Family Man: Cake Wars

This scene was quite entertaining, but it also illustrated our society’s gender roles. In the U.S., females are typically described as emotional, concerned, social, insecure, etc. In contrast, males are usually described as aggressive, independent, controlling, dominant, and not emotional, and so on. In this scene, the husband was out with his friends, independent of his wife, while she was at home. While this may very well have been her choice, this scene shows that the husband was out in the world on his own, while the wife was at home. Also, the wife asks how bowling was, illustrating her social and sensitive characteristics. Now, even though this scene was humorous and necessarily meant to be taken seriously, stereotypical gender roles (especially male) still played a part. The husband demands the cake from the wife because he has been longing for it all night. The wife, however, refuses to give him the cake, actually breaking from her gender role. But, if you consider the playful nature in which this scene plays out, she is actually carrying on with her role of being the social one in the relationship by engaging the husband in this game. The husband further exerts his dominance by becoming physically aggressive and chasing the wife through the kitchen and up the stairs, where he pins her down in a submissive position. Then, when they start becoming more intimate, the wife becomes more emotional and insecure, while the husband acts in a less emotional way, which is seen in her reaction to his come-on.

It is apparent that gender roles are acted out in this scene, but where do they come from? One persuasive explanation for gender roles is the social role theory, claiming that gender differences arose because of traditional roles of men and women in society that were reinforced through time. Forgive my exaggerations, but men were conditioned over time to be aggressive, emotionless money-makers while women were conditioned to be caring, nurturing, meal-cooking, stay-at-home mothers and wives. This theory suggests that gender roles are learned and behaviors shaped. Interestingly, these gender roles are found in many societies around the world, not just the United States. This fact is evidence for another explanation of gender roles, the evolutionary psychology theory, which claims that gender roles arose because of evolutionary demands on men and women (men hunted, women reproduced). However, globalization would also explain similar gender roles in many societies, since globalization, in a smaller form, has been around since the time of Marco Polo. Regardless of how they formed, however, these gender roles are usually adhered to, just as they are in this scene.

In class, we covered most of the psychological concepts that I noticed in the movie, but after class I thought of how the scene relates to work-life balance, a term from Industrial-Organizational psychology. Work-life balance is the extent to which one's work demands may conflict with the person's non-work activities. For example, a workaholic lacks work-life balance - their emphasis on work leads to an underemphasis on other aspects of life, such as family and leisure activities.

This scene shows that both characters have work-life balance. The husband just got home from bowling with his friends, and the wife is at home relaxing and reading the paper. When the husband gets home, he and his wife have a playful fight over a piece of cake. This shows that neither of their jobs are interfering with their personal and social lives. They both still have time to relax and do what they enjoy to do. Also, there does not seem to be any tension between the two as a result of their jobs.

I know that this may seem like an obvious observation, but I think that today, more and more people lack work-life balance. It seems like there is more emphasis placed on establishing a career nowdays, and as a result, many people are getting overly engulfed in their work. Many people now bring work home after a full day at the office. As a result, they have much less time to spend time with their families and do things they enjoy. This can lead to conflicting relationships between spouses as well as unhappy children. This scence, however, shows a healthy couple with a balance between their work lives and their leisure activities.

This scene was a good example of gender roles in American society. I agree with Kayla’s post in that the husband and wife in the scene were both playing out very traditional male and female roles. This scene was unique though, I believe, in that it showed the romantic and fun side of a married couple. I read something in a magazine last week about how most romantic or sexual scenes are between people who are not married, and just dating, or having extramarital affairs. The article was talking about how this tends to give marriage a bad rap, suggesting that marriage is boring and lame.

An article I was reading for tomorrow was about the new trend to study “happiness science.” The study I read was particularly focused on marital happiness, and was comparing marriage happiness found in the U.S. to Japan. The researchers believed that different factors would have a role in marital happiness in different cultures. The article started talking about the different theories about what brings happiness in marriages in the United States. There seems to be conflicting ideas on what brings happiness, however, particularly in the arena of jobs. For example, one theory tried to determine whether spouses should specialize in their own areas of expertise, to increase happiness. Or perhaps the husband and wife should both be equal breadwinners, and this will increase happiness. Obviously, I don’t know what the couple in the scene do or don’t do for jobs, but they seemed relatively happy, until the end of the scene. One determinant that the study did find though, was that children tend to negatively affect marital happiness, particularly young children, who demand more of the parents’ attention. (More information can be found in the article at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WX8-4S563PJ-1&_user=724663&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000040479&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=724663&md5=ab711934240d89a63d6cc7e823a80442).

