(no subject)
Doberman: I don’t know about you, Carl. You live in a good place, your dad’s got a good business with the Caddies there. You’re getting to be more of a punk every day, you know that? Let me ask you something: you got some driving need to louse things up for yourself?
Carl: I got a driving need to be left alone, okay?
http://fostercity.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/foster-city-over-the-edge
I came across this article earlier today and it’s been pissing me off ever since. And thankfully, unlike some of the things that piss me off, I can articulate why, and just so it doesn’t eat at me, I’ll do so.
First of all, one of my BIGGEST peeves: “I admit that I did not watch the entire thing, but certainly enough to catch the gist.” Of course he didn’t tell readers just where he stopped, so for all we know he watched just a few minutes and turned it off.
You cannot offer a truly educated opinion on something unless you view/read/take in the WHOLE FUCKING THING. Anything else is just uneducated drivel. Now, this does not include people who say “I had to turn the movie off halfway through because I hated it. Reasons XYZ are why I couldn’t watch any more.” It’s people who say “Yeah, I only read half the book but I’m going to tell you about the work as a whole anyway.” I stopped reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell after about a hundred or so pages because I just couldn’t slog through any more of it, so I do not therefore try to offer an opinion on the book as a whole.
For those that didn’t click the link, it’s an article about the 1979 film Over the Edge. Truly not a towering cinematic achievement and probably best known as Matt Dillon’s first film, it’s based loosely on incidents in the Foster City planned community in California, which had problems with bored kids vandalizing things because, well, only a total shithead doesn’t understand the notion that if you have kids who are bored out of their minds and you put them in a community that literally has nothing for them to do, that pent-up energy will often find vent in destruction.
It’s not a documentary; the movie is set in the fictional planned community New Granada, so this is a fictional story inspired in part by true events (the other inspiration was an article in the San Francisco Examiner called Mousepacks). Unfortunately the author chose to base his criticism on the film as if it were supposed to be a completely faithful telling of real events in detail, which it’s not, so the criticism by him and some commenters that the film has clearly fictional elements just sounds like people clearly and spectacularly missing the point. However, that is also proved by much of the writer’s central criticism, which is that the movie is just a glorification of teenage rioting and doesn’t have a point beyond that.
“There was plenty of boredom in my unplanned community when I was growing up, and I never resorted to trashing cars or some of the other stuff we see in the film. And I didn't have access to a lovely Quonset hut rec center that the kids in the movie did.”
So he falls back on the usual “In MY DAY I didn’t wreck things and I didn’t have these fancy things like you kids have now so I don’t know what you have to complain about” bullshit lecturing that most kids have to endure. Then he goes on to tell a boring irrelevant story about his daughter’s volleyball team and something about soccer teams and eagle scouts and camping. So, point missed completely.
I took something entirely different from the film, which is obvious to anyone who paid any fucking attention to the characters dismissed as “neglectful or pampering parents, stereotypical directionless teens and cookie cutter cops.” (Which is another argument for another day.)
The central theme of the film is alienation, not teenage vandalism, and the idea that the more you repress and dehumanize human beings (whether adults or children), the more that repression and frustration is likely to find an outlet in violence, especially when you’re dealing with kids who don’t yet have mature control over their behavior (not that all or even most adults do).
I’m not going to summarize the whole film; the Wikipedia article does an excellent job of laying out the plot. It begins with two kids shooting a cop’s windshield with a BB gun and riding off on their bikes. They pass the film’s main protagonists, Carl Willet and Ritchie White, who are subsequently arrested by the pursuing officer, Sgt. Doberman (the kids’ main nemesis). He immediately homes in on them, even though he was chasing two kids on bikes and they were walking with no bikes in sight, because obviously because they’re THERE they MUST have done SOMETHING. He grabs and frisks them without any probable cause, further reinforcing the idea that the youth of New Granada are subject to his whims at all times and have no rights.
