Born Into Brothels Reflection

Ethnographic Film Reflection Paper – “Born Into Brothels” Children all over the world are the same. They giggle over simple pleasures, tease one another, and have fun together. Photographer Zana Briski and cinematographer Ross Kauffman exposed the life of some extraordinary children in their documentary “Born Into Brothels.” Briski set out to explore the plight of women in the red light district of Kolkata and while there, she discovered the children who live there. The curiosity of the children, that found this district to be their home, captivated Briski and she used this interest to begin teaching them about photography and being able to see their life through their eyes. This documentary shares the lives of eight children; Kochi, Shanti, Gour, Manik, Puja, Suchitra, Avijit and Tapasi. Throughout different world cultures there are enormous gaps in the equality of people in society. Stratified societies are defined by Schultz, Lavenda and Dods in Cultural Anthropolgy like this, “In stratified society, higher ranking groups have a disproportionate access to wealth, power and prestige.” (Schultz, 2015) These children, through no fault of their own, only the chance of being born to a …show more content…
She ? that she ‘feared she would be unable to help” them. (Briski & Kauffman, 2004) Regrettably, as mentioned before, not only was society not willing to contribute to bettering their lives but some of their own families didn’t acknowledge the value of an education. Throughout “Born Into Brothels” we witness Briski diligently pursuing access to a school who would take children from brothels into the school. The parents and extended families didn’t or maybe didn’t even have the skills to do it. However, families didn’t always make it easy. Required paperwork was difficult to locate or lost. Then, it was whether or not a school would even admit the children as students. They were not part of the acceptable