Analysis on the Short Film "Ronans Escape" Using the Understanding of Culturally Safe Space

by ashunboi1 (student)

University Degree Social studies

Analysis on the Short Film Ronan’s

Escape Using the Understanding of

Culturally Safe Space

Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………..….2

Story Summary of the Film…………………………………………..2

Literature to Demonstrate the Understanding of Culturally Safe Spaces…………………………………………………..3

Observation and Analysis……………………………………………..4

Recommendations to Create a Safe Space…………………...5

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………6

References……………………………………………………………………7

Introduction

Schools are usually considered as a culturally safe space (Humpage 2009), however in the Film ‘Ronan’s Escape’ (2011), directed by A.J. Carter, bullying is addressed heavily, where Ronan, a student, experiences bullying through torments and his fears of other students.

In this report, Ronan’s unsafe space will be analysed and observed throughout the film and other literature will be used to help understand Ronan’s situation. However, overall, the film Ronan’s Escape portrays a culturally unsafe space, where recommendations can then be made to turn the culturally unsafe space of Ronan’s into a safe space.

Story Summary of the Film

The story of the video, ‘Ronan’s Escape’ is about a school student name Ronan who is exposed to bullying at school. Ronan is afraid to approach other, leading him to isolation during his break (Carter 2011).

Other students pick on him by kicking the ball at him, knocking off his sandwich to the ground (Carter 2011) where he discovers a bird. Ronan was then late to class, but being despised everyone, his classmate pointed out that he is late to the sport teacher. The sport teacher ignored his lateness and chose captains for the running relay. But, while waiting to get chosen Ronan daydreamed, as he knew that he would get picked last, but surprisingly he was chosen second last (Carter 2011).

During the relay, he ran at his best, out-taking his opponent, where his team members cheered for him, but the excitement ended when he tripped on his untied shoelaces caused by a prank from his opponent before the race (Carter 2011).

Consequently, Ronan had a depressing bus trip back home, where he saw an open area and decides to get off the bus so he can free that bird he had put into his bag. He walked to a tree and brought out the bird but finds it dead (Carter 2011). Filling with sorrow, Ronan vigorously dug a grave for the bird then hanged himself, where his last vision was the word ‘loser’ (Carter 2011).

Literature to Demonstrate the Understanding of Culturally Safe Spaces

Human by nature have an ultimate goal and that is to survive. They perform physical needs and solve complex problems to aid survival (Matsumoto 2007). Human also have ‘universal psychological process’ (Matsumoto 2007) and this aids the social motive and physical needs. However Matsumoto, himself, stated that human also have natural proclivity to fear, and this comes from an individual evolutionary history with that fear threatening his or her survival (Matsumoto 2007).

But human to meet their social and biological need, they interact with others ...

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Literature to Demonstrate the Understanding of Culturally Safe Spaces

But human to meet their social and biological need, they interact with others and form groups; consequently, humans are social animal (Matsumoto 2007). They use the power of the group to propose solutions to complex problems that they encounter during their journey.

Nevertheless, Ethnocentrism exists in all human. Ethnocentrism is a psychological universal (Matsumoto 2007), where it allows a person to view one group as heterogeneous and the other as homogenous. Human have the ability to distinguish between different groups and only favor those from the ingroup. The ingroup (homogenous) are the favored one as they aid goals, but the outgroup (heterogeneous) are unfavoured as they threaten goals (Matsumoto 2007).

The hierarchy of individuals such as background and knowledge defines individuals into either ingroup or outgroup. In some cases human have the ability to believe that others are intentional agents (Matsumoto 2007). They will help and support that person while ignoring their hierarchy and status.

Realistically humans have to adjust themselves to new culture, in order to become part of the ingroup in that culture. This will allow them to experience cultural safe space. But they have to achieve cultural intelligence, which is the ability to successfully adjust to another culture (Brislin, Worthley & Macnab 2006). To do so, human must have cultural awareness (Quappe & Cantatore 2005).

Cultural awareness is vital when human have to interact with others that they are unfamiliar with. To become successfully culturally aware, individuals have to acknowledge cultural differences, where ‘one must be able to interpret the information’ of others ‘in an appropriate way’ (Quappe & Cantatore 2005). If information is lost, then a phenomenon called cultural shock occurs (Flanja 2009).

There are four stages of cultural shock, Honeymoon stage, Crisis stage, Recovery and Complete Adjustment. Those who are not able to pass the crisis stage develop symptoms such as fear, anger and suicidal (Flanja 2009).

Observation and Analysis

At the beginning of the Film, the tilting down of the camera shows Ronan sitting alone, isolated from others. The camera work also shows cut scene of Ronan constantly observing his surrounding (Carter 2011), including students playing soccer and group of girls socialising. As Matsumoto stated, human are social animal, they interact with others to in order to aid their survival and solve complex problems (Matsumoto 2007).

Ronan showed fascination in other student’s activity. This action comes from his universal psychological process (Matsumoto 2007), where he tries to achieve his social motive. However, due to his proclivity to fear, and that is other students, his fear overcomes his universal psychological process, disallowing him to approach others (Matsumoto 2007).

