Avalon

Thursday, November 05, 2009

"The Sister's Keeper" is one of those shows not meant for the emotionally sensitive, for the simple reason that it will polarise existing sentimentality to overwhelming consequences, as demonstrated by the female audience around me. However I do find certain parts of the show heart-wrenching, especially the family warmth depicted in the show. But what intrigued me was not the storyline, the riveting scenes or the kaleidoscope of emotions overflowing the screens but the difference in family dynamics in an alternate culture. Maybe it is the current load that I am studying now but it made me notice the nuances in western family upbringing and parenting as portrayed in the movie, compared to the Asian setting I am more accustomed to. The emphasis on encouraging the child to express their feelings and thoughts through discussions, reasoning to come to a common understanding is ever present. Parents provide a kind of scaffolding and support their children's efforts without deliberate instructions.

With things like the "we-said-she-gets-a-table-and-she-should-be-allowed-to-speak" treatment, the verbal iteration of "I am always there for you" and "I love you", the physical intimacy in daily interactions like sharing of hugs and kisses, I can safely say these are practices in parental-child relationships that most Asian families will not be familiar with. Of course, just attributing our difference to the oversimplification of social norms such as the likes of "conservatism" and "Asian values" hardly do ourselves justice, but environment does play a big part in social perceptions, and that is possibly why I thought the movie was interesting not just for the explorations of love and understanding in kinship, but for observations of a family structure in a western context.

I guess I just need some mindless movie that will not remind me of work, or maybe drawing references to what I have learnt in real life has become a sort of automatic process...

Envoy of the Stars @ 10:38 PM
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