“Fox Chase Boy” violates the Code of Silence on Child Sexual Abuse

When Gerad Argeros took the stage naked on his first Fox Chase Boy tour, it’s fair to say that even the tough Philly audience wasn’t quite ready.

“It’s about my body,” he told them with a growing sense of anger and urgency. “Embodied experience, when you remember everything that happened – it’s in your body.”

He admits that Argeros, who has currently developed the act into a short film with an eye toward a future feature or possible series, was at first unsure of how to tell his story. So getting rid of conventions and clothes instinctively felt like clearing a sheet of paper.

He didn’t want the audience to come to his story with preconceived notions of what a child survivor is like, Argeros says.

“It’s about trauma,” he says during a screening of the film version at Ji.glava Intl. Documentary film festival. “I don’t want to destroy my 97-year-old grandmother’s idea of ​​Catholicism. I just want it to be acknowledged that all the bad things happened.”

Argeros was one of what are now believed to be hundreds of former altar boys and crusaders in Philadelphia parishes who were sexually abused by priests. There is no official tally because many have never come forward publicly, but the church has acknowledged the problem and in some cases has paid out millions in settlements.

Argeros started talking about his experiences around the time the 2015 film Spotlight brought the story to national attention, he said, initially working on how to talk about what happened at events like The Moth and nights out. at an open mic at various venues in New York. .

His journey in developing the play was chronicled by cinematographer and co-producer Kaya Dillon. Argeros wasn’t in a movie, he says: “We didn’t know what the hell we were doing,” but it was clear from the tears and hugs from the crowd that his story had a devastating impact.

This made him realize that he needed to bring it to a wider audience on screen. Dillon, a veteran of the cinematography for series such as Killer Hunters and many projects including several hit comedies, met Argeros on their high school playground, where both their boys were on sports teams.

Almost immediately, they decided to figure out how to make the Fox Chase Boy document, named after the working-class neighborhood where Argeros, like many others there, grew up in a conservative religious family.

“They win with silence,” he says. But how to talk about such terrible things that would normally drive the audience crazy? He decided to solve the problem with two tools: comedy and brutal frankness.

“What’s The Jerry Argeros Show About?” he asked on stage about himself in the film. “Yeah, I don’t know, man, he’s talking about being molested as a child. Funny though. It’s funny – wrong part, it’s not the funniest part. There are like other things.”

Shots of the audience’s disintegrating reaction capture the effect. The Ji.glava fest audience reacted in the same way, waiting to talk to the filmmakers after the screening, one of whom told a personal story of such violence.

Argeros’ story begins ominously in Fox Chase Boy, which presents its rough neighborhood as a place where “people work, not fuck.”

It’s also a tight-knit community with the nearly-lost Eagles NFL team, which is revered as much as the church. And this is a place where many young men become the pride of their families, serving as an altar boy.

And so one day an impressive black Volvo arrived at the parish, causing a general awe in the children around. His car horn could play the Dukes of Hazard theme, which would immediately appeal to children. Argeros sat on the lap of the owner, priest Jacob Brzeski, as he was allowed to drive the horn.

“We didn’t know what a Volvo was,” Argeros says in his film with signature comic timing.

At least three of Argeros’ schoolmates, who were also abused, sometimes raped by the priest, who killed himself years later, didn’t live to old age, Argeros said.

But he feels he brought them all together for his world premiere in Jihlava, he says. And word is spreading, with an upcoming showing at DOC NYC’s main competition and others in Washington, DC, as well as interest from platforms.

One of the most important goals of “Fox Chase Boy” is to ensure that those who have gone through it are never forgotten – that they do not “become invisible.” Argeros shares the names and photos of his classmates in the film: Jamie Cunningham, John Delaney and Jimmy Spoerl.

“I hold their families in my heart today,” he says. “Thank you to everyone who came when I needed you to help me tell this story. This is your story too. Fox Chase Boys forever.”