Not Hollywood, not L.A., not the country, At 19, he won a local school board seat. The girls have traumatic experiences that affect their relationship with others. Girlhood tells the story of two young girls locked up in The Waxter Juvenile Facility in Baltimore because they committed violent crimes. Unfortunately, juvenile crime is becoming more and more of an issue here. Shanaes development has been disrupted. Despite the locked doors and garish green paint daubing the hallways, the Waxter center doesnt look all that forbidding. Editor Mary Manhardt. Shanae, however, simply had to acknowledge her culpability in the murder of a friend before being able to effect a significant change in the direction of her life. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Both girls ended up in the Waxter Juvenile Facility, home to Maryland's most violent offenders.Academy Award nominated director Liz Garbus follows Shanae and Megan for the next three years, as they try to make a life for themselves both inside and outside of Baltimore's juvenile justice system. Of the two only Shanae receives that nurturing, and it seems to make all the difference. Abruptly, she halted the conversation. Filled with a new sense of hope and ambition, Megan got her life together, pursuing an education and focusing on her family. A story of mothers and daughters, crimes and consequences, and strength in the face of unimaginable adversity, girlhood is a testament to the faith and struggles of two girls just trying to grow up. This fact, combined with the lack of familial support that Megan got, certainly contributed to her continuing to run away from foster homes. The two attend classes, hang out (rarely with each other), argue with their adult keepers, pout and rage and confess their secrets to Garbus carefully unobtrusive camera. Innumerable advancements and innovations have profoundly contributed to the betterment of the lives of the human race in the twenty first century. All the same, Marieme (Karidja Tour) goes through nearly as many shifts in appearance and identity as Boyhood's Mason. She specializes in academic writing, copywriting, business plans and resumes. Developmental Psychology: Childhood & Adolescence: Childhood and Adolescence. [ClickEssay Writerto order your essay]. An alternate perspective of Girl Hood is that it is a film that tries too hard to achieve an ending on a positive note. She responded by drinking and drugging, and then at age 12, graduated to murder. Her cousin has to console her. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: GIRLHOOD MOVIE REVIEW. First, she has goals and aspirations. Subsequently, she was always looking for that support and without it had less incentive and means to create a change in her life. Some boys are bailed out by their parents and in other cases they are released by the judge. Follows two female inmates - victims of horrific violence and tragedy - who are serving time in a Maryland juvenile detention center. My Essay Writerwas started by an award-winning journalist who saw the need from students to have someone take care of their annoying assignments for them. But in her attempt to give their lives a shape that the girls themselves seem to resist, this talented filmmaker has done both herself and them a disservice. Theres no suggestion that the teenager feels any true remorse, only that shes learned how to deploy the same hollow psychological platitudes as her jailers. Subsequently, she was always looking for that support and without it had less incentive and means to create a change in her life. After graduating from the Comosun College's journalism program, she went on to work at community newspapers throughout Atlantic Canada, before embarking on her freelancing journey. The main character joins a girls' gang and is soon stealing, extorting money from classmates, and beating up . By continuing, you are agreeing to receive cookies. Her emotional responses are not well adjusted. On the other hand, Girl Hood creates an uncomfortable comparison between Shanae and Megan and their relationship with their mothers. Anyone can read what you share. New York: Cengage Learning. Once Shanae begins to face the reality of what she did, she is transferred to a group home and begins to flourish. This paper provides a social psychological review of Megan and Shanae from an ecological point of view as well as an attachment perspective. Head of production Julie Gaither. NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates talks with documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus about her new film Girlhood, a chronicle of the lives of two troubled adolescent girls involved in the juvenile justice system . Shanae, an African-American who has been at Waxter for two years when the film begins, was sent there after stabbing a girl to death in a knife fight. The film opens with the title card, In the United States, during the last decade, the number of young girls committing violent crimes has more than doubled. Shanae had a substantially greater amount of support than Megan did. She is often well behaved, but she still shows bouts of mischief. As to be expected, the revelations are often heartbreaking, at times infuriating, but because the film runs a total of 88 minutes theyre also manifestly unenlightening. While Shanae told her own story -- murdering another girl after the two got into an argument -- and shared remorse for her violent actions, Megan seemed much more guarded. