Face Negotiation Theory in the Film “Whale Rider“ Essay

The film under analysis is called Whale Rider and focuses on the story of the Maori girl Pai who is interested in becoming the leader of her tribe.

Throughout the movie, all the heroes are involved in tense confrontations and conflicts that are premised on cultural communication, loss of identity, and the importance of traditions.

Although the role of tribe leaders is assigned to male representatives only, Pai believes that she is doomed to become the whale rider. The movie accurately reflects face-negotiation theory that relies on the conflicts that result in the confrontation of different cultures.

According to this theoretical framework, the movie also provides different interpretations of self-image, “a face” that is evaluated by society striving to maintain their cultural values and norms. Hence, in the movie, the face is defined as the meaning of social self-worth.

Pai’s aspiration to become the leader of the tribe contradicts the beliefs and traditions to which her grandfather adheres, but the heroine is confident in her destination and, therefore, she strives to maintain her identity and reconcile her individuality.

In search of identity, the film introduces the minority culture that highly respects the sacred traditions of the Maori tribe. However, Pai still believes the gender differences should not be the obstacle to her becoming a tribe leader.

Being sensitive to the realization of self-knowledge allows an individual to cognize the essence of successful facework interaction competence.

In the movie, Pai tries to define her place in Maori culture, as well as reconcile her identity that does not always coincide with the firmly established traditions.

According to Ting-Toomey, “face loss occurs when we are being treated in such a way that our identity claims are either being directly or indirectly challenged or ignored”ⁱ. Both at an individual and a collective level, face loss becomes the major risk of conflict emergence.

In the movie, the nature of the conflict relies on the inability of individuals to maintain the cultural image. As an example, the movie highlights the major conflict between Koro Apirana and his granddaughter Paikea Apirana.

Hence, Koro strongly believes that violating traditions is unacceptable because it violates the old customs and rituals, according to which only males can become leaders. Koro protects the collective cultural images and strives to hand his beliefs and outlooks over generations.

In contrast, Pai is concerned with her identity because she feels that he could become the leader of her people, even though she is a female.

Gender inconsistency does not prevent the main heroine from affirming her tribal identity and conquer her leading position in the tribe. Although modernity has brought significant contradiction to the Apirana’s family, it has a potent impact on the self-perception of all the heroes in the movie.

As such, Pai’s father overtly rejects to become a member of the tribe and adhere strictly to the ideas and beliefs of his family history. Instead, he chooses the life of free artists and travels across the world to exhibit his artistic pieces.

When he returns home twelve years later, he confronts his father’s indignation, as well as the aspiration to restore the forgotten traditions. However, Porourangi is largely influenced by Western and European traditions and decide to lead a free and democratic life.

On his departure, Pai rejects to leave her home for Germany with his father because she believes that she is needed here to resume her identity and restore the traditions.

In the context of face-negotiation theory, “the value dimensions, in conjunction with individual, relational, and situational factors influence the use of particular facework behaviors in particular cultural scenes”ⁱⁱ.

At this point, at the threshold of different cultures, Porourangi fails to understand the importance of his father’s message until he realizes that his daughter is more concerned with the maintenance of their generation’s traditions.

Being in search of identity, Pai is longed to finding a sense of favorable self-worth. She believes that, if she were born a boy, grandfather would treat her differently.

Later in the movie, she realizes that gender should not be the obstacle for self-recognition because the way to self-determination and expression should go through the realization of her identity and belonging.

Indeed, Pai neglects the conditions of leadership inheritance and proudly bring her story to people. Her performance manifests a veritable celebration of Maori culture. However, Koro threatens her that her attempt to inherit the leadership could end up in a disaster.

His strong faith in the sacred traditions does not allow him to see that the girl is the only one who supports and respects Maori traditions. Due to these frictions and dissonance of the hero’s view on the self-image, a conflict emerges.

The events are congruent with theoretical implications of the face-negotiation framework, according to which, cultural membership differences premise on the diversity of values and world-views. The generation gap is also among the main reasons for misunderstanding.

Further, ideological discrepancies include mismatch of employing various expectation in a conflict scene. Conflict may pose a serious emotional threat as a result of the incompatibility of norms, face orientations, goals, and unequal power distributions.

At this point, culture could be perceived as a learned framework of meanings that promotes a sense of identity and collective thinking among group members belonging to one ethnicity.

As it has been mentioned previously, culture is a complex frame that consists of patterns, traditions, rituals, and ideological beliefs that sometimes limit access of the members representing other cultural identities.

What is more important is that culture also defines how people could manage conflicts and solve problems.

Ting-Toomey and Takai assert that the emergence of conflict can stem from either the evident collapse of cultural values and norms or because of creating inappropriate expectations of behavior under particular circumstances.

As such, the movie provides a very example of this clash, leading to the discrepancies in expectations. The main conflict sets out between Koro and his granddaughter Pai.

Koro sticks to conservative outlooks on traditions and behavior patterns whereas Pai is strongly persuaded that her abilities and calls should not be defined by the established standards because they do not contribute to the maintenance of the tribe heritage.

The face negotiation theory also relies on several aspects that shape the conflict underpinning: identity, content, and relational.

