Movie Review: Redemption (SPOILERS and TW for Child Abuse)

MOVIE TITLE: Redemption

RELEASE DATE: 2007

DIRECTOR: Michael Bryson

GENRE: Short Film (22 minutes)

SUBGENRE: Psychological Drama

RATING: Unrated, but contains emotional and physical child abuse

GRADE: A

 

Because the run time is only 22 minutes, it’s impossible to discuss the plot points without crossing into spoiler territory, so if you don’t want spoilers, leave now and read something else.

 

And because this is a short film made by a low-budget indie company, it really does show when they film within their means. The camera work, the editing, the sound quality, yes, it all screams low-budget indie film. Don’t let that factor into your enjoyment when watching this movie. Enjoyment might not be the right word because of how triggering some of the content is, but if you’ve been spoiled by Hollywood movie effects, it’ll be jarring to see something of this quality. The acting, the storyline, and the psychology behind this film more than make up for it.

 

Every actor who played a part in Redemption did their job and did it convincingly. When the mother beats the little girl after a bedwetting accident, you feel the daughter’s pain through her visceral screams and heart-wrenching cries. You feel it all over again when the mother forces her daughter to go outside in public with a diaper on so that everyone can scrutinize her shame. The daughter’s body language, her pouting, her head tucked in her lap, you know she’s going through abuse even without seeing the violence yourself, though including the violence on screen was necessary to drive the point home. You understand that the mother mourns the death of her husband. She’s lost without him, but instead of being there for her daughter, who also lost a father, the mother beats and humiliates her with forced infantilization. Yes, the daughter accidentally distracted her dad and caused him to crash the car and die, but she was a kid being playful, not malicious. The guilt of causing her father’s death compounded with the vengeful abuse from her mother create a cocktail of trauma for her to grow up with. The traumatic events are different for all of us in this life, but nobody makes it out unscathed. The daughter is relatable on some level. That’s why we don’t shame her when she finds a pistol in her mother’s nightstand drawer and shoots her.

 

I have one nitpick about the plot going forward from this point, but it’s not enough to lower my grade. After shooting her abusive mother, the daughter grows up and gets married without any mention of her serving jail time for what she did. Yes, she was in the right, but this movie was filmed in Texas, so I’m assuming the story takes place there, too. The right-wing Texas government doesn’t give a damn about women and girls and will go to any lengths to subjugate them. If the daughter did serve time in jail, it was awfully short and a surprisingly gentle experience that didn’t make her worse. But at the end of the day, there’s a story to tell and it has nothing to do with the Texas prison system. The movie is called Redemption and by God, that’s what we’re going to get.

 

Another nitpick, but it’s one some other audience members might have: the narrator’s voice. Obviously, the story is narrated by the abused girl who grows up into a psychotically traumatized adult. Her voice is nasally, whiny, and subdued. Some audience members might be put off by her voice, but not me. That’s the voice of someone who’s been forced to endure infantilization against her will. That’s the voice of a child who never had the chance to grow up and experience life. And yes, when you experience a significant amount of childhood trauma, it changes your voice. There’s actual science behind that. I’m glad the director chose to tell the story that way, because it makes perfect sense.

 

And then there’s a nitpick that certain members of the diaper community have voiced on the internet that I can’t take seriously: “Uh, why didn’t she just marry a guy with a diaper fetish?” Because that’s not the point of the story! She’s not wearing diapers as an adult to entice her husband. She’s wearing them because they feel familiar, even if that place of familiarity was dark and terrifying. A familiar trauma will always gain favor over the scariness of the unknown. We like familiarity, because it cuts down on anxiety, ironically enough. You could argue that it’s not a man’s job to fix broken women in the same way that it’s not a woman’s job to fix broken men. But her husband loves her for who she is. He married her for a reason. He didn’t get in the relationship specifically to fix her. But when he sees her wearing a diaper and laying on a bed full of crime scene photos, he doesn’t want to judge or laugh. He wants to heal her. He wants to be supportive and help her move on.

 

The movie ends when he tears up a crime scene photo and embraces her, allowing her to shed tears on his strong shoulders. The fact that she was able to maintain a relationship for as long as she did is nothing short of a miracle. That alone is a strong thing for a traumatized woman to do. Now it’s her turn to be taken care of, by someone who actually loves her and won’t punish her for simple mistakes no matter how deadly they turn out to be. The little girl started off in a happy family, then tragedy struck, then she survived abuse, and now she found love again. It’s a psychologically sound story to tell.

