Whale Rider; Rapa Nui an Example of the Topic Film Essays by

Whale Rider; Rapa Nui Whale Rider Not just the words through the movie, the narration by Kahu, but the music that moves with the shadows and light in the ocean, has an overwhelming emotion with which the viewer may identify. When the narration begins, it is Kahu who says, There was no gladness when I was born. These words are witnesses of events to happen. This is no story which begins with joy, but a tale where great hardship must happen first so that when the joy does come, the audience knows what a battle it was to get it, and how much more rewarding it is after such tribulation. Need essay sample on "Whale Rider; Rapa Nui" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Kahus story, her birth, marks the death of her mother and twin brother. Her twin was supposed to be the next leader of the Maori tribe. Her name is also an affront, her great grandfather believes, to the faith and tradition of the tribe. It is a blasphemy to their ancestor the great Whale Rider, who was male. The altercations which arise between Kahus father and great grandfather isnt mainly between ones acceptance of a belief and the others denial of it, but also of Kahus mothers wish to name the child after that great ancestor, and so begin Kahu on her journey. The powerful moments in this movie are the singing in the Maori tongue. When Kahu sings to the whales, when Koro sings, and especially the shattering feeling of love that is conveyed through their singing during a funeral. There is a specific bond in the words. They carry their dead with their songs, which seem to be saying we will find you soon, we will join you in our ancestral home. The entire film is teeming with the concepts and ideologies of ancestors. When Koro is fixing an engine outside one day, Kahu comes up to him asking questions about her ancestors, for a school project shes working on. He tells her that the link of their ancestors is as strong as this piece of rope, just as the whales are strong and powerful. With that strength of the entire lineage of ancestors the rope can never be broken. It is significant then that the rope breaks and while Koro is trying to find a new one, Kahu fixes it and fixes the engine. This is the predecessor of events to come. Kahus link in the chain is the link, which is the strongest, the one that will again unite the ancestors and whales to the needs of the current culture. All in all, the movie is very compelling both in narration, dialogue and the plot. It is the singing, the landscape, and the inclusion of the Maori language, which makes this film a New Zealand work of art. The history of the people is given fair study and sincerity. The union of the people at the end of the movie becomes part myth and part reality in the components of beached whales, and the resurrection of Paikea in a young girl, riding the bull whale out to sea to save her culture. The surprising factor in the movie is the maturity of Kahu, her diligent advances in the Maori culture and the way in which she tells the story is beyond her keen, but it works, her sad voice over such a beautiful landscape is compelling and honest. Kahu makes the film about a legendary myth, a reality waiting to happen. Rapa Nui Rapa Nui is also a film about legends, myths, and culture. The culture of the film is what really drives the plot into action as the Rapanui legends of Easter Islands is the main focus. The culture of the film is seen in the Sooty Egg hunt and the race to construct in record time a Moai. However the real plot of the story is love. The forbidden love between a couple belonging to different tribes which may be similar to an Easter Island Romeo and Juliet and as with most stories it is this tension of forbidden love which spurns the story onward. Although the interest in the love story is a major part of the film, it is the scenery and the culture and landscape of the film which is entirely enthralling. The great expanse of land hovered over by great (and real) Moai is the staple of the film for the movie watcher. Even the with watching the opening scenes of the film, these statues are shown and the importance of them to the development of the story is well cemented in the viewers mind. The plot would not be able to progress, the love story would not be that interesting nor tragic were these statues not included (also, the race to erect them is what pulls the entire story together) and because they are an integral part of the Easter Island culture it makes the film that much more authentic. It is the erection of the statues that allow for the short ears freedom; and freedom in an enslaved culture (according to the movie) is what will allow for the love to flourish among the couple. There seems to be a fair amount of racism in the film between the long ears and the short ears which adds a great tension to the film as well. Tupa (a long eared) wants to erect his statue first so that he can have Ramana as his wife, but Make (a short eared) has the drive and desire to free his people. It is this freedom that dominates the film instead of the love story. An element of the film that is disheartening is that the film production crew didnt go into detail with the native dress. In fact, the film borrowed from the culture of Maori tribes and other tribes in order to dress the cast. Although the landscape and the statues and the long and short eared elements tied into the myths and legends of Easter Island, this lack of detail to the culture was disheartening. Even though there is love, a civil war, and the fight for freedom as plot devices in the film, everything a movie-goer wants to see, this borrowing from other cultures, lessens the authenticity of the film to such a degree that it ceases to represent the culture of the Easter Islands. In this lessening, the value of the film as a representation of another time and race causes the movie-goers suspension of disbelief to wear thin and they are no longer invested in the outcome of the film. Despite this major drawback, the film does an overall good job (not a great job) in delivering a s uccinct story that keeps the viewers attention through civil war, hate, omens, and love. Works Cited Rapa Nui. (1994). Kevin Reynolds. Easter Island, Majestic Films International. [video: DVD] Whale Rider. (2002). Niki Caro. New Zealand, Apollo Media. [video: DVD]

