reading log #3

The Film rocket man

The film Rocketman is the story of Elton Johns challenges, the opening scene shows Elton in his childhood, growing up with a verbally abusive father figure and an unsupportive mother. At a young age he developed a talent for the piano and playing notes he heard, this quickly turned into a career for him as he expanded his knowledge for the art at a top-end school. Elton came out as gay in his mid 20’s, his grandmother is the only one supporting this, he grew into a famous piano player and singer, quickly this developed him into being associated with drugs, with that came a heavy addiction. The idea of fear comes from growing up without a parental figure, having to learn things on his own and finding himself in a world of different people.

Parents help shape us as a person, however when your in the position where they don’t support you with who you want to be, it can hurt you. Elton left his family at a young age, to pursue his dreams of being a famous pianist. The fear developed as he didn’t know how to act or how to support himself and this ended up affecting him as when got to a challenge he didn’t know how to overcome it. Elton ended up making his own rules, he didn’t think before he acted and this ended up turning him into a soulless person lacking respect for other individuals. The quote ” Live for each second without hesitation“ from Elton John relates to this point as we see he didn’t have much respect for himself or others, he did what he wanted as he was afraid to feel emotions and care. In ways I’m the opposite to Elton, I have a family who supports me and cares for me, but in ways, I can understand him in the sense of career, his father wasn’t supportive in his piano career, like my parent’s aren’t keen on me becoming a plumber, instead they want me to do something intellectual at university, not my choice but refusal isn’t really possible. In the world, adoption is common, 5 million people in America are adopted, all have perosnal reasons but the kid has gone through the porcess of feeling neglected,many people go through the process, neglect is everywhere. Everyone deals with the fear of not being loved and appreciated, we all need someone to nurture and care for us.

In 1988 Elton John came out as gay, in this time it wasn’t a socially accepted thing, he feared being himself in the world and didn’t know how to cope with it. Elton ended up not accepting himself and marrying a woman, this quickly ended in a divorce and drugs and alcohol was his next option, we see this as his way of coping with the fear of being himself. In the end he accpeted himself, “I think being gay is a blessing, and it’s something I am thankful for every single day.”for who he was, was a beautiful thing.

Initially the film made me feel sad, the environment he was Brought up in wasn’t ideal and he wasn’t supported, after a long thought I realised that because he had to deal with this fear by himself his actions made more sense, I felt like this related to Frankenstein as he also was abandoned and had to learn and make choices for himself. He intally destroyed his childhood to be a different person, and this was a choice he made “You gotta kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you want to be. “ this quote explains that he put his career before his life.

Society is quick to judge people, we can’t see other peoples internal fear we just judge the actions they take to fix them. Everyone has different vaules, a large one is family, family is important as they bring you up and teach you their ways, without this who are you? in the context of fear there are many attributes of it, almost everything you value can bring you fear in one way, fear drives us and sometimes breaks us.