Dynamics of Human Development Group Assignment #1 PDF

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This is a group assignment. We chose a movie that showed differentiating cultural and family styles. We decided to discuss the Disney movie Coco....

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Group #: 10 The title of the movie we chose is Disney’s Coco. Disney’s Coco is a story about a boy named Miguel who accidentally travels to the Land of the Dead after playing a magical guitar. He wants to follow in his great grandfather’s footsteps and play music while the rest of his family has essentially banded any sort of talk of the subject or any object related to music to be in the home. The family in this film is a multi-generational family. They all live in the same town but in different houses. Except for Miguel, his mother and father, grandmother, and great grandmother. The great grandmother is the reason that the family doesn’t talk about or allow music in the house. The grandmother is the one who makes sure the rules are enforced and followed. The mother and father are both trying to support the family and Miguel. The adults in the living world and most of the adults in the Land of the Dead stick to the rules that have been passed down to them for generations. The family is overprotective of miguel. The main antagonist of the story, Ernesto de la Cruz, turns on Miguel, who thinks that Ernesto is his great grandfather, once he figures out that he poisons who actually was his great grandfather. The family had thought that he had left his family behind for fame and music, but in reality, he was on his way back home but was poisoned by Ernesto. In the movie “Coco,” it is very clear that Miguel’s family is close, and that they care for each other immensely. They are tied closely to both their family traditions, such as the family shoe business, as well as their cultural traditions (as seen as the family prepares for Del Dia de las Muertos, The Day of the Dead). While the family is certainly warm, they aren’t very responsive to Miguel’s disinterest in the family business, and insist that it’ll appeal to him soon enough. However, Miguel’s dream lies in music, which is banned in the family. He isn’t allowed to listen, play, or sing it. Because of this, I think that Miguel’s parents’ style of parenting leans more towards Authoritarian parenting, but can also easily be authoritative as well. Authoritarian parenting, which is classified as a high demandingness, low responsiveness form of parenting, is represented when Miguel is caught with a guitar he made himself, which is then smashed on the ground by his mother during their dispute. The harsh and rigid nature of the complete ban on music is also supported by this form of parenting, and Miguel acts out and runs away in response to the dispute. However, Miguel’s parents also display many qualities of authoritative parenting, as they can still be warm and supportive of Miguel, especially towards the end of the movie when they are reunited. Since both forms are present, it could be argued that they utilize Tiger parenting, which is a combination of the strictness of authoritarian parenting and the warmth of authoritative parenting. In the macrosystem (the larger context that includes culture and social norms), The Day of the Dead, which is a significant holiday in Mexican culture, plays a major role in the plot of the film. Miguel wants to enter a music contest for Day of the Dead, but he has to do it in secret because of his family’s ban on music. Since he doesn’t have a well-functioning guitar, he breaks into the grave of the famous Ernesto de la Cruz and takes his guitar off the wall. After strumming the guitar, Miguel becomes invisible to the living, and can now see the dead as they visit for the holiday. After realizing this, he travels to the land of the dead with a woman so they can bring him back to his family. However, Miguel isn’t really dead, so his picture was’t on the ofrenda (where the images of deceased family members are displayed with candles and decorations) and he can’t get back over the bridge home. Nearly every detail of the Mexican holiday affects Miguel on his adventure both at home and in the land of the dead.

The mesosystem (the interaction between contexts in the microsystem) is also represented in the situation previously described. The relationship between Miguel’s deceased family and the land of the dead, which are both in Miguel’s microsystem, also has a direct effect on his outcome in the movie. Miguel’s family is the key to him going home, but because of the rules in place in the land of the dead, they have to follow those guidelines to get him back. This is shown shortly after Miguel arrives in the land of the dead, when he and his family are in an office at the gate (right by the bridge between the two worlds), when Miguel’s great-grandmother hands him a feather to give her blessing for him to return under the condition that he never plays music again. Miguel refuses to accept it, and because of the compromise between the rules and his family, he couldn’t go back home until that compromise was altered willingly by his family. So, his return was a result of his family and the land of the dead (two contexts in his microsystem) working together. If the family didn’t have such distaste for music along with Miguel’s great grandfather, they would have realized that his great grandmother wasn’t sad whenever she thought of her ‘papa’, but was happy. Later on in the movie in the Land of the Dead, Miguel realizes the man who had helped him get to Ernesto was really his great grandfather. Due to both the deceased family members and living family members believing a story that had been passed down to them, they never realized the truth until Miguel started to play music after his return. The deceased family members didn’t realize the truth until both Miguel and his great grandfather were in danger. Miguel had to return back to the living before sunrise on the day after Dia de Los Muertos or else he was stuck in the Land of the Dead. Ernesto figured it out, and tried to stop him from returning with the photograph of his great grandfather to put on the ofrenda. Using the contexts listed above such as the dislike for music, and the relationship Miguel has with his deceased family, we can rewrite a story with a very different outcome. If I were to write a story using the same setting as the one in the movie Coco and change one of the contexts, such as the distaste for music, Miguel would have had a very different outcome. Miguel's child development would have been quite different if his family had been more open and understanding for his love of music. I think that if Miguel's family had even taught him how to play and sing he would have had much stronger musical skills. Miguel also could have had a very different interaction with it, instead of loving music and cherishing every second of it he may have hated it. If his family had forced or implicated time into Miguel's day for playing, or lessons he may have grown to hate the time he spent on musical inquiries. Even the slightest bit of change in a child's life can have the greatest impact. Some things seem small, or uneventful but if Miguel had this slightest change in his life he may have been more skilled, or grown to dislike the music industry as a whole. After reviewing everything discussed and evaluated during this project we have many thoughts and reflections on what we have learned. The first thing, maybe the biggest thing we took away was that the slightest things in a child's life can have a great impact on their development. In the movie we analyzed, Coco, Miguel is infatuated with music. His family dislikes it for the reason of it ripping their family apart, but if his family had been more accepting of his hobby and fondness of the skill he may have had a very different development. I think another thing we can look at when assessing this movie is the relationship between Miguel and his family members. Either deceased or living Miguel really wanted to be in contact and close with his family members. Not every child is developed this way, some children grow up without their parents and grow a distaste for wanting any sort of affection from their parents or other family members. Miguel, especially at the end of the movie has grown, and matured, he has

come to realize how important certain values are....