Girls Town (1996)

Hi everybody! First, remember three things.

1. Next class is November 17, because of the holiday and my conference trip.
2. And it will be in a new room, ILCS S105. That is Institute for Language and Culture Studies, or 言語文化部　in Japanese. If you are taking Paul Stapleton's class you probably already know it. This map has it as number 53. The room, S105, is on the first floor in a quite old building next to the North Cafeteria.
3. The video is available to watch at the HUSTEP office with Maruyama san. Another copy of it is also available in the box on my office door (ILCS S317) if you borrow it for 24 hours only. Please sign the list if you take the tape and return it within 24 hours.

OK, on to the movie. It is about high school girls who are friends and who learn about their friend's rape after she commits suicide. Their reaction is to begin talking more honestly about their own experiences with men, and they are all upset at what they learn. If you understand the basic story, then don't worry if you don't get every word or every sentence. The girls speak very naturalistic teenage slang, at least from that time and place (New Jersey in the 90s), so it is difficult for some older adults to understand too. It is also pretty rough language, using a lot of curse words that are usually inappropriate except in the company of close friends your own age.

But you can understand the bigger questions that the girls face: what does violence do to friendships? How do girls or women deal with violence from men they date? Is violence ever acceptable as a form of revenge? Each of you might have different opinions about this, so think about it before class.

This movie is described on the Internet Movie Database here, with lots of links to more information: you can read lots of user comments and external reviews if you click those links in the left sidebar. Think about how each character deals with Nikki's suicide and the violence they hear about from their friends. What do they do to try to stop the sexual harrassment and violence against women? Does it work?

These girls are pretty tough at school, they listen to hiphop music, skip classes, fight, and smoke cigarettes and marijuana. Why do you think the movie shows them as tough girls?

How do the different spaces of the movie create the social relationships of the characters? For example, the girls' rooms at home, the school bathroom, the baseball dugout are sort of private spaces for them. Walking on the street or in the park is more public; how is it different for them?

I'll add more soon.