Coping with Memories
Coping with memories is a major theme in this film for both characters must learn how to psychologically adapt to overcome the abuse done unto them by ‘coach.’ In this film, the boys must learn to accept and understand their past, a string of memories that ultimately shape who they became as young-adults.
Neil
Neil accepts the abuse and views it as an honor for such a decorated man loves, and pays special attention to him. Neil does not have a stable father figure in his life and frequently witnesses men treating his single mother as a sexual object. This is perhaps why Neil gravitates towards ‘coach’ and does not question the harm that is being done to him by his elder. Neil not only gains sexual gratification from his visits with ‘coach’ but also is rewarded with attention and junk food, the ultimate bait for an eight-year old boy. Through this trickery, young Neil identifies sex as an act that is worthy of compensation as is not taught the significance and risks of the deed, nor how to respect his body. Perhaps this is why Neil grows to prostitute himself and allows himself to be involved in sketchy, life threatening situations. Neil’s memories skew his sense of right and wrong and taint his innocence. He quickly loses all respect for himself and instead of having a heart he grows to have “a bottomless black hole” as Wendy, his best friend, explains.
Brian
While Neil accepts his abuse, Brian uses a conversion coping mechanism to overcome his. Conversion means that he transformed the traumatic events of his childhood into an entirely different and impossible situation. In this case, Brian convinces himself that he was abducted by aliens during his molestation. As a child he wet his bed and would get nosebleeds that reflected his fear and acted as his body’s physical response to it. However, unlike Neil, Brian cannot remember his sexual encounters with ‘coach’ and uses the alien abduction theory as a justification for his memory loss. However his young mind simply masked the incomprehensible abuse and converted into a more realistic situation for a child to fathom, regardless of its impossibility. Throughout his youth and teenage years, Brian is plagued by dreams in which a dark figure and another child are present, he uses these images as clues that ultimately leads him to Neil who enlightens him about his past. This connection allows Brian to accept what has happened and finally realize the toll the abuse took on his life. However, while Neil grew to profit from the act of sex, Brian feared it and became repulsed by it, as seen when his female friend, also a believer in extraterrestrial life, attempts to pleasure him and he panics in response. This intense reaction is a direct consequence of Brian’s knowledge of sexuality being limited to abuse and harm.
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