Analysis of Intercultural Film The movie that I watched was called "The Joy Luck Club."� It is about Chinese-born mothers and their American-born daughters. The daughters attempt to understand their mothers' tragic personal history, but also come to terms with their own ethnic and family identity. The stories, whether narrated by the Chinese-born mothers or their American-born daughters, perceptions of self are shaped by the cultural context surrounding them. The mothers and daughters try to understand each other's native culture. The mothers base their knowledge of American patterns of thought and behavior through experience of living in the United States, but the daughters have only fragmented, second-hand knowledge of China from their mothers' oral stories and from proverbs, traditions, and folktales.
There are value differences regarding self, society, and relationships. Self and identity definitely played a role in the movie. The mothers that were raised in China have a poor sense of who they are.
United States
The Joy Luck Club
United StatesThey were taught that they were only good for serving a man, and that they had no worth. There was also much pressure to bear sons for her husband. If this was not done, the woman was frowned upon. While being raised in America, the mothers wanted to instill that the daughters did have value and worth to their lives and deserved the best that life had to offer. This was not necessarily the case all the time. The daughters were instead made to feel as though they could not do anything right. The mothers still carried the ways of China with them and passed them on to the daughters inadvertently. The mothers have tried to sustain their identities across two cultures. There is difficulty of preserving their heritage and culture when they immigrate to a foreign country. While now living in America,