Comm Movie Paper - Grade: B+ PDF

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This essay was a movie analysis paper of the movie Mamma Mia. The professor is Lindsey Halled and I recieved a B+ on the paper. ...

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Abbey Thomas Professor Hallead Interpersonal Communication December 10, 2018 Movie Paper- Mamma Mia Mamma Mia Mama Mia is a movie that applies a variety of terms in interpersonal communication by providing some examples of identity, listening, and communication. This movie analysis of Mama Mia will explain how Sophie discovers her identity. Throughout this explanation, I will apply the terms related to these three themes to Sophie’s relationship with each character she communicates with. Having good interpersonal communication skills is important. Good communication can strengthen any relationship, but poor communication can cause relationships to crumble and fail. Any communication that is not face-to-face is called mediated communication. An example of mediated communication with in the movie Mamma Mia is in the beginning. One of the main characters, Sophie is getting married soon. Her and her mother Donna live on an island in Greece, and run a hotel. Sophie has never known who her father is, but wants him to be the one who walks her down the aisle on her wedding day. Sophie discovers three men who could possibly be her father, and takes it upon herself to contact them. Pretending to be her mother she writes each man inviting them to the wedding, hoping one of them will know she’s his daughter. This form of communication didn’t help or change Sophie’s relationship with these men because she has no clue who they are or what they’re like. I would recommend that Sophie should have

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met each man separately before inviting them to her wedding. She could have gotten to know them, and explained what her entire plan is, so they know what to expect. Another key term in the movie Mamma Mia is disinhibition. Disinhibition is the tendency to transmit messages without considering the consequences. In Mamma Mia Sophie finds her mother's old journal and read about these three men that her mother was once in love with. While reading about her mother’s lost lovers, so if he takes it as a message that she should send them all letters inviting them to her wedding. When Sophie invites the three men; Sam, Bill, and Harry She doesn’t think about the consequences it will bring about. Sophie doesn’t think about who or what she might affect by inviting these three men to the island. She only thinks about herself and achieving her goal of finding her real father. She doesn’t consider the consequences until it’s too late. A recommendation I would give to improve communication would be to tell Sophie to step back and evaluate every possible outcome before she acts. Interpersonal communication can be defined as communication between two or more people, or the exchange of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs between two or more people. An example of this in the movie is when Sophie tells her two best friends about what she has done. When Sophie’s two best friends arrive on the island for her wedding, she picks them up and they celebrate being reunited. Sophie proceeds to tell them that she invited her dad to the wedding. They get excited and ask who he is and how she found out. Sophie tells them out of the three men she read about, she has no idea who her dad is so she invited all three of them. Sophia tells them that she truly believes that when she sees these men shall know right aw they celebrate being reunited. Sophie proceeds to tell them that she invited her dad to the wedding. They get excited and ask who he is and how she found out. Sophie tells them out of the three men she read about, she has no idea who her dad is so she invited all three of them. Sophie tells her friends that

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she truly believes that when she sees these men shall know right then and there who her father is. Sophie communicates dear friends that although right now she doesn’t know who her father is, she’ll be able to recognize him when she sees him. If I were Sophie, I would have told them sooner so I could get advice on what to do. In the movie Mama Mia, self-disclosure is seen a lot. Self-disclosure by definition is the process of deliberately revealing information about oneself that is significant and that would not be known by others. An example of this would-be Donna’s unhappiness with her current life. When Donna’s longtime friends show up for Sophie’s wedding, they can see Donna is upset. The hotel is falling apart and Donna doesn’t have the money to fix everything. Donna sings about working all the time and never having enough money for other things, but bills. She tells her friends she wishes she had money to do whatever she wanted. Her friends thought she was happy with her simple life and tell Donna had said something. Donna is tired of the life she has now and was she could live a better one financially. To improve communication and better her relationships with her friends, I would recommend that Donna be cautious of the information she discloses because they might tell other people she doesn’t want to know, like her daughter. Being able to store something in your memory and retrieve it when needed is called remembering. Remembering happens often and Mama Mia. A prominent example of remembering in the movie is when Donna sees Sam, Bill, and Harry after many years. After arriving on the island and meeting Sophie, the three men are forced to stay hidden because Donna doesn’t know they are there. While in the old goat house, Donna stumbles across the three men who were told to stay there by Sophie. When Donna sees each man, she reminisces about her time with each of them. Seeing Sam, Bill, and Harry makes Donna upset and she runs off to cry. Seeing these men after so many years, that Donna had loved, made her remember her time

