girlhood documentary megan diagnosis

She has a total of two children and she has graduated from college. Shanae Owens and Megan Jensen in girlhood. After her release, 19-year-old Megan appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" alongside another troubled teen, Shanae. With the help of her mother, Shanae can graduate from high school. I have three lovely kids," she says. But Garbus way of humanizing, in some instances, obfuscates the complexity of struggle, survival and the bad from the girls girlhood. The documentary follows the plight of Megan and Shanae (Garbus, 2003). The disrupted attachment led to a paradoxical relationship with the caregivers in Waxter (Shaffer & Kipp, 2010). Is it maternal nurturing that makes the difference? Other aspects reveal themselves when she grows older. Directed by Liz Garbus; director of photography, Tony Hardmon; edited by Mary Manhardt; music by Theodore Shapiro; produced by Ms. Garbus and Rory Kennedy; released by Wellspring. She had lived in an environment that was full of disruption. 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. This may be a psychological scar due to her relationship with her mother. "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. 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. By age 10, she had been committed to two psychiatric hospitals and diagnosed as manic-depressive. 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. Lock 'em up and keep them off the streets is the familiar cry. In the film Girlhood by Liz Garbus we are introduced to two young girl's named Megan and Shanae, who committed a crime and are getting help through a facility that helps young girls reflect on their actions. 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. The primary objective of the film is an exploration into the social implications for the increase of crime committed by young women such as Shanae and Megan. By end fil There are a number of reasons for why Shanae was able to turn her life around whereas Megan was not. Because the film does not incorporate the juvenile system that fails Megan and others like her, the focus of the film becomes on the distinction between mothers who neglect their children and mothers who do not. 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. The film is told from the girls subjective viewpoint and plays as a coming of age story. Abruptly, she halted the conversation. "I started using cocaine, I was strung out on drugs -- bad. At one point she tells her parents that the girl she murdered actually has it easy because shes just dead whereas Shanae is suffering because she is in detention. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/girlhood-subjects-get-narrative-feature-829762 Then, everything changed when Megan got pregnant. The length of her stay at Waxter will depend on whether she can acknowledge what she did and show appropriate remorse. Girlhood Movie Analysis - 1103 Words | Bartleby Furthermore, at the end of the documentary, she enrolls in a community college nearby. Challenging Attachment How is Megan Jensen from Girlhood doing I just saw the film and was really. Press ESC to cancel. Your email address will not be published. This paper provides a social psychological review of Megan and Shanae from an ecological point of view as well as an attachment perspective. At the beginning of the documentary, Shanae and Megan are 14 and 16, serving time for murder and assault, respectively. 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. 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 . I think this movie proves this country gives children nothing but lip service. girlhood documentary - Next Step Online Eysenck, M. (2015). I wasn't alone. It is during Shanaes interview to get into the lower security facility that we learn that she was also gang raped by five men. While Shanae, the victim of a horrendous violent crime herself as a child, has difficulty coming to grips with the murder she's committed, she's clearly an intelligent, charismatic, and, most importantly, motivated girl. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Megan is doing great for herself Brody, R., & Dwyer, D. (2016). Then, she got up and walked off set. After watching the documentary, it is easy to see that Megans environment has contributed greatly to her childhood and ultimately her adult life. http://sites.google.com/view/ehdwjwbxfu/linkedlist-member-modification-c, Your email address will not be published. Documentary chronicling America's justice system. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. What happened to Megan Jensen from the girlhood documentary? 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. For example, once the girls are out of Waxter, we see Shanae is doing well in school and even goes to her prom. Antoinette refuses to allow Shanae back home until she is convinced that her daughter has really changed and has gotten all the help that she needs. This is where politics comes in and things get ugly. 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. Even though she does not get the chance to further her education, she avoids returning to a life of crime (Garbus, 2003). 