Contemporary film

Contemporary Film 0 Introduction Family-oriented television series has been installed in the culture of Americans ever since. Life as a House is aparadigm to show how people’s behavior and attitude change over time. It is a story of a broken family wherein reconciliation is valued more than pride. In the real world, changes are attributive not only to the American family settings, but also to the portrayal of families showed on TV (Stewart, 2012).
This paper seeks to discuss the synopsis of the television series, and to illustrate the family genogram to show the interrelationships among them, and identify the functions, aligned with resilience and strengths of the family system.
2. 0 Synopsis of the Movie Film Life as a House
The story centers on the relationships of Sam and his father George and Robin’s second husband and their two little children. In the beginning, George Monroe and Robin Kimball had decided to divorce, resulting to Sam’s struggles when he was a teen-ager. George did not able to get the heart of his son as he lived separately from them. George was residing on the Southern California coast when he was fired on his job owing to his illness. He was diagnosed with a terminal cancer. He stipulated not to disclose his condition to his family, instead spend his remaining time with his family. For that, he called up his son to live with him for the summer. The two did able to reconnect as a family. However, Robin and her second husband Peter Kimball were not happily living as Peter is unaffectionate to his children and to his wife. Robin realized that she made some unfavorable decisions. Moreover, George did not expect the relationship to go far considering his health condition. All he wanted was to do all he wanted to do before time betrays him (“ Life as a house,” 2006).
3. 0 Genogram
A family genogram is used to trace family patterns. Genogram is illustrated through “ lines, squares, circles, text, and symbols” (Genogram-Make Millenium, 2005 as cited in Shapiro, Kaslow, & Maxfield, 2007, pp. 76-79). Using this notion, Life as a House family tree will be illustrated to understand further the relationships of the members of the family from the past and as time goes by. The signs and symbols in the genogram, which are illustrated below, have been adopted to evaluate the relationship patterns of the members of the family. These are the basic signs and symbols developed by the GenoPro (“ Introduction,” n. d.).
Figure 1. 0: Life as a House Genogram
The pattern of relationships is shown above; George has close relationships with his son Sam, and his ex-wife Robin’s two little children. At first, Sam has a hard time accepting his father, but after their bonding, they have become more connected than before. The closed relationship with his father before has turned into an open one, which is also affecting the relationship of his mother towards George. Meanwhile, Robin’s second husband Peter is focused on himself leading to a distant relationship with his wife and his children. The only congruence in the genogram is that Peter did not exert effort in developing an intimate relationship with his family; unlike George who was able to win Peter’s two little children’s hearts. George’s resilience connotes to his shift of attitude towards his family, developing a connection with his son Sam through communication, which becomes the strength of the family system.
4. 0 Conclusion
The shift of George’s attitude towards his relationship with his family defines the contingency of human constant change. The only thing that is not temporal in this world is change. Even if one has done a lot of mistakes in his life, at the end, he would still want to fix everything for the sake of reconciliation and forgiveness. Realization always comes at the end of every pace and George’s relationship with his family is a paragon that denotes the real meaning of change.
References
Introduction to the genogram. (n. d.). Retrieved from
http://www. genopro. com/genogram/
Life as a house. (2006). Retrieved from
http://www. bookrags. com/essay-2006/1/11/195324/320/
Shapiro, F., Kaslow, F. W., & Maxfield, L. (2007). Handbook of EMDR and family
therapy processes. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Stewart, D. (2012). J. Lo–Produced tv pilot about multi-ethnic family with lesbian moms
sounds awesome. Retrieved from http://jezebel. com/5937630/
jennifer-lopez-producing-tv-pilot-about-multi+ethnic-f
mily-with-lesbian-moms