The comedy “What Women Want” depicts complicated human relations and communication between two genders. The events of the movie take place in Chicago and depict relationships between the male executive Nick Marshal and women. Nick Marshal expects promotion but is surprised when knows that the company hires a new person, Darcy McGuire. This creates a conflict between Nick Marshal and Darcy McGuire. Nick does everything possible to blackmail Darcy criticizing her ad campaign for Nick and trying to dismiss her. Thus, he feels sorry for her when understands that the company can fire Darcy because of his actions and comments towards Darcy. Darcy has to fire Nick but falls in love with him.
From the sociological perspective, conflict theory will help to determine and analyze communication patterns between Nick and Darcy and explains their actions and behavior. The variables selected for analysis are self-disclosure, persuasion, and Interpersonal needs. the variable of self-disclosure allows saying that the hazards of a developing relationship derive from the fact that in a given situation it is sometimes impossible to determine the intention of the other from the cues provided.
At the end of the movie, both Nick and Darcy disclose their emotions and feelings in order to preserve international relations and communication. This situation depicts that the partner may not be aware of his or her true intentions, maybe intentionally and skillfully deceiving, or may in fact be open and aboveboard. At the end of the movie, self-disclosure takes place incrementally, in proportion to the amount of trust the relationship has established.
Nick and Darcy enter into various types of partnerships partly to reduce this uncertainty. Intimacy points to the experience of openness. Few of these dimensions of a vital partnership would be possible without love. For Darcy, love—as basic affection, passionate desire, shared friendship, and an accepted obligation to always acknowledge the partner as a person—will be present in different mixtures in all enduring partnerships.
These dimensions are in tension with each other (Wood, 2003). For example, Nick has to pay a price for achieving dependability by losing touch with the possibility of spontaneous vitality. Similarly, in striving for separateness Nick may lose the opportunity for intimate discovery of another person. In self-disclosure may offend our partner and lose a sense of intimacy. But if Nick cannot risk self-disclosure he cannot grow in partnerships, and self-actualization will become more problematic (Schaefer, 2006).
Conflict situations are used by Nick to persuade his manager Dan that Darcy is not an ideal person for this position. The movie demonstrates that persuasion depends on moments of touching deeply, regardless of who does the touching. This is particularly true when Dan and Nick are involved in a relationship with someone who is quite different from them. Because of these differences, Dan and Nick aspire to do different things, handle ourselves and the world around us in different ways, and place differing values on our relationships.
In growing partnerships—that is, partnerships in which each partner is becoming more self-actualized—differences have a positive value because an important part of growth lies in discovering the uniqueness of others. Unfortunately, hover, Dan and Nick tend not to like to discover significant differences between themselves and others, particularly those with whom they enter into partnerships. The variable of Interpersonal needs demonstrates that both Nick and Darcy have similar needs but they use different approaches to achieve them. Nick uses unfair and immoral practices to fire Darcy while Darcy is portrayed as an ethical person who does her best to finish the ad campaign.
The feelings, thoughts, and emotions that fill our inner world are very important to us. are these things and more, and not to share them is to isolate ourselves from others and from ourselves. Emotions are real in a way that ideas are not, for can feel them if let ourselves. Perhaps this accounts for why are attracted toward our inner feelings and at the same time are threatened by them (Schaefer, 2006). Yet hover frightening the prospect may be, the possibility of savoring these feelings is an exciting one.
The movie and relations between Nick and Darcy depict the possibility for interpersonal communication variables very often lies fallow within us, so also the ability to get in touch with our inner selves often eludes us. Nick and Darcy discover themselves in interaction as ll as in reflection. But because interaction with others has so many variables, In a society that is oriented toward activity, emphasizes big events, and is continually in search of fun and excitement, the inner life is easy to neglect.
A life that is full of activity is frequently mistaken for one that is full of purpose. In such a society it is doubly important to spend some time alone—not just to analyze our thoughts and feelings but to fully experience our lives. Part of the attraction of eastern practices such as tai-chi and yoga is their capacity to help us experience ourselves fully here and now. Experiencing one’s feelings and emotions is quite different from analyzing them or worrying about them. It involves accepting those feelings and emotions for what they are without believing that they have to be expressed in order to be experienced. Such awareness can also lead to more socially appropriate ways of expressing feelings (Schaefer, 2006).
In sum, if the main characters, Nick and Darcy, think at all about helping another person realize his or her potential they tend to think of it as a process that entails greater costs than benefits for themselves. This is because they are not really thinking about this question; rather, they are thinking merely in terms of the acquisition of skills. Obviously, the poor and capacity for confirmation are greater in an ongoing partnership than in a relationship of short duration, but this does not mean that the characters cannot find and give confirmation and support even in short-term relationships.
References
Schaefer, R. (2006). Sociology: A Brief Introduction 6th Edition Boston Mcgraw-Hil.
What Women Want. (2000). Dir. By N. Meyers, Paramount, DVD.