The Shift: Voices of Prevention — A podcast by Prevent Child Abuse America
How do we create a future where every family is safe, supported, and filled with hope? The Shift explores bold, upstream solutions to the public health challenges facing children and families today.
Hosted by Prevent Child Abuse America, each episode features transformative conversations with experts, changemakers, and people with lived experience. Together, we dive into prevention strategies, policy breakthroughs, and the systemic shifts that have the power to change lives.
Part of PCA America’s movement to make family well-being the new normal, The Shift amplifies the voices and ideas shaping a brighter, more hopeful future for all families.
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The Shift: Voices of Prevention — A podcast by Prevent Child Abuse America
Ep. 7: David Goldblum, Paul Blavin, and Siena Oberman | PCA America 2023 National Conference Podcast
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Welcome to the official broadcast of PCAA America's National Conference. I'm Nathan Fink, and I'll be your host for the next four days as we embark on this transformative journey and hear from experts in prevention, and together discover innovative family-focused policies, cutting-edge research programs, and practices that help drive the field toward upstream thinking so every child has the opportunity to grow up safe and nurtured. As Prevent Child Abuse America's first in-person meeting of state chapters and home visiting networks, policy and community partners, and other collaborators since 2019, the 2023 conference offers nearly 90 sessions, three keynote speakers, workshops, symposia, and presentations focusing on effective prevention strategies with nationally recognized experts and leaders. So tune in to hear from professionals, advocates, and innovators in child abuse and neglect prevention because each day is an opportunity to build foundations for our future. Hello and welcome to PCA America's National Conference Podcast. I'm thrilled to be here with David Goldblum, Paul Blavin, and Sienna Oberman to talk about media's role in shaping narratives about abuse and neglect. David, Paul, and Sienna, welcome to the show. Thanks for having us. When we talk about media in general, we we often use this broad brush stroke. So I'm curious to know how do you guys view media and its responsibility around creating mindsets that are either positive or negative?
SPEAKER_01:I think what's great about media is it can raise visibility on issues in a way that other formats or platforms can't. I mean, you look at the numbers with a Netflix movie and you can get eyeballs around the world, 40 million people seeing a project that if it was a news article or if it was a play, they just that wouldn't be possible. So I think media, it it can really raise visibility visibility in a massive way, and then it can call people to action. It can get people uh connected in a way that they want to make positive change.
SPEAKER_02:I think that um media has the power to open people's hearts and transcend their skeptical or fearful um or angry minds. And um that is unique, in my opinion, um, to to art that's used by the media. And um so uh as filmmakers or musicians, that's a uh very powerful opportunity uh to cut through the groupthink and the uh fear that often pervades the media these days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think media is a very powerful tool to help people feel seen, uh to feel inspired, and to share perspective. Uh it's I I can only mostly speak to movies because that's what I work in. But movies are an empathy machine, and uh perhaps someone either experienced something and can relate to it and feel empowered by it if it's told in a certain fashion, or someone who hasn't had an experience within, you know, an hour and a half or two hours can watch a movie and go through the emotional journey of someone who had that experience. And I I think it's such a unique tool, and it's part of the reason why I fell in love with making movies, is there aren't that many tools in our world that can kind of just let you jump into someone else's mind and uh emotional experience and learning lessons so quickly.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, you really do have that power to reach in. You know, and in in your introductory panel, you guys both, Paul and David, talked about a child called It and that power to change hearts and minds. But before you can change a heart, you gotta kind of take stock of where we are. So, with regards to abuse and neglect, what seems to be that current media mindset?
SPEAKER_02:I I would say um the media mindset around child abuse is fear, shame, and anger, which is interesting. So, you know, people can um become very angry themselves when they see cases of child abuse. And you know, the truth is their anger is no better than the perpetrator's anger. But yet that's uh unfortunately a kind of our human reaction um oftentimes. But I think it's really important the way the uh narrative is delivered in these types of situations, so that we're hopefully not calling for vengeance and increased anger, but actually empathy, compassion, and love, even for the perpetrators.
SPEAKER_00:I think that there's um sometimes a simplification of good and evil in media and unfortunately around this issue. And I I don't think a lot of people understand it. I think a lot of the wonderful people here at this conference do. Um but I I think that's part of our hope in making the movie is that it can open people's hearts and minds, stepping away from the negative preconceptions or emotions that make people hesitant to do so, and to really be able to talk about it and evolve hopefully a lot of people's future lives or present lives because it's understood much more. I think Paul said it very well is that it it shouldn't be something that's shamed on. Um it needs to be something that's more understood and t more tools need to be provided as to how it can be prevented. You know, it's it's I think um it's a challenging subject, but we're very uh thankful and excited to be behind it and to open people's minds and hearts.
SPEAKER_02:And you know, we're only as sick as our secrets. So, you know, for those parents that are um out there that are human and you know are at their edges, you know, they need to real they we we hope that we can provide uh motivation and inspiration that they can speak up rather than try to cover up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I came onto this project almost 10 years ago, and I I remember when I first got the numbers of how many millions of copies the book sold. It was like 12 million or 15 million. And I think in the 90s and early 2000s, like people will sit with a book that explores childhood trauma or abuse, and they can shut it and come back to it or open up and read it at the pace that they want. But to do a movie, that's a whole different uh beast. And I remember when I first wrote the script, I sent it to a friend who was running production at one of the biggest for one of the biggest producers in Hollywood, and she said, Hollywood's just not here yet. Like the zeitgeist in Hollywood just hasn't. Um, it's just not open to trauma. And I I've watched over the last 10 years as Hollywood has become more open to telling these types of stories, and you see the hit TV shows um that are about addiction or trauma. And I mean, if you look at, I think it was Life Mag or New York magazine last month, the cover says trauma. Like I think society has become more open to having these conversations. So I think we're at a really exciting point where people are now ready to um embrace a movie like ours.
SPEAKER_03:I think you guys are right on it. Like Paul, as you had said, when you see these titles trauma, you have to do something with it. You've got to bring it out of this category that you put it into and didn't have to, because you could leave it there. But now you bring it out and we have to do something with it. And but narrative is one of the coolest, most powerful tools you can have. So you mentioned, David, about the fact that Hollywood wasn't there. Well, we're it's getting there, right? So, whatever are some of our narrative tools, structural tools to get that change going.
SPEAKER_02:Character building is really important. It's a double-edged sword with narrative, and we can perpetuate stereotypes, and that's a very big risk. And that's the easy path. That's the path of least resistance. It's also the path that's you know easiest to sell to people, you know, is the stereotypical path. It's really incumbent on us to shift that and build the characters so that you can actually see people for what they are rather than a st a stereotype.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the fear of identifying with somebody. Yeah, I think Sienna really brought that out throughout the project because in our movie, it's based on the book where the mother is of, you know, by all intents and purposes, a very bad person, and Sienna really helped flesh out like we have to find humanity even in the worst of us, because first of all, actors aren't gonna want to play a one-sided villain, but also audiences need to also see ourselves in these people so that we can do better. Um, so I think that's something we did really well with the script is like we have a character who's a quote-unquote villain, but we understand her. She comes from trauma and she recreated, you know, the tools that she had. So yeah, that's been our delicate balance is like, how do you not make her a hero, obviously, but make her a human?
SPEAKER_03:All about relationships, building relationships with the characters, with the narrative arc, all of it so we can get to a better place. David Paul, Sienna, I so appreciate your time. I know you got a train to catch. Thank you. Late checkout.$65 later.
SPEAKER_00:We're so thankful for you guys.
SPEAKER_03:And stay tuned for more interviews from PCA America's National Conference Podcast.