BF119689

I choose to do my book or film response on the movie Elf. This is the movie about a young boy, Buddy, who was raised by elves. Once he is in his mid-thirties and realizes he is actually not an elf, Santa lets him go to New York City to find his real father who happens to be on the naughty list. He goes to New York and finds him and his step-mom and stepbrother. They all think he is crazy for believing he is actually an elf. But time goes on and Walter, Buddy’s dad, tries to turn him into a “regular” person. Unfortunately for him, that does not work and Buddy begins to interfere with Walter’s job and he tells him to leave. Buddy runs away and when Michael, his brother, tells his father, he is forced to realize what is more important: Buddy or his job. Walter and Michael go find Buddy and they end up saving the day. I believe there are a couple different parenting styles in the movie because Buddy was raised by two different people at different times. His elf father, Papa Elf, uses a permissive parenting style. He demonstrates this when Buddy a couple different times. One is when he is trying to teach Buddy how to ride the tricycle (5 min). The way he was talking to him made it seem like he wanted him to have fun and did not really care about how much control he had; he kind of seemed timid to tell Buddy if he was doing something wrong. Also, they all kind of babied him because he was “different” than all the other elves. They hid that he was an actual human his whole life because their maturity expectations where not that high up and they did not think he could handle it (10 min). The second parenting style is demonstrated by Walter, his real dad. He used more of an authoritarian parenting style I think. Walter was never supportive of what Buddy wanted. He always wanted to make himself look better for work purposes. He was very strict about what Buddy did and wore. For instance, he made Buddy get rid of the tights he had worn all his life just because they were not “normal” by Walter’s standards (48 min). Identity achievement in Marcia’s theory is the identity status achieved by a person who has been through a crisis and reached a commitment to ideological or occupational goals. Buddy reaches identity achievement at the climax of the movie. I would say the crisis in this movie is when Walter tells Buddy to leave and get out of his life because he does not fit in. But as a result of this, Walter realizes what is more important in his life and they become a closer family in the end. “I didn’t mean anything I said back there… You’re my son and I love you.” (118 min)This shows just how the crisis in the movie made them closer and Buddy was able to realize who he really was. A gender role identity is the gender-related aspects of the psychological self. I think this concept itself is not all that exciting because it seems pretty obvious to me. But I identified Buddy as undifferentiated because he was a mix of low femininity and low masculinity. The clothes he wore, the tights specifically, were more feminine than anything. Also, he picked up that “sexy” outfit because it looked pretty which is something I see a woman doing; a man would pick it up because it was sexy. And just his overall personality was a bit more feminine but I would not go so far as to say he was gay. He did ask Jovi out on a date and seemed to really like her. He just kind of seemed to be in an awkward stage in his life. I would consider Buddy as a child in this movie even though he is actually 30 years old. But I think because he was raised by carefree elves, his life was kind of stuck in the childhood years and never left. I would say he is in the industry versus inferiority state of Erikson’s psychosocial states. Some characteristics of this would be competence, cultural skills and norms, including school skills and tool use. I classified Buddy under this one because of the stage of life he seems to be stuck in. He acts like a little kid still developing competence and his social skills are not that great. Therefore even though he is actually 30 years old, he is still the “little kid” of the movie. Walter on the other hand was the “adult” in the movie. He belongs in the generatively versus stagnation stage of Erikson’s psychosocial stage of development. Some of the characteristics of this stage are: care, people rear children, focus on occupational achievement or creativity, and train the next generation, and turn outward from the self toward others. I thought this was the appropriate category for him because he was so focused of his work that he was not going to let his own son get in the way. He also at the end of the movie was taking care of Buddy which shows the other part of this stage. The developmental/psychological issues in this movie would just be a 30 year old being raised by elves but still acts as if he is 10. The intent of the author showing the issues is for pure entertainment. I am pretty sure this movie was made for children who are really not going to understand all of this. I did not really see a lot of research on this movie because it was supposed to be an innocent holiday movie with not much deeper meaning behind it. I just thought the movie was a pretty good representation of someone who was not exactly following Erikson’s stages. Otherwise, it is just a good movie in my opinion.

Works Cited

Boyd, Denise Roberts., and Helen L. Bee. //Lifespan Development//. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2006. Print.

//Elf//. Dir. Jon Favreau. Perf. Will Ferrill and James Caan. 2003. DVD.

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__Subject Matter—15 points out of 20__ You need in-text citations to the textbook for the concepts you are referring to.

__Higher-Order Thinking—20 points out of 20__ :

__Organization--25 points out of 30__ Your structure moves around a little too much between topics--you need clear transitions

__Format--4 points out of 10__ Missing a third source in your works cited. You need in-text citations for all your sources, not just your film

__Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling--10 points out of 10__

__Readability/Style--8 points out of 10__ Awkward paragraph transitions--try breaking them apart using empty lines (hit "enter" twice).

Grade: 82/100