This illustrates right off the bat the kind of world these kids live in. Not only do they live in a community with a large percentage of young people but whose only consideration for them is a tiny playground and the aforementioned quonset hut rec center (in reality a tiny little building that the powers-that-be don’t like and shut down the moment rich investors come to town because their own children are apparently an eyesore), but also a community that makes their place in the pecking order pretty clear. Adults are rarely seen interacting with the kids in a positive way, and for the entirety of the film the various kids are left to their own devices to find things to occupy their time, and it’s pretty well a law of the universe that adolescents left on their own without supervision or anything to do will usually gravitate towards trouble.
The adults in the film may be neglectful and/or pampering, but what they mainly are is clueless, and in a way that’s worse. We have:
Fred Willet: Carl’s father, owner of a Cadillac dealership and part of the deal to try to appeal to investors from Texas to build an industrial park (not the drive-in and bowling alley that had been promised). Obsessed with his own ambitions and views his son and his problems as irritations that just get in the way of his Very Important Business. Seems less interested in questioning why the police arrested his son just for walking down the street and more in berating his son over his choice of friends. (Contrast this with Ritchie’s mom, who wants to know why the police harass kids instead of going after “real criminals.” A little naïve on her part, but still a valid question.) He tells his son that they need more of a reason for people to move to New Granada than a bowling alley. So it’s all about getting more residents and money with no interest in even considering why the town’s kids are so disaffected and angry.
Jerry Cole: President of the Homeowners Association and a big mover-and-shaker. Suggests closing down the rec center when the investors visit, and after Carl puts firecrackers under the hood of their car and they leave without making a deal, angrily tells Carl’s father that the kids should have been sent out of town. (That’s right; the town’s teenagers are objects to be shipped out when they become inconvenient.)
Sgt. Doberman: The authoritarian pig cop of New Granada. Likes to talk as if he gives a shit, but treats the kids as if they’re all criminals and throws his weight around with impunity-for instance, ignoring a city ordinance and busting into the rec center just because he can. Like most power abusers, he deals aggressively with any real or imagined challenge to his authority. Is willing to harass kids to try to get them to tell on each other. He shoots and kills Ritchie White, firing his gun even before Ritchie aims his (unloaded) gun at him. Later on, especially after being pressed, claims that Ritchie was on drugs as justification for murder, even though he has no evidence whatsoever.
Beyond these main antagonists, you have folks like Julia (who works in the rec center) and Sandy (Carl’s mother); they’re sympathetic but have no real power to make any changes that might benefit the kids.
The actions of the various adults in the film follow a pattern that seems self-evident to everyone but them; they clamp down harder and harder, ignoring the powderkeg they’re creating and the fact that their punitive measures just do not work. One of the investors from Texas, before leaving, tells Cole “You got a lot more than juvenile trouble. Seems to me like you all were in such a hopped-up hurry to get out of the city that you turned your kids into exactly what you’re trying to get away from.” Something which is true but falls on completely deaf ears.
Another thing peppered throughout the film is the dehumanizing language. The kids of New Granada are “punks,” “baboons,” “animals,” and are referred to directly as “you people.” But they aren’t people; they’re a problem to be solved. It’s Mr. Willet who seems to finally get the point towards the end when he says, in reply to Cole’s accusation that his son is part of the problem, “My son and his friends are part of this goddamn town!” He seems to realize the focus of Cole and the rest of the town isn’t on the fact that a kid is dead, but on home resale value and expanding the town.
The film’s climax (which I would bet money the “reviewer” never saw) sees the keg finally blow; the adults are all locked in the schools “cafetorium” (side note-what kind of bullshit term is that??) by Carl and the gang, and the kids outside, who have now rendered the adults completely powerless, let their anger fly. They have been powerless and voiceless and now, by God, now they WILL have their say-the adults have no choice but to listen.
This might sound like I’m on the side of the kids in this film, and frankly-I am. But then I usually am on whichever side opposes authority, greed, and self-important morons who have about as much integrity as your average Tea Party politician. I also remember being a teenager who watched my school transformed into a prison because of one fight involving a fraction of the student body, yet we were all punished, our few privileges taken away, with no right to speak on our behalf or have any say in our lives. We were supposed to shut up and submit to any indignity authority felt like imposing. If you complain, well, you must have something to hide. If you have a problem with your person or property being searched without probable cause, then we’ll just arrest you. There’s also a bit of the anarchist in me, so frankly even at thirty-five I’d prefer to be outside with Carl and his friends, wreaking a good bit of holy old hell. And frankly Doberman is such a horrible excuse for a human being that seeing him blown up in the end brings me nothing but satisfaction.
