One of the great movies of the early nineties is "Reality Bites," a sarcastic, enjoyable comedy about love. The main character, Lelaina Pierce, is searching to find her identity. She has just graduated and is working at an unsatisfying job, while living with her best friend Vickie. In her spare time, however, she is making a documentary about her friends, which she finds very rewarding. While she struggles with her career and a rocky relationship with her divorced parents, she is faced with a difficult choice between two men in life. One option is her temporary roommate, Troy, the sexy, sarcastic band member, with whom she constantly fights, but is strangely attracted to. The more sensible choice is Michael, a well-established businessman, who is thoughtful and kind. Although the movie focuses on Lelaina, each character goes through a series of conflicts that bring them to a new point at the end. The transformation of each character takes place largely due to interaction with other characters.

The communication that I will be focusing on for this analysis is as follows: Pitfalls/Principles of Verbal Messages, Conflict Strategies, Barriers to Verbal Messages, Stages/Stage Talk, and Disclaimers/Excuses. I chose these topics to analyze because there is a lot of arguing and conflict in this movie. In these conflicts, there are many examples of pitfalls and barriers in verbal messages. Many of the growth of these characters comes about as they learn to communicate with each other and avoid many of the pitfalls and barriers they use earlier on. In addition, each character uses different conflict strategies to deal with the present issue going on. The type of conflict strategy they use also helps to reveal more information about their character. Stages and stage talk examines the ways in which relationships develop and deepen. The whole of Lelaina and Michael relationship occurs during the course of the movie, giving clear examples of how their relationship progresses but eventually deteriorates. Finally Disclaimers and Excuses refer to a person trying to make him or herself look better, either by using a feed-forward message, in the form of a disclaimer, or by making excuses. The communication analysis of this movie helps to better understand each character and the overall message of the movie.

There first concept has three components we will be discussing and is termed pitfalls of communication, which are "ways in which you may create negative effects" (DeVito, 1998, p. 194) through your interaction. Disconfirmation is one example of a pitfall that is defined as a "communication patter in which you ignore a person's presence as well as that person's communications" (DeVito, 1998, p. 195). Disconfirmation can happen by literally ignoring the other person, by disregarding their feelings, or by dismissing them as a person. In "Reality Bites," Lelaina is working for a TV program called "Good Morning, Grant!" Although Grant appears to be sickeningly cheerful while on camera, in person he is rude and arrogant. Lelaina is responsible for writing the questions that he asks his guests. In one scene in the movie, Grant walks into the production room and Lelaina asks, "Mr. Cooper, do you have time to look at what I've done here?" She is working on a documentary and would like to show him her work. However, he does not even acknowledge her request and instead states, "I need my questions." Lelaina shifts the topic of conversation to his request and says, "Ok, well here is the research I did. You might want to look over it because this guest has quite a history in politics." Again, Grant disconfirms Lelaina's suggestion and restates his previous demand by saying, "Just give me my questions." In this brief interaction, Grant has completely ignored Lelaina's requests, suggestions, and feelings by failing to answer her questions and disregarding any of her comments.

Another pitfall of communication is called talking down, in which one person talks to the other as if he/she is stupid. There is a clear illustration of talking down during one of Lelaina's job interviews. Although she was valedictorian of her university, she cannot find another job after being fired from "Good Morning, Grant!" She finally breaks down and applies to a fast food restaurant. The scene begins with the manager of the hot dog restaurant asking, "Ms. Pierce, do you have any idea what it is like to be a cashier at Wiener Schnitzel?" He asks the question implying that she could not possibly understand what it takes to be an employee there; a clear example of talking down. The conversation continues as Lelaina replies, "Yeah, it's taking orders and making change and…" The manager, played by David Spade, answers bluntly, "No. It's a juggling act." Lelaina attempts to relate to what the manager is saying by replying, "Oh, you mean metaphorically." Again, he rejects her answer, speaking to her as if she is stupid, "No. I mean you got people coming at you from the front, from the back, from the side. People in the condiment exchange, people in the drive-through, kids on bikes, all depending on who?" Lelaina replies back meekly, "Me?" Throughout this interaction, the manager of Wiener Schnitzel is speaking to Lelaina as if working at a fast food restaurant is an incredibly difficult task that she is not able to comprehend a clear example of talking down.

