ABSTRACT
The documentaries Girlhood (2003) and Get Together Girls and the coming of age dramas Fish Tank, All That Glitters (2010), and Girlhood (2014) demonstrate the pervasive social conflicts and eco-traumas young girls endure when they live in urban slums and housing projects. An approach to urban environments that includes social ecology, however, exposes the roots of environmental racism, injustice, and sexism faced by children in slums and public housing. Films focusing on girls sometimes promote the superiority of Western values in similar ways. But they also reveal the increased traumas these young women face because of their gender. Urban ghetto films highlighting girls amplify the limits associated with their gender and sexuality and demonstrate, as ecofeminist Catherine Villaneuva Gardner asserts, eco-traumas faced by girls are exacerbated by "the complex interactions between oppression due to gender, race, and environment". In Attack the Block, Moses transforms into a masculine hero able to overcome eco-trauma and protect the ecology of his urban home.
