and raise up like a first born. New members were adding into the family, I felt the responsibility on me to take care of my little cousins and be the role model to them. Besides, although I am the third youngest child in my extended family, but my father is the eldest son and I am the first and only grandchild who carries the family name, so in certain extend I raised like a first born again. As I grown up now, most of the people think that I am a first born child than an only child. 

       To me, I would say that being an only child, I carry the responsibilities and expectations as a first born does, but at the same time have the privileges like the last born.

References

Carlson, J., Watts, R. E., & Maniacci, M. (2006). Adlerian Therapy: Theory and Practice. American Psychological Association.

Sommers-Flanagan, J. & Sommers-Flanagan, R. (2012). Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice: Skills, Strategies, and Techniques (2nd ed.). John Wiley and Sons.



Pictures from Google
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https://www.google.com/search?q=Eat+drink+man+woman&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjU8-nhpovLAhXHQI4KHeYYA84Q_AUIBygC#imgrc=4cJxcAfIp30xBM%3A

#004 Gandhi (1982)

       "Gandhi" 1982 is a biographical film about a well-known leader from India, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Not only his contributions to India's independence, Gandhi stood firmly on non-violence approach to fight for Indian's rights and independence of the nation. When he was turned down after voiced out his rights to sit in the first class in the train at South Africa, the incident raised his awareness to gain rights equality from British government towards Indians in South Africa. 

       Gandhi was not born to be a charismatic leader, as he could not even attract people's attention when he gave his first speech to raise awareness for the people to fight for their rights. Although he faced failures, such as in early life, he got beaten and put into jail by the British police after he gathered the Indians and burned the passes to ask for equality, refusal of admitting the court sentences thus got lockup, he still took the risk to strive for Indian community's rights equality. Gandhi also lived the life of Indian to put on homespun, at the same time asked the people to support the homespun in order to repel and boycott clothes from British factories, he worked with the "untouchable" community to eliminate social class differences between the people, and fasted to raise peoples' awareness to stop the fighting and riots in India and Pakistan. Every move he made were not being supported by the people all the time, he might faced oppositions toward his decision, yet Gandhi still never give up to fight for his country and peoples.

       Self-efficacy theory explained one's ability and persistent to complete tasks and achieve goals (Bandura, 1997). Gandhi showed high level of self-efficacy as a leader to overcome social pressure, government power and obstacles in his journey fighting for rights equality and nation's independence. One with high self-efficacy actively take up the responsibility and make effort to complete a task, also persist longer to achieve the goal. With his own experiences as a human treated unequally, Gandhi contributed his whole life to strive for his people and country. Although he made himself very clear on his stand for equality, he was never shaken on his non-violence move to raise the awareness and voice out to the government.

       As compared to Gandhi, I would see myself as having low self-efficacy, therefore I prefer external motivation such as getting reward after completing a task. For example, have an ice cream after a hectic day completing assignment, buy a new outfit after a period of workout, or spend quality time with friends and family after revision. I gain social support in order to persist in my tasks and overcome obstacles. Different individuals develop different motivation that keeps them work passionately on their tasks.

Reference

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: Freeman.

#003 Running on Empty (1988)

     "What is the function of family? What is family means to you?"

As I am growing up and went through different stages in life, many factors and experiences did change my perspective of "family" from time to time.

     "Running on Empty" is a movie about a family with the parents who were responsible for an anti-war protest bombing, and their two sons who had to keep running from the authority with them. The protest bombing accidentally paralyzed and blinded a janitor who was not supposed to be in that place. Before the authority could trace and find out where was this family escape to, this family would immediately move to new place with new identities. The elder son, Danny was in his late teenage. One of the scene that caught my eyes was when the mother helped Danny to dye a new hair colour and gave him a new name for new identity, Danny told his mother about his confusion about the names and his "real-self".

     To me, family serves a function to form one's identity. Family structure, parenting styles, birth order and many factors can serve in a family to build one's personality, cognition, behaviours, values and identity. As Erik Erikson suggested in his Psychosocial Stages, adolescents starts to identify their roles and go through the stage of "identity vs role confusion"- they either develop their identity clearly or confuse about their role (Ciccarelli & White, 2012). A new name indicated a new identity in Danny's case. He went to different schools and neighbourhood with different identities, often needed to memorize his and his family members' identities, sometimes he confused what should "Michael" do, what should "Danny" do. I spent my childhood with my grandparents after my parents divorced when I was 6, spent my teenage with my mother and now as a young adult, staying with my father. This unique life experience shapes and changes me as a person in different stages of growing. I used to be lost during my teenage time. My grandmother trying to raise me up as a woman who can do all kinds of house chores, my mother expected me to embrace my music talent while my father taught me to be independent. Each of their values were important to me and have certain effects on my choice of career. As I used to take the blame to myself and think it was my fault to my parents' divorce, I thought that the better I do in life and school, the more my parents would love and pay more attention to me. I was lost when I came to teenage because I wanted to make the best decision for further studies and please them, but I found out I did not even know who I am. It took me quite some time and courage to talk to them about my role confusion, and my parents really did a great job to help me to explore by myself, and learn from the experiences.


     This leads to another point of view of mine about family, family is to love one another unconditionally. As in the movie, the family love and support each other unconditionally. Knowing that the parents may did something wrong or sometimes things that Danny could not agree with, he still gave his support and sacrifice for his family. His mother risks her life to arrange a better life for Danny to university, and both of the parents sacrifice their "togetherness" with Danny, rather to keep Danny by their side, continue living a dangerous life to hide here and there, they left Danny so that he could pursue his dreams. I used to strive so hard in academic, actively join and excel in extra-curriculum and competitions, and never allow failure to happen. My parents and extended family members showed me unconditional love that tells me: my performance does not change their love to me. My parents were learning how to provide proper parenting especially after their divorce. My mother once told me: "If you success, I will cheer for you; if you fail, I am still proud of you as my daughter." My father always affirms me: "No matter what decision you make, I am always here to support and pray for you." They accept my ups and downs, the unconditional love helps to shape me as who am I today. Past researches also significantly proved that a loving and caring environment created in the family with honest and open communication enables the family members to express love for one another, also helps in resolve the differences or problems in the family (Peterson, 2009), and benefit for human psychological well-being (Hassenzahl, Heidecker, Eckoldt, Diefenbach & Hillmann, 2012).

     As I was watching the movie, I felt heavy for Danny as I viewed his situation as his life is being chained, that he could not choose what he really wanted to do. I felt relief at the end of movie when the father asked Danny to move out and move on to his life, although it was hard for me to see the sacrifices made and separation of the family. I immerse myself to the story, imagining if I would have to make decision like this and cannot be with my family that I used to attached a lot, how would I handle it?






References

Ciccarelli, S. K., & White, J. N. (2012). Psychology. (3rd ed.). United States: Pearson Education.


Hassenzahl, M., Heidecker, S., Eckoldt, K., Diefenbach, S., & Hillman, U. (2012). All you need is love: Current strategies of mediating intimate relationships through technology. Journal of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 19(4), 30. doi: 10.1145/2395131.2395137

Peterson, R. (2009). Families first: Keys to successful family functioning, communication. Retrieved from http://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/48300/350-092_pdf.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Picture from Google:

https://www.google.com/search?q=running+on+empty+1988+danny+swipe+floor&espv
=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjb9Y2ZqIDLAhUBv44KHfHRA3kQ_AUIBygC#tbm=isch&q=running+on+empty+1988&imgrc=OSM8pyOrB9wg8M%3A