Movie Review - Monsters Vs Aliens

I downloaded this off Foxtel the other day, and was quite disappointed with it. I knew Miss S had already seen it, she said she liked it, so I thought I'd watch it with her. After the first 20 minutes I really wanted to just switch it off, but was fascinated to see how worse it could actually get.

Here's the summary of what I saw.
One of the opening scenes has the bride being told by husband-to-be that he won't be taking her to Paris as promised, but they would be going to Fresno instead, because his job is more important. She reluctantly accepts this and I pick up on how her passivity hasn't even attempted to be disguised.

During her wedding ceremony she grows into a giant and nobody shows real concern for her. Everyone runs away including those who are supposed to love her, such as her fiance and her mother.

She is captured and taken to a facility where she is imprisoned. The head prison keeper arrives through a trapdoor on a personal flying contraption. She's trapped, upset, afraid, and confused. He laughs at her while he's circling around her head, making fun of her while she sobs. With full control over where he flies, he is free to come and go at will. She is curled up in the corner. So, I'm thinking, hmmm....woman=imprisoned, man=freedom of movement. We learn that the Government has captured her, that this is where she will live for the rest of her life and that she is a "monster". To confirm her monstrous status, although she actually looks picture-perfect-sexy, her prison companions are a giant insect, a slimy newt type creature, a wise-cracking man-come-cockroach and a ball of slime. I have trouble equating how a giant-sized sexy-looking young woman fits in with the other creatures. The connection eludes me.

However, an alien has come to take over Earth and our "monstrous" woman and her monster companions are freed with the job of getting rid of the alien. They are dumped in front of the large metallic alien. The giant woman has not been told of her mission, BTW, but she comes to the party and starts to fight the alien, but her companions do next to nothing. She has super strength, becomes angry, uses resources, is assertive, gives directions/orders to others and eventually saves some people. So, I'm thinking, right, the producers had to equate her to being monstrous before they could put strength into her character. I remembered how passive she was when she was a "normal" woman.

The President tries to seduce the alien with some music. His level of authority and power is demonstrated by how he brings with him hoardes of admirers - all men. The usual red carpet is put out and he is cheered on. In this scene the President actually fails at doing winning over the alien so he resorts to violence. He'd brought the army with him anyway, and they had all the right equipment to shoot and bomb the alien. Even though they do not succeed the scene is full of men all doing what men appear to do best in movies - shoot at things (or people), with the intent to kill.

Then there's the scenes where the President and all his advisers are in conference. In these scenes there are 2 women, one is used to make some sort of inane comment that is not given any credibility, and the other woman, continues to scream hysterically and is in fact, ordered out of the room, by the man in charge.

At this stage, about 45 mins into the movie, I'm intensely aware that all characters who have power are ALL men, and that the one woman who does display any sort of power has been aligned with, and portrayed as a monster. This type of thing is what fairytales are made up of. Men who use resources, show assertiveness, display anger and get upset are given positions of activity, movement and power, while any woman who does the same is aligned with evil and wickedness. In fairytales, and as with this movie, the one and only woman who has movement, and the power to save the earth, is told she is disgusting, unrecognisable and nobody wants to associate with her - even her family. Yeah, her fiance turned out to be a "stupid jerk". Something which our heroine recognises at the end of the movie. In the meantime, nobody seems to care about her at all. Her family has abandoned her and her mother and father show her minimal concern over her predicament.

At one stage, her giant-ness is removed from her and she once again becomes an ineffective, passive woman. But in order to save her fellow monsters, she voluntarily turns herself back into a "monster".

When the closing credits came up on the screen, I had an overwhelming feeling that the creators had not put much thought into the movie at all. The storyline was weak, and the stereotypes were strong. I was surprised to learn it was brought to us by those who made Shrek. Since Shrek challenges a number of stereotypes with creativity, I wonder what has changed in the Shrek team.

This type of movie, made for our kids, leaves me with no doubts that our children are inculcated with gender stereotypes and expectations from a young age.

