Thirteen: Mirror, Mirror
- Chrystal: "White trash folk art - it's great!"
- Sex and the City: More than Manolos
- There Will Be Blood: The Absolute Necessity, and Shortcomings, of Confession
- No Country for Old Men: Fate and Circumstance in a Desert Land
- I Am Legend: Palatable Pity
- Little Miss Sunshine: The Timing of Truth Telling
Last year’s Thirteen (2004) made headlines due primarily to its more sordid elements, its shockingly realistic portrayal of a middle-school girl’s involvement in drugs, sex, theft, violence, and self-abuse. Following the same trajectory as My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks, the indie film tells the tale of a girl trying to redefine herself and escape nobody status by adopting the kind of wild lifestyle that will gain her a certain kind of peer attention.
For me, however, all the cringe-worthy stuff Tracy does in the film plays second fiddle to the horribly powerful moments of silent self-assessment she spends in front of the bathroom mirror. The father of two young girls, I am more aware than ever of how our society methodically pairs beauty with power and self-confidence. My imagination begins to place me—if imperfectly—on the opposite side of our culture’s dominant sexual equation. What is it like to be instantly assessed and judged with reference only to the shape of your face and figure? How hard is it for girls to define themselves primarily in terms of their character, intelligence, and strength when all around them they see the value of women being determined solely by corporeal criteria? Just last week, my eldest (4 yrs old) told us she wanted her beautiful curls cut and her hair straightened so she could look like her pre-school peers. So it begins.
I find myself praying regularly, sometimes hysterically, that my girls will stand firm in conviction of their status as wonderful creations of an omnipotent and loving God, that they will remember always the commitment of parents devoted to their well-being. I pray that when they look in the mirror, their eyes will delve deep beneath the pores of their skin, and that the friends they make will reflect back and magnify what’s in them, not on them.
It’s a prayer I may be lifting for the rest of my life.
28 Feb 2005
Posted by Paul Marchbanks at May 2, 2005 12:00 AM
Comments
In viewing Thirteen (2003) for the first of many times, I was shocked but in awe of the filmâs intense and realistic portrayal of the trials in a thirteen-year-old girlâs life. After viewing this stirring, roller coaster ride of a film, I sighed a big sigh of relief, glad and rest assured that I had already âbeen there, done thatâ. I had proudly and strongly, overcome many of the extreme trials of teenage life that the film exposes. Having experienced myself most all of the things that the filmâs main character, Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), goes through in the film (in my opinion and with the exception of the drugs), I must say that many of the events that occur in this movie are, in all reality, an almost rite of passage for many young women today. Although this film can be difficult for some parents with children or young teenagers to watch, fearing their own children will someday become victims to this pandemonium we call adolescence, its director, Catherine Hardwicke, should be applauded for her blunt and open portrayal of a young, starry-eyed girl on the painful journey to finding herself.
Posted by: Ingrid Ann Johnston at December 3, 2006 11:24 PM