Thursday, February 14, 2008
Groupthink in The Nightmare Before Christmas
In this clip from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween Town meeting is being held. In the scene, Jack Skellington is attempting to describe the wonders of Christmas to the citizens of Halloween Town. He begins by enthusiastically telling the townspeople about his journey to Christmas Town and the wonders that he saw there in an attempt to convince them to celebrate the holiday.
When looking at the townspeople of Halloween town, one sees a group that is very prone to groupthink. The group was highly homogenous, they each live the same town and each one of them lives to do two things, celebrate Halloween and scare people, they are also very cohesive because they are all friends and coworkers. The group is also susceptible to groupthink because of their lack of an impartial leader; Jack will say anything to get what he wants. The group also does not take any kind of vote; it is just assumed that their decision is unanimous.
The Groupthink that occurs in this scene starts to unfold shortly after Jacks speech begins. Despite the fact that the people of Halloween Town do not understand what Christmas is, they quickly pick up Jack’s enthusiasm about the holiday and begin to run with it. The group completely misunderstands what Christmas is and unintentionally warped its true nature into something frightening rather than jolly. In doing so, the group assumes that it is inherently moral. They feel that their changes will make the holiday better and more enjoyable. Also, the townspeople do not consider the fact that their actions are selfish and that they are planning to take over something that is not rightfully theirs. Also, the townspeople exhibit another stereotype of groupthink, they have an illusion of invulnerability; they feel that there will be no opposition to their take-over of Christmas and that everyone will enjoy the changes that they make to it.
Initially, Jack attempted to explain that the townspeople misunderstood the true nature of Christmas but eventually the group stopped listening to him in their excitement. In that manner, the group assumed an illusion of unanimity; they assumed that Jack still supported the idea. When that happened, Jack decided to self-censor himself and gives into what the group desired. Once the group had decided to celebrate their twisted version of Christmas, Jack decided that obtaining his goal of celebrating Christmas was more important than keeping the townspeople’s understanding of Christmas accurate. In doing so, he assumed the role of self-appointed mindguard. He chose to create a veil that would be appealing to the townspeople rather than telling them the truth which may change their opinion.
Overall, Jack’s behavior and the behavior of the group as a whole exhibited many of the symptoms of groupthink. If Jack had stuck up for what Christmas actually was and had not withheld information from the townspeople, groupthink might not have happened. Also, if the group had taken precautions against making irrational decisions such as creating a proper decision-making system groupthink could have been avoided as well.
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4 comments:
I partially disagree with the analysis because the groupthink does not start until about halfway through the speech. At the beginning, the group members are going against groupthink because they lack cohesiveness. The members begin to interrupt the leader’s speech by asking questions of doubt. If they were displaying symptoms of groupthink, they’d just go along with what is being said without trying to interject with their hesitancies. There are three distinct times when this happens before the members finally start to succumb to groupthink about halfway through the speech. At that point, the questions stop and the group begins to go along with whatever is being said, thus beginning their conformity with the leader.
It seems to me that in addition to homogeneity and cohesiveness, group insulation (ignorance of outside world) is another antecedent condition of groupthink. But without knowing the whole story, I can’t say if Jack is a partial leader or not. It seems to me that Jack didn’t intend to lead the group to make a wrong decision for his own interest.
Ryan has a careful eye and he perfectly played the devil's advocate. There ARE three times when members of the group interrupted Jack. But I think they still exemplify some symptoms of groupthink, as Mike indicated. Eventually, Jack self-censored himself. Groupthink symptoms may start to develop even when there is a dissenter, and eventually the dissenter will conform due to the pressure.
But I don’t think Jack assumed the role of self-appointed mindguard. He didn’t protect the group from adverse information (where did the adverse information come from anyway except from Jack himself?).
BTW, the animation is a novel choice, compared to many other illustrations.
I think groupthink is very evident in The Nightmare Before Christmas. The film's plot shows the many downfalls of groupthink. In the beginning of Jack's proposal there are a few whistleblowers, however they are quickly silenced and everyone comes to an agreement that results a very bad outcome.
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