Film Trope

 Hello everybody! Today, I will be discussing the film trope of my movie opener. Our film opener contains one of the most well-known film tropes of all time, the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). However, my group decided to alter or twist the trope a bit. In other words, we subvert it a bit to tell a story about how grief can isolate and destroy, rather than always unite and heal. 

Typically, this trope of the five stages of grief shows someone's journey towards acceptance after a loss. It is usually a direct and linear storyline to a resolution of them accepting the loss. However, my group's subversion of this trope involves parallelizing the stages. In other words, each of the three main characters is permanently stuck in a different stage, and that stuckness is what destroys the friendship. 

Raina, also known as me, is the 'denial.' Her entire personality and character has become a frantic performance of normalcy. She refuses to accept that her world has changed and that Jahzara is no longer with her. 

Emijola is depression. She has been consumed by sadness and is slowy fading in a way that seems invisible. The grief is too overwhelming for her and all she can feel is sadness.

Ngoc is bargining. She is exhausting herself by trying to mediate and hold onto the past. She is trying to keep the friendship together with the rest of the friends, but it's almost like an impossible dream. 

The main subversion of this trope that we follow is that these stages don't lead to the one after the other, and certainly it does not lead to acceptance. Instead, it becomes in a way "pillars." These different pillars and perspectives in the friend group causes it to collapse. Raina's denial only fuels Emi's depression. Ngoc's attempt to fix the situation is ignored by both. Thus, in our movie opener, the five stages of grief is not a path through overcoming grief, rather it is three separate barriers that keep the friends from connecting. The death of Jahzara is not the only conflict, it is also that her death has made the survivors emotionally unstable. 

Although there is no direct address of anger, it is implied thorugh all of the characters. For Raina, her denial is so strong and performative that it can be interpreted as suppressed anger. She is angry at the situation and her own sadness. For Emijola, her depression is so bad to the point it has somewhat turned into anger as a way of self-blame. For Ngoc, her attempts to mediate the group but the fact that it is not working is causing her to be frustrated and angry that she cannot fix things. 

Our film inspiration for this subversion comes from a movie and a show, Inside Out and WanadaVision. 

Inside Out inspired our concept of giving each character a stage of grief/emotional state. Just as Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust are literal characters controlling a mind, Raina, Emijola, and Ngoc have become the representations of denial, depression, and bargaining. In Inside Out, the movie shows how emotions need to work together for a person to be healthy and stab;e. In contrast, our opener shows the opposite. It shows how when one emotional state takes total control of a person, it cuts them off from other. 

WandaVision inspired our take on grief as something that can reshape reality. In the show, Wanda's true love, Vision, dies. This takes an immense emotional toll on her and causes her to develop trauma. Her grief and powers combine in a moment of pain, and she unconsciously creates a whole new fictional reality around her. In this fake world, Vision is alive and they are happily married. Wanda isn't just feeling denial, but she is magically enforcing it on the entire town of the fictional world. Similarly, the characters in our movie opener is doing the same thing, just without the powers. After the death of Jahzara, each girl's grief unconsciously builds a new reality for themselves. Raina has build the reality that everything is fine, Emijola has built the world where there is no joy and only sadness, and Ngoc has build the "hero" world as she tries to fix everything even though in reality she cannot.