One of my previous posts was about the author, Vanessa Collier. It turns out that she is putting together two films about the subject of domestic violence. One is a documentary with victims who want to share their story and the other will be a full length feature film with a fictional character. She has gotten some discouragement from people about the subject matter, but I firmly believe there is a market out there for it because I've seen several films, including docudramas about the issue. See the links below for a few to check out.
Vanessa plans to visit Phoenix during this summer to do some filming. She and her sister will both have portraits done for Bravery, so it is a very exciting time.
This is a good opportunity for those of you in the Bravery program (or for any survivor) to further the awareness by volunteering to be part of the documentary. If you are interested, please email Vanessa at mailto:van50c@aol.com.
Just a reminder that the Cup O Karma event is coming up this Friday, May 2nd. This evening will be a lot of fun with live music, food, silent auction, raffle, kid stuff, and of course the Bravery Portraits and boy are there some neat ones. Please come join us at Inside the Bungalow from 6:00 - 9:00 and help out Fix the Hurt, Mesa Police, and SEEDS programs. Every little bit helps. Make sure to come say hi to me.
****
Here is a short list of movies on the subject of domestic violence just to prove that there is an audience for this type of creative outlet. There are too many films to list here. Look into these movies if you haven't seen them. ( a word of caution: Bastard out of Carolina and Sleepers is tough to watch)
Waitress
The Burning Bed
The Color Purple
Bastard Out of Carolina
What's Love Got to Do With It?
Enough
Fried Green Tomatoes
Sleepers
No One Would Tell
Long list of movies aired on Lifetime cable channel that includes docudrama: A Cry for Help:The Tracy Thurman Story, which led to changes in legislation and police reform to domestic violence calls.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
If Anybody Cared-video
Being the visual person that I am, I enjoy creative expression in any form. The previous video I posted in Resolutions Worth Repeating was a painful and realistic look at domestic violence and children modeling behavior. This new video post promotes facts and hope through the use of artwork and music. Lose yourself in the moment and enjoy.
Domestic Violence - If Anybody Cared
Domestic Violence - If Anybody Cared
Friday, April 11, 2008
Miscommunication
I am excited to say that Bravery has been mentioned in a press release for the first time. Joyce White, whom I wrote about in a previous post, had mentioned that she is participating in Bravery and it got printed in the press release. You can read about it here, but keep in mind that it isn't quite accurate. The writer mentions that Bravery assists organizations with beds and other resources, when actually Bravery will help raise money for organizations so they can obtain beds and necessary resources. When working with the media, I've found that you have to be really clear on what is said or the outcome may not be what you expect.
Here is a funny example:
When studying art anatomy at Mesa Community College (you learn every muscle, bone, kinetic movement in the body and apply it to life drawing), our class attended the BodyWorlds exhibit at the Arizona Science Center. This happened to be my second time around because it was so cool. A news team was interviewing visitors and they pulled me aside. I gave them my name and even spelled it for them. I told them I was an art student here with my class, etc. The next week, fellow students were excited to say they saw me on TV being interviewed. Later I even went out to a restaurant and a father with his kids pointed me out and smiled. What a boost to my ego...I was a celebrity!! Since I missed the airing, I went to the website and discovered that I was a nursing student named Vickie Flomshom or something. Great. ***For those of you who don't know about Body Worlds, it's an exhibit of real human bodies that are preserved through a process called plastination, and then displayed in artistic positions.
That miscommunication was small and relatively harmless, but as intelligent beings, we have to be careful about the conclusions we come to about media stories. On a more serious note, my husband went to an academic conference in New Orleans and I later joined him over the weekend for my birthday. It was our first time visiting and I was eager to know how the city was recovering after such devastation and human craziness. To our surprise we learned, from a writer who lives there, that the media misreported the disaster aftermath to the rest of us. Misreported means leaving out important information in addition to exaggerating certain aspects, and then there were flat out rumors which were never investigated. For example, the evacuation of 1.5 million New Orleans residents as the number one largest and successful operation in US history was not mentioned. While driving past the Superdome, I had this eerie feeling of all those displaced and desperate people living in cramped quarters. Violence, rape, hunger, failed plumbing were reported in the newspapers. Come to find out, the plumbing issue was true, but there were no stabbings, shootings, or rape that occurred in the Superdome. What is most disturbing to me is the media, along with a couple of prominent people, turned the whole thing into a race issue against African Americans. How can we, as a community, ever get past race and gender stereotypes if we are constantly fed biased information just to create stress and anxiety to sell news. It's the same thing with domestic violence.