The fact that this protest, this rebellion, this venting of frustration, rage, and anger is really an excuse to be violent and thieving and destructive and ultimately leads to everyone but Claude, Johnny, and Cory being carted off to The Hill takes some of the sympathy away, but if you think about it, what other result could come out of all this? If they’d marched to the school peacefully with Carl going in to inform the adults that they wished to speak, can there be any doubt that they would have been soundly ignored and told to go home (probably under threat from the police that if they didn’t they’d be arrested for trying to assert their first amendment rights)? I don’t think I’d expect a bunch of kids under 16 to be able to deal with alienation and tremendous frustration and anger much differently than they did, and why should ANY kid or group of kids be saddled with that kind of burden when supposed adults, who claim to be so much more mature and experienced, can’t find any solution besides more rules, more restrictions, more cops, more repression?
I’ve never been sure how to interpret the ending of the film, and of course, this being fiction, you don’t find out what happened to the characters after the closing credits. You see Carl being led in handcuffs to a bus with all the others (at least, the ones who were rounded up), his parents, who look apologetic, trying to hug him for the few seconds before the cop jerks him away. The bus drives off, with Claude, Johnny, and Cory waving to them from an overpass, while “Ooh Child” plays, so you do get a sense that things will indeed “get better,” but I’ve always wondered. Did the adults actually learn anything, or will they remain oblivious once the kids get back? Mr. and Mrs. Willet looking anything but angry or disappointed gives me hope; their expressions read more like “we’re so sorry for failing you,” but that’s no guarantee that idiots like Cole picked up a clue or two. So I don’t know; I guess you can read the climax of the film as a futile gesture on their part or as The Adults of New Granada’s Big Wake Up Call.
So it’s a shame that the writer of the article never got that far, but considering how soundly he missed the point, I don’t know that it would have made a difference.
Carl: I got a driving need to be left alone, okay?
http://fostercity.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/foster-city-over-the-edge
I came across this article earlier today and it’s been pissing me off ever since. And thankfully, unlike some of the things that piss me off, I can articulate why, and just so it doesn’t eat at me, I’ll do so.
First of all, one of my BIGGEST peeves: “I admit that I did not watch the entire thing, but certainly enough to catch the gist.” Of course he didn’t tell readers just where he stopped, so for all we know he watched just a few minutes and turned it off.
You cannot offer a truly educated opinion on something unless you view/read/take in the WHOLE FUCKING THING. Anything else is just uneducated drivel. Now, this does not include people who say “I had to turn the movie off halfway through because I hated it. Reasons XYZ are why I couldn’t watch any more.” It’s people who say “Yeah, I only read half the book but I’m going to tell you about the work as a whole anyway.” I stopped reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell after about a hundred or so pages because I just couldn’t slog through any more of it, so I do not therefore try to offer an opinion on the book as a whole.
For those that didn’t click the link, it’s an article about the 1979 film Over the Edge. Truly not a towering cinematic achievement and probably best known as Matt Dillon’s first film, it’s based loosely on incidents in the Foster City planned community in California, which had problems with bored kids vandalizing things because, well, only a total shithead doesn’t understand the notion that if you have kids who are bored out of their minds and you put them in a community that literally has nothing for them to do, that pent-up energy will often find vent in destruction.
It’s not a documentary; the movie is set in the fictional planned community New Granada, so this is a fictional story inspired in part by true events (the other inspiration was an article in the San Francisco Examiner called Mousepacks). Unfortunately the author chose to base his criticism on the film as if it were supposed to be a completely faithful telling of real events in detail, which it’s not, so the criticism by him and some commenters that the film has clearly fictional elements just sounds like people clearly and spectacularly missing the point. However, that is also proved by much of the writer’s central criticism, which is that the movie is just a glorification of teenage rioting and doesn’t have a point beyond that.