Finally, I have to make another comment on the use of the chocolate cake in this scene. As we were discussing it in class, I remembered watching the movie Hitch this weekend. What stuck out to me, was that in the scene where Hitch’s girlfriend had found out that he was the “date doctor” and she came up to have dinner with him, and they started fighting. In this scene, they were not throwing chocolate cake on each other, they were throwing raw vegetables and salad. I thought that was really interesting, and wondered if there was a link between chocolate cake bring happiness and enjoyment in both relationships and taste, while perhaps vegetables bring more of an anger and disgust.

I thought this scene was a good example of how context means everything. We touched on this briefly in class, but it really is true. Having not seen this movie before, I had no idea what was going on. When Nicholas Cage walked in, all sorts of different scenarios were running through my head about what could happen. His wife (I presume?) didn’t seem overly pleased to see him, and I had no idea what stage their relationship was. When Cage asked her for the cake, it seemed she was happy to eat it before he could, and she flat out taunted him with it. At this point in the scene, the tension was high, and I was preparing for the worst. I’m sure it was because we’d been talking about violence throughout the class, but I thought for sure she was gonna get beat down. To me, the uneducated observer, all of the clues were there to simulate that Cage was getting mad. He’d just come home from bowling and it didn’t go well, then when he wants his cake she denies him, and on top of it all she rubs his face in it. When he raised his hand to his mouth, I thought he was buying time to think it all over, and when they began the chase through the house, I figured she was in big trouble. This, however, was obviously not the case and the scene turned out a lot differently than I expected due to the context.

Another example of context in this scene was when they were on the stairs. After they played around with the cake for a while, they began kissing and it appeared everything had finally settled down from the playfulness exhibited before. Everything seemed fine until the woman asked Cage to “tell her what she likes to hear,” and he obviously didn’t get it right. This immediately changed everything, and the scene took a sharp turn. Whatever frame of mind Cage was in was not compatible with his wife’s, and that meant disaster. Had her mind been in a different place and the context was different, what he said might have been acceptable and desirable to her. However, since that was something she didn’t want to hear at that particular time, it became a major turnoff and we see the scene take a dive. So, context really does mean everything in our world, and there usually are no “hard and fast” rules that govern how to act in certain instances. These rules and procedures can guide us to the right behavior, but it truly is the context of the situation that deems how appropriate an action is.

This scene of The Family Man reminded me of a show I saw on the Discovery Channel, entitled, "The Science of Attraction". Though the whole episode is not online, some clips from it are (website below). In one clip they talk about two chemicals involved in sexual attraction: testosterone and dopamine. Testosterone is present in BOTH males and females, but just at lower levels in females. They describe testosterone as the "lust hormone” that plays an important role in sexual desire. Dopamine, as we have mentioned before is thought of as the pleasure neurotransmitter and is involved in the reward pathway in the brain. This reward pathway is evolutionarily important in making us repeat behaviors that are vital to survival (reproduction!). When the dopamine levels in our brain rise, we experience pleasure. We then store information in the brain that such an event was pleasurable, and this causes us to repeat the behavior. In the Science of Attraction show, it describes dopamine as the chemical that keeps us coming back for more, and this makes sense with the reward pathway.

One interesting part of this show that relates to the scene in The Family Man, is how other events affect the levels of dopamine. Thrilling and exciting events can cause increases in the levels of dopamine. If we associate this feeling of pleasure with sexual behavior, a “non-romantic” situation may cause us to be sexually aroused. This seemed to play a role in the scene of the movie, because at the beginning the couple appears to be fighting. They then begin to briefly chase each other around the house. Perhaps this chasing game caused a mild increase in dopamine levels, which could then cause their sexual desire to increase. At first, it seems like an unlikely moment to feel sexual attraction. However, with this information it seems that this behavior may have increased their sexual desire at the moment.

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/science-of-sex-appeal/
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/reward/

This scene displayed many gender stereotypes that we all are familiar with. The most interesting one to me was the part on the stairs when she switched from goofy to romantic and serious and he was not in the same place. This is a stereotype that is very familiar to our culture. I think it may be due to each gender's ability to read nonverbal expressions. My book talks about a study by Judith Hall that concluded women are generally better than men at reading nonverbal cues. This ability also contributes to a woman's greater capacity for expressing emotions outwardly and responding correctly to other's emotions. When they start kissing, they are both still being a little goofy. However, she clearly was looking for him to say something a little more romantic than "You make me hot." The weren't on the same goofy page, she had crossed over to a more serious, romantic thought process. When she switched, he was unable to detect that switch, or if he did, he didn't respond correctly in her opinion. I'm just guessing here- but it seems like in that situation when she decided to be more serious, she probably started kissing him differently etc... So he either didn't notice her nonverbals, or he did and responded with what he thought was an appropriate response-probably basing that off of his own emotions more than his wife's. So she gets upset, and leaves. I am sure this is a common occurrence in relationships probably caused by this difference in sensitivity to non verbal communication.

