Check It

Saw Check It (thanks, Nina!) It was the film about the gay gang in D.C. It was very emotional. The kids in the film are in a gang, so they do things that gang-members do, like rob stores and jump rival gang-members. They have not had easy lives and, lacking an infrastructure of parents and family, they have trouble making appointments, trouble controlling their anger. Many of them are involved in prostitution. There's heartbreaking scenes where they talk about their bad tricks.

The film follows one social worker as he tries to get them into real careers. There's another tear-jerker at the end when he's publicly thanked by the gang members. Many of the kids want to get into fashion. One starts getting into boxing but just sort of stops after a while and we hear that the guy who was going to sponsor him in fights had to close his gym and now lives out of a car. These are the would-be saviors of these kids? It's heartbreaking that that's the best they've got.

This film is very complex. The kids in it are poor, black, and gay. These forces interact with each other in complex ways. I think this will be a kind of Rorschach film. If you wanted to, you could see worthless, indolent youth, spiraling further into violence and sex. You could also see bullied kids fighting back at the whole world. I don't have any easy feelings about this film. I feel like they should try to make it in fashion, in boxing, that they should stick with school and avoid prostitution, but that's easy for me to say isn't it? If I were in their shoes I'd probably be dead by now. These kids are tough and fabulous, but they shouldn't have to be.