 

I wish that all survivors of abuse find their way back to love, in whatever form that may take. It doesn’t have to be through marriage. It could be platonic love. It could be found family rather than blood family. It could be through taking care of a furry friend like a dog or a cat. We do have to break the cycle eventually, but we don’t have to do it alone nor should we. It takes a village to raise a traumatized child. It takes love in all of its forms to get us back on the right path. The daughter could have continued down a violent path. But she didn’t. She broke the cycle. I love stories about breaking the cycle. They’re relatable, they’re hard-hitting, and they remind us over and over again that we’re not alone in this world. Even if you come from a loving family, you can suffer abuse from other people outside of your home. Your parents are not your only influence in life. Whoever influences you the most, for better or worse, may you one day find your redemption and healing. This movie gets an A grade for the acting and story alone. If you want special effects, go to a WWE show, if you can afford it. You might have to dig into your college trust fund to pay for tickets, or sell one of your kidneys. Redemption, on the other hand, is easy to find online if you look hard enough for it. Am I talking about the movie or actual redemption? Yes, I am.

Die Purring

On a gray winter afternoon, nothing was more relaxing for Shayna Jorgenson than cozying up on the couch with her bare feet up on the ottoman and shopping for Christmas presents online with her laptop. This was much easier than going to a department store, especially since wearing pink fleece pajama pants and a white tank top was perfectly acceptable attire for internet shopping. No customers fighting among themselves for the best deals on shit they didn’t need, and no lengthy ass lines so that people would have to put up with each other for that much longer. The beauty of comfort brought a smile to Shayna’s face as she pulled the tie out of her soft chocolate hair.

Although, she had to admit that shopping for her boyfriend Edward Christian was a mystery wrapped in a riddle most of the time. They had been seeing each other for a whole year, yet Shayna didn’t have much of a grasp on what it was he truly liked. And then she saw his laptop sitting on the couch next to her and got a sneaky idea. She folded up her own laptop and logged onto his, which was easier than shopping for him since the computer wasn’t password protected. Perhaps she could get an idea of what he wanted for Christmas from poking around on his computer.

And then she had yet another naughty idea: sneaking around on his laptop to see his...pictures. Photography was one of Edward’s favorite hobbies and Shayna had to admit that he took some damn good pictures of her, maybe even professional grade (in case his gig at the library didn’t work out for him). And then she ventured into more dangerous territory: the porn collection.

Shayna rolled over onto her side as she surfed Edward’s porn collection with a kinky grin on her face. He definitely had some imaginative tastes. Wonder Woman in a lesbian make-out session with Princess Leia (in her golden bikini). Harley Quinn tying and gagging Lois Lane with duct tape. There was even a screenshot of Crazy K from Tales from the Hood in his black underwear being strapped to the spinning torture table, which made Shayna giggle and shake her head.

The next picture she saw erased the smile from her face and added tremor effects to her lips. She even held her stomach as she tried to keep her coffee down. There was nothing wrong with the fact that these women (and/or girls) were bare naked. It was what they were wearing on their crotches that made Shayna’s insides twist and pulsate with horror. She tried heavily breathing to calm herself down, but no matter what kind of whirlwind she sucked into her lungs, her blood continued to feel like a frigid tsunami running through her veins.

She peeked up momentarily to see her boyfriend standing in the living room with groceries in his hands and a confused expression on his face. Shayna never heard the door open, which was even creepier than what she saw on his computer. Edward asked, “Is there something you’re not telling me? What’s wrong, babe?”

Shayna closed the laptop and set it aside with shivers in her bare arms. “You know, Edward…I never had a problem with you keeping porn on your computer. But tell me…why did I just see a picture…of women wearing…diapers?!” That last word was punctuated with tears welling up in her eyes.

Edward dropped the bags of groceries at his sides and placed his hands on his hips. “Really?” he said. “You’re mad because I have a diaper fetish? So what? What’s the big deal?”

Shayna jumped up from the couch and shouted, “Children wear diapers! Old people wear diapers! You like that stuff?! You actually think that women in diapers are sexy?! What is wrong with you?!” Another wave of nausea hit her like a wrecking ball to the gut. “Oh my god…how old are those women? How old are they?!”

The blond haired, gray sweater vest wearing Edward approached his girlfriend with his arms spread out with the intention of hugging her. “Come on, baby, it’s not like that. You know me better than that.”

When he got a little too close for comfort, Shanya batted his arms away and shouted, “Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking touch me! You’re sick! You’re a sick goddamn pervert! I mean, why would anybody think that diapers are sexy?! Is that what you want me to do for you?! Huh?! You want me to dress up in a child’s diaper and pretend that I’m a big fucking baby?! Maybe you should be a Catholic priest or some shit like that!”

