This movie has concepts from Chapters 10. Though as usual, you can also remark on other concepts from other chapters.
Next, write your comment. Your comment does not need to provide an overview of the movie (we have all seen it). Your comment should be an in-depth analysis of one or more principles from your text. You should use scenes and characters to provide examples of textbook concepts. Your comment should reflect that you are in an upper division, university level Motivation and Emotion course and clearly link elements from the movie to the textbook. This is a comprehensive assignment (linking course lectures, textbook, and the movie) and you cannot do that in just a few short paragraphs.BE SPECIFIC. At the bottom of your comment, please put a list of the ME terms you used.
This movie was . . .different. It was entertaining and definitely showed concepts from Chapter 10. If we discuss self-schemas we can apply this to every character in the film. It is obvious that the mother’s self-concept consists of being an intellectual professor while also being a good mother. In her mind, being a good mother consists of furthering the intellectual capacities of her children (for example, at the beginning of the movie we see her almost “quizzing” young William over To Kill A Mockingbird) while also shielding them from the realities of the real world (i.e. rock music that discusses drugs). Her motivation to be a good mother causes her to repeat the line “don’t do drugs” to William multiple times throughout the movie. In addition, she is very strict on William calling her everyday and letting her know what is going on and where he is at.
William’s self-schema consists of being a good writer. In this way he is motivated to become a journalist and ultimately write for big time magazines. This motivation leads William on his unforgettable journey with the band Stillwater. William’s sister, Anita, it seems has a self-concept of being “normal” and listening to music that is popular. Anita, it seems, has a self-schema of being independent. This motivates her to move out and away from her mother to become a stewardess. Penny Lane has a self-schema of being a “band-aid” and this motivates her to follow her favorite band, Stillwater, around from city to city in support.
Besides self-schemas/concepts, cognitive dissonance is also prevalent throughout the movie. William experiences cognitive dissonance when he becomes friends with the band members but also wants to be a professional journalist and write the “truth.” The band members experience cognitive dissonance when they want to be friends with William but also regard him as the “enemy” because of his journalist label. The line, “I’m telling this to the one person I shouldn’t” demonstrates this dissonance. I also think William’s mother portrays cognitive dissonance in that she wants to be a good mother by allowing her children to experience the world (for example, letting her daughter leave and letting William travel with the band) but she also doesn’t want her children to experience any of the bad things in reality like drugs or sex. The lead of the band, Russell, also experiences cognitive dissonance because he wants to sleep with women but he also has a wife. Penny’s cognitive dissonance stems from her love for Russell and the fact that he’s married and doesn’t seem as interested in her as she is in him (i.e. selling her for $50 and a case of Heinekin).
Chapter 10 also discusses identities and roles. We can relate this to the movie and we can see that William takes on many roles. His roles are of student (taking tests, attending graduation), journalist (interviewing the band members), son (listening to his strict mother), friend (with Russell and the other band members), and potential love interest (of Penny Lane). We see that William changes how he acts when he is in these different roles. For example, when William plays the part of the journalist, his voice becomes deeper on the phone to Rolling Stone to sound older and more mature. He also acts different and much more professional when interviewing Russell. I also think William’s mother takes on different roles and we see her in the role of professor and the role of a mother. It seems to me that she lets these two roles mix, however, and that at home she is sometimes more a professor than a mother.
Terms: self-schemas, self-concepts, identities, roles, cognitive dissonance
I honestly didn't really enjoy this movie at all. Although, I do love Kate Hudson so it made it a little better. This movie does however relate the chapters and many of the concepts that go along with them.
One concept that can relate to this movie is the concept of identity. This is when the self relates to a society, as it captures the essence of who one is within a cultural context. Many people form their identities by being involved with social groups. The group, Stillwater formed their identity by performing and traveling to different cities together and playing for their fans. They were all considered musicians and had the role of one. A role consists of cultural expectations for behavior from persons who hold a particular social position. Back in the day, and I guess even now musicians had the identity of getting women, doing drugs, and partying when they're not performing.
William's mother role as a person is a college professor and also a mother but she clearly tries to preach to her children on how knowledge is important and they're being corrupted by drugs, music, etc. She states to her daughter "You want to rebel against knowledge, I'm trying to give you the cliff notes on how to live life in this world. I'm a college professor why can't I teach my own kids." While her daughter states, "you use knowledge to keep me down." It's easy to see that Will's mom takes on the role as a teacher more often when it comes to her daughter. The books says knowing what roles the self and others hold is a given situation tells interactants which behaviors and which ways of interacting are most and least appropriate. She's obviously pushing her daughter away because she has such strict rules in the household and doesn't understand her daughter. But that's not the case with William. Her role towards William is a more motherly figure. Constant worrying and making sure he's okay and not doing drugs.
Towards the end of the movie though, Williams mom seems to restore her identity as a mother towards her daughter when her daughter shows up with William. They exchange hugs and things seem to be going fine at the end of it all because I think she has accepted that her daughter is free to do whatever and she didn't want to lose her for good.
Another concept that can relate to the movie would be personal strivings. This is what a person is typically or characteristically trying to do. These strivings represent what an individual is aiming to accomplish in his day to day behavior and over the course of his life. William is striving to get Stillwater on the cover of Rolling Stones so he can become a big time journalist. He spends all of his time with them, traveling from city to city, taking notes and interviewing members every now and then. During his journey, he seems to befriend Russell, a member from Stillwater and seems to be torn about what to write and gets caught up in personal drama along the way, setting him back from talking to the editors of Rolling Stone. He engages in self-regulation which involves forethought. Will continues to engage in his task but at the same times gets caught up with distractions along the way. He reflects everything that is going on in his life on the bus and tells Kate that he wants to go home and she says, "you are home."
Many of these characters have different identities but it is all centered around rock and role, and the role of musicians trying to get famous with their music and through William. William ends up making it happen in the end when Russell lets Rolling Stone know that everything was indeed true and they end up making it on the cover.
Terms: Identity, Role, Identity-restoring behaviors, personal strivings, Self-Regulation, Forethought, Reflection
In all honesty, I was not a huge fan of this movie. It just did not really catch my interest, but there were definitely different aspects of “finding one’s self” in the movie. Early on, the main character William Miller is a teenage boy who gets made fun of because of how young he looks. This leads into having some self-esteem problems which challenge him. This is a barrier William has to overcome when he is trying to develop his own self. Having encounters that are not positive influences can be tough on people, especially at a younger age. For my sake, I think about when I was growing up I always told people I would play football for the Iowa Hawkeyes. If someone was going to make fun of me for that, it was very degrading. In this case for William, he gets bullied and made fun of which can put a wrench in things.
William is aspiring to be a rock journalist, but his mother wants him to become a lawyer. William has a strong passion for journalism and through the movie he sends copies of his work to people. This is another hurdle that William has to overcome. He has to have his mother understand that being a rock journalist is something he desires to do. Not being a lawyer. Once again, looking back at my dream growing up, this would be like my parents telling me to play baseball for the Iowa Hawkeyes. No Mom and Dad, I want to play football, not baseball. For William having to deal with the doubt of his mom is a struggle. For any kid, it is tough knowing that your parents might be against your decision. On the other hand, his mom is just being a strict concerning mother that thinks she is doing what is best for her son. She loves him dearly but sometimes her “controlling-ness” gets the best of her.
The concept of Identity reflects William during the movie. As I mentioned, William wants to be a rock journalist and he sees himself as doing nothing other than that. He portrays himself as that. He does not give anybody the idea that he is looking to be a lawyer…no, he simply wants people to look at him and have the label of “that is the kid who writes rock articles.” William takes on this role once he joins the Band-Aids and Stillwater. He then begins to discover what he can and cannot do (identity-confirming/identity-disconfirming). The conflict here is William has to balance all these roles he plays. His roles as a student, his role as a journalist, his role as a son, a friend, ect… William has many different roles that require him to be different and do different actions.
Self-regulation is played in the process when William writes his piece in the Rolling Stones. William, the first time around, writes it and it gets dismissed as a “puff piece.” William is told to be honest and unmerciful. He now writes it for the second time telling the truth and having no regards to what he is writing. This mirrors self-regulation, which is an ongoing, cyclical process that involves forethought, action, and reflection. William used forethought in his first attempt at writing the piece. He was not sure whether to write about what he truly saw and heard. After getting the news about how he needed to re-do it, he quickly understood to engage in the task with no hesitation. This time he was going to have to face the feedback discrepancies and become award of various obstacles that he may encounter.
Key Terms: self, identity, identity-confirming, identity-disconfirming, self-regulation, forethought, feedback
I was so thankful to see we were watching Almost Famous after The Deer Hunter! What a relief, and it has always been one of my favorite movies. I will first give some specific examples from the movie, but I do feel that personal strivings is a reoccurring theme throughout the whole movie. I think that self-perception theory is a great term to use with this movie. Self-perception theory is the idea that people change and develop their behavior based on self-observations of their own behavior. In this movie, we can see one of the main characters, William, is a young kid still in school given the opportunity to write an article for Rolling Stone magazine about a new rock band. He is extremely excited about the opportunity but naturally he seems rather nervous and out of place. He can’t really figure out how to get the actors to sit still and give him honest answers to his questions, until William himself almost transforms himself to their lifestyle. He changed his behavior simply by observing that it was getting him nowhere in the way that he wanted it to. Unfortunately, all the answers the band mates end up giving him are because they are upset, drugged up, or confiding secrets to him.
Another example of William from this movie would fit well with effort justification. William not only had to use self-perception theory and change things about him, but he also had to use a great deal of effort justification, which is putting forth extreme efforts that must later be justified. William is obsessed with rock and roll, ever since his sister left him records of Pink Floyd and black Sabbath before she went off to be a flight attendant. He loved everything about it and is faced with a lot of the extremes that come with their lifestyle, which is mostly sex and drugs. William is placed in a lot of these situations and although at times you can tell he is stressed because he may not meet his deadline with Rolling Stone on time, he is beginning to engage in the lifestyle and seems to be trying to enjoy it, even losing his virginity to multiple girls at once.
I feel like Penny Lane might be a good example of insufficient justification. She spends her entire youth being a groupie (although they don’t like that term) for the band Stillwater. She goes through so many ups and downs and has bad spells with drugs and alcohol and in the end she seems to justify her life and behavior by saying they the band needs her, and needs the other girls as well. She even tries to overdose at the end of the movie but at that point she realizes it may be time to move on from the lifestyle of a band on the road.
I do think that personal strivings play a role for a lot of the characters in this film, specifically the band mates. Personal strivings are what a person characteristically does and that act together to accomplish a goal. I think that these guys shared a lot for music, drugs, alcohol and sex. They wanted to be a rock band so badly that they did everything stereotypically possible to achieve the goal and image they wanted. In the end it became too much and their fame became short lived.
