2013年4月28日
在北卡大学读书不到一年，正式进入专业也就几个月，各种专业课纷至沓来。
有一门课是专门讲美国社会福利政策的演变由来以及政策分析的。
相比之下，加拿大的社会福利制度以及各项政策是多么让美国人眼红，特别是对贫穷的态度，以及劳保养老医疗体系，两个邻居政府的态度和政策简直南辕北辙。以后有机会，这个话题可以展开说很多。
另外一门课涉及对社工认知方面的要求，也就是说，社会上的各种弱势群体，不管在大众眼里多么微不足道，多么心存偏见，作为未来的专业人士,都应该以悲悯之心一视同仁，都应该尽自己的力量义无反顾地去帮助他们，我们的某教授说得好，社工的工作其实就是为了实现社会的公正和良知而不断的努力。
一次，我们专业课的老师用一整堂课3个多小时的时间给我们放了一部阿根廷电影，名字是《XXY》。说得是一个生出来就带着雄性以及雌性双重器官（国内叫阴阳人）的少年成长的经历。刚出生下来，大夫建议父母把孩子的一个性器作手术去掉，父亲不同意，他认为自己的婴儿PERFECT，而且他不知道自己的孩子长大以后希望做男孩还是做女孩。为了能够避开世俗的眼光，健康的成长，他们搬离了大都市，来到一个边远的小岛生活，孩子渐渐长大，十几岁了，性器官开始发育成熟，在学校里开始遇到很多烦恼的问题，她表面上是一个羞涩的女孩ALEX，每天早上去上学还不得不吃一堆激素，不得刮干净脸上的胡须。孩子在学校了交了一个男朋友，同时也有一个很要好的女朋友。 父母的一对友人夫妇来海岛看他们，带着他们和女孩同龄的男孩Alvaro，Alvaro爱上了ALEX，却不幸被ALEX用她的雄性生殖器强奸了。。。。
这个故事是根据真人真事改编的，老师放完电影，让我们每个同学回家写一篇观后感，作为一篇附加论文，她问：如果作为社工，也生活在这个岛上，你应该做什么？
以下是我写的观后感，前几天这篇作文的分数才评出来，得了满分100分。
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Movie Review on XXY
The world as we know it has not changed in thousands of years. That which was seen as strange, bizarre and unusual in past eras, has come to be known as simply different, but nothing science cannot correct. In the modern world, medical wonders have become common place. Unfortunately, that goes for freaks as well. Such strange and unusual people are still far from the word named 'Norm'. They are still vilified in such a way, that most people want to have themselves 'altered' to fit in so others wouldn’t be frightened or cause controversy.
Professional social workers need to match their personal values to professional
ones when they engage in practice, which is “at the very least, the value must include equality, social justice, freeing of lifestyle, rightful access to social resources, and liberation of self-powers” (Hunter& Saleeby,1977, p.62).Therefore social workers treat all diverse populations as social “Norms”, no matter how strange, bizarre or unusual these individuals or groups are looked at in the public’s eyes.
Based on a short story by Sergio Bizzio, the film XXY tells us a deep and coming
of age story about the pain of growing up without truly knowing who you are. It is about a 15-year-old Argentine girl named Alex who was born with what doctors called "sexual ambiguity," caused by an extra X chromosome. Alex is the child of a Marine biologist Kraken and his wife Suli, When Kraken first saw his newborn infant, "I thought she was perfect." This means he accepted Alex as “Norm” at the very beginning. This is a very important information for social workers who will later engage in this kind of case. He resisted doctors' suggestions that they operate on her to remove her secondary sex organs. They have moved their family from Buenos Aires to an island off the shore of Uruguay, where Kraken can study specimens and Alex can grow up more privately. However, that has not been easy. "I'm sick of doctors and changing schools," Alex tells her mother. As a child, she was able to hide her condition from others, but now that she's a teenager, it has become more of a challenge. She has to take medication to keep her beard from growing. Since other kids somehow sense something strange about her, she cannot easily keep her secret.
