Friday, July 30, 2010

American Teen

American Teen is a documentary which chronicles the senior year of five high school students in small town Indiana. And it is intense!



There is so much tension and confusion and drama and solipsism ad betrayal, I can't believe kids regularly make it through high school without sever emotional scarring. I can't believe that I did it. And, more than anything else, I can't believe Baby J will one day have to run this gauntlet of teenage tempestuousness. As a father, it's a scary thought.

A major theme in the film that I picked up on was how the cruel and misdirected anger of teens is often the direct result of the kids' parents, their attitudes and behaviors. When Baby J is a teenager, she'll have to negotiate the troubled waters of high school but I like to think that my wife and I, our attitudes and behaviors set the stage for effective problem solving. But who knows. As Kahlil Gibran puts it in The Prophet:
You may house [you children's] bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams
Listening To: Bleed American by Jimmy Eat World


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