The film "dead poets society" talks about the time of 1959s, about the story of a class of boys within a luxurious school. Having a new teacher named Mr. Keating, he introduced the phrase of "carpe diem" to the boys, as with the phrase's meaning of "seize the day". He taught the boys to think in a more creative manner in which was not very popular with the school's style of teaching of that time. The story turns to a tragedy when a student called Neil Perry couldn't stand the pressure given by his parents and committed suicide and the teacher was fired. Basing on the movie, people debate on whether the story still resonates with the 21st century audience. I my point of view, I would say that this movie does not resonate with the 21st century audience due to the difference in the style of teaching in a mordern school comparing to the school in the movie, and the difference of the way a child is taught by their parents. Within the movie, the school is a prestigious school in the 1950s, the way that they teach their students are all from the books. Within the first few scenes of the movie we can see that the students just listen to what the teacher says, absorb the information, and nothing else. Everything they’ve learnt is straight from the books. Their school life passes by like this everyday. This way of teaching is very different from the normal way of teaching we have in nowadays. In today’s world, the way that schools teaching their students is by leading and influencing them to think creatively. This difference in teaching style generates a gap between the audience and the movie in which makes the audience unable to truly feel the effect of the change of the creative thinking style Mr. Keating is introducing to the school. Another reason that the 21st century audience is unable to resonate to "dead poets society" is due to the in the style of teaching of Neil Perry's parents. When we look at Neil Perry's death, we can clearly see that his death was caused by him unable to withstand the pressure of his parents not allowing him to do what he wants to do and forcing him to become a doctor instead. This family is typical family in the time of 1950s, when parents all want their child to continue their family profession, and have their child's future all planned the moment they were born. But this isn't the case for 21st century families. In nowadays, within a modern family, a child have much more freedom in their lives, they are allowed, in fact, encouraged to explore and choose what they truly wanted to do. 21st century audience would not be able to empathize and fully resonate with the death of Neil Perry due to the difference of teaching between families of different times. Although some may argue that there are still families and schools that are following the traditional style of teaching, and that will resonate with those audiences. This would only be a small portion of all audiences due to the change in living style and also the open-mindedness of people nowadays. And for the audiences who are still traditionally-minded, it will act more as a warning for their old styles of teaching rather than something they can resonate to, therefore, based on my reasons above, I believe that the movie “Dead Poets’ Society does not resonate with the 21st century audience.
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