NCJ Number
180142
Date Published
1999
Length
12 pages
Annotation
In portraying a group of high-school-age kids developing a drama on abusive intimate relationships, this video shows how the drama participants draw on their own abusive experiences in composing the script for the play, which is to be presented to a high school audience.
Abstract
In developing the script for the play, the girls discuss what it is like to be abused, and the boys focus on the feelings that lead to violent incidents in their interactions with their girlfriends. The video moves back and forth between the real-world player accounts of the abuse they have actually experienced and perpetrated and the dramatic portrayals of the abuse as it is acted out in rehearsals. There are also discussions among the players as they react to the dramatizations which they are viewing and in which they are participating. The girls who have been victims in abusive relationships with boyfriends express their feelings of fear, anger, powerlessness, and the desperate need to be loved by their boyfriends in the face of the apparent inability of their boyfriends to give them the love and nurturing they desire. The boys talk about the anger that grows and then explodes within them when their girlfriends do not behave in ways that make them feel comfortable and in control. Control is viewed as an important aspect of their male identity. When their girlfriends talk back to them, fail to comply with their wishes, or are perceived to show interest in other boys, they first abuse them with angry and abusive words followed by physical assaults. The video shows the players acting out incidents of escalating verbal and physical abuse between intimate partners. The video concludes with excerpts from the drama as it is presented to an audience at a high school. The video is presented in English with Spanish subtitles.