Rationalization In The Movie Office Space

The movie Forrest Gump tells the story of one man’s extraordinary life as he also participates in many of the key historical points of the latter half of the 20th century. The theme of rationalization is seen throughout this movie, because it has become such a big part of the American culture. Forrest stands out from the world around him, so he doesn’t usually conform to the pattern of rationalization himself, but he experiences it none the less.

In conclusion, the movie, Office Space showed attributes of several different theories, several of which being Strain Theory, Dysfunction of Bureaucracy, and the formation of primary groups. These attributes to the movie allow individuals to be able to see several characteristics that sociology aims to study to be able to interpret different types of social groups and how they

He contended that they were characterized by social conflict and he additionally presented the “thought of the working class which he saw as comprising of those occupations bunches with capabilities and aptitudes that furnished them with business points of interest. In Weber's perspective, advanced society, particularly the Western world, is developing progressively think. As the reader will see, Weber viewed organization as a definitive case of justification. Consequently, Weber can be seen as being centrally concerned with the rationalization of society all in all and, all the more particularly, its

According to Max Weber, the economic and technological relationships that organized and most importantly grew out of the capitalistic production became fundamental forces in the society. This means that one has to adapt to the society that he/she was born into in regards to the division of labor, and the hierarchical social structure. When analyzed, this theory shows that it is difficult for one to envision a life that is alternative to what they were born into.

Forrest Gump is one of the greatest movies of all time. It brings together many of the most relevant themes and controversial subjects in modern society. Including some of the most difficult subjects such as; discrimination, racism, war, hardcore drug use, mental trauma, as well as a disease epidemic.

Weber argued that modern societies are characterized increasingly by a process of rationalization meaning that the world is increasingly governed by rationality in which tradition and affective forms of action are replaced by predominantly rational forms. This leads to disenchantment being seen as secularization, including the progressive disposal of non-rational elements from all spheres of life.  Weber feared that this process of rationalization would drive out the warmth and humanity of social life, the very things that give meaning to human existence.

In his 1916 silent-film Intolerance, D.W. Griffith pioneered editing techniques that helped establish montage as a core component of film language. Griffith set out to unite four disparate storylines under the common theme of love’s eternal battle with intolerance. While Griffith believed this film achieved its goal, some of his contemporaries argued that Intolerance was a “magnificent failure” (Eisenstein, 241). Indeed, Eisenstein proposed that the unification Griffith sought to create was impossible because the juxtaposition of these stories did not create new meaning. Instead, Eisenstein wrote that the lack of conflict between shots prevented the synthesis of a higher meaning, or montage trope. While it is true that Intolerance generally does not accomplish montage trope, especially when referencing Walt Whitman’s Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, where Griffith explicitly attempts it, there are examples of its implementation. Griffith does manage to achieve this higher meaning in the scene depicting a labor strike. Eisenstein’s claim that Griffith never incorporates montage tropes into his films is false as demonstrated by the social criticism in the juxtaposition of the striking mill workers and Mr. Jenkins.

The 1957 movie version of 12 Angry Men, brings twelve people together with different personalities and experiences to discuss the fate of a young boy that allegedly killed his father. At the very beginning, many agree that the boy is guilty except for one man. Juror #8 votes not guilty and pushes to have the evidence talked through. After reviewing all the evidence carefully, the tables turned from guilty to not guilty. Each juror brought different experiences and personalities to the jury room. The two that were forceful with their opinions and their reasonings to decide either way we're jurors #8 and #3.