Terms: personal striving, insufficient justification, effort justification, self-perception theory
Almost famous was something else. I tried very hard to pay attention in the beginning but man I just kind of lost interest the more the movie went on. I did like this better than the last movie, however I was disappointed because I really thought I’d like this movie more than what I did. It is one of those movies, just like American Beauty, that I’ve always seen in the video store and I’ve always wanted to watch. I also love Kate Hudson, so that was another reason I thought I’d like this movie more. Anywho – the movie had a cute storyline. The boy, I can’t even think of his name, just that “he’s the enemy!” has a very overbearing mother with some very “far-side of the spectrum” beliefs. He secretly gets introduced to rock and roll by his sister and then finds an editor for a rock and roll magazine. He interviews a band (not the one he’s suppose to) as a paid gig and gets recognized by his writing from Rolling Stone. They end up wanting to do a huge story on the band and William (I looked it up!) ends up touring with them all over the country while trying to get an in depth interview with the band’s lead singer, Russell. Through this tour and a near-death plane experience, the band reveals way too much information to William, and Russell gives him permission to write whatever he wants. However when he does, the band denies most of the article. Eventually though, Russell comes to his senses and retracts his statements to Rolling Stone.
Chapter ten was all about the self. One of the very first things the chapter introduces is self schemas. Self schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. Then there is also the self concept, which is all of our self schemas combined to create one large cognitive generalization about ourselves. We see examples of these in the very beginning, when William meets the “band-aids”, which are basically glorified groupies. Penny explains that they are different from groupies because they are in it for the music, not for the sex. They have used different self schemas from the other parts of their lives (or rejected them as Penny has) and their self schemas of how they interact with the band in order to create this self concept of being band-aids.
Another concept learned in chapter ten is cognitive consistency. This is when your views and beliefs of yourself match your actions. Penny is experiencing cognitive consistency at the beginning of the movie. She feels like she is a fun, good person who loves the music. The band accepts her, she has an affair with Russell, and the other band-aids look up to her; all of these things match up with her beliefs, giving her cognitive consistency. However around the end of the movie, Penny experiences cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when your beliefs and views of yourself do not match your actions and other’s beliefs and views of you. Russell “trades” Penny to another band for beer and cash, Penny’s friends abandon her for other bands, and Russell’s wife joins the band in New York. All of these things confuse Penny because they don’t match up with her self concept, giving her cognitive dissonance.
This movie I think really embodied the theory of self as action and development from within, also known as agency. We create ourselves with our actions, with the exploration of the world. William really started to do this when his sister gave him her rock and roll record collection. Here is when differentiation starts. Differentiation happens when an individual exercises existing interests, preferences, and capacities in a way that creates several new selves for the individual. William is trying to balance his love and interests in rock and roll as well as being a good son to his mother. He lets her drive him to the concert and pick him up from the concert as well. At the concert he interacts and interviews the band and band-aids. Here we see two different selves emerging. Then comes integration. Integration is when we combine these two selves into one self. The whole movie, or at least a good chunk of the middle, is William evolving into a balance of a good son to his mother and a good “roadie” and journalist with the band. He definitely has some setbacks, and I would say most of the movie you see him tapping into his “band self” more than his “son self”. However I would say that by the end, when Russell comes over to give him the interview he’s finally wanted, William has completely integrated.
Terms:
Self schemas, self concept, cognitive generalizations, cognitive consistency, cognitive dissonance, agency, differentiation, integration
Almost Famous was a true example of how your circumstances can change your self. The movie begins with a mother and her children living their lives through lies. She lies to them about their age, and controls their lifestyle. It all soon comes tumbling down when her children begin life’s of their own. Her children’s dreams are larger than the ones she had expected for them. The mother is very intelligent and self worthy and only wants the same for her children.Many scenes through the movie give examples of self and striving based on self. The development of self is present with all the characters in this movie. Based on the following; wellbeing, self development, agency, self-esteem, self concept, and motivation the characters develop and articulate examples of change.
The first example that happened in the movie dealing with chapter ten from our text was when William first approaches the band to get an interview with Black Sabbath and meets Still Water. He overcomes his obstacle to change and create a self that is necessary to get in with the band. He knows he has the past experience he just struggles to find it at the time. He then meets Penny, a bandaid that helps him along his Journey. Without Penny, William would have experienced failure and not good wellbeing. He then starts to improve and get in with the band and receives confidence and develops self. The six statements are compatible with building up his well being. He has self-acceptance because he continues on climbing higher in the professional world. He receives positive feedback to aid in self acceptance. Positive relationships start to foster between Russell and William and some others within the band. He starts to feel as part of the band and positive interpersonal relationships are made. William experiences autonomy when he has self determination. Throughout the movie there are some areas of giving up or feeling of failure, however, he does continue to be persistent up until the end of the movie when his story is published. Environmental Mastery develops with Williams comfort with the circumstances. He begins to feel like home is where he is, which is perceived as mastering. Personal growth is experienced each day during the movie with William. He understands and uncovers something new with each scene. By the end of the movie as a viewer there is defiantly personal growth and development for William, as well as other characters. The trajectory that William has is characterized by his environment. One thing about William’s development throughout the movie that I recognized was that he never relates oneself to society. He compares but never puts himself on their level of low. His mental representation of self never changes based on his environment. William is a great overall character and represents a lot of concepts through the text.
Another character that I would like to analyze is Russell. Russell’ self concept is a Rock Star stereotype. He believes that he is better than others and leads the lifestyle of drugs, sex, and music. Although, Russell develops throughout the movie to show more in-depth of himself. He has self-schemas that are developed through his past experience that are supported through specific and generalizations. He develops agency towards the end of the movie to instill motivation to change and become self worthy. The feedback he received from the article and William were not consistent with the self that he wanted. His consistent self was motivated to change because he was receiving contradictory information. In order to experience change the text states that there has to be two things present. Self concept certainty must be low and self-discrepant feedback must be potent and unambiguous. Both statements above are present with Russell and his motivation to change. He soon begins to engage in effort justification. He acts with extreme behavior to show his values have changed. One example would be calling Penny, the other would be calling Rolling Stone to confirm the facts on the article.Russell, like many other characters came to realization during the plane incident. The plane incident is a pure example of how circumstances and environment can change self.
Overall, this movie was great to watch and also gave great examples from this chapter. One of the main concepts that I took from this movie that is evident in real life is the idea of does who you are with really change who you are. Many people state that being with their loved one creates a better self. This chapter breaks down the factors and circumstances of self and its strivings, and this movie shows change and development based on experience and development.
Key Terms:wellbeing, self development, agency, self-esteem, self concept, motivation, autonomy, self acceptance, positive interpersonal relations, environmental mastery, effort justification
Who am I? Even though they may not be initially aware of it, this is the question many of the characters in Almost Famous battle with throughout the movie. The characters attempt to portray certain images that are not harmonious with their true nature. The façades that each character creates even deceives them to the point that they do not know their true self. As they struggle to be something that they are not, tension and anxiety builds.
To begin, each character has an idea of who they are as a person. In other words, the characters each have self concepts. Our self concepts are not necessarily accurate. They are simply subjective ideas. Both Penny and Russell were unsure of their true selves. Because it took both of them almost the whole movie to tap into their “selves”, they spent most of the movie portraying an image of someone they thought that they wanted to be. Russell had a set self schema in the context of the band. That is, he had a framework for how to act as a band member. When he encountered situations that tested his self concept as a band member, Russell relied on his past experiences to guide his behavior in the current situation. In order to get approval as a “cool” guy, Russell behaved in ways and said certain things that portrayed him in the way that he desired. Russell also sought out groups of people that would validate this image that he had of himself. He hung out with the kids in Kansas because he knew that he would be idolized by them.
Russell also struggled with his identity throughout the movie. One of his roles in life was as a band member. In this role he was almost expected to act in certain ways. His identity was based on being in a band. I think that being in a band and playing that role led to some cognitive dissonance with his true self. Cognitive dissonance is basically being hypocritical to ourselves. Russell’s true self would likely not have acted in the same way that his band self acted. For instance, he traded Penny for $50 and some beer. He likely felt anxiety from the separation of self and his identity.
Speaking of cognitive dissonance, I think those characters that struggled with their self concept all also struggled with cognitive dissonance. I don’t think Penny truly wanted to be sleeping with Russell and acting in the ways that she was. I also don’t think she was fully aware of this until William showed up and brought this disconnect to her attention. Even though she was not aware of her true self, she still experienced dissonance when she acted in ways counter to her self. Her relationship with Russell is an example of her inaccurate view of herself while her relationship with William brings up feelings of cognitive dissonance in her. William begins to chip away at Penny to help her become more herself. Because he is making her more aware of her true self, Penny is also made more aware that her actions with Russell contradict her true nature.
“Maybe we just don’t see ourselves the way we really are.” Russell was right when he said this. I don’t think the band saw themselves the way they really were. They wanted to be portrayed as “cool,” but their image of cool did not coincide with the true nature of the band. Because they were trying to be something that they were not, I believe the band faced many struggles. When we know ourselves and are confident in ourselves, we are happier. When we know ourselves we are more resilient to threats to our self because we are sure of who we are. The band was trying to force an image onto themselves that did not coincide with their true nature. Therefore, when William wrote honestly about them they reacted defensively to this honest depiction. They tried to defend the false image of who they were. This led to anger rather than happiness. Being able to accept ourselves for who we are leads to well being…why do we struggle so much to accept ourselves for who we are?
Terms: self concept, self schema, role, cognitive dissonance
Almost Famous is a movie that definitely interests me. Music has always been a big part of my life, and I’ve always loved critiquing music. The movie is about our main character William Miller covering a fiction band Stillwater. Unfortunately I was not able to watch the entire movie because I was only able to see 75 minutes worth of it in class.
The movie starts off with Elaine’s in 1969 having an argument with her daughter. Her daughter wants more freedom to listen to her own music. Elaine is someone that is a very against society and norms. She doesn’t want to celebrate Christmas during December and even has her son, William, skipping all sorts of grades. Both Elaine and her daughter are high in need of autonomy. Elaine wants the freedom to raise her children the exact opposite of how society wants her to raise them, while her daughter wants the autonomy to do what she wants and rebel out.
One big concept I was able to see in this movie was self-esteem. William is someone that has never been accepted among his peers. William started 1st grade when he was five and skipped the 5th grade. William finally gets some self-esteem when he speaks up to Stillwater which gets him access to the backstage of the Black Sabbath concert. He impressed the band so much that they even include him in their huddle before they go on stage. By the time the band leaves the venue, the band is inviting William to Los Angeles and they are on a first-name basis.
There are also examples of self-concept in both William and the bands. At the beginning of the movie, William views himself as what his mom sees him as. After he finds his sister’s record collection and dives into music he sees himself as a music-junkie. William’s self-concept quickly changes as the members of bands and editors of Rolling Stone start showing an extreme interest in him. I also saw this in members of the bands and the people that work for them. Before William can get backstage at the beginning of the movie, the security guard won’t let him backstage. This is because he saw the people he was guarding as more important than William. Originally William agreed and left them, but after he was accepted by the bands he started increasing his self-concept majorly.
