Filled with a new sense of hope and ambition, Megan got her life together, pursuing an education and focusing on her family. ET on OWN. 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 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. http://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-nov-14-et-girlhood14-story.html Second, she is distressed when her mother leaves. 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. The documentary, indeed, treats girlhood as its subject a phase of life distinct from womanhood, childhood or any other experience. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. For example, the filmmaker emphasizes Shanaes growth since leaving Waxter. When Megan talks of her mother, it is apparent that Megan suffers from her neglect and lack of structure. Just check our reviews! 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. Megan, the other young offender continues to practise delinquent . When she originally returned to Baltimore, Megan's life went downhill. Follows two female inmates - victims of horrific violence and tragedy - who are serving time in a Maryland juvenile detention center. While Shanae sublimates her anger and hurt and moves on with life, for Megan everything is right on the surface. She receives more family support than Megan is, but she does not seem to reciprocate it at the beginning of the film. 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. This is the latest feature-length non-fiction film from documentarian Liz Garbus, who has spotlighted imprisonment in 2002's "The Execution of Wanda June" and the 1998 Oscar-nominee "The Farm: Angola USA." As with those two films, "Girlhood" looks at the incarceration of violent-crime offenders. In the beginning, Shanae is not remorseful for committing murder (Garbus, 2003). 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. Garbus explains that she encountered the contradictions of Shanae and Megans girlhoods early on; she mentions that she was struck by [Shanaes] little girl-ness, her innocence, but this was complicated by what she learned about the violence of her crime. That is to say, Garbus sees crime and girlhood as opposite experiences. The film is intense and very blunt but it also does a great job of showing the human side of these two young people over a three year span of time. From there she enrolls in high school, where she places fourth in her class, and plans to attend a community college. Paperdue.com uses cookies to offer you the best service. Our company is proud to host more than 80 of North Americas best essay writers. Volatile, articulate and desperately needy, Megan seethes with bitterness at having been abandoned by her mother, Vernessa, a heroin addict and prostitute, who has spent many years in prison. 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. Its easy to see what attracted Garbus to Shanae and Megan and why, after spending three on-and-off years with them, she would want to hang a proverbial silver lining on their stories. That's when you really knew how much time and love were put in for the girls in this particular place. 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. One of the biggest criticisms that Garbus. Shanae was ten years old when she was gang-raped by five boys. Instead it resembles one of those depressingly familiar, underfunded and understaffed holding pens for social throwaways -- in other words, it looks as much like an inner-city high school as a correctional institution. Hanna has won numerous writing awards. I was just doing anything to kill myself, honestly," she says. This leads to her eventual rehabilitation from delinquency. Identification Her mother was largely able to chart Shanae's problem for the duration of the movie, because she cared about her and wanted to see her do better. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/girlhood-subjects-get-narrative-feature-829762 When Girlhood opens, Shanae (we never learn her last name) is serving time in the all-girls unit at the Thomas J.S. But its staff emerges as a caring if overstressed group of people who do what they can to steer the girls in their charge toward a productive life. The film follows them from 1999 through the year 2002. She perseveres through challenges in life. 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. associated with girlhood. There are a couple of different things I would attempt to implement if I were the director of the Waxter Juvenile Facility to make the program more efficacious for juveniles sent there for reform. ~ (Source: Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide). Juvenile Delinquency Documentary chronicling America's justice system. This age difference is crucial because there is a mutability associated with [Need anessay writing service? Shanae and Megans girlhoods contain all that which other parts of life contain, and to think of Garbus idea of girlhood as winning at the end of the film is short-sighted and perhaps fails to move forward with Girlhood Studies attention to complexity and fullness (including pain) of this part of life for her subjects. Some are held while they are waiting for a bed in a treatment center. All Rights Reserved. In the film's most compelling scenes Megan confronts Vernessa, who has been released from prison and who professes her love and determination to be an anchor for her daughter. "Excuse me," she said. Megan, however, never received such support from her mother, or from the rest of her family. She gets her place to live. Furthermore, at the end of the documentary, she enrolls in a community college nearby. She Alba Sotorra is an independent filmmaker and producer based in Barcelona. I argue that The Craft's relevance to . Megan, the more unruly of the two is a little older than Shanae. Treating the girls girlhoods as linear stories of overcoming erases the fullness, pain and challenge of all that comprises their girlhoods. Shanae has been at Waxter longer than any other inmate and after two years shes itching to get out. We wont be able to verify your ticket today, but its great to know for the future. The title of the film is overly simple and, to an extent, revealing in its simplicity. 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. 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. Decent Essays. Director Liz Garbus See production, box office & company info Search on Amazon search for Blu-ray and DVD Add to Watchlist Added by 1.8K users You get a sense of just how complicated when Shanae finally cops to her guilt. Feb 26th, 2022 Published. Often it's not enough. Documentary film is a powerful medium for psychology course instruction, providing examples of concepts, issues, and theoretical principles, embedded in the realworld human experience. By continuing, you are agreeing to receive cookies. . You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Open Document. Volatile, articulate and desperately needy, Megan seethes with bitterness at having been abandoned by her mother, Vernessa, a heroin addict and prostitute, who has spent many years in prison. "I am halfway through my Associates in Arts degree. Subsequently, she was always looking for that support and without it had less incentive and means to create a change in her life. However, her mother is a struggling drug addict who is unable to offer the care and support that she required. Second, Shanae develops a positive outlook. Miriam has proven to have an incredibly strong voice when it comes to tackling tough, timely and complex stories that often take place in urban settings but resonate far and wide, Fawcett said. By age 10, she had been committed to two psychiatric hospitals and diagnosed as manic-depressive. 