The movie, Soul Food, is a story about an African-American family, the Joseph’s, from Chicago that gets together every Sunday for soul food dinners. The story is told by Ahmad and he talks about the issues that face his family once the matriarch of the family, Big Mama, is in the hospital. Big Mama has three daughters: Teri, Maxine, and Ryla. Teri is a successful lawyer who is married to Miles. Miles was Teri’s former boyfriend. This caused a strained relationship between Maxine and Teri. Maxine is married with three children. Ryla is the youngest and is newly married to an ex-convict named Lem. Ryla also just opened up her own barbershop/hair salon. Cousin Faith is the cousin that comes and goes from the family. She always comes home and finds a way to take money and then leaves for a couple of years. Big Mama is having severe complications with her diabetes. The doctors tell her that she has to get her leg amputated in order to survive. During the surgery she slips into a coma and that is when the family begins to become dysfunctional. Stages of Family Life Before Big Mama went into her coma the family was dysfunctional but she was always there to maintain the chaos in the family. One example of her maintaining chaos was at the wedding of Ryla and Lem. Lem’s ex-girlfriend showed up to the wedding dancing inappropriately on Lem and Ryla was not notified until Ahmad had told her. When Ryla found out she was upset and ready to fight. When she went to confront her new husband, there was Big Mama dancing …show more content…
Strength is having the courage to carry on during hard times. No matter what was happening in the lives of the characters they still kept going on throughout their lives. One example is when Big Mama died and she normally held the family together. The family had to continue their lives without her and this could have been hard for them to do. Distress
She takes a job in a white lady named Ms. Cullinan’s home as a maid, who calls her Mary for her own convenience and lack of respect. This enrages Maya and in order to get away she smashes the finest china to get her fired. At her eighth-grade graduation, a white man comes to speak in front of everyone and he states that black students can only become athletes or servants which makes Maya furious. Later, when Maya develops a nasty toothache, Momma decides to take her to a white dentist who refuses to work on her. Momma claims that she lent him money during the Great Depression so he owes her a favor but he says he’d rather stick his hands in a dogs’ mouth. Lastly, one day while Bailey is walking home he sees a dead black man rotting in a river and a white man present at the scene says he will put both the dead man and Bailey in his truck. This terrifies Bailey and Momma wants to get them out of Staples so she sends them to Vivian’s again in San Francisco. There they live with Vivian and her husband Daddy Clidell who is a nice man to Maya, and has a lot of money from his businesses. One summer Maya goes to live with her father Big Bailey and his girlfriend Dolores, who are poor and live in a trailer. Maya and Dolores do not get along and constantly fight, so Maya runs away and lives with a group of homeless teens
Strength is the only reason Phoenix accomplished her journey and Phoenix's love for her only living relative is her greatest strength of all. Although the old Negro woman suffers from many handicaps, she starts her journey mentally prepared for the obstacles awaiting her. Phoenix uses her inner strengths and prevails over every barrier. She relies on her trustworthy feet to make up for her impaired vision. Her wit makes up for her frail body. Her determination makes up for her aged memory. But most of all, her love for her grandson her keeps her going. Clearly, the frail, forgetful, and loving old woman can overcome anything.
Soul Food explore the hardships and trials of black family life, and through the characters, setting, and theme of both the story and the film, the issue of class and the search for community is discussed. Big Mama wanted her family to come closer. The more she tried, the farther apart they became. During her struggle, she encountered many obstacles including her own son 's beliefs, but she did not let them curve her appetite to gain higher status in society.
...egories: physical, mental, and spiritual. Physical strength can be defined as; the quality of being physically strong, or capacity to sustain the application of force without yielding or breaking.” (Diaz 238). Reading this book brings about many different gestures of strength bringing about different emotions and showing that you can deal with heartache, pain, and every other emotion in various ways, but just like Cheryl Strayed said “Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here.”
This Analysis Paper is an analysis of social problems an issues presented in the film. The film under analysis in this paper is "What 's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1993). The topics used as a lens for analysis are family, social roles, deviance, and social groups. This paper will present numerous examples of these social issue topics as they are displayed in the film.