“There was plenty of boredom in my unplanned community when I was growing up, and I never resorted to trashing cars or some of the other stuff we see in the film. And I didn't have access to a lovely Quonset hut rec center that the kids in the movie did.”
So he falls back on the usual “In MY DAY I didn’t wreck things and I didn’t have these fancy things like you kids have now so I don’t know what you have to complain about” bullshit lecturing that most kids have to endure. Then he goes on to tell a boring irrelevant story about his daughter’s volleyball team and something about soccer teams and eagle scouts and camping. So, point missed completely.
I took something entirely different from the film, which is obvious to anyone who paid any fucking attention to the characters dismissed as “neglectful or pampering parents, stereotypical directionless teens and cookie cutter cops.” (Which is another argument for another day.)
The central theme of the film is alienation, not teenage vandalism, and the idea that the more you repress and dehumanize human beings (whether adults or children), the more that repression and frustration is likely to find an outlet in violence, especially when you’re dealing with kids who don’t yet have mature control over their behavior (not that all or even most adults do).
I’m not going to summarize the whole film; the Wikipedia article does an excellent job of laying out the plot. It begins with two kids shooting a cop’s windshield with a BB gun and riding off on their bikes. They pass the film’s main protagonists, Carl Willet and Ritchie White, who are subsequently arrested by the pursuing officer, Sgt. Doberman (the kids’ main nemesis). He immediately homes in on them, even though he was chasing two kids on bikes and they were walking with no bikes in sight, because obviously because they’re THERE they MUST have done SOMETHING. He grabs and frisks them without any probable cause, further reinforcing the idea that the youth of New Granada are subject to his whims at all times and have no rights.
This illustrates right off the bat the kind of world these kids live in. Not only do they live in a community with a large percentage of young people but whose only consideration for them is a tiny playground and the aforementioned quonset hut rec center (in reality a tiny little building that the powers-that-be don’t like and shut down the moment rich investors come to town because their own children are apparently an eyesore), but also a community that makes their place in the pecking order pretty clear. Adults are rarely seen interacting with the kids in a positive way, and for the entirety of the film the various kids are left to their own devices to find things to occupy their time, and it’s pretty well a law of the universe that adolescents left on their own without supervision or anything to do will usually gravitate towards trouble.
The adults in the film may be neglectful and/or pampering, but what they mainly are is clueless, and in a way that’s worse. We have:
Fred Willet: Carl’s father, owner of a Cadillac dealership and part of the deal to try to appeal to investors from Texas to build an industrial park (not the drive-in and bowling alley that had been promised). Obsessed with his own ambitions and views his son and his problems as irritations that just get in the way of his Very Important Business. Seems less interested in questioning why the police arrested his son just for walking down the street and more in berating his son over his choice of friends. (Contrast this with Ritchie’s mom, who wants to know why the police harass kids instead of going after “real criminals.” A little naïve on her part, but still a valid question.) He tells his son that they need more of a reason for people to move to New Granada than a bowling alley. So it’s all about getting more residents and money with no interest in even considering why the town’s kids are so disaffected and angry.
Jerry Cole: President of the Homeowners Association and a big mover-and-shaker. Suggests closing down the rec center when the investors visit, and after Carl puts firecrackers under the hood of their car and they leave without making a deal, angrily tells Carl’s father that the kids should have been sent out of town. (That’s right; the town’s teenagers are objects to be shipped out when they become inconvenient.)
Sgt. Doberman: The authoritarian pig cop of New Granada. Likes to talk as if he gives a shit, but treats the kids as if they’re all criminals and throws his weight around with impunity-for instance, ignoring a city ordinance and busting into the rec center just because he can. Like most power abusers, he deals aggressively with any real or imagined challenge to his authority. Is willing to harass kids to try to get them to tell on each other. He shoots and kills Ritchie White, firing his gun even before Ritchie aims his (unloaded) gun at him. Later on, especially after being pressed, claims that Ritchie was on drugs as justification for murder, even though he has no evidence whatsoever.
