Seeing Sociological Theory in your favorite movies
Megan
04/07/2013
Seeing Sociological Theory in Your Favorite Movies For this assignment, I chose the movie, Thirteen. From the very first time that I watched this movie I was completely intrigued by the compelling and complex issues that this young, thirteen year old girl faces. My theory regarding this movie, in a whole, is that people who frequently associate with individuals, whom favor deviance, have a tendency to replicate that behavior. For this movie, I felt that the Symbolic Interactionist perspective would best be applied to dissect and discuss the problems and resolutions, and also help to support my theory throughout. At the core of Thirteen are two girls, both desperate to be popular and wanted, who become best friends. Tracy is an over-achieving student who, angry at the unfairness of life, turns her focus of over-achieving at rebellion. Meanwhile, savvy, manipulative Evie turns out to be a lost and lonely child looking for love, or anything to hold onto in a world that seems to only value her looks and boldness. But it is the raw portrait of the girls’ friendship – fueled by need, complicated by jealousy, rife with intimacy – where the unique power of their story lies. The story of these two girls is crippled by peer pressure, an altered subjective reality, self-injury and deviance. After Tracy’s mother and father divorce, she moves and starts a new school. As a new student in a different part of the country, she enters somewhat of a culture shock. Tracy’s behavior spirals out of control and at the very same rate that her actions get worse; her friendship with Evie gets stronger. The more often and more “defiant” the behavior that Tracy depicted, the more attention Evie showed her. Tracy went from using profanity and shoplifting to using drugs, inflicting self-injury, premarital sex, acts of violence on her loved ones, etc. The ending of the movie involved a major intervention by her mother. Evie moved away and Tracy’s mother promises
04/07/2013
Seeing Sociological Theory in Your Favorite Movies For this assignment, I chose the movie, Thirteen. From the very first time that I watched this movie I was completely intrigued by the compelling and complex issues that this young, thirteen year old girl faces. My theory regarding this movie, in a whole, is that people who frequently associate with individuals, whom favor deviance, have a tendency to replicate that behavior. For this movie, I felt that the Symbolic Interactionist perspective would best be applied to dissect and discuss the problems and resolutions, and also help to support my theory throughout. At the core of Thirteen are two girls, both desperate to be popular and wanted, who become best friends. Tracy is an over-achieving student who, angry at the unfairness of life, turns her focus of over-achieving at rebellion. Meanwhile, savvy, manipulative Evie turns out to be a lost and lonely child looking for love, or anything to hold onto in a world that seems to only value her looks and boldness. But it is the raw portrait of the girls’ friendship – fueled by need, complicated by jealousy, rife with intimacy – where the unique power of their story lies. The story of these two girls is crippled by peer pressure, an altered subjective reality, self-injury and deviance. After Tracy’s mother and father divorce, she moves and starts a new school. As a new student in a different part of the country, she enters somewhat of a culture shock. Tracy’s behavior spirals out of control and at the very same rate that her actions get worse; her friendship with Evie gets stronger. The more often and more “defiant” the behavior that Tracy depicted, the more attention Evie showed her. Tracy went from using profanity and shoplifting to using drugs, inflicting self-injury, premarital sex, acts of violence on her loved ones, etc. The ending of the movie involved a major intervention by her mother. Evie moved away and Tracy’s mother promises