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 . She got into a knife fight at 11 with her girlfriend and fatally stabbed her three times. Girlhood Directed by Liz Garbus A riveting documentary about two young offenders serving time in a Baltimore juvenile facility and their struggles over a three-year period to forge a new life for themselves against formidable odds. Just check our reviews! Running time: 88 minutes. Throughout the film, we are sympathetic to the challenges of Shanae and Megans girlhoods, but cannot substantively grasp, through the documentary, the unresolved nature of their status, as girls in a system that seeks to destroy not just girlhood, but life beyond girlhood too. April 24, 2023. recently followed up with Megan to see what had happened after the show. 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. Footage of the two girls is then followed along with more title cards that give insight into the crimes they have committed. Why is Shanae in the juvenile facility? 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. 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. The film then changes focus on Megan and her deteriorating relationship with her mother. At one point, Megan states that she feels that she is an old woman trapped in a young womans body because she has so much to regret. MPAA rating: Unrated. The early life trauma that these girls experienced impacted . In my own opinion, considering that Megan has to do all this on her own, hers is the greater achievement. The film will center on two prisoners serving. Follows two female inmates - victims of horrific violence and tragedy - who are serving time in a Maryland juvenile detention center. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/nov/14/entertainment/et-girlhood14, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1514431. 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. Shanae had to go to a lower security facility before her mother was convinced that she was rehabilitated. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. 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. One may wonder how Antoinette could be a good parent considering all the trouble Shanae got into at such a young age. Her father's locked up. The relationship between staff and the young women at Waxter is for the most part warm and friendly. I dont think girls are really less aggressive than boys, nor do I think we should somehow pathologize aggressive and violent behaviour by girls but see it as a given among boys. Required fields are marked *. In the second segment, she runs away from foster homes to try to live with her mother. Unfortunately, this meant that she wasnt around to supervise Shanae. We also met Megan, who, unlike Shanae, was not at the . 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. We can see for ourselves how much love they need and how dangerous it is to think that institutions alone can solve these societal problems. Dennis Schwartz: Ozus World Movie Reviews, Copyright 2023 - Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews. Megan also leaves Waxter. A child of the 1990s, I was a voracious reader of The Baby-Sitters Club book series by Ann M. Martin, which detailed the friendships of a group of young babysitters in Connecticut. REVIEW: GIRLHOOD Documentary On Netflix - WordPress.com Humanizing those who have committed crimes especially children is a good thing to do, and certainly expands the viewers capacity to embrace complicated narratives and emotions. We follow them over a period of about three years. The system essentially gives up on trying to control her and turns her loose to fend for herself. Even though her parent is giving her support, she was still scared of Shanae. Obviously, the director, Liz Garbus, wants to achieve in a documentary the power and. Documentary Review: girlhood by Liz Garbus | The Woyingi Blog Thankfully, her parents point out that being dead is definitely WORSE than being in detention! ''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. Our managing editor an award-winning journalist has spent the past 7 years refining our roster. Shanaes ability to feel remorse for her actions is seen as a key benchmark that needs to be achieved before she can leave Waxter. In this field, deadlines are super important. "I don't want to do this no more.". . 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. Volatile, articulate and desperately needy, Megan seethes with bitterness at having been abandoned by her mother, Vernessa, a heroin addict and prostitute, who has spent many years in prison. Megan professes a love for her absentee and irresponsible mother, but does not receive the same support that Shanae gets from her more caring mom. She receives more family support than Megan is, but she does not seem to reciprocate it at the beginning of the film. For example, the filmmaker emphasizes Shanaes growth since leaving Waxter. A riveting documentary about two young offenders serving time in a Baltimore juvenile facility and their struggles over a three-year period to forge a new life for themselves against formidable odds. Additionally, she still struggles after growing up, but she ensures that she never becomes an addict (Garbus, 2003). Open Document. 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. 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. The popular phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" expresses the indifference of most Americans toward young offenders serving time in juvenile facilities. Spirituality & Practice. Even though there is an intense argument, after she tells her mother never to talk to her again, she has a nervous breakdown (Garbus, 2003). 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!).

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