Belonging Speech Essay

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Belonging to a group can be though as the process of being part of a group or community where there is a mutual respect between each member in the group. That being said, it is fair to say that we all desire to belong to a group. But the process of belonging to a group is not an easy task to undertake. Often we fall short of being accepted by others. So why is this? One way to answer this question is that larger groups often exclude us because of our own personal characteristics- it maybe that we don’t belong to a group because we do not act, speak or even look in a way that allows us to be accepted. Thus because of this it is our own characteristics that determines whether we belong to a group or not. Using the film Edward Scissor hands and Kevin Rudd’s apology speech I will discuss the idea of belonging to a group. In a practical sense it maybe possible to change the way we look and act to belong to a group; but as demonstrated in the film Edward Scissor hand, our characteristics can both enrich and limit our ability to belong. The film follows the protagonsit Edward, whose unique characteristic of having scissors for hands, both enriches and limits his ability to find belonging. As a consequence of having scissors for hands, Edward finds that his ability to belong is limited as others see him as a destructive outcast, illustrated when the antagonist Jim harasses him,“You can't touch anything without destroying it! Who the hell do you think you are hanging around here, huh? Get the hell outta here! Go you freak!” Here, the negative emotive language demonstrates the aggression of the community towards Edward, because of his scissor hands. In terms of belonging, this demonstrates that our physical characteristics can be the cause of our alienation from groups. Ironically, it is also Edward’s own scissor hands that enable him to belong to the community; through
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