When incidences of domestic violence are reported in the newspaper, there is usually a "love triangle" reported to make it more exciting. It turns the violence and murder into a crime of passion that makes the abuser, who is "such a nice guy" on the surface, snap with pain and fury and beat or kill his girlfriend because he loved her so much. Although it may happen, it's usually simply not true. Domestic violence is not full of love passion or even thrills. The realities are ugly and unsensational.
So you as the reader must use your wonderfully intelligent mind to take what you read with a grain of salt. Journalism is wonderful and extremely necessary. In fact, it an change the world, but the best way to really know about something is to visit the location or talk to someone who has lived through an experience, a domestic violence survivor for instance. You will find that real life through your own eyes and ears is more enlightening.
Here is a funny example:
When studying art anatomy at Mesa Community College (you learn every muscle, bone, kinetic movement in the body and apply it to life drawing), our class attended the BodyWorlds exhibit at the Arizona Science Center. This happened to be my second time around because it was so cool. A news team was interviewing visitors and they pulled me aside. I gave them my name and even spelled it for them. I told them I was an art student here with my class, etc. The next week, fellow students were excited to say they saw me on TV being interviewed. Later I even went out to a restaurant and a father with his kids pointed me out and smiled. What a boost to my ego...I was a celebrity!! Since I missed the airing, I went to the website and discovered that I was a nursing student named Vickie Flomshom or something. Great. ***For those of you who don't know about Body Worlds, it's an exhibit of real human bodies that are preserved through a process called plastination, and then displayed in artistic positions.
That miscommunication was small and relatively harmless, but as intelligent beings, we have to be careful about the conclusions we come to about media stories. On a more serious note, my husband went to an academic conference in New Orleans and I later joined him over the weekend for my birthday. It was our first time visiting and I was eager to know how the city was recovering after such devastation and human craziness. To our surprise we learned, from a writer who lives there, that the media misreported the disaster aftermath to the rest of us. Misreported means leaving out important information in addition to exaggerating certain aspects, and then there were flat out rumors which were never investigated. For example, the evacuation of 1.5 million New Orleans residents as the number one largest and successful operation in US history was not mentioned. While driving past the Superdome, I had this eerie feeling of all those displaced and desperate people living in cramped quarters. Violence, rape, hunger, failed plumbing were reported in the newspapers. Come to find out, the plumbing issue was true, but there were no stabbings, shootings, or rape that occurred in the Superdome. What is most disturbing to me is the media, along with a couple of prominent people, turned the whole thing into a race issue against African Americans. How can we, as a community, ever get past race and gender stereotypes if we are constantly fed biased information just to create stress and anxiety to sell news. It's the same thing with domestic violence.When incidences of domestic violence are reported in the newspaper, there is usually a "love triangle" reported to make it more exciting. It turns the violence and murder into a crime of passion that makes the abuser, who is "such a nice guy" on the surface, snap with pain and fury and beat or kill his girlfriend because he loved her so much. Although it may happen, it's usually simply not true. Domestic violence is not full of love passion or even thrills. The realities are ugly and unsensational.
So you as the reader must use your wonderfully intelligent mind to take what you read with a grain of salt. Journalism is wonderful and extremely necessary. In fact, it an change the world, but the best way to really know about something is to visit the location or talk to someone who has lived through an experience, a domestic violence survivor for instance. You will find that real life through your own eyes and ears is more enlightening.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Desensitization
One of the portrait volunteers made a comment one day that there is a lack of concern about issues like domestic violence because of all the violent movies and video games that kids (all of us actually) are exposed to on a daily basis. People become desensitized to violence,and she may have a very good point.
Now,I will be the first to admit that I have always loved scary movies, even as a kid. As long as
there is a good plot to the mayhem, what's a little blood and guts? I've seen a lot of zombie movies and have always liked the supernatural ones, thinking they are lots of fun only because it's FICTION. Plus there's nothing more cathartic that spending an hour with a girlfriend, playing doubles on House of Dead III, popping off a bunch of zombies and monsters, while working up adrenaline and sweat. My idea of a good time for sure. And yet...
