Streetwise

Streetwise is a documentary that follows several runaway youth in the 1980s living on the streets of Seattle. Most are no older than 16, but already have made careers for themselves as pimps and prostitutes, thieves and muggers, panhandlers and dumpster divers, and doing what they can to survive.

In a 2006 edition of the New Yorker, a critic suggested that these kids are kind of led by a sense of street freedom, but as another viewer commented, it is likely that a lot of these people, even Rat, were probably miserable, despite the best attempts to hide it or convince themselves otherwise (This was made clear by Rat's opening remark about the things he hated about flying--"coming back to the f***in' earth.") Clearly, Dewayne was, as he committed suicide at the age of 16. The sad thing is that these were kids of children themselves. Not in the sense that they were born to teenagers (which may actually be the case), but that many of their parents had not yet matured beyond their own selfishness to care for these kids as they needed to be (Tiny's mother rationalized her daughter's prostitution as a "phase"). Some of the young girls, 14 and hooking, tell us about their abusive fathers and stepfathers that, despite miserable marriages, their mothers still stuck by them irregardless of the negative consequences to their own children. Rat tells about this too, where he was tired of being between his helpless, divorced parents feuding. Or just parents who seemed capable of having kids, but not raising them. And since no one cared for them as children (most of them, I'm not sure what the background was on the young black man who was pimping the girls, the one who's mother and probably grandmother later show up and ask him to come home), they took the streets and became, as Tiny's mother says, 14 going on 21. They were the city of the lost children.

Some might criticize this movie as being unrealistic, and at least the things coming from Dewayne's dad when talking to his son sounds like something from a film, although the Sound Recordist for the film has assured in his own comments that this is not the case. That there was no script. It makes the events all the more heartbreaking. If the purpose of the film was to raise awareness of the life of young runaways, it makes it point and drives it home hard. It also drives home hard that the policies of Regeanomics (joked by Dewayne later in the film) were hurting those lowest on the income scales (and consequently, moving many into the street). And it makes me wonder what the numbers of runaways and street kids are these days. Washington, DC (where I live now) has a large homeless population relative to the size of the district, but I never see any young panhandlers or prostitutes and wonder, is the situation still the same? Are the institutions working more to get kids off the streets? What has become of the Streetwise now?

If any one watched the movie & actually understood it they might understand the absurdity of that statement. When these weird people showed up & started following us around most just wanted to jump them & take their cameras & other stuff but none of us knew anyone who would buy something like that. We were on the streets for a reason & most of us had not had very good luck with adults so it was not really in our best interest to deal with them, but these folks were smart, somehow they got in good with Lulu one day Lulu told us hands off the old people, don't mess with them. So that was the way it was, after them being around for a while some of us kind of talked to them, most of us just wanted them to go away, they were strange, they didn't want sex, they weren't trying to hit or hurt us & most of us just got used to them. A lot of the others that were in the movie were trying to stay alive in some small way, the green river killer was working the crowd & that movie might be the only proof we were ever even here. Some of the kids were just trying to prove that they were making it & doing fine without their parents. D's dad was a dipstick & that is always how he talked to him. Somewhere it says that Lulu's last words were to tell these people that she was dead, that is BS, she was NOT attacked by other streetkids for no reason, she was defending her girlfriend from a drunk insane man, that is the way it was, that is the way she was. None of us got paid for this, as a matter of fact I don't even think any of us could con those folks into buying us a burger & fries at the Unique. For all of the armchair critics here who didn't have to live like this, or wasn't there, you might want to get out more. For any of those reading who may be still alive from there this is Breezy RIP Patti, Lulu, Dewaynne, John, & Bert...

I have lived in Seattle all my life, I watched and knew people like the kids in Streetwise. Many people would like to think that Streetwise was a "scripted" movie and that these kids "played up" their lives for the cameras. Scary as it might seem they did not. This was life on the streets of Seattle when I was 12-13. I know, I was a part of it.

Children, barely old enough to take care of themselves ran amok on the streets, had drug habits and prostituted themselves for some food money. They had parents that beat them or were in jail or molested them and that life on the streets was preferred to life at home.

I appreciate that this movie was so truthful and showed what life is really like out on the streets when you open your eyes.

I've watched this movie several times and I am happy that I got off the streets and survived. But the movie does make me wonder if I was the only one. Watch this movie and open your eyes.

Do the subjects of this film know that most everyone who viewed it still thinks about them and wonders what happened to them? Does Martin Bell know this? How the world would eat up a sequel...a follow-up on the people who can be located...

This documentary hits very close to home. I grew up with "Rat" after 1984, and our lives are still involved in some ways. I saw this movie as a teenager and it really makes you think about how things could be. Most kids can't wait to get out "on their own" and when you look at the way some roads can take you, you don't ever want to leave. When I look back at how "Rat" grew up and the lives of these other kids, I think to myself how easy it could have been me or kids that I know now. When you watch this movie, you will always remember that LIFE is such a short period of time and so many things can bring you down along the journey. But you have to keep in mind that the negative is always a learning experience, the question is...would you take the same journey again?