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.This Documentary/Film \"Girlhood\" is not for any personal financial profit or gain to TheeSymphony'sCulture Channel, but instead only for educational purposes and cultural research. Follows two female inmates - victims of horrific violence and tragedy - who are serving time in a Maryland juvenile detention center.Documentary chronicling America's justice system. In Garbus version of their lives, these experiences do not bring them down. They emerge triumphant; their girlhood, we end up hoping, will be salvaged. LA Times reviewer Manohla Dargis notes, Garbus obsession with levity ultimately triumphs, leaving us with an unfinished picture: [T]o turn complex and contradictory lives into palatable narratives, is one of the least-examined pitfalls in nonfiction filmmaking. ''Girlhood,'' which follows Shanae and Megan over three years beginning in 1999, doesn't pretend that a place like Waxter can hope to do the job by itself. The documentary "Girlhood" follows the lives of two girls, Shanae and Megan, from 1999-2002, during and shortly after their release from Waxter Juvenile Facility in Maryland. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/girlhood-subjects-get-narrative-feature-829762 Sitting in the back of her mother and fathers car, Shanae -- one of the two teenage girls at the center of Liz Garbus arresting nonfiction film about young offenders -- declares that the schoolmate she stabbed to death a few years earlier has it easier. At the beginning of the documentary, Shanae and Megan are 14 and 16, serving time for murder and assault, respectively. ~ (Source: Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide). That roster includes ''The Farm: Angola, U.S.A,'' an acclaimed film about the largest maximum-security prison in the United States, and ''The Execution of Wanda Jean,'' a sympathetic portrait of the first black woman executed in America in the last 50 years. Throughout the film, we are sympathetic to the challenges of Shanae and Megans girlhoods, but cannot substantively grasp, through the documentary, the unresolved nature of their status, as girls in a system that seeks to destroy not just girlhood, but life beyond girlhood too. Documentary chronicling America's justice system. As a child, her mother was absent. "I am halfway through my Associates in Arts degree. At the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village. The impulse to end on an up note, to turn complex and contradictory lives into palatable narratives, is one of the least-examined pitfalls in nonfiction filmmaking. Photography Tony Hardmon. A Moxie Firecracker Production for TLC, released by Wellspring. Copyright 2022 My Essay Writer. Documentary Crime Documentary chronicling America's justice system. Join our weekly newsletter to stay up-to-date on women centric, directed, and written films and news. At paperdue.com, we provide students the tools they need to streamline their studying, researching, and writing tasks. Additionally, the film has been criticized for having the drama move the film along. Girlhood isnt about an abstraction like the wrongs of the state penal system -- indeed there is very little about how Waxter works (or doesnt) day to day -- its about two very real and complicated kids, each of whom could fill up hours of screen time. While Shanae sublimates her anger and hurt and moves on with life, for Megan everything is right on the surface. The field of Girlhood Studies continues to grow and perhaps offers guidance in understanding where Garbus erred. Girls like Shanae and the films other principal subject, Megan, a disarmingly appealing teenager who, bounced from one foster home to another (11 total), landed in Waxter after slicing open another girl with a box cutter. [Write my essay for me? Get help here.]. Girlhood focuses on the life of two young juveniles, Shanae Owens and Megan Jensen both incarcerated for violent crimes. This trend of progression is surging ahead at a rapid pace; however, it is very unfortunate to declare that many of the social dilemmas also exist in this industrialized world that is making millions of residents suffer from its drastic outcomes. Summary: The documentary filmGirlhoodfollows two girls whose actions result in their incarceration in the Waxter Juvenile Facility in Baltimore, Maryland. ''Girlhood, which was shot in 16 millimeter, is a bare-bones affair, as spare as the juvenile institution in which much of it was filmed. The documentary indicates the patterns in Shanae's and Megan's life histories that fit with offending. Required fields are marked *. Megan was shuffled through 11 different