SatoChris SatoENG-W 1312 November 2012Jessica GeorgeEssay #2 The movie Traffic portrays the involvement of a drug cartel through multiple perspectives, each perception either being for or against it. The drug czar Robert Wakefield and his team try to take down the cartel in San Diego, but whilst thinking he is bringing them down, he overlooks the matter in his personal life. His daughter Caroline has become a user of these drugs for at least six months. However, even though he finds out, she still continues to use them up until the end when she realizes that her dad is there for her when he saves her in the motel room. After this realization, she begins to go to rehab with the support of both of her parents, and while Traffic seems to be about the cartel and teens using drugs, according to Jeffery Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” and Barry B. Greenbie’s “Home Space: Fences and Neighbors,” the movie actually seems to look much deeper. They bring to light the fact that although Robert Wakefield is fighting the cartel on a larger scale, he does not seem to notice the fact that his absence and broken relationship with his wife inadvertently causes his daughter to usedrugs to cope with the neglect. Cohen fights for the cause that the monster is our child, speaking for Wakefield, and that “the monster is continually linked to forbidden practices,in order to normalize and to enforce,” (Cohen 79). This goes together with Greenbie’s argument for a balance between private and public lifestyles. Together, Cohen and Greenbie create a sense of responsibility that one must be accountable for their offspring as well as the lives they wish to portray. With Robert Wakefield’s lack of presence in his 1Satodaughter Caroline’s life, it becomes unequivocally certain that her drug addiction originates from his imprudent absence.While looking into Caroline’s timeline throughout the movie, one scene becomes the optimal point in ascertaining the effects of Robert Wakefield’s absenteeism. After being arrested and brought back home, Robert calmly interrogates Caroline to get to the bottom of things. Once all is said, he excuses her from the room to talk privately with his wife. This action reveals the already created gap between the family, especially between Robert and Caroline. However, when he and his wife talk, she comes clean, saying that she has known for the past six months, and did not even mention it to Robert, letting the audience know the magnitude of this gap. The fact that Robert asks Caroline to leave and not talk through the situation with her only enhances the problem. She now realizes that her father, knowledgeable of her addiction, still has not done anything to punish her, and cannot reinforce whatever punishment he gives her because he is not around enough. Also, because her mom has known about it for some time, and has not done anything about it, Caroline is aware that neither parent has control of her life, leaving her to continue her drug usage. These ideas prompted in Caroline’s head can only be from the result that she has now realized from her fathers frequency of absence, he now lacks the responsibility of raising her.The lives that people choose to expose to the world needs to have a balance or else the whole system is thrown off. Greenbie describes this, “as the house walls present our social face to the world, so they let the world come in to us. The important thing in both cases is the degree of control we exercise in the interchange,” (247-248). Meaning that Wakefield went against Greenbie’s exposed trend by managing most of his public life2Satorather than his private. His home expreses a fairly normal look from the outside, as well as on the inside by the interior design and cleanliness throughout, but the dynamics of thefamily situation only dichotimizes this observation. Robert Wakefield’s family is that of abroken one, and it becomes fairly more noticeable as the movie progresses that he becomes more caught up in his job than his family, which in turn leads to the initial downfall of his offspring Caroline. The lack of accountability and commitment Wakefieldputs into both aspects of his life become the spawning point for Jeffrey Cohen’s “monster.” One of his claims being that some monsters are our children and that “these monsters ask us how we perceive the world, and how we have misrepresented what we have attempted to place,” (82). This goes hand in hand with Greenbie’s claim that because Wakefield did not put in the effort in his personal life, Caroline begins to indirectly question her fathers priorities, views, and rules of this world. Once realizing thelack presence and responsibility from her father, Caroline begins to use these drugs without any knowledge of their consequences. When looking in the world of drugs it seems as though teens use them because they were either peer pressured into it, or because they use it to cope with some other issue. Not only does the monster represent Wakefield’s daughter Caroline, but also the drugs themselves. Cohen describes these monsters and are, “…continually linked to forbidden practices, in order to normalize and to enforce. The monster also attracts,” (79).Cohen’s acknowledgment of this monster representing drugs in this movie explains Caroline’s motives, that she does them to “normalize” her life, making it the only way to hang out with her friends. She even goes as far as to do it in her own house because she knows there is no authority around. “The same creature who terrify and interdict can 3Satoevoke potent escapist fantasies: linking of monstrosity with the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing as a temporary egress from constrain,” (Cohen, 79). This quote depicts the views of an authority compared to a user. Drugs look bad, and in a way “terrify” the authorities that fight them because they know its potential, while a user of said drugs can be looked at as a way to escape from reality, they know they are illegal which makes it all the more appealing. This monster becomes so appealing that Caroline could not resist when she initially drank and smoked, to doing meth and heroin by herselfand with strangers. All of the dramatic twists and turns stem from the absence of her father, because without a symbol of authority, the monster is free to do what it wants as it pleases. In summary, Jeffery Cohen and Barrie B. Greenbie