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Title: School’s out Rating: 2.6 out of 4 Reference: Director, Lynne Fernie; producer, Rina
Fraticelli. Library of Congress subjects: Homosexuality Lesbianism Youth--Sexual behavior Video recordings for the hearing impaired Sociology subjects: Community activism Education Feminisms & feminist analyses (in part) Identity Kids & youth Sexualities Reviews and Numerical Ratings 3 This video features five teenagers from the Toronto organization TEACH (Teens Educating and Confronting Homophobia) discussing their perspectives on being queer & their understanding of homophobia. Jane Rule (with a bad bowl cut) tries to put the emergence of homophobia in a larger context by discussing the role of the church, the psychiatric profession, & conservative anti-sex sentiments in general. The teens doa good job drawing out the intersections between homophobia, racism, sexism & gender roles. There’s an upbeat, quick visual style to the video & graffiti is used effectively to illustrate both pro & anti GLB sentiments. However, the material doesn’t particularly focus on school environments, as the title would suggest. Andie Noack 1.5 Rebecca found Jane Rule ponderous but liked that kids - not adults - were talking about their lives, taking action, being proud. If there was nothing else out there on gay teens, she would use it. Kathy felt that the video needed editing, was low on content though high on visual representation of diversity, and that the main question it evoked was “why are good people sometimes so dull”? Lecture topics: youth and sexuality. Kathy Bischoping & Rebecca Raby 3 The video focuses on gays/lesbians youths' and probably transgender individuals’ (though not mentioned in the video) efforts to challenge homophobia, sexism & racism, in public institutions, including the school systems, in order to educate teenagers about homophobia, racism, & sexism. It shows how discourses around sexualities/homosexuality had changed over time, and especially during the past decades. What I like about the video is that in many other anti-homophobic films/videos the characters are always white & male, which reinforce the patriarchal values & domination of Whiteness, but this video has featured teenagers who are people of colour - e.g., Africans and Asians - who expressed their concerns not only on homophobia but also on racism & sexism. Voices of lesbians are always central. The video emphasizes how homophobia is taught & challenges the viewers' assumptions about the naturalness of heterosexuality. The video problematizes heterosexual relationships & the rigidity of heterosexuality and encourage the viewers to think creatively in terms of sexualities. Best of all, it's very easy to follow. Cons: I think the video will be less challenging for graduate & undergraduate students who have some knowledge of gender and sexualities studies. Lonnie Sha 3 Graduate workshop participants praised this video
for its inclusion of some historical background (though Stand Together
was considered much superior for that purpose), for illustrating community
by presenting testimonies that mirrored one another, for showing the
everydayness of homophobia in the teens’ experiences, and for
not just showing white people. However, some viewers would have preferred
to see much more on the history of homophobia, as well as cross-cultural
comparisons. Graduate workshop
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