Face-negotiation framework defines the mechanism for the influence of culture on conflict behaviorⁱⁱⁱ. About the behavioral patterns, there are also different styles of conflict management that refer to interactive cases.

The main advantage of the face-negotiation theory lies in the possibility to provide an organized framework for conflict behaviors. Nevertheless, the fact that face premises on an explanatory mechanism rather than on conflict behavior are often argued.

In the movie, conflict styles provide a picture of interpersonal attitude to conflict. Although individuals have a specific scheme of conflict management, it might differ from one situation to another.

Therefore, conflict style “…is a combination of traits (e.g., cultural background and personality) and states (e.g., situation)”^iv. In the movie, the heroes resort to a three-style model of conflict resolution, which involves such stages as control, enforcement, and domination.

Individual-level aspects influence the relationship between conflict styles and cultural variable. Conflict behavior is mediated by the socialization process of a particular ethnic or cultural group.

To solve the conflict, individuals learn scripts and rules for relevant conflict conduct in a specific cultural environment. Additionally, their tendencies affect individual-level aspects, including the approaches using which individuals cognize themselves.

In this context, the movie also emphasizes individual-level communication and conflict of the main heroine who is placed within a specific cultural context and who want to discover her identity. It is essential for cultural values to influence conflict behaviors.

Pai behaves by the cultural context in which she is placed. According to Oetzel and Ting-Toomey, “Self-construal is a key individual factor that focuses on individual variation within and between cultures”^v.

Consisted of both interdependent and independent self, the former attains much importance to relational belonging whereas the latter includes the view that a person embodies a unique set of feelings, motivations, and cognition.

In Whale Rider, the heroes express their concern with their images. In this respect, Pai is concerned both for other-face and mutual face, although the latter occurs rarely. Face concerns are largely affected by the heroes’ self-construal, as well as their connectedness to culture.

In this respect, the main heroine is more concerned with her cultural heritage and makes an effort to restore the tradition, despite the obstacle and pressure imposed on her. More importantly, extreme concern with other-face makes Pai dependent on her roots and relatives.

Therefore, she feels responsible for family and land. When father proposes to leave the town, she refuses because she realizes that she will not be able to leave far from the sea.

As Oetzel and Ting-Toomey assert, “cultural orientation influence the degree of people’s self-construals; self-construals then influence the level of face concern that individual has in a conflict situation”^vi.

As a result of these influences, conflict behavior is shaped. The chain also proves that culture becomes the key to conflict behavior development, which is brightly represented in the movie.

All the heroes are more concerned with cultural and ethical issues that specifically refer to different patterns they employ while responding to conflict.

Insufficient attention paid to face concerns is explained by the nature of the conflict styles. In particular, avoidance and third-party technique can be used to manage all types of face concerns.

In the movie, the heroine avoids conflict because she strives to preserve good relationships with her grandfather. Additionally, Pai also expresses her appreciation for Koru’s feelings.

These techniques of avoidance contrast the conservative models of conflict management, according to which avoidance does not create benefits for either of the parties involved. At the same time, Pai implicitly refers to his uncle who helps her to settle the conflict with his grandfather.

Using a third party, the girl manages to balance “the power to have a better chance in the conflict (self-face) or to help smooth over any bad feelings between the conflicting parties (mutual-face)”^vii.

Different expectations of the heroes concerning the outcome of conflict communication also become the leading reasons for face concerns.

Individualistic concerns are also confronted by collectivist thoughts, leading to a failure to articulate ideas and convey important messages because of the individuals involved in conflict act by the cultural beliefs that were previously shaped.

Although the misunderstanding is evident in the story, the conflict is not explicitly represented because Pai relies heavily on her grandfather’s authority and obeys his rules and orders.

Reliability is one of face content factors, which reflects the need for Pai to realize her ability to be responsible for actions and committed to older members of her community.

In conclusion, the film Whale Rider provides numerous examples and displays of the face-negotiation framework according to which different cultures communication often leads to a conflict based on peculiarities of cultural behavior.

Specifically, the heroine’s constant search for her identity and self-discovery makes her involve into a conflict with his grandfather who strongly believes that her aspiration to become the tribe leader is not justified because males only could head the community.

Hence, Pai’s concern with the other-face, as well as self-image resonates because she firmly believes that the responsibility for the future of her tribe should be imposed on her.

Girls’ further explorations prove that cultural constraints make her reconsider the previously established norms and prove that authentic culture and Maori traditions should not depend on gender differences.

1. S, Ting-Toomey, (2007). Intercultural Conflict Training: Theory-Practice Approaches and Research Challenges. Journal Of Intercultural Communication Research, 36(3), 257
2. Ibid., 257.
3. J. G Oetzel, & S. Ting-Toomey. (2003). Face Concerns in Interpersonal Conflict: A Cross-Cultural Empirical Test of the Face Negotiation Theory. Communication Research. 30 (6), 599.
4. Ibid. 601.
5. Ibid., 603.
6. Ibid., 605.
7. J. Oetzel, M. Meares, K. K. Myers, & E. Lara. (2003). Interpersonal Conflict in Organization: Explaining Conflict Styles via Face-Negotiation Theory. Communication Research Reports, 20(2), 113.