Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Ken Park (2002)

#inspirationalmovies

Even more complex and disturbing than Kids (1995), Ken Park (2002) is Larry Clark's and Edward Lachman's return to the world of teenagers, and this time it's Californian skaters already in 2000's. As you can see from the trailer, it may seem quite explicit and scandalous. You get nudity, sex, incest, violence... and all of it seems rather pointless, almost boredom driven.

This is the answer to some of the questions asked in Kids. Ken Park makes it clear that adolescents are not the weird and creepy ones. They've learned it the same way they learned their table manners and kick-flips. By seeing it happen again and again around them. Again, a stark reminder about our collective responsibility towards the young... and a visualization how it may go - and at times is going - terribly wrong in seemingly idyllic setting.   

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Kids (1995)

#inspirationalmovies

Kids (1995, Larry Clark) is not an easy to watch movie. Due to director's documentary-like style it feels true. And the reality it depicts is the one that parents are scared of. How lots of free time and wish to have fun can turn into a mix of parties, fights, drugs, casual sexual encounters with STI risk, etc. And how toxic ideas about sexuality and gender may make it all even worse...

Obviously, this by no means is intended to demonize the teenagers even further or to be a call for more parental control (no, thanks, we ourselves were adolescents few days ago). But Kids shines the light on how we fail the young and very young adults when it comes to learning trust and exercise of autonomy. And how they try to settle their problems on their own.

An additional read to maybe somehow console you afterwards: Laurie Penny on how "today’s teenagers are smarter, tougher and braver than my generation – and yours, too". 

Friday is the (Inspirational) Movie Night: Rent (2005)

#inspirational movies 

While marking a World AIDS Day in the calendar again tomorrow, putting your red ribbon on (though we hope you raise HIV/AIDS awareness all the other days of the year too) and going to do some activism...

We suggest you combine the useful with the entertaining and turn to Rent (2005) for this week's inspiration. This is a screen version of a ground-breaking Broadway musical, adaptation of the Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème, that was the first musical that was explicitly - and in a normalizing way - featuring bisexuality, homosexuality, transsexuality, sex work, the urbane HIV/AIDS crisis, drug use... not your classical fluffy musical!

On the other hand, it's still very scenic, very melodic, very romantic, very musical, really, and, yes, inspirational too.

And reminding that HIV/AIDS is not what it once was provided that you have access to treatment.

Aquadettes, my heroines (Luize)

Aquadettes from California is a place. on Vimeo.

"That's pretty much how I wanna feel in fifty years. And when facing all things harsh that hit you inexpectedly...

Resilient, active... and maybe a little high. And remembering to do things I love to do"

Luize