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. We were introduced to Shanae, a young girl, convicted of murder. Garbus interest in and empathy for her subjects and, more importantly, the way in which she relays their girlhood, makes for an entertaining and emotional documentary, but perhaps an incomplete one. Today, the Baltimore native is living in North Carolina and acknowledges that she wasn't in a good place during her "Oprah Show" appearance. Garbus, director of the acclaimed prison documentary, The Farm: Angola, USA, examines the disparate fates of these girls and their very different treatment at the hands of the juvenile justice system. The documentary follows the plight of Megan and Shanae (Garbus, 2003). Your email address will not be published. Editor Mary Manhardt. In Garbus film, Shanae and Megans girlhood set up a dichotomy: girlhood is good, everything else threatening, extraneous and intrusive, instead of part of the story of girlhood itself. They focus upon the history of corrections, the history of juvenile corrections, and the history of the standards of juvenile corrections. Parents need to know that the French movie Girlhood is a bleak but affecting look at life in the housing projects outside Paris, where young people have few options and little chance to improve their lives. Similarly, she seems to suffer from ambivalent attachment because she is always distressed when she is unable to receive affirmations from her mother. Girl Hood is a documentary film directed and produced by Liz Garbus that follows two teenage girls, Shanae and Megan, over the span of three years, from the time they are in the all-girls juvenile detention center at Thomas J.S Waxter Childrens Center in Laurel, Maryland, to when they are out in the real world. In the documentary Girlhood, Liz Garbus follows two young women who have encountered numerous misfortunes in the past that led them to implement their violent offences. Megan, 16, was also involved in a fight and was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. 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. At 14, she was hit by a stray bullet during a gunfight. That was 11 years ago. Having been abandoned by her mother, with whom she has a very complicated relationship, Megan is desperate for attention and affection. As for the staff of the Waxter, they were awesome. Movies about murdered prostitutes and serial killers who prey on women are so ubiquitous as to be banal, and perhaps not even shockingly these stories tend to be about the cops or lawyers investigating the crimes to which they have fallen victim, and not about the women themselves. Copyright 2023 . After her release, 19-year-old Megan appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" alongside another troubled teen, Shanae. In the documentary, we learn that she runs away from foster care eleven times, ten before Waxter and once more after leaving Waxter. Both of the girls have been in the system for years, Megan has been in and out of juvenile detention centers and foster homes for years and is . New York: Psychology Press. Even though her mother has a problem with drugs and prostitution, she is distressed when she does not receive visits or calls from her. Assignment #2 In class we viewed documentary titled Girlhood, the film surrounded two teenage girls named Megan and Shanae. Megan is not malicious, and her mischief is probably a cry for attention. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/girlhood Join our weekly newsletter to stay up-to-date on women centric, directed, and written films and news. 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. Hood Girls will cover a considerably longer span of Watkins and Stahls lives than Girlhood did. Megan had given up, and even ended up back in jail. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes. Shanae shows certain resilience characteristics that help her reform her life. Running time: 88 minutes. The relationship between staff and the young women at Waxter is for the most part warm and friendly. This fact, combined with the lack of familial support that Megan got, certainly contributed to her continuing to run away from foster homes. She's the sweetheart of the Waxter facility, even if. However, after the collective effort from her mother and rehabilitation officers, she becomes emotionally expressive. Megan also leaves Waxter. Girl Hood was released in 2003 and since then has won many awards. Humanizing those who have committed crimes especially children is a good thing to do, and certainly expands the viewers capacity to embrace complicated narratives and emotions. Privacy Policy, Download this Essay in word format (.docx), Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, Juvenile Detention and Corrections Standards, New Juvenile Detention Center, if Given Unlimited, Girlhood Juvenile Delinquents Shanae Megan Waxter Juvenile Essay. One perspective on the film Girl Hood is that it is a highly informative documentary film in which the director does a spectacular job revealing to the world the issues young women such as Megan and Shanae face on a daily basis. Theres no denying the seduction and importance of a lot of this work, but sometimes it isnt enough to turn a camera on other peoples catastrophes. Ecological Framework Find help here.]. By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. In the documentary, she is always trying to contact either the mother or the grandmother. The documentary follows the plight of Megan and Shanae (Garbus, 2003). Waxter Childrens Center in Laurel, Md., some 20 miles from Baltimore. The disrupted attachment led to a paradoxical relationship with the caregivers in Waxter (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010). [Write my essay for me? Get help here.]. The girls crimes obviously color their experiences of girlhood, but they are humanized by Garbus editorial choices through camera angles, the stories we hear, the presentation of various sympathetic or irresponsible adults that accessorize and control the girls lives. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Vidiots returns: L.A. institution reveals opening date for new movie theater, video store, Everything Everywhere All at Once explained: Hot dog hands, empathy challenges and meaning in the absurd, Captain America: The Winter Soldier reviews salute action, intrigue, Morgan Freeman criticizes Black History Month and the term African American, Armie Hammer sexual-assault allegations being reviewed by L.A. prosecutors, Waynes World is not the film Penelope Spheeris wants to be remembered for, Super Mario Bros. surpasses $600 million to top the 2023 box office, The actor, the hairstylist and the eye surgeon: Drugs and death in a Malibu beach house, Have guests in town? This paradoxical relationship with her parent is evident (Brody & Dwyer, 2016). Growing up, Megan had shuffled through 11 different foster homes, running away from all but one of them. Is it maternal nurturing that makes the difference? 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