Movie Analysis Essay on Once Were Warriors

Introduction

Once were warriors refers to a film that was acted in 1994 at the country of New Zealand. The drama film was documented by Allan Duff's in 1994, and its popularity grew very fast. The film outlined the story particularly for Hakes, an urbanized Maori family. The family faced several challenges such as domestic violence, alcoholism, and poverty which were believed to be initiated by patriarch Jake. The film was conducted by Lee Tamahori together with Cliff Curtis, Temuera Morrison, and Rena Owen.

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The movie pertains a couple together with their five children who reside in an urban setting of New Zealand. The main characters are Jake and Beth. Jake also known as muss, is extremely alcoholic and has high temper challenges. At the start of their life, marriage seems good, but after some time, they realized that their marriage life is not that enjoyable but characterized by bad encounters and poor relationship with their children. Beth was active and uncompromising; she always desires to speak no matter the situation or the problem she is facing.

Beth tries to maintain her family united as much as possible, and it is exhibited by her deeds, words, and actions. However, Jake always disrupts the family. Among the five children, one of the sons Boogy was incarcerated and both parents did not present themselves to the court during the hearing. The kid was recommended to social welfare custody while the eldest son Nig, enrolled to a local gang of wankers. The family relationship health was destroyed and fragile. Grace, who is the eldest daughter of the family, is intelligent and studious; she appeared to have the most promising life in future but was sexually molested by one of her father's friend.

Intimate Partner Violence in the Film

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an act of sexual assault or rather rape that happens between two individuals who currently have consensual sex relationship or have had it at a specific time. The violence might involve the application of physical force to force an individual to participate in sexual activity without agreeing (Bagwell-Gray, Messing, & Baldwin-White, 2015).

Dynamics of Intimate Violence

According to Khanna (2015), Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) refers to an act whereby a woman undergoes through sexual, physical, and emotional abuse from a fellow human being. Hence, BWS gives an action that permits battered women to be assisted through protection from criminal charges levelled against them from their effort to escape an abusive relationship or marriage. In the film, the act of BWS is portrayed by Jake, the husband of Beth. The man has an extraordinary volatile personality and often shows his aggressive masculinity through the use of his fist. Beth, his wife, who has been together for eighteen years, suffers a lot from the constant beating by Jake using his fist. Despite the beatings, Beth loves Jake so much that she had to abandon her tribe (noble Maori lineage) to marry Jake who originated from intertribal slavery.

Substance Use

Substance use is the consumption of any psychoactive compound, which might result in health and social challenges such as addiction. The substance might be permitted or not permitted under the law. These substances might be tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin (MCLELLAN, 2017). In the film, the life of Jake is characterized by regular drinking at a local bar with friends and to a greater extent of taking them to his home for further alcohol drinking. Moreover, his wife Beth seek solace in consumption of booze (local alcohol brew) when things got out of hand; specifically, through physical abuse from his husband in front of his friends. Jake friends cannot rescue Beth from physical abuse inflicted by Jake because of their close friendship.

The Role of Gender Socialization

Gender socialization is an act of learning the individual culture and particularly gender-linked expectations, rules, and norms. The media, schools, teachers, and parents serve as agents of gender socialization. Most children start to develop their own opinion on gender and eventually form gender identity through gender socialization. The Heke's thirteen-year-old daughter known as grace keeps a journal in which she documents sequence of events and stories she narrates to her young siblings. Grace also has a male best friend known as Toot, who resides in a wrecked car because he is homeless. She anticipates for a future which she believes it is obvious and is regularly reminded of getting married and performing wife chores; which she thinks consist of the provision of husband's requirement's and tolerating beatings.

Impact on Children

In the film Once Were Warriors, the impact of IPV on children have been demonstrated by jakes children who regularly washed the blood from their house produced by their mother from jakes beatings. The film portrays the Jakes family as a disintegrated due to poverty, unemployment, alcohol abuse, and domestic violence. These factors have affected their children to the extent that they fend for themselves.

The family eldest son Nig is recruited into a gang whose customs include designing tattoos on their faces. Nig is undertaken through beatings by group members as a way of introducing into the group, and he is then tattooed. He loves his brothers and sister but hates his father due to physical violence against his mother. The second-born Mak, also known as Boggie, engages in petty crimes based on his history and has been admitted into a foster home by the government since their home life is unbearable. Jake daughter grace hangs herself due to her father's failure to provide emotional support and protection from uncle bully who raped her.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a process by which an individual develops a disorder as a result of encountering horrifying, frightening, and risky events. In the film, PTSD is shown by jakes daughter Grace Suicide after rape from uncle bully and harassment from his father for turning down uncle Bully goodnight kiss.

Male Privilege

The instance of male privilege in the film is portrayed by Nig and Abe. Nig is a strong fighter and is exhibited by his participation in "rumble" in his quest to be admitted as one of the members of the Brown Fists gang. Also, his ability to fight and protect displays his outward reputation of the perfect masculine man in pine block and specifically in Brown Fist gang with his tall and strong physical appearance. When their mother (Beth) was searching for something in the boy's beds, she came across rugby mags, karate mags, boxing mags, comics and magazines. Moreover, the wall of the room has photos of males in fighting postures. Jakes violent behavior against Beth further upheld male privilege or male masculinity in society.

The job description of Jimmy Bad Horse in the film is a repossession agent attached to Star Appliances of Taniwha Street. In his effort to fetch the payment arrears of a TV purchased by a Maori man, the man openly tells Nig and Jimmy that he lacks the TV to return and the money to repay the debt. Jimmy intimidate that he will face violence if he does not settle the debt on the next day when the gang members arrive to collect it. This situation serves as another instance of male privilege (Saarinen, 2014).

Isolation

Isolation, as one of the IPV, has been portrayed in the film by Grace. After, sexual molestation by her uncle, she went into seclusion due to her blame of dressing suggestively by her uncle, which prompted him to rape.

Critique of the Film Regarding Its Depiction of IPV

In the film, once were warriors, the effort to seek justice for Grace who was raped by Uncle Bully is portrayed. When Grace realized that she could not find solace, justice and protection from her parents and friend toot, she ends up committing suicide. The film did not demonstrate how victims of rape are supported. Also, the films do not show an effort to improve the cold reception of victims of rape when they discuss the issue with the family members.

Substance abuse, specifically the consumption of alcohol, has been well illustrated. Alcohol is the main factor that promotes domestic violence in the film. For instance, when Jake is drunk, he usually attacks Beth. However, measures to curb alcohol-related violence are not outlined in the movie.

The movie dramatizes well the adverse effects of domestic violence on the children. Heke's family is destroyed by violence. Children fend for themselves and the elder son join a criminal gang. Moreover, the second son of the family is admitted to the juvenile detention while Grace killed herself after being raped by her uncle. The instance of post-traumatic stress disorder is demonstrated by Grace. Grace kills herself due to PTSD she underwent after rape. The film does not outline how people with PTSD can be assisted.

In the movie, the existence of poverty has not been illustrated very well. Poverty faced by the members has been downplayed. Grace posed a question to his close friend toot if they think they will ever move out of there. The question showed that the slums are nurturing kids who end up growing up to be hopeless in their entire life.

References

MCLELLAN, A. T. (2017). Substance misuse and substance use disorders: Why do they matter in healthcare?. Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, 128, 112. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5525418/

Saarinen, S. (2014). Three ways to be a man: Maori masculinity in alan duff's once were warriors (University of Eastern Finland). Retrieved from http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Gf6VKRmucbsJ:epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_nbn_fi_uef-20140640/urn_nbn_fi_uef-20140640.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ke