I was amazed by the number of people in class who thought Nicholas Cage was going to beat his wife to get the piece of cake. I have seen the movie but couldn't exactly remember what happened and also thought for a quick instance that he was going to use force to get it. Our conversation prior to the movie skewed our perceptions of the clip, especially the first time we viewed it. When the clip started, we saw a possible fight emerging and we expected it to happen. This expectation not only comes from our previous conversation, but most other clips in class were, for the most part, serious so we were bracing ourselves for the worse, expecting something from our previous experiences. These expectations form a perceptual set which usually come in handy during movies. They help us fill in words or ideas when our sensations aren't picking up enough information. For example, in the beginning of the clip our perceptual set told us that this man walking into the room was familiar to the woman. Right away we don't know if they are married or not, but we know that they know each other.

Here is another example:
PARIS
IN THE
THE SPRING

See anything wrong? At first most people read it "Paris in the spring" but after a second look we see "Paris in the the spring." Our expectations cause our perception to be skewed.

Here's one more that was in my book. It is a picture of the 9-11 attack on the WTC and the face that people saw in the smoke. Most people believe it is a picture of Satan or Osama bin Laden. Of course, this is just like an optical illusion where our expectations are skewing our perceptions...but it's kind of creepy too.

http://www.wptz.com/news/962839/detail.html

When we first discussed the scene, a few people mentioned "well, he came in the front door..." and I got to thinking about the spatial reasoning that we use and the assumptions that we make about the scenes we see in movies.

First consider - if Nicholas Cage drove, wouldn't it also make sense for him to come in the back door, or the side door, depending on if he has a driveway or a garage or parks in the street? It falls into that same concept of our schemas, and I bet the moment any of us begin to think about the different parking options, we each have a different picture in our minds based on our own past experiences. Anyway, we watch a movie and we make assumptions about it, that's where I'm going with this.

We also have a spatial reasoning already sort of in action when the chasing scene first starts, because we see her get up and run one way, and then through a door where Nicholas Cage is already waiting. BUT none of us went "Oh, my GOSH where did he COME from?!" because we weren't surprised. Though we didn't necessarily map out the blueprints in our heads, we saw the doors in the room and made our assumptions about what it meant for the house layout.

The interesting thing here is that it appears to be an actual house in this case, we see a few different rooms and how they fit together during the chasing. In so many cases, when we watch TV or movies, it's not an actual house, it's a constructed room, or set of rooms, or street somewhere inside a studio. And they turn off the lights when it's night, and they amp up the lights when it's day. But for us, when we watch it, we only need the one room and some kind of allusion to the fact that other rooms exist, and we can construct the house in our heads even though it doesn't exist.

I just think it's kind of amazing that we can be sitting in one room watching something happen in another room and still get a handle on the size of the room, and what might be/probably is in the room adjacent.

I have seen most of this movie before and always really enjoyed this scene. The first thing that I notice is how the wife greets Nicholas Cage when he gets home from bowling. It isn’t an excited, physical greeting (running to him, kissing him), but is a courteous, friendly, and moderately interested greeting. As the viewer, you can tell that this is a long-term relationship that is well-developed. Her questions seem to indicate an interest in him, but she appears to be more focused on the cake and whatever else she is doing.

Next, I noticed the tension in the scene. At first, the viewer is not really sure if Nicholas Cage is going to become angry at his wife for withholding the cake or just let it go. Then, the director implements an element of surprise and the couple begins to engage in an element of merely “play fighting” with one another and not taking the situation seriously. When they end up sharing the cake on the stairs, all I could think about was how uncomfortable she had to have been and how messy sharing the cake was! For some reason, the amount of chocolate on his shirt and face really grossed me out.

Since I have seen the movie before, I could tell that the wife was connecting the current situation to their wedding day and probably thinking back to another time when she had shared cake with her husband. In an attempt to put him in the same mood, she breathlessly tells him to tell her what she likes to hear. His comment is not at all what she intended to hear and is completely inappropriate to the situation. It shocks her, surprises the audience, and acts as a complete turn-off to his wife! The fact that one inappropriate comment could change both her mood and the mood of the audience so drastically really contributes to the psychology behind the scene and shows what an impact one comment can have on an individual’s mood, feelings, and behavior.