Over the hump!

Well, that's the second year of a four year University double degree completed. I was stoked with my results. I got a High Distinction for Social Planning, a High Distinction for Demography and a Distinction for Geography - People and Space. I found the Geography topic the most interesting as well, mind you, the major assignment for Social Planning was about Hoon Driving and that led me into reading up quite a bit (even if there is not much written about it) about the social construct of masculinity and some history of the car.

So, this year I attained all up three High Distinctions, 2 Distinctions and a Credit. With a grade point average of 6.10 (out of 7) I'm well on the path to be offered Honours and to go on and complete (eventually) a Doctorate.

Exciting times. Now, all I need is some work for during the break!

The Power of Intermittent Reinforcement

There's one theory about human behaviour which is based on the idea that people do what they do because their actions create either positive rewards or negative consequences. The notion is that whenever an action reaps a positive reward then an individual will be motivated to continue with that action. The converse also applies, if an individual receives a negative consequence to some action, then supposedly, the individual will cease doing that activity. This is referred to as the power of positive reinforcement and since it's one of the theories about how humans live their lives, you'll find that our legal and judicial system is based on this theory - if you do something wrong you will be punished, and then theoretically, you'll be dissuaded to never do "wrong" things again, or at least that one wrong thing that you did.

If the memory of my Psychology 101 classes serves me correctly, it was a psychologist called Skinner who proved (or created) this theory by using rats and a Skinner Box. Essentially, it's about 3 rats in separate cages. Inside the cages are levers, that when depressed, dispense a pellet of food. In the first cage the lever delivers a pellet of food each time it is pressed. The rat soon learns this is a constant source of food and nourishment and eventually learns that it can depend on the lever to dispense a pellet each time the rat needs one. So this rat, in cage 1, lives a pretty healthy and carefree life, running around on his treadmill, and getting food whenever he wishes. One could say the rat has developed a healthy attachment to the food lever. In the 2nd cage, the lever never dispenses any food. The rat soon learns that this is not a way to get food, so quickly dismisses the lever, which has no meaning to the rat, and seeks nourishment elsewhere. In the 3rd cage the lever, when pressed, dispenses with food only some of the time. The rat, rewarded once by the lever, presses it again. Nothing. Presses it again, nothing. But a third try, and a pellet of food is dispensed. So the rat, still hungry, presses the lever again, but nothing happens, in fact, nothing happens for about 20 depresses, then a pellet is dispensed. Do you know what happens to this rat? Over a period of time the rat becomes obsessed with pressing the lever. So much so that the rat doesn't walk away and go play on it's treadmill or other items in the cage. The rat doesn't even try to drink. In some experiments some rats died from a) exhaustion, b) dehydration, and c) starvation (if not enough pellets were dispensed). In other words, the rat is so focussed and obsessed with intermittent reinforcement that it's attachment to the lever is all encompassing and is unhealthy (to the observer, but not to the rat). It's the same dynamic that pokie machines work on. In fact, pokie machine manufacturers hire hoardes of psychologists to find out the best combinations to get people to become obsessed with their machines. But I digress.

So, out of each scenario, which one do you think creates the strongest attachment, and which scenario creates the attachment which is the hardest and longest to break? It's the intermittent reinforcement. Now, change the rats to small children, and change the lever that gives nourishment into a parent. If a parent gives love and emotional nourishment each time a child requires it, then that parent becomes a reliable source and the child is free to grow, to roam, to be creative and be safe in the knowledge that the parent will always provide for it's needs. In other words, the child grows up in a healthy environment and in turn, becomes an emotionally healthy adult. In this sense, the positive reinforcement theory becomes a part of attachment theory. Now, what about the parent that never shows emotional nourishment, love or caring? The child soon learns this is not a place to receive their basic needs and searches elsewhere, and one would hope finds it in another care-giver or parent. But what about the parent that shows caring, love and emotional nurturance only some of the time? At other times, the parent ignores the child or forces the child to request and beg for positive attention. Or the parent becomes competitive with the child and only gives positive reinforcement some of the time - like when it suits the parents desires. What would you think occurs in the child then? What would a child think and how would it act if a parent sulks or withholds because the child does not do something the adult wishes it to, or doesn't do it right? They become obsessed with winning that parents love and affection. It is particularly evident to an observer, but not to the parent or the child involved. They both read the situation differently. Just like the rat did - even up to it's untimely death.

