It's
Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School
by Debra Chasnoff
and Helen S. Cohen
It's Elementary takes cameras into
classrooms across the U.S. to look at one of today's most
controversial issues - whether and how gay issues should be
discussed in schools. It features elementary and middle schools
where (mainly heterosexual) teachers are challenging the
prevailing political climate and its attempt to censor any
dialogue in schools about gay people. Rather than focusing on the
debate between adults, though, the film takes the point of view of
the school children, starting as young as first grade.
The results are surprising and, as the LA
Reader says, "funny, touching, and fascinating."
Third graders' jaws drop when they find out some of their favorite
celebrities are gay; second graders react to a book about a girl
who gets teased because she has two moms; fourth graders say it
makes them "feel weird in your stomach" when other kids
yell "faggot" on the playground and teachers don't do
anything about it; eighth graders fire a barrage of poignant
questions to the gay guest speakers who visit their social studies
class; third graders passionately debate the current events issue
of the day: should gays be allowed to get married?
It becomes quite clear that most children are
affected by anti-gay prejudice in some way, and that they are very
responsive to a curriculum that teaches respect for everyone,
including lesbians and gay men. The San Francisco Examiner says
It's Elementary, with its refreshing child's eye-view of a
topic that sends some adult racing to their school boards,
"could become one of the most important films ever devoted to
lesbian and gay issues."
Choosing
Children by Debra Chasnoff
and Kim Klausner
Choosing Children,
the groundbreaking film about lesbians becoming parents, is an
emotionally powerful documentary that challenges society's ideas
about the definition of "family." Produced and directed
by Debra Chasnoff and Kim Klausner in 1984, Choosing Children
was the first film to capture the diversity of ways lesbians are
having and raising children.
It takes an intimate look at the
lives and experiences of six families from across the U.S. Their
experiences include: trying to get pregnant (by donor insemination
or "the old fashioned way"); adopting as "out"
gay parents; whether or not to involve men in parenting; reactions
of relatives, doctors, and schoolmates; and much more.
Deadly
Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our
Environment by Debra
Chasnoff
Academy Award, Best Documentary Short Subject
Deadly Deception juxtaposes GE's rosy "We Bring Good Things
To Life" commercials with the true stories of workers and
neighbors whose lives have been devastated by the company's
involvement in building and testing nuclear bombs.
These tragic stories are answered by the
inspiring activism of the GE Boycott, a grassroots campaign run by
corporate accountability organization, INFACT, to pressure GE out
of the nuclear weapons industry. Nine months after this powerful
video won an Oscar in 1992, the corporate giant did indeed pull
out of the deadliest business of all. Ideal for classes on
business ethics, advertising, environmental issues, the arms race,
media literacy, and community organizing.
