Mississippi Burning~ Burn!

Mississippi Burning (1988) is an old movie that based on the real life FBI investigation on the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, United State that happened in 1964. Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe were playing the role of the real FBI agents John Proctor and Joseph Sullivan.

The story is based on a real life murders that happened in Mississippi where three civil right workers were being murdered. After the missing of the three civil right workers, agent Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe) and Agent Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) were sent to Mississippi for further investigation.  Agent Alan and his partner have experienced a hard time during the investigation as the local sheriff and other officers were refused to provide any cooperation and the Black people in the town were too afraid to provide any help to them. After an in depth investigation, agent Alan and agent Anderson discovered that these white officers were linked to the Ku Klux Klan, an extremist group of white supremacy. However, the turning point of the whole incident happened when the three missing bodies were found after the wife of the deputy sheriff, Clinton Pell (Brad Dourif), revealed to agent Anderson the location where the bodies were buried. As a result, the wife was being beaten severely and ended up in the hospital. This has eventually triggered the anger of agent Anderson. After a brief quarrel with agent Anderson, agent Ward finally agreed to use agent Anderson ways that violated from the ordinary bureaucratic rules. The story ended with the whole Klu Klax Klan in the town were arrested and sentenced to jail, except for Sheriff Ray Stuckey (Gailard Sartain).

The core themes in the story are prejudice and discrimination. In one of the scenes, where agent Anderson recalled what his father told him when he was a boy: “If you are not better than the Blacks, what could you be?” This simple sentence has indeed carried a strong sense of discrimination and prejudice. Why Blacks are inferior to the White? Is because of their skin color? Or is because they are immigrants that “intruded” their land and competed with them on the limited resources?

In the movie, the prejudice and discrimination towards the Blacks has rooted deeply in the people’s heart and these Black people were constantly under such unfairly treatment has lost their guts and courage to fight back and regain their respect from the White people and therefore, this inferior group of people hence portrayed learned helplessness. Like what we can see from the movie, the elder groups of Black people have lost their hopes and dare not say “No” towards the discrimination on them. They have learned that fighting back will eventually cause harm on them and their family as they have witnessed the consequences of the three civil right activists and the young black guy that was suspected in helping the FBI. However, only the next generations dare to speak and challenge their faith by persuading their clique member to tell the truth. This hence has shown a great contrast between the mindset of the younger generation and the elder generation who has already gave up their rights and pride.

Besides, I have also discovered a small part of a scene that can fit into the gender identity theory. This can be seen when the wife of Clinton has to answer the door after he refused to do so as he is having his dinner while watching his favorite baseball match. Clinton has portrayed himself as he is the king in the house where he has the authority to order his wife to do anything he wants, regardless of her wishes. Moreover, social learning theory can be used to describe the discrimination that happen in the movie and even in the real world. In my point of view, when discrimination and prejudice happen repeatedly, people will take it as normal and these people will hence look through others from a discrimination lens, especially for those younger generations who have been exposed under such influences since they were young.  This phenomenon will then pass down to the subsequent generations.  Therefore, it can explain why the discrimination issues can last for a few centuries and it is still happening now in this 21^st century!

The world is now working hard in spreading the idea of anti-racism everywhere, including on the football field. I think the hottest topic of month was the racial issues between Manchester United left back Patrice Evra and Liverpool stricker Luis Suarez. The scenario started with a sensitive word “Negro” by Luis Suarez towards Patrice Evra. “Negro” was refers to a person with black appearance and often representing a meaning of the people with lower standard. I was so shocked when I heard about the news and a question came into my mind at that point of time: How could a world class player can be so racism and discriminate his opponent who has a darker skin color? In my opinion, football field is a place for the “warriors” to show their talents and skills, but not a place for racist and prejudice to happen. From this incident, we can know that prejudice and discrimination are still exist in the world we live today.  I think all of us should hence aware on this phenomenon and try our best to stop it from happening in the future.

Personally I feel great with the ending of the movie and I do agree with the way on how agent Anderson settled the case even it has already violated from the bureaucratic rules. I would not mind to use some other unjustified strategies in order to deal with the problem when I know what is the best for the situation. Like the case in the movie, the murderers were not being charged from the legal law execution but eventually arrested by using agent Anderson’s “personal ways”.  However, I feel a bit unfair and shocked when Sheriff Stuckey was acquitted from his charges. That makes no sense and sounds ridiculous for me as the ending. Meanwhile, I also could not understand why Mayor Tilman will commit suicide at the end of the movie and perhaps the director should has gave us a clear reason on Mayor Tilman’s suicidal attempt.

As the conclusion, I do agree with what agent Ward mentioned in the movie: “Everyone should have equal treatment under the law”. Every human that live in this world should have been treated equally, regardless of what language they speak, what color of their skin and what nationality they are.

Forget Paris~

Forget Paris (1995) is a movie that combines the elements of romance and comedy that directed and produced by Billy Crystal.  Billy Crystal was also the main character in the movie, together with Debra Winger.

