Audiovisual
Overview
Videos Focusing on Teenage Mothers, Child Sexual Abuse, and Poverty
The worldwide statistics are startling: 40 percent of today’s 14-yearold girls will become pregnant during their teens. Although cultures and attitudes may vary from country to country, many of the difficulties and hazards will be the same for all of these young women, caught in a global crisis. This videotape is filled with information both visual and statistical, which is highlighted by the vivid personal stories of three teenage mothers. In Ghana, in West Africa, traditional values are still strong, and ftrtility rituals are still practiced. But these practices, closely related to producing healthy offspring to in-
crease families’ work capacity, are now less relevant. Even in Africa, the worldwide trend to a younger age for menarche-1 2 and a halfyears is the current average-means that women now bear children younger and so are tied early to a life ofdomestic work. However, the modern culture calls for adult women who are better educated and able to enter a variety of jobs. In the narration, a Ghanaian physician, Dr. Fred Sai, notes that thousands of young women are now dying ofseptic abortions. Others experience difficult births because the pelvic girdles of very young women are narrow. Another startling statistic is that every minute somewhere in the world a woman dies ofa complication of childbirth, and 14 or more women are permanently disabled by such complications. The focus ofthe documentary that presents these stark facts is the utgent need for sex education. Dr. Sal questions why people believe that ignorance of sex will foster better behavior, a belief that is not held about other aspects of behavior. From Africa the camera moves to England, and to a 14-year-old girl who was five months pregnant before a medical examination revealed her condition to her family. Her mother laments that her daughter is unprepared for motherhood mentally, emotionally, and financially. The narrator says that the girl’s loneliness and her view of pregnancy as a way to give meaning to her life are typical feelings of young girls in the West. In America-which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in the developed world, more than 1 million a year-the young woman in the documentary became pregnant
Hospital
February
Ian
M.D.,
Alger,
Editor
The three videotapes reviewed here have special relevance for anyone who cares about children and adolescents. Each tape has a special place in teaching programs for mental health professionals. The first is a documentary about teenage mothers in different parts of the world. The second is a videotape on prevention of sexual abuse for use with young children. The third is a short and extraordinary presentation, part documentary and part fantasy, about women and children living in poverty.
Teenage Mothers-produced by Caroline van den Brul for BBC-TV and the Better World Society. VHS videocassette, 60 minutes, color, 1989. Purchase, $295 plus $5 shipping. Two-day rental, $90 plus $11 shipping. Contact Cinema Guild, 1697 Broadway, New York, New York 10019; telephone, 212-2465522.
and
Community
Psychiatry
1992
VoL 43
No.2
after she didn’t take birth control pills regularly. Now married to her boyfriend, she and her husband live with his father. She became pregnant again within six months ofthe birth ofher first child, and the same striving for meaning in life is identified as a reason for the second pregnancy. Another commentator, Dr. Laurie Schwab Zubin, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, notes that the U.S. spends $19 billion annually on families that were created as the result of teenage pregnancies. Other factors besides lack of education are implicated in the pregnancies, including social mores. For example, all kinds of cohabitation, from premarital to postdivorce, are widely publicized and sanctioned in the media. The effects ofpoverty in promoting despair and hopelessness are again emphasized, as is the fact that many young women see having children as a way to assuage feelings of loneliness and meaninglessness. The closing parts of the video focus on attitudes that different countries have toward education as a means ofcoping with this worldwide social concern. Scenes from a schoolroom in Ghana, where a teacher drills young children on correct moral behavior, depict attempts to inculcate values of sexual abstinence. In the U.S., members ofa group called Concerned Women for America express their view that the schools provide too much sex education. As in Ghana, they believe that young peoplc should be abstinent because it is the only contraceptive that is 100 percent safe. The narrator cites experience in Northern Europe, where more sophisticated sex education has lowered the rates of teenage pregnancy. Finally, the videotape reports on family planning educational activities in Cuba, based in neighborhood health programs that assign a family physician to each 700 or so residents. Since 1984 this new kind of family doctor has lived in the neighborhood in which he or she practices and has conducted intensive educational programs for the community. They include evening
111
clubs for teenagers in which sexual issues and behaviors are openly and intensively discussed, part ofa coordinated educational program that promotes the concept of no pregnancy before age 20. Final commentary by Dr. Nafi Sadik, executive director of the United Nations Fund for Population Control, notes that the countries that have made progress in reducing teenage pregnancies are those in which citizens ofall ages have access to family planning services. Educadon emerges as the key, because countries that have a class of women who are socially and psychologically deprived also have a problem of teenage
pregnancy.
