College Road Trip

1155 Words3 Pages

College Road Trip, a 2008 film directed by Roger Kumble and distributed by Walt Disney Studios, is based on Melanie Porter (Raven-Symoné), a college-bound student, and her father, Chicago police chief James Porter (Martin Lawrence), who cannot bear to let his daughter leave home. Melanie is ready to enter a new stage in her life. James, though, would rather she stay close to home by attending Northwestern University. Despite this, Melanie is offered an interview with her college of choice, Georgetown University, and plans immediately pack her bags. Melanie has no way to get to Georgetown until her friends invite her to join them on their college road trip. Her overprotective father insists on escorting her on their own trip instead. Throughout …show more content…

After experiencing some car trouble, the family hitches a ride on a tour bus to James’ mother’s house. On that ride, James finally listens to Melanie about her future goals. Later, Melanie runs into her friends, who invite her to spend the night in a sorority. Of course, James does not trust Melanie enough to be on her own, so he sneaks into the sorority and hides under the girls’ beds. There, he learns that Melanie is starting to trust him and feel that he understands her. The next morning, he is found in the sorority and is put in a local prison. Melanie is extremely upset at James and his inability to trust her. He finally realizes that she wants to be independent and free to make her own choices. The two agree to find any way they can to get a flight to Georgetown. They end up sky diving onto campus and making it just in time for her interview. After getting accepted into Georgetown, her father struggles with letting her go. Nevertheless, he decides to let Melanie live out her …show more content…

According to the Couple and Family Map, the Porter family leans toward being rigidly enmeshed. This is evident in the father-daughter relationship between Melanie and James. James insists on spending time with his daughter; he does not want to let her go. Also, he is extremely rigid and strict in how he runs his family. This is displayed in his inability to want to change and allow Melanie to make her own choices. When considering the cohesive elements of the family, Melanie knows that her family is enmeshed. She constantly reminds her parents that they raised her to be a great person. Throughout the years, though, she is expected to live up to her parents’ (especially her father’s) expectations of who she should be, where she should go, and how she should behave. As a result of this, she is unable to be independent; there is too much togetherness. She does not want to disappoint her family or to go against the unspoken rules of her enmeshed family. They are not very flexible; they tend to resist change. As a result, James wants to slow any change that may happen with Melanie attending college by making her stay close to home. Evidently, the family itself is unbalanced. This is largely due to communication problems between family members. With communication, families can “identify and work out their concerns about cohesion – issues of spending time together versus having enough separateness to retain a sense of

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