This is something I read about recently and am somewhat intrigued by it. Because it explains a number of things. I've written before about how parents can be abusive. There are three main types of parenting, and one of them is the disengaged or uninvolved parent. These parents are abusive and consider their children to be in charge of fulfilling the adults emotional needs, rather than the other way around. If the child fails to do this, the parent sulks, or has a tantrum, probably screams and yells, probably insults the child, or generally becomes "mad" at them, and hence removes their affection. I'd have to say that sulking is the worst. But at other times the parent reacts positively to the child. Thus starts the cycle of the child becoming obsessed with winning the parents love. We all know that inconsistent parenting is harmful to a child's long term emotional development and healthy adult relationships. The positive reinforcement theory simply upholds this, and explains in a very clear way why some children do what they do.

A very sporty time

Stephanie recently had her sports day at school. After a short postponement due to very hot weather, we enjoyed a refreshingly cool breeze during the morning her sports morning. Stephanie had learned her lines for her team cheer off by heart and was really proud that she had done so. She was in McLaren team with yellow as the team colour. The pictures here are of her in the relay where her team won 3rd place and a fantastic photo I managed to get of her in the long jump. I reckon she was the best girl in this event and she did marvellously.

Then last Saturday we had her gymnastics presentation. All the kids were put into groups of 6 and did three exercises they were scored on. Stephanie said she wanted to do the beam the most and she won 3rd place in her group for this. She also won 4th place in the parallel bars. The other exercise she did was floor activities and she didn't get a mention in that, but she didn't care, as that wasn't her favourite thing to do anyway, despite how many times she tries to do cartwheels.

She felt a bit nervous about going, but once there she thoroughly enjoyed herself. All the kids also got a medal which was really good, and Stephanie says she really wants to continue with gymnastics. I feel so proud of her, she did so well. Many times she had a big grin on her face.

Plasma TVs and pregnancy

What is it with Plasma TVs and having babies? What is the correlation between them? Well, according to what seems the majority of the population, it all has to do with the Baby Bonus. How's that? I hear, and I'm so glad that you asked.

I've told anybody who cares to listen that I'm doing an essay on fertility trends. This is usually only how far I get. Because at this stage I'm generally interrupted with a comment that goes along the lines of, "Well, if the Govt wants to stop the population explosion they'll have to stop giving out the Baby Bonus so that all those young kids having kids themselves will stop buying Plasma TVs." This comment comes from all socio-economic classes of all ages right across the population spectrum, this stereotype is uttered. And you know what? I think that most people actually believe it. Needless to say, there is not one study that correlates sales of Plasma TVs to young pregnant people, nor are there any studies that even credit increased births to young people per se.

But since I'm poking the elephant in the room and challenging stereotypes it's worth noting that the Baby Bonus was introduced in 2004 and the trend in increased births began in 2001. So, it's highly unlikely that the Baby Bonus has much to do with Australia's increased fertility rate. Secondly, it's the age group of 30 - 39 year olds that have contributed to the increased trend in births since 2001 - pulling the Total Fertility Rate up from 1.73 per woman in 2001 to 1.93 in 2008 (the Total Fertility Rate is the number of babies any woman can be expected to have in her reproductive life-span). BTW, the TFR must be at 2.1 for population replacement, so the Govt still does want us women to keep on having more babies than we currently are. And while there has been a small increase in teenage pregnancies, the statistics show that terminations amongst our teens are much higher than births, so financial incentive is ineffective in this age group as well as those under 30 years.

