These four New Zealand texts have social issues seen through the eyes of young maori boys around social issues, Boy, Wild Pork And Watercress, Dark Horse.

In the film Boy the main character “boy” was affected by social issues and wanted to be like his dad since he met him, Boy idolised his father and started acting and becoming ‘Lil Shogun’ which is the mini version of ‘shogun’ his father. Boy saw his father trash the house and his mothers room as he was under the influence of alcohol and could not find his money. When Boy realised that his father was a loser that was addicted to drugs and alcohol as well as affiliated in a gang. Boy then returned back to the house to clean up the mess his father made and went back to being the mother of the house while his gran was away which he stopped doing from being influenced from his father. The social issue is that Boy had no guidance from his father as a child as he left them, this making the family have a lack of money and family dysfunction which refers to society’s social issues which affected Boy and the rest of the family in a negative way. This is because a lack of guidance which caused them to have lack of knowledge and opportunities due to low money.

In the film Dark horse, one of the main characters Mana is affected by social issues, this is because he is surrounded by a gang his father is affiliated in, which Mana must be join at the age of 16. The social issues that affected Mana was gang problems, drugs, alcohol and violence these had a negative impact on Mana causing him to have a lack of parental guidance and family dysfunction. Like Boy, Mana grew up without parental guidance which caused him to have a lack of knowledge and opportunities to do something positive due to his dad doing drugs and alcohol. 

In the book Wild Pork And Watercress, the main character Ricky Baker was affected by family dysfunction as his family abandoned him at a young age. The social welfare had to move Ricky from house to house as he could not find any stability at school and at home and he ended up involved in crimes. Like Boy and Mana, Ricky had family dysfunction from a young age which gave him no guidance, this affected him as he had no confidence speaking to people and no knowledge and opportunities due to his family leaving him.

In the text Yellow” Brick Road, the main character Matiu was affected by racism, urbanisation and family dysfunction. The family was affected by family dysfunction as they are leaving their aunties , uncles and cousins behind in Waituhi, this will cause the mother to struggle to socialise as she will not know anyone in Waituhi which will make her not want to be there. The family was affected by urbanisation as they are moving from the country where there less rules about what you can do and more freedom but in the city there is less freedom and more rules that you must follow for example, when they are at the traffic lights and its telling them what they cant do, this was something they was not used to out in the country. The family was affected by racism when the young boy went out into the road and the truck driver swerved, once the truck driver was talking to his dad the driver said “oh what’s the use, you maoris are all the same, dumb bloody horis”. Horus being a racist word for maoris.

In conclusion, all these texts have similarities in social issues like family dysfunction, drugs and alcohol and gang problems. I believe that Maoris should not have these problems like family dysfunction from a young age as the child as there is no way for them to solve this problem and we should have a better system across New Zealand to solve issues like these.

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