The Increasing Cases of Adoption in the Modern USA Families - Essay Example

To what extent does the theme of family and/or childhood preoccupy contemporary cinema? By TamasZelei AHC 3108 Contemporary Cinema Alistair Billam, Dr. Justine Ashby The Name of the School (University) The City and State March 12, 2015 In the golden age (1950’s), an American typical family consisted of a father, a mother and the children. Monogamy was the ideal family setup and the family unit was held together by romantic love, monogamy, emotional support as well as material support. A family therefore comprised of a working father, a loving stay at home mother and a very obedient and likeable child. There was harmony in the home since the family members knew their individual roles not only in the family but also in the society at large. A few decades later and this type of a model family is hard to find in films. New roles are now defined with a working mother, a father and a child. The mother is no longer just a stay at home mom but she is now an equal bread winner (Coontz, 2000). Even though family roles have shifted considerably, the theme of childhood and family has remained fairly prevalent in movies over the years. What we see on screens is either what was, or what is in terms of family roles and behavior. Even the best of fiction needs a base on which to build upon. As Gillis (1996) observed, family life is the new form of entertainment in the modern world. All parts of family pervade the movie scene and it would seem that the modern script writer is always on the lookout for new stories to base a new movie on. It’s no longer debatable that the themes of family and childhood permeate contemporary film today. However, what is often not considered is just how much these themes permeate contemporary cinema. The theme of childhood and family Inflation, urban sprawl and population increase in the early 1990s is what likely pushed stay at home moms to the market place (Dryden, 1999). This paradigm shift was also translated into film as seen in the introduction of working mothers as opposed to the stay at home mothers. The working class women betrayed the traditional loyalty to their husbands since they were no longer the sole bread winners. These women started to compete with their men on various family issues. Men felt a bruise on their egos and reacted with violence, as seen in The Burning Bed (1984). This marked the origin of domestic violence in cinemas. Marriages started to break up and children had to be raised by their step fathers and step mothers. These children were shown to lack proper guidance from their half parents and adopted bad behaviors and became violent as well. In 1996, the US government did a survey on the characteristics of the modern day family and the findings were grave. The research concluded that there had been serious anti-family downward trend over the years. For instance, even though 80% of families had both parents in 1970s the number of families with both parents was only at 65% by 1980 (Stein, 2005). Cinematic trends follow the lifestyle and technological changes that occur in real life. In the past, society embraced religion and every step they took was guided by their cultural and religious beliefs (Kitty, 1989, pp. 98-99). Conservative cultures and traditions dictated the role of gender in society. Women could not do some jobs that were done by men. Girl child education was of no great value to most families. As years went by, women achieved formal education and secured the white collar jobs. The mid 1980s saw this period of radical transition of gender roles as witnessed in Tootsie (1982). This rough transition was marked by domestic violence and frequent misunderstanding among the spouses. Their children suffered the consequences of such violence. According to sociologists, the 1950s families have been referred to as functional family, which had a well organised hierarchy that ran from the parents to the children (Gibson, 1994, p. 23). Most of the 20th century families have, however been described as dysfunctional families. Such families always have mixed subsystems with no clear division of the roles played each member. The responsible members may play the roles of the irresponsible members. There is also the element of poor hierarchical organisation whereby a child may replace his parent who either disable or simply irresponsible. Cases of domestic violence, bad behaviours and child neglect are extensive in such families. The postmodern film seems to create a notion of a jaded family setup which is shrouded in constant conflict, disillusionment and deceit. The modern day family setup has to keep in step with the constantly mutating social norms. These heightened social changes and adaptations could be to blame for the ever present cynicism, anxiety and confusion in which the modern day family operates. In today’s cinema, since the ginning of 1990, the lifestyle changes that have been brought about by modern technology have covered all the cinematic families in relaying the very theme of family and childhood. Technology and modern education is shown to most families. In many films of the 20th century, the families consist of single parents and adopted children. Cinematic parents of the 21st century are not as caring as those in the early 1950s (Schreck, 2001, pp. 56-78). The new generation children seem to know more than their old fashioned parents. This state makes the children defy the parents. All we see today is violent families. A sample of movies are critically analysed for the theme of family and childhood, and how the depiction of these themes has changed over time. