Emotionality+&+Trust

== Emotionality was a key component of this film. The emotionality is demonstrated through the development of the process for the calendar and certainly through discovery, implementation and results of the content of the calendar. Emotion ranged from laughter to tears, grief to celebration, fear to bravery, defiance to compliance. The ability of the characters to use the range of emotionality to create order our of chaos and creativity out of stagnation, and even new and improved life ways out of loss and grief were illuminating. ==

Overall the level of trust was quiet high even though it proved at times, to not be trustworthy. Trust was also conveyed in the high levels of emotionality such as humor and sarcasm. Certainly, the level of trust was high in the community, the relationships, the families and the WI. While there was a sense that the calendar project was a secret, there proved to be broad knowledge of the project. The WI experienced the calendar initially as a threat to the status quo because both the original content was threatened and the process of creating a calendar was challenged. Additional threats occurred in individual families and relationships as people took new and perhaps threatening roles they had never had before. In some cases this benefited the relationships, in others it created new challenges.

“Trust is not a stable personality trait and is dynamic, increasing or decreasing with every action a group member takes” (p. 122). The film portrays the dynamic ebb and flow of trust in child/parent relationships, partner/partner or husband/wife relationships, with friends at many levels, with professionals (artists, writers, doctors, etc), to subordinates and those in power. From children to leaders of large institutions the movie demonstrates trust as the open expression of thoughts, feelings reactions, opinions, information, and ideas as well as evasive, dishonest and inconsiderate actions (p.122).

An example of high levels of trust is in the photography process itself. Not only did they grow to trust the photographer, they grew to trust each other and themselves. A common language was developed around the meaning of naked versus nude. Common purpose was shared to honor ’s life in this way. Common goals were shared in purchasing a settee for the family room at the hospital. Support was given for feelings of grief, and conflict arose out of that grief in conflict with the process. The characters ability to exhibit and describe emotions further unified the group (p. 513). A prime example is Ruth and Chris speaking to the national council of the WI, clearly expressing their emotions to achieve buy-in for their target goal – using the calendar for fundraising purposes – of doing something good for others.

If, as Johnson & Johnson state, that change is promoted by experiencing and expressing positive and negative emotions about the actions of other group members and about permanent life events, then Calendar Girls exemplified the power of emotion and the individual choice in response, to change or to remain stagnant. While some characters remained fairly distant form overt demonstrations of emotions, others were quite demonstrative. The ability of the sub groups and in particular the Calendar Girls and WI to succeed was due to the expression of emotions that tend to unify group members and increase their commitment to one another and to the group (p. 513).