ALL HAIL "All Hail Hurricane Gordo"

All Hail Hurricane Gordo follows Chaz and Gordo, two brothers who were abandoned as children and are now living together outside New York City their mid-20s. It is often up to Chaz to take care of Gordo, whose severe social anxiety problems keep him from functioning on his own. To combat what he sees as stagnation and a crushing isolation deep in the suburbs, Chaz decides to rent out one of the spare rooms to India, a runaway and it's not long before her father, Oscar, comes looking for her. What follows is a darkly funny exploration into the following question: "is there such a thing as a 'normal' family?"

what does it mean to have a “normal family?”

is there such a thing?

as I plunged deeper and deeper into the world of carly mensch's all hail hurricane gordo over the past weeks and months, these are the two questions i kept coming back to. after many conversations with friends and introspection into my own upbringings, it's become obvious the answer to the second question is an unequivocal “no.” for better or for worse, we are products of our environment. if our families weren't unique and a little bit odd and if our parents didn't embarrass us until we turned blue at least once in our life, we would all be the same lifeless drones, unable to manifest a single creative thought.

though that may seem like a foregone conclusion, if unique families are part of the package deal, why then do so many privileged teenagers “hate” their parents? why would adopted children struggle to find their birth  parents? and why do some people go for years without so much as calling parents? home? the answers are complicated and vastly different for everyone and by no means do i claim to know them. what i do know, however, is that at the root of all our human desires is a desire for affirmation. our brains are wired to long for acceptance.

to be held.

to be loved.

if we lack the basic support system of a family, a part of our psyche is inherently empty.

i am more than aware that not everyone is blessed with the care of a supportive and loving, traditional family but again, we find ourselves using

these definitions.

“traditional.”

“normal.”

“correct.”

what exactly is a family anyway?

if you allow yourself to forget the definition of family, you may find you had one all along.