Captain Fantastic: Issues and Ideologies

 ISSUES AND IDEOLOGIES 

In the Bill Of Rights scene, Ben is criticised for homeschooling his children rather than sending them to a regular school similarly to Harper's and Dave's kids. During this scene, the kids are questioned on the bill of rights. Harper's kids Justin and Jackson deliver an extremely informal answer in comparison to Ben's 8-year-old Zaja, who can effortlessly recite the text word for word and even grant his own analysis of the meaning and importance of the document. From this, the audience is encouraged to side with Ben as it's displayed that his way of teaching outperforms the education system. Moreover, the cinematography supports this; When the children were being questioned, the camera angle makes Harper's children fill the screen whilst for Zaja( who is younger than them) is presented smaller and the camera is placed above him, demonstrating how his amount of knowledge at such age is imposing. Furthermore, the mise en scene during this scene further encouraged the audience to favour Ben. Harper's body language and dialogue are hostile whilst Ben is tranquil and composed, therefore encouraging the audience to prefer Ben more. 

In the scene where Vespyr is asked to analyse a book, she's reading 'Lolita', and she mentions how the protagonist's actions ( a sexual molester ) are wrong and unjustifiable but the reader is encouraged to empathise with the character due to the fact that it's from his perspective. This could be linked to Ben, as the audience for the majority of the film sees Ben's perspective, and we feel empathy for him through negative actions. 

In the 'I'm a moist' scene, Ben's eldest son Bo encounters a few girls and finds it difficult to speak when spoken to casually. We are shown close-ups of his face, displaying his distress and nervousness. This scene clarifies how Ben's kids haven't been taught about how to act outside the wilderness and in the 'real world'. Their complete isolation from modern civilisation disadvantaged them when it came to common interactions. This scene makes the audience doubt Ben's choices of lifestyle and encourages the audience to feel resentment towards Ben like Bo. Ben then proceeds to turn a blind eye to this discomfort, which creates tension.

During the confrontation with Ben and his father-in-law, we are initially aligned with Ben and we begin to feel sympathy and affection for him as Rellian has left him. We begin to see Ben's world through other perspectives so his idealism begins to become questionable to the audience. His wealthy father-in-law has considered taking custody of Ben's kids as he wants them to have a 'normal life. The grandfather questions the way Ben is raising the children, causing the audience to question Ben's lifestyle as well. In previous scenes, Ben refuses to let his family dine in a restaurant as he believes restaurant food isn't 'real food' when admiring the menu. The family is against consumerism, and yet shoplift supplies from the supermarket, calling it "Mission: Free The food." Moreover, Ben lies about how one of the children came about breaking their wrists, making us question the children's safety.  This starts making less sense to the audience and the grandfather, causing us to slowly be driven away from the alignment with Ben and instead aligned with the Grandfather shifting our initial thoughts about him. The cinematography in this scene displays the clear power imbalance between Jack and Ben. Ben looks smaller, inferior, and less impressionable through his clothing style, putting his argument to a disadvantage. His responses are persistently defensive and he is unable to justify his actions. He proceeds to try and look for an escape consistently looking behind him, suggesting that he's aware that he may be in the wrong and can't win the argument. On the other hand, Jack is portrayed as dominant in comparison to Ben, clearly emphasized through his clothing, giving him an upper hand. Moreover, it can be argued that both of their ideologies can be balanced as they're both the hero and villain of the film, and they both have experienced the same loss of the mother (Jack's daughter). This allows the audience to have their own opinions and perspectives of the film.