Terms: autonomy, self-esteem, self-concept
The movie Almost Famous was all about finding oneself and figuring out where each person fit into society. Many characters throughout the movie were trying to find their identity and each had struggles along the way. I thought this movie was a wonderful film showing the different styles of how people like to portray themselves. The three characters that come to mind first when thinking about struggling to find themselves were William, Penny and Russell. Each of these three people showed identity problems in different ways.
Chapter ten talks about the self and how people strive to become their ideal self. There are four problems that people mainly go through while trying to find their identity. They are: defining and creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. The characters in this movie all show these problems throughout the story and some shows problems in one area more than others. To start off, William struggles with defining who he is and really tries to create himself while going on tour with Stillwater. When he was a boy, his mother had lied to him about many things including his age. This was traumatizing to him because he was about at the stage in life where he starts to discover himself, but he realized he was younger than he thought he was. He really didn’t start creating himself until his sister gave him all her records. This is when he decided he wanted to devote himself to music. He was also struggling with creating the self that he truly wanted to be. He had a tried to create a self-schema that the others in the band would love. A self-schema is a generalization about oneself that is domain specific and learned from past experiences (p. 268) William had learned throughout the tour that he had to come off as trustworthy, but also a badass. He formed this self schema so that he would get positive feedback from everyone on tour with Stillwater. This had pushed him to from an invisible wallflower into a boy who speaks his mind and dares to try new and exciting things. By the end of the movie, William finally establishes a sense of self that he is proud of, even if he isn’t truly a badass rock critic he wanted to be.
Another character that struggled a little bit differently than William was Russell, the lead guitarist of Stillwater. He associated with the second problem that I listed as a main struggle people go through while finding their identity. He was trying to relate himself to society. During the first part of the movie his only identity was rock god. He knew he was awesome and kind of held himself as superior to everyone else. He came to realize throughout the tour that he wanted something more out of his life and was trying to find something “real” in the world. He really only knew how to take on the role of rock star and wanted to be a normal person for a little while. Russell had tried to take part in identity-confirming behaviors by attending a random “normal” guy’s house party. Identity-confirming behaviors are when a person puts themselves in a situation and are able to take on the role that is associated with the situation. He wanted to prove that he could be normal and “real” just like William was. However, his behavior at the party only confirmed that he was a stuck up rock star. He could no longer identify himself with the normal crowd. By the end of the movie he had started to take part in identity-restoring behaviors. These behaviors are when a person tries to go back to how they original identified themselves through emotions and behaviors. He truly felt bad about how he treated Penny so he contacted her to meet up and make sure everything was ok, but in the end he was apologizing to William and actual gave him the interview that he wanted all along.
The last character in the movie that showed a big deal of self confusion was Penny Lane. She seemed to be struggling with developing and discovering personal potential. Penny had created a completely separate person from her original self. This shows she used differentiation and integration. Differentiation is when someone expands and elaborates the self into an ever-increasing complexity (p. 282). Integration is what synthesizes that emerging self into a whole, which preserves a sense of a single, cohesive self (p. 282). She had taken many years to form the person known as Penny Lane and many of the other girls that follow bands look up to here as a role model. She took becoming a whole new person to another level. Penny had always felt like she needed Russell’s love and approval even if she didn’t express that to anyone. William was the only one that could tell Penny was struggling. Penny had internalized herself just to be the person that Russell would want. Internalization is when a person takes in and accepts an externally prescribed way of thinking, feeling, and behaving (p. 283). In the end Penny had realized, with the help of William, that her personal strivings were not what they should be. A personal striving is what someone is aiming to accomplish in day-to-day behavior and over the course of their life. She realized she was just aiming to find love with a person who did not love her back. After she realized she was striving for the wrong thing, she went back home and become her old self and actually went to Morocco like she always wanted to. These three characters were not the only ones who struggled with their identities in this movie. Almost all of the other characters had their own problems as well. Overall, Almost Famous was a very captivating movie that showed that everyone has struggles with identity, even the rock gods.
Terms: Self-schema, role, identity-confirming behaviors, identity-restoring behaviors, differentiation, integration, internalization, personal striving.
Identity is one of the terms that I want to talk about. This term related to the movie in different ways with different characters. Discovering your own identity can be difficult especially if your Williams character. His mom Elaine creates a sheltered living environment where he can’t experience things that make people become who they are. For example he can’t listen to the music that he wants. Rock N Roll is seen as some sort of devil that will corrupt him. However, when his sister leaves the home because of the built up tension she leaves William all her records. Its then that William starts to find his identity. He starts critiquing bands in a magazine and gets an opportunity of a life time to travel with an up and coming band and interview them for “Rolling Stone Magazine”. This is the role he has inhabited and it helps create identity confirming behaviors. This occurs because these are the behaviors he wants to pursue and that best match his identity.
I feel there is an identity dilemma with Russell’s character as well. He feels as if the band is holding him back yet instead of leaving them he sticks with them. As the movie goes on you can see him questioning his actions and roles with the group. I feel like he is lost and is emitting identity disconfirming behaviors. He seems to be acting in ways that he feels are expected of him as a musician, partying, sleeping with women, and doing drugs. I wasn’t able to watch the whole movie but I feel that it would take a lot for someone to restore his behaviors and help him find his identity. I also feel that he is experiencing some cognitive dissonance as well. Throughout the movie he experiences more than one idea, or belief.
Another character that I feel is experiencing cognitive dissonance is Penny. She seems to tell William one thing and do something else. It almost seems like she gives him good advice about how to act with the band but she does the opposite of what she tells him. Her beliefs and ideas also differ and she seems to have problems with coming to the realization of some. As with Russell, she seems to lack the motivation to decrease the dissonance and create a solid belief system.
All of the individuals in the band have high self esteem. You almost have to in a band. There are going to be people out there that make comments and look down on you but if you have high self esteem, none of it matters. The only thing that matters is you doing what you like to do. William experiences this as well. When “Rolling Stone” calls and asks him to work for them, most kids his age would hang-up but he felt he could really do it. William felt that he had what it takes to be a good writer and could impress a popular magazine such as “Rolling Stone”. This would have been different if he not had high self-esteem.
Terms: self-esteem, cognitive dissonance, motivation, identity conforming behaviors, identity disconfirming behaviors, identity, belief
Identity is formed when we relate ourselves to society, and our identities are highly influenced by our culture. When we form an identity (or think we have formed an identity) we are likely to behave according to how someone with that identity should behave. We saw this in Russell’s character throughout the movie. He identifies as a rock star, and thus lives like society thinks a rock star should live. He claims to care about his marriage to Leslie, yet he has a long-term affair with Penny. This type of behavior is typical of the other members of his band, and also other famous rock stars. He parties frequently, dabbles in drugs, and shows no remorse for this type of behavior. All of his actions reinforce his social identity as a rock star.
Self-concept deals with defining the self, and we do this by interpreting feedback that we get from others and the environment. The type of self-schema (generalization about one’s self) present in Penny is the possible self, which works to change the present self to a desired future self. Penny knows that she isn’t famous, yet she is compelled to spend all of her time with famous people. She sees her possible self as having a relationship with Russell, and does everything that she can to make that relationship happen. She receives positive feedback from Russell throughout the first part of the movie, which further motivates her pursuits; it isn’t until after Russell blows her off while with his wife that she finally realizes that her possible self and her current self will never integrate. Penny finally gives up on that goal (and also that self-schema) and buys herself the ticket to Morocco that she had always talked about.
Personal strivings were present in William’s character. He had such a desire to become a rock journalist that he missed his own graduation in order to travel with the band and write a story about them. Even though he endured many experiences that would have pissed most of us off, it seemed like he enjoyed his journey. While William had personal strivings that made him happy, Russell had personal strivings that for the most part made him unhappy. Russell confided to William that he was musically more gifted than the rest of the band, and had thoughts about leaving them and becoming famous on his own. Russell sought fame, money, women, and drugs, yet even while he obtained them, he was not a very happy character. He never seemed satisfied, and always wanted more. The book mentions that well-being depends on internal strivings rather than external strivings, and does not depend on whether or not we actually obtain our goals. Russell’s unhappiness was an example of this.
Roles are “cultural expectations for behavior from persons who hold a particular social position” (pg. 280). The character that I think had to live the most roles at once is William. Before meeting the band, he had to juggle the role of student, son, and budding journalist; after meeting the band, he became a confidante, professional journalist, and babysitter (more or less, for both the band members and Penny), among other roles. Listed, these roles portray a very complex person, and they motivated William in a number of different ways. Agency describes our actions that are motivated internally, and within the umbrella term exists the idea of differentiation and integration. Differentiation explains William’s multiple roles and self-schemas, and how each motivates him to behave in different ways. On the other hand, integration explains how William can blend his former roles with his new roles, and not completely lose sight of who he thinks he is.
Terms: identity, self-concept, self-schema, possible self, personal strivings, roles, agency, differentiation, integration
The main character in this movie, William, has an identity crisis from the start of the movie. He notices that he looks much younger than the other boys in his grade when his mom tells him that he is in fact, a couple years younger than everyone. Identity is how the self relates to society, and captures the essence of who we are. Different culture and social groups offer different identities for their individual members. Once someone takes in a role, the identity directs the person to pursue identity-confirming behaviors and to avoid identity-disconfirming behaviors.
Humans can do a range of behaviors, but certain behaviors are appropriate or expected in certain settings. When William goes on the road with Stillwater, he is thrown into a world he is not used to, where using drugs and alcohol is normative behavior. This is when he self-schema changed. According to the textbook, self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. Self-schemas can change in response to social feedback. Possible selves are mostly social because individuals observe the selves modeled by other people. William starts to go through changes. First he goes from being an outcast and someone that didn’t have any friends to being part of the group and being liked. Before self-schemas change, self-concept certainty needs to be low and the self-discrepancy feedback must be difficult to discredit.
Another character that is going through a problem with finding an identity is Penny. She created a whole new identity for herself, and didn’t want to reveal her real name. Besides not wanting to reveal her name, she would also not reveal her age. Agreeing with whatever age that William was giving for himself. There is also another scene while on the bus when Penny wants to make up fake lives for herself and William. This shows some differentiation and integration. Differentiation is when an individual exercises their interests, preferences, and capacities in a way that the self becomes specialized into several life domains.
There is a tendency to integrate the self’s emerging complexity into a single sense of self. Integration is an organizational process that brings the self’s differentiated parts together. Penny shows many signs throughout the movie of not having a true self identity through her behaviors, such as her actions with Russell, knowing he has a girlfriend. The scene where William yells at Penny telling her that she doesn’t live in the real world and tells her about her being sold to another band is where she starts to realize that William’s right. However, after a moment of her true self coming to the surface, she quickly stuffs it back down. It is only after she overdoses on pills that she realizes that she hit the bottom and finally reveals who she is to William.
