Following Tradition vs. Finding Your Own Way. MOANA with guest Ana Katia

so when i was watching this clip i was like i could do this i could do this like i can try this there's more beyond the reef all right welcome to cinema therapy i'm jonathan decker i'm alan c wright and this is anna katia i put a little too much emphasis on yeah too much i wanted to nail how to pronounce her name and i just really forced it over correctly and a katya there we go anaconda who is an advocate and author and an actress so anna we had you on today to talk about a movie that changed you which movie did you pick for us and why i picked moana moana really moana yes i love that girl i mean come on the hair amazing yeah i don't see it okay she has to go through a crazy journey just to like recognize what does she want you know like first it's just what do i want but for some reason something's calling to her and she has the answer to that so for me in my life doing the exact same thing as that i felt like moana i get you girl i know you get me like this is amazing i love that because i feel like there are a lot of people who go through life and not that there's anything wrong with this but they kind of accept the villager role right like they kind of do what they're supposed to and they live a great life and have a happy family and like that's all great that's that's wonderful and then there are people who have a calling right they feel the call of te fiti or the call of being a filmmaker which is a terrible idea don't do that be a villager you get a better job that way but a desire to do something but a desire to remove something great and bigger than yourself right absolutely well we're going to watch first where you are oh the song the song yes perfect the father of moana he's introducing moana to their traditions and just making it very clear what moana should be doing let's roll that clip you are the next great chief of our people it's starting with her family i love that this culture and family is huge moana already knows this she knows the people she knows what she's supposed to be doing yeah that's what makes it so hard to separate and to do your own thing is you love your family and if this tract is tied to your family then it feels like a potential betrayal of where you come from to follow your own heart right yes exactly this tradition is our mission and moana there's so much to do he's got that look on his face like oh she drew that oh gotta have the chicken can we weave up by alan tudyk [Music] it's these little things that make the tradition too if you look at it you know there's like the coconut the weaving baskets and everything um i don't know sometimes like we just we might think it's the big things but it's the little things that make tradition too yeah and it's hard to not pull away from that yeah that's what she's used to yeah you know she's waking up to this all the time and it's i mean it's it's cultural indoctrination which has a negative connotation for a lot of people but like all families raise their kids a certain way and teach them their values but from a baby she keeps she wants that ocean yes and who can blame her look at it it's gorgeous i know what's out there i want to know what's out there i frankly don't understand why we don't all just live in polynesia yeah it's better there probably because we would ruin it we would immediately ruin it so it's better it's better for them that we don't [Music] so she's wondering she's looking out there i want to point out here oh man her grandmother grandmother she has this energy she is the light of this town but yet she's a little pushed away because even her grandma is deciding something else but she's going to tell moana something special she's going to tell something about her something in there i love that you may hear a voice inside and if the voice starts to whisper to follow the father's star why not that voice inside is who you are well it's interesting because she's telling her go pursue your passion but she's also reinforcing you know the cultural indoctrination she's teaching her the traditional dances she's you know well and i see that as we can honor where we come from while still finding our own path ahead because where we come from is where we come from it'll always be part of us it'll always and how we forge ahead we carry it with us everywhere absolutely and it's beautiful a place of chiefs there will come a time when you will stand on this what he's telling her now to him is sacred you know he's sharing the most sacred thing with her i did like my father did and his father and it's really hard for parents sometimes to say what's sacred to me needs to be sacred to you right the choices i make so my father is an attorney my brother is an attorney my uncle is an attorney my cousins circus performers no they're attorneys oh man you threw me no all attorneys okay and i became a family therapist and when i was thinking of becoming a counselor right now studying psychology and my and my dad says have you considered law and i remember saying and i love my dad the same way you know this relationship is very similar uh and i'm like do you even know me it's not it's not in my heart to be an attorney and uh you know we all we all have to forge our own way but we can do it if the people who are supporting us are too rigid then in order to forge our own way like we either have to break free completely of them or we align ourselves with them because that's what happens with rigidity you go you fall in line or you break completely free and that destroys relationships i love the arc of this where ultimately she does her own thing and he says it suits you i think that's beautiful i feel like there's like this toss between i feel proud of you you're part of the family and also um you better do it right yeah don't disappoint us right this is this is like fiddler on the roof in a way tradition [Music] he wants moana to grow up and become the chief and stay in the village and be the chief the exact same way i was the chief this is a sacred place a place of chiefs there will come a time when you will stand on this peak and place a stone on this mountain and i think one of the reasons that he says it suits you is he realizes that she is a chief she's become a leader of her people but she's not a chief in a village she's a navigator she's sailing across the oceans with all of the people who are going with her and so it's it's a different version like he taught her to be this kind of thing and she took everything she could from that and became a different type of thing and he was he was big enough to realize oh this is good so here we're going to be diving into this clip that starts with the song how far it goes all right and the i want song right every disney princess has an i want song yeah you know including vanellope arguably the best i want song of all time so good all right let's roll it i've been staring at the edge of the water long as i can remember never really knowing why [Music] i wish standing at the edge is kind of like being on the fence right yeah i think we all have these