So, there you have it. In a nutshell. Before you hear of anyone touting about how "young" mothers are rorting the system to deck themselves out with luxury items, think again. It's a stereotype that has no basis. It's fiction - all of it. Perhaps some retail outlet that sells high-end TVs started the rumour in an effort to boost sales? Who knows how the rumour started, but from what I have witnessed, it's widely entrenched throughout our society.

Poking the Elephant in the Room

I think my blog is long overdue for another post. I finished the first semester of Uni with some good results. High Distinction for Women's Studies which I absolutely loved, Distinction for Human Social Development and a Credit for Access and Equity. I enjoyed all of them but it doesn't look like Semester 2 will shape up to quite as interesting. Still, it's early yet.

I've come across a great book by Stephen M Whitehead that I'm trying to get myself stuck into, but have unfortunately, not managed past page 20! That is so sad, but I'm afraid that recreational reading takes 2nd priority to all of the reading that Uni forces us to do. Most of which, I find quite interesting. Anyway, onto Whitehead's book, called Men and Masculinites to which is promising to be totally fascinating. The opening of the introduction goes:

"It is not possible to critically engage with men and masculinities without recognising two factors influencing the lives of every person on this planet. First, the relationship between women and men is not now nor ever has been, in most societies, an equitable one. Second, whatever is spoken of, by and about men, hides other agendas, other philosophies. There are no core truths to men. Once these understandings are established and acknowledged then it is far easier to move on to the harder part, which is to understand how many males come to believe in their innate superiority over women."

And this:"...to write of men in a critical or questioning sense is to be inevitably aligned with a larger desire for gender equality - feminism. Such scholarship recognises that men, for the most part, remain the privileged gender category so succinctly names by John Stuart Mill nearly one-and-a-half-centuries ago. While much progress has been made towards gender equity, especially in Western countries, a lot remains to be done. To be sure, feminist thinking is having an enormous influence on the subjectivities of millions of women, and a lot of men. But anyone who believes that a few decades of feminist thought and action is about to overturn centuries of ingrained prejudice, stereotype and discrimination against women is not living in the real world. Certainly, any talk of a post feminist era is decidedly premature. Perhaps we will move to such an age sometime during this millennium. If so, we will know its appearance by one assessment: that is, the question will be asked to what extent women are valued, worldwide; not just as sexual objects, domestic labour, or less costly industrial labour, but as individuals exercising power across the public and private spheres. If the answer is, from every country and cultural site, 'equal to men', then we will have postfeminism. One does not need to read this book to know that we are a long way from that scenario."

Then onto this: "...men, (particularly white, heterosexual, Anglo-saxon men) control, directly or indirectly, most of the world's resources, capital, media, political parties and corporations. It is difficult to imagine this group in crisis. Though the idea of a crisis can, paradoxically, be quite attractive for such men. For it posits them as victims, thus offering them a new form of validation and identity - as wounded and now under threat. In fact, a crisis of masculinity (if there could be such a thing) that challenged dominant ways of being male, resulting in men ceasing to behave violently and abusively towards women, children, other men, animals, the earth itself, would be very welcome. However, unfortunately, that particular crisis of masculinity is less visible and barely talked of."

Which leads to this:"...men, as a gender group, are omnipresent across the social world. Are not men the very centre, the core, the drive, the universal 'mankind'? Certainly, many men have been prone to seeing themselves as such. But is being at the 'centre' the same as being 'visible'? No, for paradoxically, being at the centre can serve to hide, obfuscate, confuse, obscure. Often we do not see, through any critical lens, that which is most obvious."