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a family movie that demonstrates how families used to stay close together in time of hardship, whereby, the child supports his father and the father also recompenses the absence of the mother. This movie was shot in Hollywood in the year 1989. Indiana Jones is a very young man who is quite adventurous. Indiana Jones takes after his father, Henry Jones, also known as Sean Connery in the episode of the Last Crusade. In this film, Indiana Jones leaves his teaching job and goes after his father in search of the treasure; the Holy Grail. At this moment, Indiana Jones had been imprisoned by the antagonists; the Nazis. Indiana walks a very long distance as he goes through a number of hardships so as to find his beloved father. He eventually finds his father and rescues him from the cruel hands of the Nazis. They then continue with their adventure to find the Holy Grail. A large fraction of this film shows the audiences the healthy relationship that existed between Indiana and his father, Sean Connery. Going by the year of filming, this must have been the era that families still embraced love and the members adhered to their obligatory duties. In this particular episode, Sean Connery is seen to be playing his obligatory duty of protecting his one and only son; Indiana. However, the son has been portrayed to playing a reverse role. He strives to rescue and protect the father, yet the father is not aged. Logically, one would argue that the two were mutual dependant of each other as they endeavored to achieve a common goal of obtaining the Holy Grail. Holy Grail portrays the family as a corporative institution where every member watches over the other. Both the parent and the child show care for each other. These members of the family had a common goal as well as common enemy; the Nazis. In that era, the society believed in communal work and brotherly love. The theme of childhood is also illustrated by the kind of life Indiana Jones goes through as a child. As a boy child, Indiana Jones has been portrayed as adventurous and ambitious. Like any other child, he is full of dreams and admires his father too. He takes all the risks to see his dreams come true. This brings out another aspect of fathers in the ideal families. These fathers were role models to their sons and daughters, and this most probably is what affected Indiana Jones fatherhood to Boy Scout. Children were proud of their parents and wanted to be just like them. The parents would also risk their lives for the purposes of fulfilling the dreams and ambitions of their children. However, the film had some elements of modernity. We are not told why Indiana’s mother had not been part of the team. This introduces the aspect of single parenthood. Even though Indiana’s mother had not been brought into picture, he does not seem to fill this gap. The passionate love of the father has covered up for the place of the mother. Although the theme of family is very strong here, it is not the same family of the previous generation. The movie, Batman Begins (2005) illustrates how orphaned children go through bitter stages of life and eventually take up responsibility in revenge of their lost parents. The movie starts with Bruce Wayne as a young child who lives in a supernatural land in a bid to understand the cruel murder of his parents. The murder of his parents and his state as a young orphan leads him to a severe trauma. He, therefore, takes it upon himself to establish the cause of the crime and eliminate the killers. Bale then joins a league of Ninjas and trains for the revenge. After he had attained his desired level of fitness, Bale escapes from the training camp and goes back to Gotham, his home town, to fight crime on his own. Fortunately, Wayne succeeds in his quest for justice and restores peace and sanity to Gotham. In this cinematic family of Wayne, a child has been bereaved at almost infancy age. This young person has to face the harsh society without any parental guidance and protection. Theory has it that such children often lack essential guidance and thus grow up to be ill-mannered in the society (Taylor, 1993, pp19). Experts’ admonish parents to be careful how they raise their kids because abused children have a high propensity of turning out as abusers (Engel, 2004). When Wayne’s parents died, he was bound to become a bad man and join the criminals in Gotham. However, his childhood took a different direction. He took a step that most children would take in real life. He decided to look for the murderers and take a revenge on them. Wayne, through this bitter theme of childhood, represents many orphans out there who find themselves in a solitary situation and wondering how death had been so punctual in snatching away their beloved parents. Such children often grow with so much bitterness in their hearts. Contemporary cinema has featured many children as lacking parental attention at very tender ages. These orphaned children usually go a lot of hardships and the society has neglected them. In a real life situation, the main killers of such parents have been the many diseases that have rampantly increased with the modern lifestyle and behavior. Crimes rates have also doubled and some parents have fallen prey for the cruel predators. The cinema, by demonstrating how the bitterness of Wayne led him to revenge, has shown the audience how orphaned children can take up adult responsibilities and accomplish so many goals in the society. Their resultant action can sometimes be of great help to a large population. In the case of Bale, by eliminating the killers, he saved the entire population from bad leadership and crime. However, in the course of revenging, such children may hurt many undeserving individuals. Wayne, unlike Indiana Jones, did not get the opportunity to enjoy the love and care of his father. On the contrary, Wayne assumes the “Protector and avenger” role which was traditionally a father’s role. He has no choice but to demonstrate courage by overcoming the fear of bats and when that happens, he is ready to face bigger challenges of facing Gotham from the Al Ghul and Dr. Crane. In Die Hard 4.0 (2007), detective McClane and his daughter Lucy have been used to describe how challenging it can for a single parent to raise a child. Die Hard 4.0 is yet another representation of incomplete families in the USA; a state that usually results from the rising cases of divorce and separation in the Western nations. This is an illustration families’ evolution from unity to domestic violence and eventually, separation of the parents. The father, McClane, does not seem to understand his new generation daughter thanks to the generational gap. Detective McClane has to adapt to the new way of life in a world where computers control everything. The criminals are using this to hack systems and he has to stop them. Lucy, living