50 Shades of Media? Depicting Domestic Violence in Modern Movies.

• In Event: Crime and Cinema

Abstract

How does a public picture of DV influence its perception and reality in the off-media world? Which depictions are chosen to catch the attention and emotions of the audience- and which stigmatisations are triggered by this? Presented is a workshop, developed within the IMPROVE project (Improving Access to Services for Victims of Domestic Violence by Accelerating Change in Frontline Responder Organisations, funded by HORIZON Innovation Actions Grant Agreement No. 101074010). It is designed for (young) filmmakers to reflect and plan the inclusion of violent scenes as part of the story, to raise awareness on the situation of victim-survivors. Included are results of interviews that were conducted during the IMPROVE project with victim-survivors of DV and law enforcement practitioners as well as film makers’ demands on producing modern movies that help fighting stereotypes of partnership violence and offer alternatives via a display of constructive conflict management, help seeking behavior and simple movie techniques, that allow the viewer to be in a neutral or victim-positive position instead of always seeing a person affected by DV as helpless victim or idealizing violent behavior through “love stories”. The aim of this presentation is to open the room for a discussion on the knowledge transfer from criminological research into modern media and thus opening a higher social impact of research results.

Authors

• Natalie Koepsel, natalie.koepsel@dhpol.de

• Catharina Vogt, Deutsche Hochschule der Polizei