Saturday, March 27, 2004
Disturbed...
I just finished watching a movie that I never would have picked up had it not won an Oscar. (Best Supporting Actress - Holly Hunter) The film, Thirteen, is a picture about Tracy, a thirteen year old girl in the seventh grade who is a model student and child. Until, that is, she meets Evie, the most popular girl in the school who introduces her to a world outside her bubble. It is a world of boys, sex, drinking, drugs, tattoos, and piercings. Tracy's mom is a single working mother who cannot afford to spend time with her children and the movie is largely about how Tracy and her family slowly disintegrate. It is hard for me to believe that all that goes on in the movie would be possible in the life of a thirteen year old, but the film makes it startingly and painfully real. I think it was a good movie for me to see, in light of my future ministry, to help me to understand how something like that could happen and the systems (or failures thereof) complicit in making it possible. Evie and Tracy do things that I would like to think most thirteen year old girls don't know about, but I understand that is a naive way of thinking. I thought back on when I was in the seventh grade, and realized that I was aware of drugs, drinking, sex, et al. as well; I just never acted on any of it. Plenty of people I knew did drugs, though usually they stuck to marijuana. Drinking was present but only became common in high school. Sex was the same. In the eighth grade I was in an AV class with about eight girls, all of whom I was friends with and over the course of that year became privy to their weekend adventures via their Monday morning conversations. They couldn't wait to trade stories with one another. I was a big dork then (and some would argue still am) and listened on in fascination. I think they enjoyed shocking me. Anyway, they told stories of smoking, drinking, drugs, and sex. I guess I just didn't remember that happening so young until viewing this movie. I remember those people, those boys and girls, and when I think of those categories and those persons, I think of high school. But watching this film made me remember that the foundations for those behaviors were present in middle school. I don't mean to imply I didn't have my own rebellions as a teenager, but I don't mind saying that they were FAR less problematic that the ones in this film. So, the question for me now is: how can I use this knowledge in ministry with youth?
-R
I just finished watching a movie that I never would have picked up had it not won an Oscar. (Best Supporting Actress - Holly Hunter) The film, Thirteen, is a picture about Tracy, a thirteen year old girl in the seventh grade who is a model student and child. Until, that is, she meets Evie, the most popular girl in the school who introduces her to a world outside her bubble. It is a world of boys, sex, drinking, drugs, tattoos, and piercings. Tracy's mom is a single working mother who cannot afford to spend time with her children and the movie is largely about how Tracy and her family slowly disintegrate. It is hard for me to believe that all that goes on in the movie would be possible in the life of a thirteen year old, but the film makes it startingly and painfully real. I think it was a good movie for me to see, in light of my future ministry, to help me to understand how something like that could happen and the systems (or failures thereof) complicit in making it possible. Evie and Tracy do things that I would like to think most thirteen year old girls don't know about, but I understand that is a naive way of thinking. I thought back on when I was in the seventh grade, and realized that I was aware of drugs, drinking, sex, et al. as well; I just never acted on any of it. Plenty of people I knew did drugs, though usually they stuck to marijuana. Drinking was present but only became common in high school. Sex was the same. In the eighth grade I was in an AV class with about eight girls, all of whom I was friends with and over the course of that year became privy to their weekend adventures via their Monday morning conversations. They couldn't wait to trade stories with one another. I was a big dork then (and some would argue still am) and listened on in fascination. I think they enjoyed shocking me. Anyway, they told stories of smoking, drinking, drugs, and sex. I guess I just didn't remember that happening so young until viewing this movie. I remember those people, those boys and girls, and when I think of those categories and those persons, I think of high school. But watching this film made me remember that the foundations for those behaviors were present in middle school. I don't mean to imply I didn't have my own rebellions as a teenager, but I don't mind saying that they were FAR less problematic that the ones in this film. So, the question for me now is: how can I use this knowledge in ministry with youth?
-R
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