Amy Heckerling’s movie Clueless focuses on an upper middle class 16-year-old girl, Cher, who lives in a nice neighborhood with her father and stepbrother, Josh. Cher and her friend, Dionne, take in a new girl, Tai, to help her fit into their high school. All of the major characters in the movie are in adolescence, which ranges from 10-19 years of age. In adolescence, teenagers undergo cognitive and emotional development. According to Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, adolescents are in formal operational period from 11-20 years of age. During this period, adolescents develop abstract thinking and rational decision making. They experience two aspects of adolescent egocentrism, imaginary audience
This research paper are for those who tend to eat food specifically geared toward their culture and have never veered from it. One would see this research essay as a form of reference/reasoning to their many questions regarding the upheld idea that soul food is the only predominant food choice in the typical African American home. It also signifies the reason it is held at the highest standards of those within the African American race/community. It also centers around those who wish to enjoy other foods but are culturally stuck to eating only things that are generalized to what is considered a norm within their community or race. My goal is to educate those who have been deterred form trying new foods, due to lack of support
In this paper I am going to write about the movie “Grease.” Specifically, on the two main characters Sandy and Danny. I will be describing and analyzing their interpersonal communication, but mainly on the conflict of their communication.
Many African-Americans consume what is known as “soul food”, for which, it is very popular within the black community. Soul food is an African-American cuisine that can be traced back as far as African, however, the term itself was not coined until the mid-1960s. It also comprise an important element of the cuisine of the general American south. Soul food was adopted and modify during the African slave trade and it was during this time food African cuisine and southern European cuisine became one big melting pot.
Lorie Myers begins the film Halloween as a normal, happy teenager and everything in life is fine. Michael is the brother of Lorie and he is locked up in an insane asylum for murdering his older sister Edith. He eventually escapes and decides he wants to murder his sister Lorie. Lorie is unaware that she has an older brother because she is adopted by another family when she was an infant. On Halloween night, Lorie is babysitting and her friends are being murdered. Lorie losses everything and she had done nothing wrong. Michael blames Lorie for the situation because of her relationship to him. Lorie is traumatized from Michael terrorizing her, but she makes it out alive. As the Halloween series progressed, Lorie becomes successful, but the fear
One conflict that divides the family from seeing the dream is the clash between mama her other family members. Walter feels that mama is blocking his dream of owning a liquor store because of her religious background. Her value system is so strong and the fact that it is her apartment, amplifies this conflict. Due to her domineering personality, Walter is not able to partake in the liquor store business. Mama also shows conflict with Beneatha when their view on religion differs. As a result, mama uses her domineering ways to keep Beneatha down by telling her that she can't speak against God as long as she lives in her house. Lastly, mama finds out from Ruth that she might get an abortion. This is unacceptable and is also against her religious beliefs. Since mama is the matriarch of the family, she is very much in control of her children's lives. She is driven by a strong sense of pride and a strong faith in God.
Misery the movie is about a famous author Paul Sheldon (played by James Caan) who is known for a series of award winning novels called Misery. To get inspiration for his books Paul Sheldon has ritual of visiting the Colorado mountains to complete his novels. Sheldon visited the mountains and in due time finishes his novel. In a haste to get back to his daily routines, Sheldon travels down the mountain unknowingly heading directly into a severe winter storm. While driving he ends up crashing and becoming seriously injured in the process. Thankfully and somewhat regretfully former nurse Anne Wilkes (Kathy Bates) Saves him. Anne bring him to her nearby home, on an isolated farm away from town to nurse Paul back to health. Anne is
Mama’s dreams were first deferred when she moved into the small apartment that the Youngers family stay in through out most of the play. She became too busy that she couldn’t accomplish her dream. She also could not for fill her dreams since she did not have enough money to do so. Her dreams were even more shattered with the death of her husband, but when she got the money from her husband’s death her dreams then became a reality again. Mama wants Travis to be happy and play in the garden but she cannot do this since they live in a dirty ghetto.
All ethnic groups have their own language, food, and way of living. Some can even call their food, “soul food.” Soul food can be described as “food made with feeling and care,” but in America, soul food simply refers to African-American cuisine (A History of Soul Food). In Imamu Amiri Baraka’s essay, “Soul Food” he describes how shocked he was to read an article that stated how “African-Americans have no language and no characteristic food.” So he argued against that supposed fact. I too was shocked and am agreeing with Baraka’s argument. African-Americans have had soul food for hundreds of years, if anything that is all they have ever had. Since slaves had no control or choice in life, cooking became a way to express feelings, share love and nurture family and sorrow (Helton). Soul food is more that just food; it is history, tradition, and family.
Once the enslaved individuals reached North America rations were often time used as powerful form of regulation and control on many plantations. By controlling food slave-owners, often referred to as masters, could regularly establish their grounds of authority over the enslaved. When doing so, they often saw this as their attempt of being “generous” toward their slaves. Frequently a primary point of debate, rations and slaves were typically considered as a good deed from the master to his slaves and was seen as a good quality of life African-Americans had under slavery (Poe, 1999).