Karl Marx essays

Karl Marx essays The work of Marx, like that of other philosophers and thinkers in the 19th century, owed a great deal to the social context into which he was born and thus the issues he tackled were often similar to those of concern to his contemporaries. It was Marx who decided to go beyond the academia and theoretical study and produce an active theory or a practical philosophy which could provide a basis for political action. Whilst at University in Berlin, Marx adopted and later modified the philosophy and principles of Hegel, centrally his dialectal mode of logic. Marx, rather than focusing on a dialectic of ideas as did Hegel, was looking to apply this method to the material world. This was a step to import the dialectic from the realm of philosophy into the realm of social science and thus an important step in the history of sociology. Marx's theories were also influenced by other sources such as French socialist thought, particularly the work of Saint-Simon, concerned with social progress as a result of workers leading the country. The political economy of Britain was another as was his friendship with Engels, both of which had an effect on Marx's transformation from a radical democrat to a communist revolutionary. Marx's theory of society originates from the simple observation that humans must produce food and material goods in order to survive. As a result of this they must enter into social relationships with others, and production becomes a social enterprise. Alongside this exists the 'forces of production', a technical component to manufacturing including the technology, scientific knowledge and raw materials used in the process of production. According to Marx, each stage of development in these forces will necessarily correspond with a certain form of social relationships of production, and the two of these components combine to form the 'infrastructure' or economic base of a society. ...

HD-DVD versus Blu-ray Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

HD-DVD versus Blu-ray - Research Paper Example stages of technology battle, the HD-DVD and Blu-ray technologies pulled efforts in gathering decoder and disk manufacturers, retail outlets, and media companies towards their respective sides. The Blu-ray gained endorsements from some major retail companies; Blockbuster and Netflix, acquiring a victories string. On 2008 January, Warner Brothers Production Company announced its exclusive support of the Blu-ray format. The top DVD retailers: Best-Buy and Wal-Mart announced their support for Blu-ray as opposed to HD-DVD. The HD DVD from Toshiba continued to get support from major Hollywood production companies such as Paramount pictures and Universal pictures (Jim & Michael, 2008. Blu-ray technology is developed by Sony and has a slower start though slightly more expensive than HD DVD. Its proponents argue that the larger storage capacity of Blu-ray is at 25GB, single layer disk, as well as 50 GB dual layer that is about twice the HD DVD capacity. Blockbuster announced its greater support for Blu-ray than HD DVD in the summer of 2006, hence predicting a shift towards Blu-ray as the major technology of high definition. On 2008 January, Warner Bros announced its release of its DVDs in Blu-ray format only thus joining other production companies, resulting in roughly 70% new releases in Blu-ray. The formats are incompatible with each other and the HD DVD buyers cannot play movies presented in the Blu-ray format (Michael & Philip, 2007). There are companies that find both technologies vital, for instance, NVIDIA’s graphics, Seagate and MIPS Technologies, Sigma Designs and Broadcom, and ‘Moses Baer India Limited’. The winners of Blu-ray technologies are Sony, Apple, Dell, LG, Panasonic, Philips and Mitsubishi, among others. The HD DVD winners include Microsoft, Lite-On IT, Intel and Toshiba (Mark & Charles, 2007). HD DVD had a chance of winning the competition due to its low manufacturing costs and cheaper products. The flexibility to have HD and conventional

Applied Safety Engineering Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Applied Safety Engineering - Assignment Example a) Each employee must be provided fall protection by the employer on a scaffold that is greater than 10 feet elevation from the lower level. A qualified individual has to determine the possibility and safety giving fall protection for the workforce that is erecting or taking to pieces the supported scaffold. b) The toprail must be in between 38 and 45 inches (0.9- 1.2 meters). Midrail should be close enough to the halfway point between toprail and platform surface. Whenever a crosspoint of crossbracing is utilized as midrail, it has to be region of 20-30 inches (0.5-0.8 meters) on top of the work platform. d) Scaffold and its components should at least withstand a load that is 4 times the load that it was actually designed for. Suspension rigging of the scaffold should be at minimum 6 times the designed load. e) Prior to each and every work shift and following any situation that has the ability of compromising the structural integrity, a qualified individual has to examine the scaffold and the elements of the scaffold so as to check for any noticeable defects. h) An engineer is required to design scaffold that are not stationary at the time the workforce is working on them and the design of brackets on frames that are fabricated on the scaffold to be used to give support to the cantilever loads plus the workers. i) Access must be provided whenever the platform is greater than 2 feet above or lower than the point of access. Access that is direct is allowed in a situation that the scaffold is less than 14 inches horizontally and lesser than 24