Edward ran his hands through his fuzzy hair and looked down at his brown dress shoes and gray slacks. Shayna plopped back down on the couch and bawled her eyes out. “I don’t even know what to say to you right now, Edward,” she said. “This is sick. This is absolutely sick.”

The boyfriend’s expression changed from crippling guilt to trembling anger as he marched over to the bookcase and pulled out a copy of “Fifty Shades of Grey” by EL James. “You see this? Look at me, damn it!” Edward shouted. “Anybody who reads crap like this has no right to judge other people for having weird fetishes! I have no illusions about diaper sex being normal. But at least I would never make you sign your life away in a fucking contract, which the main character in this disgusting book does to his girlfriend! You’re a hypocrite, Shayna! I’d rather be a crazy diaper fetishist that a flip-flopping bitch like you!”

Shayna shot right back up again and shouted, “There are no diapers in Fifty Shades of Grey! The main character specifically says that nothing he and his girlfriend will do involves children! And as I just told you, in case you didn’t fucking know, children wear diapers! I’m not going to satisfy your little NAMBLA fetish just for the sake of keeping our sex life fresh! If you want to have diaper sex so badly, run a daycare center!”

The girlfriend shuffled around looking for her shoes and socks while Edward shouted, “Yeah, that’s right! Judge me! Label me! It’s not like people don’t do that enough already! You think you’re the first one to give me shit because of my tastes?! Yes, I’m weird! I know that! And you know what?! I’m proud of that shit! Being normal is boring as hell! And if you want me to conform for you, you’re just as boring as any other faceless bastard walking the streets!”

Once Shayna got her shoes and socks on, she began to stomp her way out the front door. Before she could, Edward had one last cannonball to fire. “That’s right, walk away! Throw away an entire year of romance just because of one weird ass fetish! I’m not the freak around here! You are, bitch!”

Shayna glared at her boyfriend one more time and flipped him off before slamming the door behind her and walking away. Edward was proud of standing his ground, but even he couldn’t resist the urge to plop down on the ottoman and stroke his hair while tears were forming in his eyes. He had been in several arguments with Shayna before, but none of them have ended without resolution. All of those pedophile remarks could very well mean the end of their relationship. They were serious accusations, possibly serious enough to involve the police if things get heated.

That night, Edward Christian laid in bed with the blankets barely covering his blue shorts-wearing body. He hugged his pillow and stared at the ceiling, wondering if Shayna would ever come home to him. It was a stupid thing to fight over and a shitty way for one year of love to end. Christmas was coming up soon and if word got out that he had a diaper fetish, he would have nobody to celebrate this special holiday with. The more he thought about this, the longer he stayed up. He had stayed awake for two hours without getting one wink of sleep. When the sandman eventually came for him, he was going to sleep alone. Having that much bed space didn’t feel any more comfortable than sleeping on a park bench in the frigid weather.

“Hey, baby,” said a familiar voice in the doorway. It was the lovely Shayna Jorgenson, still dressed in PJ pants and a tank top. She also wore a look of sadness on her face, like she had spent most of the day crying as she cleared her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry about everything. At the end of the day, we all have our weird tastes, even me. You’re right. It would be a boring world if everyone was normal. But I also know that you would never force me to do anything I didn’t want to do. I don’t want to be alone tonight. I know you don’t either.”

Edward spread his hand across the other side of the bed, signaling for his girlfriend to come lay beside him and end this silly feud once and for all. Shayna took off her tank top and revealed a white bra underneath. She breathed a deep sigh and looked down at her toes for a moment before pulling her pajama pants down and revealing a thick white diaper underneath.

Edward didn’t know whether to feel turned on and passionate or confused as hell. Shayna said, “I’m willing to try this just one time. If I don’t like it, then we won’t do it again. I feel absolutely ridiculous wearing this thing…but at the same time,” she smiled her sweet smile yet again and said, “It feels pretty soft against me.”

The boyfriend had a sexy grin on his own face as well. “I never actually had diaper sex before. I hope it’ll be as fun for you as it is for me. If it isn’t…I won’t make you sign a contract or any shit like that.”

Shayna giggled as she turned out the light and swayed her diapered hips back and forth on her way to beddy-bye with her handsome stud. One night was all they needed. One night of the strangest sex they’d ever had.

