Case Study: Sole Journey

When: 2008

Where: Denver

Practitioners: Kate Burns and Sheila E. Schroeder 

The Story: 

Sole Journey is a documentary, directed by Kate Burns and Sheila E. Schroeder. In this documentary, they want to show that gay marriage will not "destroy the family and nation”, people in LGBT families are no different with anyone else. The background of this story is in the last century, LGBT individuals in America often subjected to society’s negative perceptions. Because mainstream culture not accept gay and lesbian people, some of them were feel contempt or disgust towards themselves of being “different”. Thus, they tried to change their sexual orientation and some people even use shock treatments, aversion therapy or exorcism to cure themselves of being gay. 

They interviewed Dr. Mel White, who is one of the founder of Soulforce. Soulforce is an American social justice and civil rights organization that supports acceptance of LGBT people through dialogue and creative forms of nonviolent direct action. It is inspired by the principles of relentless nonviolent resistance as taught and practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. Mel White grow up and live in a Evangelical Christian family. Before coming out as a gay man, Mel was a ghostwriter for Evangelical leaders. He loved both his family and church but he quickly realized he is gay when he joined boy scouts. He spent 40 years in therapy, tried to get over attraction to men and even get married with woman and have kids. After 40 years of trying, his wife told him: “You tried hard and it’s time to get your own life.” In 1999, Mel white and his partner co-founded Soulforce.

Why It Worked:

Kate and Sheila found LGBT group continue to face exclusion and discrimination in society. Thus, they made this film, against the discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. People in Sole Journey stand up for gay rights and they usually resulting in arrests. “In 2005, in which several families took part in a 6 day trek from Denver to Colorado Springs to Dobson's headquarters.”

Sole Journey is an inspiring and true story of courageous families confronting the anti-LGBT rhetoric and political policy-making of the fundamentalist mega-organization Focus on the Family. The film has screened at the Breckenridge Festival of Film and the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival where it ranked as one of the top documentaries of the festival. 

In this film, gay and lesbian people are able to share their stories with audience such as the Kate and Sheila interviewed Shepard family. Judy and Dennis Shepard lost their gay son Matthew, to a hate crime. Their son was severely beaten, tied to a wooden fence and left to die outside Laramie, Wyoming. The film also introduced another family who had a child is gay. The mother said: “When Jack first time came out, we know nothing about homosexual reality, so we had to educated.” At the end, she appealed to people to learn about LGBT group and give respect and protect for LGBT people.

BT principles: 

Consider your audience 

Use other’s prejudices against them

Do the media’s work for them, if you want media coverage for your event, give them a story they can’t refuse. 

Put movies in the hands of movements. By telling a personal story, documentary film can make an otherwise difficult- to- approach issue accessible. Filmmakers and activists, working together, can collaborate to make a film a story-driven lever for change. 

New principle:

Use Media to Affect Our Society

Today, billions of people use social media every day, and that number is still increasing. Public’s time and attention is increasingly directed toward media platforms. Some social media such as blogs, Twitter, films, YouTube have great influence on people’s thoughts and actions. Recent years, the relationship between social media use and protest activities participation become stronger. People use social media to join different kinds of activities such as demonstrations, marches and boycotts. In 2008, Kate and Sheila already use their film “Sole Journey” against people's prejudice and discrimination of gay and lesbian and appeal people to understand LGBT group.