The media I chose to look at was Freaky Friday. In this movie, mom, Tess Colemen, switches places with daughter, Anna Colemen, and they overcome their differences by finally understanding why teenagers and parents act the way they do by seeing what each other has to go through on a day to day basis.
One of the first ways that teenager Anna is portrayed, is as disrespectful. This is evident when Anna comes home from school after getting many detentions during the day; and it is hard for her mom to understand why. Her mom sees it as Anna going to classes late, talking back to her teachers, or disrupting class. But when Tess is at school taking the classes that Anna usually does, she finds that it is not very hard to get detention when she receives one herself. Another great example of Anna being disrespectful is when Tessa asks Anna to turn her music down. But instead of turning down the music Anna turns the music up even louder. Tess didn’t understand the reasoning behind all the noise but really all she was trying to do was practice for a gig that she had coming up in a few weeks.
Next, Tessa finds Anna to be annoying, loud and childish when it comes to her band. Since Anna and her mother have two different views on what is “good” music, it is hard for her mother to enjoy what Anna is playing. So the movie shows Anna as being annoying. There is even a scene in the movie where everyone in the house has a hard time hearing each other talk because the music is so loud. But really Tess just doesn’t understand that music is Anna’s passion and it is what she is talented at.
Last, Teenagers are viewed as rebellious and irresponsible. One example of Anna being rebellious is when Anna is in her mom’s body and she has free run of the credit card. Even though she knows that what she is doing is wrong, she does it anyway. Here Anna cuts her mom’s hair off, and she gets her mom’s ear pierced when she knows that her mom is getting married later that week.
Next, an example of teenagers being irresponsible is when Anna wants to get on the back of a motorcycle with a guy that she likes. In a parent’s point of view, they see motorcycles as dangerous and for the “bad” boys, so not many parents want their children hanging out the wrong crowd and being irresponsible. But after Tessa is stuck in a situation where she is in dire need of a ride she catches a ride on the back of his motorcycle, and she realizes that Anna’s crush is actually a kind, responsible student. The last example that I have of teenagers being portrayed as irresponsible is when Tessa never lets Anna drive. Having a drivers permit, it allows you to drive with a parent so they can practice until they are ready to drive on their own. But for an adolescent to be prepared to drive on their own they need to PRACTICE. But this is not how it works for Anna. Tess thinks that Anna is irresponsible and is not ready to be in control of a car so she never gives her the chance to practice.
Throughout this move, teenagers are portrayed as rebellious, irresponsible, disruptive, etc. But in reality it tends to just be a big misunderstanding. In the end of the movie, mom, Tessa, and teenager, Anna were able to see where each other were coming from when they had differences. They just needed to take a day to walk in each other’s shoes to see that when Tess was an adolescent times were different and things have changed to now when her daughter Anna is an adolescent.
I thought that this movie also directly relates to the first reading that we had to do. The quote from Raby that really stuck out to me is "Adults know and understand children and teenagers much better than young people know and understand themselves.” And through out the movie Freaky Friday we see that Tess doesn't understand Anna at all until Tess actually lived a day as Anna.
Another thing that I thought that this movie related to was our Kearney reading. In the Kearney reading it talks about how years ago girls were expected to be the media consumers but as things changed, today girls are more media producers than media consumers and in Freaky Friday, the two main characters are girls which goes to prove that the roll of girls has changed over the years.
Sources:
Freaky Friday. Dir. Mark Waters. Perf. Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, and Mark
Harmon. 2003. DVD.
