The film left me with mixed feelings about the girls who crave love but seem so self-absorbed that they show so little concern for anyone else not in their radar, as I questioned what kind of punishment should there be for girls who commit violent crimes. 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. Open Document. Megan admits to having a special relationship with a fellow inmate which seems to be of a romantic nature. The extent of Garbus access to the girls while in detention is remarkable (she states that she eventually had keys to the inside of the Waxter facility because the staff got tired of her and her crews constant requests to get into different rooms). 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 . Shanae started drinking with her cousin. Girlhood was shown at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival and at the South by Southwest Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. Second, she is distressed when her mother leaves. She gets her place to live. "I don't want to do this no more.". One of the most educational parts of the film I felt was the example set by Antoinette. Shanae, on the other hand, received strong support and had to follow strict rules her 32-year-old diabetic mom insisted upon, so that when she was released to her home she had someone to lean on for support. And now I'm doing this film about a little girl, and in many ways she's a precursor to Megan. This problem has been solved! We follow them over a period of about three years. At the opening of the film girlhood by Liz Garbus, viewers are informed that the rates of young girls being charged with violent crimes is on the increase in the United States. Developmental Psychology: Childhood & Adolescence: Childhood and Adolescence. The staff never followed up Megans progress as they should have and she was unsupervised when she suddenly left the foster home and lived with friends, thereby returning to drugs and her former East Baltimore street life. Follows two female inmates - victims of horrific violence and tragedy - who are serving time in a Maryland juvenile detention center. ~ (Source: Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide). Her cousin has to console her. They both received open-ended sentences and their release depends on their current jail behavior. She portrays this by her apprehensive response that she gives to her parent. http://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-nov-14-et-girlhood14-story.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/movies/film-review-documentary-illuminates-young-lives-crossroads-redemption.html, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/girlhood-subjects-get-narrative-feature-829762, http://sites.google.com/view/ehdwjwbxfu/linkedlist-member-modification-c, this dissertation provides a compelling argument. ''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. In my own opinion, considering that Megan has to do all this on her own, hers is the greater achievement. "Excuse me," she said. In the documentary, we learn that she runs away from foster care eleven times, ten before Waxter and once more after leaving Waxter. Then, she got up and walked off set. The films protagonists, Megan Jensen and Shanae Watkins. Issues such as child neglect, failure of the foster care system, alcoholism and drug abuse. Treating the girls girlhoods as linear stories of overcoming erases the fullness, pain and challenge of all that comprises their girlhoods. At the beginning of the documentary, Shanae and Megan are 14 and 16, serving time for murder and assault, respectively. Because of the serious nature of her crime Shanae has been locked up for over two years and is anxious to go home when the film begins, but showing no remorse for her crime and acting like an obnoxious brat. Be sure to answer all parts to each question. But the reality is that Shanae, because of the support of her family, is able to overcome the trauma of her childhood and the impact of her crime and graduate from high school and go on to community college whereas Megan, without really any family support, is only able to struggle, her greatest achievement being that she doesnt return to crime or become a hardcore drug addict. The other protagonist is Megan, a troublesome mixed race teen who has a tattoo going up her right arm and is always giggly thinking everything is not serious. As a child, her mother was absent. Footage of the two girls is then followed along with more title cards that give insight into the crimes they have committed. The Girlhood documentary highlights the plight of girls in juvenile centers with some psychological disorders. Garbus rigidity in framing the girls experiences does not allow for the expansiveness and complexity allowed by new theories of girlhood. ''GIRLHOOD,'' a new documentary, is a poignant and often distressing look at the lives of two teenage girls, inmates at the Thomas J. S. Waxter Children's Center for juvenile detention near Baltimore. One may wonder how Antoinette could be a good parent considering all the trouble Shanae got into at such a young age. Garbus encountered the girls at the Waxter Juvenile Facility in Baltimore while making a television documentary about the boys incarcerated there. Shanae is 14 and has served two years at Waxter for the murder of her friend, a crime she committed when she as only 12 years old. Spirituality & Practice. a. Shanae is in the juvenile facility for stabbing a friend to death in a fight. One characteristic of resilience that Megan portrays is her perseverance. The film leaves us with a final mystery about human development. The majority of her life, her mother was either on the streets giving into her drug addiction or incarcerated for prostitution charges. In contrast to Shanae, who has a great deal of family love and support, Megan only receives letters from her mother sporadically, and in one scene in the film desperately wants to call her grandmother to see if she is going to visit her. The system essentially gives up on trying to control her and turns her loose to fend for herself. The film will center on two prisoners serving. Liz Garbus, who was nominated for an Academy Award in 1999 for The Farm: Angola, USA, shoots in her latest an unflinching cinema verite documentary about two teenager girls who committed violent crimes and are now incarcerated at Maryland's Waxter Juvenile Facility. Our managing editor an award-winning journalist has spent the past 7 years refining our roster. This difference in their experiences seems to be related to their familial relationships. Miriam Kruishoop ( Greencard Warriors) has signed on to write and direct Hood Girls, a narrative feature based on the life stories of the two subjects of Liz Garbus ' 2003 documentary Girlhood . Find help here.]