In addition to disconfirmation and talking down, excessive criticism is the final example of a pitfall that will be discussed. Although criticism can be used in a helpful way, if it is used in excess it loses its meaning and is often dishonest. Troy is extremely critical of Lelaina and her relationship with Michael. Throughout the movie, he constantly speaks negatively of Michael, without really giving him a fair chance. Troy first meets Michael when Michael comes to the house to pick up Lelaina. When Michael walks in, Troy stares at him in amazement and says "Oh my god, are you a collection agent?" Michael is dressed in a three-piece Italian suit, while Troy is sitting in his grungy thrift-store looking clothes. As soon as Michael walks in, Troy immediately judges him based on his standards and insults him. His criticism of Michael continues after Lelaina returns home from her date. Troy is waiting up for her, and asks how she could have possibly fallen for him. He sarcastically questions, "Did he dazzle you with his extensive knowledge of mineral water? Or was it his in depth analysis of Marky Mark that finally reeled you in?" He continues by criticizing Lelaina and Michael, saying "I just would have liked to be there to watch how you rationalized sleeping with a yuppy-head cheeseball on the first date." Troy criticizes Michael's clothes, job, and even his intelligence, claiming, "he was the reason that cliff notes were invented." Troy is excessively critical of Michael and all he stands for, as is evident in his specific verbal messages.

The next concept I will be focusing on is conflict strategies, which are the ways that people deal with conflict. There are many different types of conflict management strategies, some of which are productive and others unproductive. Each person deals with conflict differently, depending on emotional state, cultural background, personality, and values (DeVito, 1998). One way to deal with conflict is avoidance, which is an "unproductive conflict strategy in which a person takes mental or physical flight from the actual conflict," (DeVito, 1998, p. 470). A more specific form of avoidance called, nonnegotiation, which is a refusal to "discuss the conflict or to listen to the other person's arguments" (DeVito, 1998, p. 382). In the opening scene of the movie, Lelaina is having a graduation dinner with her divorced parents and their new spouses. Lelaina's father, Tom, presents her with his used BMW for graduation. However, her mother immediately protests, saying "BMW? BMW? Tom, didn't you listen to her speech today? She doesn't want a BMW." Tom responds with, "I am not going to sit here and listen to some strange ethical argument about a damn car." In Tom's response, he is using the conflict strategy of nonnegotiation, by completely disregarding his ex-wife's comment and refusing to hear what she or Lelaina have to say.

The conflict at dinner continues, as Charlene, Lelaina's mother, keeps arguing that Lelaina does not want a BMW. Tom responds saying "Charlene, she can make up her own mind," which leads Lelaina to reprimand her father with, "Dad, don't talk to her like that, she is not a child." Her father retaliates with an under-the-breath comment of, "Well, she married one." Charlene's husband appears to be a little slow and incapable, as his wife cuts his meat for him and he wears a napkin bib at dinner. However, the comment made by Tom is an example of face-detracting, which "involves treating the other person as incompetent, untrustworthy, as unable or bad." It may "severely damage [one's] ego or reputation" (DeVito, 1998, p. 385). Tom's comment about Charlene marrying a child serves to embarrass her for marrying him, which insults her and damages her ego. She responds using avoidance, by getting up to physically leave the situation. The conflict strategies used in the first scene are both unproductive, as they do not help the conflict come to a resolution.

