It Takes Two: Seven Pounds
Both the anticipation of heading back to Zimbabwe in a couple of weeks and finally graduating from College have turned me into something of an insomniac, and as late as 2am last night I decided to watch Will Smith’s Seven Pounds for the second time. That movie has to be one of Will’s best, very touching and definitely leaves you thinking, kind of like a Denzel movie.
Anyway, if you haven’t watched the flick, get down to it, upon watching it once again, I guess maybe because I now work for an organisation that deals with domestic violence, I realised that one of the seven people Tim Thomas (Will Smith) sets out to help before he dies in the movie is a female victim of domestic violence and her two children. It was actually a very touching scene, where he gives the mother, daughter and son his beach house to escape from her abusive boyfriend. All the same, first time around, the domestic violence side of it didn’t really hit me or send any particular message, it was more the fact that he gave them a house and one on the beach on top of that.
In light of this, considering that this was actually a Hollywood block buster and not a low budget movie, it seems pertinent that organisations such as Breakthrough work hand in hand with Hollywood, the music industry, T.V. and press to raise awareness on the subject so that when people come across references to domestic violence in either movies or music they have prior knowledge and information on the subject matter, enough to then have them process it a bit more thoroughly. In a war as crucial as the one we’re fighting, we certainly need to take advantage of even the smallest bit of leverage. For the record, when I say raise awareness, I’m not referring to the typical methods that we’ve seen being employed for decades now and barely attract any attention, I’m looking at more modern day conventional methods like having representatives at premieres of movies that hold even the slightest domestic violence message, allstar cast songs and television commercials. I mean at the end of the day, we all agree it does take two, Hollywood can’t do it alone and neither can the ordinary human rights organisation. We’re going to have to huddle up, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Click here for the link to the Seven Pounds Wiki page
Tagged domestic violence
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AnonymousApril 27, 2009 at 9:14 am
I watched too, sadly never struck a button either, well noted.
JeremihApril 27, 2009 at 10:14 am
Most org’s fail to get through to the general public because they are unwilling to experiment with methods, I have seen the Bell Bajao ads on tv, they are quite good, though a really creative mind could come up with something moer appealing.
SarahApril 27, 2009 at 5:15 pm
The title Seven Pounds comes from Shakespeare’s reference to a “pound of flesh” in The Merchant Of Venice. In this case, relative to domestic violence, if extra work is not put in, people will have to pay the price with a pound of flesh.
Will FanApril 27, 2009 at 6:00 pm
True that, more actors and celebs like Will need to take up the initiative of raising awareness around some of these issues.
ZubinApril 27, 2009 at 6:09 pm
But won’t the overuse of pop-culture take away from the severity of the cause of domestic violence?
CarolynApril 27, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Zubin, what do you mean the overuse of popular culture? What would you suggest in awareness raising around the issue of domestic violence? Have you seen other campaigns dealing with societal issues that have resonated with you and have not involved the use of popular culture? I would be interested to hear any example you may have. Jeremih, what sorts of methods do you suggest organizations experiment with? Offline and online campaigns, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
IshaApril 27, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Esp looking at stars like Ike and Tina Turner, that story should be fully utilised for awareness.
JeremihApril 30, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I was talking to K.F. the other day and we looked at the HIV/AIDS Awareness Campaign and how diverse it’s activities are. Beauty Pageants (in this case for men, incorporating them into the campaign), football matches, debate competitions, essay writing for the youth, the list is endless. And we’ve already implemented all these in Zimbabwe for the dissemination of human rights information.