The factors a manager needs to consider in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a work team Essay Example for Free

The factors a manager needs to consider in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a work team Essay â€Å"Discuss the factors a manager needs to consider in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a work team. Give examples to support your choices.† As work settings become more complex, it is imperative for managers to identify the increasing importance of team-working throughout the organisation and to consider the consequential factors leading to work team efficiency. According to Cane, (1996) cited by Mullins, (2005) a team is seen as a group of individuals who have a strong common purpose and work towards that purpose rather than individually, and are committed to deliver tangible performance results. The following assignment will comprise of information that will analyse the evaluative measures that a manager requires in order to assess the effectiveness of a work team, and will include supportive literature containing arguments for and against whether team-working is effective, and will enable a conclusive decision to be made. It is common for the term groups and teams to be used interchangeably although teams are often described more in the formal and specific work context. There are various types of groups which include: Formal/Informal groups, reference groups, social groups, professional groups and societies. Formal groups are used mostly in the working environment where there is a specific task to be achieved with set objectives. As an early theory of team effectiveness, Elton Mayo (1880-1949) cited by Business Review (1997) was a follower of F.W. Taylor’s scientific approach to management but was of significance that the work he conducted (The Hawthorne Experiment in the 1920’s) disproved the theories of F.W. Taylor. From Mayo’s work came the human relations approach to management which discovered (amongst other factors) that the workers studied became more cohesive as a group and spontaneously began to work co-operatively as a team and consequently increased productivity. Since these findings, managers of firms began to use team-work as a tool to increase productivity and also found that the motivation of workers increased as result of human interaction. Team-working is crucial in today’s society due to such fierce competition from other firms within their market on factors such as productivity, quality, innovation and technology, which requires the collective inputs of individuals each with different abilities and skills to provide the desired product or development. This is related to the later work of Meredith Belbin (1926-) who set out factors to determine what made a good team combination. Of these factors, it was the team-roles inventory that became famous and of increasing importance to firms who adopted the theory. Belbin identified that, within a team, particular individuals could take on specific roles. The blend of these roles has a crucial influence on the effectiveness of the team. There are nine team-roles altogether described by Belbin, (1993) and cited by Mullins, (2005:557). These are: The Plant who is creative and solves difficult problems, the Resource investigator who explores opportunities and develops contacts, the Co-ordinator who clarifies goals and promotes decision making, the Shaper who has the courage to overcome obstacles, the Monitor-Evaluator who is strategic and sees all options, the Team worker who is co-operative and perceptive, the Implementer who turns the ideas into practical actions, the Completer who searches out for errors and omissions, and the Specialist who provides knowledge and skills that are in rare supply. Teams therefore require a balance of these different characteristics in order to create an effective and functional team in the workplace. However, it is inevitable that not all firms can adopt this inventory due to the fact that the team may not consist of nine people, or the members may not have the necessary characteristics to make up each of the nine roles. Some members of the team are therefore required to fulfil the missing roles which may not be relevant to their characteristic or personality which makes the theory’s effectiveness subject to the organisation and its members. Taskforces, project teams and committees are all key elements in the modern workplace and use modern day management approaches to practices such as empowerment, quality circles, total quality management and how groups manage change. Using these group techniques, the manager can identify the effectiveness of a team by the quality and productivity rate at which the product is developed which makes the organisation more profitable than their competitors. Mullins, (2005). Quality