Directions

The following are some possible facilitation questions for outside showings. We only have them for some of the films at present but hope to complete them for all of the films at some point in the future. Here's what we have for the moment, as well as links to discussion guides made available by the filmmakers:

Discussion Questions for Lost Boys of Sudan:

www.lostboysfilm.com (Discussion questions)

Discussion Questions for Brother Outsider:

www.rustin.org (Teaching guide)

Discussion Questions for 39 Pounds of Love:

1. What was your reaction to Ami as a person?

2. How do you feel about Ami’s desire to go across the United States in search of the doctor? Do you feel it’s understandable? admirable? selfish? something else?

3. Some viewers have faulted Ami was as “ungrateful” because he didn’t verbally thank the people he depended upon. Do you agree?

4. How do you think Ami’s brother was affected by having a sibling with special needs? In your experience, how does having a special needs child affect families?

5. How does this documentary affect your view of disabled people?

6. Do you think it’s possible for someone like Ami to be in a romantic relationship? to have children? How are disabled people viewed when it comes to romance and sexuality?

7. What obstacles do people with disabilities still face in terms structural designs, attitudes?

8. What difference or limitation -- whether an identified disability or not -- do you or someone you know experience?

9. How has coping with these challenges actually strengthened and enhanced you?

10. What was your first experience of prejudice based on your difference?

11. How do you feel about the word “disability”?

12. What assumptions do people make about you that you feel are misguided? What do you want people to understand about you? How do you wish to be treated by close friends, casual acquaintances, and strangers?

13. If someone has a less apparent disability such as suffering from depression, should they tell others? What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of disclosure?

Also see www.39poundsoflove.com for more.

Discussion Questions for Raising Teens:

1. What emotions might parents who use a sperm bank experience if the child they raise wants to contact and perhaps develop a relationship with their biological parent, as Cooper does? How do you feel about Cooper -- or any child -- addressing the sperm donor as “father”?

2. Why does it often become important to many children to meet their biological parents?

3. What are the risks in tracking down the donor/biological parent? What can the rewards be?

4. How did you feel about each couple, as parents? What were their strengths? weaknesses?

5. Did the movie change your mind about gender roles and parenting?

6. Do you live in a community, as Aidan does, where a kid might be rejected because they have gay parents? In your community, what are people’s attitudes towards homosexuality?

7. Why do you suppose the school ultimately allowed Aidan to run for Drum Major?

Discussion Questions for Mad Hot Ballroom:

1. To which character in the film did you feel the strongest connection and why?

2. What do you see as all the benefits of a program like this? If such a program were in your school or community, how would it be received? How could it positively impact kids and parents?

3. Mad Hot Ballroom looks at a competition where the head of the competition is emphatic that there is only one winner and the rest of the teams are losers. How

healthy do you think this type of competition is for young people? How much pressure to win is coming from the adults and how much is from the kids themselves?

4. The 10 and 11 year olds in the film make some insightful observations about such societal constructs as gender, race, orientation, etc. Which of these

moments from the film stand out to you and why?

5. To what degree do children/youth in Bay Area communities (or Piedmont in particular) get to interact with their counterparts in neighboring communities (say, Oakland) as they do in Mad Hot Ballroom? If you live in Piedmont but want your children to interact with diverse populations, what are some organizations, programs, they can participate in?

6. While it is widely known that youth development and enrichment programs like the one featured in the film are critical in promoting high school graduation rates and reducing crime rates, such programs are chronically under-funded, and especially so in the neighborhoods that need them the most (often even

leading to the loss of such programs in the poorest neighborhoods). For many, this is the face of racism and breeds resentment from those in the flats towards those in the hills in such places as the East Bay. What are the actions that we as individuals can and need to take to ameliorate this disparity?

Discussion Questions for Beauty Before Age:

1. What other types of people experience the agism that the older gay men in the film do? Who else feels invisible, ineligible, irrelevant or viewed as non-sexual?

2. Is gay culture more “ocular” than straight culture? Why or why not?

3. One man who goes to the gym five days a week, said when he skips his workout “psychologically I feel small.” What is this about?

4. Does one’s sexual status define one’s value as a gay man, as one man claims?

5. If there is a preoccupation with being physically attractive, what’s at the root of such vanity? Does it stem, as one man suggests, from a fear of being alone? Does the desire to be physically validated stem from low self-esteem possibly brought on by others’ rejection of one’s lifestyle?

6. Respond to the man who pins the “false standard of beauty” on gay culture rather than on advertising.

Discussion Questions for Wet Dreams & False Images:

1. How does knowing that most images of beauty are doctored rather than natural affect you?

2. How do you suppose these idealized images affect the genders?

3. The barber in the film seems to change his tune. What, in your opinion, is going on when he reverses his position?

4. How do you feel about making a profession of manipulating human images, as the two gentlemen in the film do?

5. Does advertising dictate tastes? If advertising didn’t exist, how would people’s notions of beauty be different than they are now?