Common Dreams

***COMMON DREAMS***

Ever since I started using my CPAP breathing machine in the summer of this year, I’ve had a harder time remembering my dreams. That’s probably because my dreams were either about weird ass competitions I was in or scenarios that would make good novels but only in the dream and not in the real world. Those are the only two types of dreams I have difficulty remembering. While this is normal for people who use a CPAP, there have been nights where my dreams were as clear as day. I don’t talk about my dreams as often as I used to. I used to do dream posts all the time on my blog Garrison’s Library, but what those amounted to was a bunch of boo-hooing that they didn’t involve sex or having a girlfriend. Hey, I was lonely and didn’t know what to do with my life, give me a break. Thankfully, I won’t subject you guys to any of that shallow whining. Tonight’s journal entry will be about common themes in the dreams I can actually remember. I don’t know what they mean or why they keep coming up, but I can assure you that it has nothing to do with my deep rooted desire to have a romantic relationship with a female rock star. Let’s get started.

1. Air Travel. My parents take a lot of vacations and sometimes I tag along with them. Some of them involved air travel, such as New Orleans, Hawaii, California, Colorado, or New Mexico. Maybe I keep dreaming about boarding airplanes because of these experiences. It used to be that I would feel anxious while having one of these dreams because I’d forget to pack my schizophrenia medication. Not the case anymore.
2. Cats. I’d move either way from an old house or into a new one and both times there were cats I’d have to take care of. Lots of cats. Orange cats, black cats, calicoes, marmalades, tuxedos, lots of goddamn cats. I once had a WSS member named Mark ask why he was more weirded out by me being a crazy cat man than after any reading of my violent short stories. I laugh about it every time I read that comment, because it was intended to be good natured. But now I think maybe he has a point. Hehe!
3. Chehalis. I’ve lived in the small conservative town of Chehalis, Washington from 1996 to 2001. While I don’t look back on this time in my life favorably, the dreams I’ve had about this town were noteworthy in many ways. I’ve dreamed about buying prostitutes, having a library job, visiting my childhood friends Winn and Duncan, catching a bus ride, searching for my childhood friend Nathan, and wandering through the apocalypse. If the apocalypse was really going to happen, it would definitely happen in Chehalis. Trust me on that one.
4. Concerts. It mattered not who was playing and it mattered even less where they were playing. In my dreamland, I’ve been to a Three Days Grace concert that took place in a college classroom. I’ve been to a Roger Waters concert at a stone-built temple. I’ve been to a Rammstein concert at both a Chinese restaurant and a roller skating rink. I’ve been to a Pantera concert at an abandoned grocery store (they played where the deli used to be). I’ve been to a concert where Skillet opened for Green Day and me and James got kicked out of the venue when Green Day played. I must really love concerts.
5. Diaper Shopping. These dreams would involve me waking up at an ungodly hour of the day, walking through dark and dreary weather, and cruising Fred Meyer or Rite Aid looking for a package of adult diapers, which would be used for sexual purposes. The dilemma of these dreams was that I had nowhere to hide the diapers from my family. Well, in the dreams, diaper sex was a great idea, but when I woke up, I realized it wouldn’t happen in a million years.
6. Dragon Ball Z. When I’m watching this anime in my dreams, I’m playing a desperate game of catch-up with some new series they put out, usually involving Vegeta getting humiliated or an apocalyptic scenario. Maybe these new DBZ episodes took place in Chehalis. I also play catch-up with new Gundam shows, but those are normally easier to follow than Dragon Ball Z episodes. Should I start watching anime again as a means of curing my boredom? Maybe when I get a better streaming service than my burned out Roku.
7. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. I would either participate in these games or watch them on TV. Every time I do either, all of the players would fail miserably at both games. It’s kind of like the real world, but it’s more brutal, it’s drawn out forever, and it would take place in the past. During the toss-up rounds in Wheel of Fortune, Vanna White would actually flip the letters on that old-school board and the contestants would still get it wrong. Sometimes they’d even guess numbers and punctuation marks. Jesus Christ, man. One time during an episode of Jeopardy, Rosalind Cash (Dr. Cushing from Tales from the Hood) hosted Final Jeopardy and the category was Prostitutes. Double Jesus Christ, man.
8. Libraries. These are some of my favorite dreams, obviously because I’m an author who eye-guzzles literature on a daily basis. I always dream about checking out a shit ton of books, buying a bunch of RPG rule books, or checking out a Robotech book since I also dream about playing catch-up with this book series. Sometimes I would dream about playing D&D or buying action figures and Legos from a library. No nightmare fuel here!
9. Pink Floyd the Wall. When if first saw the music video for Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 in the mid 1990’s, I tried my damnedest to try and avoid looking at the faceless masks ever again. They were creepy and nightmare inducing to the point where I’d even avoid looking at them in my dreams. I eventually got over my fear when I saw Roger Waters in concert in 2000, but in my dreams, I always avoid going to the Pink Floyd section of every record and video store.
10. School. Whether it’s middle school, high school, or college, the common themes in these dreams include failing classes, dropping out of classes, finding a seat in class that doesn’t have a bunch of graffiti on it, finding my next class while naked, taking gym classes at a community college, and reading a novel and actually being able to pass the class because of it. A less common theme would be fighting with a bully, to which I would feel angry after waking up. Why am I so obsessed with school? Is this why I write a lot of school-related stories for the WSS?
11. VHS Tapes. I’d have dreams about visiting my biological father Michael Temons and while I was at his house I’d dig through his VHS collection. Sometimes they would be episodes of Monsters. Sometimes they would be music videos from VH1. Sometimes they would be cartoons from the 80’s and 90’s. No matter what it was, I’d want those VHS tapes in the worst way. Same thing with his audio tapes. Maybe this is my brain’s way of thanking my dad for giving me an old school state of mind. He did introduce me to The Police, The Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd, after all.
12. Videogames. I played a lot of goddamn videogames until I officially retired in 2010 due to getting my ass kicked multiple times by a lava dragon in Final Fantasy III. Maybe these dreams are trying to pull me back in. I’ve played Super Mario games with Phantos aplenty, Final Fight games where I got my ass quickly kicked, Street Fighter games where I threw my opponent off of a high ledge, Mega Man games where I’d get frustrated as hell, Diablo II sequels that were exactly the same as the prequel but more frustrating, and Final Fantasy NES games where I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was doing. I’d also play Final Fantasy-themed RPG’s where I’d be on the verge of fighting the Calcobrena Puppets in some creepy form. I once fought a bunch of baldheaded puppets that sat in rocking chairs, pointed at my characters, and laughed evilly. When it comes to videogames, every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in!
13. World Championship Wrestling. The Monday Night Wars between the WWE and WCW were a time in wrestling history where both sides actually cared about improving and nobody had a complacent monopoly. My WCW dreams, however, tell a different story. Sometimes there would be a shitload of championship belts. Sometimes Rey Mysterio would dominate the show. Sometimes the WCW Nitro episodes would take place in a wooden hut. Sometimes Hulk Hogan would come to the ring to a Moody Blues song. Maybe WCW would actually stay in business today if these things really happened. Or it would have folded sooner than 2001, we don’t know.