control, improvement and assurance involve methods of team-working including cell-production where employees work as a team to produce a unit or product and use self-checking as a method of inspection before problems arise. In some cases such as factory work, cell-production can relieve monotony because there is interaction with other colleagues along with an element of empowerment because teams have control over their work. Job rotation can be used as a tool to prevent repetition which provides job enlargement and multi-skilling. This can consequently improve motivation and productivity leading to higher profits for the firm. According to Willis, (2001) there are seven key elements that are essential to high-performance work teams which consist of: Commitment, contribution, communication, co-operation, conflict management, change management and connections. To compete effectively, managers/leaders must design a network to consist of these factors along with skilled employees who support each other in the achievement of corporate goals. However, according to Mullins, (2005) as a group or team increases in size, problems start to arise regarding communications and co-ordination. Large groups are difficult to maintain and often require a high level of supervision or a strong team leader. When a group is over-sized there is usually an increased level of absenteeism and the group may become split into smaller groups or sub-groups which may lead to competitiveness and friction within the company. A manager must therefore evaluate what size of group would be best suited and more beneficial for the company which has enough members to generate innovative ideas but not so many that it begins to cause friction. Jay, (1975) cited by Mullins (2005) states that: â€Å"The size of a group will depend upon other variables, but it seems to be generally accepted that cohesiveness becomes more difficult to achieve when a group exceeds 10-12 members.† Different personalities and interests within the group may serve to complement each other, but on the other hand, they may conflict and cause disruption within the group. Good group relationships take time to develop and so consequently, the longer the employees have been a member of the group, the more likely they are to be able to ‘gel’ together and produce a cohesive and effective team. A high staff turnover would have an adverse effect and reduce the morale of the team and potentially the whole workforce. The manager therefore needs to be able to recruit employees that are likely to stay with the organisation for the foreseeable future. This however would be difficult to predict due to the fact that you cannot judge a potential employee on their first impressions. Bass and Ryterband, (1979) cited by Mullins, (2005) states that group development and maturity occurs in four distinct stages: â€Å"Mutual acceptance and membership; communication and decision making; motivation and productivity; and control and organisation.† An alternative and perhaps more popular model devised by Tuckman, (1965) cited by Mullins, (2005) identifies four main stages of group development and relationships: forming, strorming, norming and performing. Tuckman believes that these are the life cycle stages that a group travels through before they become an effective team. Stage one is forming. This process occurs when there is the initial formation of the individuals who identify the purpose of the group and decide individual roles and responsibilities. The second stage – storming is the process of when the members of the group become more familiar with each other and start generating ideas and put forward their views and opinions and make agreements on more meaningful structures and procedures. Stage three known as norming is when members begin to co-operate more in order to plan, agree standards of performance and fulfil the purpose of the group. The final stage is performing when the group has progressed successfully through the earlier stages of development and produced a sense of cohesiveness to work effectively as a team. At this stage the group can ascertain the purpose of the task and objectives. It is now that the group is likely to be the most effective. When evaluating the effectiveness of a work-team, the manager must also consider the possible inadequacies and functional errors of the team. These may include factors such as; spending too much time talking rather than doing; this may either concern a discussion or conflict about the task objectives and strategies/ideas to achieve the objective, or merely a social discussion that has no effect on the task at hand. Although it is important for groups to communicate well, there may be a question of balance. Either discussion could be non-productive wasting valuable time and money and consequently could lead to an ineffective team that decreases profits for the company. There can also be an adverse effect on the business if a group or team works together for too long because the idea of ‘groupthink’ can occur. Janice, (1982) defines this as: ‘a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgement that results from in-group pressures’. As a result, this can lead to non-productive work because the group can just drift along towards decisions and not produce new ideas or use their initiative. To avoid this happening, the manager of the company should perhaps rotate members of different groups around to stimulate new ideas. However, by introducing new members to groups could cause conflict within the different teams which would not be beneficial for the company. According to Mullins, (2005) the characteristics of an effective work group should exhibit: â€Å"a belief in shared aims and objectives; a sense of commitment; acceptance of group values and norms; a feeling of mutual trust and dependency; full participation by all members; a free flow of information and communications; the open expression of feelings and disagreements; the resolution of conflict by the members themselves and a lower level of staff turnover, absenteeism, accidents, errors and complaints.