Watching the film, I was surprised by the huge amount of misogyny that is used by many men which objectifies women and often uses violent wording, to represent sexual attraction. For instance “I would hit that” or “I would tear that up”. Furthermore, I was interested in the idea of the documentarians that merely suspending or expelling children for acting out worsens their issues. It leads to the children feeling as though they have no hope,, and thus continuing their negative streak. This is the same issue as is ongoing in US prisons: they operate from a punitive mindset which leads to a high recidivism rate among criminals as the criminals are only made to feel worse and their core issues are never resolved. Furthermore, with a felony, these people cannot get jobs so it is all the more likely that they will turn to crime for their livelihood. Norway has implemented a rehabilitative prison system, and as such, they have a much lower recidivism rate than that of the US, indicating that this method works (Norway’s recidivism rate is 20% whereas that of the US is 75%). Lastly, I was quite surprised by the statistic that 1 i 4 boys experience bullying but that only 30% tell people about it. 1 in 4 is 25%, this is a lot more than I assumed, and I am unpleasantly surprised that so few of these children had the courage or confidence to tell somebody.
Of Carlos Andres Gomez’s book, I found the aspects of him yearning physical contact with other men interesting, and it relates to the film in that the film documents how men are often discouraged from expressing emotion, and to be stoic. Therefore, showing physical affection would certainly be considered a faux-pas by this old-fashioned standard.
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 