Fences: A Son's Dilemma

Last week I wrote about the frustrations of a man in consideration of the movie “Fences”.  When I began this series of my Fatherhood blog dedicated to digging deeper into the movie my intent was to explore the array of feelings that arose inside of me as I sat in the theater.  As I stated in the first blog this movie took me on the journey from boy to man and eventually father all over again.

Troy (Denzel Washington) has 2 sons.  Lyons (Russell Hornsby) who was born out of wedlock before Troy went to prison and Cory (Jovan Adepo) who was born in wedlock and saw Troy in the home on a daily basis.  Lyons once confronted Troy about his absence in his life in the living room of Troy’s home but when the backyard conversation happened when Troy talked about his upbringing it felt as if Lyons came terms with his father as he understood Troy a lot better.  Cory on the other hand had Troy in the home and their relationship was troublesome, to put it mildly.  I chalk it up to gross miscommunication with overall good intent.  Troy wanted his son to be better him and he didn’t want him to fall prey to life's disappointments.  Cory, on the other hand, wanted to be just like his father but as time went on Troy’s hard tactics caused a huge rift between the two creating a space that led to a physical altercation and a complete lack of communication for years.  During the final scenes of the movie, it was revealed that Lyons ended up incarcerated just like his father and Cory had become the man that his father knew he could be all along.

On a personal note I remember a time I felt like Cory, I wondered why my daddy didn’t love me.  As a result of me feeling as if my dad didn’t love me, I didn’t let any other man who wanted to positively impact my life do so including my stepfather (I plan to go deeper into the dynamic internally and externally in April so stay tuned).  In my life, these relationships have been built, repaired, and strengthened over the years (it’s never too late).  The development of these relationships increased my resolve to be the best man I can be as well as directly impact the upswing in my life to my me becoming grounded in who I was as a youth, who I am as a man, and who I’m becoming as a father.

It’s shocking and refreshing how deeply art imitates life with this movie.  It resembles the makeup of family structure and the males in them within a segment of our society.  I wrote a blog earlier in the year about Missing Fathers and the effect on the family.  I submit it has a deeper impact on the community at large but I’ll save that for another blog.  I think what’s more crucial is men are missing for various reason (which may be known or unknown) leaving boys to grow up with little to no guidance on what it is to grow into manhood.  Then if/when the boy grows into manhood society holds them responsible for knowledge they may or may not have acquired i.e. provision, chivalry, etc.  One of the major points for me was when it was clear that Troy could only teach what he had seen with the hope of doing just a little bit better.  There is an opportunity in this dilemma.  On one hand, there is an opportunity for fathers, uncles, cousins to correct their behavior and fill in the gap, on the other hand, it’s an opportunity for systems to take all this information into consideration moving forward and policy and protocol are introduced.