A third example of a conflict management strategy is called verbal aggressiveness, which is a "method of winning an argument by inflicting psychological pain, by attacking the other person's self-concept" (DeVito, 1998, p. 386). Verbal aggressiveness "may be spelled out more completely as violations of the humanistic qualities of interpersonal effectiveness" which are openness, empathy, supportiveness, equality, and positiveness (DeVito, 1998, p. 386). Lelaina and Troy get into many heated arguments throughout the movie in which they use verbal aggressiveness. In the beginning of the movie, Troy has just lost his job and Lelaina's roommate, Vickie, told Troy he could stay with them, without asking permission from Lelaina first. Lelaina comes home from work to find Troy moving his belongings into their living room. She immediately protests, saying "He will turn this place into a den of slack." She is lacking empathy and positiveness by not being understanding of Troy's situation and first emphasizing the negative. She is again verbally aggressive by treating him as unequal, saying "I have to work around here and unfortunately, Troy, you are a master at the art of time suckage." She is putting him down emphasizing her superiority since she has a job and he does not. In another argument, Troy comes home with his date just as his roommates are paying the bills. When Vickie asks if he has any money, Lelaina jumps in and says, "Money? Oh, but what is money to an artist, to a philosopher? It's just little green paper that floats in and out of his life like snow. It's nothing you have to, I don't know, work for, is it Troy?" Lelaina attacks Troy's self-concept by saying that artists do not know the meaning of money. She is treating him as though is his life is not valuable because he does not work a "normal" job. Lelaina is verbally aggressive with Troy throughout the movie, attacking his self-concept and violating rules of humanistic qualities.

The third concept to be discussed is called barriers or problems of communication that cause "meaningful interpersonal communication" to "lose some of its effectiveness" (DeVito, 1998, p. 210). Barriers can also be viewed as "language [that] does not reflect reality" (DeVito, 1998, p. 210). The first example of a barrier is by-passing, which is when two people are using the same words but have different meanings for them. There is an example of this when Lelaina is trying to find a job in her field of film after being fired from "Good Morning Grant!" She shows up for an interview for a "production assistant," however the job is not what she expected. There are videos everywhere in a small room with a sloppy looking man sitting behind a desk. She says to him, "I thought that the ad said this was a job for a production assistant." He responds, by saying, "Yes, you will be assisting me in the production of video tapes. You are going to make copies, many copies." Lelaina attempts again to understand by asking, "Oh, is this like a pirate operation?" She realizes that the "production assistant" is actually a job involving illegal activities of copying videos. He responds to her question with another question: "Do I look like a pirate to you?" Their interaction is an example of by-passing, because Lelaina's idea of a production assistant is not what the man's idea of a production assistant is. Although they are using the same term, production assistant, they have two different meanings for them.

Another barrier to communication is indiscrimination, which "occurs when you focus on classes of individuals, objects, or events and fail to see that each is unique and needs to be looked at individually" (DeVito, 1998, p. 220). After Lelaina has tried to get a job for every opening in her field without success, she becomes desperate and asks her father for a job at his company. However, he thinks that she is not really trying and chalks this up to her generation. He explains, "That's the problem with your generation. You don't have any work ethic. Let's take your friend Troy for example. I went out of my way to set up an interview for him and he doesn't even bother showing up." Her father is being indiscriminant by seeing her generation as a whole without recognizing the individual characteristics of each person. He also bases his opinion of her generation by his negative experience with Troy. Again, he is not recognizing that each person is different and that he cannot base his judgement of a whole group of people on the behavior of one person.

The third type of barrier I will be discussing is called static evaluation. Static evaluation is "the tendency to retain evaluations without change, while the reality to which they refer is constantly changing" (DeVito, 1998, p. 219). When Lelaina comes to her mom to ask for a loan, her mother treats her as if she is still a teenager and not the college graduate she has become. First her mother tries to tell her, "Well, I am sure you will find another job, sugar booger." But Lelaina explains, "No, I have applied for every single opening in my field and there is just nothing." Then her mother resorts to other tactics, saying "Well, I hate to say it, but times are hard and you're just going to have to swallow your pride. Why don't you get a job at Burger Rama? They'll hire you! My Lord, I saw on the TV they had this little retarded boy working the cash register." Lelaina angrily replies back, "Because I am not retarded, Mom. I was valedictorian of my university!" Her mother is keeping a static evaluation of Lelaina as a teenager who can survive off an income from a fast food place. She still calls her baby names such as "sugar booger" and she speaks in a high voice tone, as if she is speaking to a child. Her mother has not realized that her daughter is an adult now, so she keeps treating her as if she were young. This is an example of static evaluation and it causes problems because her mother is "left with attitudes and beliefs about a world that no longer exists" (DeVito, 1998, p. 219).

