An Analysis of the Movie Secret of the Wild Child
The movie “Secret of the Wild Child” shows the process a young teenage girl goes through after years of horrendous neglect and abuse. At age 13 a girl, who was called Genie, was found isolated in her home, where she spent the majority of her time tied to a potty chair, Genie could not speak, had an awkward walk, and was still wearing diapers, Her development was that of an infant. She displayed many nonhuman characteristics like, spatting, sniffing, and clawing The reason her father said he isolated Genie was because he believed she was retarded from birth, and therefore he had to isolate her, When Genie was found she automatically became a marvel to everyone who met her.
Not only did the team that worked with her want to help and make her life as normal as possible, but she also became an amazing experiment Her team automatically started different test and therapy on Genie. She showed amazing development.
In the first spring after she was found in December, Genie already knew 100 words.
Since she was abused for making noise when she lived at home, Genie had developed another way to communicate. She used body language greatly. She quickly learned to tell her team how upset she was through body language, When her team discovered how she was really talking to body language they started teaching her sign language to help her communicate. Her language skills developed quickly, although her vocabulary consisted of different words than the language of a normally developing child.
She learned emotion words, color words, and shape words quickly. Not only were her language and communication skills improving, but she wanted to learn, Genie’s main problem with language was syntax.
She had great difficulty making her sentences grammatically correct. Genie was able to convey her message and get all the words out; they just were not in the correct order. Genie‘s voice was also that of an infant. She spoke in a very high-pitched voice, because her vocal cords were not able to develop normally since she did not make noises as a child. Chomsky’s theory is greatly supported in this film. He stated that it we are born with the ability to learn language. It is nature not just nurture. Genie proved Lhis to be true. Although her language skills never developed to that of a normal person her age she was able to develop language after reaching puberty. This video, although it presents a very unusual situation, can be very useful to me in my future career. I am going to teach special education. By watching this video I learned that it is never to late for someone to learn how to communicate.
Therefore in my future if I have a student who is unable to speak, we shouldn‘t give up on them. Also we should try different means of communication if someone is not able to speak. There is always the option of sign language. The Genie video taught me that it is never right to give up on a child or student not matter their past; everyone has potential. Genie‘s team took to Genie in an interesting way. Everyone of her team members said that Genie was captivating and just had a quality about her that drew people to her. Although her team cared for her so greatly the ethical question comes up of whether or not Genie was used too much for research. Did Genie’s team care more about the care for Genie or the research they got from her?
The question will forever be left unanswered, but by looking at the extensive testing they put Genie though, I believe Genie was used to much as a test subject. Multiple members of her team, who instead of taking her home and giving her a loving and happy home, they only did more test on her, took her home. Although her team members did care for her, they cared more for the research she gave than for her wellbeing and happiness This is a great ethical issue, because a person’s wellbelng should always come before what they can give to science.