foster homes, running away from all except one. Girlhood. Running time: 88 minutes. The mystery of the young woman's disappearance haunts her single, middle-aged, working-class mother, Mari Gilbert (Amy Ryan), for the duration of Lost Girls intentionally bleak, downbeat, if. This leads to her eventual rehabilitation from delinquency. "I didn't know how to love anybody or to depend on people because I never had anyone stable enough in my life to actually show me that kind of love and compassion.". Mary Celeste Kearney writes that in approaching girlhood, sociological research, interestingly, often focused on female juvenile delinquency. In recent years, however, Girlhood Studies has grown to include and account for multiple narratives of girlhood, and actively attempts not to make girlhood inferior to womanhood, or take it less seriously. When Ms. Hill choked on her tears for Shanae leaving - it was heartfelt. The effects of detention have been researched and discovered to be detrimental to the safety and mental health of the juvenile, as well as increase the chance of recidivism. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/girlhood This paradoxical relationship with her parent is evident (Brody & Dwyer, 2016). The hard cases penned up here are girls whose youth, bright smiles and flashes of irritation at being kept under lock and key belie their grim, violent histories. Shanae was only 11 at the time and had tumbled into a numbed existence of drinking and drugs after being gang-raped by five boys. Unlike Megan, who ends up bitter, Shanae has a positive outlook that things will become better. Not surprisingly, by the end of the documentary she is living alone in Baltimore while Shanae was living with her family and doing well in high school while preparing to attend a junior college. When she originally returned to Baltimore, Megan's life went downhill. The pair form a strong friendship and, under the guidance and treatment of a dedicated psychotherapist, endeavor to change their lives and strive for a brighter future. The films protagonists, Megan Jensen and Shanae Watkins. Because the film does not incorporate the juvenile system that fails Megan and others like her, the focus of the film becomes on the distinction between mothers who neglect their children and mothers who do not. After Megan and her mother have falling out and are no longer speaking, the film again shifts focus to Shanae, who has now just lost her mother to heart failure. I thought the movie was captivating, it drew me into the two girls' lives and everything they went through. Both Megan and Shanae share similar viewpoints for example, they mention that their role model is . As you watch it, you wish the film would fill in more of each girl's background. Strength-Based Approaches Megan, a pretty girl with a devilish gleam in her eye, tries to get by on charm, but she doesn't have Shanae's focus. Identification Garbus encountered the girls at the Waxter Juvenile Facility in Baltimore while making a television documentary about the boys incarcerated there. Girlhood misses some of the nuance of the girlhoods that it seeks to document in a few ways. Megan is not malicious, and her mischief is probably a cry for attention. And at 12, she had become a killer. Megan, the more unruly of the two is a little older than Shanae. Shanae was raped by five teenagers when she was eleven and then was arrested and convicted for stabbing a friend to death with a knife when she was twelve. All Rights Reserved. http://sites.google.com/view/ehdwjwbxfu/linkedlist-member-modification-c, Your email address will not be published. It indicates that she is wary of strangers (Garbus, 2003). Aired on 07/20/2014 | CC tv-pg In 2003, Oprah spoke to Megan, a teenage girl who had spent time in a juvenile detention facility for some of the country's most violent youths. 2 Working within the filmic fairy tale adaptation cycle that emerged between 2005 and 2015, this thesis investigates how girlhood is cinematically constructed through the lens of Having been abandoned by her mother, with whom she has a very complicated relationship, Megan is desperate for attention and affection. Some are held while they are waiting for a bed in a treatment center. Waxter Childrens Center in Laurel, Md., some 20 miles from Baltimore. AMCTheatres.com or AMC App New. Exclusively at Laemmles Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills (310) 274-6869. She portrays this by her apprehensive response that she gives to her parent. 