The story starts with a National Basketball Association (NBA) match between Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs. Mickey Gordon (Billy Crystal) was the official referee of the game and he was being booed by the audience as he gave a controversial win to the Spurs. After the game, Mickey took a flight to Paris for his father funeral. Unfortunately, his father’s coffin has gone missing and this was where Mickey met his future wife, Ellen Andrew (Debra Winger). Ellen was an employee of the American Airlines. With Ellen’s help, Mickey was finally able to reclaim his father’s coffin. Mickey has then formed a friendship with Ellen after the incident and soon they fell in love with each other. Nevertheless, Mickey was then separated with Ellen after he realized that Ellen was married.

Eventually Mickey and Ellen got married but different from the normal love story, they did not “live happily ever and after”. Instead, they have to face the problems that were commonly faced by most of the married couple, such as loneliness, dissatisfaction with each other and etc. However, in the end of the movie, Mickey and Ellen were able to overcome all their problems and willing to give another chance for them to continue their journey of love.

Whenever I watch a romantic story, a question will always pop out in my mind: Is romantic love in the movies exists in our reality life? I believe that many of us, including myself would like to have such beautiful and romantic love story to happen in our life. But the question is, is the love in the movie realistically enough to happen in the reality of life? Perhaps not. As time goes by, I realized that love is not as simple as what has just portrayed in the movie. Instead, some of the romantic movies are just advocating unrealistic love in our life. Most of the romantic movies have created a misbelief where finding the right person would guarantee the success in their love life. Once again, this kind of unrealistic thoughts and beliefs did affect the way on how individual in choosing their intimacy partner nowadays. Due to these beliefs, people are hence putting high expectation on their dating partner and try to find the right person that matches their “unrealistic” expectations. Eventually, some unlucky people who failed to find their “Mr. Right or Ms. Right” would remain single all the time, as one of the famous quotes in Facebook: “Forever alone”.

Furthermore, Mickey and Ellen have portrayed the “real life” of many married couple would face in their marriage. There are a lot of matters that might happen after married and the most common thing that always happen would be hoping for changes. For example in the movie, Ellen hopes that Mickey can stay with her longer by giving up his “frequently travelled” job as a NBA official referee.  At the same time, Mickey was also hoping Ellen could get used of his life and adjusts herself in order to suit his lifestyle. In my opinion, the desire in hoping for changes in the partner is selfish. The person who asks for changes in another person is the one who refuses to change. Mickey has tried his best to change based on Ellen request by quitting his favorite job and work as a car agent that has a more rigid working schedule. However, when Ellen was able to switch to a better job, she had forgotten what sacrifices that has made by Mickey and ignored most of his requests. Eventually Ellen got mad when Mickey informed her that he would be back to the court that he belonged. Why Ellen would get mad because of Mickey decision? Is this because Mickey went against her wishes? Or she refused to change her own desirable lifestyle to suit Mickey lifestyle?

Besides, there are many stereotypical cultural concept that has been passed down from the past, where women should give up their job after they have get married and they must put their effort and time only on their family. For me, this is a typical demand of changes on female in a family. I have witnessed the same thing happen in my old neighborhood where the women who stayed next door was prohibited to work by her mother-in -aw and she has to give up her job after the marriage. Many of the women have to give up their favorite or high salary job due to the marriage and then become a full-time mother/home maker. This phenomenon is more likely to happen in the Asian context rather than the Western.

Is marriage is a graveyard of love?

Why there is some married couple can last until forever while some marriage could only last for couple of years, or even months? Is marriage so hard to be sustained?

In my point of view, marriage does not mean to “blend” two persons into a same person. A male and a female who get married can still remain their identity as a solely individual where they should retain their freedom that they have before their marriage. The two persons in the marriage are like the pillars of a house and if any of the pillars has gone, the house would collapse. Hence, same thing could happen in a marriage. A successful marriage should be managed by the two individuals who strive to achieve better marriage life. Besides, I believe that selfishness can ruin any kind of relationships, regardless of marriage or in the stage of romance relationship. We should learn how to stand in others people’s shoes in order to gain a better understanding on our partner.  As a result, we might be able to avoid many unnecessary arguments that can harm a beautiful relationship. Furthermore, bringing unrealistic expectation into a marriage would also kill the marriage. Conflicts may happen when there is a mismatch between expectation and reality. Therefore, we shall remember that there is no such thing as perfect match in a relationship.

As the conclusion, unlike the previous romantic movies that I have watched, the starting of the movie has indeed successfully attracted my attention where the background of the story has somehow related to my favorite NBA, especially when the appearance of the Lost Angeles Lakers legendary player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The movie has used a series of flash back in portraying the story and this was relatively new for me to expose in sure narrative technique. However, there are still some drawbacks in the movie where this narrative method could have missed out some tiny little fine point in the movie and it can therefore affects the overall feeling of the movie. Nonetheless, I think “Forget Paris” was indeed a meaningful title where marriage life is different from honeymoon and we should be realistic that honeymoon would never last forever.

