Recently, I had to write a paper for school . Here it is , it is not the best paper in the world...but it is mine :
In watching the movie “ You’ve Got Mail “ with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan to observe negative behaviors , messages , etc for this class assignment I found myself interested in what I was actually finding. I found myself just enthralled by the way things were when you truly look at something just like in listening you are not just hearing the person you are actually now seeing the person in front of you, the world around you and the behaviors that come from those things.
In the beginning of the movie is Meg Ryan with her boyfriend who is all excited about some technology piece he is writing about for the newspaper and she is pretending to be excited for him. The only thing is she is hiding the fact that she is more excited about talking to some guy (Tom Hanks) that she found online through a 30’s and over chartroom. This shows that she rather talk to her online chat friend then her live in boyfriend who she does know because he doesn’t really show her any concern turning that negativity into something else. It literally made her turn to someone else to chat with and in the end finding herself in a whole other world and relationship in its’ entirety.
In our text book it talks about confirming communication which is basically making that message mean something and give it value of what you are trying to convey. You see them trying to make sense of things and give things value but they truly can’t find that value because of the negativity that is steaming through everything else that is going on around them which is a form of disconfirming communication. They are not truly happy in their lives and that becomes remarkably clear towards the end when they start to actually find themselves. This is part of how they changed their negativity into a more positive nature.
I have often found myself at times trying to communicate what I truly feel about something or someone and having the other person ignoring me, the situation, and the background around me. The communication was lacking. I felt a sudden urge of negativity around me and things just weren’t what they seemed and I started to question life in general. I often find myself doing that now. I question life and the things around me. It truly makes you think about yourself, your situation, the people you see or deal with everyday and life in general. I think everyone should “stop and smell the flowers” to avoid the negative feelings emerging from everywhere. Without the negativity, however, we would not learn. Just like riding a bike sometimes you have to fall to learn to get back up and try again. You have to learn the negativity to find the positive. Often times in life this may be sad where things like friends, spouses, children or complete strangers are concern. You find yourself opening the paper to the daily news about how a 10 year old boy brought a gun to school and shot half his class mates and now was something actually getting done about it. Sometimes it is hard to think that something like this could truly happen but it does. You have to have the good with the bad because in some odd way it balances out.
There was a lot of Generalized complaining in this movie such as at one point when he said to her, “See, I told you, you wouldn’t listen to me.” Even though he found it a joking fashion she did not find it such and found herself to be completely upset with this although somehow she laughed it off. I think this was done for the sole purpose not to harm the other person’s feelings. We are only human, and we do that sometimes. We cover up the emotions we want to show because we are afraid that the other person might see who we truly are and we don’t like that feeling. We don’t want to be known by anything but what is supposed to be in a way stereotyping all of us and the things around us. We make irrelevant responses causing it to seem like we are making excuses for the things at hand when actually we are just trying to avoid life all together.
We have to have more supportiveness to make balance of the negative feelings and thoughts around us. We often don’t do that we make excuses for things, we block out what we truly feel, and we hide inside ourselves. This causes complex problems such as hurt feelings, mixed feelings, mixed signals in personal relationships and the list goes on. We continue to do what we do though and we are only human. Maybe right now as I write this paper I am making an excuse for my race on this planet but I truly feel this way because we all make mistakes , we all miscommunication, we all hide beneath the masks we wear everyday to the outside world not truly every shining our own selves to anyone.
We get defensive which just is giving us that protective coating from outside attack just like you would do putting your hands up to your face in self defense. Defensive tactics are often done and we saw that in this movie. She put her hands up in front of her face avoiding the situation, the person so that she wouldn’t be hurt. We find ourselves watching this movie questioning our motives, at least I did. They both changed this during the movie with talking to each other in person even though one didn’t truly know who the other was. They started to think about the person behind the computer the one typing the words into that email. They started to change their lives and the negativity started to slowly melt.
There are those people who often want to control things. They have this need to constantly control all outside references whether it be on the job, in a relationship, with their children. They want to be the one behind the steering wheel at all times and no one can stop them. When Meg Ryan was talking to her boyfriend in the theatre and he got all upset about her wanting him to be quiet while a hotdog was talking he told her to not “romanticize them”. Throughout the entire movie you find him trying to control her, her thoughts and feelings and she kind of just shrugs it away, rolls her eyes, or gives a big sigh. All of these things are because she is defensively controlling the control freak from telling her how her emotions should be or what she should think. She wasn’t extending herself and that is not a good form of communication. In that instance she is letting him control the situation for her. To this day, I don’t know how someone can let someone else control them. I think I have it bad when it comes to being defensive over people who are overbearing and controlling because I have always stuck up for myself and refuse to let anyone tell me how I think, feel, or should behave. I am me and if you don’t like it you don’t have to be around me. That is my negativity towards life but sometimes my suit of armor comes in handy and we all need that sometimes.
What I really want to know is throwing the negative remarks towards people or objects really helping or is it just making things worse. Is it just causing more conflicts and problems in the end? This I can never truly answer unless I am the person in that skin at that time. We only have to sit and self analyze ourselves and the things around us to make the negativity a positive one. In the end Meg Ryan got her Tom Hanks character and things were happily ever after. In the end of life itself is it truly that way? Or am I being negative?
Citations:
Adler, R. B., & II, R. F. (2010). Looking Out, Looking In (13 ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
Ephron, N. (Director). (1998). You've Got Mail [VHS] [Motion picture]. USA: Warner Home Video.
