Monsters University

In a movie Monsters University (Dan Scanlon, 2013) the Althusser’s Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses theory can be seen through representing the influence of ideology by Ideological State Apparatus’ institutions that mostly impact on characters rather than influence of Repressive State Apparatus (Louise Althusser, 1970).
From the beginning of formation of society its members are both taught the society’s norm and controlled by who had a power over them by using two different forms in which the government control is preserved. In other words, these norms and values create their identity and attitude of society’s members and under those values controlled their behavior.
Throughout the movie Monsters University a monster’s society are mostly under the influence of Educational and Cultural ISA’s. Form the first minute of the movie to the last, these monsters that are in power indoctrinate the norms and beliefs into monsters mind through education system in schools and universities.
From the first scene where little monsters take a school trip to Monsters Inc., the viewer can see that Mike Wazowski and other monsters argue who is the scariest one. In this case the film presents the ideological power over society through Educational institution of ISA, which in this case is represented as school. Society’s members are learning norms from the beginning of education process. The most important belief is that the best monster is one, who is the scariest, or the scary appearance and skills will lead to success, but they are not given from the birth, they have to be learned. Wazowski represents a type of person who always follow rules and very eager to study the given ideological norms and values, therefore he comes up with a drea...

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...verybody that monster deserve to be named as the scariest one, because Mike was inspired to demonstrate his knowledge of being scary monster to everybody and to himself and also, to achieve his dream. After Mike was expelled from Scary program without even showing his ability to scare he decides to join the competition in order to prove his ability to be a professional scarier. This institution indoctrinates the norm that can be explained as the ideology of a monster showing his ability and knowledge of how to scare properly and gaining the respect if winning. Therefore, by gaining the respect other monsters are becoming to more likely change their attitude and behavior to in order to be like them. According to the Althusser’s theory, the Scare Games is presented as a tool for monsters that have a control of society’s members and helping to maintenance this control.