Strictly Ballroom

"A life lived in fear is a life half lived." In the movie, social comforting was a trend. The movie started with a flash back of Scott and his partner, Liz, dancing in a competition. In the competition, Scott introduced improvised dance moves to the floor, taking Liz by surprise. Despite the cheers from the audiences, Scott and his partner lost in the competition. This shows how big of a role social conformity played in the competition. In addition to that, the reaction of the people around Scott that were interviewed showed strong disapproval of Scott's improvised dancing step except for Fren who was supportive of change.

Scott's father who was like him, went against social conformity and stopped dancing infront of the public after he learned that most people would choose to conform into what authority and general public said is right, rather then what they think is right. This is where we see deindividualtion where a person temporarily losses his or her own identity to the crowd. Group thinking was observed amongst the board of dancing directors in the movie. For instance, they overestimated dancing moves that has been establish while ignoring possible intervention and improvement.  Secondly, they were being close minded and had a stereotypical view against contestants who do not follow the established dancing steps. Furthermore, they increase conformity pressure amongst others.

Towards the end of the movie, When Scott and Fren decided to introduce their new dancing steps in the Grand Pacific Competition, they were asked to leave the dancing floor by an authoritative figure from the board of dancing competition. However,  there were an emergent norm amongst the crowd that eventually took over and become a tread. This started when one individual stood up for what they truly believed as right. One lesson I learn from the movie is that persistent towards what we believe is right eventually leads us to success despite multiple failures and disapproval that were thrown to throughout he journey.

Running on Empty

In the movie, the Pope family who have been running from the FBI for many years developed a strong emotional bonding among themselves. This can be seen when Danny kept telling Lorna that his family needed him and he couldn't leave them to study at Julliard. Annie and Arthur played an authoritative role, which includes both responsiveness and demandingness on parenting. This is observed from their interaction with their children. For instance, they responded to their children's needs but at the sane time demanded their children to behave in ways that would not attract problems to the already troubled family.

Danny's relationship with Lorna started gradually after several coincidental meetings where they started knowing each other in a deeper level. This could be explained using self-disclosure under Social Penetration Theory. Their relationship became even closer after Danny confessed his family secret to Lorna. The interpersonal attraction between Danny and Lorna is also a result of both these individuals shared similarities in certain arena. For example, they both choice cooking as an elective. However, several contact in the characters interest can be observed. This can be explained by the theory of "opposite attracts", which states that traits in potential partners compliments each others traits.

In the movie, Denny who knew from the very beginning that he wont be attending college went for Julliards audition because deep inside, he has a desire to study music. This can be seen from his admiration towards his maternal grandmother who was an outstanding figure in the field of music. These scenes successfully portrayed conflicting feeling between his goals and his love towards his family. Regret can be observed in Annie when her father spoke to her on the bright future she has given up. Annie did not want to se e her son walking the same path she did, as a result, she was willing to let go of him to pursue his dreams.