with his ever busy father, has unlimited freedom to move around and make friends. In the course of her socialization, Lucy meets and dates a young man, Matt Farrell. Matt is a genius hacker who has the capability to access all the government systems. One day, McClane finds Lucy and Matt by the road side and acts furiously. As a police officer, he is trying to keep his daughter away from criminals and as a father he is trying to keep his daughter safe. However, his concerted efforts to keep the duo apart seem to bear no fruit (Breznican, 2006, p. 23). In this movie, we see a single parent who is trying to raise his daughter single handedly. To complicate the situation further, the parent is a male trying to raise a female child. Fathers may not easily understand the nature and complexity of their daughters. McClane, has been used in this cinematic family to illustrate how this situation can be so challenging. Many of such families usually end up in a break up. To save the family, a father must expand his roles and offer friendly counseling to the daughter. Lucy is a girl who has to live without the care and understanding of the mother. She represents the challenges that girls in separated families undergo. The theme of family, in this instance, has been portrayed in two different dimensions. There is aspect of job duty and the family duties. McClane, being a government detective, is charged with various tasks in the line of duty. At the same time, he had to provide for and protect her daughter in as much as he had to protect other citizens. This case represents families in which parents fail to balance their time. Some parents pay much attention to their jobs than they do to their children. This is one of the reasons why some families fall apart and their children having miserable childhood. McClane, however, has been depicted as selfless and fights hard to save his daughter. McClane also represents culture conflict between generations where parents seem to disagree with their children on vital issues like who to date. McClane does not want to let go of her daughter. He strongly believes that the future is worse than the past and the present. Technology poses a threat and big challenge to these old fashioned parents. Technology, thus, widens the generational gap and creates a consistent conflict between the parents and the children. In such a family, the parent would want the children to stick the old traditions of the society while the children wish the parents were more flexible to embrace technological changes. In The Amazing Spider man (2012), Peter Parker’s family has been used to show how inhuman parents can be. This family movie also illustrates how the contemporary society has embraced adoption of children. The fantasy of the orphan seems to be very popular in contemporary film. It is almost impossible to come across a film that has a good step mom and a bad step child. Some other examples of movies that illustrate this oedipal story include Harry Potter, and James and the giant peach. This is nothing new since the same concept can be seen in old tales / films like Cinderella. The situation of Peter’s family shows how parents can be cruel to their children with the scientific adventure. Peter’s parents, at infancy, donate him for a scientific experiment that almost turned the child into an alien. His biological parents, he was told, had incorporated the spider DNA into his body system (Kirby, 2014, p. 3). They wanted him to be genetically modified for reasons best known to them. Parent cruelty varies in categories and degree. On the theme of childhood, Peter represents children who have been intentionally neglected by their biological parents. He grows without the knowledge of his parents. This situation traumatizes the young boy a lot. This case follows the theory that some parents run away from the familial responsibilities. In real life, a man may run neglect his family due to rising cost of living or some internal conflicts. However, such cases of child neglect are not as rampant in the USA as in other developing countries, since US has embraced the adoption of children (Vetere, 2001, p. 138). In the amazing spider man, a family of surrogate parents has been portrayed when Peter is adopted by the uncle and aunt. After he had been neglected by the biological parents, this couple decides to adopt him. The couple has a challenging duty of raising the child and explaining to him, when he comes of age, what transpired between his parents. Here, contemporary cinema depicts the increasing cases of adoption in the modern USA families. Children live without their real parents and are raised as adopted children. Adoption in the contemporary families has raised complications and conflict among the children. Adopted children, if not well cared for, may often feel out of place in the families they live in. Many adopted children have, therefore, experienced discomfort and trauma but find no avenue to raise their concerns. This circumstance may negatively affect their childhood, especially if the biological parents discriminate the surrogated child. Thus, in using the theme of family again it is not the straightforward family of earlier times; however it reflects adopted families and responsibilities. Even when both parents are raising their biological children, they seldom have time with their children. It’s interesting to note that even in older films like Mulan and Peter Pan where both parents were present; the kids spent most of the movie away from their parents (Gabler, 2003). Contemporary cinema has widely portrayed the theme of family to a much deeper extent than early cinema. Modern cinema is based on the daily lifestyles and problems that affect real families (Laughey, 2000, p. 235). Sensitive issues such as divorce (Mrs. Doubtfire, 1993), single parenthood (One Fine Day, 1996), adoption and responsibility (Big Daddy, 1999; Life as we know it, 2010) have been highlighted in these and the above movies mentioned. In the sociological view, the early families have been depicted as functional while most modern families have been called as dysfunctional. These are issues that every individual can relate to in the world of today. Bibliography Bresson, R. 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