Beyond these main antagonists, you have folks like Julia (who works in the rec center) and Sandy (Carl’s mother); they’re sympathetic but have no real power to make any changes that might benefit the kids.
The actions of the various adults in the film follow a pattern that seems self-evident to everyone but them; they clamp down harder and harder, ignoring the powderkeg they’re creating and the fact that their punitive measures just do not work. One of the investors from Texas, before leaving, tells Cole “You got a lot more than juvenile trouble. Seems to me like you all were in such a hopped-up hurry to get out of the city that you turned your kids into exactly what you’re trying to get away from.” Something which is true but falls on completely deaf ears.
Another thing peppered throughout the film is the dehumanizing language. The kids of New Granada are “punks,” “baboons,” “animals,” and are referred to directly as “you people.” But they aren’t people; they’re a problem to be solved. It’s Mr. Willet who seems to finally get the point towards the end when he says, in reply to Cole’s accusation that his son is part of the problem, “My son and his friends are part of this goddamn town!” He seems to realize the focus of Cole and the rest of the town isn’t on the fact that a kid is dead, but on home resale value and expanding the town.
The film’s climax (which I would bet money the “reviewer” never saw) sees the keg finally blow; the adults are all locked in the schools “cafetorium” (side note-what kind of bullshit term is that??) by Carl and the gang, and the kids outside, who have now rendered the adults completely powerless, let their anger fly. They have been powerless and voiceless and now, by God, now they WILL have their say-the adults have no choice but to listen.
This might sound like I’m on the side of the kids in this film, and frankly-I am. But then I usually am on whichever side opposes authority, greed, and self-important morons who have about as much integrity as your average Tea Party politician. I also remember being a teenager who watched my school transformed into a prison because of one fight involving a fraction of the student body, yet we were all punished, our few privileges taken away, with no right to speak on our behalf or have any say in our lives. We were supposed to shut up and submit to any indignity authority felt like imposing. If you complain, well, you must have something to hide. If you have a problem with your person or property being searched without probable cause, then we’ll just arrest you. There’s also a bit of the anarchist in me, so frankly even at thirty-five I’d prefer to be outside with Carl and his friends, wreaking a good bit of holy old hell. And frankly Doberman is such a horrible excuse for a human being that seeing him blown up in the end brings me nothing but satisfaction.
The fact that this protest, this rebellion, this venting of frustration, rage, and anger is really an excuse to be violent and thieving and destructive and ultimately leads to everyone but Claude, Johnny, and Cory being carted off to The Hill takes some of the sympathy away, but if you think about it, what other result could come out of all this? If they’d marched to the school peacefully with Carl going in to inform the adults that they wished to speak, can there be any doubt that they would have been soundly ignored and told to go home (probably under threat from the police that if they didn’t they’d be arrested for trying to assert their first amendment rights)? I don’t think I’d expect a bunch of kids under 16 to be able to deal with alienation and tremendous frustration and anger much differently than they did, and why should ANY kid or group of kids be saddled with that kind of burden when supposed adults, who claim to be so much more mature and experienced, can’t find any solution besides more rules, more restrictions, more cops, more repression?
I’ve never been sure how to interpret the ending of the film, and of course, this being fiction, you don’t find out what happened to the characters after the closing credits. You see Carl being led in handcuffs to a bus with all the others (at least, the ones who were rounded up), his parents, who look apologetic, trying to hug him for the few seconds before the cop jerks him away. The bus drives off, with Claude, Johnny, and Cory waving to them from an overpass, while “Ooh Child” plays, so you do get a sense that things will indeed “get better,” but I’ve always wondered. Did the adults actually learn anything, or will they remain oblivious once the kids get back? Mr. and Mrs. Willet looking anything but angry or disappointed gives me hope; their expressions read more like “we’re so sorry for failing you,” but that’s no guarantee that idiots like Cole picked up a clue or two. So I don’t know; I guess you can read the climax of the film as a futile gesture on their part or as The Adults of New Granada’s Big Wake Up Call.
So it’s a shame that the writer of the article never got that far, but considering how soundly he missed the point, I don’t know that it would have made a difference.