(Some background information: “We do what we have to do to survive.” This may be my favorite line in “25th Hour,” coming from Uncle Nikoli, the Russian mafia boss who gives advice to Montgomery “Monty” Brogan (played by Edward Norton) on how to survive in prison. Monty, a drug-dealer caught and sentenced to seven years under the strict New York Rockefeller Drug Laws (to learn more about the Rockefeller Drug Laws and their impact on communities, check out http://www.droptherock.org/), has one last evening out on bail before he has to arrive at Otisville Correctional Facility. He has dinner with his father, goes clubbing with his friends Jacob and Francis, and tries to find moments to spend with his partner Naturelle.

A couple weeks ago, I returned home from work to find my housemates setting up to watch “25th Hour,” directed by Spike Lee. I have always been a big fan of Spike Lee's movies, particularly “Do The Right Thing,” and I remember expressing interest in seeing “25th Hour” in the theater when I saw ads for it. But life takes over: there are jobs to do, people to hang out with, and communities to travel to. I never got a chance to see the movie, and had pretty much forgotten about it until I walked into my living room. And for the next several hours, I was blown away. It instantly became one of my top ten films, and I went to work the next day gushing to my co-workers. Neil ended up watching the film that weekend, and he, too, found much to appreciate about the film.

One of the reasons we both liked the film is how masculinity is displayed, both the traditional, destructive forms, and the alternatives, freeing and hopeful. Below, please find our dialogue on masculinity in “25th Hour.” – DSR)

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Hi Neil,

I'm really happy you got a chance to see “25th Hour.” It's not so often that I get to come to work excited about a movie (usually that's Pat's role), and I'm glad to be able to share this excitement with you.

What struck me first about the movie was the theme of how prison is an end, how it changes people, even kills parts (or all) of people. Monty's friend Francis tells his other friend Jacob that Monty has three choices over the next 24 hours: Monty can run away, he can kill himself, or he can go to prison. Jacob responds that the third option is exactly what Monty is going to do, and Jacob is hopeful about seeing him on the other side in seven years. Francis responds: “People who look like Monty don't do well in prison.” One of my most distinct memories is seeing you at the Stop Prisoner Rape ( http://www.spr.org )/Human Rights Watch conference on prison rape in 2001 (in my pre-Men Can Stop Rape days). We learned a good deal about how prisons are set up to use rape and sexual assault as punishment, how little is done to end rape in prison, and how prison rape affects individuals and their communities long after the term is served. From my experience working in prisons, I have heard stories about young men caught in shadowy corners, or guards placing certain prisoners in the same cell as punishment. I've even heard of young men who will become a slave to another man in exchange for protection from other men.

The fear that Monty feels (and his friends and family share) is that he will be raped once he arrives at prison. The upcoming seven years do not feel like a rehabilitation period; instead, they are envisioned as hell. In this case, prison feels like punishment, a punishment from which Monty will never escape, with scars that will last for the rest of his life, a life missing the seven years that many people use to build families and stronger community ties. Monty will leave prison in seven years with government dentures (because his teeth will be knocked out to facilitate oral sex), a hole where his community and family should be, and few tangible skills to support him on the outside. Plus, he will leave with memories of ongoing violence, whether from guards, other prisoners, or himself.

Seeing this future, Monty begins to lose his front. As a drug-dealer, he has had to be tough and extraordinarily cool in the face of suppliers, customers, and the police. But on this day, his toughness and coolness will not stop him from going to prison. At one point, Monty is talking with Naturelle, his wife, and he is just terrified, crying as he lies on the couch. The cracks are beginning to show.

I remember a couple months ago, I was biking through the city, listening to some tunes on my headphones. I made a left turn without signaling or checking behind me, and a car plowed right into me. I landed on the hood of the car. I remember saying to myself as I landed on the hood, “F*#!, I'm dead.” Obviously that wasn't true (although my bike got pretty messed up). After the driver took off yelling expletives, I stood there, stunned. People asked me if I was all right, and I tried to go back into my cool pose. But it didn't feel right – it never feels right, but this time, I couldn't get it to work. It was as if the accident had jolted me into a place where I couldn't cover up. Reality was making it impossible for me to try to be anything other than what I am. I went home, and got into my bed, stunned and crying.

So, Neil, I want to hear your thoughts. I really have two questions for the movie, two things with which I am struggling.

1. We talk about finding alternatives to traditional, self-destructive masculinity. We want to empower young men to express those emotions that are rarely expressed, and to discover other means of being a man besides the intense invulnerability and dominance with which we have been taught to define manhood throughout our lives. But when I think of Monty going to prison, or about the people I met when I taught in a prison, I think about how that tough guy mask is needed, about how there are times where we can't show vulnerability. To come back to Uncle Nikoli's quote – sometimes we have to do what it takes to survive. So how can our organization continue to work to confront traditional masculinity while recognizing the need for it? And if we really want to change the way men are defined, then should we be working to change the need for traditional masculinity?

2. We feel sorry for Monty. He's about to go to hell for seven years. But where is the remorse for the lives that Monty has hurt through dealing drugs? This is one of my biggest struggles, because often I get so caught up in what prisons do to communities and people, and want to blame all of us collectively for why individuals choose (or are forced) to deal drugs, that I lose sight of what happens to people who use drugs.

That's way too much from me for now. I loved this movie, and I can't wait to hear what you have to say.

