As part of your Risky Business project work, you will need to evaluate the media and its portrayal of teen risk behavior.
- To get you started, think of all the different movies that portray teen risk behavior and list and describe 2-3 that match up with one of our topics.
- Post your ideas as a comment to this blog.
- Here are the topics, so far: teen sex, teen pregnancy, cyberbullying, stress, abuse, and depression.
Here is a copy paste of the actual project assignment:
As a group (possibly including Texas), select a movie that portrays the risk behavior that you are researching. Watch the movie (together is better because you can discuss it) and write a review of the portrayal, based on the research you have done into the behavior.
- Did the movie portray the issue fairly and accuracy, presenting a realistic impression, rather than a “black and white”/”heroes and villains” portrayal?
- Did the portrayal glamorize or in any way make the behavior attractive or minimize the risk?
- Do you consider the movie to be an example of ethical media use?
12 comments:
(by the way... i didn't watch any of these movies....i just looked up the info on them)
Easy A- (teen sex) Olive agrees to have sex with many different guys in order to continue her reputation as a bad girl.
Juno- (teen pregnancy) A 'pro-life' themed movie about a 16 year old girl who decided to put up her baby for adoption instead of choosing abortion.
Thirteen [Depression] -
ABOUT THE MOVIE:
This movie revolves around Tracy, a straight-A student and a well-behaved girl. Yet, she's a little naive. In order to relieve herself for the emotional pain she suffers from her broke down family, she smokes, which leads her to befriend Evie, the most popular and beautiful girl in school. After befriending her, Tracy is led down a path of sex, drugs, rebellion, and crime, which causes problems between her, her mother, her teachers, and her old friends.
Speak [Depression] -
ABOUT THE MOVIE:
This movie revolves around a girl named Melinda Sordino. After being raped at a summer party, she enters high school as a selective mute. Ever since that night, she lost her willpower to speak up for herself. Melinda keeps all her problems bottled up inside her which adds to her growing depression. She's labelled an outcast by everyone in her high school, including her friends, or so they used to be.
Odd Girl Out- (cyberbullying/bullying in general) Vanessa is tricked by her so called "friends" into getting close with a boy, whom her best friend, Stacy, has feelings for. Furious, Stacy pushes Vanessa out of her clique and starts spreading rumors about her, calling her names, and making a webpage that shows embarrassing pictures of Vanessa. Vanessa then cuts off a lot of her hair while in a nervous breakdown and cuts school due to her fear of what her peers will say and do.
Mean girls- (peer pressure) Cady is forced by one of the girls at her school, Janice, into acting like she's "friends" with a group of mean girls or "plastics". After hanging out with them and actually getting to know them, she finds herself becoming a "plastic" which arouses a problem between her and her peers.
Juno- (teen pregnancy) Juno finds out that she is pregnant with a child who's father is her friend and admirer. Since she is still a teenager, she thought that it would be a good idea to have an abortion. Although she finds that a single life should never be wasted. So instead, she finds a family to put the baby up for adoption.
Odd Girl Out:
This movie is based on a teen girl named Vanessa, who goes through emotional abuse caused by a group of girls at her high school. She is repeatedly brutalized on the Internet and in school. Affected by all that is happening, Vanessa eventually tries to commit suicide. After gaining her dignity back, Vanessa becomes stronger. She then overcame the problem, with no help from the school, but with the help of her mom and a friend, by standing up to the group of girls. Humiliated, the girls no longer continued to emotionally abuse Vanessa.
Fighting [Fighting] -
Shawn MacArthur gets involved in the underworld street fighting. Shawn ends up fighting different men across the city. If he wins the battle, he gets paid hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Sugar & Spice [Teen Pregnancy & Robery] -
Diane becomes pregnant from the allstar quarterback from Lincoln High. Both parents had kicked them out of the house and had to find a way to get money to support themselves. Diane's form cheermates, Kansas, Cleo, Lucy, Hannah, and Fern rob a bank to support Diane.
(I didn't watch any of these films, I searched them up)
Where the Heart Is - This film involves a 17-year-old girl named Novalee who becomes pregnant. As she and her boyfriend head out to California, she is abandoned by him. Living under so little cash, she decides to secretly move into Wal-Mart and delivers her baby. Her mother visits her, but instead of picking them up the next day, she cleverly takes $500 from her daughter that she has not seen since she was born and never returns. Throughout the movie, Novalee tries to make a living and pursues a career as a photographer with the help of her new friends.