. 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. ET on OWN. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. 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. Before starting the film girlhood, she actually meant to do a film about young men in juvenile detention centres because from her work on the film Angola, she was intrigued and disturbed by how many of the inmates there said they had learned the tricks of their trade from their experiences in juvenile detention. Her mother is a heroin addict and is herself often in and out of jail on prostitution charges. Her father's locked up. This comment is echoed by Mr. Godsey, a staff at the facility, who states in the film that although the girls dont like structure they need it because they havent had it at home. Megan grew up without the love and support of her mother who was in prison for drugs and prostitution. These girls are the subjects of Liz Garbus' documentary, Girlhood. Megan Jensen is doing very well in life. The domain that best explains Megans attachment issues is the ambivalent/resistant attachment. These girls are the subjects of Liz Garbus' documentary, Girlhood. 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 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. From there she enrolls in high school, where she places fourth in her class, and plans to attend a community college. airs Sundays at 9 p.m. Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations. When we meet Megan at Waxter it is clear that she is something of a troublemaker but probably more out of boredom than any malice (Garbus in her DVD commentary says that Megan is actually a very respectful young woman and that one of her main criticism of the Waxter Facility is that there is not really much structured activities for the inmates.). Step-by-step explanation. Just check our reviews! Confronted with her crime, Shanae is strangely detached and has little memory of the incident. But Garbus way of humanizing, in some instances, obfuscates the complexity of struggle, survival and the bad from the girls girlhood. She perseveres through challenges in life. She tries to reach out to her mother multiple times despite being disappointed numerous times. Sometimes, it is members of our own families that expose our children to drugs and alcohol, something I have often seen growing up in my own neighbourhood. ''Girlhood'' is the newest entry in Ms. Garbus's long list of socially concerned documentaries made for theaters and television. New York: Psychology Press. We now have the best team of essay writers in the world. Filled with a new sense of hope and ambition, Megan got her life together, pursuing an education and focusing on her family. 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. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. 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. At Waxter, Megans need for attention and affection, her vulnerablity, are on display for everyone to see. The first example is how wary she is of strangers (Eysenck, 2015). That was 11 years ago. [ClickEssay Writerto order your essay]. 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. She is a very smart girl who rejoices when given a chance to move on to another facility and then return home to her father and mother. Her emotional responses are not well adjusted. Life on the streets in a community where drugs are readily available offers her plenty of opportunities to repeat the same mistakes. At 17, she was living in her own apartment in a druggie neighborhood. The girls as well as their moms were open and seemed to not hold back their emotions for the camera, with Megan a virtual basket case of excitability and the childish Shanae changing for the better as she matures. I remember being struck at the end of the film that one of the staff at Waxter came to Shanaes home to congratulate her on graduating and see her off to the prom. Once Shanae begins to face the reality of what she did, she is transferred to a group home and begins to flourish. [Write my essay for me? Get help here.]. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Shanae was reintegrated well by her . Megan had given up, and even ended up back in jail. 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. Girlhood focuses on the life of two young juveniles, Shanae Owens and Megan Jensen both incarcerated for violent crimes. 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. Liz Garbus has made other films about life in prison, such as the Academy Award Winning The Farm: Angola. 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. Impact of Trauma ESSAY WRITING SERVICE SAMPLE: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, ESSAY WRITING SAMPLE: CORNING INC. COMPANY PROFILE CASE STUDY, RESEARCH PAPER ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT, How realism, a theory of International Relations, can apply to Foreign Policy, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: GIRLHOOD MOVIE REVIEW. With its drab green walls and sparse furnishings, Waxter is no country club. Liz Garbus made The Farm: Angola, USA in 1998, a riveting documentary about six men in a Louisiana penitentiary; it was nominated for an Academy Award. What was particularly sad was the uninspired rehabilitation measures tried by the staff at Waxter, as the girls received little help that was useful and seemed to be going buggy in an atmosphere where the staff might have been decent but were certainly clueless on how to treat the girls. Eysenck, M. (2015). I wasn't alone. 