Tag Archives: cultural and global perspectives

Jane the Virgin

Title: Jane the Virgin

Date: 2014 – Present

Media type: Television

Format: Episode

Rating: TV – 14

Audience(s): High School Age, College Age, Adults, Parents, Couples

Language: English

Film/Episode Summary: Jane the Virgin is an American comedy-drama television series that premiered on The CW on October 13, 2014. The series follows Jane Villanueva, a hard-working, religious young Latina woman whose family tradition and a vow to save her virginity until marriage is shattered when a doctor mistakenly artificially inseminates her during a checkup. To make matters worse, the biological donor is a married man, a former playboy and cancer survivor who is not only the new owner of the hotel where Jane works, but was also her former teenage crush. Jane the Virgin also explores issues of immigration, raising children, and parent-child relationships between adults of all ages, and young children.

Places to view: Youtube, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play, Jane the Virgin, Hulu

Contributor: Mikayla Perrault

Independent Lens: Twin Girls

Title: Independent Lens: Twin Girls

Date: 2014

Media type: Documentary

Format: Complete

Category: Families in Society, Interpersonal Relationships, Family Life Education Methodology

Keywords: family types (adoption), communication, cultural and global perspectives

Rating: NR

Audience(s): Children Under 12, High School Age, College Age, Adults

Language: English

Film/Episode Summary: Independent Lens looks at a case where twin girls were adopted in China to 2 different families. The families were not informed of each other nor did they know that the child they were adopting had a twin. The families met by chance in China after adopting their children and figured out that the girls were twins. One family lives in Norway and the other in California, the girls remain in correspondence and have met on a few occasions, both express feelings of incompleteness without the other and share many traits.

Comments or Recommendations for Teaching: What ethical questions does this raise? In regard to who or what raise those questions? What does this say in your opinion about the international adoption process? Should the families tried to keep the girls together or was separating them right? What does this say about the influence of nature and nurture on a child’s development and personality?

Contributor: Ian Brunzell-Looney

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Title: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Date: 2012

Media type: Documentary

Format: Complete

Category: Families in Society, Family Life Education Methodology

Keywords: work and family, cultural and global perspectives

Rating: NR

Audience(s): High School Age, College Age, and Adults

Language: Japanese

Film/Episode Summary: Jiro Is a world renowned sushi chef in Japan. His passion for his craft and his constant desire for improvement dominate his life, and the lives of his family. Jiro’s restaurant employs his older son, who is set to inherit the business when Jiro decides to retire, though it seems that the only thing that will stop Jiro from working is death. Jiro’s younger son runs his own restaurant, associated with Jiro’s. The brothers were raised by a man possessed by work which shaped them as individuals and chose their career paths, ones that mirrored their father. The culture of Japan really shines through in this portrait of a family and their business, giving a fascinating glimpse of a family unit from a culture other than one’s own, unless of course you are from Japan.

Comments or Recommendations for Teaching: What is your impression of Jiro as a father? Husband? Businessperson? Was his devotion to his work well placed? Why? Though the focus of the documentary is primarily on Jiro and his work, his personal and family life gets bound up in the story why do you think the 2 are relevant to each other?

Places to view: Youtube, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play, Itunes, Hulu

Contributor: Ian Brunzell-Looney