Aside from the underlying do something with your talent, I took the literal meaning to be getting out of southie. The Boston-Cambridge metropolitan area has many top schools and tech oriented companies that would be excellent opportunities …… but none are in southie. Southie has a very different stereotype than say Cambridge, or the financial district, or many tech areas
Southie has had a bit of a glow up and is maybe even a hip gayboorhood in some parts. But in the 1970’s they threw bricks at school buses because they didn’t want black children at their schools.
It has been a while since I watched the movie. But, consider the scene at the beginning where Will shows off his intelligence in a bar. I think the movie set that up as Will and his friends wanting to take a “field trip” to a non-Southie bar. It felt like they were far from the place where they belonged, even though it might have only been a 15 minute drive.
In any case, it isn’t just about leaving Southie. Like I said, at no point does Chuckie say “you’ve gotta get out of this town”. He just hopes that one day when he goes to knock on Will’s door, Will isn’t there. And, it isn’t because he wants Will to move to “a different town”, or something. It’s that he wants Will to not get stuck in a rut, never taking a chance on life, and not using his talents.
Will answering his door whenever Chuckie knocks doesn’t just mean he’s still living in Southie. It also means that he is probably still working the same job, still hanging out with the same people, still in the same rut.
For sure, and I’ve said that about the town I grew up in as well. It was an ibm town when I was a kid, so very tech oriented. But it was a smallish town in the middle of nowhere and no other tech company replaced ibm when they left.
I came back for my 20 year reunion and just thought everything was grey, run down, stuck in time. It horrified me how many people I knew had just stayed. One of my brothers friends was driving the same Camaro. The same guy with a mullet was selling weed. My best friend from that part of my life admitted he had never travelled more than 50 miles. His gig as a DJ at the community college had been cool at the time but …… doing exactly the same thing? It had been 20 years and I got caught up in no time because nothing changed
Aside from the underlying do something with your talent, I took the literal meaning to be getting out of southie. The Boston-Cambridge metropolitan area has many top schools and tech oriented companies that would be excellent opportunities …… but none are in southie. Southie has a very different stereotype than say Cambridge, or the financial district, or many tech areas
Southie has had a bit of a glow up and is maybe even a hip gayboorhood in some parts. But in the 1970’s they threw bricks at school buses because they didn’t want black children at their schools.
It has been a while since I watched the movie. But, consider the scene at the beginning where Will shows off his intelligence in a bar. I think the movie set that up as Will and his friends wanting to take a “field trip” to a non-Southie bar. It felt like they were far from the place where they belonged, even though it might have only been a 15 minute drive.
In any case, it isn’t just about leaving Southie. Like I said, at no point does Chuckie say “you’ve gotta get out of this town”. He just hopes that one day when he goes to knock on Will’s door, Will isn’t there. And, it isn’t because he wants Will to move to “a different town”, or something. It’s that he wants Will to not get stuck in a rut, never taking a chance on life, and not using his talents.
Will answering his door whenever Chuckie knocks doesn’t just mean he’s still living in Southie. It also means that he is probably still working the same job, still hanging out with the same people, still in the same rut.
For sure, and I’ve said that about the town I grew up in as well. It was an ibm town when I was a kid, so very tech oriented. But it was a smallish town in the middle of nowhere and no other tech company replaced ibm when they left.
I came back for my 20 year reunion and just thought everything was grey, run down, stuck in time. It horrified me how many people I knew had just stayed. One of my brothers friends was driving the same Camaro. The same guy with a mullet was selling weed. My best friend from that part of my life admitted he had never travelled more than 50 miles. His gig as a DJ at the community college had been cool at the time but …… doing exactly the same thing? It had been 20 years and I got caught up in no time because nothing changed