Child Abuse: Films With A Social Message

Child abuse was one aspect of films against violence discussed on Thursday 5th June 2014, where we supplied a mouth watering menu for attendees of a film night at Oblong Cinema in Leeds. Special guests including Poet and Filmmaker Johnny Solstice and Visual Artist Chris Hall who were both presenting short films they had directed and produced. The event was hosted by Media Master Mark Waddington who presented a film of his own entitled “Can We Talk About This“. This film has since been removed from youtube but similar films can be viewed here. Johnny Solstice previewed one of his ‘films’ called “This Is Not A Film“. However, the first film to be shown was entitled “The Colour Black” by Ola Masha & Olan Collardy. This was a film in support of the campaign to eradicate violence against women and covered the narratives of three female victims of domestic violence. All the films were ‘locally’ produced and the theme of the night was “Films with a social message“. Each of the films that were shown sought to address some form of violence. (For our latest review please click on the following link, “Hasta La Vista” aka “Come As You Are ” inspired by producer and motivational speaker Asta Philpot.)

Can We Talk About This

This was an emotionally sensitive film which gave young people from the Yorkshire city of Sheffield, the opportunity to talk about their experience and beliefs about issues surrounding sexual child abuse, such as vulnerability, trust, risks of social media and so on. This showing of this film also raised questions about how this sensitive subject may be institutionally suppressed. Mark’s film was partly funded by Comic Relief and Sheffield City Council who therefore had some say about where, when and even whether the Film could even be showed at all. Despite the importance of raising awareness about the prevalence of paedophilia within the UK, Sheffield City Council sadly refused permission for the film to publicly, begging the question ‘why help fund it in the first place’? Doesn’t that defeat the object, isn’t that wasteful? Talented youth with voices desperate to be heard. Sheffield City Council are not the only institution to censor what is clearly in the public interest. In recent years it appears that prolific paedophiles such as Gary Glitter, Jimmy Savile and more recently Rolf Harris had for a long time been able evade the rule of law. Notably Jimmy Savile received significant protection from his employers the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), and if not worse still, by the Police in particular West Yorkshire Police. Even to this day it is still not clear why these public institutions turned a blind eye to Jimmy’s paedophilia for so long. Was it due to the threat of further exposure of corporative paedophile rackets? Maybe so. Fortunately for Jimmy he popped his clogs before being publicly named and shamed which begs the question, were those who desecrated his grave wrong for doing so?

Truth Seeker Tony Farrell’s story also touches on corruption of within these institutions. Tony Farrell Ex-Principle Intelligence Analyst for South Yorkshire Police Force turned Whistleblower following his independent study of the 7/7 bombings. South Yorkshire Police Force wanted rid of Tony following his refusal to manipulate UK terror alert statistics. Tony was expected represent Islam as one of the biggest threats to the UK public. Tony concluded that the police were of more danger to the public than any religious ideology. Although we know this to be true, it conflicted with the goals of the South Yorkshire Police and sadly led to Tony’s resignation. For more on Farrell’s story click here and scroll to the end of the page. One of Farrell’s subsequent interviews also concerns the corruption within Sheffield City Council.

So, one of the positives of Mark’s film was that it helped enable young people to use their voices and express their viewpoints on very personal and emotional subject areas that if were not expressed may very well result in behaviour detrimental to themselves and others. Hence it is essential that all youth given a variety of platforms by which they can build confidence in themselves and trust in others that they can overcome any obstacles which might stand in their ways. Sexual abuse is something that no one should have to endure, and seems unbelievable that of the 21st Century that human beings have not yet evolved consistent social structures for non-violent behaviour in everyday life. It just doesn’t make sense as it seems the vast majority of citizens oppose the sexual abuse of young people (child abuse), hence the implementation of various security measures and laws against such behaviour, so why do they fall short? Could there be dark forces at work, movements that operate above and/or below the level of consciousness? Well let us consider this, despite our disagreement with sexual abuse and our outrage with opportunists such as the aforementioned, sexual exploitation is something that the majority of us remain complicit in. In particular, the sexual exploitation of the reproductive capacities of nonhuman animals, of which many of us are naive to. Nevertheless, non-human animals that we primarily use for food are either raped through various methods of artificial impregnation or castrated before eventually being murdered for human consumption. These victims clearly experience fear and seek to avoid the abuse they endure. However, every time we bite into their corpses and/or purchase their remains we are effectively confirming our complicity in sexual, physical and emotional abuse in one way or another, which begs the question, why do we sexual exploitation fit to take place at one level but not another? Are humans any more justified in the sexual exploitation of animals than of children? The fact is there is little difference between young children and vulnerable animals, with the common denominator being consciousness and the inherent desires to be free from pain and molestation. While it maybe difficult to infer what the precise effects of animal sexploitation are on human social life and behaviour, they nevertheless exist and a surly consequential, for if children were shown why exploitation of sexual reproductive systems were both unnecessary and immoral, they would be much better equipped to protect themselves for the type of ‘sicko’ opportunists mentioned above, hence going some way toward driving paedophilia into extinction where it truly belongs.

Poet Johnny Solstice

It is significant that Johnny Solstice was also in the house, as he once lived a vegan lifestyle and hence offered some interesting debate following the showing of his film entitled “This Is Not A Film“. This was a very entertaining film which helped address the power of the media in brainwashing society, in particular the dark forces of T.V. commercials, how they often target women and children, and influence social norms whilst misrepresenting social realities. This film was made from snippets of T.V. advertisements taken from somewhere between the 1960’s – 2000. A lot of the emphasis was on fast food ads, in particular McDonnalds, and KFC, and the background music was Macka B’s ‘Mad Cow’. Johnny explained that he made the film when he was an angry Vegan. Angry not only at our treatment of animals but with how the media is permitted to practically brainwash, condition, manipulate the masses without any acknowledgement to the suffering and environmental consequences that the product creates.

Nevertheless, during the debate Johnny suggested that if women were respected equally to Men, that everything else would run smooth, although when the idea of empowering women was suggested Johnny referred to the catastrophic damage caused by Margaret Thatcher whose resignation was long overdue. Although Johnny described himself as being an ‘angry vegan’ earlier in his life he suggested that maybe sometimes people can be a little too extreme and potentially jeopardise their personal relationships, which it seemed may not be worth it. Nevertheless Johnny remains veggie, devout poet, advocate for animals and proud owner of Macka B’s 12 inch classic ‘Mad Cow‘. Another relevant poem of Johnny’s with an anti-warfare tone, is ‘men with balls’ which is geared towards removing the American Airbases off British soil, click here and scroll down to hear the poem.