This one-hour documentary could be shown as a whole or could be divided into a three-unit educational package. It could usefully be shown to all profr.ssionals who have direct contact with young pregnant women and their families. It also could be used in family educational groups. It would be a provocative stimulus for discussion ofthe teenage mother and of all the problems that are consequent to teenage pregnancy for young women, for their families, and for entire societies.
Trouble-produced by the National Film Board of Norway. VHS videocassette, 9 minutes, color, 1990. Purchase, $190. Contact Phoenix/
of a tent and then the sithouettes of the little girl and her uncle undressing. In the next graphic yet underplayed scene, we see his hand reaching under the blankets to fondle her. The familiar story of a child’s complaints to other people being turned aside, or dealt with by benevolent inattention, is powerfully depicted. In the story a little boy confides to the girl that his own father does the same thing to him, and he says he can’t tell anyone. The fact that the girl and the boy are able to confide in and support each other is crucial. The video emphasizes that a child should tell one person, and then another, and then another until someone believes it. This program could be used for children from nursery school age to preteenage. It would be excellent for training ofall mental health workers, as well as for all professionals in the field of education.
Isle ofFlowers-produced
by Jorge
Furtado. VHS videocassette, 15 mmutes, color, 1990. Purchase, $160 plus $7 shipping. Rental, $35 plus $10 shipping. Contact First Run! Icarus Films, 1 53 Waverly Place, 6th Floor, New York, New York 10014; telephone, 212-727-1711.
This brief videotape is in the category of a small jewel. It is produced with sensitivity and, considering the subject it explores, with unusual delicacy and lightness. The lightness, however, only enhances the important message about child sexual abuse that it delivers: the tape is directed toward young children themselves. The story of a little girl who was molested is unfolded through animation and in her own words. She describes the feelings of dread she had as her parents allowed an uncle to take her on a trip with him. The tension builds as we see the shadow
Only rarely does one experience a lasting change in outlook from a single viewing ofa video. But that is exactly what happens with this powerful video about poverty, which is a masterpiece. From the perspectives of content and of artistic and creative excellence, and especially from the ingenious combination of real-life documentary style and Monty Python-like embellishments, this powerful presentation enfolds the viewer, who is carried, fascinated, to the stark conclusion. The opening scene introduces us to a worker in a tomato field in Brazil, and to the economics of the journey of a single tomato. We follow the tomato to a supermarket in a Brazilian city, where a woman buys itto make sauce for the pork dinner she plans to serve her family that night. We meet the family members at home, after which we learn that the
112
February
BFA Films and Video, nue South, New 10016; telephone, 800-221-1274.
468 Park Aye-
York, New 212-684-5910
York or
1992
VoL 43
No.2
woman earned the money to buy the tomato by selling perfume door to door. With the regularity ofaslow drumbeat, the narrator reminds us again and again that one afteranother of the characters in the drama has a “teencephalon and an opposing thumb” and is therefore a human being. The viewer’s initial irritation at the repetition changes to appreciation of the inventiveness of the videotape, which follows the simple journey of a tomato. Because the tomato is beginning to decay, the perfume seller finds it unsuitable for use in the sauce, and the tomato gradually finds its way to a garbage dump located on the Isle of Flowers. With artistry that is difficult to describe, the producer has woven layer after layer of social reality into his seemingly simple tale. We learn that a farmer has leased land on the island for his pigs, and that his workers cull what they consider usable garbage from the dump to feed to the pigs-pigs that eventually find their way to the family’s table to be eaten with tomato sauce, made from the tomatoes that the worker picked, which were bought with the money that the woman earned by selling the perfume made from flowers. And so the economic circle goes, until the truth becomes stunningly apparent: that those who are left out of the circle are the extremely poor women and children who live on the Isle of Flowers and who eat the garbage remaining after the pigs have been fed. This videotape is a social commentary that expresses a political viewpoint. But it also expresses the human disaster of poverty that is manifest in most parts of the world, and that is brilliantly depicted here. Anyone who wishes to stimulate an exploration of our human condition-of work and poverty, of despair and hunger, and of moral challenge-will find this an extraordinarily powerful and important video.
