Essay Example on Comparing Protagonist Themes in 'Whale Rider', 'Farewell', & 'Moonlight'

This paper is going to compare the protagonist theme in three movies which are: the Whale Rider, The Farewell and Moonlight. A protagonist is the leading character in either a play, novel or movie, in other words the main character in a story setting. The main character is the person whom the audience gets firsthand experience from, he is the mover of the plot, he or she plays the main part of a story and is the center of attention throughout the setting. The protagonist theory is creating a chief character whom is followed closely by the audience and has an opposing antagonist. An antagonist in a story setting is the person who opposes the protagonist or the main character.

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The whale rider is a drama film entailing and German and New Zealand family that was written and directed by Niki Karo in 2002 (Caro). Pailkea is the protagonist of the film, she is a twelve year old Maori girl who has a dream to become a chef in the tribe she belongs but her grandfather thinks that it a male career.i9n this movie the themes are seen to be universal because apart from focusing of the culture of the Maori people, it goes ahead to highlight very crucial principles of communication. Other people who have high significant to the protagonist are seen to have great impacts on the self-esteem though there is the possibility of them creating and controlling their destiny.

The farewell film was written and directed by Lulu Wang in 2019 and it falls in the category of comedy-drama (Wang). Awkafina is the protagonist in the story setting, she is from an American Chinese family who after learning that their grandmother I sick and has a very short time to live decides not to tell her. The protagonist has a tight and close relationship with her grandmother who is still in china. She receives a rejection letter that comes from Guggenheim fellowship, and; later discovers through her parents that Nai Nai (her grandmother) had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

The Moonlight is classified as coming-of –age drama film that was written and directed in 2016 by Barry Jenkins (Jenkins). Chiron is the protagonist in the movie setting, he is a young boy who from getting guidance from a drug dealer by the name Juan follow his own direction in the same dealings. The advice that he received from Juan lives with him all along while growing up in Miami. Three stages of the life of the protagonist are depicted throughout the movie; from youth to adolescence and to adulthood.

Conclusion

The three films have a protagonist that are the center of attraction and have roles that are well followed throughout the storylines. In all the stories there is seen to be a force that is being the lives of the protagonists who have great impact on them. The stories starts with all the protagonists as young individuals who are trying to make a name, a career or a living hood for their selves far from the norm. All the movies have depicted different cultures of different people and their background and the difficulties that they pass through to break the status quo of the society norm. They are also all motion pictures meaning that their setting is a consecutive pictures of photographed objects in motion that are in a sequence, through a camera that is designed specifically for motion picture and projected on the screen through a rapid succession that creates n natural movement projection.

Works Cited

Jenkins, Barry Jenkins. "Moonlight (2016 Film)". En.Wikipedia.Org, 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_(2016_film).

Wang, Lulu. "The Farewell (2019 Film)". En.Wikipedia.Org, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farewell_(2019_film).

Caro, Niki. "Whale Rider". En.Wikipedia.Org, 2002, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_Rider.