The Rookie is a movie released in the year 2002 and is directed by John Lee Hancock and stars Dennis Quaid as the main character. The movie takes the viewer through the life of a chief in the navy by the name of Brian Cox who moves progressively in his line of work. As a result, his son, Jimmy experiences problems in trying to nurture his passion in baseball as the family happens to move when he had made a breakthrough in his team. In spite of this, his father urges him to realize that there are better things in life than baseball. The movie takes a jump into the future where Jimmy is married and has a son aged eight years. For most of the film, baseball plays a paramount role in shaping the lives of the characters. The film depicts major cultural issues such as socioeconomic bias, experiences of a life crisis, cognitive psychology and social psychology among other issues.
Socio-economic bias
The film depicts socio-economic bias through the life of in the life of Brian Cox, the father of Jimmy. It appears vividly in the scene where Jimmy returns from playing a successful game of baseball with his team and arrives home to his dad. Apparently, the dad is busy looking at some papers but takes a moment to ask whether Jimmy won the match. The conversation progresses to the point where he states that he just found out that there was a high probability of being re-stationed again.
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Despite having recently moved, he is required to move again to serve in military recruitment. Although his son Jimmy tries to plead with claims of having a half season of baseball to play, the dad needs the job and has to move. He admits his lack of choice on the issue as his superiors had found it necessary to move him to another station. The economic bias appears evident in that it only Jimmy’s father who is forced to move continuously as his economic status gave him no choice ( Cheng & Furnham, 2014) . This implicates negatively on Jimmy who has to put up with the non-stop migration at the expense of his baseball passion. The family moves in an old van where they have to settle in a less comfortable house than the previous. As they unpack their stuff from the vehicle, Jimmy’s baseball glove appears to have been lost.
However, due to the economic role played by his job, Jimmy’s dad admonishes him for being sad over such an issue claiming that there are more important things in life than baseball and the sooner Jimmy realized it, the better it would be for him Cheng & Furnham, 2014) . Thus, Jimmy’s father has to sacrifice a lot for the sake of keeping his job since his socio-economic status could not allow him to turn down the frequent re-stationing.
Life crisis
The life crisis in this movie appears to affect Jimmy. The life crisis is evident in the scene where Jimmy is a married adult and has a son with whom they are exiting a building. The son poses a question as to whether the arm of Jimmy still hurt anymore. Jimmy explains that his arm does not hurt even if he drags his son out of bed and carries him to school. He explains that it hurt a long time ago. As his son enquires further, Jimmy explains the various experiences he had in life. He states that his arm never hurt when he was in high school since his school did not have a team of baseball. Similarly, his arm never hurt in college as it was the place that he got drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers. Later, his arm started hurting as he tore up his shoulder which marked the end of his dream. His son questions him on whether it was the reason why he never made it in baseball. In his response, Jimmy states that it is never one thing, meaning that several confounding factors caused him his life crisis.
Another scene is where Jimmy and his wife are walking along the road after celebrating their son's birthday. As the two walk along, Jimmy's wife reminds him that he had a difficult relationship with his parents due to his passion for baseball. He tries to insinuate that his difficult relationship with his father caused his dream of being a baseball player not to work out. The wife refutes and states that it had nothing to do with his dad. She emphasizes that Jimmy had taken his shot at baseball and had got hurt. Jimmy seems saddened by the reminder that his life was not the way he had desired it to be as the shoulder injury had caused a crisis in his life.
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology appears in the scene where Jimmy is engaged in a talk with his baseball team where he is the coach. He asks them whether they had any ideas as to why they had lost the game despite having skilled players. In prompting a response from the players, Jimmy, asks the team to look at the scoreboard and poses another question on what the numbers on the scoreboard conveyed to the team. He tries to trigger their cognitive psychology to focus on the reasons for their failure in the game. Moreover, he appeals to their sense of sight to interpret the situation and react appropriately through working harder ( Neisser, 2014) .
As one member of the team tries to make fun of the situation, Jimmy stops him by stating that they had quit. They had quit out there, quit on him and quit on themselves. He goes ahead to expound that their failure only made it easier for the principal who was not a big fan of baseball as a way of appealing for an appropriate reaction from them. Along the conversation, he mentions the ordinary lives that people like himself and others led with nothing exceptional about it. Thus, he challenges his team to work harder and overcome for the rest of the seasons if they were interested in having exceptional lives after school. He triggers them to have dreams as, without dreams, they would not go far. He thus seems to target their cognitive psychology to focus on the causes of failure rather than failure itself as in so doing, they would find the ways of overcoming failure ( Neisser, 2014) .
Social psychology concept
One of the scenes depicting social psychology is where Jimmy and the team that he coaches are talking about success in baseball. The team suggests that once they started winning games, Jimmy would try out again for the major baseball league. He argues that baseball scouts are never on the lookout for high school science teachers. One of the team members replies by saying that Jimmy was no ordinary science teacher given his throwing ability at baseball. He emphasizes that not many science teachers could throw like he did. Jimmy refutes this and states that such attempts at joining the major baseball league would only be ways of making a fool of himself, something that he was not willing to do. Nonetheless, the discussion depicts social psychology as it triggers the team to work harder in proving that Jimmy was capable of being a top-flight baseball player ( Smith & Pourchot, 2013) .
The team shows their belief in him by striking a deal that if they won the district competition and went for the playoffs, he would try out for the major baseball league. Sensing their belief in him, Jimmy accepts the deal. Thus, the team’s perception of his abilities gave him an extra injection of confidence that he would be able to achieve his longtime dream of being an accomplished baseball player. The social psychology makes Jimmy recognize that he still had the potential to achieve his baseball dream ( Newman, & Newman, 2014).
References
Cheng, H., & Furnham, A. (2014). The associations between parental socio-economic conditions, childhood intelligence, adult personality traits, social status and mental well-being. Social indicators research , 117 (2), 653-664.
Neisser, U. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Classic edition . Psychology Press.
Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (2014). Development through life: A psychosocial approach . Cengage Learning.
Smith, M. C., & Pourchot, T. (Eds.). (2013). Adult learning and development: Perspectives from educational psychology . Routledge.
