The movie I'm gonna talk about this week was released slightly less than a year ago in theatres but it's just been showed this week on HBO Asia for the past couple of days and I thought it pretty much has got quite a lot to do with what we covered in comms lecture this week..about group interaction and communication..
Without further ado, i present to you the trailer of : Gridiron Gang!
Here's the synopsis from IMDB.com:
"The movie is based on a true story of a juvenile detention camp probation officer Sean Porter (Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson), who is frustrated by the 75% recidivism rate of the teenage felons that he is responsible for at Camp Kilpatrick. Sean Porter, a former college football star, comes up with an idea to form a football team. Porter believes that football will teach the teenage inmates what it takes to be responsible, teammates, and be winners for the first time, not losers. Porter and probation officer, Malcolm Moore (Xzibit) become the coaches, and they only have 4 weeks to get a team together before their first game. The juveniles must give up their gang rivalries on the gridiron to unite as a team."
- Douglas Young
What better way to look at group interaction than from a movie that's all about delinquents coming together, having to work as a unit, from a group of initially separate and hostile indivuals that eventually turn out to become interdependent on each other on the football field.
Even though these delinquents were from rival gangs and had difficulties at first working together, in the end they managed to form a shared and collective identity as the "Gridiron Gang".
If you're a sucker for sports and team-related movies, Gridiron Gang will not disappoint in inspiring you as you will be able to witness the transformation of these delinquents from low self-esteem and angsty individuals to an inspired cohesive unit and the story of how one man managed to turn a bunch of misfits to a team of full of confidence and ambition.
I'm fortunate enough to have obtained a copy of the dvd and watched it again. I've noticed that 4 of Tuckman's Five-Stage Model of group development is present in the movie namely forming, storming, norming and performing.
Forming Stage
This scene shows Forming Stage where the delinquents get together for the first time, and the head coach, Porter, identifies for them their nature of their task and their relationship to each other in the squad.
Storming Stage
This scene typifies the Storming Stage when 2 members in the team experienced conflict, being from different rival gangs.
Norming Stage
The Norming Stage is the stage when members, after settling initial disagreements, find ways to work with one another and this scene is a great example of that. In this scene, the whole team, even those two who earlier showed strong dislike for each other, for the first time in the movie agreed on something and decided to take action as a group; even though it was against coach Porter's orders.
Performing Stage
Finally, in the movie we have a scene that nicely depicts the Performing Stage. In this poignant scene very late in the movie, we see the team bonding together and being absolutely focused on their task at hand. After the rousing pep talk and team encouragement, the team of delinquents went on to get their work and tasks done on the field, to win their match despite being behind during the half time break.
Whilst the movie may be more about team dynamics, it also touches on some other comms concepts of prejudiced perceptions (of juvenile delinquents) as well as interpersonal communication (the interaction between the coach and individual team members and how he helped them realise their potential).
So, if you have cable or just feel like watching some sports related movie..give "Gridiron Gang" a go..you might like it. =)
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