Essay Example on Joe the King: 14-Year-Old Struggling in Abusive Family

The movie Joe the King, is a movie about a young boy in the 1999 named Joe Henry of 14 years old whose family and even his upbringing was crown with lots of problems and poverty, and this made Joe a young boy to spend a better part of his life in an abusive family, thus ruining even his later life. For example, Joe's father, who is also a janitor of Joe's school is a staunch alcoholic, who on a several occasion, will be found of abusing his family both emotionally and physically. He also has lots of debts to many people, including teachers of Joe at school. Money problem forces Joe at one time to seek for an illegal job of washing dishes and being paid, but still, it does not help his family problems. Joe's mother, Theresa, becomes too stressed up to take care of him, and she even fears of being involved in the bad behavior of Joe's father. Joe's elder brother is the only one who is sober, and who was in apposition of helping, but he decides not to; rescue him or even their family (O'Hara et al., 1999).

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I prefer to use psychological theory for this paper. Psychological theory helps to identify and understand human behavior, emotions, and thoughts. In trying to understand why a person might be behaving in a given way and the circumstances that might have led to those behaviors then, psychological theory become the best type of philosophy to rely on (Lundahl & Hull, 2015). Generally, various forms of psychological theories have stood the test of different practitioners and researchers and have been proven to be the surest theories that can be used to explain the human behavior and development, for example, the classical conditioning. However, some like Freud's theories have remained not to be approved, since they do not portray what human development and behavior is. There are several types or forms of psychological theories; for example; Behavioral Theories, this theory advocate for the fact that actions of human beings emerge as a result of the current situation or condition. Cognitive theories mainly deal with internal factors, like emotions, motivations, decision-making, paying attention, and even problem-solving. Social psychology theory helps to explain the social behavior of each. Personal theory, discuss the thoughts pattern and feelings that make a person different from others (Prooijen, 2018).

Psychological theory can be best applied in the movie of Joe the King. Joe is mentally stressed up, in a bid to try to sustain himself with pressure of being economically stable, Joe runs to the street and starts stealing from people, He runs to a restaurant and secure a job of cleaning dishes to earn extra coins for himself but the owner of the restaurant mistreats him and underpay him for his services (O'Hara et al., 1999). He uses most of the time in the restaurant report late to school; this makes teachers and fellow student's to laugh at him and mock him. The kind of friends he has is those who lead him astray, though his workmate Jorge is the only person who remains as a loyal and faithful friend to him and always stands by his side. Due to this mental and physical torture Joe fails in his classwork, without understanding, he is assigned a school guidance and counselor, who though a bit understanding, he was not committed enough to help Joe in his condition, an example is when Joe tries to present his problem to the counselor he unreasonably stops him from talking, before Joe could even finish his statement (O'Hara et al., 1999).

Joe's behavior is affected to the extent that he finds it hard to work in the restaurant without stealing from his employers. He steals food to take to his brother and eat some, and he continues to steal money he needed from his employers to settle the debts of his father and replace the records of his mother which were destroyed by his father after learning that, she was cheating on him with other men. All these problems emerge due to psychological torture, which ends up changing the normal behavior of Joe.

Joe's elder brother, mike's behavior, is being influenced by the kind of environment he was staying. He preferred violence more than peace, he even stages a fight with the fellow school mate, and he was not ready to surrender (O'Hara et al., 1999). Despite Joe trying to feed him, he still cut his relationship with Joe, because he felt like Joe was never there to support him. His peers mock Mike that his brother was dirty and never knew how to wear proper clothes; this caused mental torture to mike. He preferred to sleep in the closet to escape from the routine of fights and struggles of his family members. Due to depression, Joe's mother goes out and cheat on her husband, to try to bring in extra income to the family, and this leads her to smoke too much of cigarettes, and even forget about her role of nurturing her children as a mother (O'Hara et al., 1999).

Strengths of the psychological theory are as follows; it mostly uses strict scientific methods. Psychological theories have got some explanation about human behavior that is severally tested and approved to be true scientifically by all researchers. The approach has undergone through various practical applications, and this makes this theory very practical and essential to present human behavior and development (Prooijen, 2018). Through this theory, other parts of psychological studies methods like social learning theory, artificial intelligence, and social cognition. This proves that psychological theory has got great importance when it comes to teaching about human behavior and factors influencing people's ways of dealing with emotions and daily life troubles. For example from Joe the King movie, we find that there were lots of human emotional, social and psychological and also physical torture that various characters like, Joe, his brother Mike and the mother underwent, a proof that psychology theory does apply in this movie.

Psychology theories have various weaknesses. For example, it's straightforward, and it does not comprehensively present in full details why human do behave differently from each other and how to cope up with stress or daily challenges of life. This theory ignores the biological and complexity of human functions. It also assumes the emotions, conscious, and free will and experience of human beings (Tangirala, 2015). Bob's family were passing through lots of problems, but this does not mean that the problem was only from drinking and smoking cigarettes, but some underlying issues like poverty and lack of parental figure and commitment were also the cause of all problems and this changed the character's behavior. Psychology theories majorly deal with emotions and change of behavior caused due modifications made from the mental and psychological problems; this means that this theory does not take into account all issue in details (Tangirala, 2015).

Evaluation of the Cultural Competence of the Theory

Cultural competence refers to the way different, behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, and practices of people from different cultures are brought together in a standard system to enable the system to work effectively in across diverse cultural situation. It also refers to how people from different, religions, social status, ethnicity, and races merge, respect each other, and work together as one team in harmony despite their differences. Cross-cultural competence may mean that one is learning new ways of behaviors and appropriately applying them. Psychological theories try to relate, various human actions based on their, gender, religion, social status or class and ethnicity as they relate to different cultural and social practices in general (Tangirala, 2015). And from the movie, the family of Joe is presented as people of low class, they are poor, and they are into many debts that they have not entirely settled. Some students make fun of Joe just because of their situation; a proof that psychology theories have the essence of cultural competence (Tangirala, 2015).

Potential Application of the Theory of Human Behavior

Psychological theory can be applied in daily human behaviors and development because, this theory presents what can trigger the behavior of a person to change, example by the current circumstance, Joe's poverty way of life made him be a thief. Most of the time, a person will either be happy or sad, good or bad, but all these depends on what is going on somebody's mind or psychology. A person under depression and pain cannot behave the same way as the who is happy, and this explains why, not all times life will be enjoyable, every person must pass times of grief and times of happiness (Tangirala, 2015).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the video ends when Joe has been arrested, and is being taken to prison, his farther droves him off and gives him, a piece of advice that in the rest of his life he should not live regretful and wasteful life as his father, Bob. He then walks to the hall of the prison, while feeling sorry about himself, but one thing stands that the lesson learned is unforgettable and Joe shall forever remain with experience of life he learned the hard way.

References

Lundahl, B. W., & Hull, G. H., Jr. (2015). Applied human behavior in the social environment. Boston, MA: Pearson.

O'Hara, R., Macaulay, S., Dewis, J., Marx, L. (Producers), & Whaley, F. (Director). (1999). Joe the King [Motion picture]. United States: 49th Parallel, Forensic/291 Films, Lower East Side Films.

Prooijen, J.-W.. (2018). Psychology of conspiracy theories. Routledge.

Tangirala, A. K. (2015). Principles of system identification: Theory and practice; CRC Press.