Daughters

Daughters
Daughters

In her TEDxWomen Talk that became widely referenced, Angela Patton addressed how she founded a program in Richmond in the state of Virginia designed to bring together girls and their fathers who are behind bars. The concept of creating a space in which the fathers and daughters feel loved is quite interesting to some. Such daddy daughter dances are so effective the program has gone to other prisons. Daughters, a film which Patton also co-directed, chronicles the first of such dances at a prison in Washington D.C. Patton verbally expressed her feelings towards one of the men who was to pitch the idea saying.

In order to be eligible for the program, the fathers have to engage in a 10 week program aimed at improving their fathering skills which engender sharing painful experiences, regrets, and fears. It is a completely new idea for one man who claims it is the first time such things are discussed among men.

As their names signify, in the film’s title, Patton and her co-director Natalie Rae don’t lose focus of the girls and dedicate the majority of the shots to the four girls. We see a five year old quite early into the film, who goes by the name of Aubrey, and she is absolutely cute.

She holds her head high because she is the top performer in her class, and uses her certificates of achievement as her proud decoration on the wall. She particularly loves arithmetic and has already committed the multiplication tables to memory. As she continues to interpret the significance of the digits, it becomes evident that one of the reasons why these numbers are special is that she is trying to comprehend when her father’s seven year term of imprisonment which is longer than the period she has been alive will come to an end.

Fathers’ absence is especially distressing for them when they realize in the later stages of life that it’s due to bad decisions. For Santana, who is ten, she is more aware of her father’s circumstances and claims that she now has to play the role of father in her household with two younger children. She quite petulantly stresses that she may marry one day, but never bear children. Ja’Ana, eleven years old, recalls, Raziah, fifteen is hurt, angry, and quite bitter, contemplating suicide as well. As a matter of fact, even one of the men among the group witnessed such disgusting abuse of familial bond by telling the group that he first had sex with his daughter’s mother when she was 13, who gave birth to his daughter when she was 14. He is all too aware of the fact that if this girl had her father out of prison, she would have been less susceptible to any man’s attention.

Michael Fernandez’s photography and Kelsey Lu’s music in this film contain an emotional warmth and poeticism that complements the children’s character. Minor slow motion effects here and there emphasize the everlasting way how children have numerous days and long, long thoughts for the youngest of them in their heads.

We observe poignant instances from Patton’s programs that are geared towards the encouragement of Black girls and their mothers to appreciate their strength and their roots. It is clear for Patton, the mothers have been there and he wants these mothers to share pride and sisterhood. She instructs the fathers to get close to the girls, making it easier for the mothers.

In the film Daughters, which also received the Documentary Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award at Sundance, there are recounts of dozens of documented and quite moving events. One moment which involves fathers taking off orange prison uniforms in order to put on jackets and ties could for a lack of better words, most definitely be described as intense. However, this scene becomes even more poignant when several fathers are later seen teaching other fathers how to tie a tie, an art which is often passed from father to son during important occasions such as graduations, dates, and first job interviews that these men never got. There is something special about the flowers worn by men on their lapels, especially when the time comes to bar them, every man hands his blooms over to his daughters as if to say, You are my true love.

What matters here is that as a character explains in American Fiction, Nobody is as bad as on their worst day, They love their daughters. Not being able to be there only adds to their lack of hope. More importantly, their daughters need them to be there. As with the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program that was featured in Sing Sing, the recidivism rate of the participants in this fatherhood program is about three percent. In an update at the end, one of the fathers states that he had never been outside the walls of the prison for more than 6 months at a stretch since adolescence till the point he witnessed it being important for a father to be there for his daughter. There’s been a deterioration for about four years at the time of the update and the prisoner was keen to remain out of jail.

Most of the prisons are using remote connections which are burdening for the families, rather than allowing physical discussions. As they embrace after many years apart, the fathers and daughters are overwhelmed with unrestrained relief and deep sadness.

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