It is believed that he had an evolutionary history with fears of students. An example of this was shown when one student kicked the ball at him, knocking him to the ground. The camera work shows a low angle shot of Ronan staring at that student. It shows to the audience that Ronan is inferior and sees him as the superior.

That situation also demonstrates that ethnocentrism exists strongly in the film. Other students surrounding him teased and laughed at him while he was on the ground. It is known that other students view him as part of the heterogeneous outgroup (Matsumoto 2007). Also, he was also the only person who was part of the outgroup, as he was abandon by everyone after the school alarm.

It is believed that students despise Ronan, as they believe he threatens their ability to achieve goal. An example of this was shown when one member of his team told the captain not to choose Ronan, as he believed that Ronan would affect their chance of winning the relay race.

Nevertheless, the captain view Ronan as an intentional agent (Matsumoto 2007), and chose Ronan, while ignoring his existence as an outgroup and believing that he will be able to support the team as ‘he can run’ (Carter 2011). Ronan was surprised to be chosen as someone who is not last, where the scene shows his facial expression changing from being depressed and down to neutral. This gave him hope (Carter 2011).

During the running scene, everyone ignored his existence as an outgroup and supported him by cheering. The support comes from everyone’s ability to interact greatly with Ronan as he is proposing a solution to their goal and that is to win the race. However once Ronan tripped, he lost all support from his members, and the captain sees that Ronan is truly part of the outgroup, consequently she turned her back on him (Carter 2011).

Overall, Ronan was not culturally aware (Quappe & Cantatore 2005), as he did not adapt successfully to the culture at his school. He was not able to acknowledge the cultural differences (Flanja 2009) and due to this he experienced the phenomenon, cultural shock (Flanja 2009).

From cultural shock, Ronan did not proceed pass the crises stage. Consequently, he developed symptoms, and that is the fear of others and depression, where he ended up in suicide (Flanja 2009).

The Film Ronan’s Escape shows numerous scenes that demonstrate an unsafe space. Ronan feels unsecured about his place in the society. As mentioned, other students bullied and harassed him. He was not given any safe space as everyone despised him and since this unsafe space at school was so significant, Ronan ended up in suicide.

Recommendations to Create a Safe Space

Ronan experiences unsafe space at school, however for Ronan to start feeling that safe, he must overcome cultural shock and become successfully culturally aware (Quappe & Cantatore 2005). Ronan must overcome the crisis stage (Flanja 2009). To do he has to ignore his feeling of fear. Firstly to adapt to other culture, Ronan has to approach other students and adapt to their culture (Matsumoto 2007). Ronan has to accept the cultural differences at school and to achieve this outcome he has to be a social animal and communicate with other students. This will permit others to get to know Ronan’s true self without using their self-other knowledge. Consequently, Ronan has a great chance of becoming part of the ingroup (Matsumoto 2007) and have a culturally safe space.

Nevertheless, he can improve his status at school by helping others achieve their goal. By helping others, the students will believe he no longer threatens the ability to achieve goals (Matsumoto 2007). This will lead Ronan into approaching others and become more social

Another recommendation is to change school. Since Ronan is not able to adapt to the culture at his school, and his fear to approach others is far too significant, Ronan can change school in which the new school will have an entirely new culture. Ronan will have more chances to adapt to the new culture at this school from his previous experience. To successfully adapt to the new culture, he has to identify the similarities and differences, and acknowledge the cultural differences (Flanja 2009) of the new culture (Quappe & Cantatore 2005). This will allow him to be considered as an ingroup at his new school and form a safe space there.

Conclusion

The Film, ‘Ronan’s Escape’ directed by A.J. Carter shows a great example of culturally spaces placed on a student name Ronan. Ronan experience both ethnocentrism and cultural shock severely. However as social being he tried to communicate with others but his fear of others predominates his sociality. Some suggestions were made on how Ronan can escape his unsafe spaces, and those were that he has to be culturally aware, approach and support others or move to a different school. This suggestion will help Ronan into having a culturally safe space.

References

Matsumoto, D 2007, ‘Culture, Context, and Behavior’, Journal of Personality, vol. 75, no. 6, pp. 1285-1320, viewed 1 June, via Academic Search Premier.

Quappe, S, Cantatore, G 2005 ‘What is Cultural Awareness anyway? How do I build it?’, Where Growing Minds Go Global, viewed 1 June 2013,

< http://www.culturosity.com/pdfs/What%20is%20Cultural%20Awareness.pdf>

Brislin, R, Worthley, R, Macnab, B 2005, ‘Understanding Behaviors that Serve People’s Goals’, Cultural Intelligence, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 40-55, viewed 1 June 2013, via Sage.

Delia, F 2009, ‘Culture shock in intercultural communication’, Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 107-124, viewed 1 June, via eReserve Course Readings

Humpage, L 2009, ‘A culturally unsafe space? The Somali experience of Christchurch secondary schools’, New Zealand Geographer, vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 73-82, viewed 1 June 2013 via Wiley Online Library.

Carter, A.J 2011, Ronan’s Escape, Film, Smooth Motion Films Western Australia, 12 December 2011, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XLcfdkkHQE>