Question

This week, you will analyze a three- to five-minute segment of a movie or a television episode depicting conformity and obedience. After watching the movie segment, create a report on your analysis. In your report: Mention the name of the movie. Describe the setting and overall storyline of the movie. Describe the main characters in the observed movie section. Describe the situation that you analyzed and interpret the action of the characters depicting conformity and obedience. Draw conclusions based on social psychological concepts and theories.

Answer 1

Movie name: Clueless

Storyline: Cher is a rich teenager who has an aim to help people who are apparently 'clueless' and misfits in the social setting. She finds herself such a subject names Tai. Tai is a new transfer student and is out of the know hows of the social life in the current school. Cher takes it upon her to transform Tai.

Cher in one such segment can be seen as an authority figure within Tais' life. She prepares Tai for a social gathering (party) wherein she instructs Tai to do exactly what Cher wants: from dressing a certain way to behaving a certain way around a particular boy Cher wants Tai to be friends with. Tai confirms to and abides by everything Cher says as she thinks Cher has the 'knowledge' about these things.

We can draw on to Milgrams obedience experiment onto this segment. Although Milgrams experiment was conducted on a more severe scale of hurting other by the tag of authority obedience, but its can be applied here to,wherein Tai blindly follows orders without any form of contemplation as she thinks Cher knows best. Which leads to Tais inadvertent heartbreak.