MOVIE ANALYSIS: CINDERELLA STORYBY: MAGGIE WHELAN

Cinderella Story is a romantic teen comedy starring heart throbs Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray

The plot follows two internet pen pals who met at a school dance and fall in love despite their separate worlds

Throughout the movie, the use of interpersonal communication comes into play in the relationships among the main characters

Characters: Sam (“diner girl”) lives with her evil stepmother and stepsisters after her Dad passes away in an accident. She is forced to work at the diner to save up money for college. She has an internet pen pal Austin who she is in love with. Austin (football quarterback) your typical jock who is the star football player and heart throb. His Dad wants him to attend USC on a football scholarship, however he is passionate for writing and wants to attend Princeton. He is Sam’s secret pen pal. Shelby (popular girl) Austin’s former girlfriend and cheerleader. She is the queen bee of the school and will do anything in her power to ruin the Cinderella relationship between her Ex and Sam. Fiona (evil stepmother) lives off of her widowed husband’s money and is the evil stepmother to Sam. She makes Sam do chores and work around the clock in order to get college money for Princeton. Brianna and Gabriella (evil stepsisters) they follow in their mother’s footsteps to make Sam’s life a living hell. They will do anything to be popular and go out of their way to ruin and embarrass Sam’s social life at school. Carter (Sam’s best friend) is the typical good friend who is always by Sam’s side. He has a passion for acting which causes his character to change throughout the movie.

INTRODUCTION

UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY

One interpersonal concept we see in the film is uncertainty reduction theory

When Austin and Sam begin their pen pal relationship, they continue to ask questions about each other to look for more information and better

understand who they are

Austin and Sam do not meet each other until the masquerade ball, and even then he is unaware of who she is

During one scene at the masquerade ball, Austin asks Sam 20 questions to try and figure out who Cinderella is

We use uncertainty reduction theory because if we are uncertain about what others are like, we will have a difficult time predicting their

behaviors and the outcomes of our interactions with them, and this leads to discomfort

STEREOTYPING

Sam and Carter

Sam is a tom boy working at her family’s diner

labeled as the “diner girl”

Carter is a geek who is passionate for acting

Carter kisses Shelby at the masquerade and she

denies it because he is a “geek who hums

showtunes”

Austin and Shelby

Austin is the popular jock, football captain, and student body President

His group of friends are stereotyped as the “dumb jocks”

Shelby is the queen bee of her group of friends

She is the head cheerleader and walks around the school telling people to move out of the way

Austin and Shelby date at the beginning of the movie

MASCULINE CULTURE

Austin’s Dad is the typical masculine driven parent who wants Austin to receive a full football scholarship to USC

He wants Austin to adhere to traditional sex roles even though he is secretly passionate for writing; guys play

football and act tough not write poems

The football players are portrayed in a masculine dominant culture as they “rule the school” and are in the

popular group that dates Shelby’s friends

People who live in a masculine culture value performance, ambition, assertiveness, and competitiveness

PRAGMATICS

After Sam is dramatically revealed to Austin during Pep Rally, Sam finally confront him in the locker room calling him a coward in front of his friends and how waiting for him was like “waiting for rain in this drought”

Sam uses a pragmatic guideline to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” as she is angry that Austin would not stick up for her in front of his friends. She believes that Austin is being a coward and has enough evidence to support it (he ignores her in front of his friends because she isn’t popular). However, Sam tells the partial truth when she hides the fact that she also has been hiding their secret relationship from friends.

Sam violates “providing the right amount of information” as she discloses too much personal information to Austin during the locker room scene. She says “even though I have no job, no family, or college tuition money it’s you I feel sorry for.” This might be too much information as Austin does not know about her personal life and neither do his locker room buddies. She could have given less information about her personal life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yHlEFd2G4w

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION

Sam’s relationship with her evil stepmother Fiona is

filled with nonverbal communication

Fiona’s facial expressions towards Sam are always tense

and angry; pursing her lips together, raising her

eyebrows, and making narrow eye contact with her

When Fiona tells Sam to do chores she often uses

gestures like pointing her finger in the direction she

wants Sam to go which is a verbal indication

Her body orientation is often distant from Sam which

indicates that they do not have an intimate relationship

Nonverbal messages help indicate the different

emotions expressed by the characters in Cinderella

Story; the tension between Fiona and Sam is highlighted

by nonverbal cues

PARALANGUAGE

Sam’s relationship with her stepmother and step

sisters is communicated through paralanguage; using

voice to convey meaning

Throughout the movie, we hear Fiona’s voice in a

high pitch high volume and harsh quality screech

“SAM!” as she yells at Sam to do chores, cook her

salmon, or clean her car

Brianna and Gabriella also have high pitch and high

volume voices which contribute to their characters.

