Examples Of Nonverbal Communication In Mrs Doubtfire

The movie Mrs. Doubtfire has many scenes where nonverbal communication takes places. Like in the scene where the song “Dude Looks Like a Lady” plays, it demonstrates nonverbal communication by Daniel’s paralanguage. Like stated in the textbook Interact by Verderber and MacGeorge on page 139, “paralanguage is variation in the voice.” Paralanguage includes pitch, volume, rate, quality, and intonation. With Daniel having a job that requires him to use paralanguage makes it easier for him to fool everyone when he is dressed up as a woman. He is able to change the pitch in his voice higher than normally to sound like a lady. He also uses quality, which is described on page 140 “the sound of a person’s voice.” His voice as Mrs. Doubtfire is very smooth as how a sweet elderly woman should sound like.

Also on page 140 intonation is described as the “...

variety, melody, or inflection of a person’s voice.” Daniel is great with his intonation, for instance when he was reading a book to his daughter, Natalie. Another way Mrs. Doubtfire uses nonverbal communication is through body language. Referring to the book on page 137, body language is “... the intentional or unintentional movement of various body parts that sends nonverbal messages. Eye contact, facial expressions, gesture, posture, and touch are factors of body language. In the same scene “Dude Looks Like a Lady” Daniel uses his eye contact unintentional as Mrs. Doubtfire when she gazes over to look at woman running. It’s quite hilarious seeing an elderly woman check out a younger woman. When Mrs. Doubtfire sees Miranda out the window with Stuart, her facial expressions and gestures change multiple times. At first she has a disgusted face expressions when she sees them kiss but then changes to a smiling face when Stuart sees her. She also waves at him portray the nice elderly woman but then she gives him the middle finger as he walks

off.
The clothing Mrs. Doubtfire wears affects the reactions of others in a funny and shocking matter. Throughout the movie, Daniel dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire gets a laugh out of everyone in the audience. Nonverbal communication is shown through Daniel’s self-presentation. Like stated in the textbook Interact by Verderber and MacGeorge on page 142, self-presentation includes “...your physical appearance, artifacts, use of smells and scents, and approach to time.” Daniel changed his physical appearance to make everyone around him think he was a woman by changing his gender, body type, facial features, clothing, and personal grooming. Daniel had to find the perfect outfit to get the job as a sweet elderly nanny. Mrs. Doubtfires clothing makes her look like an innocent old lady. When the children first meet Mrs. Doubtfire, Chris was a bit surprised that the sweet looking old lady played soccer. In the “Birthday Dinner” scene everyone was shocked to see Daniel was under Mrs.Doubtfire's clothes. Miranda was very upset that she was clueless the whole entire time. At one point olfactory cues are used which are “messages sent through smells and scents,” as described on our textbook on page 143. In a different scene Daniel as Mrs. Doubtfire uses women's perfume to make her character more believable. At one point he gets caught with it on when he wasn't dressed as Mrs.Doubtfire which he gets a weird reaction out of CEO Mr. Lundy at dinner. It was very amazing and hilarious that he was able to master the role of a woman to fool everyone.