Another scene that just sticks out in the movie for me is the scene where they are all in the plane and they hit an electrical storm and they all start revealing secrets to each other. Right before they think that they are going to crash and die, one of the band members reveals that he is gay. It was only because he thought that they were going to die that he told everyone, because he had a need for relatedness with the group. The need for relatedness keeps people close to societal concerns and regulations, and the self develops toward both autonomy as well as toward a relatedness-motivated internalization of society’s values.
In the scene where the band finds out about what Rolling Stone is going to write, they freak out, and Russell says something along the lines of “Maybe we don’t see ourselves the way we are”, while they are all worried about how they are going to come off in the article. Most people have a favorable view of themselves. When beliefs about who the self is and what the self does are not consistent with each other, people experience cognitive dissonance. The band wants to be portrayed in one way, but their actions do not match up.
Terms: identity, identity-confirming behavior, self-schema, possible selves, differentiation, integration, internalization, cognitive dissonance
I thought Almost Famous was an interesting movie. The concepts from the book that stood out to me were goal striving, self concept, identity, and social needs. Goal striving that I saw came from William, I saw self concept throughout the movie, identity was seen from Russel and the band, and I saw a great need of affiliation and intimacy from Elaine.
Goal striving came from William because he was pursuing his desire of becoming a rock journalist. He first found interest in rock n roll when he listened to his sister's records. He then aspired to become a rock journalist, against his mother's wishes of him becoming a lawyer. He tries getting into a show to get an interview with Black Sabbath, but they bouncer would not let him. Then he meets with a group called the 'band-aids'. They were just a different type of groupie saying they were in it for the music, and not the sex. This is a good example of self-schema because the 'band-aids' are trying to generalize themselves apart from the other groupies. They other groupies are in it for sex, while they are in it for the love of the music. They follow the music.
William then tries to get into the show with them, but fails. He then meets the band Still Water, who was late for the show. He convinces the band to let him with them and interview them. He does a great interview and does a good job of writing an article. The band gives the nickname 'The Enemy' to William because he was an aspiring journalist. He gets recognition for the great articles he is writing that Rolling Stone Magazine gives him a call to write a story on Still Water by following them on tour. This was one of the first steps to becoming a journalist. He was persistent on getting into the show and his persistence paid off. He got an interview and was recognized for his great work by getting an offer for Rolling Stone Magazine.
As William was traveling with the band on their tour, I noticed that Still Water's identity as a whole was starting to change. At the first interview that William did, the band said that they were in it for the music, for the fans. They did enjoy the girls and the money, but the fans were the main reason. But when a new manager approached them about being their manager, they first wanted to stick with their hometown guy. The guy who was their through it all and how they wanted to travel by bus. The bus was their identity. The new manager had said that they owed the record label and that by traveling by plane they could get more shows in, thus getting more money. That's when I noticed that they had went from doing it from the fans, to doing it for the money (at least the money is acting as an extrinsic motivation, where as the fans were the intrinsic motivation).
Russel's identity had also changed. Russel thought of himself as more of the leader of the band. He thought the band was holding him back and that he had much more potential. He had said that the longer and more famous the band gets, the harder it is for him to quit. So he sticks with the band. But as the band goes on tour, you can see that Russel is beginning to question whether he is making the right choice. This first comes to light when Jeff complains about the t-shirts. A big argument breaks out and Russel 'quits' the band. But with the help of William, he saves the band and the tour.
I saw a need for affiliation and intimacy from Elaine (William's mother). She would call all the time wanting to hear form William when he did not call. She would get angry and very worried when she did not hear from him. She is worried that William will leave like his sister did. She even threatens Russel that if William is harmed, Russel will 'see the person behind the voice'.
Terms: identity, goal-striving, persistence, self-schema, social needs, affiliation, intimacy, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation
The movie “Almost Famous” contains many applied concepts from chapter ten. Although this wasn’t the best movie I have seen, the concepts of identity, agency, and self-concept were very clear. Many of the characters, especially William and Russell, face problems of the self.
Self-conception seems to play a big role in this movie. In the beginning of the movie, I feel William’s mother is limiting the self-concept of him and his sister. The mother won’t let them listen to music because they are about drugs, and is very strict in raising them to her standards. William’s self-concept is denied in the scene in the car where his mother tells him he is really only eleven years old. As a result of the mother limiting their self-concept, the sister leaves home and doesn’t speak to the mother until the end of the movie. William develops a self-schema that he is a good journalist, or writer. This is because he has previous accomplishments with writing and feedback from Lester and Rolling Stone. William is motivated by his self-schema to follow up on the band Stillwater. Russell also has a self-schema in this movie. In the scene where William is on his first road trip, they are by the pool and he tries to get an interview, Russell acknowledges that he is being held back and could go on to have a great career without the rest of the band. He thinks he is a great guitar player, better than the people around him. He gets this schema because of past experiences. The fans love Russell and view him as the center piece of Stillwater, even though he is not the lead singer, just a guitarist.
Perhaps the most important theme in this movie was the concept of identity. According to the textbook, identity “is the means by which the self relates to society, as it captures the essence of who one is within a cultural context (pg. 279).” The concept of identity is very evident in the band Stillwater, especially in Russell. Stillwater is trying to relate to society by engaging in the rock n roll lifestyle. Russell has a passion for the music, but he feels he has to live up to a certain lifestyle of a rock star. This is evident throughout the movie. One scene that portrays how Russell tries to figure out his identity is in the scene where he parties with the high school kids. Russell has to prove his status by partying and getting intoxicated. When he goes back on the tour bus the next morning and the rest of the band starts singing, Russell joins in. I feel this scene is where Russell realizes the real reason he does what he does, and that’s for the love of music, not the “cool” rock star lifestyle of drugs, sex, and partying. Russell’s and the rest of Stillwater’s behavior could be classified as their role. They are rock stars, so they live up to certain expectations. In the scene towards the end of the movie where the plane is starting to rapidly descend, William engages in an Identity Restoring Behavior. He yells at the band for using Penny, when she was their biggest fan. He reminded them why they love to play rock n roll music, and where they faulted along the way.
The concept of agency can be applied to William in the movie. William has the intrinsic motivation to start writing, and begins to follow Stillwater. In the movie William differentiates his skills of writing. It’s clear that he is not like any other fifteen year older because he went off and joined the tour bus of Stillwater. William also displays “internalization throughout the movie. In the beginning of the movie, William gets feedback from Lester, and eventually Rolling Stone on his stories. These are external factors that contribute to Williams’s behavior. As William goes on tour, he forms relationships, especially with Penny and Russell, which then transforms Williams’s behavior into an internal source. William wants to tell a story of his friends, the real story, and not what Rolling Stone or viewers would like to hear.
Another concept that relates to the movie is Cognitive Dissonance. This is where beliefs about the self aren’t reflected by the behavior of that individual. I think a great example of this is in the scene where Russell sells Penny and the other girls for fifty dollars and a case of beer. It is clear that Russell has feelings for Penny and thinks they love each other, but he goes and sells her like she is a material item. This contradicts his real feelings for Penny.
Terms: self-concept, self-schema, cognitive dissonance, identity, role, identity restoring behavior, agency, differentiation, internalization,
The self-concept of a musician can be demonstrated with self-schemas. These schemas are more easily understood as different domains of life. For a rock star, some domains include creativity, job competence, physical appearance, peer acceptance, and close relationships. These different aspects of life motivate the person to act towards certain goals. For example, in order to attract people to their music the band members need to create new songs. They also need to perform the songs properly, and dress in certain ways that look cool. They need to tour to many places to gain more audiences. The relationships of a rock star, however, are byproducts of fame and wealth. Overall these self-schemas assemble an image of a rock star, thus the self-concept is established.
A rock star, like other people, also engages in self-verification. The person acts in ways that are consistent with the recognized self. By verifying current status, the rock star can take actions that either promote such an image in the future or avoid cognitive dissonance. If after verifying the rock star found dissonance in reality, the person can take action to resolve the dissonance. One example in the film is that the rock star denied the story written by the young journalist in order to maintain the proper image and publicity. In this case some dissonant beliefs were removed.
Another aspect of self is identity. It is basically the social role one assumes. In the film the original identity of the boy is a high school student, but he assumes the role of a journalist and follows the band to tour the country. As a student he misses his tests and graduation ceremony, but as a reporter he sees the true faces of band members. Another example is the guitarist telling the boy that he can not play to show all his skills. As a musician his skills may have exceeded those of his fellow musicians, but in his role as a band member he needs to play what is planned on their scores.
An aspect of self that is not emphasized in the film is agency. This concept is similar to intrinsic motivation. The self-concordance model explains the process of this concept. Although not clearly depicted in the film, we can guess that the boy first sets a goal to become a journalist, which is concordant with his self concept. He then makes sustained efforts to write columns. He eventually attained the goal of writing for a major publication. This experience satisfies his need to publish and improves his well-being in the end.
Terms: self-concept, self-schema, self-verification, cognitive dissonance, identity, agency, intrinsic motivation, self-concordance
Contrary to what a lot of people have already said, I really liked this movie! Almost Famous was about a 15-year-old boy, William, that has the experience of a lifetime in which he learns and develops so much about himself. There is so much in this movie that draws from the concepts in chapter 10. The first concept that I notice is the identity of each of the characters. William is a son, student, and journalist. He changes himself a little bit to fit each of these roles. For example, he is an innocent son, rebel student that is willing to put his future before his education, and an honest, diligent, and determined journalist.
His mother has both the mother and professor identities, but she tends to mix these identities. In the classroom, she loses focus due to worry about her son; whereas, in the house, she sometimes treats her children like students. As a mother, she is overly protective and paranoid, but ultimately wants what is best for her children. Because of this, she tries to keep her kids away from corruptive music that could lead them to sex and drugs. Ultimately, this leads to her daughter having a very strong self-schema to be independent. This then motivates her to leave the house when she turned 18 and start her own life away from her family. She left William with all of her records, encouraging him to chase his dreams as well. His self-schema was to become a journalist. This then motivates him to leave the house as well to start his life. His mother was heartbroken, but she wanted had a very obvious goal of wanting to be a good mother. She gave him permission to leave as long as he calls every day, and keeps her constantly updated. She also never gave up the phrase, “don’t do drugs.” Cognitive dissonance is when someone’s beliefs are not reflected in their behavior. I think this is an example of cognitive dissonance because she obviously wants to be a good mother, but she is so persistent in keeping both of her kids so sheltered and away from everything, that it ultimately drives them away to want to see what they’re missing.
