Ice Princess

Title: Ice Princess
Starring: Michelle Trachtenberg, Joan Cusack, Kim Cattrall, Hayden Panettiere, Trevor Blumas
Producer: Walt Disney

Straight-A high school student Casey Carlyle starts off trying to get a Harvard scholarship by pursuing a physics research project. Being fascinated by figure skating, she then decides to scientifically breakdown the art of competitive figure skating. She studies 3 young skaters (Nikki, Tiffany & Gen) who are competing in the US National Circuit. Later she discovers her passion for the sport, creating the dilemma between her mother's hopes of her becoming a Harvard scholar and her new dream of becoming a champion figure skater.

According to the CD jacket, the "Ice Princess" is about a girl's coming-of-age. But I'd say it's more of transcending stereotypes; finding yourself; and what it takes to find that identity.

Casey Carlyle here is a physics geek - that is a clear a stereotype as there ever will be. Stereotypes stem from "heuristics." Heuristics are the mental short cuts we take to cope with the barrage of everyday stimuli. Stereotype is how we think about a certain individual or member of a group, just because he/she is part of that group. Just as we group numbers in mnemonics to better commit them to memory, in the same way we also hve a tendency to group people. This is common in schools where there is a larger population of possible acquaintances (i.e. cheerleaders, jocks, geeks, rejects, achievers). As people grow older, their active groups become smaller as tasks such as work create routine activities and a relatively static group of people (work mates/ team mates).

Casey fit herself into the mold (intellectual) her mother made for her until she discovers she has her own as a figure skater. This is when her identity crisis begins.

Identity crisis has been a common theme for movies and literature. The internal conflict and journey to find one's "self" has always been found to be fascinating. Erik Erikson coined the term "identity crisis." He considered identity crisis as the most important conflict human beings encounter when they go through eight developmental stages in life. Its onset is usually in the teenage years.

Sometimes I wish identity was like the toaster:

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• you know where it is (kitchen)
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• you what it does (makes toast)
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The identity though is not as easy to find nore is it as easy to determine who you're supposed to be. This movie does provide insight into solving this crisis. Casey for instance, would not have discovered the depth of her interest in figure skating had she not wanted to come up with an impressive physics project. Her favorite past time, eventually became her source of inspiration. One thing actually led to the other.

We are naturally inclined to do certain things as well as certain personalities. The premise behind diathesis stress model, though more popularly applied to behavior and mental disorders, mentions that we are genetically predisposed to certain traits with the environment and life events, these predispositions are either nurtured or hindered.

There must be a natural progression to how we discover ourselves. Sometimes someone just has to lay the ground work or nudge us in the right direction for us to find our way and eventually find ourselves.