Many people who know me as an author and women’s ministry speaker are often curious about why I started a film company. They seem to assume there is a split focus there. Perhaps there is, but because I see media in a more holistic way, one of the reasons I started Citygate Films was to influence the diet, so to speak, of what is being consumed in mainstream media. I also have a heavy concern that the “screen generation” is being fed more harmful images and narratives than uplifting ones.
For example, this is how my day has gone so far. I checked the news, and saw stories about a 15-year-old girl who was brutally gang-raped by anywhere between 7 to 10 men outside of a high school while at least a dozen others stood by and watched it without interfering, and a sadist who allegedly raped, murdered, and stowed the bodies of at least 10 women in his home. Those are just the stories in CNN’s headlines—the tip of the iceberg nationally. There are numerous local stories about child sex abuse and murder that don’t even make the national news.
Next, I checked my Twitter feed, which carried news of many nonprofit organizations (Christian and mainstream) that are working to improve the conditions of women and girls around the world. High on their list of concerns is sex trafficking and enslaved prostitutes.
I then started work by listening to a media panel about “transmedia” efforts—telling a single story across a variety of media platforms. One of the panelists spoke without shame of working with a clothing company that sponsored an interactive game about a stripper. The gamer controls the stripper’s actions, which this media expert cheerfully said allowed the player to either make the stripper engage “in the most depraved actions” or “save her.” It’s an odd sponsorship, given the fact that the sponsor’s clothes aren’t seen very often. (The clothing company wasn’t mentioned in this panel, but I wish it had been so that I would not patronize their stores or product.)
Listening to this panel, I wanted to scream: Why can’t we connect the dots here? Why is it that as a culture in the developing world, we put our heads in the sand and vociferously protest there is no connection between the media we consume and our actions? Yet other studies show that when television is introduced to new areas of developing nations, there is a measurable change in behavior. Do we think we are somehow immune to the effect of media in our own nation? Do we think we can allow people the fantasy of degrading and brutalizing others (especially women) and argue that this thought life will not eventually affect behavior?
This is the kind of thinking that I’m trying to change through Citygate. I have three documentaries in various stages of production, with one nearly finished with principal photography. A Note of Hope explores the idea that music reveals a lot about a culture. I’ll never forget what one of the African American musicians in this film said after touring the Cape Coast slave castle in Ghana: If only our young adults could understand that they are descendants of those who survived these brutal dungeons, they wouldn’t accept prison as a normal passage of life.
One of the earliest song forms in America was the traditional Negro spiritual, songs that spoke of faith and trust in a just God who would redeem such harsh circumstances for his own glory. Those songs eventually became the code for the Underground Railroad and eventually the soundtrack for the civil rights movement. But now we have songs that celebrate thug culture and sexist, demeaning views of women. The jazz musicians who participated in this film want to see music used to elevate humanity, not celebrate our darkest drives. And their commitment to use their music to do so is the theme of this documentary.
I want to encourage each of you to become media activists. Please protest media that undermines the safety and dignity of women and girls, in particular, through social media and your wallets. Teach your children to understand that what they feast their eyes upon will become normalized. Let retail vendors know of your displeasure. And please support media that challenge these denigrating, dehumanizing trends by producing edifying content. I’m not arguing for cheesy, unsophisticated content in the name of being positive, but well-produced content that elevates human dignity.
This post is adapted from Carolyn McCulley’s personal blog, Radical Womanhood. To learn more about her film company, visit CityGateFilms.com and ANoteofHope.com.
