Whale Rider

Whale Rider is a film of a young girl, Paikea who struggles with the duty she believes she was born to fill and the stereotyped role that her grandfather who is also the leader of the community, Koro expects her to play. 

Paikea was born as one of the twins. However, her birth was accompanied by the death of her mother and her elder twin brother. Koro was not happy with her birth as only the first-born male of every generation were allowed to take up the mantle as the chief of the tribe. Koro demanded Paikea's father to get married again so that there would be a successor but Paikea's father was in despair and did not want to obey. Over the years as Paikea grew up, she started to grow on Koro and he no longer looked at her with the same feelings of disappointment yet there is still some beliefs in his mind that he could not abandon.

Cognitive Dissonance
In the film, Koro seems to display cognitive dissonance as he appears to be having conflict between his attitude, belief and behavior. At the beginning of the film, Koro seems to be having an affectionate bond with Paikea through his act of fetching her back from school everyday and his patience while explaining to Paikea about the history of the tribe. However, when he was having an argument with his son, who is also Paikea's father, about his marriage and the issues faced within the tribe, he told his son that Paikea "has no use to him" and asked him to bring her away. At some point of time in the film, Koro even blame Paikea and condemn on her for what had happened in the community. According to Festinger (1962), cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort which would lead to the alteration of one's attitudes, beliefs or behaviors, which in turns help to reduce the discomfort. Koro has always believed that only male descendent could be the leader of the tribe which leads him to be unhappy about Paikea's birth as her dead twin brother was supposed to be the successor. Even so, he managed to develop a strong positive bond with Paikea over the years, which clashed with his belief of dominance of male. This had created a sense of discomfort within Koro and led him to alter his behavior towards Paikea, i.e. not picking up Paikea from school without informing her. It was there that ignited his harsh treatment towards Paikea, which he would punish her for trying to attend lessons to become the chief of the tribe.

Hostile sexism
One thing noteworthy is the element of sexism in the film. As mentioned above, Koro has a strong belief that only male descendent could become the successor, which was why he did not allow Paikea to attend classes. Paikea was not given the opportunity to showcase her ability. He did not want to acknowledge Paikea as the chief candidate even after Paikea demonstrated having the ability to become the chief because the role of tribe leader has traditionally been male. Would it be possible to say that Koro was only trying to fulfill the tradition which at some instances, it's the culture being sexist, and not Koro? 

Forget Paris

There is a Chinese Proverb saying "It is easy to fall in love, but not so easy to get along".

This could easily be seen on the couple - Mickey and Ellen, the couples who met and fell in love with each other in Paris. They eventually got married after Ellen was divorced. What happened in Paris was wonderful. The sightseeing around Paris, dancing by the river and everything else was so perfect that, they constantly remind themselves after they get married that everything could go back to the time in Paris.

A lot of time in the film, Mickey was told by his friends "Forget Paris". It was supposed to be telling Mickey to forget about how lovable and attractive the person was when they first met. A complete individual would normally have many sides of himself/herself. He acts differently when he is around different people or when he is in different context. When we first met someone who caught our attention, we instinctively present the best part of ourselves just to impress the person. However, while in marriage, people get to see every side of each others as they are going to stay together for a very long time, which is the reason many couples tend to have a lot more arguments when there is not enough understanding of each other before getting married. Getting into a relationship or a marriage is about the involving another person in your life while involve yourself in another person's life. It's about accommodation to each other, not dependence on each other.

According to the triangular theory of love, there are three components in a relationship, Intimacy, Passion and Commitment. A complete form of love, which is seemed to be the most perfect form - consummate love, consists of all three components. In real life, I think that three of the components exist in every relationship, it is just the degree of each components that differs. To me, marriage is largely based on commitment as we will need to compromise ourselves to each other so that the relationship satisfaction could be maintained. For Mickey and Ellen's case, we can easily see that they did not get to understand each other before getting married. There was merely passion in the marriage at first. I was glad that they had been trying to compromise, Mickey was willing to try giving up his career to stay at home with Ellen while Ellen was willing to send her father to her brother's place just wishing to make up for their marriage. Although the process was tough, they were able to realise it's each other's existence that matter to them the most in the end of movie. However, I am reserved to say that they will have a happily-ever-after-ending as they will still encounter a lot more problems in the future, which might slowly wear out their passion towards each other.

One thing interesting about the film is that the whole story was told from the third-person view. Applying it to real life, sometimes we see couples who have a lot of arguments and fightings, eventually got married; while sometimes couples that seem fine and demonstrating PDA in public, somehow did not manage to get there. Most of the time we might take a bet among friends on how long a couple would last and sometimes things just turn out the other way round. To me, it is always important to have communication. Whether a couple fight, argue or just stay sweet, they could go for a long way as long as they are willing to communicate to each other about their problems and concerns. Marriage is not the end but another beginning, while communication is the key to the happy ending.

