Film Analysis: Finding Nemo

Film Analysis: Finding Nemo

A clownfish living in the Great Barrier Reef off northeastern Australia has been captured and ends up in a dentist's aquarium. This clownfish named Nemo is counting on his dad to rescue him, although if the rebellious clownfish would have just listened in the first place, all of this trouble could have been avoided. The troubles in Finding Nemo could have easily been avoided if the concept of the five steps of listening would have been applied.

The concept of the five listening steps we learned in class included selecting, attending, understanding, remembering, and responding. Listening is a process, it doesn't just involve hearing. The first step of listening is selecting, deciding what to pay attention to. The second step is attending, basically getting ready to hear someone out, while adjusting your listening goals to the situation as well. The third step is understanding, involving paraphrasing what the speaker is saying in order to understand. As well as asking questions to make sure you do understand. The fourth step is remembering, recalling information. Finally, the last step is responding. Responding can be giving feedback or asking any question causing you to recall information.

Applying the concept of the five steps of listening on this film was fairly entertaining, beginning with Coral, Nemo's mom. As she tries to save her eggs from the evil barracuda, Coral chose to be very selective in her listening. She saw the barracuda in a short distance, and all she could think about was saving her eggs forgetting about her own safety. Marlin tells Coral to get back into the anemone, but she completely blocks him out of her hearing. Coral's selective hearing finishes with barracuda eating her and all except for one of her eggs. That one egg ends up being Nemo. This situation makes Marlin, Nemo's dad become a very paranoid clownfish. Marlin can't seem to forget the tragedy that occurred that night to his wife, all he ever does is recall the information in his head. As well as when he acknowledges that Nemo has a right small fin due to an injury from the barracuda that night, Marlin becomes an excessive overprotective father of Nemo. On Nemo's first day of school Marlin ends up embarrassing him on the school field trip, so Nemo chooses to be selective and disobeys his father. He is swimming away from the reef towards a boat, while Marlin is responding to him by giving him feedback that he can't swim. When a scuba diver appears behind Nemo, everyone is letting him know to swim away. Nemo is trying to paraphrase what they are saying to understand but it becomes too late and is unable to swim fast enough, so the scuba diver captures him. Marlin then bumps into Dory another fish. As he swims depressed, Dory decides to swim along with him and play the role of attending, since Marlin needs someone to hear him out.

The characters