Whale Rider

“Whale Rider” is a very beautiful movie as it showcases the culture of Maori, a tribe who lives in east coast of New Zealand’s North Island and believes in whale as patron. It has beautiful language, songs and clothes, and people in the tribe have strong believe in whale and see it as a form of courage and survival. The movie mainly talks about how a little girl, Paikea, manages to break the traditional rules and becomes the first female chief of the tribe. It records her growth and her courage to introduce new concept towards the old minded people. From this movie, I could see the beauty of traditions, but also the downsides of traditions in restricting people’s lives. 

            Culture brings lots of beautiful impacts towards society. It introduces language, clothes, arts, and even legend stories. It also comes out with rules and customs that lead its people to live better in their lives. Besides, it provides regulations for its descendants to remember the glory days and avoid the past mistakes. Culture has become one of the techniques that helps people to connect with each other. By having culture exchange, people enjoy the traditions of different cultures and respect the dissimilarities, which promote human’s interactions. Moreover, by promoting the beauty of the culture, it encourages economic growth as people are willing to spend money in visiting places that are rich in cultural sense. 

            Culture, however, would also bring negative impacts towards its people. The traditions that have been passed down from ancient might restrict the development of the race. There are old-minded people who do not allow changes that can lead to development and would still stick with their belief unless they are proven wrong. They have been taught to follow the rules since young, which leads to their low tolerance towards ideas that challenge the long-existing rules. It can be seen in the movie that Koro, the chief of the tribe, insists to choose a leader who is the first-born male in the family. We can see how tolerance he is when he finds out his elder son is unwilling to assume the leadership and his first grandson is dead. Because of his strong believe on the selection of tribe’s leader, he has poor relationship with all of his family members. Although deep inside his heart he recognizes his second child and his granddaughter, the rules has hold him back from showing his love towards them. He would blame himself from not being able to be the good chief because he could not find the true leader who can lead to the tribe back to the glory days rather than giving an opportunity to him and his tribe to accept a new leader who is different from pass. Fortunately, his old-fashioned mind set changes in the end after he realizes his deep love towards his granddaughter. 

            Besides, culture has also limited women’s recognition in the society. It has been known that men will be the leader in the community and women should be the one who handles the family. Although it is biologically true as men show more physical power than women, it does not mean that women could not take the responsibility to lead others. Nowadays, the society portrays the idea of equality of sexes. However, there are still some cultures or traditions that are unwilling to accept the fact that women could become the leader. In their opinions, women should be the housewife who takes care of the family and serves the husband. In the movie, it shows people’s bias towards women. Koro, being the chief of the tribe, does not accept the idea that women could be the leader although he recognizes leadership from his granddaughter. He is also the male chauvinist who believes that he is the master in the family, which is interestingly untrue as he has a wise wife who is willing to tolerance to feed his arrogance. Although the women in the movie shows high intelligence, due to the traditions, they are not recognized. They also believe in the traditions that men should hold the power even though they are capable to manage issues. These have shown how traditions influence people’s ways of defining gender status, no matter in males or females. 

            It is undeniably that culture will bring impacts towards the society. It depends on people’s decision in practicing it or challenging it after the rapid development of today’s world.

Forget Paris

             Marriage is no just about love. It is a life-time commitment. How many couples get married with the hope that they could stay together forever as long as they still love each other, but end up with divorce? How many couples would be willing to give up things that they used to have, just to hold the arms of their love one in hands? How many couples will still remember their sparks and beginnings, after they get into marriage and fight to earn for the family? After thinking about these, I realize that how hard it is to maintain a happy marriage, and how much commitment people need to put it, just to stay together with their love one.

            ‘Forget Paris’ is a romantic comedy movie that makes people reflect what is love. Mickey Gordon, the main character of the movie, has gone through lots of things to realize the most important thing in his live, which is his wife, Ellen. Both of them met and fell in love in Paris, which is a romantic city that symbolizes love. After getting married, they face with lots of struggles that many families would face: works, parents, baby, communication and passion. From them, you would see the different aspects of thoughts of men and women towards marriage. Men would tend to focus more on work, just to earn more money to support the family and also wish for a normal married life with their wives. They do not require their wives to be independent and smart, and earn lots of money. As long as they could see them at home after a tiring day, it would be a great satisfaction for them. Women, on the other hand, wish for more as they need security. They need a home that is comfortable and clean, and would spend time decorating and cleaning their houses to make their home feels warm and welcoming. They also need a husband who can always stay by their side, therefore they request them to have a stable job and working time. Different aspects towards marriage would turn out with lots of arguments and misunderstandings, and the only thing that can solve these issues is love. Love would teach us to tolerance with our partners and be willing to sacrifice. Love would let us learn that marriage is not about changing the other person to meet our expectations. Love would also remind us that life would be very simple and blessing if we appreciate with what we owned, and never let go of the hands of our love one. 

