Whale Rider 2002

Do you believe in destiny?

I believe that everyone has something planned for them, this is known as 'destiny'. In the movie, Paikea is a determined girl who struggles to fulfill her destiny in which her grandfather, Koro denies. Paikea is a Maori; Maori has a strong culture, such as greeting with the touch of nose and forehead, yet also includes strong gender stereotype culture as the practice masculine preference in Maori tribe. It is portrayed in the movie that girls and women should not perform the sacred moves and could not be the chief of Maori. However, the males who were given opportunity to lead in the movie does not seem to be interested in becoming the chief. The only one who feels and understand Koro's idea the most is Paikea, but she was not given the chance.

Due to the fact that Paikea is a girl, Koro has a love-hate relationship towards her. In social psychology, this love-hate relationship is also known as dual attitude. Dual attitudes are explained as dissimilar interpretation of a subject with the same characteristic: it as an implicit attitude versus an explicit attitude (Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). In layman term, it is observed that on one hand A loves B, but on the other hand A do not. More often than not, parents are resentful towards their children despite loving them. This is because even though the children brought happiness to the family, the children are also the ones who caused the lost of freedom to the parents.

There are four types of dual attitudes: 1) repression, 2) independent systems, 3) motivated overriding, and 4) automatic overriding (Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000).

1) Repression is the type of dual attitude that results from holding it down, where an attitude is controlled to be out of consciousness because it is could cause anxiety.
2)  Independent system is another type of dual attitude where a person have an unconscious implicit attitude and an conscious explicit attitude towards a subject.
3) Motivated overriding is the next type of dual attitude in which people are totally conscious of their implicit attitude and take it as something that they do not want and are encouraged to replace it with a different attitude.
4) Automatic overriding is when the replace of attitude process is automatic.
(Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000)

Examples of dual attitudes from the movie:

1. The occurrence of dual attitudes is obvious in Koro because on one hand he hates her for being a female in the family in which she could not pass down the generation and culture line but on the other hand he loves Paikea as his granddaughter. This can be seen from the line "My grandfather wished I was never born, but he changed his mind". Paikea is so precious to Koro, but sometimes his resentment comes out (automatic overriding). It is portrayed in the movie that the way Koro shows his love to Paikea is by fetching her back from school everyday and by taking her on a bicycle ride.
   
2. Porourangi loves his father, Koro. He even feels the weight of his father's burden, but he needs to get away from the expectation and shadow of his father. Here is where his dual attitudes towards his father can be seen. He is using avoidance coping mechanism to get away from the situation. At the same time, he tries to help Maori tribe by showcasing to the world Maori's arts, crafts, and culture. Koro, on the other hand, does not see his effort and insulted Porourangi for being an artist by saying "This is not work, this is souvenirs".

In Dual Attitudes Model, it is predicted that an individual will first adopt an implicit attitude before explicit ones (Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). In this movie, Koro's implicit attitude towards Paikea is resentful as he thinks she is not capable and not worth as becoming the chief. Only later Koro has an explicit attitude towards Paikea since she is the light of the family and a good accompany/granddaughter to Koro. 

The movie ends with Koro's realization of Paikea having the quality of a chief when she could retrieve his whale tooth from the underwater and when she could move the whale back to the sea. Through this movie, we understand that pre-exisiting thoughts might not be necessarily true. When there is dual attitudes towards a subject, carefully evaluate the underlying reasons for such attitudes. This will not only help improve the situation, but could also positively impact on ourselves. 

References:
Wilson, T. D., Lindsey, S., & Schooler, T. Y. (2000). A model of dual attitudes. Psychological Review, 107(1), 101-126. doi: 10.1037//0033-295X.107.1.101