Let me end this with a quote by Eric Fromm.
Immature love says: I love you because I need you
Mature love says: I need you because I love you
- Eric Fromm (1956)

Strictly Ballroom

Strictly Ballroom is a movie that portrays the main character, Scott Hastings as a talented but stubborn young dancer. Scott is bored with the "strictly ballroom" dance moves and wants to dance his own steps to win the Pan Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship. However, he was not agreed by everyone else except for his partner later - Fran, a beginner dancer. The conflict between him with his partners, him with his mother and coach, formed the storyline and eventually brought out the central message - to live life in your own way. Social influence is a psychological phenomenon that is easily seen in daily life. It is clearly portrayed in the movie by the characters' behavior.

Conformity
Strictly ballroom, as its name, dancers can only dance ballroom steps but not any other steps. In the movie, it can be seen in all of the dancing scenes that all of the pairs only follow the formulated dance. I could not even differentiate who was the main character until Scott started to dance differently. No one tried to be different because everyone was doing the same. Scott's first dancing partner was infuriated when Scott behaved differently during the competition, which caused them losing the competition. She did not want to be different, she wanted to fit in because being different would be rejected - which was portrayed as losing competition in the movie.

Obedience
At the same time, all of the dancing studios only teach dancers the formulated dance because they were afraid that their membership/license would be taken away by Australian Dance Federation which would take away their source of income.

Compliance
Scott decided to give up on his own style of dancing even after insisting for so long and going through so many disagreements with his own mother (who used to be a dancer too) and his coach, because he was requested to not disappoint his parents and fulfill his dad's dream of getting champion on Pan Pacific. He gave in and decided to dance with his previous dancing partner - Liz.

A life lived with fear is the life half-lived, said Fran on the way Scott sent her home.
This statement had left a deep impression in me. As a very ordinary human, fear has always been haunting me for not taking steps to achieve what I want. Fearful of punishment (physical or psychological - regrets, discrimination, ), is why I have been careful with my behavior and words. It limits me when I want to voice an opinion about something, talk about myself or even do something for myself.

One of the examples would be, I used to be very active in class when I was in secondary school. I ask questions and I would raise my hand to answer questions. However, when I first came to university, I was not dare to ever raise my voice in class. I thought I was intimidated because the other people in the class seem to be more outstanding. Then I slowly realised it was the social influence from the people I mixed with. Although they are quite smart, they never want to speak in class because they did not want to be the center of attention. While me being afraid to be judged or excluded from the bunch, I chose to keep quiet. Slowly, I could not even pay attention anymore as there isn't interaction with the lecturer. It was lucky that I quickly adjusted afterwards which it did not affect my study but I was not happy with my change. It pushed me to pick up the elective subject - Psychology of Pop Culture, offered by Dr. Anasuya. It was a subject that required people to talk in class and participation mark was so high that it could result in you passing or failing the subject. I tried my best to speak up in class and have discussion. It was a semester of struggles, I received doubts from others and myself, I did not score well in it. I used to be regret at the very beginning when the semester ended but I changed my mind after a talk with Dr and some thinking. Now, I am proud of myself that I challenged and put myself in that uncomfortable situation. Even though I might not have scored well, I know I have tried and I have gained a lot that could benefit me in the future.

On the other hand, I also found that there was time I was brave enough to stand up for myself. Back at my hometown in Sandakan, Sabah, psychology is a very rare, or close to nowhere-to-be-heard-term. It is a beautiful land with wonderful people but they were lack of the knowledge about psychology. They thought it was all about crazy people. All of the knowledge they knew about psychology was based on stereotypes and/or drama. Even my parents who are educators in primary school, they could not understand my desire and purpose of studying psychology. My dad was the one who had opposed to my proposal of studying psychology. He wanted me to take up a course that could guarantee a well-earned job. I took years to persuade and prove to him that I could be fine with the option I chose, I would make him proud even if it is not the pathway he wants me to walk. In the end, he gave in and let me decide on what I want. All these while in the past 3 years, he has been supportive and understanding to me. 

From my experience and thought after watching the film, what I want to deliver is that it is fine to be different as long as you are not committing crimes or doing anything that is bad. Your efforts will prove to you and the people around you that most of the time, winning or losing is not what is important, but doing what you want and what is right is fine because it is always more important that there is no regret. Tried and failed (not necessary) is always better than not trying at all as throughout the journey, there will always be something that you would gain.

It is also good to try listening and understand first when you see someone acting differently. The out-of-the-box-thinking should be appreciated as sometimes it is the way to discovery of new era.

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman

Family dinner is one of the rituals of Chinese culture and it is often seemed as a time of reunion, a bonding session while everyone is having meal together. However, in the movie, it became the only source of communication between Chu and three of his daughters. Worse case, they only "make announcement" during dinner time, but not communicating. Chu is a single father, who is also a master Chinese chef. In the movie, he is portrayed as a father who isn't good at expressing himself in words but has been trying to shower his daughters with his love in his own way, which is through action and food. On a side note, art is often seemed as a way of expressing emotions and it is often used as a communication tool between a therapist and his patient, especially someone is not used to put things in words. In this case, I would suggest that Mr Chu is using food, which is his strength, as a tool, trying to pull his daughters together. However, his efforts is not seen and appreciated by his daughters, which can be seen from their facial expression at the beginning of the film when they felt like being forced to attend the dinner.

