Week 8: The Sixth Sense

The sixth sense is a 1999 drama/ mystery movie. It is about a young boy, Cole, who had an added sense to see ghosts with unresolved problems. He then is helped by a child psychologist, Dr. Malcolm who was actually a ghost. I have always appreciated movies that have good plot twists. In my opinion, movies with good plot twists resemble my life as there are always unexpected things happening to me. When it was revealed at the end of this movie that Malcolm was actually a ghost, I could feel his confusion and disbelief. Immediately, I knew I would recommend my friends to watch this movie too. This movie portrays a lot of intense emotions such as confusion, guilt, and extreme sadness. However, in my opinion, fear was the central emotion the director tried to showcase in this movie.

The sixth sense is a movie that showcases how fear plays an important role in life. It shows how fear could change and shape a person’s behavior. In my opinion, fear is an underrated emotion. Some people are unaware of the impending effect fear could have on a person. For example, in this movie, because of fear, Cole became a frightened child that had no friends and did not trust people. However, at the end of the movie, when he managed to deal with his fear with the help of Malcolm, he transformed into a confident and cheerful child. This reminded me of my own experience in dealing with my own fear.

Since I was a child, I have always been afraid of losing people that I love. To be specific, even the thought of losing them gave me anxiety. It was tough since people said it was all in my mind and I was the only person who could control my mind. I remember I would try my best to not ever fall in love, or be in a relationship just because I knew most relationships would come to an end. Hence, as a teenager, I would still avoid my best to not create a possibility of losing someone I love (of course, it was a failed attempt because I did so when I met my first love). Due to that, I was always cautious around boys. I would build a thick wall and interact less with boys which later affect my attitudes towards them such as being mean and unfriendly.

Furthermore, unlike happiness, fear is not a common emotion people talk or discuss when socializing. This may be due to the fact that fear is a highly personalized emotion; people like to keep it as their secret and only chose to talk about it to certain people that they trust. For example, in this movie, Cole only opened up to Malcolm after he felt that he is trustworthy. Instead of viewing fear as a negative emotion, this movie showed how sharing about our fear to a trusted person could be an intimate process that could result in the feeling of relief and build a stronger bond between two people. It could be seen it is when Cole finally shared his secret was when Malcolm finally makes progress in helping him. 

In one of the past relationships, I have always hidden things from my ex-boyfriends. Although I would always assure us to share and trust each other, I myself had issues with trusting people. Therefore, I kept my fear of losing people to myself. As a result of that, my anxiety and overthinking behavior took over and disrupted my past relationships. Intense emotions such as fear and sadness although is unfavorable, could actually be a coming point between two people to connect and bond with each other. This is because fear causes pain and shared pain brings people together (Bastian, 2014). Not only that, it allows people to understand and trust each other more which also is the fundamental of a relationship. Thus, with my current boyfriend, I finally was able to share with him my fear. Although I was afraid of being judged, just like Cole was in the movie, my boyfriend was actually understanding and became my support. Due to that, I felt a sense of relief and I am in a better and healthier relationship as compared to my past relationships.

The concept of accepting our so-called negative emotions as an important and needed emotion for social bonding also reminded me of the movie Inside Out as shown in this scene attached below:

Similar to the sixth sense movie and my personal example, intense emotions such as sadness and fear could bring people together and not only help to overcome the issue but create a stronger and better version of oneself. Both this movie was great in showcasing how the so-called negative emotions as a positive and important emotion that humans need to embrace to experience life to its fullest potential.  All in all, I think the director did a great job in making this movie.

References:
1. Essence, M., 2016. Inside out - Joy is sad scene. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVPTbSkHa9s
2. Brastina, B., 2014. Shared pain brings people together. Journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Retrieved from https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/shared-pain-brings-people-together.html