Today in class we watched a film called Shyness. When you look at the film from an empirical analytic perspective, you see the perspective of the psychologists who undoubtedly made the film. When they see these shy children, they see a child with a problem that needs to be fixed. They assume that if a child is having troubles making friends at school they are destined to a life of loneliness and sadness. First of all, I personally think it is silly to make such assessments so early in the child’s life. The child has barely had time to assess their personal situation on their own. I firmly believe that shyness is something that can be overcome or at least worked on at a personal level. I was very shy growing up I I reached a point in my life during my early teens that I decided I wanted to make a difference in myself and start to make an effort to overcome it. I will not deny that it was difficult, and there is still a part of me that is shy today, but I have been able to really come out of my shell of my own accord. This seems to be the case of many people; people who were shy children but were eventually able to open themselves up to others when they were ready on their own. Now, not only did the psychologists in Shyness believe that the children needed someone to intervene before they had a chance to grow on their own, but they believed that it was the fault of the parents that the ‘problem’ had occurred in the first place, and it was the job of the psychologists to intervene and fix them. I find the time period in which this film was made very interesting, because it is in a time that many social institutions are very new and for some reason society is becoming convinced that professional intervention is necessary at every bend in the road. Though the film portrays the problem of shyness from an empirical analytic point of view, I think that there are many ways that shyness can be looked at and it is important to view films such as this one with a critical eye.