In Strength, David

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Hey David,

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond but after your email I went back to take a second look at the film. As I watched this time I was still very aware of how much I keep thinking about what I would do, how I would face seven years in prison. Monty tells Naturelle that one of his options might be to kill himself and I think, Hell yeah, ya gotta think about it. Facing seven in “gen pop”, I mean Rockumas, c'mon seven years in the joint is no joke. Unfortunately killing yourself does seem like an easier option than facing certain violence on a daily basis. I mean the current prison industrial complex makes money on the backs of poor, overwhelming illiterate people, doesn't give a F*#! about them or you and surely won't protect you from violence.

Having friends and family incarcerated all over this country with charges ranging from violent to simple possession or violation of probation, my “cool pose” in my most masculine moments helps shape my thoughts. I have heard first hand what the inside is like and what it can do to you. I have thought if I ever went to prison I would do what it took to survive. Like Monty was told to do by the doorman at the club, I'd stay cool until you were forced to react. Rockumas, at 6' 1" 220 lbs I've won my share of fights and lost my share, I've always felt confident I can defend myself from harm. But on the real there is no place in my heart, even with those experiences, that tells me I could do even one day of jail time. As Monty said in the film, “There's a 1000 guys up there tougher than me.” If I was Monty, I would think about ending it all or skipping town. What choice does a rational person make? What other choices are there: go to prison to be sexually assaulted by the gangs that run the prison? Or earn more jail time for killing someone to show you can handle yourself, and even then that's no guarantee of safety?

So to answer your first question, yeah, maybe we do need to keep some of that traditional masculinity around to protect ourselves from harm – particularly in environments where resources are low and violence isn't a theory to be debated but the day-to-day reality for many young men and women. All life has the right to avoid or protect itself from being harmed. Traditionally masculinity is destructive when physical violence is the automatic default setting in moments where intellect would serve young men far better. Young men need to see that self preservation is not only about using physical force but developing nonviolent skills that can serve them far better than becoming violent.

Neil

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Hey Neil,

Thanks for the intelligent response and questions.

I, too, kept thinking what I would do in Monty's position. I'd like to think I could take prison, that I would be proactive. I'd like to think that I might even take Uncle Nikoli's advice, and beat the crap out of someone I thought I could take on. But I would probably end up either running away or killing myself. Knowing what I know about the inside, I can't see myself surviving in any way.

I'm intrigued with the idea of finding intelligent, non-violent ways to respond to situations, or staying cool until one is forced to react. Prisons can become cramped places very quickly (figuratively as well as literally), and there may not be space to search for intelligent, non-violent means to solve issues. Traditional masculinity makes it possible to survive in a place like prison; men acquire the structures and the training before they arrive in a place like prison.

For a lot of young men in this city, because of economic factors, the cards are stacked against them. It's not about choosing the course of action that will lead away from prison; sometimes, the question is more “when” rather than “if.” And now, members of the current city government are looking to make it easier to prosecute young people as adults. For some, there really is no space to get away, to think. It really becomes a matter of how to survive rather than how to make the environment different, create a less-violent culture.

You've spoken about certain high schools in the city where the resources aren't available to start a MOST Club. That there are other issues, more pertinent to survival, that need to be dealt with before you can have conversations with young men about traditional masculinity. How do we as an organization sit with this? Do we believe our goals are to help young men find non-violent alternatives only when they have the resources and space to consider non-violence? That we will only work with those who are in a place to accept our work? That if we were to come across Monty, knowing that he was going to prison, that we would give him a slap on the back, say best of luck, try to distract him (give him some mental space) before he makes his way to Otisville? Do we do the opposite with those who need survival skills? Would we help some young men become more entrenched in traditional masculinity, knowing it woul help them survive?

The other thing I'm thinking about is for many people, mostly women, the reality that Monty is facing in prison is a reality that is faced everyday outside of prison. Monty looks at prison rape and violence as the inevitable. For a lot of young women, men, girls, and boys, sexual assault and violence are inevitable, a rite of passage, something that needs to be reckoned with, experienced, and processed (or not processed). In the same way Jacob abuses his student, men are forcing women and men into a life from which they cannot escape into the desert. There literally is no choice.

As you've said, and as I've heard, prison is no joke. Perhaps the question is not, what can we do to help those with few resources and space find alternatives to violence and traditional masculinity, but instead it's how can we create more space, how can we build more resources. But is this what our organization is supposed to be doing? Our mission is to engage young men as allies with women in ending men's violence. What if, in fact, some men need the supports for men's violence, including men's violence against women, to make it through this world, to survive? We do what we need to do, right?

In Strength, David

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David,

I think we basically agree that traditional masculinity can provide you with the self-destructive skills needed to survive in prison. But what I think is far more important to understand is that traditional masculinity (TM) is the very thing that put Monty in his situation. Facing seven years in Otisville his survival was jeopardized because of TM. Those other “issues” you talked about are a part of TM and need to be seen as such. It was about traditional masculinity when the young men in our Hyde Most Club were on the “get back” (to get revenge) because one of our own club members had been jumped that morning on his way to school and was in the hospital. They understood the history of that violence in their community and felt retaliation was the only way to protect themselves and their families from future violence. This story of TM isn't isolated in the urban areas; last week, I was told by male students at a private school in an affluent community that the way young women fit into or earn respect in their society is “by being sluts.”

David, it's in these moments that we as educators need to teach young men that they do have a choice in avoiding TM. That TM is the very thing that threatens male survival because it offers so many self-destructive options for problem solving. We need young men to learn that non-violent problem solving speaks to strength and longevity. When they understand this, they will be better able to interpret those moments where staying cool is taking action and keeping them safe from harm.

Neil

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Send comments about "Escaping to Desert Towns" to David and Neil.