LOVE, HOPE, FEAR: RECOGNIZING PATTERNS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

MEMO TO ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Objective
We will create an informative documentary that will educate viewers about the reasons why domestic
violence exists in modern society as well as how to recognize and assuage situations of preexisting
domestic violence. Our documentary, Love, Hope, Fear: Recognizing Patterns of Domestic
Violence will explore and educate about the psychological and emotional effects of sustaining
relationships in which domestic violence exists.

Goals
Through a humanizing look at five womens experiences with domestic violence, our main focus is to
decrease the number of cases a year of domestic violence, and this campaign encompasses the ability
to do that.

Background Information
Sarah Wendts article, Why dont we speak up when we see signs of domestic violence?
explored myriad reasons why domestic violence is perpetuated as shameful towards women and a
taboo subject. Social factors, including shame and intimacy within relationships, and concepts of
masculinity versus feminity were used as the main causes of perpetuated domestic abuse. According
to Quillen Reivich, the facilitator of Men Exploring Nonabusive Directions at the Family Counseling
Center in Columbia, our culture and our society are built on a framework that grants privilege to
some of the members of society and disenfranchises other people. Part of that framework is gender
roles because conventional gender roles grant men roles that incorporate power and control and
dominance our cultural framework, through gender roles, allows domestic violence to exist.

Project Outline
The documentary will follow the journeys of five women dealing with divergent situations of domestic
violence. These stories will cover women of myriad ages, cultural backgrounds, races, and
socioeconomic statuses. A focus will be placed upon intersectionality when approaching each
womans story; the documentary will recognize that each woman holds more than one social
identity, and looking at these identities independently would overlook a large facet of the societal
forces endeavoring to create discrimination against the women in these stories.

While each story will show a very different facet of domestic violence, each story will be told in a
parallel fashion. Each story will be divided into three distinct portions to cover the complexity
surrounding each instance of domestic violence. The first section will divulge the social and economic
influences that caused the each woman to stay in her abusive relationship. These first sections will be
interviews with the woman and cover pressures that the woman may feel from religious beliefs,
economic well-being or the need to fulfill societal gender roles.
The second section will reveal characteristics of the abuser through portrayals of flashbacks. These
flashbacks will show the abuse of male privilege that the man uses to keep the woman in an abusive
relationship. The flashbacks will also show threats such as the use of religious morality and
maintaining a standard of living to threaten women to stay in abusive relationships. The final section
will show the aftermath that affects woman and families affected by domestic violence. Through
showing womens experiences at womens shelters, this section will explore common mental side
effects of domestic violence such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Audience

LOVE, HOPE, FEAR: RECOGNIZING PATTERNS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Love, Hope, Fears target audience will be women ages 18-24, who make up 42% of all cases of
violence by a boyfriend or girlfriend in the United States1. Targeting this audience will endeavor to
educate women who are in relationships of domestic abuse and see the documentary to recognize
their situations and feel empowered to seek assistance.
Ultimately, our documentary will hopefully reach a broad audience across the United States to help
educate and bring about societal change to prevent one of the over 2 million instances of domestic
violence that occurs annually2.

Fault Lines
Gender: Across boundaries of culture and socioeconomic status, women are most often the victims of
domestic violence3. Our documentary will explore ways in which a patriarchal society allows domestic
violence to exist, as some women are forced to stay with abusive spouses because they cannot obtain
sufficient resources to sustain themselves individually in a patriarchal society4
Class: Cases of domestic violence increase in situations of decreased socioeconomic status.
Additionally, women who are financially dependent on their significant others may feel obligated to
stay in an abusive relationship as they cannot find resources to sustain themselves independently5.
Generation: Women between the ages of 18-24 make up 42% of all domestic abuse victims. While
women ages 65 and older are least likely to be victimized in instances of domestic violence, elderly

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fvs.pdf

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/domestic_violence/resources/statistics.html

http://www.ncadv.org/learn/TheProblem.php

Wendt, Domestic Violence in Diverse Contexts: A Reexamination of Gender, 27-30.

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/domestic_violence/resources/statistics.html

women are more likely to be tethered to their abuser due to chronic health problems that render the
woman dependent on her abuser6.
Race: According to an interview with Quillen Reivich, domestic violence occurs more in minorities, as
men use their patriarchally-granted privileges over women to psychologically combat the racial
privileges that have been used against them. Society also often thinks that when domestic violence
occurs in communities of color, the abuse is caused by cultural influences, rather than individual
behavior, which can stigmatize an entire community7
Geography: Around 77% of intimate violence occurs at a victims home. Women in rural areas are
more likely to be victimized, possibly because women in rural areas do not have as many resources to
help them combat domestic violence8.

Potential Outlets
We could possibly work with the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, or a similar nonprofit,
to use our documentary as an educational tool in the drive to prevent domestic violence. Love,
Hope, Fear could be released as a special event during the NCADVs Domestic Violence Awareness
Month9
For our film to gain notoriety and increase its audience, we can submit it as an original piece of work
to film festivals such as True/False Film Fest10, Sundance Film Festival11 or Tribeca Film Festival12. We
6

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fvs.pdf

http://www.sagepub.com/cac6study/articles/Sokoloff.pdf
8

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fvs.pdf

http://www.ncadv.org/takeaction/DomesticViolenceAwarenessMonth.php

10

http://truefalse.org/submit/features-and-shorts

11

http://www.sundance.org/festival/festival-program/submissions/

will begin at the True/False Film Festival here in Columbia, Missouri to gain local support before
nationalizing the campaign.

12

http://tribecafilm.com/stories/tff-2015-festival-dates-call-for-submissions