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. Even though she does not get the chance to further her education, she avoids returning to a life of crime (Garbus, 2003). By what name was Girlhood (2003) officially released in Canada in English? Megan is 16 and is in Waxter for Assault with a deadly weapon. It is during Shanaes interview to get into the lower security facility that we learn that she was also gang raped by five men. Why is Shanae in the juvenile facility? "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 Children's Center in Laurel, Maryland, to when they are out in the real world. We have already learned that starting at the age of 10, Shanae began drinking alcohol heavily, was running away from home and having unprotected sex. The girls have traumatic experiences that affect their relationship with others. As much of my work is with teenage girls in high school, this issue is both personally and professionally relevant to me, however, I often wonder if girls are really becoming more violent or if our society is just admitting something that has always gone on but we didnt know how to label because of our stereotypical image of girls and women as somehow less aggressive than men. For example, the filmmaker emphasizes Shanaes growth since leaving Waxter. She gave birth to a daughter and moved to North Carolina in an effort to start anew. She stays briefly at another foster home before running away to live with friends and eventually by herself in the treacherous East Baltimore neighborhood where she got into trouble. Her crime was that at 14 she cut up another girl with a box cutter in a dispute, and since shes been at the facility has gotten into some kind of trouble every day. Anyone can read what you share. The 16-year-old Shanae was placed in the Florence Crittenton Group home and the slightly older Megan was rewarded for trying to run away by gaining her official freedom. That Ms. Garbus was able to get so close to her likable subjects and allow us to see that they are not quite the monsters we might perceive from reading the newspapers about such bad girls, is what makes this film so special. 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. The documentary follows the plight of Megan and Shanae (Garbus, 2003). Inside, she is desperately frightened of becoming just like her. 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. The disrupted attachment led to a paradoxical relationship with the caregivers in Waxter (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010). Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile close-up look at two of the troublesome girls who are representative of the problems society faces. In her commentary on the film, available on the DVD, Garbus admits to being struck by Shanaes intelligence and cutesiness (she was wearing pigtails at the time) and then shocked to discover that Shanae was locked up for murder! With the girls going nowhere at Waxter, they were given a new lease on life by changing facilities. 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 contrast to Shanaes successes, when out of Waxter, Megan soon runs away from her foster home with no consequences (despite the fact that staying in foster care is a requirement of her patrol), couch surfs for a while and eventually gets her own place with her cousin. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/movies/film-review-documentary-illuminates-young-lives-crossroads-redemption.html How A Violent Teen Who Had Given Up On Life Turned It All Around. Open Document. It is a sign of her resiliency that she manages to handle a tragedy that would have unsettled more wobbly teenagers. As you watch it, you wish the film would fill in more of each girl's background. Like Us On Facebook | Follow Us On Twitter. The girls have traumatic experiences that affect their relationship with others. AMCTheatres.com or AMC App New. Similarly, she seems to suffer from ambivalent attachment because she is always distressed when she is unable to receive affirmations from her mother. 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. Her future appears shaky. However, after the collective effort from her mother and rehabilitation officers, she becomes emotionally expressive. See production, box office & company info. The field of Girlhood Studies continues to grow and perhaps offers guidance in understanding where Garbus erred. Required fields are marked *. Their stories are depicted in the 2003 documentary Girlhood. Garbus follows Shanae and Megan over a three-year period as they move through the juvenile system, struggle with mixed feelings toward their mothers, comment on the efforts of the staff to set them on the straight and narrow, and try to cope with the changes in their lives. Even though she has been through the trauma of murdering another girl, it seems like the rape ordeal was the first trauma that led to the myriad of deviant behavior (Garbus, 2003). Megan, 16, was also involved in a fight and was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. No matter how optimistic I am, when I am reaching out to young women, I need to understand different backgrounds. Megan, the more unruly of the two is a little older than Shanae. Documentary chronicling America's justice system. Megan flounders around for a while and is eventually sent to another foster home, which doesn't work out. In this field, deadlines are super important. We also met Megan, who, unlike Shanae, was not at the . This confused young girl ran away from ten foster homes and wound up attacking another . Garbus in her commentary points out that Shanae does not believe that the gang rape should be seen as some sort of excuse for her murdering her friend. recently followed up with Megan to see what had happened after the show. Megan Terry, an Obie Award winner, a founding member of the Open Theater group and a prolific feminist playwright who wrote and directed a rock musical on the New York stage that . A narrative feature based on the two subjects of Liz Garbus' 2003 documentary "Girlhood," young female inmates Shanae Watkins and Megan Stahl, is in