Special Area of Interest Powerpoint
-Documentary Synopsis 1-
Louis Theroux – Specials: Transgender Kids (BBC2)
In San Francisco
The first family we meet through Louis is Casey and Eduardo and their child Camille, aged 5, who was born a boy but is truly a girl. Louis tags along to their session with a child psychologist, who determines that Camille is transgender, and talks of many kids as young as two and three voicing that their gender is different from their biological sex. Louis then travels to their home and takes a peek inside their homelife. He talks to the parents about Camille’s coming out and how they feel about it.
We then visit Benioff Childrens Hospital in San Francisco, where several children are receiving gender affirming treatment, such as puberty blockers. Louis talks to many kids about the treatment they’re receiving, most notably Nikki, a fourteen-year-old girl, who is undergoing HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) by taking Oestrogen. He talks to her and her family about their situation, and why they decided it’s best for Nikki to start her transition sooner instead of later.
Louis is reunited with Camille and her family after wearing a dress to school for the first time. He talks with Casey, her mother, about how their wider family have reacted to Camille’s new identity and finds out they’re not as accepting of it all.
Louis then visits a surgery clinic, and talks to Dr Curtis Crane, a leading surgeon in the field of gender affirming procedures. He meets Amaya, a seventeen-year-old who received top surgery, a procedure in which they remove breast tissue and fat to create a flatter chest. Amaya talks about his own personal transition and how far he wants to take it, saying that he isn’t planning on undergoing anymore procedures for the time being, which is important to show that each transition is individual.
Louis then meets a young kid who both identifies with the names Crystal and Cole and determines their gender by however they feel on the day. They use a different name and pronouns at school than at home, and their parents and siblings switch depending on how Crystal is feeling. Their parents are divorced, and their mother mentions that she and their father have different opinions on their transition, and Crystal mentions that they don’t want to transition because it would upset their father.
Louis meets back up with Nikki and her family. He talks to her about school, and she mentions how people discriminate against her, i.e., by calling her slurs. Louis talks to her parents about her transition, and they talk about how it feels to go from having a son to having a daughter, and how they worry about her future since they know it will be tough for her.
Louis goes back to the surgery clinic and talks to two transgender adults; Ketch, a trans man, and Minerva, a trans woman. They are both looking to get bottom surgery, a procedure which reconstructs the genitals from female to male, or vice versa, and can be done in a few ways to receive different results.
Louis then met back up with Crystal, who was spending a day with their dad, therefore they were going by Cole. Louis spoke to their dad about their identity, and he expressed that he doesn’t fully agree with Crystals transition because he doesn’t want them to regret anything later in life. At home, Crystal voices that they like to dress up, but ultimately believe they will identify as a man when they’re older. Louis wonders whether this is due to Crystal repressing her true identity, or just that they were never a girl in the first place.
Louis travels back to the Benioff Childrens Hospital to meet back up with Nikki and her family. They speak to the doctors about hormones, what’s going well and what isn’t.
Louis ends this documentary by visiting Camille and her family for the last time, and he asks her about her identity. He speaks to her parents about how they feel, and how confident they all are in her identity. They all go to the shopping centre to pick out a dress for Camille.
-Documentary Synopsis 2-
Stacey Dooley – Investigates: Russia’s War on Women (BBC3)
In Moscow
This documentary opens with a Russian saying about domestic violence, immediately showing the country’s stance on this topic. Clips of domestic violence are shown, along with the fact that in 2017, certain forms of domestic abuse were decriminalised in Russia. We then see a title card and are informed by Stacey that she is in Moscow. Stacey explains the statistics of domestic violence in Russia, over b-roll of the women in public, and graphic footage of abuse taking place. She then says that even with these statistics, the government decided to decriminalise certain situations of domestic violence, with abusers only receiving a fine instead of a prison sentence.
Whilst filming, Stacey is informed of a woman named Svetlana, who had to flee her home with her kids due to domestic violence and is now in hiding. She meets up with her and asks her about her experiences. Svetlana shares her emotional story and talks about how the new law has affected her and her situation. She also talks about how people viewed her fleeing as ‘crazy’ because domestic abuse is considered normal in Russia, and how in online spaces, the man was supported, and she was blamed. Due to the new law, the police are unable to help Svetlana since the abuse was not ‘severe enough’, meaning she stays on the run with her kids, whilst her abuser gets to live life with no consequence.