Once William is on the road with the band Still Water, he meets and becomes very close with the band and their friends. He plays the role of the journalist frequently while repeatedly trying to interview the guitarist, Russell, and maintaining that he wanted to deliver the truth in his story. This gave him the identity of “the enemy” in the band’s eyes because they wanted William to write a story that made them look “cool”, not necessarily the truth. This is another example of cognitive dissonance. The band tried to portray a different image to William than what they actually were, for a fear that William would make them sound “ordinary” or “boring” in the article. But instead of falling into the role of the enemy, William developed the self-schema of being “cool” and “in with the band” and ended up becoming their friend and falling into their lifestyle. This was William showing his cognitive dissonance. He was actually an innocent boy with no experience with girls, alcohol, or drugs, but he fell into it to impress the band members and the girls. He started to lose the identity he had originally. Additionally, he met a girl on the tour. Her name was Penny and she was the band’s biggest fan. She was also in love with Russell, who was married. Penny’s self-schema was to escape the “real world” and stay in the world of sex, drugs, and music. This is what led to her eventual drug intake that almost killed her. When William was there to support her, he noticed the drugs and immediately called a doctor. Because of this, Penny’s life was saved. I think this was what triggered the restoration of identity for William because after this scene, he experienced an emergency on the airplane with the band, in which they almost crashed. While everyone yelled their goodbyes and admitted to their faults, William yelled at them for how they treated each other and Penny. He stood up for what the original William believed in. After getting off the plane, he returned home, where he went back to his life with his mom so he could graduate, attend school, and publish some articles along the way. This restoration of identity went full-circle for William.
Terms: identity, self-schema, cognitive dissonance, role, restoration of identity
I love this movie! I’ve seen it before a few times, mostly on Vh1. I think this is the most interesting movie we’ve watched so far, and I could really get into it. There were lots of examples of Chapter 10 all throughout this movie.
William is a great character, very loveable, and I really enjoyed him throughout the entire movie. His big sister kind of helps him with his self schema, by leaving him all her albums when she takes off to get away from their overbearing mother. Self Schema can be defined as something that generalizes a person and is learned from the past. He listens to these albums, and begins to take an interest in rock and roll music, and because of his mother, who accelerated him through school, he is a senior and extremely well educated at the age of fifteen. He is also a talented writer, and becomes friends with a rock critic, whose name escapes me… Lester I think. Because he’s so talented of a writer, the band members of Stillwater, and the Band-Aids, all think that William is much older than what he is, and so he puts out the persona that he is. Just like when Rolling Stone calls him, they assume that he’s in college or older, and he does nothing to try and change that opinion until he shows up in front of the Rolling Stone. William has many identities that he assumes throughout the movie. He is the smart, loving son and cares about his mother, and tries hard to please her. He is also the ‘enemy’ and tries to get his story for the Rolling Stone, much to the band’s dismay. He is the rebellious little brother, listening to rock and roll music and following bands on tour and writing about it. He is the sweet, nice guy that Penny knows him to be, and he saves her life after she takes an overdose of drugs. He is a friend of the band and a friend of Russell’s, hanging out and talking with them. He is a student, who needs to take tests and get to graduation. William has a pretty good sense of agency for a fifteen year old boy, and is intrinsically motivated to follow Penny when she leaves the party in New York, and ends up saving her life. He is intrinsically motivated to write articles and send them to Lester for Cream magazine. He remains pretty well self-regulated through-out the movie, not doing drugs or drinking, but enjoying his time sober and happy. Because he doesn’t want to partake in that kind of thing, he regulates and makes sure he doesn’t.
Penny was an interesting character throughout the movie as well. She’s a good example of the ideas of cognitive consistency and cognitive dissonance. She has cognitive consistency in the beginning of the movie, viewing herself as a fun and good person, who the other band-aids look up to. Her particular self schema is that she is fun and easy going, and doesn’t believe in falling in love with the band, but instead being there for the love of the music and to inspire the music. However, she develops feelings for Russell, and when he rejects her and ‘sells’ her and the other band-aids to another band for fifty bucks and a case of beer, and then when she sees him with his wife or long-time girlfriend, she experiences cognitive dissonance, and she tries to correct that by taking too many pills. We aren’t sure if it was a suicide attempt or not, I feel like it wasn’t, but she overcompensates and then decides to go home, and correct her situation by deciding to go to Morocco, someplace she had been talking about throughout the entire film. When she does this, she restores her identity as a fun, free spirit, in a much healthier way. She has many identities and roles she takes on as well throughout the film. She’s a love interest of William’s, and she flirts with him. She’s a Band-Aid, and spends time with the band, and tends to their needs. She’s Russell’s lover, and pleases him. She’s a friend to the other band-aids, and is somewhat of a role model. She’s a groupie, in the sense that she has sex with band members. She is a woman in love, and it bothers her that Russell sold her for fifty bucks and a case of beer, but back to self-regulation, she tries to play it off by asking what kind of beer it was, as if that would matter in the slightest.
Terms: self-regulation, identity, role, self schema, cognitive dissonance, cognitive consistency, restoration of identity
I think the one character that relates to chapter 10 the most is Russell, the band lead guitarist. The first thing I noticed, that popped out at me from the chapter, is Russell’s conflict with his role. A role consists of cultural expectations for behavior from persons who had a particular social position. For example Russell is the lead guitarist in a rock and roll band, and because he is in a hard rock band, society believes that rock stars should be wild. They should take drugs, have fun all day, and party. In the scene where Russell and William, the fifteen year old boy who is interviewing the band, are standing at pool side while everyone else is drinking and partying, Russell tells William that the more famous they get the harder it is for him, Russell, to leave the rock band life. Russell basically says that the more famous the band gets, the crazier the parties get, the bigger the houses get, and the expectations of being a rock start increase. The fact that society and his friends expect him, Russell, to act and behave a certain way is making it difficult for him to leave that life behind and figure out himself. Although all Russell knows is the rock star way of life which is his main identity, he does have a consistent self. People preserve a consistent self by actively seeking out information consistent with their self-concept and by ignoring information that contradicts their self-view. I think that Russell believes that he is a great band member, and he is real. I think Russell feels like he is essential to the band, he even decides to leave the band but he knows that they need him. The scene where the t-shirt comes out, Russell is in the front and visible, while the other members of the band are clearly behind Russell and faded out, Russell claims that it is not a big deal. He wants to ignore the whole confrontation and skip to the part where the group laughs about it. Here I feel like Russell tries to deny that the shirt was a mistake and he is no more essential to the band than any of the other members. After things get heated with the band, Russell takes William and decides to go find some “real” people. I think this scene is important to Russell’s consistent self because he feels like he is real and needs to be around real people, instead of the band. I also think that Russell believes that he is humble about being the best in the band, he sort of denies it, but in the back of his mind I feel like he somewhat knows that he is crucial to the band success. During the airplane scene, the band thinks they are going to die so they start confessing to one another and tell each other their real thoughts and feelings towards one another. The lead singer and other band members decide to tell Russell how he really behaves and comes off as. They said that they feel like he is above them and finds way to show it often, like threating to leave because he knows that they need him. Hearing these words for the band members upset Russell so much that he yells at them to stop. Russell is shocked at what the band members are saying, he believed of himself in a totally different way. What the band was telling Russell, contradicted with his beliefs about himself.
Terms: Identity, Role, Consistent Self
The mother is an interesting character, her relationship with her daughter and the impact it has on her relationship with her son Willie and Mrs. Miller's perceived control of her world.
Mrs. Miller is an incredibly controlling woman in the beginning of the movie. It makes her daughter, Anita feel as if she isn't normal and that drives her to rebel against that control. The daughter feels as if she had no control and that makes her reach out and take control of her own life by leaving. The very last thing Anita does is also empower her brother, telling him one day he would be cool. She helps him along the road by giving him something that would assist him in being cool, rock and roll records, the symbol of rebellion.
Fast forward five years. As far as we can tell, Anita hasn't come home or contacted Mrs. Miller. It has completely changed Mrs. Miller's outlook on life, though she is still determined that her son go into law even though he shows much much more interest in journalism. Despite her anxiety at letting her children out into the world, she is more willing to let Willie go out into the world, far above and beyond what she did for Anita. Mrs. Miller let Willie go to a Black Sabbath concert. At that point, Willie is younger than Anita when Anita was still trying to sneak rock records into the house by three years still. Later, Willie even gets to go on tour despite the fact that his Mother is scared to death and suspicious that Willie is doing drugs and living the rock star life.
Her daughter running away from her completely changed her behaviors. Mrs. Miller realized that her controlling attitudes resulted in no control at all. In an effort to control Willie more, she was willing to surrender some control rather than risk losing all of it later. Mrs. Miller perceives even that slipping one phone call at a time as she slowly lives out her own personal nightmare, the idea of rock and roll corrupting her youngest, the only child she has that will still speak to her.
The best scene for this particular shift in the mother's mentality is framed by a phone call scene where Mrs. Miller talks about how she doesn't understand how she's driven her children away. She feels that she has lost control of the most important things in her life, her kids. She feels like they don't understand or appreciate her or what she has to say. Literally, Willie at that time can't even hear her because there's a girl screaming about pot in Willie's ear on the other side of the phone, overriding her. It's a clever metaphor about how the mother feels.
Mrs. Miller is so anxious, feels so lost that she can't even focus on her job. She prides herself on her logic and her sensible advice but that mechanism utterly failed in the case of her daughter and she gets to watch it start to fail on her son. She has no recourse for the events that don't fit in with her logic at all, especially as she watches her obedient son vanish into a a music scene she sees as nothing more than sex, drugs and violence. She is beginning to feel as if she is losing another child, and that she may be helpless to stop it from happening again.
The mother does everything within her power over the phone to regain control. She threatens members of the band so vehemently that she freaks them out. When she begins to pick up on that she has intimidated this man, it humanizes the band a little in her eyes. It reminds her that they are also just people, and it makes her feel so much better that the initial aspects of her personality come forward once more. She begins to do her best to try and empower Russell Hammond as she has done for so many people over the years.
One of the most compelling scenes of the movie is when Mrs. Miller is attending graduation and her son is not only absent but listed as pending graduation status. You can see how much it wounds her to hear those word as a college professor.
When Willie comes home with Anita, the look on Mrs. Miller's face is priceless. The prodigal daughter returns and the mother doesn't have words for her joy. Not only does her son return the boy he left, but he brings home her daughter and utterly restores their relationship. Relinquishing control over her son paid off far more than she could have ever dreamed.
Almost Famous was another one of those movies that didn’t grab my attention all too well. It was in my own opinion a lot more interesting to view and watch then the movie before this. I had high expectancy of liking this movie, because all of the big names that were in this movie, plus the people I talked to before I saw this movie had told me how good it was and how much I’d probably enjoy it. So back to the movie, we first find out about a family who is consisted of a mother, who is too overbearing of her two children. She tries to control their everyday movements and decisions. Growing up, William is exposed to rock and roll by his sister, and eventually goes after his dream of becoming a journalist for Rolling Stones, where he follows Still Waters whose a rock band, while they are on tour. The main guy of the band, Russell gives him permission to write about whomever and whatever he feels for his article, but because the band reveals way too much information about themselves, when William writes about them, then the band doesn’t accept what he writes, denying that what he wrote about is true, so Russell comes clean and retracts what he had previously stated to the Rolling Stones article.
