Choose Wisely

You might be able to think of a few movies that deal with school violence off the top of your head, but if you need more ideas, you can go to www.imdb.com to browse for other movies. Choose movies that will suit your audience (on this note, make sure you watch the movies ahead of time so you know the issues each one deals with).

Some ideas are: The Breakfast Club (bullying), Mean Girls (bullying), Clueless (bullying), Fear (Dating Violence), Elephant (Gun Violence), Teen Witch (bullying), Save the Last Dance (gun violence), or episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation (dating violence, gun violence).

Your theater

Find a great place for your movie night. If you want to invite a bunch of people, you probably don't want them all crowding your living room. Alternate places you could check out are: your public (or school) library (most have projectors and screens), a community center or your school auditorium.

Movie goers

Do you want to invite your whole school, specific clubs at school, or maybe everyone anyone under 18 who lives in your neighborhood? Figure out who your audience will be and then make flyers and posters about your anti-violence movie night to post around your school and/or community.

Snack Attack

Don't forget the snacks! Watching movies is tough without that bag of popcorn and box of chocolates. Make sure you have some beverages too-especially if you're going to be showing more than one movie.

Survey the Scene/s

You can decide if you want to wait until after all the movies to have a discussion group or if you'd like to have a small one after each movie.

The benefit to having one after all the movies is that you are able to compare and contrast all the different violent situations. The benefit to having one after each movie is that the movie is still fresh in your head during your discussion.

Talk About It

For the actual discussion group, you can choose to have everyone break into smaller groups or stay in one large group. Below you'll find a sample format for a discussion group for the movie The Breakfast Club directed by John Hughes.

1. Divide the group into five smaller groups. Have each group represent a character from the movie. The characters and their distinctions are: Bender (The Criminal), Claire (The Prom Queen), Andrew (The Jock), Brian (The Brain) and Allison (The Basket Case).
2. Let each group take about 20 minutes to rehearse and then reenact a scene from the movie where their character has done something totally selfish or cruel. Then, ask everyone in the audience what the character could have done instead of that cruel action. You’d be surprised at how many other things people can do besides get angry and violent.
3. Then, talk about why you think the character in the movie did something so mean. There are a lot of personal reasons for people acting out. The Breakfast Club examines a lot of these personal reasons—talk about them.
4. Lastly, talk about how your school compares to the school featured in The Breakfast Club and how you could change bullying, cliques and tension in your school. Remember that, at the end of the movie, all the characters find something admirable in each other. A quote from the movie demonstrates this:
5. “Dear Mr. Vernon: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you're crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club.” –Brian Johnson