When reading Jane Juffer's book the Single Mother, more specifically her chapter Mothers and Sons, I was reminded of the movie Hardball. In this movie Keanu Reeves is given a community service job coaching a baseball team in the ghetto. I was reminded of this movie because Juffer was talking about her goal to make sure her son grew up properly and safe from joining a gang. In this movie, Keanu Reeves, is trying to get young school kids off the streets and on the field. He struggle though the movie (spoiler alert) because one of the kids gets kicked off the team and then joins a gang. Keanu realizes that he can't help everyone but he will do what he can to help some of them.
In one scene, Reeves is walking one of the kids home and he asks where all the fathers were. The kid responds with, "they're in jail." Keanu Reeves then realizes that he needs to start taking his job a lot more seriously because he was the only father figure many of these kids had. Juffer talks about how the absence of father figures is largely what draws young kids to the gang life. Young kids want and need a father figure to learn how they are supposed to act when they grow up. These kids who don't have that father figure are drawn into the gang life because there are older guys who they are drawn too. Life for single mothers is very difficult because they need to both be a mother and a father. They need to raise their kids and support them. While trying to relate what Jane Juffer and a movie staring Keanu Reeves is hard (no offense to Keanu Reeves) the main point is still valid. Single mothers in bad neighborhoods have a much harder time trying to raise their kids because of the gangs and their attraction to younger males.
I enjoyed reading this blog because I too have seen the movie and see the point that you are trying to make. I agree that single mothers in the "hood" or "ghetto" have it hard because the gang life is so persuasive. I have large numbers of friends who are involved in this lifestyle (including relatives) and being raised by a single mother I see first hand hopw difficult these kinds of situations have on a single mother. Good blog.
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job of showing how Juffer relates to the film, but what about the more theoretical stuff? What might she say about space/representation/agency/tactics & strategies in relation to Hardball? How do we get the same theoretical argument from this film as we get by reading Single Mother?
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