An example of self in this movie would be connected to the character, Penny. She had a very high need for social needs, the need to feel intimate. She would have sex with Russell, knowing he had a wife, just so she could have someone she was close to on more of an intimate level. Throughout the movie she doesn’t reveal her true name to anybody, until she grows closer with William and knows she can trust him with the information she exposes to him. When she gives away her true name, you can see how much she has grown as an individual. Elaine, also had the need for intimacy as well as affiliation. She had concerns for her son, William on his whereabouts. If she didn’t hear from him, she’d get concern, because she was afraid that he’d leave her just like her own daughter did.
The stereotype that rock bands get or are known for are sex, drugs, and alcohol is how Still Water’s identity plays out in the movie. Identity is the form of essence someone is viewed within a cultural context. Along with Still Water, we see them as the band changes their identity. They focused on what made their fans happen, in the beginning of their careers, with their manager who had been with them all this time on their journey to stardom. But then a fresh mean manger came up to them and offered them more tour dates, money, and fancier transportation of getting to their performance areas. So they no longer focused on what their fans really wanted, but were in the business, now due to the better benefits and the money factor was a huge deal taker. In this situation the money acts as the extrinsic motivation, while the fans were the intrinsic motivation. Identity-restoring behaviors happen during the movie when Russell tries to put his relationship with Penny back together. He tried to pick up the pieces and tried to get her to view him like she did before, because he is not too happy with the new identity he has taken upon himself, and wants to get back to his previous identity.
Elaine has a role throughout the movie as being a professor and protector of her children, to watch over them and make sure they don’t get too caught up with drugs and rock music. The role of Still Water is how they display alcohol, drugs, and sex, because they are a part of a band. There’s Russell’s whose role in the movie is the one who loves Penny, a friend to William, and a member of Still Water. Where William’s role at first is a journalist, son, friend, and then later on once he’s introduced to Penny and Still Water, he plays the role as “Band-Aid” along with a journalist or reporter who becomes very chill. Penny’s role is a lover, friend, and a “Band-Aid.” Basically roles are behaviors that come about from what cultures expect to see from persons who hold a particular social position. Overall, this is a decent movie, but definitely not one I’d put on my list of movies that I’ll buy anytime soon.
Terms: self, social needs, intimate, affiliation, identity, identity-restoring behaviors, roles.
This movie was very boring to me, and definitely not one of my favorites. However, I did see some relation to chapter 10.
Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. William’s self-schema seemed to change throughout the movie. At the beginning, he seems to see himself as being very intellectually competent, but not well accepted by his peers. Self-schemas can change in response to social feedback, and this seems to happen when William goes on the road with the band Stillwater. He suddenly sees himself as being part of a social group, and being liked and accepted from the members of that group.
Self-concept is another term that we can see throughout the movie. This refers to individuals’ mental representations of themselves. This is constructed from experiences and reflections on those experiences. In the beginning, William’s mother attempts to control William and Anita’s self-concepts. Their mother tries to control much of their lives – including the types of music they listen to. She is very firm on raising them to be intellectually competent with traditional morals. She even tries to control William’s self-concept of his age by lying to him about being 12 when he is really 11. In response to the mother’s overbearing control, Anita leaves home as soon as she is done with high school. The mother is very distraught about this as well as William’s leaving home to be a journalist with Stillwater. Watching her son’s self-concept change is very displeasing and stressful to her. William develops a self-concept of being a good journalist. After he has positive feedback from Lester and Rolling Stone, this part of his self-concept is developed. This also motivates him to be persistent about following Stillwater and writing about them. Since he has such a positive self-concept about being a good journalist, he is persistent even when he faces challenges. Russell’s self-concept is also displayed in the movie. On the first road trip, he tells William that he is being held back in his career by staying with the rest of the band. He thinks he is a great guitar player and the main leader of the band. He has developed this self-concept from past experiences and reflecting over those experiences. The fans seem to love Russell as the leader. They seem to view him as the center focus of the band, as seen on the t-shirt design where he is the only one in focus.
The term consistent self refers to when people preserve their self-schema by actively seeking out information consistent with their self-view and ignoring information that contradicts their self-view. At the beginning of the film, Penny shows this consistent self. Her self-schema revolves around her fun and easy going personality who is always in with the bands and looked up to by other “Band-aids.” She refuses to be called a “groupie” or to be seen as falling in love with any particular member of the band, but rather a true fan. She tells herself and others that she is simply there for her love of the music as well as to inspire the music. She seeks for information that will prove her self-schema right, such as when others talk about her being the life of the party, and simply “along for the ride.” She ignores the fact that she has fallen in love with Russell, and has used William as a convenient excuse to be near Russell on their tour.
Cognitive dissonance is a psychologically uncomfortable state that people experience when their beliefs about who they are contradict what they are doing. When Penny sees Russell with his wife, she is obviously upset. She realizes that she is in love with Russell and finally admits it. However, this completely contracts her self-concept. Her cognitive dissonance is so great that she overdoses on drugs. At the end of the movie, she decides to finally go to Morocco. By doing so, her self-concept is restored.
Terms: self-schema, competence, self-concept, persistence, consistent self, cognitive dissonance
An opinion about the movie and how it makes me excited or something. This movie is quite relevant to the chapter as it is really easy to identify all forms of self throughout the movie.
Cognitive dissonance is a good place to start as Russel Hammond (the guitarist for the band) represents this throughout the movie. Cognitive dissonance is when someone believes that they are something and they do the opposite, creating an inconsistent characteristic. When the band received their first set of t-shirts, that showed Russel up front and the rest of the band out of focus; this scene brought up a subject that Russel himself agreed with but did not want to take a stand towards as he wanted to be with his band mates. The confirmation to this dissonance is his reaction after the argument with Jeff Bebe (the lead singer of the band) both William and Russel went out to party. This was an inconsistent behavior as he was looking for “something real” (or something different then what he was used to experiencing)
which furtherly took him to the level of not caring about the abuse he puts on his body. Which nonetheless leads to the “Golden God” scene which is classic and ends harmlessly with a cannonball. Leading to my favorite scene of the movie when the whole bus starts singing that Elton John song, and essentially brings him back from his bender. Which could be suggested at removing the dissonant belief as the band comes together, and moves along from the original problem.
William did not have a very good childhood, as he was called the NARC and he didnt even know what that meant (not good socially). Identity is how the person’s “self” relates to society. As his childhood wasnt as good as he wanted it to be, His competence and autonomy were good enough to keep him striving in what he believed. He knew he wanted to be a rock journalist, as he sought out Lester Bang (famous rock journalist) and began his infamous career. With his journey beginning on the road with Stillwater, he instantly took this new role as an 18 year old rock journalist, known as the “enemy”. A role is a cultural expectation for a behavior from persons who hold a particular social position. Began to develop his role as the enemy he was able to relate more and more with these people, and had an identity he never knew was possible. This new environment may have been eye-opening to a sheltered 15 year-old, but the change did not affect him due to his role change.
In the middle of the movie when William freaked out on Russel and Penny Lane he was experiencing something known as Self-regulation. Where he mentally steps back and tries to evaluate the situation, which, in his mind wasnt going well. Making him to regress back to his old role as just a student, and he was getting pretty tense, unable to control his emotions he expressed his mental evaluation. Through this regulation though it eventually made him more competent, as he expressed how he felt, and the people began to understand and respect his role. Self-regulatory competence usually happens in a social learning process, which was exactly what William was experiencing as he never had done this before. Making him call Lester Bang for professional guidance and understanding, to help lead to that competence he wanted to gain. Through this William was able to attain that interview with Russel and getting the cover of Rolling Stones.
Terms: Cognitive dissonance, Identity, Role, Self-regulation
I thought this movie was all about the various roles and identities that William tries to adopt and how he used those roles to interact with those around him. Identities are how we place ourselves into the bigger social picture, for example, Williams mother has adopted the identity of a mother, and so her role is to keep track of Will and her daughter and make sure that they aren't getting into trouble. In the film, William has adopted many different identites; journalist, friend, student, son, and love interest, and it is interesting to see him attempt to balance all of these. He also acts differently when he is fulfilling these various roles, acting professionally when in journalist mode and getting crazy when he's partying with Stillwater in friend mode.
These identities and roles can spring from self-schemas that are held by the various characters. Self-schemas are generalizations about oneself and one's abilities that are based on past experience. These self-schemas are reinforced by specific behaviors that occur because of a person's self-schema. For example, William's mom sees herself as a mother, but also an intellectual professor, so she wants to educate her children and let them experience the world, but she still wants them to stay away from the corrupting influence of drugs and rock and roll. Her motherly qualities also show when she forces William to call her every day so she can check up on him. She seemed a little overbearing at first, but then I realized that she was right to be doing all the protective things she was doing because William is only 16.
These various identities and how the characters interact gives rise to a lot of cognitive dissonance during the movie as well. Cognitive dissonance occurs when an individual holds two conflicting emotions or beliefs. For example, William befriends the band he was supposed to be writing an exposing story about and has lots of fun with them, but he still wants to write the “truth” about their tour. This creates a lot of tension for him because he wants to be friends with this band he loves, but he also wants to further his reporting career by writing about all their shenanigans. On the other hand, the band wants to like Will, but they see him as the “enemy” because he is a reporter. This makes it very awkward towards the beginning of their relationship because the band didn't really trust William until he had spent a lot of time with them. Russel, the lead singer of the band, also experiences some cognitive dissonance because he wants to sleep with every woman he sees because he's a big rock star, but he can't because he's married.
Differentiation and integration also occur over the course of the movie. Differentiation occurs when the self develops its various interests and abilities, becoming more complex. Integration is when all these different parts of the self are brought together, and form a sense of unity or cohesion. Differentiation occurs for William throughout the movie; he develops his taste for music and writing, then decides he wants to be a reporter. He brings these interests with him when he goes on tour with Stillwater, and then he begins to form a friendship with the band while also furthering his reporting career. All these interests conflict until the climactic scene where the band and him are in the plane that they think is going to crash. Only after this incident when the band has accepted him does integration occur and William feels at peace with himself.
Terms: Identity, Self-schema, Cognitive dissonance, differentiation, integration.
First off this movie was great! I loved watching the characters develop within themselves as well as with each other. Every individual went through a change in their self at some point; however one individual had developed the most, Michael. His self under went all four problems discussed in chapter 10. Michael had to define and basically create his self; he had to relate it to society, discover and develop his personal potential, and manage or regulate his self. At the beginning of the movie he was all about himself and did not worry as much about his friends. However by the end of the movie he developed and began to realize how many his friends meant to him and he attempted to fix a couple of his relationships.
