Sorry this edition took a bit longer… ♪I was busy thinking 'bout boys♪. As I was doing so,♪I thought to myself♪: “♪Man, I feel like a woman♪”
As promised in the description of my newsletter, I will write about life and everything I know nothing about. This edition’s topic is something, I would say, I know particularly nothing about (?) MAS-CU-LI-NI-TY.
I have often thought about the physical aspect of a man, I am not talking sexy stuff, I am talking the generic “male” body form: flat chest, little to actually no waist, no round hips – but instead: Adam’s Apples*, broad shoulders, hair everywhere… I have looked down on me, then closed my eyes and tried to un-feel the body I do have, curves and all, mentally trying to push out my waist and make my torso square-rer and imagine how I would feel in a male body. (I know, not all men are as described, not all women are as described, but it’s how we read male and female).
With my eyes closed, I feel how my posture changes and even my perception of myself - as if I would have a different opinion about myself if I were to look that way. Not sure if it’s supposed to be weird, but I actually enjoy this exercise. And once I come back, it makes me feel more comfortable with who I am. I guess it’s because after the excursion to testosterone city, I come home to my comfort zone, to my hood, the well known woman-hood.
Girls, I tell you it’s a funny experiment. Boys, give it a go too. Imagine your body as a woman. I would be curious to hear what you experience.
de-tour:* Fun fact, or fun theory, you may believe what you like, but the definition of the Adam’s Apple has nothing to do with the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. It can be interpreted, traced back through linguistics to an old Arabic word referencing the pomegranate. Here is an article about it if you are interested.
Back to the track:
“I don't know what it feels like to be a man. I don't know what it is to be a boy, to be a white privileged man. I don't know what it is to be a man of colour. I never will. And I don't necessarily need to. I have empathy and imagination and movies...”
If you ever wondered how I come up with the topics for the Newsletter, I don’t. They come up to me. This little intro in italics, are thoughts I wrote down in the deep darkness of a cinema hall while watching Los Lobos.
This beautiful movie invited me to think about boys. That is why, for this edition of the newsletter, I want to talk about – ♪sex baby♪ – two films and through theirs lenses, about boys, men, guys, dudes, brothers and fathers… So, let’s dig in (get it ;))
LOS LOBOS by Samuel Kishi Leopo
It’s one of those films where maybe you might say “nothing happens” but actually everything happens. The film might not be evidently about boyhood or manhood… But partly that’s what I saw or well chose to see.
The story is about a Mexican mother – everything always starts with a mother – who arrives to the States looking for a job. It’s only her and her two young boys.
Oh shit! Wait! Stop here. Right now!! I might spoil a lot. Maybe you want to go watch the film and then keep on reading. And while you are at it, I will later spoil the film WAVES by Trey Edward Shults. So yeah, you are excused to leave the newsletter now and come back later – but this is an exception, ok? I’ll wait here until you’ve watched them.
Oh hey, nice to have you back. Did you watch them? Ok. Back to my thoughts on the film. Ready. Steady. Spoil!
We meet the small family as they get off the bus, look for a place to stay and then see the mom heading out to go look for a job. That is when we are introduced to a beautiful symbol of the film, the tape recorder and with it to the general set up of the story. The mom records seven ground rules for the boys to follow while she is out. One of them being never to leave the apartment (Heavy flashbacks to Quarantine-times! But that’s not the point now).
She goes off to work and we stay at home with the boys. We see them childishly dreaming and drawing and playing. Sweet, sweet boys. Then they start fighting - because boys will be boys right? But then we see the brothers following one of their mom’s rules, such good boys, and make up after a fight. The good boys in their mother’s absence follow the rule and hug and kiss - boys still be boys??? Sure, why not they are still young right? After all, it’s not until they grow older that they have to stop hugging and kissing each other. Right?
It was these kind of scenes where we see so much cuteness, tenderness, sweetness that unfortunately we see way too rarely in films. I really enjoyed having an insight into brotherhood, into a small part of what it might be like to grow up as a boy and be given the time and space to feel into what a boy might experience – and I say feel not think or understand, just feel.
Anyway, through out the film you only see the mom for brief moments, when she is home exhausted from whatever ungrateful job she has out there. We, the audience, stay home with the brothers and see their dynamic and their development. And yet, we sympathise a lot with the struggling single mother and gain a great human understanding for her situation. To me this fact underlines that one is not without the other, boys are not without the mom.
