Belonging

You cannot belong to anyone else, until you belong to yourself. That was a famous quote by Pearl Bailey. To belong it isn’t crucial to change your character. Good morning and welcome here today to the 2008 forum on belonging. Today I’ll explain to you what composers have shown us about how belonging changes characters through 3 texts, strictly ballroom directed by Baz Luhrman. Looking for Alibrandi by Marlene machetta and the ugly duckling composed by Hans Christian Andersen. Strictly ballroom is about a ballroom dancer called Scott Hastings. He comes from a family with a history of ball room dancing, but then Scott gets tired of dancing the steps and decides to enrich the dancing federation with his own steps. Scott’s consequences for dancing his own steps led to losing his partner Liz, after he dances he’s steps he asks Liz “Do you like my steps'” this shows he knows himself but is waiting for acceptance from others. Scott in this movie is portrayed as an elitist and arrogant person, we can tell this when a girl out of the blue called Fran asks him to dance with her, but he laughs back at her. Characters in this movie are divided into Cliché’s which are fake example his mum when she says “I’m keeping my happy face on” and authentic example Fran when she quotes “to live with fear is a life half lived”. Fran knocks Scott to his senses with the quote “to live with fear is a life half lived” what she meant with this quote always take challenges don’t live in someone else’s shadow be brave! A major contributor to Scott’s change in character is Frans family, towards the end you start to gain the sense that Scott is becoming authentic because of the influence Fran and her family have had on him. A song played in this movie is by Cindy Lauper time after time on the scene where there dancing on the roof. She quotes “if your lost you can look and you will find me” this song is played in that scene to show us Scott was lost until Fran came into he’s life, then that’s when he started to find out who he really is. Throughout this movie Frans character becomes more comfortable and Scott becomes more realistic and wakes up to himself and he changes most of the main characters with him this is shown in the last scene when they all take the dance floor and find out who they really are. He also helped his dad from being shy and alienated to being loved again by one of the most clichéd people in the movie his mother this is witnessed in the last scene where they dance together. As I stated earlier “you cannot belong to anyone else until you belong to yourself”. This is evident with Scott and Fran. He didn’t love her at first until he found out who he really is that’s when he started to love her. Similarly in Looking for Alibrandi Marelena Marchetta represents the concept of how belonging can change characters from the connections made with people, places, groups, communities and the larger world. Josephine is identified as an Italian and sees her Italian heritage a barrier to acceptance, this is evident when she calls national tomato day, national wog day. One of the clearest ways in which Josephine develops as a character is when she gradually becomes comfortable with being Italian and Australia at once. You can’t hate what your part of is a quote stated in the book which means you can’t overturn what your part of you have to accept it, it’s what builds your character and identity, but in a scene she wishes she can break it when she says “ me' I’d like to be a rebel Italian”. She also mentions she wants to be part of the “in crowd” she doesn’t want to stand out all she does want is to blend. This is the opposite of Scott where all he wants is attention. Also similar to Scott mum is Josie’s father where he doesn’t want to belong to his daughter when he states “I don’t want anything to do with her” but as the novel progresses they start to accept each other and belong. Throughout the novel you can see how Josie starts to accept herself and think twice of what she’s a part as I stated earlier, to belong it isn’t crucial to change your character. Similarly in the Ugly Duckling, a story about a duckling that is born and raised amongst a group of other ducklings. Its physical appearance alienated it from the rest. Its aim was to belong exactly like Josie’s aim. Even though he was with non acceptance and his physical appearance being the barrier to acceptance, this affected him mentally but he never backed down! Other ducks bagged him bullied him attacked him made him feel not accepted in all different ways! But no matter what happened his mother always stood up for him which created a sense of acceptance. His mother said “let him alone” which means he does not have to change to belong. One day the ugly duckling turned into a beautiful swan at this point the sense of belonging to the community came in. This links with Looking for Alibrandi because she didn’t start belonging till the end same with Scott and in all 3 texts the protagonists all finally accepted themselves and started to belong to their character and identity, because they realised it’s what makes them themselves. Without hesitation all 3 texts portray the message that belonging can change your character in order to belong, but in some cases it’s not essential to change your character to belong, because all you might have to do is accept yourself for who you are. When it comes to identity and character stand hard like a rock always accept yourself before you even think of others accepting you.