I’d like to think that I could harvest some decent creative fuel from these odd dreams. I certainly thought that when I dreamed about Hulk Hogan battling a crew of squid-like aliens. But the problem with using dreams as creative fuel is that they don’t amount to solid stories unless you tweak so much of the original dream that it loses its genuineness. The author has a decision to make between a good story and staying faithful to the original inspiration. I’ll always choose to have a good story, which is why the Hulk Hogan dream never materialized into an actual piece of literature: too many loose ends and plot holes. This is not to say that dreams are meaningless and that they should be ignored. There’s a reason I keep having these themes pop up in my head at night. If only I could tap into them in a way that made sense.

***DEMON AXE, CHAPTER 5***

There is a month-long discrepancy between chapters three and four of Demon Axe. This is unacceptable to me, especially since National Novel Writing Month is coming up after Halloween and I want to make the most of it. Let’s see what I can come up with for chapter five of this WIP novel. The chapter is going to start off by somebody smashing Daniel Mercer’s windows and breaking into his house. Raven Triscloud seems to think that she and Daniel are being followed by Roger Zee’s newly-enslaved minions Johnny Vega and Sonia Marquez. Daniel and Raven will have to put aside their disagreements if they want to make it through this night alive.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

One of the things I’m trying to do with these character drawings is show them in different poses from what I feel comfortable doing. Too many of these drawings show the character folding his arms, having his hands at his sides, or waving his hands in the air. Very rarely does the character stand at an angle and when he does, it usually ends ridiculously as seen with the Shawn Henry drawing. That’s the thing about trying new ideas: sometimes you strike gold and other times you spill fertilizer. I’m hoping to strike gold with Soa, one of the two Samoan cannibals from the short story “Chunky Puffs”.

***COLLEGE HUMOR DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

GOOGLE GUY: Come on in. Don’t worry about me. It’s Jackson Polluck’s birthday today and I’m covered in paint to celebrate his particular art style.

USER: Why do farts smell?

GOOGLE GUY: One of the most important painters of all time and you want to know why farts smell.

-If Google Was a Guy-