Whale Rider~

 

Whale rider (2002) is a film directed by Niki Caro, based on a novel written by Witi Ihimaera. The movie was released on 9 September 2002 in the Toronto International Film Festival.

Whale rider is portraying a story of how a 12 years old girl, Paikea Apirana (Keisha Castle-Hughes) tried her best to change the tradition of her tribe belief. Pai is the only child in the house who can succeed as the leader of the tribe after the death of her twin brother when they were born. However, according to the tradition, only boy can be the leader. Yet, Pai’s father and uncle refused to resume the role as the new leader. Pai’s grandfather, Paka , the chief of the tribe at that time refused to “challenge” the traditional belief and inhibited Pai from engaging in any activities that related to the leadership training. After the “whale riding” incident, Paka eventually recognized that Pai meant to be the leader.

In my opinion, as the leader of the tribe, Paka has indeed done a great job. He picked up all the responsibility as the leader and followed all the rules and norms that have been passed down by the ancestors. However, I think a responsible leader should be more open-minded and flexible by making changes according to the situation. As what has quoted by one of the Chinese saying: “Rules are rigid, however humans are flexible”, it indicates that we can make any changes on the fixed rules according to the situation that can bring the best benefits to the people concerned. Like the case of Paikea, Paka knows she has the innate ability to serve as a good leader but due to the restrictive rules, Paka has to give up on Pai. Moreover, Paka was just way too stubborn and inflexible in executing his duty and because of his rigidness; his relationship with the sons are bad especially when his sons refused to assume the role of the leader. Besides, Paka has overweighed his responsibility as the chief and he was even willing to sacrifice his relationship with the son and granddaughter. Meanwhile, Paikea’s father Parourangi has a total different perception with his father Paka. Parourangi named Pai according to the name of their pride ancestor, where he hopes that Pai can become a great leader despite she is a girl.

Paka’s behaviors and beliefs have brought out the central theme of the film, which is the gender identity issue. In the story, Paka was the head of the tribe and everyone has to follow his command, especially the women. The phenomenon has shown that the males’ dominancy and the compliance of the females were both high in the community. According to gender identity theory, males are always being depicted as the dominant force in the society where females are always inferior. Although Paikea did not know what is gender identity theory, but she was able to sense the inequity of the “gender steelyard” in her community. A 12 years old girl tried her best to fight against the ancient tradition. In my point of view, same thing has happened in the ancient Chinese tradition culture where males are always in the superior position than females. According to my past experience, many Chinese people from the old generation valued males as more precious than females. For example in one case that I have seen, a grandmother loves her grandson more than her granddaughter. To me, this is absolute unfair for the innocent little girl that has lost the love from her grandmother just because she is a female!

Although Paka is a strict follower of the rules in his tribe, however we can still see the dissonance between his loves and resentment towards his granddaughter, Paikea. Paka indeed loves Pai in the deepest of his heart and has built up a covert affectionate bond with his granddaughter. This can be seen when he picked up Pai from school every day as what has mentioned by the granny, carried her with the bicycle around the garden in the house, attending Pai’s concert and etc. Nonetheless, he was still unable to forget the fact that Paikea is a girl and she will never be able to undertake the role as the leader although he knew that she is capable enough to hold the position in the future. Besides, Paka pretended as he was fine when Pai was getting ready to leave for Germany with her father. He walked into the house immediately after he carried Pai with his bicycle. However, he went into a room and looked at Pai and his son from the house. This has clearly shown that he was definitely reluctant to let them leave, especially Pai.

Furthermore, another point in the movie that has caught my attention was the way on how Paka and his wife maintain their relationship. I remembered in one of the scenes when Pai asked her grandma on how she maintains her relationship with Paka, the answer that given by nanny was really meaningful. In my point of view, respect is important in all kind of relationship. For instance like the case in the movie, the grandma shows her respect toward her husband by obeying to what Paka said even though she is strongly disagree with him. I think this is the best way to maintain any form of relationship, such as romantic and friendship. Personally I have been experienced a relationship that being ruined by the issue of respect and this is the conclusion I have get: If we do know the feeling of being disrespect, we shall not repeat the mistake on others.

Undoubtedly Whale Rider is a good movie, with an interesting and touching storyline, fantastic acting by a newbie actress Keisha Castle-Hughes and other excellent actors and actresses. However, I feel that the whale riding part is sort of unrealistic and the reactions that displayed by Koro family and friends, who  remained “over chill” and no sense of panic or terrific were shown on their face as if they have already knew that Pai would definitely be safe in the end.

As a conclusion, the movie is awesome and I have increased some new knowledge on the Maori society. Once again, I strongly agree that females can sometime do better than males in some typical “male” works. As we can see that there are now female referees on the football field, female president and etc. Hence, the position of leader or any important role is longer preserve only for males. Same thing goes to the “gender steelyard’ in traditional Chinese culture. Although I am a typical Chinese male and this issue does not really cause any significant impact on me but still, I think we should be fair to the female as they are also human beings like males.