Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Chapter 12-Stability and Change

In chapter 12 there are three dialectics that affect relationships.  One of them is Stability and change.   In our book it states that Berger's uncertainty theory makes a strong case for the idea that people strive for predictability in their relationships.   Montgomery and Baxter are convinced that people are in search for novelty.

So the question is, what happens when a person doesn't want predictability anymore.  I saw a movie that kind of supports my example to the extreme.  Havoc, with Anne Hathaway, is a movie about a girl named Allison who, along with her friend, escape rich suburban life, and take frequent trips to the east side of Los Angeles to look for a thrill.  They encounter members of a local gang and hang out with them.  

Allison, who is one of the smartest girls in her class, is also faced with the unfortunate case that her parents are almost non-existent in her life as they are too busy with work.  So she frequently hangs out with her friend Emily who is a sheltered, naive, and somewhat insecure and inexperienced friend.  She wants to emulate what Allison does but what her friends don't know is that Allison is looking to change her life when she realizes the experience she thought she wanted doesn't pan out like she thought it would.  

This movie kind of paints this dialectic in a negative light but I think it is still an important example to consider.  You take this girl who is restless and bored, but also smart as hell, and she goes out to parties and drinks and does drugs.  Throughout the movie though she maintains some self control because she cares about her friend so much she doesn't want to see her get hurt or be put in a situation she cannot control.  

In the end, after a moment of legal issues and tragic events, she realizes that she is not the girl who she portrays at these parties.  But she learns that lesson in a hard way when her friends go out to seek revenge on the gang members who she got involved with.  It is a very interesting view on high class suburbia in the Bel-air type of area regarding the lives of these teenagers.  It seems that everyone is trying to be somebody they aren't or that really doesn't fit them, i.e. average white kids dressing like LL cool J knock offs and talking like wannabe gangsters.  


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