Ms.

Almy
Sociology T-R 0900
Oct. 18 2016
Movie Analysis
 Movie The Terminal reflects many aspects of sociology and provided many social

situations in a single Terminal of JFK airport in New York. At the terminal people from around

the world gathered in front of the Custom which is an aggregate (5) because not everyone has

connection outside this terminal but in this place, they are all travelers who want to get into

United States. After introducing the background comes the first important character Frank Dixon,

temporary director of the Custom, who was fishing over the crowd and noticed some Chinese

tourists wearing Disney shirt but had no camera. It is a type of cultural universals (2) that

tourists usually have cameras on them to take pictures for memories, with that in mind he called

up security to prepare for possible fake documents. Tourists was seen through and started to

overrun the custom, then, the main character, Viktor Navorski, who has an ascribed status (4)

Krakozhian as his nationality, was introduced. Since he does not speak English, it took some

time for him to realize that he is trapped in the Terminal due to a cultural lag (2) created by law

makers. Although the airplane traveling was not new technology anymore, the legal institutions

did not make a law concerning the circumstances that Victor ran into. Feeling lost and sad, Victor

accidentally lost his food voucher the custom officers gave him, and found himself in absolute

poverty (7) due to the fact that he had no income and had no means to feed himself, although he

had Krakozhian money but they are useless since U.S. not recognize Krakozhia as a formal

country due to its out breaking civil war.

Victor found gate 67, a boarding gate under construction which has a manifest function

(1) to serve as a passage for people to get on the plane but were never considered to be a place to

live in. Thinking that he is a threat to his management of the airport, the director Dixon gave

Victor a chance to walk out to New York so he can be caught and be deported. In a moment,

facial expression shows that in a moment, Victor wanted to rush out, but then he noticed the
camera spying on him, he had to go back and wait. This would be explained through strain

theory (6): Victor felt strain because his goal was to go to New York but there was no way that

him, a country-less man to legally step on the land of U.S. Victor knew that in order to survive

in the airport, he need to make money somehow. Upon an accident, Victor find out that luggage

carts returned to the shelf would return a quarter. He started to collect carts left alone in the

airport and return them to the shelf to make money. Making money was a latent function (1) of

the luggage carts, originally it is designed to reduce the chance losing luggage carts because

when people pay deposit, they tend to get it back even if it is 25cents but Victor discovered that

this can also be a way to earn money because people tend to leave carts anywhere they want to

trade 25 cents for convenience. No one ever thought they can make money this way so this

function stayed hidden until Victor found out. Material culture (2) was used in the movie to

show Victors living standard and how much he made. At first, Victor can only eat biscuits with

free mustard sauce, first time he made money, he went to Burger King and bought a regular

burger, it was very soon that he can afford a meal set. Not to mention free sauce provided in

restaurant, Burger king was a tangible creation of U.S. and this help the audience to easily

understand. This job helped him reach relative poverty(7) was soon ended due to director

Dixon set up a new place of Transportation liaison who would gather the carts. This period in the

movie Victor still cannot afford to do anything other than feeding himself and cannot afford a

decent meal with Amelia Warren, a flight attendant he accidentally know, so he was no longer

unable to feed himself but still poor. Then he started to help Enrique Cruz, food service, to

appeal to Dolores Torres, an immigration officer who Victor meet every day to try to get a visa.

And by a series of relationship building, he became friends with many service people in the

airport. After a series of failure trying to find jobs in the airport, he wondered into a construction
site and build up a decoration wall by himself in one day. This made him earned his achieved

status (4) as a construction worker and earn a $19/hour wage. He showed his impressive work to

contractors and through hard work he earned their appreciation so this job is achieved.

Amelia Warren was an important character who developed a feeling with Victor, in the

beginning Victor told her that he is a contractor live with suitcase. This is mostly an act of

impression management (4), he wanted to appeal to her so he wanted to show his most

favorable side by not mentioning his embarrassing situation. Their conversation is also a good

example for Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (2), Victor told Amelia that he lives here in the airport and

he meant it, but Amelia thought he was trying to be humorous and meant that he always fly

around so he often stays in airport. The phrase living in the airport is usually explained in the

way Amelia understand it but not for Victor because English is not his native language. Later

when their relationship grew closer, Amelia told Victor that she was in love with a man who has

family and she knows that this is taboo (2) but could not stop. Her self-concept (B) was a person

who always waits, flies to different places and cannot adopt to stable life, then this became her

lifestyle. She thought its time to end this life because of Victor but then learned the truth and

learned why Victor waited so long to go to New York legally so she decided to go back to her life

and helped Victor to get a pass from Washington.

By the time the war is over and Victor has his citizenship back, he asked Dixon to sign

his entry to New York but Dixon threaten him he would deport Gupta, janitor and friend of

Viktor hiding in America to avoid an arrest back in India and fire his other friends. This put him

in a role conflict (B): On one hand, he is a son who must finish his fathers will which require

him to enter New York, On the other hand he is a friend who does not want his friend to face a

miserable fate. He eventually chose to go home and give up New York. Then Gupta learned this
and committed a negative deviance (B): He entered the run way and use his mop to stop the

plane which was supposed to be Victors ride home. The norm was to stay away from run ways

and it is against law to enter the run way and stop the plane, so Gupta would be returning home

whether Victor go to New York or not. Encouraged by this, Victor finally went on to New York

to finish his fathers will.

This movie can be explained through many aspects but I think Symbolic Interactionism (1)

would be best because this movie is full of interactions between friends, enemies and even

strangers. The society in the terminal was built up by people interacting with each other. Victors

choice on many things influenced others, he made friends who would help him in any kinds of

difficulties and even created a couple.