Southern Comfort and Social Lapses

Southern Comfort failed to convey its more broad elements and in doing so created a film that I could not connect to. With the improper introduction to characters and the lack of information, the entire film just seemed to be a small section of society that, with the majority of the story taking place on a secluded farm, did not connect itself to society as a whole. Perhaps this plays into the overall aims of the film but if there had been greater connections to the social groups outside of Robert's "chosen family," certain elements of the film may have been conveyed more adequately. Another portion of the film I found problematic, was Robert's statement, made during the SoCo speech, in which the transgendered people's situation was likened to that of blacks in terms of suppression and mistreatment in America. Very few elements can tie the the two groups together and I found it a gross exaggeration in attempting to link the position of transgendered people to that of formerly enslaved Africans in America. This fails to take into account factual historical elements and actually swayed me even further from the argument the film was trying to make.