Stacey then introduces the ideas of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has become stronger under the rule of President Putin, with pro-government and religious lectures being shown on TV and social media platforms. Traditional views are becoming widespread in Russia, and Stacey visits a place where they are taking that to the extreme. Upon entry, she is told to wear a long skirt, since she is woman, and sees a homophobic sign at the door. She meets German Sterligov, a man who gave up his business job to open this community. He expresses that he is doing this to ensure his family are brought up to be good and hardworking, but also so they all go to heaven. He shares his support of the new law, saying that women should always fear her ‘lord and master’, aka her husband, and they are vile if they cannot put up with it. Stacey interjects by saying she is a feminist, and he replies saying she has been ‘brainwashed’. She then asks his wife, Alyona, some questions about the nature of their relationship, and she responds saying that she does not mind being beaten by her husband if she deserves it, and that she even wrote a book explaining why. German cuts her off before she can answer how many times he has abused her, and Stacey is determined to find out how women in these situations receive help, since the government has cut all funding to causes fighting domestic violence. She visits an independent shelter which is part of a small network trying to help women in these situations. A woman named Alyona Satakova runs the shelter and has for three years and has helps many women escape their abusers. A twenty-four-year-old woman named Anya and her eighteen-month-old son recently arrived at the shelter, and she anonymously talks about her experiences, and how she managed to escape.
Stacey then travels to a place called Pskov, a poor and remote region in western Russia. She meets Alina Schenova, an outreach worker who delivers food and supplies to single mothers. One of which is Katya, whose partner left whilst she was pregnant. She lives in a small cramped flat with her child, and they survive entirely off donations from the local village and £3 a month of government benefits. This makes being a single woman, especially a mother, in Russia very difficult, and causes women to be financially dependent on their partner, which may also be their abuser, and makes it difficult to leave.
Stacey decides to investigate further into the alcohol and drugs problem in Russia, sharing the statistics and their link to domestic abuse. She visits a rehab programme in St. Petersburg that is using counselling to try and combat this issue. She meets Father Alexander Gavrilov, an Orthodox priest who trained himself in psychotherapy and adapted the twelve-step addiction programme to his faith. She speaks to a man who is in the rehab programme and is now clean, and what lead him to abuse substances. He shares that he used to beat women, and he knows that was because of his relationship with his mother, and he felt his abuse was a vendetta. The man’s friend is very vocal about blaming the woman, saying she shouldn’t make her man angry and whatever he does, she asked for.
Stacey pulls up an advertisement from Burger King, which played into an internet joke formed from a clip of a girl speaking out on talk show about how two men sexually assaulted her. Members of the audience on the show angrily blamed her for ruining these men’s lives, since one had been imprisoned. They asked if she was drunk during the assault, and she replied, ‘just a little bit’, which was the clip to go viral, and was subsequently featured in a mainstream advertisement and additional discount, which completely invalidated her and what she had been through. This showed the country’s attitude towards women speaking out about assault.
Stacey visits St. Petersburg and sits in on a meeting with one of the area’s most active feminist groups fighting against the patriarchy. They tell her that to be is feminist in Russia is looked down upon by all men, since they have no respect for women to begin with. The women share hateful and threatening messages they’ve received from men, and recount when they organised an event but were shut down by men. Because of these threats, many women are part of underground fight clubs, which teach them to defend themselves.
One woman shares that she thinks the future for feminism in Russia looks unprogressive, since the country is becoming more orthodox and isolated, unable to compare its laws and normalcies with other countries. She expresses that it’s scary to live in Russia as a woman, and that is why they must fight.
Stacey reflects on Russia’s past attitudes to women, with them giving women the right to vote before the UK in 1917, and being the first country to legalise abortion, and now passing laws that actively harm and endanger women.
Stacey returns to Moscow with hopes to interview one of the MPs that voted in favour of the new law, however no one is willing to defend their decision. She ends the documentary by revisiting one of the women’s shelters she visited previously, and checking up on the women that were staying there. She enforces how much domestic abuse ruins women’s lives, and how important it is for this to change.
-Documentary Synopsis 3-
Morgan Spurlock – Supersize Me (2004)
In New York
Morgan Spurlock starts out the documentary sharing statistics about obesity in America and the growth of fast-food consumption worldwide. He talks about McDonalds, the leading company in fast-food, and brings up a lawsuit two teenagers filed against the company for their weight gain after eating there. Lawyers say that the lawsuits are ‘frivolous’ since the repercussions for eating fast-food are universally known. The judge however states that if lawyers can show that McDonalds food is intended to be eaten daily, and that doing so is ‘unreasonably dangerous’, then they could state a claim. Morgan then states his goal to find out how dangerous it would be by eating only McDonalds for a month.
He begins by enlisting a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, and a general practitioner to help him throughout his journey, and he gets a routine checkup from each of them. He also visited a registered dietician to help him track his progress. He also shares that the only exercise he’ll be doing is walking, which won’t be difficult in Manhattan since it contains 83 McDonalds restaurants, the most in the world. However, he will stick to the number of steps an average American walks a day, an estimated 2500-3000 steps a day.