Michael’s self-esteem was extremely high at the beginning of the movie; however this does not mean that he was good at motivating himself to do things. High self-esteem does not mean that motivation is increased, to increase motivation one needs to improve their skills for dealing with problems and the world. For example, when the band got in a fight and Michael ended up leaving and drinking with high school kids. His self-esteem was high but he was not able to deal with the problem at hand and he was not motivated to do so in any way. While at the end of the movie we see him able to resolve conflict with the writer because he was motivated to do so, even though he was tricked into seeing the writer, because once he got there he realized what he had done and how much he hurt the kid.
An individual in the movie that expresses the idea of self-concept is Penny Lane. Self-concept is an individual’s mental representation of themselves. In order to construct a self-concept individuals’ have to attend to the feedback they receive n their day-today affairs that reveals their personal attributes, characteristics, and preferences. Penny Lane viewed herself as a Band-Aid because she was constantly receiving feedback that supported her idea of who she was. Penny only received positive feedback from her peers until the very end when she realized that she was more than just a Band-Aid. Also, self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and learned from past experiences. Penny lane’s self-Schema was domain specific because she received feedback while she was on the road with the band. Thus once her self-schema was formed her behavior was directed toward behaviors that elicited feedback consistent with her self-schema. About half way through the movie I began to wonder if Penny Lane was a Band-Aid only because that’s what she thought she was supposed to be, not because she wanted to necessarily. She was able to preserve a consistent self by actively seeking information consistent with her self-concept and by ignoring information that contradicts her self-view. During the scene where she overdoses express that she was a Band-Aid because of the feedback she was constantly receiving, not because she wanted to. After this occurred we never saw her follow the band or really even make contact with them.
The writer in the movie wanted to be a professional writer really bad because he enjoyed writing as well as rock music. As his character developed we saw his possible selves arise. Possible selves represent an individual’s ideas of what they would like to become and also what they are afraid of becoming. He knew he wanted to be a big writer yet he became very timid at times to do his research. There were a couple scenes where we saw him calling the guy who gave him his first assignment. Each time they spoke the writer was looking for advice as well as validation that he was able to be a successful writer even though he was a lot younger than the typical writer. He also expressed the idea of cognitive dissonance at the beginning of the movie. This occurs when beliefs about who the self is and what the self does or inconsistent. When the kid first hung out with the band he had to deal with a completely different environment from what he was used to. His self was being tempted with a new possible self because he ended up enjoying the band’s environment or life.
Overall this movie was great to watch from a motivation standpoint because there were so many concepts expressed. Each character had their own problems and selves to develop and we saw many of them do so by the end.
Terms: self, problems with self, self-concept, self-schemas, feedback, consistent self, possible selves, cognitive dissonance, motivation.
Almost Famous showed many terms we have learned in the book. I first want to start at the beginning of the movie with Williams’s sister. She was unable to have the self that she wanted because of her mother. Her self was not following the norms of society because she did not have choice. Her mother was trying to control her identity. Williams’s sister wanted more autonomy so she left her mother’s house and lived on her own. Before she left William, she left him all her records where William was able to express is own identity by seeing and listening to what was out in the world. As William got older he was given more autonomy than his sister. He wanted to be a rock journalist. William was motivated and had a lot of drive. You can see this in the movie because he tried many different ways to get into the concert to meet the band. He used and approach and avoidance when trying to get past the security guard. In the movie I think William shows great amounts of drive for achievement. He wanted to be a good writer and a good journalist. He wanted to make friends with the band, even though Lester said not to, and he wanted to write a good article so it could be posted in the Rolling Stones. While William was on tour with the band Stillwater, he was able to express his identity and self more than he ever was able to at home. In the movie you could tell William had a higher self-esteem after he was called by Rolling Stones for is successful journal articles, but as the film went on you could tell Williams self-esteem began to diminish due to his lack in confidence after being yelled at over and over again about getting the story turned in. William showed great amount of affiliation for the band members and was able to go along with them on their tour. He was able to interview many of the band members besides Russell. He had intimacy with Penny and felt a secure relationship with her even though he wanted what Penny and Russell had. In the end of the movie William established the self he viewed and was able to finally get the interview with Russell that he had a goal to do at the beginning of the movie. I think by the end of the movie we were not able to see Williams self-esteem increase due to being told that he lied about the things in his article and not getting it published but after Russell visited him and gave William the interview and being told by Russell that he called and told the publishers that it was all true I think it gave William a boost in his self-esteem that he is a good writer and journalist which is what William strived for.
Terms: Self, identity, autonomy, self-esteem, drive, motivation, avoidance, approach, achievement, affiliation, intimacy, and goal.
People want adventure and to explore the world to find out who they are. From the start of the movie we can see that William is just like that. He had been sheltered his whole life and all he wants to do is write about bands for magazines. He needs to escape form his over protected mother in order to find out who he really is.
There as some many different people in this movie, Almost Famous, and each one has a lot of different problems dealing with figuring out who they are and their idenity. There are three main characters I will focus on William, Penny Lane,and Russell. Almost Famous is a movie about growing up and how the people you are around affect who you are and how you act.
William from the start does not know who he is. He just knows he wants to write about band. He is a super smart kid who looks really young and now feels he need to prove himself, and learn who he is. At first he is just lost trying to find his way in to the rock and roll business. Finally he starts following the band Stillwater around. The band is a bunch of friends lead by Russell. William starts to play the part of a groupie. He becomes friends with Penny Lane whom he develops feeling for. While following the band around. He starts acting like the band. Parties, parties, and more parties is what Wills life becomes.
As the movie goes on Will is stuck in the rock and roll groupie schema. A schema is an idea of how a certain group acts. As said all he does is party. Will does whatever it takes to be friends with the band. By becoming friends with them though how can he write an honest story about them now that he knows all their secrets? Suddenly Will has to decide what is more important his friendships or career? As the movie was going on Will should have taken to self regulate. Which means to make sure his actions were leading him to the final goal he wanted? In the end he writes his story that is never published and losses many of his friendships other then Russell and Penny Lane.
Russell is a typical Rock and Roll band member that fits the schema perfectly. He is a jerk to fellow band members; he is drinking, does drugs, and is sleeping with groupies (including Penny Lane) even though he has a girlfriend in New York. Russell knows that the band is getting famous and acts the part. At the beginning you can tell Stillwater loves performing and is making music for fun. It comes from their interests and the core. The society starts telling them they need to play the role of a rock star. They start to get made at each other and fight all the time. Suddenly their love for music is becoming something they are forced to do. I feel like Russell the entire movie was not being himself. He was doing whatever other people told him to do and acting a part. He was always thinking of himself as a star and look at a possible self, not who he really was. I think toward the end he started to figure it out that he was not happy, but the movie ended. So we will never know if he will start being true to himself, or if he will keep following the rock and roll life. I personal feel that he will fall right back in to the groupies and drugs just because he want to be famous too badly that he will do whatever it takes to get the fame.
My favorite character is Penny Lane because she is played by Kate Hudson who I love. This young girl is problem the most in identity crisis of everyone in the movie. She left home very young to be a groupie. She is in love with Russell who is a guy just playing a part and not really in love with her. She is so head over heels that she will do anything to be with Russell. Even when Russell bets her away to another band she is still in love with him. She plays the part of a groupie and does drugs, drink, and have sex. I do not understand how this kind of a life traveling around with a band would be appealing but Penny loves it. It makes her feel cool, wanted, and taken care of. I think she should have used self reflection to see if the was accomplishing her goal. Yet I then wonder did she even have any goals? She just wanted to be with Russell who she knew had a girlfriend.
Once she is traded away she goes crazy and still follows Stillwater to New York. She sees Russell with his girlfriend. It’s really sad you can actually see that she realized that she just got used. She was just a groupie and nothing more to the band. William the entire movie has been in love with Penny and yet she wanted nothing to do with him. Lucky William sees how much Penny is struggling. Penny overdoses herself, but lucky Will is able to save her. Penny had gone about as low as she could get. She had lost her self esteem. She did not know how to act in normal society anymore. Her identity was a groupie and yet she had lost that now to. Penny saw herself as having not self worth or identity. At the end of the movie though, it appears her and Will will get together and help each other figure out who they are after living the rock and roll life.
The people you are around greatly dictate who you think you are. You find a group and then start behaving like them and following the stereotypes associated with that group. The Rock and Roll life was like its own little world and all three of the main characters got sucked in the fame, music, and parties. Once a person has a set self concept they do whatever it takes to keep it, so they do not lose themselves or the relationships they have made. Once a person sees them self a certain way it is called a consent self. I believe for awhile all three of them believed that rock and roll was who they were. I believe all three of them lost their real dreams and goals trying to find fame. The end of the movie gives us hope for all three being able to be themselves again, but the question is can they change their self concept, or will they follow society?
Terms: self esteem, self concept, consent self, goals, relationships, core, self regulation, identity, schema, role
Almost Famous was a strange movie although it showed many examples that related to chapter ten and how events or circumstances can change your self. The movie starts with a mother and her two children. The mother has complete control over their lives and lies to them. The mother controls the older daughter’s life by not letting her listen to rock music or have any records of her own. The mother lies to the younger son about his age. The children cannot wait to get out of that house and start lives of their own. The mother although is very intelligent and works as a professor at a University. The mother gives a good example of self-worth. She only wants what’s best for her children. The daughter ran away from home when she was eighteen. The mother went from being in complete control to having no control what so ever of her daughter. I think this is why she agrees to let William go interview the band as long as he doesn’t miss more than one test at school while he is away. She wants control of William but allows him to have some as well so he doesn’t leave her like her daughter did.
One example at the beginning of the movie that relates to this is when William is trying to get an interview with Black Sabbath but instead meets Still Water. Still Water refuses to talk to him. William changes and creates a self that in necessary so the band will let him in. William struggles at times although he has the experience from past opportunities. On the first day William meets Penny, who is a “band aid” that helps him along the way. William gained confidence with Penny’s help and he also fit in with the band more. The Six statements that represent psychological well-being such as self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth all played a part in his well-being. He has self-acceptance because he wants to continue to succeed in his profession and work his way to the top. Positive relations with others happen when a relationship starts to form between William and Russell. Russell makes William feel as though he is part of the band. William experienced autonomy through his determination of his work. Environmental mastery is developed when William begins to feel more comfortable with his surroundings, almost like he’s home. Personal growth is experienced on a daily basis for William. Each day he experiences something he’s never dealt with before. Each new experience he learns and grows from it.
The concept of identity is present through out the movie with William. William wants to be a rock journalist but his mother wants him to be a lawyer. William is very good at what he does. He also sends copies of his work to professionals. The doubt from his mother was a struggle for William although she was just trying to protect him. Another way identity was shown in this movie is through Still Water. Rock bands were known for sex, drugs and alcohol. Still Water tried to keep up with this stereotype to make their fans happy.