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spent with each of them. I would recommend to Donna that she talk to each man and they reminisce on the good times they had together. This recommendation might help improve or change her relationship with each man. Asking for advice is highly common among everyone in the world, and is sometimes needed to solve an issue. Advising is communicating advice about what the speaker should do, think, or feel. After Donna has her run in with Sam, Bill, and Harry she is upset and cries in her bed. Donna’s friends try and cheer her up by singing, and telling her she cannot be sad because her daughter is getting married the next day. Donna’s friends try to give her the best advice to solve the problem, and not let it blow up into something bigger. If I were Donna I would have taken more of their advice, instead of doing her own thing and making it worse. Many people will choose to ignore another person if they don’t agree with them. This is called close-mindedness. Close-mindedness is the tendency to not listen to anything with which one disagrees. Sophie finally tell Sky that she invited Sam, Bill, and Harry to their wedding hoping to find out which one is her father. This upsets Sky because he feels like she doesn’t think he is enough. They start arguing and Sophie wants her plan to work so bad that she doesn’t listen to what Sky is telling her. Sky is so furious that Sophie did this behind his back, that he doesn’t listen to what she is saying either because he disagrees with her plan. Both Sky and Sophie become close-minded because they don’t agree with what the other is saying. A recommendation I have thought the both of them would be to not be close-minded arguing or discussing certain topics. If they both were to open their minds and listen to each other, their relationship and communication would be better. Sometimes a person can be overwhelmed with too much information at once. The state of being overwhelmed by the amount of information one takes in is called information overload.

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The night before Sophie and Sky’s wedding there is a huge party to celebrate. Everyone on the island is there including Sam, Bill, and Harry. As the party is going on Sam pulls Sophie aside and tells her that he’s her father, and he is walking her down the aisle. Confused Sophie agrees. Later that night Harry tells Sophie that he’s her father, and he is walking her down the aisle. She agrees again. Again, later in the evening Bill pulls Sophie aside and says the same thing as Sam and Harry. Once again Sophie agrees. They all return to the party and begin dancing and singing. Sophie overwhelmed with information she just received, starts getting dizzy and proceeds to pass out. Sam, Bill, and Harry all believe they are Sophie’s father, so they separately tell Sophie and demand they be the one who walks her down the aisle. All this new information is too much for Sophie, and she experiences information overload. If I were Sophie, to avoid the information overload she experienced, I would have told all three men what was really going on. If she would have communicated her plan to them, she could have avoided the problems it caused. Everyone has arguments and everyone develops a reply to the argument while the other person is speaking. This is called rebuttal tendency. Rebuttal tendency is the tendency to debate a speaker's point and formulate a response/reply while the person is still speaking. Donna and Sophie are arguing because the night before so he passed out, and Donna took that as a sign that Sophie didn’t really want marry Sky. As Donna begins to tell Sophie that it’s okay to call off the wedding, Sophie cuts Donna off to reply saying she does love Sky and she does want to marry him. Sophie won’t let Donna get a word in edgewise, and she storms off infuriated by Donna’s assumptions. Every time Donna tried to speak, Sophie would interrupt her to debate her point. Now that I understand this term, I would recommend to Sophie that she let Donna finish expressing her points. Because she might have some valid comments. If Sophie would hear Donna out and listen to her, their communication and relationship would improve.

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The fate of the partner is connected; Our identity depends on the nature of interaction with others is the definition of interdependence. The entirety of this movie is discovering who Sophie’s father is. Throughout the movie Sophie has this burning desire to find out who her father is. Sophie doesn’t feel like she knows who she truly is because she doesn’t know her father. She doesn’t think her identity and true self is complete because of the lack of knowledge of the identity of her father. Sophie soon discovers however, that as she interacts with each man, she is a little bit like each one. Sophie eventually realizes that she always has known who she truly is, and it didn’t matter who her father was. Sophie finally finds her identity because of her interactions with Sam, Bill, and Harry. Sophie should have interacted with each man and communicated her desires with them sooner, the communication for every character would have improved immensely. All three themes of Identity, listening, and communication were clearly displayed in Mamma Mia. Sophie’s relationship with other characters improved through communication and identity. Through listening, identity, and communication Sophie’s relationships with Sam, Bill, Harry, Donna, and Sky strengthened. Sophie was able to find out who she truly was. As the desire was reduced about finding Sophie’s father, the three men were able to help Sophie discover who she was and what it meant to have a father. By giving Sophie a sense of having a father, she was able to strengthen her relationships with Sam, Bill, and Harry. Even after Sophie’s plan didn’t go the way she wanted, she still developed her own sense of identity and moved on with her life. Applying these three themes describes the development of Sophie’s relationships, and how they progress throughout the film....