Guests arrive on the island, A plastic surgeon named Ramiro his wife Erika and
their son Alvaro. Suli has invited them so the doctor can "get to know" Alex and tells her husband she has not told them about their child's secret.
The film gives full weight to all of the characters. It tells much more than Alex's story alone. In fact, it becomes several stories. Kraken wants to give Alex the right to choose whether to lead her life as a man or a woman while emphasizing that he loves her unconditionally. His wife thinks Alex's penis should be removed, but she hesitated. Both love and care for their child in different ways.
Kraken's emotional support stands in sharp contrast with Ramiro. Ramiro has a conversation with his own son Alvaro, in the evening of his family's departure. Alvaro attempts to bond with his father. However, Ramiro is unspeakably cruel to Alvaro, telling him that he lacks talent and that, with dripping irony, he is glad he is attracted to Alex since he was beginning to think he was gay. And he was always trying to push Alvaro to do something like a “real man”, such as drinking beer, which Alvaro did not enjoy at all. The results seem heartbreaking at first, yet it's the boy's first step toward becoming his own person. In this scenario, if a social worker gets a chance to know Ramiro, and Ramiro really wants to talk to and improve his poor relationship with his son Alvaro, the social worker can help him in this way: ask him about his expectation for Alvaro, does he really know Alvaro? What’s shining part of Alvaro’s character? What is his true love for his son? Why did Alvaro begin to drink even he didn’t like it and he knew you liked it?
Alex and Alvaro sense some sort of unstated, even unconscious, common bond. They are attracted to each other, and have what is possibly the first sexual experience for either, with Alex revealing herself by playing the male role. Though the encounter was witnessed by her father Kraken, he is not judgmental only perplexed about what his proper role should be in Alex's life. He discusses Alex’s situation with a gas station owner who had to make a similar choice in his teens. The gas station guy tells Kraken: “what the worst thing you can do to your child is you make her scared of her own body”.
Meanwhile, there are problems on the island. Alex has broken the nose of her boyfriend, possibly because he wanted to explore her body. Alex escaped home to sleep with her girlfriend one night. And local teenagers chase Alex on the beach and pin her down to rudely settle the mystery of her physiology.
Viewers can understand that Alex is confused and in despair, and they see it reflected in a sketchbook she has drawn. She is weary of being poked and prodded by the unhealthy curiosity of society, weary of being considered a freak. Alex wants to be accepted as herself but she is not sure who that is. Sometimes she acts as a brave boy, other times she cries like a frail little girl. She is seemingly unable to accept herself, as well as her complex bonds with other people. She tries her best to figure it out, so she has a boyfriend at school, so she offers to have sex with Alvaro when they first met. She knows society demands a clear decision. Like the language, which cannot find an expression for her existence, the adults in the movie alternately speak of "her" or "him", so her mother Suli was wondering if the medical operation is the last and only solution for her situation.
Not only her struggle, maybe her parents lived 15 years of sheer torment. What could they do about the problem? Where could they go to talk about it without raising eyebrows? The world can be terribly cruel with anyone "different". At this crucial moment, if a social worker lives on the same island, he can provide timely and effective assistance to Alex and her parents, if he understands how diversity characterizes and shapes the human experience, which may include oppression, discrimination, marginalization, and isolation. Also, he appreciates the dimension of diversity which includes gender identity and expression. In this case, He needs to understand the real feelings and the wonderings of Alex and her parents, explore abundant useful information and social resources to empower them, put them contact in other families who have to face the similar situation if it is possible, emphasize and show your respect to Alex’s unique personhood and encourage them to face and challenge the stereotype which has been painted on Alex’s sexual identity.
Meanwhile, as a professional social worker, he needs to maintain his boundaries, he knows how to purposely express his feelings, how to hold a non-judgment attitude, how to successfully control his emotional involvement and so forth. Most importantly, Alex and her parents’ self-determination should be encouraged and respected with regard to any final decision they will make on her future sex-identification.
The world is changing. Luckily in some modern advanced society it is for an individual relatively easier to define his or her own "norm" and fight for it, though it will be a lifelong fighting. The film shows that in a way encouraging to the viewers.
