Family In The Film Ordinary People

Ordinary People (1980) tells the story of the Jarrett’s, an upper-middle class family in Illinois, following the death of the eldest son, Buck, in a boating accident. It depicts what might happen to a family when a tragedy unexpectedly happens. The boating accident disrupted the Jarrett family’s normal developmental flow and inevitably produced relationship changes within the family system. While watching the film, the audience begins to understand that the boating accident was so disruptive and impeding to the family that they suddenly and profoundly shook up and transformed the family system so that it may never return to its former way of functioning (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). The film portrays many aspects of the premises of Structural Family Therapy (SFT) such as dysfunctional family boundaries, roles, and rules. In addition, it shows the breakdown of the family dynamic due to the grief of the loss of Buck and misplaced guilt within the family.
The structural approach emphasizes the family as a whole, as well as the interactions between subunits of family members.
In some dysfunctional families, such as the Jarrett’s, coalitions arise. A coalition is an alliance between specific family members against a third member (Gladding, 2011, p. 300). In Ordinary People (1980), through the flashbacks of Conrad, the audience is able to see that Beth and Buck had a stable coalition that was a dominate part of the family’s everyday functioning. Even though Buck died in the boating accident, Beth pretends nothing has happened and acts as if he is coming back home by keeping his room intact. This causes dysfunction within the Jarrett family because Beth is unable to display any loving emotion towards Conrad, instead she acts distant and cold towards him. In addition, Calvin and Beth have a detouring coalition in which the pair holds Conrad responsible for their difficulties and conflicts with one
another.
A major aspect of SFT is how the family functions within subsystems to carry out various tasks. Subsystems are smaller units of the system as a whole and are formed when family members join together to perform various functions, such as parenting a child (Gladding, 2011, p. 300). In the beginning of the film, after returning home from the theatre, Calvin goes to Conrad’s room, and asks if he will see a therapist soon. The next morning, the audience see’s the first interaction between Beth and Conrad which Beth is passive-aggressive hostile towards Conrad. In this scene, it is apparent that Calvin and Beth’s spousal subsystem has complementarity of functions. Complimentary of functions are “reciprocal role relationship that typically constitute an important element in family organization” (Gladding, 2011, p. 300). In the Jarrett family, the spousal subsystem and the parental subsystem are shown to be disrupted causing stress and emotional reactivity within the family. Within this family structure, Calvin plays the tender-father and Beth plays the tough-mother. The gender roles in the Jarrett household are not aligned with the idea of the traditional family view as the mother being more of the caregiver than the father since Beth takes on the roles of the manager of the household. Even though the family structure breaks traditional family roles, Calvin and Beth still exhibit complimenting roles and “accepting the influence they have on each other and their interdependency” (Gladding, 2011, p. 300). Another major aspect of SFT that is shown throughout Original People (1980) is the boundaries in which regulate contact with one another and organize them. Boundaries govern the degree of interaction and involvement of family members with each other and between subsystems (Gladding, 2011, p. 301). Often times, according to SFT, the boundaries of subsystems can often be seen in the way the family unit arranges themselves in a given space. Robert Redford, the director, represented the family boundaries in two occasions in Ordinary People (1980): the family photo scene and the dining room scene. In these scenes, it becomes apparent that the Jarrett family has ambiguous family boundaries. The boundaries within the parental subsystem are unclear because on one side it is rigid and disengaged between Conrad and Beth and diffused and enmeshed between Conrad and Calvin. Beth makes certain that Conrad stays outside of the family boundary by cutting off communication with him and does not express love or display signs of affections towards him. This has caused Beth and Conrad to become emotionally detached from one another and has caused disputes and ultimately causing Beth to leave the family unit at the end of the film. According to SFT, the ambiguous boundaries has caused the family to draw further apart and keep them from progressing through the coping process of Buck’s death.
Systems theory posits that a family is a cybernetically rule-governed entity. The interaction of family members typically follows organized, established patterns based on the family structure; these patterns enable each person to learn what is permitted or expected of him or her as well as of others in family transactions. Family rules reveal its values and determine the way people pattern their behavior (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 92-93). Virginia Satir argued that dysfunctional families follow dysfunctional rules. In regard to SFT, rules provide the family with structure (Gladding, 2011, p. 303). The rules that govern the Jarrett family are: family issues are kept within the family, privacy is most important, do not talk about Buck’s death, do not talk about feelings, and always keep up appearances. The Jarrett family rules evoke the exchange of hard feelings, cause the family pain, and handicap Conrad as he attempts to deal with the outside world (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p. 95).
The Jarrett family’s dysfunctional rules, habits and boundaries have caused the family’s communication to cut off and distorted. According to Goldenberg & Goldenberg (2013, p. 257, 360), clear, congruent communication is stressed in maintaining a balanced and nurturing family system, and the building of self-esteem is considered essential if all members are to thrive as individuals as part of a functional system. Whereas dysfunctional communication is described as indirect, unclear, unclarified, inaccurate, distorted, or inappropriate. The Jarrett family members are struggling to communicate effectively. Due to the unhealthy power dynamic, Beth has cut-off communication between herself and Conrad which in turn has caused marital distress within her and Calvin’s marriage. Beth’s communication style and family rules have caused Conrad impairment because he is internalizing Beth’s quest for perfection and is unable to express his emotions causing his self-esteem to be torn apart and unable to function on his own or within the family unit. Looking at the film through a SFT lens, there are several treatment techniques used such as reframing, renegotiating, and clarifying. Reframing involves changing a perception by explaining a situation from a different context (Gladding, 2011, p. 305). Dr. Berger states that Conrad’s psyche broke from carrying the weight of the family pain of Buck’s death. By using reframing, Conrad is able to realize who cannot forgive who and build greater capacity of awareness and understanding that he is stuck in the same cycle as Beth by hiding his emotions and trying to appear perfect. Renegotiating and clarifying are also seen in the last scene, when Calvin tells Conrad that he was not as hard on him as he was with Buck because Conrad was always so hard on himself. Conrad in return asks his father to be harder on him and not worry as much. In this scene Conrad and Calvin are renegotiating and clarifying the boundaries between the parental subsystem. By using Structural Family Therapy, it is clear that the Jarrett family structure is causing dysfunction and keeping them stuck in the crisis of Buck’s death. If a family therapist were to work with the Jarrett family from a SFT lens, the structure of the family, the rules and the regulations would have to be restructured to rebuild the relationships between the family members to enhance their positive communication. One of the goals of treatment would be that family works through their dysfunctional relationship to create a more stable and secure family unit with a healthier power dynamic. In return, Conrad would gain control over his life, reconnect with old friends and forgive himself for the death of Buck. Ultimately, the family would learn how to manage emotions and cope in more successful and healthier ways breaking the cycle of dysfunctional interaction.