The Prince of Tides: When silences do not allow us to advance
Today we are going to talk about an old film, but unfortunately contemplating a subject that remains worrying, sexual abuse and assault are extremely traumatic events for those who live them, although they affect men and women in different ways, the biggest differences are due to the age of the victims.
- When minors are sexually assaulted or abused the problem is more serious.
- First.
- Because at this age they have not yet developed the tools to deal with the situation.
- Second.
- And perhaps worse.
- Because these people are not yet “owners of their lives”.
- The decisions to be made in the face of these facts do not depend on them.
Unfortunately, adults who are responsible for their protection and well-being often do not know how to deal with the problem in a responsible manner Responsible adults often make decisions based on their priorities, values, beliefs, fears or circumstances, rather than factors that affect the child. In a high percentage of cases, the decision is to ignore, hide or hide the fact from strangers and the victim itself.
It is not even a decision, but a very harmful defense mechanism for those who choose to act in this way, which is almost always fatal for the victim, that is what the prince of the tides speaks of. The film is about the terrible silences and attempts to hide a crime of this magnitude; an adaptation strategy that ends up doing more damage than aggression itself.
This incredible film was produced and directed by Barbra Streisand in 1991; he also played one of the main characters. Based on the book of the same title, its author, Pat Conroy, delivered the book to Streisand to adapt it.
Barbra Streisand has always been a woman very committed to social causes and situations of injustice, and has certainly done a magnificent job at O Pr. npe das Marés.
The film is about the life of Tom Wingo, a character played by Nick Nolte. Tom and his brothers are subjected to terrible sexual assault as children. The family situation was already complex: children grew up in a very dysfunctional environment with a high degree of domestic violence. This situation is aggravated by the attack of some foreigners who storm the house and rape children.
The mother decides to deal with her children’s sexual assault by keeping the event secret and forcing the children to act as if nothing had happened. The three children grow up carrying this secret with them and all try to live with them in the best way. However, silence ends up causing deep trauma and complicating their lives in a very cruel way.
As an adult, along with the unstable situation of his own ruined marriage, Tom has to deal with his twin sister’s repeated suicide attempts.
She travels to New York to help the psychiatrist (Barbra Streisand) who cares for her sister after her last suicide attempt, and strives to clarify the dark reasons for Savannah’s repeated suicide attempts because she herself does not remember her childhood.
This leads Tom to his own childhood, causing him to revisit the sexual assault he also suffered as a child. Start doing psychoanalysis sessions with the therapist (who also has her own family conflicts) to help her sister regain her memory.
she portrays the reaction of a mother who, though hard to believe, is quite normalized in our society, probably does nothing but reproduce an attitude of concealment already present in her life full of aggression and violence on the part of her husband. It is that, in this case, he has extended the silence about brutal sexual assault on his children.
Child sexual assault generates a very harsh reality in adulthood, research on this subject gives us an idea of the dimension that these aggressions reach with age.
Does all this get worse especially when we force silence instead of protecting?Hiding sexual assault is not the ideal way to solve the problem, it is imperative that we begin to accept, as a society, that these types of traumas do not heal over time. , let alone ignorance. People who experience such sexual assaults should treat what they have experienced.
Fortunately, in recent years programs and initiatives have emerged to try to raise awareness, combat and find solutions to the terrible reality of child sexual abuse, but we, as individuals, must begin to become aware of it and not ignore these problems. Tacking these problems is the worst obstacle a child can face in his or her life and must be important to all of us.