Blog 1: Their Own End

The connection between Carlos from the biography and Marc from the short film, Invincible, is the desire for freedom. Their objective of being free is the same, what Carlos wants, is to be able to discover and express his sexuality, and what Marc wants, is to be free from the youth center that he is stuck in and be himself without anything stopping him. When it all comes down to it, Carlos and Marc aren’ t able to show their real selves from the beginning because of the social norms that are set for guys. It can be shown through the impact, social norms had on them before, also when they’re experiencing the borders of those social norms, and what the result was after those experiences. In situations like that, it can cause a lot of negative effects.

To start with, when we’re young, we are capable of being ourselves without caring about what people might think about us. Just like how Carlos insisted on getting his nails painted when he was six. But as humans we become subconscious of our surroundings, so the reactions we get from the choices we’ve made will somehow stick to us, as if we were traumatized. For example, when the older boys that were playing football laughed at Carlos for painting his nails. The nails that he liked so much that he wanted to show to everyone, are now the nails he is ashamed of. After a traumatic moment like that, you would naturally start hiding bits and pieces of who you are just because of the social norms that are implanted in our society. With the expectations that everyone sets for you, it makes it impossible for guys like Marc and Carlos to ever be themselves, so naturally for boys in their teens, they would start hiding their “imperfections”. For example, the people at the Youth Center made it impossible for Marc to express himself, to show how he really feels, which made him bottled up all his feelings inside and then one day… he drowned himself.

To continue, after a while our curiosity will get the better of us, we would want to try other possibilities, so we start experimenting with our options. Like for teen Carlos, manliness is strictly one point of view, so he would secretly compare himself to the other boys. Later in his twenties, he goes to Zambia and discover another point of view of how people see man, in Zambia man that have physical contact like holding hands isn’t discriminated and it is consider normal and no one would immediately think that they’re homosexual. Another example would be when Marc sets the sprinklers on because he was sick of the place he’s stuck in. Marc also thought of escaping the Youth Center while he was playing basketball because seeing the door open, he thought of it as a great opportunity. This part shows how bold we can get when we’re desperate enough. The example given with Carlos is a good way to let your curiosity go because the way he does it is by discovering another option of seeing things he initially thought was wrong but the way that Marc does it, is to escape from the judgment that might surround him.

To carry on, depending on the curiosity you were led to, it can either make you open-minded or close-minded. If it’s like Carlos and you decide to discover something new, you’ll become open-minded like him. The proof that shows how Carlos became so accepting is when he, himself, started going out with a girl that was supposedly gay, which is the opposite of what his past self would do considering he declared that he was homophobic. By going to Zambia, he was able to find his freedom by overcoming his fear of letting other people’s opinion bother him. Marc also found his freedom even though he was close-minded. The way he found it was by escaping his ”hell” entirely, which is considered the worst option.

To conclude, Marc and Carlos both got the freedom they wanted but in different ways. Carlos found it by being open-minded and chose the option to discover the things he thought he hated, and Marc found his by dying in the only thing he found peace in, which was water. So, following the social norms is an option but it means that you’ll be hiding all your life.