The movie I chose to write my sociology paper on is Center Stage. This recent teenage drama had a target audience drawn to us, the typical teenager. The main focus was a group of highly talented young dancers trying to break into the extremely competitive world of ballet by attending the prestigious American Ballet Academy. I found one of the subplots that focused on the character Maureen Cummings to yield many points that I could expand on for this paper. As we begin in the movie, we are introduced to the character Maureen Cummings, who we can truly say is a Prima Dona. She has been at the American Ballet Company since the age of nine, which is most of her life. Everyone there also knows her as being one of its best students, while also possessing a negative attitude to those around her. In other words, she’s a major bitch. As the movie progresses though we begin to see why Maureen is so driven with her ballet career and where her attitude comes from. We soon realize that it’s not her desire to be who she is or where she is, it’s actually her mothers. The problem for Maureen is that she has been living her life like this for so long she has never figured out what she wants. It’s only after she meets someone and begins dating them does she realize how much she has missed out on “normal” things and how much she hates the life she is leading. For this paper I will take you through the steps that Maureen went though from a sociological point of view. Maureen’s character starts off in the beginning of Center Stage with an air of superiority towards everyone else. This attitude of hers stems from the fact that she is one of the very best in the academy and she knows it. It appears to her, the other students and even the audience watching the film, which her only goal is to be the very best and win the coveted spot in the American Ballet Company. This single goal propels her motivation in circles only allowing her to focus on her life and career as a ballet dancer. Motivation is defined as the set of factors that initiate and direct behavior, usually toward a goal (Narine pg. 422). It is Maureen’s bitchy attitude that is the component of her character that she is mostly known for. Although she is perceived as being one of the most exceptional of all the students at the academy it is her temperament that isolates her from others. This attitude also makes the audience realize that although Maureen may be good at what she does, she lacks the love for what she is doing. Attitude is the positive or negative evaluation or belief held about something which in turn may affect one’s behavior. Attitudes are usually broken down into cognitive, affective, and behavioral components (Narine pg. 509). As with Maureen’s character we can see how her negative attitude affects her behavior and can be categorized as having both behavioral and affective components. Further into the movie as Maureen’s character begins to develop and deepen we see the sort of relationship she has with her mother. The audience learns that Mrs. Cummings always had a dream to become a world renowned ballet dancer but she wasn’t good enough to make it. The audience can clearly come to the conclusion that Mrs. Cummings pushed her dreams onto her daughter and forced her at a young age to pursue them. Since Maureen has been trying to become a dancer all of her life she doesn’t fully understand that its not what she wants and that it’s actually been her mother persistence and control that has placed her where she is. The self-fulfilling prophecy act is a condition in which our expectations about the actions of another person actually lead that person to behave in the expected way (Narine pg. 504). It’s quite obvious that Mrs. Cummings desires and expectations to see her daughter succeed at what she always wanted but could never achieve have lead Maureen to do exactly what Mrs. Cummings has wanted all along. Mrs. Cummings tight control over Maureen has led her to lead a very sheltered and focused life for only one goal, to become a dancer. Mrs. Cummings is concerned with every aspect of Maureen’s life especial those factors that could cause her to fall short of her desired so called dream. All of Maureen’s life she has followed her mothers orders to do well. These orders to do well over time have warped her sense of motivation to the point of confusion over what she really wants to do with her life. Obedience can be defined as the form of compliance that occurs when people respond to the orders of an authoritative figure. As children we look up to our parents and we want to please them in every way that we can especially by obedience to what they want. Sometimes these desires to please our parents, along with parents yearning to see their child do well can sometimes alter a child’s true reasons for their motivation. I feel that originally Mrs. Cummings only wanted the best for her daughter, but also wanted to see her succeed at something she always yearned for. This factor combined with Maureen’s desire to please her mother caused her to have such a strong obedience to something she really didn’t want to follow or do. It was also Maureen’s obedience to her mother’s wishes that made her conform to the ideas, values, and attitudes associated with being a student at A.B.A. This went on so long for Maureen that she didn’t know how unhealthy these ideas were for her. She was blindly following dreams and trying to force herself to lead a life that wasn’t making her happy in any way. Conformity is the tendency to comply or go ahead with wishes of a group, when people conform their opinions, feelings, and behaviors generally start to move to the group norm (Narine pg. 520). This conformity towards the standards of the A.B.A. and her mother kept her on a dangerous tight rope. It was only after meeting John and having her eyes opened by him about how ludicrous a life that she was leading did she realize that she didn’t want to conform to the standards everyone had setup for her. As we’ve realized Mrs. Cummings is very controlling of Maureen because of her hopes for her daughter. She feels that Maureen will only achieve this dream if she is in control of her. Many parents have difficulties letting go of their children. It is not easy for parents to let go of child, to allow growing sons or daughters to think, feel, and choose for themselves (Jersild pg. 268-279). By being in control of Maureen, Mrs. Cummings hasn’t let Maureen think or feel for herself. It was only by meeting John did Maureen start to think for herself. By thinking for herself she realized that she was missing out on many things that she wanted to experience. She also realized that it had always been her mother’s dream for her to be a ballet dancer and not her own. Maureen’s character becomes human and caring as she meets and becomes involved with John a premed student at Columbia University. As John works his way into her life they become close and start to fall in love. It is this love for each other that opens Maureen’s eyes to all that she has missed out on in her life. This love for John is something that she needs and wants to have with in her life. Ballet on the other hand has been most of her life but even though she is good at she does not love it. Love can be defined as a distinct presence in feelings that you know you could spend the rest of your life with that person with out any doubts (Narine pg. 534) The longer she is with John the more she realizes she can’t live without him but she can live with out ballet. Everything dawns upon her as the movie nears to conclusion as she realizes many things. She gives the lead in a major ballet performance that was sure to make her star of the American Ballet Company. It is only when she does this that Maureen confesses to her mother that ballet has never been her dream and it has only been Mrs. Cummings. Maureen also confesses that she has been miserable for years and she has missed on so many things that she can no longer live with giving up. Perhaps if Mrs. Cummings had given Maureen the space to decide things on her own she would have realized much sooner the things she wanted in her life. "Relationships--of all kinds--are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto some of it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost." (Kaleel Jamison) In the beginning of this movie we were introduced to a character that seemed cold and uncaring. But as the movie progressed we saw why Maureen was the way she was. We also had the opportunity to see her break free from the restraints of her mother’s tight grip and grow into a character we could care about as an audience. I feel that this choice of movie and character was a good example of the things that each of us faces growing up today with the pressures of society and our parents.

Works Cited

Jersild, Arthur T. (1957) The Psychology of Adolescence. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Meredith (1998). Quotes, Quotes, and More Quotes. Love Quote Kaleel Jamison

Geocities. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9761/quolove.html
Narine, James S. (2000) Psychology: The Adaptive Mind. New York: Wadsworth