Speak
Ailene Overton
Abnormal Psychology: Fall 2014
Film Summation
The movie Speak portrays the life of a teenager living with signs of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a traumatic event, Berner, F., Myers, M., Offsay, J., Rivo, R., Sharzer, J., & Frisbie, A. J., (Producers), & Sharzer, J. (Director). (At the end of her eighth grade year, Melinda Sordino, her best friend Rachel Bruin, and two other friends attend a party with their classmates as well as high school students. At the party Melinda is raped by an upperclassmen, Andy Evans, and in a state of panic she dials 911. The operator traces her location since she is unable to say a word and the police come to bust the party. Soon after learning that is was Melinda who called the cops, her friends turn their back on her and go their own way. As Melinda begins her freshman year of high school, she is labeled as “the
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squealer”. She is all alone, as her friends have abandoned her since they blame her for ruining the party. Each friend has joined a new social group except for her. Her life at home is not that social either.
Her parents think of her as being a rebellious teenager going through a phase. Her mother pays more attention to her career and her father is out most of the time looking for a job. Melinda is left to eat TV dinners on the couch in front of the television.
On the first day of school, Melinda meets an art teacher, Mr. Freeman who encourages
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he Research Portion Summarize 3 articles (40pts) Minimum 3 pages Analysis of the Film How did the depiction of the disorder in the film compare to what you learned during your research? I believe that though the film does show a few symptoms of PTSD, the general public may think Melinda is only portraying a form of depression and not symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. At the beginning of the semester when I watched the film for the first time, I believed the same. The film showed very little if any humor concerning PTSD. The storyline revolved around Melinda’s freshman year, which had a lot of unhappy moments. As the film depicted the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder that Melinda portrayed, the film had a more serious and sentiment tone. Throughout the film, there were a couple of scenes portraying post-traumatic stress disorder.
Melinda has flashbacks that are triggered by present situations. In one scene, she is in the cafeteria with her tray looking for a place to sit when someone throws a lump of mashed potatoes at her. Right after someone yells “SQUEALER” and the whole cafeteria erupts into chanting “Oink! Oink! Oink!”. Melinda runs out and while she is in the bathroom cleaning her shirt, she has a flashback. In the flashback, she has come into the house after being raped and is frantically looking for the house phone. In the background, students are chanting “chug, chug, chug!” which sounds similar to the chants in the
cafeteria. Melinda also had a flashback whenever Andy Evans would come near her or when she would see him. In one scene when she was at a pep rally she sees Andy and Rachel right across from her kissing and laughing. She starts to breathe heavily and runs out of there. She runs to sit and hide in the closet that she had found earlier that year. Sitting on the floor with her arms hugging her knees and rocking back and forth, she has a flashback. In the flashback she is seen laughing, dancing and talking to Andy. Suddenly Andy suggests that they go off for a drive and she hesitantly accepts. While in the jeep, Andy begins to kiss her and make-out with her. She tries to push Andy off and starts screaming when he covers her mouth and eventually ends up raping her. The scene then changes to Melinda in her bedroom screaming in her sleep when her mother comes in to wake her up and tell her she was having a nightmare. The famous quote “…and the truth shall set you free” really connects with the end of the movie (John 8:32 New International Version). Watching this film taught me that living with a secret can make a person miserable. Melinda wanted to tell someone but she didn’t know who she could tell. In one part of the film, she decides to skip school and have a “mental health day”. She takes the bus Overall, the film was entertaining to watch. I really enjoy watching films that show how an individual’s life can be turned around. In Melinda’s case, she was unhappy and alone and by the end of the movie, she slowly accepted friendships and stood up for herself. I would recommend for other people to watch this film. In my opinion, the film did a really good job at describing the life of a high school student living with a secret. Melinda was in a depressive state for about a year. She kept a tormenting secret for a little over a year. Her parents thought that she was just being a rebellious teen and growing apart from her. I feel like there is a major change that adolescents go through in the transition between junior high school and their first year of high school. It is important for teenagers, especially those transitioning into high school, should watch this film so that they will know the signs. This way, if they see that a classmate or a friend is having a hard time similar to Melinda, they will be able to have an idea if there is more to the story. References Berner, F., Myers, M., Offsay, J., Rivo, R., Sharzer, J., & Frisbie, A. J., (Producers), & Sharzer, J. (Director). (2004). Speak [Motion Picture]. United States of America: Showtime Entertainment. Elklit, A. (2009). Traumatic stress and psychological adjustment in treatment-seeking women sexually abused in childhood: A follow-up. Scandinavian Journal Of Psychology, 50(3), 251-257. McLean, C. E. (2014). Trauma Characteristics and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among Adolescent Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Journal Of Family Violence, 29(5), 559-566. Roberts, A. B. (2012). Childhood Gender Nonconformity: A Risk Indicator for Childhood Abuse and Posttraumatic Stress in Youth. Pediatrics, 129(3), 410-417.