4 Pages. Gender Roles In The Film Girlhood. Shot on digital video and Super 8 film over the course of three years, Girlhood provides a partial account of what happened to Shanae and Megan under the states alternately guarded and careless watch. Now hes confronting it head-on, The Super Mario Bros. is now highest-grossing video game adaptation with $500 million, Angela Bassett understood Austin Butlers Oscars moment. She gave birth to a daughter and moved to North Carolina in an effort to start anew. After all, Shanae explains, at least the dead girl is in heaven. By what name was Girlhood (2003) officially released in Canada in English? They both received open-ended sentences and their release depends on their current jail behavior. "I just lost all respect for myself," she says. Confronted with her crime, Shanae is strangely detached and has little memory of the incident. Brody, R., & Dwyer, D. (2016). In an interview with NPR, the films director, Liz Garbus, admits that Girlhood was originally a documentary about incarcerated boys, but the girls stories were more interesting to her. Open Document. Liz Garbus's hard-headed documentary film ''Girlhood'' is prefaced with an unsettling statistic: in the last decade the number of violent assaults by under-age girls in this country has doubled. Shanae was arrested for murder at the age of 12, after stabbing a friend to death. Megan grew up without the love and support of her mother who was in prison for drugs and prostitution. There are a number of reasons for why Shanae was able to turn her life around whereas Megan was not. The project, titled "Hood Girls," will be written and directed by Miriam Kruishoop ("Greencard Warriors") and produced by Atlantic Screen Productions. airs Sundays at 9 p.m. Megan also leaves Waxter. Megan, however, was virtually abandoned by her mother and received little support from the rest of the family. The domain that best explains Megans attachment issues is the ambivalent/resistant attachment. The relationship between staff and the young girls is also essential to how the girls grow and move forward with their lives. Most of these reasons were actually some of the primary themes in Liz Garbus' documentary Girlhood, which followes the lives of these young women for three years from the Waxter Juvenile Detention Center to the streets of Baltimore. Shanae shows certain resilience characteristics that help her reform her life. As the documentary end, it is clear that Megan is afraid to trust others. Megan, a pretty girl with a devilish gleam in her eye, tries to get by on charm, but she doesn't have Shanae's focus. Just last week Waxter made headline news in Maryland after having been labeled by one childrens rights advocate as a house of horrors. At Waxter, girls like Shanae who have been sentenced for crimes, girls who would make mincemeat of the fillies in Thirteen, are placed alongside those who, as one news story put it, have not been found guilty of anything yet. Except, perhaps, being born poor and grievously disadvantaged. Girlhood Directed by Liz Garbus Documentary, Crime Not Rated 1h 22m By Stephen Holden Oct. 29, 2003 Liz Garbus's hard-headed documentary film ''Girlhood'' is prefaced with an unsettling. Third, Shanae becomes emotionally expressive. This documentary follows these two bright but troubled young girls at the Waxter Juvenile Facility in Baltimore as they struggle their way toward redemption and understanding. 2023, https://www.paperdue.com/essay/girlhood-juvenile-delinquents-shanae-megan-127185, Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Here are 22 essential L.A. spots for every tourist, Column: We cant afford another writers strike. The film was shown at 30 festivals around the world and won over a dozen prizes. Megan, however, was virtually abandoned by her mother and received little support from the rest of the family. Paperdue.com uses cookies to offer you the best service. Girlhood was shown at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival and at the South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. "I started using cocaine, I was strung out on drugs -- bad. Having been abandoned by her mother, with whom she has a very complicated relationship, Megan is desperate for attention and affection. Footage of the two girls is then followed along with more title cards that give insight into the crimes they have committed. This age difference is crucial because there is a mutability associated with As she grows up, she realizes that she cannot rely on anyone and starts to take better care or herself. 794 Words. The most salient factor in Megan's reversal of fortune however was the tireless work that her mother did to ensure that her daughter became an upstanding individual. FILM REVIEW; A Documentary Illuminates Young Lives at the Crossroads of Redemption and Devastation, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/movies/film-review-documentary-illuminates-young-lives-crossroads-redemption.html. We wont be able to verify your ticket today, but its great to know for the future. In the end, it seems the title Girlhood is both revealing and a misnomer: this film is about the liminal space of girlhoods colored by destabilizing events in their lives (and the larger systems and circumstances dictated by a society that easily discards the humanity of girls, people of color, queer people, differently abled people and poor people). If the movie suggests that a strong mother-daughter bond is the key to a successful rehabilitation, it is too intelligent to belabor that notion. 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