When they communicate with Sam, their voices

come across as stuck up because they talk to her like

she is their servant. The inotation in their voices is

not pleasant which brings their evil characters to life.

JOHARI WINDOW

Sam and Austin’s relationship in the movie shows the change in self disclosure and feedback of their Johari window

At the beginning of the film, both characters knew little about each other which left their windows small

Next, they start to talk as pen pals and the open window begins to grow more as they talk about their college plans and their secret love for poetry and writing

Austin opens up to Sam about how he secretly wants to go to Princeton despite his father’s plan, so his hidden window gets smaller. Sam has a harder time opening up to Austin, but finally confronts him in the locker room about who she truly is.

As the characters continue to find out more information about each other, the blind spots start to shrink as they provide feedback to each other. Sam calls Austin a coward and he has to change his behavior before he can win her heart.

At the end of the movie both characters live happily ever after, going to Princeton together and their Johari window has shifted so that the open window is the largest of all four panels, and the secret window is the smallest.

DISRUPTION IN DIGITAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS

The movie follows the pen pal relationship between Sam and Austin, however one of the rising conflicts in the story was due to the disruption in digital communication skills

When you are communicating via text or email, it is harder to understand the message someone is conveying as a text could be sent by accident or the person was distracted while sending the message. The emails between Sam and Austin were often distracted as Sam would get up to do chores for Fiona or go to work

Conversational spontaneity played a part in the digital communication between Sam and Austin as each email was carefully thought out and crafted before it was sent, which is different than having a face to face conversation as they have more time to react in the situation

Managing privacy of the digital communication became the main conflict of the movie as Sam’s step sisters read through the emails to Austin and exposed her to Shelby. They printed off copies of the emails between the two and with Shelby’s friends exposed Sam during the football pep rally. Sam left the event in tears as the girls read some of the most intimate details of her messages with Austin.

COMFORTING MESSAGES

Sam’s friendship with Carter is one that shows support of each other as they go through the difficulties of growing up

Carter has problems with his image as he dresses up in unique outfits everyday to class. Sam often uses comforting messages telling Carter to stay true to himself which shows her true concern for him.

On the other hand, Carter uses a comforting message to Sam after her confrontation with Austin in the locker room asking her how she was doing and saying he was proud of her.

Through comforting messages, Carter and Sam’s friendship strives as it alleviates emotional distress caused by others

ASSERTING RIGHTS AND EXPECTATIONS

The Passive Approach At the beginning of the film we see that Sam takes a

passive approach standing up to Fiona as she fears that she doesn’t have the right because her future is in the palm of Fiona’s hand

Fiona owns Sam’s car, house, diner, freedom, and college tuition money which she uses as a threat to her

Sam does everything that Fiona tells her to do without standing up for herself because Fiona could take everything away from her

The Aggressive Approach When Sam find out that her Dad’s hidden will stated

that everything belonged to her she finally stands up to Fiona using an aggressive approach

At this point, it doesn’t matter if Sam attacks Fiona’s self-esteem or violates her rights and expectations because of the way she treated her before; and not to mention that she hid Dad’s will for 20 years

Sam tows Fiona’s car, takes all of her money, and forces Fiona and her evil step sisters to pay back their debt to society working at the diner under her ownership

EVALUATION

There are many aspects of the communication styles that relate to my communication style, one of them being that the pragmatics Sam uses in the movie are similar to mine. When I am confronting someone about a problem, I look for evidence to support the my true feelings about them however I tend to tell the partial truth without thinking about my mistakes. Similarly, I tend to violate providing too much information to people which in the end effect my relationships

In relation to the relationship between Sam and Austin, I don’t think I would fit well in this type of relationship (even though I am in love with Chad Michael Murray). Most of the communication between the two was through texting and emailing which do not appeal to me because there is nothing better than a face to face conversation. I believe that you get to know someone better through talking to them in person; there is no confusion and you can’t carefully craft what you’re going to say to one another. The conflict in the movie was how their secret relationship was blown up by people, and this would bother me if I had to keep my relationship a secret for a long period of time.

The movie is not supposed to portray a realistic view of life as it is an imitation of the original Cinderella. For instance,the tom boy who doesn’t have many friends usually doesn’t win over the jock football captain through her sophisticated ways. Similarly, the relationship between Sam and her evil step family was a little over the top and not very realistic. Fiona constantly nags on Sam to clean her car and make her food which would not usually happen in real life. Finally, the happily ever after ending was not a realistic portrayal of interpersonal communication. Austin leaves during the middle of the football game to kiss Sam as it starts raining, even though they were in the middle of a drought. Although there are many examples of interpersonal communication in the movie, very few are actually realistic.

THE END!!!