“New York Voices:
New York Kids:
A Subway Ride
Through Childhood”
Tonight at 9:30 on WNET/Ch. 13
* * (two stars)
WE are raising a generation of crybabies.
That’s the message I got when watching a preview DVD of “New York Kids: A Subway Ride Through Childhood,” a new short documentary that tries to find out what it’s like to grow up in New York.
The show, part of Ch. 13’s ongoing “New York Voices” series, is a collection of interviews with a diverse sampling of the city’s children.
In the case of these New York voices, however, you might want to wear earplugs.
This “film” is only about 25 minutes long, but it is excruciating, thanks to a group of Manhattan kids – 12- to 14-years-old – who whine and complain so much about their lives that you would have thought they had been evicted from their homes and forced to scavenge their meals from garbage cans.
But no. The complaints are about all the pressure these precious ones are under, such as the privileged 12-year-old girl from a tony Upper East Side private school who moans that new Coach bags and Adidas sneakers are being introduced at such a furious pace that she simply can’t keep up.
And then there’s the 14-year-old boy and his pals who can’t understand why their parents hate “Grand Theft Auto,” the ultraviolent videogame through which these mean little angels get to simulate the experience of running over or shooting prostitutes, as well as a lot of other sick fantasies they evidently enjoy.
They then complain about the difficulties involved in the process of filling out applications and interviewing for admission to elite high schools – an opportunity for which these brats should be eternally grateful.
Let it be emphasized that not every kid in this show is a relentless complainer. As it happens, the kids living in lower-income environments seem to have actual ambitions and the energy and drive, hopefully, to see them through.
This includes a studious 13-year-old Dominican immigrant from Marble Hill in the Bronx named Glamildi who wants to go to Harvard, and 12-year-old Terell from Hunt’s Point, who aspires to be an architect and build shelters for the homeless and nursing homes for the elderly.
My fingers are crossed for both of them.
As for the Manhattan kids who sit around complaining in the manner of neurotic adults (gee, I wonder who they get that from?), they can learn a thing or two from their outerborough counterparts.