† A manager should take all of these factors into consideration when evaluating their work teams and should talk to their employees about whether they feel at ease within the team and are able to contribute freely to discussion without being ruled out by others more forcible members. In conclusion, it is evident after research that team working is much more beneficial to an organisation than individual input because it generates higher production levels and the collaboration of different ideas can often produce much more desired results. Team working is also rewarding in the sense that it increases the motivation of the workforce due to human interaction which may also lead to increased productivity and consequently increased profits. We have learnt from Belbin, (1993) that individuals within work teams/groups suit different roles, and when put together, can produce very effective work teams. However, the performance of work teams will be largely determined by the characteristics of its members meaning what works well for one team may not work well for another. The team is also affected by the tasks to be undertaken, the nature of the technology and the organisational environment. A manager therefore needs to take all these factors into consideration when assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of a work team. Managers have to delegate responsibility to the team members leading to empowerment and job satisfaction. The manager can then judge the effectiveness of the team by the outcome of the task set. Improvements can perhaps be made to the team through the use of group training and development which may provide a more effective work team. Bibliography Bass B. M. and Ryterband, E. C. (1979) Organisational Psychology 2nd ed. Allyn and Bacon Belbin, R. M. (1993) Team roles at work, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann Cane, S. (1996) Kaizen strategies for winning through people, Pitman Publishing Janis, J, L (1982) Groupthink, 2nd ed. Houghton Mifflin Jay, A. (1975) Corporation Man, Penguin Mayo, E. (1880-1949) Elton Mayo Revisited – Management Gurus, Business review, February 1997 Mullins, L. J. (2005) Management and organisational behaviour, 7th ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited Tuckman, B. W. (1965) Development sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, vol.63, pp 384-99 Willis, S. (2001) 7 keys to building great work teams [cited 29th Nov 2004] Available from: http://www.stickyminds.com/sitewide.asp?ObjectId=2769

How does Miller create dramatic tension between Marco and Eddie at the

How does Miller create dramatic tension between Marco and Eddie at the end of Act One? So far in the play Marco and Rodolfo have illegally immigrated to America, seeking shelter with their cousin Beatrice and her husband Eddie. Living with them is Catherine, their niece, who falls head over heels in love with Rodolfo. Eddie is not happy, as he is incredibly overprotective of Catherine. This overprotectiveness turns to jealousy, which turns into an obsession. At the end of Act One all five characters are in the living room, sharing a cosy after dinner chat. At this point of â€Å"A View From The Bridge† Eddie is feeling intensely jealous of Rodolfo and he doesn’t really understand why. He talks to Alfieri about it, yet Alfieri seems to immediately understand what is going on and just before this scene hints at the bloody outcome of this tale. Marco, too, recognizes Eddie’s feelings for Catherine, though he appears to be the only one in the family who sees it. The premonition in Alfieri’s soliloquy make the audience think. It makes them ask question like who’s going to die? How are they going to die? Why are they going to die? The audience want to know the answers to all of these questions right at the beginning of the play and will start to guess what will happen, yet they have to pay attention to understand what is going on and make predictions. The personalities of the characters greatly affect the tension of this part of the play. For example, if Marco were not so silent and still, his threat would not be so obvious. When he â€Å"takes a chair, places it in front of Eddie, and looks down at it† it is a contrast to his natural behaviour. Eddie, however, still does not get it, as he believes that the worl... ...gland, for example, where the sense of community is much less, the dramatic tension would not exist. In fact the situation would probably not have arisen at all. Catherine would have had more freedom, Eddie and Beatrice would have attended marriage counselling and most likely Marco and Rodolfo could have immigrated legally. The play would be quite boring. In conclusion, many things contribute to the tension at the end of Act One. It would be nearly impossible to have the same sort of tension if just one aspect of the play was changed. The tension would probably remain but it would be utterly different. It could be more or less effective than the way it is now, but I feel it would be more likely that a master playwright like Arthur Miller would understand what he was doing, and would try and make the play as dramatic as he could, to get his point across.