Later I remembered another film that made me think a lot about boys and men: Waves. I saw the film last year, and mainly remember the toxic masculinity. I re-watched it for this newsletter, and to be honest I saw so much I didn’t notice before. And I have to warn you, if it’s not too late, you have to have be strong for this one. I had to take a break after the first half. Also I could have written a 10 pages essay about the film. But I will only only write about a little part of the movie and hope I can somehow put my gutted feelings into words. And it went like…
WAVES by Trey Edward Shults
After the first few scenes, I thought this film might be about racism, or just another teeny film. However, after the first five minutes or so, you realise, hold on, we’re talking toxic masculinity! What comes off as your normal American family, a tough but loving dad, turns, really quickly, out to be a macho-ego, a male dominance of the family and with it an expectation of the son to grow up to these standards.
Tyler, the son, a popular athletic guy, obviously dating a beautiful girl, is programmed to withstand the pressure, as long as everything runs like clockwork. The father’s unbelievably high expectations are filled with double standards.
Quite simple but very to the point it the scene in the church, where the dad disappointedly shakes his head about his son nodding off, even though he made him go run early in the morning. It’s also quite ironic, that in the background the priest in that very moment is preaching about judgement and pointing fingers in society and then proceeds to say “it takes a village to raise a kid”. That brings me to another very questionable scene we have seen so often in movies before, the one where the coach hypes up the team before a sports game. Why the hell do they have to aggressively yell out motivational speeches? What’s wrong with normal voice levels? Maybe it’s to match the intensity of the boys hormonal levels? But actually shouldn’t we teach them how to bring those emotions down and learn to cope and use them purposefully?
The one cog in the wheel, his physical abilities and his outlook on college, stops working when he gets the news that his shoulder is severely damaged and he should stop all physical activities, the clock work comes to a stop and the stormy waves that have been announced before gain momentum.
Even though he tries, Taylor is unable to talk to anyone about it, because he never learned to talk in the first place, much less admit weakness, our hero reaches his tragic fall. The waves overthrow the emotionally unprepared Taylor.
We follow his point of view closely and feel with him every punch until the tragic turn around.
The wave breaks, we change perspective, and follow Taylor’s younger sister Emily, who is left behind without a brother and a broken family. Through her, we are introduced to Luke, a sensible, balanced young man. Who despite his broken family constellation, maintains a loving relationship with Emily – even through the testing times. He shows traits that could have saved Taylor from his fall. Unanimously we sing: If only… but mean tragic.
A little cinephile detour and talk about the cinematic work:
The camera movements in the beginning seem a bit too much, I almost got dizzy watching it on the big screen. But in hindsight, the camera work paints a picture of the feeling of being lost, lack of orientation, the teenage years.
The rhythm of the film, the editing, the dramatic structure is quite symbolic too. It all comes in waves – waves like the title, get it? ha-ha ;) There are moments you have to hold your breath, while the wave flips you over and takes your swimsuit off of you and keeps tumbling you around like a naked teenaged embryo. And then, there are moments where you can breathe and make sense of everything. And just when you and your sand filled pants, your feet touch the soft sandy ground and your head finally levelled over water, the next wave hits you over. No rest for the wicked.
The film’s first half, the “Taylor” part if you will, is pumped with hard camera movements, loud music and intense colours, hyper-sensorial and is the great contrast of the second “Emily” part, mellow, gloomy, earthy, insightful, tranquil even through dramatic parts.
Coming in strong and leaving tragically optimistic, we see the mess toxic masculinity leaves behind and the work the others are left behind to do.
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At this point I would like to point out that I am not an expert in this topic - I know nothing about being a man and I am not particularly well-read in the topic of toxic masculinity. But I live in 2021 as a woman and I like to interpret films and this is my opinion on these films. The only thing I know for sure, is that I recommend you to watch these films if you went rogue and didn’t watch them before reading until here ;)
Final (female) words, not sure if you feel the same way but I feel like every edition of the newsletter has been very different, and that’s good. I just wanted to share a quick thought about how it’s going for me: I am trying to find out how long they should be, how serious, how silly, how well researched, how to structure them, how many GIFs, links, jokes... I’ll hang in there in this quest and really hope you do too. We’ll figure this out together. Hugs and kisses to all my boys and girls reading this. You all are beautiful and awesome!
To go out with a bang, here is a Dad joke for you: