Monday, February 16, 2009
Mystery Train
Being who I am and how my life has been, I really do forget that most of my classmates have never seen the side of the city that was shown, slightly, in this movie. I forget that there are people who live in this city who don't navigate it based on its "ghettos" and strip clubs. I forget that there are people who live in this city who think of places like Binghampton and Orange Mound as some different world where they roll up their windows and everyone living there is foreign. To me, that is Memphis. To me, places like Cordova don't exist - its all the seedy underworld that was portrayed ever so slightly in the movie. I think that it is important that people see this world for what it really is, instead of continuing to view it as another country where they might die if they don't roll their windows up. That is what I liked most about this movie - it portrayed that part of Memphis that I've known all along as what it really is, and shows that anyone can end up in that world.
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2 comments:
I grew up in a seedy part of town, and I've lived not far from where the movie was shot. I have been on a lot of those streets after dark. I'm not really uneasy there, even now, when I have reason to be in that area after dark, but I know a lot of people who are, and I've often been questioned as to why I would go 'in those neighborhoods' after dark. People who live there are just like everyone else, except they struggle to make ends meet a little harder than people in Bartlett, or Cordova, or Germantown. There's a sort of magic in 'those places' that most people, unfortunately, miss out on.
That's the part of Memphis I'm interested in learning more about. My mother tried very hard to keep me out of those areas (which is why I get lost everytime I go into Memphis like we did yesterday) I'm wanting to teach kids living in those areas and need to be more exposed to what their life is like to really be able to connect with them. I understand being poor, but I don't know what it's like to live in a neighborhood where people get murdered on a regular basis. When I lived in Northaven I never left the house or ventured outside. To go to the grocery store, my husband made me drive up to Millington. I like hearing your comments in class and talking to you yesterday on the ride to the Civil Rights museum because you're experiences or so different from mine, but at the same time somewhat familiar.
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