Another type of communication present in this movie is Stages/Stage Talk, which is a model for relationships. The idea is that people do not become "immediate friends" but that "you build an intimate relationship gradually, through a series of steps or stages" (DeVito, 1998, p. 290). The stages that will be examined are contact, involvement, intimacy, and deterioration. The relationship between Lelaina and Michael is seen from beginning to end during the duration of the film. The first stage is called contact, which includes a perceptual contact of seeing, hearing, and maybe smelling the person and interactional contact, which is superficial, basic conversation (DeVito, 1998). Lelaina and Michael meet because they get into a car accident, which is not a typical way of meeting someone. However, there first instance of contact is when they are both driving down the street. Lelaina and Vickie are listening to the radio, smoking, singing loudly, with the windows of the old BMW rolled down. Michael is talking on his cell phone, listening to loud rap music in his new looking convertible sports car. The perceptual contact of each other occurred when they looked at each other from their cars. After that, they progressed to interactional contact in Michael's office, as they discussed what to do about the accident. During their first conversation, they find out basic information about each other. She tells him "I don't have a lawyer, I don't even have a dentist," which leads him to ask, "What do you do?" She begins to explain what she does, but the phone ringing cuts her off, and after he gets off the phone, Michael decides not to sue or press charges. He tells her, "Forget it. Really, it's ok, because it's probably my fault anyway and I will get in trouble and you seem very sweet." He has already made judgements about her by saying she is sweet, and after this conversation, they make plans to go out to dinner. The plan for the second meeting takes the relationship to the next level, which is called involvement.

Involvement is characterized at first by a kind of testing, "to see whether your initial judgement proves reasonable" (DeVito, 1998, p. 291). During their dinner date, Michael and Lelaina continue to find out about each other. Lelaina explains what she is doing, telling him, "I'm making this document about my friends, but its really about people trying to find their own identities without having any role models." Michael takes that opportunity to figure out what her kind of other relationships she has. He met Troy when picking her up for the date, so he asks, "So, Troy, it's like you guys, just the two of you living there?" She explains that they are just friends and she is letting him stay there since he got fired. As the night progresses, so does their relationship, from the testing stage of involvement to the intensifying stage, which is characterized by more self-disclosure, increased contact, becoming more sexually intimate (Tolhuizen, 1989 as cited in DeVito, 1998). While sitting at dinner, Michael tells Lelaina, "You know, you're very beautiful, I mean seriously." He is complimenting her and letting her know how he feels towards her. This trend continues while they are sitting in Michael's car outside Lelaina's house drinking Big Gulps. They begin to self-disclose more and find they are similar. Lelaina tells Michael as she is drinking her soda, "It doesn't take much to make me happy." He agrees with her, saying "I'm not too materialistic either. I think I'd be working even if I didn't get paid." Later the conversation turns to astronomy and they both remember being blown away by the math. Michael expresses his sentiments saying, "I got to class, and it was like three squared times pi and I just wanted to look at the stars." Lelaina agrees with him, saying "exactly" and laughing at the memory of pi. The scene ends with the two of them kissing in the back of his car and it is implied that they ended up sleeping together, a clear example of increased sexual intimacy that occurs in involvement.

Lelaina and Michael continue to spend time together and quickly progress into the intimacy stage. Michael sleeps over her house and they continue to self-disclose. Michael has seen Lelaina's videos and tells her "Ya know, I think your documentary would be perfect for In Your Face TV," which is his the station he works for. He continues to tell her, "I just thought they'd freak out over your tapes because they never see anything that is really smart and has real quality like you and your work." Michael is complimenting Lelaina on her work and her is making her feel important. She responds to him by saying, "Michael that is literally, literally the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me." Then, during one of Michael's business trips, he calls Lelaina and while they are on the phone, he tells her "I am thinking about you every second!" She responds saying, "Micheal, I really miss you!" He excitedly says, "I miss you too! I love you! Whoa! I mean you amaze me!" They are considered a unit and in the intimacy stage, as they exchange the three important words of "I love you."

