Watching this movie the interactions between Peter and Gonzalo I feel were real, both of these boys I think were very lonely and both wanted a true friend. Watching the whole movie and looking back at my notes I think the type of friendship they developed was that of a young boy that really wanted to have that connection with another boy. This movie is based on social classes and they make the two very distinct, I feel skin color wasn't so much an issue but that's my personal take, Gonzalo having very nice stuff and coming from a very nice home, whereas Peter comes from the poorest of the poor and practically lives in a shed.
The differences between the two social classes was astounding, like I stated before Gonzalo had the best of things and came from a very rich family, Peter on the other hand scrapped by and had really nothing.
The main message that I got from this film is that at the end of the day social class still counts, Peter is still poor and Gonzalo is still rich and in the end their friendship didn't matter everything was still based on status. I feel that in America we don't tend to have a class system per say, yes there is the really rich and the really poor, but I feel our government tries to help out (when sometimes they need to stay out of things) as much as possible. Some people are opposed to that while others are not, it all depends on your political views.
I remember making friends at this young age where social class or politics didn’t factor into who was going to be my best bud for the summer. I had friends that were either richer or poorer than my middle class self. When I went to their house or they came to mine, it was “wow, you have a swimming pool, that’s cool” or “I have an extra glove, come play baseball with us”. There wasn’t any conflict or peer pressure in picking my friends. Later on in high school and college is where your social status or your “rank” in society came into play. Youth has its innocence to it, they see beyond what part of town you come from or what kind of school you go to and look at just what type of person you are and then decide if they want to befriend you or not. I remember seeing a poster that showed two young blind children holding hands in a playground; one was a white child, the other a black child. The caption above the picture said THE BLIND ARE ALSO COLOR BLIND. This goes to show us that our prejudices are taught to us by our surroundings and upbringing and that the innocence and incorruptibility of youth can be a powerful force in social interactions
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what you had to say regarding the film. I feel that when these two picked this friendship it was out of convience. They both for the most part were social out cast. Gonzalo was picked on and teased by others within his social class, and when given the opportunity to mix with other classes, I think, that Gonzalo was open to the viewpoints of these other kids. When he was pinned against someone else in a lower class than he, he was still intimidated by what those in his class would think of him, but he did not have it in him to be disrespectful and hate the other boy just because he was in a lower social class than him. However, I feel that Machuca was just a genuine all loving child. He was open to being friends with any one, no matter if they were better or worse than he was. Machuca is a child that looks at who the person is and not what they come from, and when he realized that Gonzalo was from a higher class than he was, he looked at it as an opportunity to rise from his class and become a friend to a boy in need. In my opinion, Machuca realized that Gonzalo was a social outcast within his class, and Machuca didn't feel like Gonzalo didn't belong in the class he was in, but rather realized that he did not fit into his class and needed someone to accept him as who he was and not where he camr from. In my opinion Machuca's friendship helped Gonzola grow alot and realize not only who he was, but what he was able to provide to others within a friendship.
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