Personal striving was present in William. He wanted to become a journalist so bad that he missed his own high school graduation. That is a big deal! During his graduation he was traveling with the band to write a story on them and felt like that was more important. The character Russell was also personal striving but in a negative way. He was turning to drugs, money and sex and had forgotten the real reason he was in a band. He thought he was better than everyone else and was considering leaving the band to perform on his own. Russell being unhappy is an example of internal striving well-being.
Self-regulation is present when William writes the piece on Still Water for the Rolling Stones. William writes his first piece and they disregard it as not being good enough. He then writes it for a second time and is honest about the plane incident. This reflects self-regulation because it is an ongoing cycle that involves thought, action and reflection. He puts thought into his first piece because he is not sure he wants to tell the truth about what he heard on the plane. After William is told he needs to redo his piece, he understands what needs to be done and focuses on the task at hand.
Self-esteem was also a big concept seen in the movie. William had never fit in with his peers. He started first grade when he was five and skipped fifth grade. When he found out his true age he said that explained a lot. He was never accepted big his peers because they were on such different levels. This gave William low self-esteem. His self-esteem went up when he started fitting in with the band. The band even let him be in the huddle with them before the shows.
Terms used: personal striving, control, self, self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, personal growth, identity, self-regulation, self-esteem
I personally really enjoyed this movie. It was one of my favorites out of the movies that we have watched for class so far. I think I enjoyed it because it was able to keep my attention and it was not super slow moving like some of the movies that we have watched in class. I also noticed that it is getting easier to recognize ideas that I have learned in class and apply them to the movie. There were many examples of motivation and emotion concepts in the movie.
For example there was many examples of goals in the movie. All of the characters had their own goals in the movie. Some of the goals that I noticed in the movie were to leave home and get away from their mother, become a rock star, get someone to fall in love with them, become a writer, and many other goals. All of the characters had their own motivators that were pushing them to achieve their goals.
Another concept from the book that I noticed in the movie was a lot of dealing with the self. Creating the self and relating the self to society. I think that most if not all of the main characters in the movie dealt with some sort of struggle when it came to the self. The guys in the band especially the one who wanted to be the star of the band struggled with his self. He wanted to be a star and he cared so much about what society would think of him. He was trying to be what he thought a rock star was supposed to be instead of just being himself. The older sister struggled with herself because she wanted to be free and felt like her mother was holding her back. So she made the goal to leave and become a flight attendant to get away from her mother. In the end she achieved her goal and when she returned and saw her mother again they finally were able to get along. She also did a lot of comparing herself to society. That is why she wanted so badly to leave because her mother raised them very differently then everyone else that she knew so she felt that she was being cheated because she was not able to do everything that other kids her age did. I think that is something everyone struggles with, especially in today’s society. We spend so much time comparing our lives to others peoples lives that we never really stop to think about what we really want to achieve in our lives. Everyone just wants so badly to fit in. It is also a shame that when someone does have the courage to be themselves that as a society we judge them for that when in reality they are the brave ones that we should all thrive to be like.
Terms: Motivation, goals, self, creating the self, relating the self to society
In the movie Almost Famous, the character of “Penny Lane” or “Lady” shows many of the concepts discussed in chapter 10 throughout the film. The concept that I noticed most was that of identity, how one relates to the culture and society. Penny is a “bandate” in the movie, traveling around with the band Stillwater because of her love and appreciation of music, as well as her love for Russell, a band member. She established a particular identity within the world of rock and roll. She developed the identity of Penny Lane, which is not her real name. She acted in ways consistent with her identity within the rock and roll culture. Her behaviors of partying, flirting, being mysterious, etc., were all behaviors that were consistent with her rock and roll identity.
When she showed that her feelings were hurt by crying, she was behaving in an identity-disconfirming way because part of her identity and role within the cultural context was to be free and without cares. For instance, when she cried after William told her that she had been “sold” and Russell agreed to the bargain, she was displaying a behavior that was inconsistent with the expectations of her role in the culture. When she began to cry, Penny experienced cognitive dissonance because what she was doing (crying) was inconsistent with the beliefs about her “self”(not showing emotions or feelings). She performed identity-restoring behaviors to remove the discomfort of this inconsistency. She quickly wiped away her tears and made herself smile to act as if she didn’t care.
William is just a young boy trying to make his name known as a credible music journalist. He travels with the band Stillwater with the assignment of writing a story about them for “Rolling Stone” magazine. When he enters into this new culture of rock and roll, he is faced with many inconsistencies between expectations and values of how he was raised and the expectation and values of this new culture. I believe he demonstrated the self-perception theory. He grew up with other standards and expectations, but this new environment caused him see things differently. He began to act in ways consistent with that culture and those around him. They called him friend, making him feel more welcomed and like he was part of this new culture and group. As self-perception theory suggests, he began to believe that what he did and said. He came to believe that rock and roll and the things that go along with it sculpted his new identity.
William began to internalize the ideas of his new surrounding, making him feel more a part of this life. However, throughout the film, even though he was beginning to take on this new identity, it was evident that he was also experiencing a great deal of cognitive dissonance. He would try to stay true to what his mother said, but he eventually began to give in to some of the pressures. It was the things he gave into that led him to have the mentality “I did, therefore, I am.” But when he got back home, he took back on his originally identity of not being “cool” and began to act in ways reflecting that identity.
Terms: Identity, cognitive dissonance, role, self-perception theory, internalization.
I definitely enjoyed this movie and thought there were many concepts of the self and its strivings. The first thing that comes to my mind is William’s competency as a writer. He is much younger than a lot of writers who would love to be in his place, writing for Rolling Stone. He is very pleased with himself for accomplishing this but he may not feel competent in his interviewing skills. He may be just a fine interviewer, but in the environment they are in it is very hard to conduct an interview so William’s competence may have gone down slightly because of that. He also had to deal with his mother nagging at him to come home, but he couldn’t come home without the interview. He chose to stay because that had become his identity. He had chosen to travel with the band and live a pseudo-rockstar lifestyle.
Another character that displayed concepts from the textbook is William’s mother. She is a professor and does not appear to have much autonomy, unlike her kids. This is understandable because both of her children left her fairly abruptly so her self-concept was probably pretty negative. While she was teaching her class, she said something about her children leaving her. This reality created cognitive dissonance with her because she sees herself as a parent and wants to be a good one, but her children leaving makes her feel otherwise. This phenomenon is called cognitive dissonance.
Another person whose self-concept was very interesting to analyze was Penny’s. Even though she had all of the traditional attributes of a groupie, she called herself a “band-aid” so it sounded better than being a groupie. At the beginning when William called them groupies, she was very offended because she has worked hard to distance herself from that stereotype. She also has many self-schemas. She certainly does not act promiscuously and as freely as she did when she was on tour with the band. The self-schema with the bands was to be a “cool, outgoing” person that was fun to party with. This is different than when her and William talked alone. They had set goals (moving to Morocco) but really none of the goal-setting behaviors that were described in the book. They were not specific, nor did they come with a plan to achieve this goal.
Even though we did not see Zooey Deschanel’s character very much, it was clear she was not happy with her life living with her mother and brother. She may not have been depressed or sad about it, but she experienced cognitive dissonance and actually did something about it. The cognitive dissonance must have been severe enough to leave her entire life and become a stewardess. Her personal strivings were obviously to see the world and get out of the monotonous life she was living. She chose a goal to strive for and accomplished it. This behavior made her happy again and even restored her identity and made her life a much more desirable one to live for herself.
Terms: cognitive dissonance, autonomy, self-concept, competent, goal, goal-setting behavior, self-schema, competent, identity-restoration, stereotype
Almost Famous is one of my all time favorite movies. I’m a little older than the average college student and when this movie came out I absolutely fawned over Kate Hudson (I’m close to her age but looking back I’m not even sure you needed to be – she is absolutely brilliant in that movie). It was at this movie that I started a lifelong crush on Kate that rivals the infatuation of my parents with Kate’s mom Goldie. It also is just another example of why I was born in the wrong generation – I love the way people view music, I love the music and I just love how people viewed life and themselves (granted, I’d hopefully do away with a lot of the excess that much of the characters enjoyed throughout the movie but it’s not like excess is not a problem in our generation either). This movie is almost too perfect in terms of relating to the things in Chapter 10. The entire movie is about self discovery for every character involved – the entire cast goes thru growth, change and personal discovery (some not as smoothly as others and some not landing on their feet as well as others). William’s Self is turned upside down and is a perfect example of how self concepts, self esteem, self schemas, self regulation, identity and in the end self acceptance all play a part and impact one’s self. William is a very naïve young man with dreams of becoming a journalist and has this amazing opportunity fall in to his lap. One might try and attempt to use the word ‘sheltered’ when talking about William’s up bringing but I do not believe that to be true. I think it only looks sheltered because of the extreme contrast of life he is about to be thrust in to. After all, as a father, I would want to raise my son in the environment it looks like he was raised in – and even though it seems like his mom boggs him down and hinders him throughout the movie, in real life it’s exactly how I would act IF my son was allowed to take part in this opportunity (I say IF because there is no way I would allow my son to go on the road with a band). It is this relationship with his mother that becomes a rock for William in the end and keeps William’s consistent self in check. Self regulating himself throughout the entire movie proves to be difficult when faced with such materialistic wonders of the being on the road with the band. Without the phone calls and worries from home William might have found himself falling head over heels for the life he finds and for Penny (one could argue he already did but I think had he not been able to keep his consistent self present in his mind to let him know who he is and what behaviors he should or shouldn’t be doing) he would find it hard to come back and become lost like leaders of the band: Billy and Jeff. I always found it very humorous that William and Billy probably share the same name and are, in essence, the same person. It is this realization that Bill represents what William could turn in to if he allows his identity to be determined completely by the culture of the band and what he is expected to behave like that saves him and stops his fall. It is at this moment that he stops being extrinsically motivated by the people around him, the drinking, the fun and the opportunity of writing a article for Rolling Stone and moves towards a more intrinsically motivated choice on how he ends up writing his article. In this decision he find self-acceptance AND realizes his true Self. The personal growth he experiences is one that resembles “I ended where I left off BUT the difference is that now I realize how good I have it and will move from here doing and behaving how I have been but not because I am told by my parents but because I want to”. His self acceptance seems to have solidified his consistent self, experience personal growth in his identity (in that in the future he will be careful to keep material motivations in check so as not to sacrifice his Self in the end), has elevated self esteem and new self schemas that will help himself regulate towards better and healthier goals for himself. As a whole, his self concept is stronger than ever before and that makes his Self even better and stronger. As I said, the entire movie seems to ooze with viewing the relationships between self concept, self esteem, self regulation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, identity, self acceptance truly do combine and affect one another to make up one’s Self as a whole …. Great movie … I’m with William, Kate Hudson is still my #1 crush.
TERMS: self, identity, self concept, self schema, consistent self, self regulation, self-acceptance, personal growth, self esteem, self regulation, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, Kate Hudson