The Language You Cry In” directed by Angel Serrano and Alvaro Toepko, produced a documentary that finds the meaningful links between African Americans and their ancestral past. It goes back to the hundreds of years and thousands of miles from the Gullah people to the present day in Georgia back to 18th century Sierra Leone. The film demonstrates how the African Americans continued to have memory links of their ancestors when they were enslaved and segregated. It begins with a story of memory, and how the family was reunited with one of their own through a song that was able to remember those who sang it in the past.
The novel Speak, written by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl, who gets raped in the summer before the start of her freshman year in high school and the book follows her as she tries to cope with the depression that comes that kind of violation. This book was turned into a movie; and released early in the early 2000’s and when adapting books to film, a lot of information and details are lost in the process. When comparing Speak the novel and Speak the movie, the noticeable differences are; the character relationships, Melinda’s character, and Andy Evans and Melinda’s dynamic.
To start off Melinda is a freshman. The first year of high school. High school is tough, but it becomes extremely tough due to the fact of her having no friends. Plus home is not any
Mother always blames the girl because Connie very often admires in front of a mirror. Also, mother constantly puts the older sister June as an example for Connie and it leads to alienation of the girl. Connie's father spends not enough time at home because he is busy on the work and when he returned to family, he just had supper, read newspapers and went to sleep, as a result, Connie feels a lack of parental attention. There is not enough love and care about each other in their family; therefore, they are
Speak starts with a young lady, named Melinda, attending her first day of school scoping out the school and staff without any friends. Melinda, being the quiet girl she is in the beginning of the school year, gains new friends, a new girl from out of town, and her art teacher. As the story progress, background on Melinda is revealed. She had lost her friends after calling the cops on the party because she was scared after being raped by a boy named Andy Evans. Melinda’s grades and relationship begins to dwindle down as the year goes on for Melinda forcing her to see the guidance counselor with her parents. She starts to talk a little more to her old friends as her new friend Heather has
Ever since the party, Melinda rarely talked to anybody, including her parents. Nevertheless, I noticed that during the second semester of the year she talked considerably more. “All right, but you said we had to put emotion into our art. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”(p122). This quote is from the third marking period when Melinda was talking to her art teacher Mr.Freeman. I believe that she wouldn’t have said anything had it been earlier in the year. “Stinks. It was a mistake to sign up for art. I just couldn’t see myself taking wood shop.”(p.146). This quote is another example of Melinda talking, this time to Ivy in the mall. I think these quotes prove that Melinda starts talking more as the year progresses.
There are many examples of social conflicts throughout the book, and the clans or groups in school are social constructs. The main character, Melinda, struggled to fit into these categories causing her to be the Outcast to society. Nobody seems to want to truly befriend Melinda, causing her to be alone. Although Melinda is ostracized by her society for not fitting in, Ivy becomes a crucially important friend by still helping Melinda as she struggles with her social and emotional conflicts. Even though Melinda’s society rejected her, Ivy became an important friend to Melinda.
...he story with the various characters. Melinda’s acquaintance, Heather works hard at finding friends and becoming popular, but in the end she turns away from Melinda. The story is about the high school years. Many times when we are growing up we can’t wait to get there because we will be treated as adults, but the truth is the problems that come along when we are older can be difficult. The various clans of students help present the theme by showing us that there are many different types of people. The popular cheerleaders, the jocks, the geeks and those who are just trying to fit in. Melinda transforming the janitor’s closet symbolizes her hiding her feelings and Melinda’s inability to speak and tell people what happened to her. High school can be fun but unfortunately through the eyes of Melinda it was a very hard time.