One time, I parked my car at Home Depot, here in Ahwatukee, and saw a bunch of people gathered around someone. When I got out of my car, I could hear screaming. Freaking out, I went over to the collective and saw this large guy standing on the long hair of his girlfriend or wife while she is laying on the dirty, hot ground screaming for him to get off. No one moved a muscle. Boy, was I on fire! Seething with fury, I yelled out into the crowd, "Well is anyone going to do something or are you all just going to stand here and watch?!" I just didn't get it. Luckily for Mr. tough pants, I was a petite female, or I would have gone over and busted his chops. My voice broke the crowd out of a stupor (a few were eating popcorn with eyes the size of saucers)and three guys broke away toward the couple. I then ran into the store to make sure an employee called the police. Fortunately, someone had a working brain because he had already done it.
Now, I'm no psychologist, but I understand the brain itself can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy, which is why we become desensitized to things that we see over and over. Too bad this doesn't work for me when the kitties jump on the kitchen counters over and over. (I have to keep refilling the water spray bottle.) There is an element of truth that repetition creates pathways in the brain that help us get used to a new habit or learn a new language or whatever. Our emotions can follow suit with this repetition, for instance, when we fall back into defense mechanisms that we created as children to deal with uncomfortable situations or pain. Survivors tell me all the time how they didn't even realize how bad the situation was until they finally got away. Some of them, unfortunately, fall in the "learned helplessness" that can lead to dangerous and lethal consequences.
As a community, it may be true that we are less sensitive to violence, but I believe that ignorance is a lot more dangerous because people still know in their hearts what is right and wrong. They just don't see, hear, and feel until violence happens to them or someone they love. I suppose it's an unfortunately result of the human condition.
University of California: Experiments with violent films
Video Games and desensitization to violence
Now,I will be the first to admit that I have always loved scary movies, even as a kid. As long as
there is a good plot to the mayhem, what's a little blood and guts? I've seen a lot of zombie movies and have always liked the supernatural ones, thinking they are lots of fun only because it's FICTION. Plus there's nothing more cathartic that spending an hour with a girlfriend, playing doubles on House of Dead III, popping off a bunch of zombies and monsters, while working up adrenaline and sweat. My idea of a good time for sure. And yet...One time, I parked my car at Home Depot, here in Ahwatukee, and saw a bunch of people gathered around someone. When I got out of my car, I could hear screaming. Freaking out, I went over to the collective and saw this large guy standing on the long hair of his girlfriend or wife while she is laying on the dirty, hot ground screaming for him to get off. No one moved a muscle. Boy, was I on fire! Seething with fury, I yelled out into the crowd, "Well is anyone going to do something or are you all just going to stand here and watch?!" I just didn't get it. Luckily for Mr. tough pants, I was a petite female, or I would have gone over and busted his chops. My voice broke the crowd out of a stupor (a few were eating popcorn with eyes the size of saucers)and three guys broke away toward the couple. I then ran into the store to make sure an employee called the police. Fortunately, someone had a working brain because he had already done it.
Now, I'm no psychologist, but I understand the brain itself can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy, which is why we become desensitized to things that we see over and over. Too bad this doesn't work for me when the kitties jump on the kitchen counters over and over. (I have to keep refilling the water spray bottle.) There is an element of truth that repetition creates pathways in the brain that help us get used to a new habit or learn a new language or whatever. Our emotions can follow suit with this repetition, for instance, when we fall back into defense mechanisms that we created as children to deal with uncomfortable situations or pain. Survivors tell me all the time how they didn't even realize how bad the situation was until they finally got away. Some of them, unfortunately, fall in the "learned helplessness" that can lead to dangerous and lethal consequences.As a community, it may be true that we are less sensitive to violence, but I believe that ignorance is a lot more dangerous because people still know in their hearts what is right and wrong. They just don't see, hear, and feel until violence happens to them or someone they love. I suppose it's an unfortunately result of the human condition.
University of California: Experiments with violent films
Video Games and desensitization to violence
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe To
Posts
All Comments