The culinary art performed by Chu is another important element of the background of the film. He insists of taking his time to make sure the dishes are bound with the Chinese traditional culture in culinary art, which has created a lot of scenes of numerous mouth-watering dishes in the movie. However, the distance among them could not be taken away even with the food. From how they are seated apart from each other, to the formal and less intimate conversation, it is obvious that they do not have much connection among them.

Based on the family structure, it is well known to many people that single parent family would face a lot of challenges. It would be even harder for single father as father usually does not communicate well with children due to some gender stereotypes whereas they are lack of the caregiver's characteristics even though they are unlikely to face economic issues because fathers are more likely to be the breadwinner, according to a research. This explains the conflicts in Chu's family.

Talking about the relationship among the family, it’s interesting to see the eldest daughter, Jia Chen who picked up the nurturing role after her mum was dead. She intended to help her dad to support the family. With her strong belief and loyalty as a Christian, she has her own moral system and conscientiousness. That’s why she is quite against how the second daughter, Jia Chien managed her relationship. According to the birth order theory proposed by Adler, the first child will be more socially dominant, independent and perfectionist. This could be seen on Jia Chen when she said that she would be taking care of Mr Chu in future as her two sisters will be married one day. On the other side, she is so stressed when facing questions that surround her (e.g. when she is going to get married) that she even scolded her sister, Jia Chien who intended to concern about her life. It seems like Jia Chen picked up repression as her self-defense mechanism to face her past relationship problem which had left an impact in her life. However, she announced her marriage surprisingly after being chased by a volleyball coach who truly loves her.

When it comes to the fast-paced developed relationship between the youngest daughter, Jia Ning with Jia Ning’s ex-boyfriend, Guo Lun, we can see clearly how their relationship grows day by day. Jia Ning always approached Guo Lun when Guo Lun was waiting for her friend. Jia Ning’s friend always pretended that she had no interest in Guo Lun who put great effort in chasing her. Jia Ning questioned the intention of Guo Lun chasing her friend who didn't seem to have feelings for him and Guo Lun replied that he was addicted to her without a valid reason. While having lunch with Guo Lun, Jia Ning pointed out that love is about the concerns and interaction between two people. Psychologically, this is what we called “Vulnerability”. The more vulnerable you are with someone, the higher chance you are likely to develop a good connection with him. Jia Ning’s friend is a good example who avoid vulnerability, she tried to play cool with Guo Lun, while in fact she confessed that she liked him a lot. Unfortunately, when she voiced this out, Jia Ning had already been in a relationship with Guo Lun. Of course, proximity effect is also one of the factors that blooms the relationship between Jia Ning and Guo Lun.

Besides, we can also see the Westernization of the three daughters. The eldest child, Jia Chen, converted herself into a Christian while Jia Chian, who is the on-the-rise Airline consecutive develops sex-based relationship with her “boyfriend”. In one scene, her boyfriend also revealed that he enjoys with this kind of sexual relationship instead of being couple. As for the youngest child, Jia Ning, worked at the fast-food restaurant even though his father is the Master Chef in Taipei. The cross-cultural influences are salient within the family dynamic in which three daughters are striving their own way to live while their father is still insisting the traditional ritual in the family. However, in the end of the movie, he also revealed that Chinese traditional cuisine was no longer appreciated in Taiwan due to the Western modernization in Taipei. 

When the film progresses, it’s hard to believe that Jia Ning, whose personality was perceived as the cynical and obedient daughter announced that she wanted to move out with her boyfriend because she was pregnant. This announcement has given a great knock to Chu’s family because it gave a head knock to the Chinese conservative culture. And this is followed by the surprise given by Jia Chen who announced that she is married to her boyfriend, Ming Dao in the church. These few examples have clearly indicated the evidence of cross-cultural influence and how it impacts the family with Chinese culture. This impact has generated a gap between Chu and his daughters. It’s also ironic when Chu  declared that he will be living with the woman he likes, Jin Rong and her daughter. Initially, all of his daughters treated it as a joke, which showed that they couldn't really accept the fact that his father likes Jin Rong instead of Mrs Liang. The reason anticipated is probably due to the age differences since Mrs Liang has smaller age differences with Chu. I like the way how this film managed to feature the conflict between the cultural differences and acceptance when it is blended in living style and marriage. 

Despite the life differences between the family members, I like the message delivered by Chu in the last family gathering with Mrs Liang and her daughters. He said that, even though family members are having their own life, but the concerns about each others are the main elements which define the family connections and structure. He also reveals that home is no longer a home when family members left one by one.

Yes, the family togetherness is everything for most, the acceptance in term of cultural differences and generation gap is still one of the important issues that had been addressed in the film, and still need to be addressed in the future. Just like the common issue that is embodied in our community nowadays, the interracial marriage between Chinese and Malay in Malaysia. We still have a lot of parents who disagree with interracial marriage due to the cultural differences and life practices.

We can’t deny that there might be a day where we can accept and embrace cultural differences, that we can live peacefully with everyone else, but we can’t help but to say that it needs a lot of psychological adaptations and acceptance.