the works. She demonstrates that you can support and love your child while not making excuses for them. Your email address will not be published. A wild, tough-talking girl of mixed race who has run away from 10 foster homes, she was incarcerated for attacking another foster child with a box cutter. The documentary follows the plight of Megan and Shanae (Garbus, 2003). Second, Shanae develops a positive outlook. Megan on the other hand, has a more difficult time staying out of trouble and maintaining good grades. "I was really, really, really confused at the time," Megan says. The girls tragic relationships with their mothers, their struggles with sexuality, their experiences with rape and sexual assault, drug use and poverty have shaped their lives in and out of jail. Shanaes ability to feel remorse for her actions is seen as a key benchmark that needs to be achieved before she can leave Waxter. Megan Jensen had a difficult childhood. During this scene Megan whines that nobody loves her, she seems to be half joking but one has to wonder. Make sure to answer each of the questions as thoroughly as possible. A wild, tough-talking girl of mixed race who has run away from 10 foster homes, she was incarcerated for attacking another foster child with a box cutter. 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. Additionally, she still struggles after growing up, but she ensures that she never becomes an addict (Garbus, 2003). 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. 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. Documentary chronicling America's justice system. 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 8 User reviews So what will be the fate of Shanae and Megan when they leave Waxter? Of the two only Shanae receives that nurturing, and it seems to make all the difference. Over the years, Megan has run away from most of her foster homes in a desperate attempt to reunite with her mother. The film then changes focus on Megan and her deteriorating relationship with her mother. "I just lost all respect for myself," she says. This may be a psychological scar due to her relationship with her mother. Shanae is a plump black girl who mentions she lost her virginity in the Baltimore projects when she was 10, was raped by 5 boys at 11, and did drugs in her adolescent years as she hung out with the wrong friends. This paradoxical relationship with her parent is evident (Brody & Dwyer, 2016). On Not Rejecting Girlhood: A Conversation with Megan Milks and Marisa Crawford. MPAA rating: Unrated. 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 . The family situation takes over as more important than the help they received through the criminal justice system. Your email address will not be published. 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. Unfortunately, this meant that she wasnt around to supervise Shanae. The third is her reluctance to become close with others. But if the viewer pays close attention to the film and Liz Garbus commentary we learn that Shanaes mother was a single parent working two jobs trying to support Shanae and move her family out of the projects. The film is told from the girls subjective viewpoint and plays as a coming of age story. "I started using cocaine, I was strung out on drugs -- bad. He also states that although many of the girls leave Waxter and go on to live lives free of crime, others lives deteriorate when they get back home because of the dangers and tempations of life in their often crime-filled neighbourhoods (remember most of the inmates at Waxler are coming from Baltimore!). 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 state's alternately guarded and. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Profile of Liz Garbus by the Center for Social Media, Movie Fire Craker Website (Liz Garbus Film Website), Your email address will not be published. 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. In one of the scenes, she even says that no one loves her. Thankfully, her parents point out that being dead is definitely WORSE than being in detention! Miriam Kruishoop (Greencard Warriors) has signed on to write and direct Hood Girls, a narrative feature based on the life stories of the two subjects of Liz Garbus 2003 documentary Girlhood. Shanae had to go to a lower security facility before her mother was convinced that she was rehabilitated. To think that one out of two might have straightened out her life, is not saying that the system works. 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. Ecological Framework Megan, we are told, has been in 11 foster houses by the age of 16. But one is left wondering how this silly girl took it upon herself to attack another young woman with a box cutter (the main reason why she is locked up). Girlhood Movie Analysis. Additionally, the film has been criticized for having the drama move the film along. 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. After her release, 19-year-old Megan appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" alongside another troubled teen, Shanae. The structure of Waxter allowed Megan to be a child, the streets provide no structure and force her to be more of an adult than most adults ever have to be. "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.". 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. ''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. By age 10, she had been committed to two psychiatric hospitals and diagnosed as manic-depressive. The popular phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" expresses the indifference of most Americans toward young offenders serving time in juvenile facilities. New York: Psychology Press. The difference between one girl supposedly climbing out of her bad situation and the other continuing in her dead-end path, is seen as a matter of good parenting and a child willing to change her bad ways. Megan admits that when she leaves Waxter she will only be going back to another foster home. As Oprah questioned Megan about her current situation and plans for the future, the teen grew visibly agitated.

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