Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) is an american dramatic film that tells
story about a man life called Benjamin Button, who has an abnormal development. His
physical development has developed reversely from the actual ways. In the movie, he born
with the adulthood-like skin, within the form of newborn. However, throughout the movie,
Benjamins cognitive, mental and emotional development are adapted in the common ways
like the others during his infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
In the beginning of his life, Benjamins infancy stage has show the basic strategies
due to the theories of newborn and basic cognitive development. Newborn development is the
stage that the child is going to explores the outside world. It shows the ability at birth, such as
to hear, to cry, to see or any kind of interaction to the surrounding. In addition, babys
capacity is the ability of the child that needs to survive. For example, the scene that
Benjamins father takes him to the nursing home. Benjamin is accidentally step by the man.
After that he cries out loud, which can demonstrate that he has acquired the development to
let other observe him. Also, the basic cognitive development shows when people come
During Benjamins childhood stage, he has mature his cognitive, physical and
language development. There are three stages of cognitive development which are schema,
assimilation, and Accommodation. To explain, schema is the first stage, which explains that a
child gets to know new experience. Next is the assimilation stage which is the second stage of
cognitive development, it is a stage that the child is applying that schema with new object.
The last stage is accommodation stage, which a child acknowledge that this schema cannot fit
the specific situation. This theory can show by the scene that his step mother blames on
Benjamin when he was banging spoon and fork while eating is an inappropriate etiquette. He
has experienced the situation that he can bang his things. Therefore, he tries to apply to the
other situation by banging a fork and spoon, which can demonstrate the stage of assimilation.
However, in the accommodation stage, his step mother blames on his inappropriate behavior.
that a child can do more muscle controls, such as tongue, lips, and vocal cords. Moreover, the
theory of Vygotskys proximal zone of development is the theory that the child needs
someone to teach him. This can bring him to the zone of proximal development, which it is
located between boredom and anxiety. These two theories can be seen in the film when his
step father teaches Benjamin to know how to pronounce correctly. It shows that his father is
the one who help him to bring up to that stage. Lastly, the gender role, which is the
behaviours that society considered whether it is appropriate or not. For instance, in the scene
that Benjamin wakes at the middle of the night because he wants to play with Daisy.
However, his caregiver finds them both, and his step mother begins to teach him about the
development. During the transition period, Piagets cognitive development in the stage of
final operational, which is the stage that he reasonably think about hypothetical terms and
future. This shows when he realises that when one of the member in his house is passed
away, another will replace their position. This might guide Benjamin to think about what will
happen in his future. Physical development is the adaptation that altered those body
movement for the entire body. This development is visualize in the scene that he does not
require his cane anymore. He can showered by himself and many other actions like the other
adults.Additionally, Levinsons theory of male development is the theory that can describe
males behaviors throughout their entire life. The season of early adult transition in which a
man is searching for independence. This theory is shown in the scene that Benjamin makes
his decision that he left the nursing house and begin his journey.
For Benjamins adulthood stage, he has developed his sexual development and social
learning theory. Social Learning theory are sum up with three main factors which are
environmental factors is likely to show up the most. He knows that people around him have
jobs to be responsible for. Consequently, the another theory that can be applied to this action
is Levinsons theory of male development in the stage of entrance to the adult world. He
begins to find some jobs to do. This makes him to know Captain Mike, one of his friends.
Later on, Captain Mike and Benjamin become closer since he worked in Captain Mikes
tugboat. This lead to the sexual development theory in such a scene that Benjamin and
Captain Mike went to prostitute because he tells Captain Mike that he have never sleep with
any woman before. This also be able to apply to the another theory, which is developmental
friendship. The theory of reexamine of his friend ideas. Because Captain Mike asks him to go
Lastly, Benjamins final stage, old age of Benjamin can be referred to the
Kulber-Rosss stages of dying. These stage can demonstrate the emotions and thinking
processes of a person. The first stage is the stage of denial. In the movie, Benjamin tries to
deny that the disease that he has will not cause him to die in the few decades. However, he
then realizes that it actually have a massive effect. After that is the acceptance stage, which is
the stage that a person tries to accept it and find a way to fix those problems. This stage is
shown in the movie when he seriously talks about this topic with daisy, and plan to left his
family.
To conclude, Benjamins stages can depict the development in variety categories
according to the psychological theories. Regardless, his life is affected by that disease.
Benjamin can survive until the end of his life with help from many people around him. In
contrast, he does have some conflicts in his life during each stage: infancy, childhood,
adolescence, adulthood, and old age. But, the great thing is his life still developed his
thinking processes, emotions and mentality in the same pattern with the others.