Max Weber used the bureaucracy to represent how the society changes over time whereas Ritzer sees fast food restaurants as a better way to describe how societies change and become more of a contemporary thought pattern. Ritzer understands McDonaldization as a process in which it is slowly taking over the world, he says it can be summarised by just one small quote “the principle of fast food restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of the American society as well as the rest of the world” (Ritzer 2008). He states that the past, present and future of McDonalization has appeared from the iron cage to fast food restaurants which shows that rationalisation is still developing, the iron cage is a way to describe it in the past and McDonaldization helps to describe it in today’s society, rationalisation will continue to progress until other contemporary sociologist find different ways to define it. Although McDonaldization offers many advantages as it gives customers quick food at low prices it also has disadvantages just like the bureaucracy they both suffer from irrationality, like fast food restaurants a bureaucracy can be a ‘dehumanising’ place to work and be served by. Many things are developed by technical devises rather than the human hand (Wynyard 1998)

Oscar Schindler, throughout the movie, went to an important change of attitude. At the beginning of the movie, he is just like the other Nazi German officials and acts with no pity and consideration with Jews. However, at the end of the movie, his attitude is completely changed. Many factors have help him to live this drastic change of attitude. For my part, I believe that cognitive dissonance had an important role to play in this change.

Its hero, played by Tom Hanks, is a thoroughly decent man with an IQ of 75, who manages between the 1950s and the 1980s to become involved in every major event in American history. And he survives them all with only honesty and kindness as his shields.

While he highlights a lot of positives, he also saw a lot of issues within bureaucracy. Webers’ bureaucracy is a bottom line model that values calculable decision making over all else. Within this model are the people, or parts, that can be replaced if they cause a decrease in productivity. The issue becomes that the rationalized view of bureaucratic systems is unable to see individuals and respond to individual needs. There is a format and if someone does not fit in, or if they begin to fall behind, there is no understanding or support. His argument is that the bureaucratization of our world has made it depersonalized.

“Office Space” is a comedy movie of a man who desperately hates his job and his boss. The movie begins with Peter Gibbon’s daily life story at Initech. At work, Peter has to deal with his indifferent boss, Bill Lumbergh, who doesn’t want to listen to his employee’s feedbacks. Lumbergh seems to be an ignorant and arrogant man who dictates his employee and doesn’t want to be blamed at all. Moreover, Lumbergh asks his employee to come to work on weekend. The atmosphere in the office is getting more intense after Lumbergh announced that Initech is bringing in consultants to increase the efficiency of the company. Peter was very frustrated with everything in the office and he felt that his life even more miserable with each passing day at work.

From the case study in the seminar introduces, one part of classical management theories is bureaucracy. It shows the system of rules and it is formal because every procedure and practice need to be followed. The bureaucratic organisations have the hierarchy of authority (structure) and they treat the employee in impersonal. Moreover, the fixed boundary which means the full-time tasks and every employee has the official duty. These three aspects illustrate that bureaucratic organisations are associated to the instrumental rationality. They are doing the things right (Knights&Willmott,2007). Besides Knights and Willmott had talked about this, Grey (2013) also said that bureaucracies are rational in one particular sense of the word that is the formal or instrumental rationality and this idea is means adopted to achieve the most efficient purpose that they minimise wastage and maximise production. As one important unit in Apple products is parts assembly, not in Silicon Valley but in Shenzhen, China. According to Chakrabortty (2013), this Foxconn plant has a huge number of student labour to make products. One worker performed one or two small tasks over and over again while standing for hours on end in a huge line turning out Apple products. They cannot have breaks whenever they are behind on the production targets. Obviously, workers and the organisation do not share the same goal, under Chinese law work-placements have to be directly related to a pupil

John Freud’s main behavior he distributes is his strong defense mechanism. The one John Coffey demonstrates the defense mechanism of regression. Regression is one shows results of being able to cope in an adaptive way. When John is put into prison these behaviors of being scared of the dark became worse. Another defense mechanism that is seen is rationalization and it is displayed by Paul. Rationalization is when someone’s feelings are being bale to be justified. Paul shows rationalization when he finally justifies the killing of an innocent man because he has been convicted guilty in a court of law and they gave him a chance to leave and he didn’t. Even though Paul knows the real truth about whether John is guilty or not he looks at all the case evidence to help him believe he should go down the green mile.