And this is where I got the "Elephant in the Room" metaphor from. What this book is saying, is that the dealings of the male culture are so central to the way our society and thus our lives are arranged, that we don't view it through a critical lens. Men and (some) women, simply accept that mens' ways of being as the truth. This explains why so much responsibility is always tended to be put on women, it explains why we have victim blaming statements, it explains why our culture upholds myths and stereotypes even when they go against the results of research. It explains some long-held and ingrained beliefs about rape and that women who dress and act "provocatively" apparently "ask for it", or the more subtle, "what was she doing there (out at night) anyway?" What a sweet cop-out that is for not holding the masculinity in our society up to the critical gaze. We automatically assume that men will be violent towards women, hence, therefore, women must learn to live in fear, not go out at night, should dress and act demurely, and while we are concentrating on what women are (not) doing, we aren't holding the male behaviour in our society up for scrutiny. This attitude is pervasive and subtle throughout our culture. Once it's seen and recognised, then one can see it at work in all places at differing levels of obviousness.

Men's ways of being is the Elephant in the Room. And my motto for this year is to poke the Elephant in the Room, and see what I come up with. It should prove to be fun, and quite eye-opening I would think.

So, really, Why Doesn't She Leave?

It's the $60,000 question, isn't it? How many times do we hear this when faced with the story of a woman who's partner treats her badly? It's something that I could say I've pretty much heard all my life, and in fact, have uttered or thought myself over the years. But more recently, I've been examining this question, giving it some critical analysis.

What has struck me most is the amount of responsibility this question puts on the person who is receiving the abuse, and let's face it, it is mostly women, so I'll stick with the term 'her' or 'she' to keep it simple. I now come to the realisation that while we ask ourselves, "Why does she put up with it?" or, "Why does she stay?", nobody pays attention to what he is doing. For me, the real question should be, "Why Doesn't HE Leave?" Seriously, why does he stay if he hates his partner so much that he has to yell at her, call her names, tell her that he hates her, puts his fist through a wall, throw a piece of furniture, kick the dog, or punch, hit, shove or choke her. Why, on earth, is he still there?

But this question is rarely posed in our conversations. We are so busy looking at the responsibility of the woman that the question of why he's being abusive is never confronted and analysed. I wonder sometimes why this is so. Ask yourself, when was the last time you thought or were asked, "Why doesn't HE leave?" when discussing a story about a woman friend who is enduring abuse from her husband/partner?

If there are children in the relationship the question "Why does she stay?" has a double burden of responsibility. Not only is the woman viewed negatively for her inaction but she's responsible for someone else's actions towards the children, and she's responsible for stopping it too. Here again, we see such an enormous focus on the woman, as the mother, yet little, if any, scrutiny is given of the man's behaviour. It would seem that she holds the burden of all this behaviour and the person who is doing the bad behaviour is hardly questioned.

This type of attitude is pervasive throughout our society, even globally. There are a number of dynamics at play, but one that I will discuss here is enculturation. We are so used to hearing stories and seeing images of men committing violence that we don't naturally think to question it. Almost everyday in our newspapers and on our televisions, we are bombarded with stories and images of war which consist of men holding a weapon, or firing off missiles. Then there's gang related shootings, bikie gang violence, public stabbings, armed bank robberies which show images of a cloaked male brandishing a rifle or gun. Images and notions of male violence are on our internet sites, in movies and throughout our video games. Each image and notion is upheld and supported through various mediums which we are exposed to each day. So, when we hear of a story of a friend of a friend who had her arm broken by her husband, we wonder, "Why does she stay?" Not, "Why on earth is he doing that, that is awful." At times we have shown more emotion at hearing of women who have been beaten for 30 or more years by their husband and how they could have put up with it for so long, than we show when listening to what he has done.

It also works the opposite way as well. TV and newspaper images of women and children distressed, injured or killed when caught in a war zone have become the norm when reports of atrocities reach us. It's as though the casualties of women and children have now become a trophy image. We've become so used to seeing this that it no longer stirs up our emotions. In other words, we are encultured to accept that men behave violently and that women (and children) will be the casualties. I propose that is why society automatically asks "Why does she stay?", without a second thought. It is because we have been force-fed to believe that the only escape from violence is to run away. And while we're running the question of who is responsible is not given the priority that it should.