Film Review - 500 Days of Summer

https://communicationtheories.wordpress.com/social-penetration-theory/self-disclosure-2/specifics/

http://voiceispower.blogspot.com/2012/03/social-penetration-theory.html

       Now a days,

   The ways of communication is vary depends on the people, and we interact each other through the unique communication each other. 500 days of summer, which is one of the famous movie, we can recognize some important communication theory. In this paper, I would like to write about  focus on the social penetration theory revealed in 500 days of summer. There are some essential aspect od this theory; depth and breadth of penetration, stage of the penetration theory, and verbal and non-verbal communication.

 First of all, depth and breadth of penetration is revealed in this movie. Firstly, the breadth of penetration is described by the Griffin (2009); “the range of areas in an individual’s life over which disclosure takes place.” In the case of relationship between tom and Summer, The Tom’s job, a fan of The Smith, and where he is from. In mean While, for Summer, her breadth are her job, a fan of The Smith, and where she is from, and “Anal girl”. As this story shows that at the first time they met, they talked small talks, and they did not talk about themselves deeply. However, in the second phase, depth of penetration, their relationship has changed a little bit. The author Griffin (2009) describes that “the degree of disclosure in a specific area of an individual’s life.” It means that it is the degree of the depth at which one person reveals his or her inner core include true emotions and feeling about someone or something, their honest behavior, deep dark secret in their mind. This depth of penetration theory also apply to the relationship Tom and Summer. First, they only share very limited information about themselves rather than private information. Second, there is recipical process. Griffin (2009) mentions that “Self-desclosure is reciprocal in the early stages of development…a paced and orderly process in which openness in one person leads to openness in the other.” As we can see the beginning of this movie, Tom and Summer interaction was based on disclosure of basic information. However, when Summer told that she was from Michigan, tom also started to disclose his personal information to Summer. Third, Goffman (2009) explained “Penetration is rapid at the start, but slows down quickly when more private inner layers are reached,” As this sentence shows that Tom and Summer disclose each other very rapidly, but gradually slows down as they started to reveal about themselves like summer’s former paramours and tom’s honest feeling toward his job. Finally, depenetraion happens in the end of movie. Author         mentions that “Depenetration is a gradual process of layer –by layer withdrawal.” We can adapt this theory into when tom and Summer started to drift apart. Summer recognized that Tom’s thoughts of “true love”, and she disclosed her intention as be Tom’s friend rather that paramour. Thus, as this whole process shows that Tom’s and Summer’s relationship displays the both breadth and depth penetration theory.