            Besides, the movie also portrays different types of couples and how their lives are after marriage. Mickey and Ellen, who are the main couple in the movie, have shown a life of husband and wife who lack of communication and be unhappy after giving up something that they passion with. They are the couples that have gone through a lots of issues and finally realize that nothing is more important than each other. The other couple, Andy and Liz, is the couple who is going to get married. They are the beginners in marriage as compared to their friends and the love story of Mickey and Ellen has enlightened them. They have also displayed their nervous and fear towards marriage as they are still in the transaction period. However, after hearing Mickey and Ellen’s story, I believe that they would get through all the obstacles well and remain positive to face with future challenges. Craig and Lucy, on the other hand, are the couple who plays the role as mentors in giving advices towards Andy and Ellen’s relationship. Although they still fight and like to tease each other, their marriage live seems to be satisfying and happy. Both of them also provide freedom and tolerance towards each other, which are the success keys of managing a marriage. The other pair of couple, Jack and Lois, seems to be happy and successful. However, I believe that it is because of sacrifices made by Lois, who is willing to tolerance her male chauvinist husband. Again, this shows that tolerance and commitment will also be the essential and necessary aspects in managing a marriage. 

            From the movie, I have learned that marriage really needs the efforts made by both the partners. One-sided sacrifices would maintain the marriage, but not the relationship. The movie also conveys a message towards people that relationship is not just about passion, but the perseverance and courage of both partners in overcoming every obstacle faced, and also never forget about the inner feelings that bring them together.

Strictly Ballroom

“Strictly Ballroom” is a movie that talks about social influences and courage. It displays how a talented young man builds his courage and determination to challenge the norms that have been passed down and followed for long period of time. It also portrays how powerful social influences are in affecting the society. 

Conformity, which is a type of social influence that explains how people being implicitly influenced by social groups, has been shown in the movie. It is being portrayed by the group of people who learned ballroom dance in the movie. All of them have been taught that following traditional dance steps and moves is the right thing to follow, and new dancing styles should not be allowed as they are not the “correct” way to dance. Therefore, the dancers learn ballroom dance by following the traditional steps and do not dare to create their personal styles, except the main character, Scott Hostings. Being a talented ballroom dancer, Scott has his personal ideas on establishing his dance. He does not want to follow the old steps, instead he wants to dance in his own way. However, his new way of thinking has been objected by other dancers, especially the authorities in ballroom dance as they think that he could not win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship by using the “weird” and incorrect dancing steps. Therefore, suppressing his inner thoughts, Scott complies and obeys others’ requests, and decides to dance in traditional way in the final competition. This has shown that how influential compliance and obedience are in manipulating people’s behaviours in order to fit themselves into the group and please the authorities, although cognitively they disagree with the rules. In the end, Scott finally realizes the importance of being himself. With the encouragement of his father who has same thoughts with him but being neglected, he manages to express his real feelings in his dance with his love one, Fran, and shows to the world that dancing should be a happy way in expressing one’s thoughts, not rigidly following the rules. This has conveyed a message that it is important to be yourself and be courage enough to voice out your thoughts and ideas. Although there will be disagreement and failures, perseverance and courage will be the keys that lead to the success. 

Besides, the movie also discusses the right attitude towards learning. Learning should be a non-stop process and everyone should be open-minded to accept new things. There are contrasting examples shown in the movie. Scott is willing to learn new style of dancing although he has been trained as the professional dancer since he was young. However, Barry Fife, who is the president of Australian Dancing Federation, does not allow any new things that could challenge his believes. Therefore, he would try his best in stopping and banning any new things that he thinks are “weird” and nontraditional. From these two characters, we can see two different ways in learning, also displays that willingness to change and accept new things should be the right attitudes towards learning, and are more likely to lead someone to success.