Boston Globe - June 5, 2009
MALDEN - Amanda Rogers saw only the glitz in Hollywood stars’ lives.
So when she heard media reports that the 19-year-old singer and songwriter Chris Brown had allegedly beaten his 20-year-old girlfriend, Rihanna, in a speeding vehicle, she was shocked.
“Celebrity couples are so glamorous,” she said at Malden High School yesterday, where she was viewing student-made films on teen relationship violence. “Even when they divorce, it’s usually because someone cheated on someone else. You never see the violent side of Hollywood.”
Although Rogers said she did not blame Rihanna for the incident, more than 46 percent of 200 students, ages 12 to 19, surveyed by the Boston Public Health Commission did. And more than 44 percent of the students said they believed that fighting was normal in a relationship, according to the survey, which offers a window into teens’ views on violence in relationships.
These statistics, coupled with the prevalence of teen abuse in the city spurred Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. and his office to develop a project that would allow students to speak out against teen date violence, Leone said. His office asked students in Middlesex County to produce public service announcement videos raising awareness of relationship abuse, date rape, and resources to get help.
Six short films selected by school faculty, domestic violence specialists, and members of the district attorney’s office made the final cut from a batch of 35 submitted by more than 200 students from throughout the county.
“This is for teens by teens,” Leone said. “What we want is for students to communicate with each other and to build leaders among them.”
More than 300 Malden High School students watched the films in the school auditorium yesterday and voted for the best one. About 500 other high school students in Middlesex County will also watch the six videos in their health and physical education classes and help choose the winner, which will be announced next week.
Conover Tuttle Pace, a Boston advertising and public relations firm, will edit the winning film, which will be submitted to Boston television stations to compete for a spot on the air.
One of the videos surprised 19-year-old Robert Goodwin at yesterday’s screening because it portrayed a male as the victim in a relationship, he said. Usually in the media and on television shows, he said, “women aren’t doing the abusing.”
Teen date violence is more an issue of power than a matter of gender or a sexuality, Leone said.
The statistics are grim. One in three teenagers reported knowing a friend or peer who has been hit, punched, kicked, slapped, choked, or physically hurt by a partner, according to statistics provided by the district attorney’s office from the United States Bureau of Justice.
Nationwidem young people, 16 to 24, also experience the highest per capita rate of intimate partner violence, according to the bureau.
The student-made videos brought these numbers closer to home, said 17-year-old Amanda Caristinos, who says she has friends at Malden High School who have suffered relationship abuse.
“I like how the [films] were made by students; it made them more realistic to me,” she said. “I feel like it can really happen to anyone.”
The Rihanna-Chris Brown survey, which inspired Leone’s student project, is the first from Boston’s Public Health Commission, but more are expected, said Casey Corcoran. The commission conducted the survey to gather research for its new Start Strong program, which will train 20 students this summer to be leaders in teen violence prevention and healthy relationship promotion, said Corcoran, who will serve as director of the initiative.
“We often look to young people as the victims of dating violence, the perpetrators of the violence, or witnesses to these crimes,” said Corcoran. “I think we have a real opportunity with projects like the PSA videos and Start Strong to look at them as the solution to dating violence.”
