Emotional Characteristics on The Hancock - Essay Example

 Emotional Characteristics on The Hancock Since there is not a universally-accepted explanation for human emotions, there are multiple theories that help people understand the importance of developing one's own internal wisdom to judge what feels true and drive their thoughts and behaviors accordingly. One definition of emotion states that an emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behavior. This proves that emotions have a cognitive element involving self judgement and evaluation that may or may not be conscious. Emotion also has a physiological basis relating physical experiences and sensations, and it can affect our thoughts and behaviors. In class, we learned that all types of emotions share six characteristics; essentially, emotions are oriented with subjective experiences, valenced experiences, physiological changes, thought expressions, behavioral expressions, and adaptive responses. Analyzing the movie “Hancock”, I conceived that some of these six characteristics relating to emotion can be linked to certain aspects of the movie, both literally and analytically. In the movie “Hancock”, a hard-living, alcoholic superhero, who is hated by the public for costing LA million of dollars for his reckless yet heroic behavior, enters into a questionable relationship with the wife, Mary, of the public relations professional, Ray, who is trying to repair his image. The character Hancock transforms from a heavy-drinking vigilant character who has no regard for authority into a respected “superhero” in New York City. At first, he displays a rude, cynical, and inconsiderate attitude towards a different type of humans; however, after he turns himself into the police for his previous lawsuits, the crime rate starts to increase showing the people that they really need him. He proves himself at a violent robbery and earns his respect. On the other hand, Ray's wife, Mary, is a complex character who lives in disguise hiding her super powers and living as a standard American wife's life, raising her step son, Aaron, and taking care of her husband, Ray. Ray is every-day American man who sees the positive side of life by promoting peace and happiness to the world and tries to help Hancock to earn a respected name in the society. Hancock discovers Mary's powers after a dinner and learns about his origins, relationship with Mary, and the 3000-year lifetime with their powers. When Hancock get wounded for the first time in the movie helping in a store robbery, the audience learn that the twos lose their powers when they are get close to each other and about the Miami incident 80 years ago, in the hospital. When Mary gets shot by criminals trying to kill Hancock, he flees the hospital using the last of his powers; this allowed her to heal, as her powers came back as Hancock went further away from her. Finally, Hancock starts working as a superhero in New York City, as Mary and Ray live a normal life back in LA. When examining the six characteristics that represent emotion, it is apparent that one of the major characteristics is that emotions are subjective. The key concept that emotions are subjective experiences means that they are experienced from an individual point of view and unique to their private experiences. Different people can experience different emotions when exposed to the same physical stimuli. Thus for example, subjective experiences in the movie “Hancock” is evident when the main character John Hancock is hit with emotional problems such as hate, neglect, and loneliness. These problems greatly bother him and cause him to live a bitter-sweet life. Even though he saves the lives of others, he creates great destruction during the process and shows disrespectful and impetuous attitudes towards everyone he meets. Even though a few people loved him, subjective experiences such as being called an “asshole” by people (sometimes even kids) took a toll on him and made him feel rejected and avoided by the society; his false belief that everyone in the world hates him probably changed him into an alcoholic and made him give up on his life. However, this problem of hate and neglect that he experienced came to an end when someone cared for him: Ray. He slowly gained confidence in his ability to change into a better person and to do good for others. Also, when Mary told him about his origins, he realized the emotional presence of those who love him, resulting in his feeling of loneliness fading away by the end of the movie. Ultimately, with the help of Ray and his family, he solves the internal conflicts against him that were caused by subjective experiences, and he proceeded to live a better life as a superhero of New York. Another main characteristic of emotion is that emotion is learned and adaptive. Think about it, as human beings, one develops emotional responses interpreting their unique perception of the physical world around them and their internal states depending on how a given situation relates to their upbringing and past experiences. This proves that the adaptive response that characterizes emotion are emotions that occur as reactions to the environmental changes experienced within an individual. In the movie, Ray's current wife, Mary, served as a critical character to the plot who hides her superhero powers and later revels her true personality as a surprising plot-twist within the film. She lives in disguise after a severe attack on her and her former husband, Hancock, 80 years earlier in Miami, adapting into a loving wife and mother but hiding her powers. Since the audience learns that she was fully aware of their powers, their 3000 year origin as god and angels, and their past attacks as a couple, it is obvious that she concealed these information in order to adjust herself into the new environment