I'm going to build off of another's post of the use of space. When you think of a room you think of a place that is rectangular or square in shape and has four walls. While watching a movie the technical side isn't what you're really thinking about, but the rooms in reality in the movie really only have 3 sides unless a technique where a camera is going through some sort of peephole is used.
Going off of the camera in the peephole, I came across an illusion that did stick a camera through a peephole to peer into a room and take two photographs. There are two girls, one on each side of the room, one appears very tiny and the other appears to be giant, but yet both are the same distance from the camera. Then, the girls switch places and another photograph is taken with the girls in the opposite positions from before. The one that was previously tiny is now the giant, and the one that appeared to be very large before is now the tiny one. Why does this work? It's because we presume the room to be a normal square room, when in reality it is designed in a trapezoidal shape, throwing off what we really see. Whichever girl appears to be a giant is in the smallest and narrowest part of the room. Our previous schema as a room in a square or rectangle shape does not work.
Molly, I too posted on another post previously about our tendency to see what we expect, except I used the example of:

Mary had a
a little lamb

Same concept, different example. We trick our brain into seeing what we are expecting to see, which is "Mary had a little lamb," not "Mary had a a little lamb."

Going off of Adriann's post, I wanted to add a little more about the effects of hormones on the body. The dopamine the body releases acts like a drug on the body. It gives you a high similar to what other drugs such as cocaine or meth gives. It is the addiction to this "drug" which creates love or at least lust for someone. This is a physical effect your body creates though the release of dopamine. When someone losses a lover or is away from them for a significant amount of time, they don't get the levels of dopamine that they are used to. The feelings of missing them or of being heartbroken is more than in the mind. It is also physically felt in the form of withdrawal much as a drug addict would feel if they weren't able to get their fix.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3236328.stm
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web3/npietras.html#4

One thing I thought was interesting about this scene is how certain actions can have different meanings depending on the relationship between the poeple involved. This scene started out with a tone that I any many others thought might lead to an argument or fight. This may well have happened if the relationship between these characters had been different, but because of this relationship actions which could be seen as leading to an argument is instead a form of play. They were flirting with each other. Not knowing what their relationship was like though, we couldn't tell that until later in the scene.

Since I am one of the last people to respond, I am somewhat nervous about having anything at all left to say about this scene. I watched "Cake Wars" as a scene focused around flirtation and chocolate cake (obviously). I had always heard the claim that "chocolate is an aphrodisiac" but I wanted to know if it was actually true. The New York Times had an article in the health section a couple of years ago that addressed my inquiry. Chocolate contains two chemicals that may aid in arousal. Tryptophan is a building block of seratonin, a brain chemical involved in sexual arousal...[and] phenylethalamine is a stimulant related to amphetamine, which is realsed in the brain when people fall in love (NYT 2006). Sounds as though we're on the right track! However, most researchers have come to the conclusion that the amount of these chemicals in chocolate is not enough to produce any overwhelming effect. So while the chocolate cake most likely was not the reason for the characters' shift toward sexual attraction in the scene, it still added to it, mainly because most of us have heard the rumor that chocolate is an aphrodisiac. My own misconception helped to complete the scene, and the use to chocolate cake specifically was strategic. I think specific things about chocolate in comparison with vanilla and think the scene would have been much different had it been a square piece of leftover vanilla birthday cake.

I also wanted to look into the science behind flirtation and turned to an article in Psychology Today. It focused more on flirtation as a means to gain initial attention and signal attraction, but had some good stuff nonetheless. It was pretty clear in the scene that when the wife decided to run, she meant for him to chase after her. Some of the typical actions of flirting for women include: exposing and extending her neck, drawing attention to her mouth, arching her brows to make her eyes look wide, etc. Those for men involve body arching, laughing loudly, swaggering, etc. Researchers suggest that many of the "gestures represent primal behaviors driving by the old parts of our brain's evolutionary memory," as they are similar to those of some animals. "From nature's standpoint, the goal of life is the survival of our DNA. Sex is the way most animals gain the flexibility to healthfully sort and mix their genes. Getting sex, in turn, is wholly dependent on attracting attention and being attracted" (Psychology Today 1999). Flirting is the way to go about accomplishing this. These two are obviously already together and do not need to initially attract the other person, but the sexual life between two people does go through cycles of intensity and these two may have needed to use flirtation tactics in order to "re-attract" each other and possibly have sex. It was working too--chocolate cake smeared all over each other and him in a position on top of her, but then he had to go and screw it up by saying the wrong thing...I've never seen the movie, but I'm guessing he didn't get lucky that night?