decisions of things we want to do and then fear pulls us back other people pull us back but we keep coming back to it does she want to do this she's going up against it over and over just like the tides it's her tights do i want to go i know i need to go i can hear it i'm good i'm going to do this i'm going to try it i like that it's her tie it's like they keep pushing her back yeah [Music] how far does that go i mean you can see in here that there's a struggle what's gonna happen am i gonna get hurt can i accomplish it very real one that's the the sort of difficult thing about pursuing your dream ever right like if you if you're in a life that you know and understand like you're in a village and you know where the borders of the village and you're comfortable there and everything makes sense and it's easy and when you're looking at the unending ocean it's like where does it go i have no idea and what to the other villagers is happiness and peace and contentment to her is mediocrity and that's not saying one is true and one is wrong it's just different strokes for different folks right what is wrong with me but doing something different is hard and uncomfortable it is there's a there's a story that we tell ourselves sometimes we tell ourselves a good story and not a good story if you hear she just said what is wrong with me and it kind of pulls me back to say do we always have to say there's something wrong if we want something different yeah right it's okay to have something different or desire something different and it doesn't necessarily have to be wrong right well the belief that it's wrong is fed to us right exactly by tradition by oftentimes well-meaning people but my wife likes to say that we have our passions for a reason like the thing that you really care about that you keep coming back to it's it's your way of doing good in the world and making a difference [Music] i like when she's on top of the mountain and she looks at the ocean and she sees and she just smiles like i think that's how you know you found kind of like like what alan and i are doing every time i think about it i i like i just get really excited and happy you know and i don't know what it is about the merging of cinema and therapy but it's just such a delicious little cocktail for me that every time i think about i do what moana does and i just smile and i'm like okay well that's how i know yes yeah it's your calling man it's our calling bro when i hear the song moana is singing and i look at her and think wow like she's gonna do this like can i do that and what i've done actually even with being a speaker and author i hadn't done yet so when i was watching this clip i was like i could do this i could do this like i can try this so you watch moana and you're like why shouldn't i yeah i've got the hair you know yeah so one of the things that i love about this too is you know she sings the i want song and she gets on the boat and she's she's off right she's gonna win and she gets out to the reef and immediately just wipes out yeah and that's i don't know if that's happened to you for me my my ocean has been filmmaking i love telling stories in cinema and the number of times i've made it out to the reef and just been completely wiped out by waves is is all of them it's all of the times so like you know judging success is a hard thing right like how do you measure your success as a person like the thing that makes achievement worthwhile to me is is the struggle the thing that makes life worthwhile is the struggle like if everything was just easy it you know it wouldn't have any meaning if she gets out and just sails around beyond the reef and she's like that's fine out here yeah hey there's no movie i was gonna say what's the yeah and that's but that's also not how life works you don't try something and it's immediately you're great at it i think that's why the great stories resonate right is because we try we fail we adjust we grow in virtue we grow in strength we become different people and that's why character arcs are so essential for good storytelling is because when we watch films we're trying to vicariously experience something without having to go through the hardship ourselves because the fact is we've got plenty of hardship already and we can learn something that we can apply to our real lives yeah and i have to say watching this at the time before i had accomplished what i wanted to accomplish i feel like yes there's that temptation to be to say like okay she did it at least i'm watching it at least i hope for it that's good enough yeah but we know even watching films even being inspired by things it's not good enough right we need to go for it you know even if it's going to scare the living crap out of us but yeah we got to do it but failure is a is a label right like there's failure as it's a double adjective right but one is talking about a person one's talking about an experience or behavior right and failing we all fail you know it is impossible to succeed without failing that is that is where we learn that is where we grow and like you were talking alan there's no story if she gets over the reef and smooth sailing there's also no story if the reef pushes her back and she says well never mind right and so it is through our failures that we succeed it is through our failures that we try but it's through our failures that we find ourselves and that's my big takeaway from your story 14 days is the book available on anna's website which we are going to put down there in the linky linkies also in the linky linkies if you want if you want to buy or rent moana it's down there if you want to meet with me for a 15 minute consultation if you want jono to stop saying linky linky let us know on social media at therapy underscore cinema on twitter and instagram you can look up look us up on facebook as well anna do you have any social media you would like to share yes i would love if people can come and just visit adopted for change adopted for change is going to be able to explain kind of the gist of my story and everything um on facebook and katya at adopted for change that's four number four era for katya four and instagram anna katia adopted for change or you can go to adoptedforchange.com alright check those out check us out check her out check me out until next time befriend pigs keep those chickens safe from demigods and watch [Music] [Music] i've delivered movies to where we are i have journeyed i am everything i've learned

Channel: Cinema Therapy

Views: 488,127

Keywords: cinematherapy, cinema therapy, mental health, counseling, therapy, mental health therapy, Jonathan Decker, Alan Seawright, Moana, Disney Animation, Disney, tradition, therapist, therapist reacts

Id: lF44N1PtQhk

Length: 16min 19sec (979 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/-wifeone-]

My niece had this on repeat while at our house for Thanksgiving. I watched it so much I started making it my own little exmo story. I am an exxxxxmoooooo!

[u/Anxi0us_adventurer]

Weirdly, the feelings invoked while watching Moana for the first time were definitely a shelf item for me.