she was put in and continue living a safe normal life. She kept these secrets from Hancock, who recovered from amnesia unaware of his past, to live an emotionally stable life as another normal human living in this world. She knew that she cannot continue her life with Hancock, because she had to save his life from the injuries and future threats for their lives; thus, she deserted far from Hancock and started a new life. However, Mary's adaptive response was evident when Hancock figures out that she had immortal powers and tries to tell Ray about it, because she realized that him reveling this 80 year old secret to Ray can interfere with her established stable life in her new environment. Therefore, she reacts to the fear of change in her new life by ragingly battling with Hancock to downtown LA, causing significant destruction to the area. Her anger shown toward Hancock for trying to uncover her secret exhibits her emotional adaptive response towards the change in her environment from a typical housewife into a immortal women with superpowers. When most people define emotion as a response to particular stimuli, it will involve physiological change or arousal along with subjective feeling, cognition, and behavior. Physiological change usually signifies emotions that display arousals as somatic-autonomic responses; they are usually characteristics that are internal such as heart-rate & hormonal, not behavioral. Some believe that physiological reactions happen slowly compared to the emotion that is experienced rapidly. Also, it is said that one can experience different emotions when exposing the same physiological arousals. In the movie “Hancock”, physiological arousals are clearly portrayed in the scene after the family dinner between Ray's family and Hancock. In this scene, Hancock carried drunk Ray from the dinner, and confronted Mary in the kitchen alone for the first time. Hancock felt a bizarre vibe coming form Mary, while Mary acts restless and nervous when she sees Hancock eyeing her from far. In this scene, Mary's somatic-autonomic response are more apparent as her heart-rate and hormonal attractiveness to her “real” husband form centuries ago grows internally. She started an odd conversation about Ray's drinking habits, and she found herself standing in an intimate distance with Hancock. When both Hancock and Mary look each other in the eyes for a while, their physiological reflexes such as hormonal arousals and intimate tension are transparent in their faces. Just as she was feeling the bruise in Hancock's hands, she felt hormonal arousal to kiss him but says “you should leave...” and controlled herself. However, Hancock felt the same type or sexual arousal and goes forward and kisses her. During the kiss, when Mary found her right mind and realized what she was doing is wrong, she garbed Hancock and threw him outside the house, literally, revealing her super powers to Hancock. All this said, this scene was a perfect example of a physiological response portrayed in this movie, considering the somatic-autonomic arousals that took place between Hancock and Mary, his 3000 year old wife. Along with the other characteristics of emotions, behavioral expression is another major aspect that emotion is attributed for. Emotions are a form of behavioral expression. Basically, behavioral expression or response means that when one experiences an emotion, be it anger, fear, or happiness, it leads to a physical and/or behavioral response. While bodily responses are central to emotion such as experiencing various physical signs or symptoms that trigger the experience of emotions, it is distinct that everyone develops their personal connection to a certain emotion and assigns it to a particular feeling as positive (excitement) or negative (fear). Hancock illustrates behavioral expression in several situations throughout the movie; however, one of the most frequent representations of behavioral expression is Hancock's reaction when he is being called an “asshole”. For instance, when Hancock came flying to visit Ray and his family and landed rashly into a cul-de-sac, a young boy calls him an “asshole”. When Hancock hears this from a young kid, he experiences emotional fury. He walks closer to him and asks “Call me an asshole one more time?”; before the kid finished pronouncing the word, he garbed him and launches him into the sky and responded to his emotional experience with a fierce physical response, also serving as a comedic relief. Just as this display of his mad behavioral expression for being called an “asshole”, there were many other scenes where the same this happens and he reacts differently. In conclusion, Hancock shows several examples of behavioral expression, but most expressively and forcefully when he is called an “asshole”. Ultimately, this movie was an adept adoption for the representation of all the six shared characteristics of emotion. Hancock's character flaws such as his feeling emotional problems for hate, loneliness, and neglect from the people of LA was related to the subjective emotions experienced in the movie. On the contrary, the adaptive response characteristic of emotion was depicted using Mary's fear of changing her environment from a housewife to a super-hero. Then, the physiological response that characterizes emotion was interpreted in the intimate kitchen scene between Hancock and Mary. Finally, even though the behavioral expressions of emotion is illustrated throughout the movie in several different situations, the irritated Hancock's reaction to the word “asshole” in different situations stands out as the most significant behavioral expression in the movie. References Richard, West, Lynn H. Turner. (2012). IPC What's Inside: A Student-Tested, Faculty-Approved Approach to Learning Interpersonal Communication. Boston, MA: Wadsworth. Read More