He begins his 30-day journey with breakfast, tracking everything he eats. He explains that he must eat every item on the menu at least once, and that he can only eat what McDonalds has to offer, nothing else.
He includes some Vox-Pops outside one of the McDonalds he visits in China Town, and he asks the public how often they eat fast-food, and what they think about people suing the companies.
David Satcher, the first doctor who, in 2000, declared obesity a nationwide epidemic, and spoke about the trend of ‘super-size’, and how fast-food portions are getting bigger and bigger. Morgan orders a super-size meal from McDonalds, and struggles to finish it, ultimately throwing it up.
Morgan investigates the topic of smoking and obesity, the two leading causes of preventable death in the US. He interviews people who talk about public attitudes towards smokers and overweight people, showing that people treat smokers with less respect even though both are unhealthy yet preventable. They also talk about marketing to children; how cigarette companies used to do it, and how McDonalds is doing it now. This leads into the epidemic of childhood obesity.
Morgan weighs in after 5 days and is told he is gained 5% of his body fat, which at that rate is unhealthy. He includes more Vox-Pops from the public, asking them how regularly they eat out and exercise.
He then orders McNuggets for the first time and explains how they are produced and loaded with many chemicals.
As the days go by, Morgan expresses that he feels unwell, both physically and mentally. Straight away he notices physically problems, and by week one he begins feeling depressed.
Advertising is then addressed, with statistics that the average American child sees 10,000 food advertisements a year on TV, and with celebrity indorsements children think unhealthy food is cooler and better. In 2001, McDonalds spent 1.4 billion dollars on direct media advertising, with Pepsi and Hersheys spending just under that.
He talks about the effect of fast food on public school meals, and whether it’s right to serve unhealthy food like crisps and chocolate to kids. The teachers say it’s alright, however they assume the kids have healthy food, even though they only buy a packet of crisps for lunch. He investigates the company providing the school with food and checks out what the school gets delivered. Morgan then visits a school for at risk kids who changed the food they served to freshly prepared and healthier and noticed a change in the students’ behaviour and attitudes towards learning.
He then travels to Houston, Texas, the city with the highest rate of being overweight in America.
After a checkup, he is told his health is declining, and it will continue to do so if he keeps up his diet of McDonalds. His liver is being damaged, yet there is no record of anyone acquiring liver failure from a high fat diet, though it could be possible, and he worries about serious long-term risks if he continues. However, the doctors say his health should return to how it was before after this diet.
Morgan starts to notice his mood changing and the affect food has on it, and the doctors suggest he’s becoming addicted to it. A doctor talks about naloxone, a drug used to stop heroin overdoses, and how people with food addictions can be given that same drug and lose interest in that addictive food, showing it’s a real addiction in the brain and not just a favourite food. He shares statistics about how many times per week customers eat at McDonalds, with 72% eating there once a week, and 22% going 4-5 times a week and up. The number of returning customers shows how addictive fast food is. The company started worrying about being called unhealthy and stated that McDonalds can be present in a healthy diet, however several nutritionists are heard saying fast food should be avoided altogether.
He then focuses on health in America, sharing how diets and weight loss supplements are advertised more than fitness and health; a way to stay thin without exercise. Still in Texas, he visits the Herman Memorial Hospital and talks to a man named Bruce Howlet, who has diabetes and high blood pressure. He, like many people in his position, decided to have surgery in his stomach to help his diabetes.
Morgan visits his GP, who warns him about continuing and is shocked about his ever-worsening results. His over doctors warned him over the phone, all saying he should stop and return to a low-fat diet.
He attempts to get an interview with someone who works at McDonalds, however he never receives a reply.
He reaches 30 days with unhealthy results but no long-term health problems. The lawsuit is dropped against McDonalds, since the two girls were unable to prove the company was responsible for their obesity, however Morgan can point out several ways the diet changed his health, body and mood.
The doctors once again recommend staying away from fast food altogether to stay fit and healthy. There is a noticeable rise in healthy options everywhere, with schools cutting sugar and sweets, and snack companies promoting natural versions, and even McDonalds adding salads to their menu.
Morgan concludes that McDonalds, and every other fast-food and snack company, is making millions off sales, so they don’t care whether their food is unhealthy. Therefore, it is your decision whether you eat fast food or not, whether you stay healthy or not. However, the consequences have been laid out in front of you in this documentary, so you know the risk.
The documentary finishes with a compilation of the main people featured and where they are now, the changes in attitudes towards fast food since the documentary wrapped, and Morgans journey to losing all the weight and getting healthier.
Creative Media - Year 1 