Hospital
and
Community
Psychiatry
Overview
Videos Focusing on Teenage Mothers, Child Sexual Abuse, and Poverty
The worldwide statistics are startling: 40 percent of today’s 14-yearold girls will become pregnant during their teens. Although cultures and attitudes may vary from country to country, many of the difficulties and hazards will be the same for all of these young women, caught in a global crisis. This videotape is filled with information both visual and statistical, which is highlighted by the vivid personal stories of three teenage mothers. In Ghana, in West Africa, traditional values are still strong, and ftrtility rituals are still practiced. But these practices, closely related to producing healthy offspring to in-
crease families’ work capacity, are now less relevant. Even in Africa, the worldwide trend to a younger age for menarche-1 2 and a halfyears is the current average-means that women now bear children younger and so are tied early to a life ofdomestic work. However, the modern culture calls for adult women who are better educated and able to enter a variety of jobs. In the narration, a Ghanaian physician, Dr. Fred Sai, notes that thousands of young women are now dying ofseptic abortions. Others experience difficult births because the pelvic girdles of very young women are narrow. Another startling statistic is that every minute somewhere in the world a woman dies ofa complication of childbirth, and 14 or more women are permanently disabled by such complications. The focus ofthe documentary that presents these stark facts is the utgent need for sex education. Dr. Sal questions why people believe that ignorance of sex will foster better behavior, a belief that is not held about other aspects of behavior. From Africa the camera moves to England, and to a 14-year-old girl who was five months pregnant before a medical examination revealed her condition to her family. Her mother laments that her daughter is unprepared for motherhood mentally, emotionally, and financially. The narrator says that the girl’s loneliness and her view of pregnancy as a way to give meaning to her life are typical feelings of young girls in the West. In America-which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in the developed world, more than 1 million a year-the young woman in the documentary became pregnant
Hospital
February
Ian
M.D.,
Alger,
Editor
The three videotapes reviewed here have special relevance for anyone who cares about children and adolescents. Each tape has a special place in teaching programs for mental health professionals. The first is a documentary about teenage mothers in different parts of the world. The second is a videotape on prevention of sexual abuse for use with young children. The third is a short and extraordinary presentation, part documentary and part fantasy, about women and children living in poverty.
Teenage Mothers-produced by Caroline van den Brul for BBC-TV and the Better World Society. VHS videocassette, 60 minutes, color, 1989. Purchase, $295 plus $5 shipping. Two-day rental, $90 plus $11 shipping. Contact Cinema Guild, 1697 Broadway, New York, New York 10019; telephone, 212-2465522.
and
Community
Psychiatry
1992
VoL 43
No.2
after she didn’t take birth control pills regularly. Now married to her boyfriend, she and her husband live with his father. She became pregnant again within six months ofthe birth ofher first child, and the same striving for meaning in life is identified as a reason for the second pregnancy. Another commentator, Dr. Laurie Schwab Zubin, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, notes that the U.S. spends $19 billion annually on families that were created as the result of teenage pregnancies. Other factors besides lack of education are implicated in the pregnancies, including social mores. For example, all kinds of cohabitation, from premarital to postdivorce, are widely publicized and sanctioned in the media. The effects ofpoverty in promoting despair and hopelessness are again emphasized, as is the fact that many young women see having children as a way to assuage feelings of loneliness and meaninglessness. The closing parts of the video focus on attitudes that different countries have toward education as a means ofcoping with this worldwide social concern. Scenes from a schoolroom in Ghana, where a teacher drills young children on correct moral behavior, depict attempts to inculcate values of sexual abstinence. In the U.S., members ofa group called Concerned Women for America express their view that the schools provide too much sex education. As in Ghana, they believe that young peoplc should be abstinent because it is the only contraceptive that is 100 percent safe. The narrator cites experience in Northern Europe, where more sophisticated sex education has lowered the rates of teenage pregnancy. Finally, the videotape reports on family planning educational activities in Cuba, based in neighborhood health programs that assign a family physician to each 700 or so residents. Since 1984 this new kind of family doctor has lived in the neighborhood in which he or she practices and has conducted intensive educational programs for the community. They include evening
111
clubs for teenagers in which sexual issues and behaviors are openly and intensively discussed, part ofa coordinated educational program that promotes the concept of no pregnancy before age 20. Final commentary by Dr. Nafi Sadik, executive director of the United Nations Fund for Population Control, notes that the countries that have made progress in reducing teenage pregnancies are those in which citizens ofall ages have access to family planning services. Educadon emerges as the key, because countries that have a class of women who are socially and psychologically deprived also have a problem of teenage
pregnancy.
