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. ET on OWN. However, it is also noteworthy that Megan is two years older than Shanae. airs Sundays at 9 p.m. Photography Tony Hardmon. 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. The article by Livers & Kehoe (2012) is quite contemporary and that is one of the main themes of the article. 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. But Vernessa quickly reverts to her old ways, and the scenes of Megan viciously berating her mother for her failures are painful to watch. Furthermore, at the end of the documentary, she enrolls in a community college nearby. In the documentary, we learn that she runs away from foster care eleven times, ten before Waxter and once more after leaving Waxter. 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. 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 . Once Shanae begins to face the reality of what she did, she is transferred to a group home and begins to flourish. She Alba Sotorra is an independent filmmaker and producer based in Barcelona. ''Girlhood'' is the newest entry in Ms. Garbus's long list of socially concerned documentaries made for theaters and television. She gave birth to a daughter and moved to North Carolina in an effort to start anew. 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. While Shanae sublimates her anger and hurt and moves on with life, for Megan everything is right on the surface. 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. Megan gets out earlier, but never stays in one place very long. With its drab green walls and sparse furnishings, Waxter is no country club. After watching the documentary, it is easy to see that Megans environment has contributed greatly to her childhood and ultimately her adult life. Shanae and Megan both experienced similar circumstances that yielded different outcomes. Discussion Then, everything changed when Megan got pregnant. 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. The main character joins a girls' gang and is soon stealing, extorting money from classmates, and beating up . 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. ''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. As she grows up, she realizes that she cannot rely on anyone and starts to take better care or herself. Third, Shanae becomes emotionally expressive. The history of American documentary cinema is rife with well-intentioned filmmakers like Garbus who have trained their cameras on the abject, the neglected and the powerless. Megan, however, was virtually abandoned by her mother and received little support from the rest of the family. Hood Girls will cover a considerably longer span of Watkins and Stahls lives than Girlhood did. But it also made me wonder, why was Megan not looked after in essence like Shanae was? teaching psychology courses. "I am halfway through my Associates in Arts degree. Some are held while they are waiting for a bed in a treatment center. 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. Juvenile Delinquency 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 girls have traumatic experiences that affect their relationship with others. From there she enrolls in high school, where she places fourth in her class, and plans to attend a community college. Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations. 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. . 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. Then, she brutally stabbed another girl with a box cutter and ended up in juvenile home for some of the most violent young offenders in the country. Girl Hood has been praised for its informative content and for raising awareness on a number of issues young people in detention centers face on a daily basis and how their lives lead to a life similar to their parents. Like Us On Facebook | Follow Us On Twitter. Abruptly, she halted the conversation. (2003). The length of her stay at Waxter will depend on whether she can acknowledge what she did and show appropriate remorse. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. In the beginning, Shanae is not remorseful for committing murder (Garbus, 2003). [ClickEssay Writerto order your essay]. A Moxie Firecracker Production for TLC, released by Wellspring. The film follows them from 1999 through the year 2002. This fact, combined with the lack of familial support that Megan got, certainly contributed to her continuing to run away from foster homes. I thought the movie was captivating, it drew me into the two girls' lives and everything they went through. 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. Strength-Based Approaches 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. Revise AS Level Psychology. In this field, deadlines are super important. 1103 Words. Electronic Inspiration LLC. When Ms. Hill choked on her tears for Shanae leaving - it was heartfelt. 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. Shanae fatally stabbed the girl in the neck with a kitchen knife. In the second segment, she runs away from foster homes to try to live with her mother. Megan is not malicious, and her mischief is probably a cry for attention. 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. An alternate perspective of Girl Hood is that it is a film that tries too hard to achieve an ending on a positive note.