After pondering on my coming of age experience, I don’t want to highlight a single moment out of it just because I was pretty much in the same state of mind all throughout of it. In addition to that, not to say that I was unhappy, I knew that happiness was down the road. I knew this because all my discontent came from the fact that I could not live my life the way I perceive it due to the “Great gulf” that separates me with my parents to refer to Rebecca Raby who express how much of a gap there are between the worlds in which teenagers live in and the ones in which researchers—adults—live in. In comparison to how teenagers leave their parents’ houses at the age of eighteen, in my country—Senegal—after they graduate from high school, young people wish to go on with their studies in western countries like France, U.S.A. or Canada. For me knowing that and knowing that my parents would want me to go one with my studies abroad, all throughout junior high and for most of middle high I long for graduating from high school for what it was going to make happen in my life. So if we consider that my coming of age doesn’t stop at me graduating from high school, and I am to single one moment of it at all I would say graduating from high school. Not only because it was going to allow me to pursue my higher education abroad but more because was going to be the leader of my destiny.

All throughout that period of not unhappy but also not happy, there was one thing that gave me the strength and the patience to think all of this is just a matter of time: music. It is just like a medicine on me it makes me think optimistic not matter how difficult a situation is. There are a lot of songs that I listened to and I still do when I feel sad but among my preferred ones is this Whitney Huston’s song called One moment in times. The lyrics and the melody are beautiful and uplifting to me.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96aAx0kxVSA

In the culture I am from, people don’t express their love by words or at least my mum didn’t. She would do everything for me but would never say the words: I love you. In my life every time I struggle with something, I try to find a way around to cope with whatever the situation is. Because I could not express all the love I had for my mother, I once sneaked one of her pictures that I absolutely love and every time I felt like expressing my love I would pull out the picture and fulfill my desire.



There is actually no clear explanation I can give to how it makes me feel better but it sure does. For example, for some people the sight of a beach and the sound of the wind are mind-clearing. I think it is natural reaction that human beings have to try to cope with uncomfortable situation by finding a way around it. To illustrate this, we can consider Persepolis where the author, Marjane Satrapi, because she felt powerless in front of the inequalities that she was witnessing imagine she had conversations with God.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2003.

Raby, Rebecca. Across aGreat Gulf? New York: New York University Press, 2007.

Slumdog Millionaire

My object of study is the movie Slumdog Millionaire. I will be analyzing issues regarding gender, race and sexuality in combination with coming of age in India. I will be also comparing these same aspects to the coming of age experience in the U.S.

In third-world countries, gender is still very serious issue. In fact, in many of these countries, women are still considered to be inferior to men. Latika’s adolescence clearly illustrated this. As a young child growing, she was always lead by men. And once she reached adolescence, she was taken care of to be sold for her virginity. We can compare Latika’s story to Marjane in Persepolis, Marjane who is also from a developing country—India—was wearing a veil at very young age, and they, the girls, were also separated from the boys in school. These girls are very early on set-up to live behind men and think that they are not capable of what are capable of.

Let’s compare a girl like Latika to typical American girls who when growing up are given the same opportunity and put at the same level as boys. There is without a doubt a great intellectual gap between these girls from countries with different economical means. It brings me to the conclusion that the more economical sufficiency you have the more liberated you are. Today in country like the US, people are starting accepting gay people whereas in developing countries like Iran or India, there is still a huge gap between men and women. It is also telling me that childhood have life-bearing repercussions on individuals. In countries like Iran and India, there are very few literate women.

Jamal and Salim’s mother died during Bombay Riots. It is something, I am sure, they never forgot. Even though I think the issue of race is not very present in the movie as a whole, according to Wikipedia an estimated 575 Muslims (67%) and 275 Hindus (32%) died so somehow Jamal and his brother probably belonged to minority or inferior ethnicity. Growing up, they were probably conscious that of the notion of race, and probably associated it with hatred because of what they witnessed.

The issue of race is very present in the United States and I mean by that, the pollution is made of Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics etc. Jamal and his brother probably associated race with what they have seen associated with hatred. Here in the U.S., children notice differences between them but learn that it is normal and that we should all accept each others. They also see how peacefully adults of different races interact with one another. Therefore, that is how they are going act with each other as children but also as adults because that’s what they know.

In the movie we can see that Latika very early on is trained to be sold later on for her virginity. As a child, because that is what she has been shown, she will be growing and think that’s all she is about.

In the U.S., you would have been prosecuted for making Latika, an underage girl, going through such practices. However, here in the U.S. teenagers have sex very early too.

To end, I going to refer C.J. Pascoe: “Adolescence task according to developmental theorists like Erickson is “identity consolidation.” This requires that teens figure out “who they are.” This to show that coming of age is a critical phase in young folks’ lives, and that we should pay more attention so that these kids are neither deviated from being who they are nor affected by the actions of the adults around them.

Sources:
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2003.
Pascoe, C. J. Dude You'Re A Fag. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.

Wikipedia.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Riots

I have selected the movie name: Justin Bieber Never say never. It is such a perfect representation of the world in which teenagers live in western countries like the U.S. However, because we—grown-ups—have lived long enough to know that this is just going to be a phase in their lives, we think that the solution to this phase of crisis is granted or is just a matter of time. What we don’t understand is that if this crisis during adolescence is not dealt with properly, it is going to escalate during adulthood into issues such as alcoholism, and other mental-like sickness. The growing percentage of mentally-challenge people in our society is an illustration of it.

During the movie, I was amazed by how crazy his fans would get at his appearances. They would scream, cry and sometimes even faint. His fans are made of teenagers of whom, I would say, 99% are girls and the remaining 1% are boys who they have not represented in the movie. Superstars like Justin Bieber create, in the world of teenagers, models of what everyone should look like. However, reality is in such a way that, I would say, only one out of twenty would look like these “models”. The resemblance with models does not only reside in physical appearance, words models use when speaking, beauty products or perfumes they use, cell phones they have, it is a whole package. The world in which teenagers live is made in such a way that if you do not “look cool”—look like superstars—you are not recognize by your peers. Most of time, it is very difficult to “look cool” because superstars change the trends every season which is not realistic to follow for most of the households. And it is such a hard feeling to deal with for teenagers because if you are not recognized by your peers, you are not going to have a date, you are going to be ignored etc. I earlier referred to the 1% of adolescent boy fans of Justin Bieber who were not represented in the movie probably because they are homosexuals, and homosexuality is not accepted in the teenagers’ world. C. J. Pascoe said in his book: “The school authorities didn’t protect the most vulnerable gay students, […], who was teased, taunted, and eventually threatened out of school. Indeed, I felt the homophobia so strongly that I took my gay pride sticker off my car while I researched at River High."

The world of teenagers and the world of adults are intertwined because they share the same physical territory. Due to the fact that adults are not taking children and adolescents seriously they create what I would call their own world where they feel like they are taken seriously, not just considered as “kids”. To illustrate this, we can consider Persepolis where the author, Marjane Satrapi, because she felt powerless in front of the inequalities that she was witnessing imagine she had conversations with God.

The world, in which teenagers live, is a very complex one. They need more attention between their transitions from childhood to adulthood because that is going to determine how well in their minds are they going to be as adults.

Sources:
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2003.
Pascoe, C. J. Dude You'Re A Fag. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.

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