Review of Literature

The Definition of Values

Values, part of a societys nonmaterial culture, represent cultural standards
by which we determine what is good, bad, right, or wrong. It is similar to
Caplows statement (1991: 556) about values that the important instrument values
for both men and women were being honest, ambitious, and responsible. This
indicates that those instruments are related to the determination of good and bad,
right and wrong.
In addition, Caplow (1991: 555) states, values are ideas shared members
of society about what is worthwhile and important. Dominant values define the
national character of a society.
The American Values
According to Kohl (1984: 1), most Americans have a problem of
understanding, specifically, what the values are which Americans live by. Even if
Americans had considered this question, they still do not understand and cannot
answer in terms of a definitive list of values. The reason for this decision is itself
one very American value--their belief that every individual is so unique that the
same list of values could never be applied to all, or even most, of their fellow
citizens.
However, the American values are generally assumed to be the American
way and are taught to school children as morality and signs of good character.
Americans are all socialized to believe in them through media presentations,
political speeches, and in the workplace. These values are identified by a

sociologist, Robin Williams in American society. The core values identified by

Williams (1970: 43) are as follows:
1.

Individualism (Consistent Persistence)

Americans have traditionally prized success that comes from individual
effort and initiative. They cherish the ideal that an individual can rise
from the bottom of society to its very top. If someone fails to get
ahead, Americans generally find fault with that individual, rather than
with the social system for placing roadblocks in his or her path.

2.

Achievement and Success (Success Emphasis)

Americans place a high value on personal achievement, especially
outdoing others. This value includes getting ahead at work and school,
and attaining wealth, power, and prestige.

3.

Activity and Work (Work for Works Sake)

Americans expect people to work hard and to be busily engaged in some
activity even when not at work.

4.

Efficiency and Practicality

Americans award high marks for getting things done efficiently. Even in
everyday life, Americans consider it important to do things fast, and they
constantly seek ways to increase efficiency.

5.

Science and Technology

Americans have a passion for applied science, for using science to
control nature to tame rivers and harness wind and to develop new
technology, from motorized scooters to talking computers.

6.

Progress
Americans expect rapid technological change. They believe that they
should constantly build more and better gadgets that will help them
move toward that vague goal called progress.

7.

Material Comfort
Americans expect a high level of material comfort. This comfort includes
not only good nutrition, medical care, and housing, but also late-model
cars and recreational playthings from boats of computer games.

8.

Humanitarianism.
Americans emphasize helpfulness, personal kindness, aid in mass
disasters, and organized philanthropy.

9.

Freedom
This core value pervades U.S. life. It underscored the American
Revolution, and Americans pride themselves on their personal freedom.

10. Democracy
By this term, Americans refer to majority rule, to the right of everyone to
express an opinion, and to representative government.
11. Equality
It is impossible to understand Americans without being aware of the
central role that the value of equality plays in their lives.
Equality of opportunity has significantly influenced U.S. history and
continues to mark relations between groups that make up U.S. society.
12. Racism and Group Superiority

Although it contradicts freedom, democracy, and equality, Americans

value some groups more than others and have done so throughout their
history. The slaughter of Native Americans and the enslaving of Africans
are the most notorious examples.
In 1975, Sociologist James Henslin updated Williams analysis be adding three
values.
1. Education
Americans are expected to go as far in school as their abilities and finances
allow. Over the years, the definition of an adequate education has
changed, and today a college education is considered an appropriate goal
for most Americans. Those who have an opportunity for higher education
and do not take it are sometimes viewed as doing something wrong
not merely as making a bad choice, but as somehow being involved in an
immoral act.
2. Religiosity
There is a feeling that every true American ought to be religious. This
does not mean that everyone is expected to join a church, synagogue, or
mosque, but that everyone ought to acknowledge a belief in a Supreme
Being and follow some set of matching precepts. This value is so
pervasive that Americans stamp In God We Trust on their money and
declare in their national pledge of allegiance that they are one nation
under God.
3. Romantic Love

Americans feel that the only proper basis for marriage is romantic love.
Songs, literature, mass media, and folk beliefs all stress this value. They
especially love the theme that love conquers all.
.

