The Karate Kid

         The Karate Kid is an all time American classic. Not the new Karate Kid I’m talking about the old version with the real Mr. Miyagi. It was filmed in 1984 and the setting takes place in California. With the opening credits we can tell that a mom and son are moving from somewhere on the east coast to California. The journey to the new place was fueled by a new job opportunity. Here we are introduced to the main character, Daniel, who is a kind teenage boy. The interesting thing about this movie is that all the characters look young because in our recent culture twenty year olds play most high school kids. In this new city Daniel immediately meets a friend and is invited to a beach party. There he meets the love interest which brings us to our first cultural pattern; the cultural interactions of love between two people. Throughout the story we see them begin with a shy interest in each other.  Here we see there first awkward meeting.

(Boy meet girl beach scene)

Daniel seems to get along well in this new environment until the main conflict of the story arises when his new love interest, Hayley’s ex-boyfriend, Jonny, shows up to the party. The ex begins to make a scene and ends with throwing Daniel around after he tried to help Hayley. This is where the second cultural pattern comes into play: male dominance. Male dominance can be seen in many cultures but in America especially men are brought up to be strong and resilient. At this point in the story Daniel gets his butt handed to him and has his ego definitely shot. To add insult to injury, and to further explain male dominance, his new friends that were there before the incident call him weak and leave him because he is not what our culture has deemed ‘manly.’

(Boy Gets Butt Kicked Scene)

Because he needs to redeem himself and be able to defend his new love, he starts looking into karate lessons. He finally finds a dojo that can teach him only to find the ex-boyfriend bully is one of the top students.

          During this time Daniel becomes friends with the maintenance man Mr. Miyagi who he spends most of his time with. Mr. Miyagi is from Okinawa and speaks only some English. Despite this they become good friends. At one point in the movie the bullies are beating up Daniel again and Mr. Miyagi saves him by karate chopping all five of the boys beating him. After finding out that Mr. Miyagi knows karate Daniel is thrilled and convinces Mr. Miyagi to teach him. This brings us to our third and final cultural pattern. The acknowledgement and appreciation of another culture. When Mr. Miyagi begins to teach Daniel karate he does so in unorthodox ways. Or unorthodox to Daniel. Mr. Miyagi teaches him the same way he was taught by his father. By making him do chores. He begins with painting of the fence. This motion had to be completed up and down with small movements of the wrist. Daniel works on a series of chores, one best known for is the wax on wax off of Mr. Miyagi’s wooden deck. What Daniel doesn’t realize this whole time is that he is not only doing work for Mr. Miyagi he is actually practicing technique. All of the chores were actually karate moves embedded in his movements. The fence painting and waxing were blocking techniques. After hours of doing the same motion the blocks are cake to Daniel and he realizes that the hard work has finally paid off. Here we see when he is finally grateful for Mr. Miyagi’s unusual way of teaching.

 (Wax on Wax Off Scene)

As for the end of the film I suggest you watch it to find out any other cultural patterns, (and just because its an awesome classic that everyone should see!)

            The interpretive perspective approach to cultural communication is described as the ethnography of communication. It is an approach that says that human experience and communication is subjective and cannot be predicted. (Martin & Nakayama, 2012). Approaching culture from the interpretive perspective allows people to understand a cultural pattern in depth and from different perspectives of the parties at hand. One thing this perspective fails to address is quantitative evaluations of cultural interactions. Instead it goes by qualitative relations.

References:

Avildsen, J. G. (Director). (1984). The karate kid [Motion picture]. United States.

Karate kid (a cobra kai style whooping) [Video file]. (2005, August 22). Retrieved from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XEhUjRWdNE

Karate kid "Daniel Larusso plays soccer" [Video file]. (2009, September 23). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc5h1Yp6N-U

Martin, J.N. & Nakayme, T.K. (2012) Intercultural Communication in Contexts (6th ed.) Boston, MA: McGraw Hill

Show me sand the floor scene from karate kid [Video file]. (2008, September 2). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4dkuYro4t8