However, Michael and Lelaina's relationship then progresses into the deterioration phase. Their relationship ends basically because Michael misunderstands Lelaina and violates her work. The first part of deterioration is called intrapersonal dissatisfaction, which is when one begins "to experience personal dissatisfaction with everyday interactions and begin to view the future with your partner more negatively" (DeVito, 1998, p. 296). The dissatisfaction begins when Michael sells Lelaina's documentary to his TV channel called "In Your Face TV" and they completely change all her work around in the editing. The documentary is very important to Lelaina and Michael betrays her for not protecting it. She storms out of the first showing, screaming, "That's not my work, Michael, that's not what I did, nothing! I can't believe I trusted you!" He tries to explain, but she goes on, saying, "They cut up everything that meant anything to me. I don't think you realize what you've done. You just don't get it!" Although Michael tries to rectify the situation, offering to "make them take out the pizza thing," Lelaina is very upset. The same night her relationship with Troy becomes extremely intimate and they sleep together. By sleeping with another person, Lelaina has progressed into interpersonal deterioration, which is when "you withdraw further and further apart" (DeVito, 1998, p. 296). Michael, unaware that Lelaina has slept with Troy, finds her at a club and tries to win her back, apologizing and telling her "I should have protected you and your work, but I didn't. And I am sorry. I want to make it up to you." However, Lelaina does not want to discuss their relationship and is more focused on Troy now. It is during their last conversation in the club that their relationship has progressed into the last stage of deterioration, which is depenetration. Depenetration is a "condition in which the breadth and depth of a relationship decreases" (DeVito, 1998, p. 472). Lelaina does not self-disclose any information with Michael and ends up physically leaving the situation. After the scene in the club, Michael and Lelaina no longer see each other and their relationship is over. Lelaina become involved with Troy soon after and Michael is out of the picture. Their relationship communication exemplifies four stages of relationships.

The final type of communication that is to be examined from the movie is called Disclaimers/Excuses. Disclaimers are a way of preventing conversational problems by interjecting a statement "that aims to ensure that your message will be understood and will not reflect negatively on you" (DeVito, 1998, p. 280). One example of this is when Lelaina is asking her mother for a loan since she cannot find a job. Her mother does not want to appear heartless, but also does not want to give her daughter a loan. So she prefaces her statement with a disclaimer, saying "I hate to say it, but times are hard. You're just going to have to swallow your pride." Her father does a similar thing when Lelaina comes to him for a job, saying "Darling, I love you and I hate to break your plate, but you have to grow up sometime." Neither of her parents want their denial of help to reflect negatively on them and so they preface their statements with disclaimers.

If you do something wrong, however, and the damage has been done, you may seek to repair the conversational problem. One common method for repairing is making excuses, which is "an explanation designed to lessen the negative consequences of something done or said" (DeVito, 1998, p. 474). An example of an excuse occurs during one of Lelaina's conversations with her father. He is offended that Troy did not show up for an interview, as quoted earlier in the paper. Lelaina does not want her father to think negatively of Troy, so she makes an excuse for him and lies. She explains, "That wasn't his fault. He asked me to call you and cancel and everything was going on and it just slipped my mind." Lelaina is attempting to repair the problem through making an excuse for Troy's behavior and even her own, by saying it slipped her mind.

"Reality Bites" is a movie about relationships. And as we all know, people are not perfect. Therefore, there is a lot of conflict, sarcasm, hurt feelings, misunderstood intentions, and built up resentment present in this movie. The communication reflects each character's desire to be understood and protected. Although much of the communication described in this paper is unproductive, it does provide insight into the characters and it does move the story line along. There is a lot of sarcasm in the movie, by all characters and it is present through most of the examples of communication in the paper. For example, the way that the manager at Wiener Schnitzel talks down to Lelaina is very sarcastic, as well as the way that Troy is excessively critical of Michael. In addition, Lelaina is sarcastic when she is verbally aggressive with Troy. Almost all of the characters use sarcasm to get their message across, which is a characteristic of most of the types of communication discussed in this paper.