That summer, we realize that she has been raped and has not yet come to terms with what had happened. For multiple times, Melinda has tried to talk until she gave up and stopped trying. Soon enough, her grades started to drop and she started cutting as a whimper for help. This resulted into an overwhelming amount of feelings that she still was not willing to share. Furthermore into the novel, she stumbles upon her art teacher, Mr.Freeman. She complained how her trees suck because she doesn’t know anything. Mr. Freeman explains that that is because she refuses to express her emotions. He says, ”When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time” (122). This refers to when Melinda’s father called to prune the tree just outside their house. Melinda thought the guy was chopping it down when they were actually doing just the opposite. Her dad explained, “He’s not chopping it down. He’s saving it. Those branches were long dead from disease. All plants are like that. By cutting off the damage, you make it possible for the tree to grow again…” (187). Moments later, Melinda comes into a realization that she is like the tree. Both bruised, messed up, and slowly dying, but deep inside you can find a small, clean part of them waiting to burst through the surface. At this
Elliot tells the story of Dasani, an eleven-year-old living with seven siblings, mother, and father all in one room in the Auburn Family Residence, a worn out city-run shelter for the homeless (Elliot). Auburn Family Residence is covered in mold, roaches, feces, and is where predators prey on small children (Elliot). Dasani takes care of her family, mostly her baby sister, making sure she can give her all she needs. Her parents, Chanel and Supreme, are dysfunctional, unemployed, and have a history of arrest and drugs abuse (Elliot). Although Dasani’s life is very tragic, she still has hope that not only she can make it out of this lifestyle, but also her family will be able to make it out as well. Even though Dasani is homeless, she still manages to go to Susan S. McKinney Secondary School of the Arts, where most students are black and live in the surrounding projects (Elliot). In this first part of Dasani’s life, Elliot describes how teachers believe that Dasani is intelligent, even though she sometimes gets in trouble. Since her parents are unemployed, on a good month they receive around a few hundred dollars, but never seem to make it last (Elliot). Not only does this story include very descriptive details about Dasani’s life, but it also includes unsatisfactory descriptive pictures of Dasani’s home and school. In this mini-series, Elliot was open to a lot of criticism because of how she depicts Dasani's life. (Add another or two sentence about
In conclusion fourteen year-old Melinda Sordino, finds her lost voice and is no longer a victim of sexual assault but a survivor. Desperate to regain the person she was before her trauma, she did not realize she has been developing into a stronger person. She is learning and growing from experience, which she is now able to speak of.
Near the beginning of the movie her brother dies from falling out of a third story window and she is forced to buy a coffin for him because her parents are unable to communicate this is largely because of the lack of accommodations that were available during the time. As the movie progresses and she faces more of lives hardships she starts to realize that she is the connection between the hearing and non-hearing worlds for her parents. For her graduation her father makes a kind jester of purchasing a hearing aid, which was one of the early models. Unfortunately her misunderstanding led to he feeling embarrassed of her parents although, it is unfair that she hid away her parents from her social life in the first place. One of the main characters that really kept her grounded was Mr. Petrakis. A kind elderly man who runs a pawnshop down the street. He also tends to be her way of venting because she doesn’t know how to tell her parents how upset she is. After her graduation she starts as a secretary where she meets her eventual husband William Anglin who repeatedly asks her out, but is unable to up until he is leaving for basic training for WWII. After they date are dating for a while ...
actions to be deemed acceptable by her parents so Connie lives a dual life. She is one person at
Every time the family comes to a confrontation someone retreats to the past and reflects on life as it was back then, not dealing with life as it is for them today. Tom, assuming the macho role of the man of the house, babies and shelters Laura from the outside world. His mother reminds him that he is to feel a responsibility for his sister. He carries this burden throughout the play. His mother knows if it were not for his sisters needs he would have been long gone. Laura must pickup on some of this, she is so sensitive she must sense Toms feeling of being trapped. Tom dreams of going away to learn of the world, Laura is aware of this and she is frightened of what may become of them if he were to leave.
Dysfunction in family does not help Connie much for her father is uninterested and uninvolved. He just comes home after work and eats then goes to bed. He never really asks Connie where has she been or where she is going. Then her mom scolds her for being self-absorbed “stop gawking at yourself. Who are you? You think you’re so pretty?” (Oates 1) Her scolding which shows her mother isn’t mature enough to be positively involved in her daughter’s life. At home her mother tells her she should be more like her older sister June who is simple, has a job and helps around the house. With all of this Connie even wishes for her death. All this dissatisfies Connie and makes her dream of wanting