Psychology Lifespan Essay

Ellen DeGeneres never thought that announcing she was a lesbian would have been a big deal. She knew then that what she was doing would caused questions and controversy but not in a way where she would be considered the poster child for the Gay Community. The way Ellen came out to the world was a bigger shock to her than it was to her audience. This is when Ellen realized that she changed more than her own life coming out. Her fan base got bigger and her life opened up for the greater good. She felt like coming out should not change what she would be doing for humanity. On Ellen’s 50th birthday, she decided to raise money and get notice to her hometown, New Orleans, Louisiana, some help for the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina. This storm was one of the most deadly storms in United States history. During the storm the federal flood protection system failed and the levee broke, flooding 80% of the city and surrounding cities for weeks. Since Ellen had connections with many other celebrities, she used those connections to get help for her city. Brad Pitt was one of the celebrities that had a foundation going for rebuilding homes in New Orleans. With the help of Ellen putting out the foundation through her television show, Brad was able to get 150 homes built. She showed her passion for helping out when she told the world why this fundraiser was important to her. She shows that the place she looked at as home and helped made her who she was Ellen DeGeneres has been an inspiration to people for the past twelve years. Ellen’s life had just begun. Ellen DeGeneres came into the world January 26, 1956 in Jefferson, Louisiana at the Oschner Foundation Hospital. In the book, Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughters Journey (1999), Betty Degeneres, Ellen’s mother, said that she was a miracle. Ellen’s father didn’t want anymore chidren after her brother was born, four years earlier. He thought that one child was sufficient enough. But Betty was determined to convince him that they should try again for another child. According to Lisa Iannucci (2009) Ellen was just a normal child, she played with her sibling and played outside like any other child would do at that age. She was a tomboy that wore fancy dresses and played with Barbie dolls. She once had dreams of becoming a naturalist or zoologist. She had a love and passion for animals and wanted to later join the Peace Corps to study the apes in Africa. Growing up Ellen had a fascination for great comedians such as Jack Benny, George Gorbel, and the comedy team Bob and Ray. Watching these comics entertain crowds was a little informal training of Ellen’s career in the later years. Ellen discovered the benefits of comedy when her mother divorced her dad. Her mother had been so down and depressed that Ellen knew she could cheer her up with a laugh. Ellen used this same comedic value to get through the very tough times in her life. When Ellen was sixteen she started partying, becoming rebellious, and hanging out with the wrong crowds. In her small town of Metairie, she would drink beer with her friends and stay out all night. This was her reaction to her mother getting remarried in 1974 to a salesman. Her mother wanted to remove her from the city, so the salesman got a new job in Atlanta, Texas. The DeGeneres family packed up and moved to Atlanta. While in Texas, Ellen started to fit into her new life there. Ellen started dating her first boyfriend, Ben Heath. Her brother Vance was in a band in high school and was receiving a lot of attention. Ellen wanted some of this attention that her brother was getting and was starting to have dreams of becoming famous. Ellen craved for people to like her, she wanted to try to find a way to become famous so people would like her and want to be her friend. Ellen’s family looked like the perfect family from the outside, but something dark and eerie was going on inside. Behind close doors the salesman was crude and bossy and Ellen did not like who he was. During this time Ellen’s mother found out that she had breast cancer. She ended up having a mastectomy and had to do physical therapy and rehabilitation. Betty tried to hide her cancer from Ellen but she needed Ellen’s help to recover. This is when Ellen and her mother became close. During this time of recovery, the salesman molested Ellen. She didn’t want to get her mother upset so she didn’t mention it to her, while she was recovering. When her stepfather tried to molester again, she ran away to a friend’s house. Ellen left Atlanta, Texas and move back to Louisiana with her father after she graduated high school. Once Ellen moved to Louisiana, she enrolled into the University of New Orleans, to major in Communications. Ellen soon found out that college wasn’t for her and dropped out after one semester. Ellen started to search for a career since college didn’t go as planned. During this time of finding a career, Ellen was also finding herself. She was holding another secret about her sexuality from family and friends. She was starting to feel confused about her sexuality. This could have been a result of the nuture factor. Her homosexuality could have been triggered from her stepfather molesting her. Nurture refers to the childhood and how an individual grew up (MacKinnon, 1962). She liked boys in the beginning; she had