Maleficent Movies Synopsis

Maleficent, a powerful fairy, lives in the Moors, a magical forest realm bordering
a corrupt human kingdom. As a young girl, she meets and falls in love with a
human peasant boy named Stefan, whose affection for Maleficent is
overshadowed by his ambition to better his station. As they grow older, the two
grow apart, and she becomes protector of the Moors. When King Henry tries to
conquer the Moors, a grown Maleficent forces him to retreat. Fatally wounded in
battle, he declares that whoever kills Maleficent will be named his successor and
marry his daughter Leila. In response, the grown Stefan visits Maleficent in the
Moors, where he drugs her but cannot bring himself to kill her. Instead, Stefan
uses iron, which burns fairies, to cut off Maleficent's wings. He then presents
them to the king as evidence of her death. Maleficent awakens to find herself
wingless. Anguished by Stefan's betrayal, she declares herself Queen of the

Moors, forming a dark kingdom with Diaval, a raven to whom she gives human
form. He acts as her wings, spy, and confidant.
Sometime later, Diaval informs Maleficent that Stefan, who is now king, is
hosting a christening for his newborn daughter, Aurora. Bent on revenge,
Maleficent arrives uninvited and curses the infant princess: on her 16th birthday,
she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, putting her into a
deep sleep from which she will never awaken. When Stefan begs for mercy,
Maleficent offers an antidote: The curse can be broken by true love's kiss. Stefan
sends Aurora to live with a trio of pixies until the day after her 16th birthday,
while he destroys all the spinning wheels in the kingdom and hides them in the
castle dungeon. He sends his armies to find and kill Maleficent, but she surrounds
the Moors with an impenetrable wall of thorns.
Despite her initial dislike for Aurora, Maleficent begins to care for the girl when
the incompetent pixies inadvertently put her in danger. After a brief meeting with
the young Aurora, Maleficent watches over her from afar. When Aurora is 15, she
encounters Maleficent and, aware of being watched over, calls her her "fairy
godmother". Realizing she has grown fond of the princess, Maleficent attempts to
revoke the curse, but she cannot. Aurora later meets Prince Philip, and the two are
smitten with each other. On the day before Aurora's 16th birthday, Maleficent,
hoping to avoid the curse, invites her to move to the Moors. When the pixies
inadvertently tell Aurora of her parentage and of Maleficent's true identity, a
horrified Aurora runs away to her father's castle.

Meanwhile, King Stefan, mad with paranoia, sits in his castle talking to
Maleficent's severed wings, and even refuses to see Queen Leila on her deathbed.
After a brief reunion with Aurora, Stefan locks her away in her room for safety.
However, she is drawn by the curse to the dungeon, where a spinning wheel pricks
her finger and she falls into a death-like sleep. Intent on saving her, Maleficent
abducts Phillip and infiltrates Stefan's castle to have him kiss Aurora and break
the curse, but Philip's kiss fails. Maleficent apologizes to Aurora, swears no harm
will come to her, kisses her forehead, and breaks the spell, with Maleficent's
motherly concern for Aurora constituting true love. Aurora forgives Maleficent
and they attempt to leave the castle, but Maleficent is trapped in an iron net and
attacked by Stefan and his guards. Maleficent transforms Diaval into a dragon,
and he lifts the net off her, but is driven back by the guards. Stefan beats and
taunts Maleficent, but before he can kill her, her wings, freed from his chamber by
Aurora, fly back to her and reattach themselves. Maleficent overpowers Stefan
and carries him onto a tower, but cannot bring herself to kill him. Stefan attempts
once more to kill her, but plummets off the tower to his death.
Soon after, Aurora is crowned queen of the human and fairy realms by Maleficent,
unifying the two kingdoms, with Phillip at her side. Maleficent returns to her role
as protector over the kingdoms.