In addition to sarcasm, there are other connections between the concepts. Lelaina is treated condescendingly many times during the movie, so when she finds someone that appreciates her, she clings onto that. Grant, from "Good Morning Grant!" disconfirms Lelaina, making her feel unimportant and untalented because he will not look at her documentary. In addition, her mother has a static evaluation of her, still treating her as a child. Her father recognizes that she is older, but is indiscriminant of her and treats her as if she is just part of a problem of her generation. Even the manager at Wiener Schnitzel talks down to her and acts as if she is not smart enough to handle a fast food job, when in fact she was valedictorian. No one really appreciates her in the movie, until she meets Michael and he confirms her work and compliments the things that she has done, as seen in the involvement and intimacy stages of their relationship. She looks to him for her source of value, and really appreciates the support he gives. However, during deterioration, even he lets her down and misunderstands her. Many of the concepts discussed in this paper illustrate the trend of treating Lelaina negatively, perhaps because of her age.

As mentioned before, many of the characters use unproductive communication. For example, when Troy is jealous of Michael and Lelaina's relationship, he resorts to putting down Michael, as seen in the examples of excessive criticism. Similarly, when Lelaina's parents, Tom and Charlene, are fighting at graduation dinner, they practice such conflict strategies as nonnegotiation and face detracting, both of which are unproductive. They use this communication to express resentment towards each other for all their previous relationship problems. In the examples of Troy and Lelaina's parents, it is evident that they use unproductive conflict strategies to hide hurt feelings and attempt to protect themselves by putting down the other person. These characters just want to appear better to the other people in their life.

Overall, I would say that the communication present in "Reality Bites" is in fact very realistic. In my life, I see people using sarcasm a lot as a way to harm others and make themselves feel better. In addition, the relationship between Lelaina and Michael seems true to life, because of the way they progress through the stages of their relationship. People often bond over little things, like liking astronomy or drinking Big Gulps. In addition, their relationship seemed to fizzle out pretty quickly, which I also think is true to life in many cases. Moreover, the relationship between Lelaina and her parents seems very believable. Parents often have a hard time dealing with the fact that their child is grown up. Her parents each react differently when she asks them for help, which is also seems real to life. I know that my parents both treat me very differently and her parents embody two different ways of reacting. In contrast, I think that the character of the manager at Wiener Schnitzel seemed to communicate in an overdone and dramatic way, but there are probably people in the world like that. It provided for more comedy in the movie, even the character was more like a caricature. Overall, I think the communication in this movie, especially the way the relationships are displayed, is realistic.

Character Diagram
Lelaina Pierce: Her best friends are Troy and roommate Vickie. There is sexual tension between her and Troy throughout the movie, until they eventually get together at the end. She dates Michael throughout the movie, also, and has to decide to whether to be with him or Troy. She does not have a great relationship with her parents, as they misunderstand her and do not help her when she has lost her job.
Vickie: Lelaina's roommate and friend.
Troy: He lives with Vickie and Lelaina since he got fired from his job. He likes Lelaina but has a hard time expressing that. Because of his feelings for Lelaina, he does not like Michael and feels threatened by him.
Michael: He dates Lelaina throughout the movie until the end when they break up. He gets into problems with Troy though, who tends to be hostile towards him.
Charlene: Lelaina's mother, who is now remarried to a man that is obviously a little slow and stupid. She still has angry feelings toward her ex-husband Tom.
Tom: Lelaina's father who is a bit arrogant and still fights with his ex-wife Charlene.
Grant: He is the host of the TV show "Good Morning Grant!" that Lelaina works for in the beginning of the movie. Grant and Lelaina do not have a good relationship because he does not like her and treats her very condescendingly.

Short Summary: "Reality Bites" is a love story in which Lelaina, the main character, must decide between two very different men, Troy and Michael. Meanwhile, she is trying to keep a job and find her own identity. The movie is filled with many conflicts and problems because it is focused so much on relationships.