Movie related to the text "Punk for a month"

This class the task is to find a movie with similar characteristics from the text "Punk for a month". I need to find a character that hide his/her feelings from society, and he/she doesn't shows who he/she really is.

                                                   "The Ugly Duckling and Me" movie trailer

This movie is the adapt to the kids story "The ugly duckling". About a swan egg that fells into a chicken nest. He was considered ugly and discriminated for being different, but they couldn't see who he really was ( a beautiful swan). Finally when he grows everyone see what was inside of him.

In this movie there's a rat that gets the egg and needs to save it from the claws of other rats. Once he borns everyone laughs (or is scared) of him because of his physical appearance. The climax, as in the tale, is given by the psychological troubles inside the duckling. Finally he becomes a swan, and of course his life changes forever.


Just like "Punk for a month", Julie is the duckling, discriminated for how she looks, when she actually is someone different inside. And once she changes and shows everyone what she is (looks alike) her life changes for better and forever.

Punk for a Month

Connecting with cultural values and student's lives.
Questions to the text 1, 2, 3 and 4

1.- What does appearance  indicates about a person? In what ways may appearances be misleading? When is it appropriate to judge people based on appearances? When is it inappropriate?

-I believe that appearance shows what the people thinks or wants to express. Appearances may be misleading when we stereotype a person. People belonging to a group may have similar qualities but they'll never think the same and feel equal. That's why prejudging a person just about how he/she looks may give a wrong idea based on stereotypes.

2.- Is Julie fair to her old friends in the change she makes? How might she have handled the change differently so as not to alienate her friends?

- Well, I believe the decision that Julie has taken helped her to realise who her true friends were. She doesn't change from one day to another and became another person, but her friends can't understand and accept it.
                             "No. She's not the same person..."

3.- Julie makes new friends once she changes her appearance. What problems can you predict with these new friends?

-I'm almost completely sure that she'll fight or have troubles with her new friends once the "punk month" ends and they realise she didn't really meant to be a punk. I would feel betrayed.
Another important aspect that may occur with these new friends is getting Julie in troubles, because their lifestyle is different from what she was used to (parties, alcohol, maybe drugs), but we must not fall into prejudice.

4.- Does Julie change internally as a result of changing externally? Can simply dressing differently influence a person's character? Why, or why not?

-I believe that how you dress doesn't change who you really are. The only thing that changed was that Julie felt free to express what she has always felt and thought. Cloth express our personality, and gives a quick image of who we are. ex: dressing black when someone dies shows pain, sorrow..

Personal Response

“The Akanksha clinic is at the forefront of India’s booming trade in so-called reproductive tourism — foreigners coming to the country for infertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization. The clinic’s main draw, however, is its success using local women to have foreigners’ babies. Surrogacy costs about $12,000 in India, including all medical expenses and the surrogate’s fee. In the U.S., the same procedure can cost up to $70,000.”


A surrogate mother is a woman who carries a fetus for someone else, usually a couple having fertility issues. Once the child born it is given to the people who has hired her. Usually the precedent involves in vitro fertilization and then the egg is implanted into the surrogate. According to the article we read at class, in India only the couples that really needs a surrogate mother are accepted. A woman that doesn't want to carry a baby because her body will change aren't accepted. Usually couples go to India because of money issues. In the United States is more than five times the of India.
¿Is this a new kind of slavery? The fragment says it's many times cheaper to do it in India than USA, so for instance everyone will think about exploitation on the women that accept this job. I believe that the term "reproductive tourism" is not correctly applied. In first term, you don't go to vacations and it's a hard decision for both, the biological parents and the surrogate mother, to choose this path. First of all, the Indian mother will have to give that baby she carried for nine months. Also, the woman hiring the service will have to leave the baby in the hands of a stranger. But the rewards given are worth. The couple will actually be able to have a baby, even though it's not the same experience, and will go against ethics, using the body of another woman to have babies. ¿A factory? Not really, surrogates earn a huge amount of money. They have also got other families to dress, educate and feed, and surrogacy is an opportunity to have a better life. In synthesis, this procedure is giving a chance of rebuilding the life to surrogate mothers and to couples struggling with infertility issues. I believe that if both sides are willing to take the procedure they are free to do it.

Surrogarte mothers

This weeks we've been working on cultural diversity. We read an article of surrogate mothers in India and the task is to answer the questions below:

1. What does "reproductive tourism" mean?
2. What issues may cause an American Woman to seek an Indian surrogate?
3. What risks and benefits exist for the surrogate mothers in India?
4. What risks and benefits exist for the woman who hire a surrogate?
5. Do you agree with the people who believe that the Indian women are being exploited? Why or Why not?

1. Reproductive tourism means to travel (in this case to India) in search of a surrogate. That means, a couple looking for someone to carry their baby. It's called tourism because you have to travel, like vacations, only that you come back with a child
2. First of all, the mother needs a real sickness or problem to have a baby, if not she wont be accepted. And the second reason would be money, in India the treatment is much more cheaper.
3. One of the risk is that the surrogate mother refuses to give the baby, and the other one is that Indian surrogate mothers become exploited. The benefit is that the money the surrogate earns is enough to educate her childs, feed a home and buy a good house.
4.  The main risk is that you don´t know how is the mother taking care of the baby, her health conditions, etc. But the reward is big, a couple that can't have babies has the chance to.
5. No, surrogate mothers have a chance to win enough money to take care of their own kids, the amount they earn is enough to begin a new life. No one is forcing them to take that decision.