Million Dollar Tween Critic

I'm waiting for the blue line at Artesia Blvd and a kid around thirteen is hopping about the platform.

"What's up?" He says while running his hand up and down the station sign.

I try to focus on my book. In general, I'm not quite comfortable talking to strange kids. Too often they act like me when I was there age--any conversation is an opportunity to make a joke at your expense. Besides, his question seems more of a distraction for him, something to do while playing on the platform, rather than a serious attempt to engage in a conversation.

"What's up?" He says again, this time more clearly directed at me.

"Not much. What are you doing today?"

"We're going to a movie." I then notice he is with his mother who looks over and smiles at me from a bench.

"What movie are you going to see?"

"Idlewild."

"That's funny. I haven't even heard of that movie."

"Hollywood movies are crap."

"Huh?" His bluntness takes me by surprise.

"They are almost always about the problems of rich white people, and when they do present stories about the poor, its through the windshield of their Porsche Cayennes. Take 'Million Dollar Baby' for example."

"Didn't that win best picture?"

"Exactly. The industry loves movies that appear to sympathize with the poor, as long as the poor meet their bourgeois standards."

"What do you mean?" I'm a little shocked by his language.

"That film is so awful not because it's packed with clichés and extreme sentimentality but because it perpetuates a malicious division between the deserving and undeserving poor. Hillary Swank's character works hard at a low wage job and saves every penny. She embodies the Reaganite dream of how the poor can become rich if only they have the proper discipline. In contrast, her mother and sister are scheming welfare cheats who want something for nothing."

"Really?" I am becoming more impressed with this kid.

"Even though the women in this film are white, the welfare mom is a stereotype that emerged only in the 1960s when black women challenged the discrimination that prevented them from receiving the same benefits that went to whites. In other words, it is a profoundly racist stereotype that ultimately led to the vicious welfare reform law passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton, which forced mother's to find work without providing child care or health insurance. Of course the bourgeois media has celebrated the 'success' of this law in getting former welfare recipients into the workforce, meanwhile the poverty rate is static, the number of uninsured continues to increase and homelessness among families is at crisis levels--probably because the mothers couldn't find work and faced the reality of 'Temporary Assistance.'"

"Wow!"

"Not surprisingly, this film shows a complete ignorance of welfare policy and depicts the women actually turning down a free house because they might lose government benefits. When I saw that scene I didn't know whether to laugh or scream 'What is this, Vanilla Sky II?' Oh and by the way, did you notice how they suggested the female champion, who was black, always won by cheating? That film was flat out racist."

"Kenny." His mother begins to walk over. "Stop bothering that man."

"Oh, he's not bothering me." Kenny goes back to running around the platform. "Beautiful day."

"Sure is." She waves her arm in a fan like motion. "It's finally started to cool off a bit."

"Yep. Finally."

"Oh here's our train. Have a nice day."

"You too." I see her rush over to take Kenny's hand. He gives me a smile and waves goodbye as they step through the sliding doors.