This one-hour documentary could be shown as a whole or could be divided into a three-unit educational package. It could usefully be shown to all profr.ssionals who have direct contact with young pregnant women and their families. It also could be used in family educational groups. It would be a provocative stimulus for discussion ofthe teenage mother and of all the problems that are consequent to teenage pregnancy for young women, for their families, and for entire societies.
Trouble-produced by the National Film Board of Norway. VHS videocassette, 9 minutes, color, 1990. Purchase, $190. Contact Phoenix/
of a tent and then the sithouettes of the little girl and her uncle undressing. In the next graphic yet underplayed scene, we see his hand reaching under the blankets to fondle her. The familiar story of a child’s complaints to other people being turned aside, or dealt with by benevolent inattention, is powerfully depicted. In the story a little boy confides to the girl that his own father does the same thing to him, and he says he can’t tell anyone. The fact that the girl and the boy are able to confide in and support each other is crucial. The video emphasizes that a child should tell one person, and then another, and then another until someone believes it. This program could be used for children from nursery school age to preteenage. It would be excellent for training ofall mental health workers, as well as for all professionals in the field of education.
Isle ofFlowers-produced
by Jorge
Furtado. VHS videocassette, 15 mmutes, color, 1990. Purchase, $160 plus $7 shipping. Rental, $35 plus $10 shipping. Contact First Run! Icarus Films, 1 53 Waverly Place, 6th Floor, New York, New York 10014; telephone, 212-727-1711.
This brief videotape is in the category of a small jewel. It is produced with sensitivity and, considering the subject it explores, with unusual delicacy and lightness. The lightness, however, only enhances the important message about child sexual abuse that it delivers: the tape is directed toward young children themselves. The story of a little girl who was molested is unfolded through animation and in her own words. She describes the feelings of dread she had as her parents allowed an uncle to take her on a trip with him. The tension builds as we see the shadow
Only rarely does one experience a lasting change in outlook from a single viewing ofa video. But that is exactly what happens with this powerful video about poverty, which is a masterpiece. From the perspectives of content and of artistic and creative excellence, and especially from the ingenious combination of real-life documentary style and Monty Python-like embellishments, this powerful presentation enfolds the viewer, who is carried, fascinated, to the stark conclusion. The opening scene introduces us to a worker in a tomato field in Brazil, and to the economics of the journey of a single tomato. We follow the tomato to a supermarket in a Brazilian city, where a woman buys itto make sauce for the pork dinner she plans to serve her family that night. We meet the family members at home, after which we learn that the
112
February
BFA Films and Video, nue South, New 10016; telephone, 800-221-1274.
468 Park Aye-
York, New 212-684-5910
York or
1992
VoL 43
No.2
woman earned the money to buy the tomato by selling perfume door to door. With the regularity ofaslow drumbeat, the narrator reminds us again and again that one afteranother of the characters in the drama has a “teencephalon and an opposing thumb” and is therefore a human being. The viewer’s initial irritation at the repetition changes to appreciation of the inventiveness of the videotape, which follows the simple journey of a tomato. Because the tomato is beginning to decay, the perfume seller finds it unsuitable for use in the sauce, and the tomato gradually finds its way to a garbage dump located on the Isle of Flowers. With artistry that is difficult to describe, the producer has woven layer after layer of social reality into his seemingly simple tale. We learn that a farmer has leased land on the island for his pigs, and that his workers cull what they consider usable garbage from the dump to feed to the pigs-pigs that eventually find their way to the family’s table to be eaten with tomato sauce, made from the tomatoes that the worker picked, which were bought with the money that the woman earned by selling the perfume made from flowers. And so the economic circle goes, until the truth becomes stunningly apparent: that those who are left out of the circle are the extremely poor women and children who live on the Isle of Flowers and who eat the garbage remaining after the pigs have been fed. This videotape is a social commentary that expresses a political viewpoint. But it also expresses the human disaster of poverty that is manifest in most parts of the world, and that is brilliantly depicted here. Anyone who wishes to stimulate an exploration of our human condition-of work and poverty, of despair and hunger, and of moral challenge-will find this an extraordinarily powerful and important video.
Hospital
and
Community
Psychiatry