Runaways - A true story about a group of friends involved in all kinds of immorality (sex, murder, etc.). One of the members, Lisa, becomes pregnant after having sex with Marty and Bobby. However, Marty suffers from emotional and physical abuse from Bobby. In order to protect him, the group plots to murder Bobby because of his violent attacks and verbal abuse. After he has been killed and thrown into the swamp, the group, along with a hitman, formulate their alibis. However, the case eventually unravels and all members of the group, including the hitman, are sentenced to multiple years in prison and life sentences, with one member sentenced to death.
Mean Girls- Cady moves to a new and strange place where shes technically starts with a clean slate. She meets a group of girls that change her into a totally new person where she ends up losing her beloved friends that helped her out her first day.
Thirteen- Tracy was the best daughter, student, and friend to have until she became influenced by one of the most popular girls at school. She trys to befriend them where they influence her to do drugs and have sex. She ends up making it a habit resulting in the conflicts with her mom and her 'cutting' herself.
Girl (peer pressure):
Andrea Marr is a bright, straight-A, mature, 18-year-old high school senior on the verge of womanhood who decides to abandon her sheltered, boring lifestyle and her bookish friend Darcy for a look into the local rock and roll scene as a groupie to local rock singer Tod Sparrow and learn more about the life of one who follows a touring band along with her new friends aspiring rock star wannabee Cybil, outgoing fellow groupie Rebecca, and music critic Kevin.
Confessions of an American Girl (teen pregnancy and peer pressure):
A teenage girl named Rena, a dramatically suicidal teenager whose father is serving a long prison sentence. The boy she likes only uses her for sex and other teenage girls tease her relentlessly, and she later gets pregnant.
I didn't watch these movies I just researched them.
Riding in Cars With Boys:
Intelligent but naive Beverly Donofrio, a teenager when the movie begins in the early 1960s, dreams of becoming a writer. Some years later, at 15, she and her best friend Fay go to a party and get drunk. Beverly ends up having sex with a friendly stranger named Ray. She finds out she is pregnant and contemplates having an abortion, but cannot bring herself to do so.
How to Deal:
Halley runs into classmate Macon Forrester, a slacker who never shows up for biology and is more interested in having fun than school work. Scarlett, at age sixteen, soon learns that she is pregnant with his child. With Halley, her best friend, at her side, Scarlett reveals the pregnancy to her mother.
SuperBad [teen sex/Peer Pressure] :
Seth and Evan want to "hook up" with the girls they like at the party before heading off to college. Seth tries to convince Evan to buy alcohol for the party.
Easy "A" [teen sex] :
Olive Penderghast pretends to have sex with many guys to keep her reputation as a bad girl or to be popular.
Juno (teen pregnancy)
-Juno is a teen girl who finds out that she got pregnant with her friend but is also the guy that she likes and he likes her back. At first she decides that she would get an abortion but before she goes into the clinic, she encounters a classmate who is against abortion and her classmate tells her some facts about the baby. Juno goes into the clinic but quickly changes her mind, so instead of having an abortion, she decides to put her baby up for adoption.
Saved (teen pregnancy)
-A girl going to a christian school thought she had a good life, with good christian friends and good christian boyfriend.. Until she finds out her boyfriend might be gay. So she offered up her virginity but it didnt work, he got caught and was sent to a center and she ended up being pregnant. Then she began to be friends with the worse people in the christian school and she becomes a social outcast.
-Rebekah Morales
American Pie [Teen Sex]
American Pie is about four boys who make a pact to lose their virginity before their high school graduation. Eh, nuff said.
Clueless [Teen Sex, Peer Pressure]
Loosely based on Jane Austin's 1815 novel, Emma, Clueless is a movie set in a Beverly Hills high school about Cher Horowitz-- a pretty, popular, wealthy, fashion obsessed, yet good natured girl. She and her best friend Dionne Davenport, and equally rich and popular girl, "adopt" the unstylish new girl Tai Fraiser and transform her from "tragically unhip" to "totally glamorous" as their new project. This leads to a string of events that cause Cher to rethink her choices in her 16 years of life and turn it around for the better.
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