some boyfriends in the past, but she was never really attracted to men. Once Ellen figured out what sexual orientation that she was, she started dating women but still haven’t broke the news to her family. She decided to tell her mom one day while they were walking along the beach. She started to cry, not because she was afraid, but because she was now free of this secret that she was holding. Her mom embraced her and accepted Ellen’s fate. During this time that Ellen came out about her sexuality, it was forbidden doing those times. In the 1950s consensual gay sex was a felony. The gay communities were trying to fight for rights in the 1960s but were still getting tortured and shunned. Betty started to be afraid for Ellen. Being homosexual was considered to be a mental health disorder by the psychiatric community. The National Gay Task Force Foundation was founded in 1973, in New York, and worked to change the American Psychiatric Association’s grouping of homosexuality as a mental heath problem. Ellen’s brother accepted the news well, but Ellen’s father did take it very well. He later kicked Ellen out of the house, thinking that she would influence her stepsiblings. He later helped her get an apartment and admitted that he regretted what he did to her. Ellen acquired many jobs; she sold clothes, was a bartender, washed cars, shucked oysters, and wrapped gifts. Just like she knew that college wasn’t for her, these jobs weren’t satisfying her neither, she was hungry to do something more. She now knew that she wanted to make people laugh for the rest of her life. She began performing at a few small venues in New Orleans. Her routines were different than other comedians of her time such as, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Richard Pryor. The difference between them and her was he bits didn’t have vulgarity and sexual references. Ellen joked about her everyday life and experiences. She did this to relate to her audiences. Ellen started to take off in her career. She started competing in comedy competition where she placed first in the â€Å"Funniest Person in America† competition. She later went to open for a few acts in Las Vegas where the producer from â€Å"The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson† was there and asked her to come on the show. Once she performed on the Tonight Show, this put her career in overdrive and she became a superstar. She became the first female comedic to seat on the big couch on the Tonight Show. She ended up coming back on six more times in two years. She later got a minor role on Open House in 1989. It was a spin-off of the fox show Duet. She then went and filmed her first HBO special Young Comedian Reunion, in 1986. Two years later she appeared in HBO’s Women of the Night. She got a small role in the movie The Coneheads, and got her own sitcom on ABC called These Friends of Mine. Ellen revealed her true sexual preference in Time magazine April 1997 issue. In this issue she talked about her life as a gay woman and hiding who she was in the comedian community. She made her character on her television show Ellen also comes out of the closet. This caused some controversy for the Christian religion organizations. She made her first appearance publicly with her sexuality at the White House Correspondents Dinner with actress Anne Heche on her arm. In 1998 Ellen honored at the 9th Annual GLAAD Media Awards with the Stephen F. Kolzak Award. Ellen now was fighting for her lesbian life on and off the television. Her mother started to become an advocate to her daughter’s lifestyle. Betty started volunteering at the Human Rights Campaign. Her mother became the first nongay national spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign. She was helping to encourage and assist gay people in coming out and living honestly. Her mother also became an active member of Parents, Family, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). In 2003 Ellen started her own daytime television talk show called The Ellen Degeneres Show. People were afraid that Ellen would just bring up gay themes through out the show and didn’t want it to go on air. Once people got over the fact that Ellen was gay, her show started to skyrocket on television ratings. It was the television show that Ellen had always wanted. She could make people laugh and every loved her. In season two the show won five daytime Emmys. In 2005 Ellen won a Grammy for having the best comedy album for the audio portion of her book. She also won some awards at the People’s Choice Awards. While her show was getting good ratings, she met her current wife, Portia de Rossi. She met Portia at a photo shoot in 2004. Ellen and Portia quickly fell in love. They both ended their current relationships and started dating in 2005. They went on to get married in 2008 after California passed the Same-Sex Marriage Act. With all of Ellen’s life decisions, it had to do with her social and emotional development. She was always able to make transitions from one activity to another. Her ability to start a new when it came to her many careers before she found the right one was an example of her social/emotional development (Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2000). She showed cooperation with others when she was getting ridiculed for her coming out, but she stayed humbled and didn’t let it get to her (Webb, 1994).