YOUTH
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The following videos are engaging ways of exploring each of the seven components of the Pledge of Nonviolence. The initials "WF," "T/A" and "A" after each annotated description refer to the appropriate audience for that video. "WF" means appropriate for the whole family. "T/A" means appropriate for teens and adults. "A" means appropriate for only adults. Most of these videos are also listed in A CALL TO PEACE: 52 MEDITATIONS ON THE FAMlLY PLEDGE OF NONVIOLENCE (Liguori Publications and the Institute for Peace and Justice, 1998). For extensive reviews of these videos and many others, subscribe to VISUAL PARABLES (P.O. Box 58, Topeka, KS 66601-0058; 1-800-528-6522), a monthly magazine of Christian reflections on films and videos by Dr. Edward McNulty.

"Avalon" (respect for elders: deep bonds across three generations; T/A)

"Baghdad Café (a sturdy German housewife parts company with her boorish husband in the middle of the Mojave Desert and finds self-respect while improving the lives of others; T/A)

"The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" (family of misfits turns the traditional pageant into magic; WF)

"The Cure" (a boy with AIDS, shunned by the neighborhood, is befriended by another boy; WF)

"Dead Man Walking" (a racist rapist and murderer is led by his spiritual counselor to see himself as a child of God; T/A)

"Dead Poets' Society" (the power of teachers and parents to encourage and discourage youth; T/A)

"Fried Green Tomatoes" (abused wife finds respect from friends and her husband gets his come-uppance; T/A)

"Good Will Hunting" (a counselor helps a youth see his worth; T/A)

"The Great Santini" (a mother's affirming letter to her son and a father's inability to accept his children; T/A)

"A Home For Ourselves" (a low-income mother refuses demeaning aid while struggling to transform a shack into a home for her family; WF)

"It's a Wonderful Life" (George is shown how wonderful he is; WF)

"Long Walk Home" (respect for people of color: fictional account of the Montgomery bus boycott; T/A)

"Love Field" (a put-down wife leaves her husband and finds self-worth; T/A)

"Mask" (a youth with a disability comes to respect himself and find acceptance; T/A)

"Muriel's Wedding" (a much put-down young woman takes charge of her life with happy results; T/A)

"The Outsiders" (a working class group of highschoolers, dubbed "greasers" find a sense of self- worth through traumatic hardships; T/A)

"Philadelphia" (the struggles of a gay person to gain respect; T/A)

"Punchline" (an unappreciated mother must battle her husband and children in her quest to try her wings as a stand-up comedian; T/A)

"Romero" (dignity of the poor; when Archbishop Romero insists that all baptisms must be public, an aristocratic mother is upset at the thought of her baby being baptized with those of Indian women; T/A)

"The Saint of Fort Washington" (a mentally disturbed but gentle youth with healing in his hands is dubbed the "Saint of the Homeless;" T/A)

"Secrets and Lies" (a white mother estranged from her daughter and brother finds a new lease on life when her Black daughter, given up for adoption, re-enters her life; T/A)

"The Spitfire Grill" (coming to see another as beautiful; T/A)

"This Boy’s Life" (a young boy learns to cope with living with an abusive stepfather and no protection from his mother; T/A)

"A Bronx Tale" (a father, fearful that his son is idolizing a charismatic local mobster, tries to explain why his dull-seeming lifestyle is better than that of a gangster; T/A)

"The Buttercream Gang" (a minister and a father help an adolescent boy decide to use nonviolence in resisting a former friend; WF)

"Do the Right Thing" (importance of good communication: how not to deal with differences; T/A)

"Grand Canyon" (communicating with teens: a good scene of a parent teaching a youth to drive; respectful talk prevents a mugging or worse; T/A)

"The Great Santini" (the struggle toward mutuality with a tyrannical father, T/A)

"Matewan" (a union organizer unifies groups of miners; T/A)

"Tribute" (a show biz father is reconciled with his resentful son after a long time; T/A)

"The War" (a father with flashbacks to the Vietnam War frankly tells his son what happened to him during the war; T/A)

"A World Apart" (the daughter of a white anti-apartheid journalist resents the persecution of her classmates, but also the neglect of her busy mother; T/A)

"Amazing Grace and Chuck" (even though an Air Force pilot disagrees with his young son’s protest against stockpiling nuclear weapons, he allows him to go ahead; WF)

"Babe" (a prejudiced sheep dog has to listen to the despised sheep if he wants to save his friend the pig; WF)

"Citizen Kane" (in a series of scenes in which neither husband nor wife listens well, we see the deterioration of a marriage; T/A)

"Entertaining Angels" (a woman’s suicide teaches Dorothy Day the importance of listening; T/A)

"E.T." (a good example of not listening: a mother babbles as her child tries to introduce her to his friend, a small alien; WF)

"Fly Away Home" (when a divorced father assumes care of his young daughter following the death of her mother, she is hostile, but he supports her plan to raise a family of geese and teach them to fly; WF)

"Kramer vs. Kramer" (neglectful husband/father learns to listen; T/A)

"Mr. Holland’s Opus" (musician becomes an attentive teacher; T/A)

"Ordinary People" (suicidal teen finds a model listener in his therapist; T/A)

"Philadelphia" (an anti-gay lawyer sees the human face of his gay client for the first time as he listens to the man passionately explain an opera aria; T/A)

"Tea House of the August Moon" (army captain learns how to center through the Japanese tea ceremony; T/A)

"Babette’s Feast" (during an elaborate French dinner, members of a Lutheran sect forgive each other; T/A)

"Broadway Danny Rose" (a woman seeks Danny’s forgiveness through his own philosophy: Forgiveness, Acceptance & Love;” T/A)

"The Buttercream Gang" (a boy, mentored by caring adults, forgives the former friend who has been tormenting him; WF)

"Cry, the Beloved Country" (in racist South Africa, a white father forgives the father of the black man who kills his son; T/A)

"Dead Man Walking" (Sr. Helen Prejean’s ministry of reconciliation; T/A)

"Eleni" (an American journalist seeking revenge for the death of his mother years before puts away his gun when the little girl of the murderer comes into the room; T/A)

"Karate Kid II" (love of one’s enemies can overcome enmity; WF)

"Les Miserables" (forgiveness heals; A)

"Marvin’s Room" (two estranged sisters forgive each other after years of neglect and midunderstanding; T/A)

"Places in the Heart" (during a Communion service, a wife finds forgiveness for her adulterous husband; T/A)

"The Power of One" (the need to renounce unjust privileges and make amends; white South African youth joins the struggle against apartheid; T/A)

"Salvador" (the need to renounce unjust privileges and make amends; self-centered US journalist is transformed by his experience in El Salvador; T/A)

"Amazing Grace and Chuck" (a youth sacrifices to save the earth; WF)

"Brother Sun, Sister Moon" (Francis of Assisi’s love of creation; WF)

"The Burning Season" (Chico Mendez leads his people against those who would burn down the Amazon forest for lumber and ranch land; T/A)

"China Syndrome" (a reporter and a nuclear power plant manager form an unlikely alliance when the manager’s superiors do not heed his warnings about the safety of the installation; T/A)

"Dances with Wolves" (Native Americans’ respect for the earth, in contrast with the wanton destruction of buffalo and other forms of life; T/A)

"Gorillas in the Mist" (the dignity of all creatures: Diane Fossey’s work with gorillas in Africa; WF)

"The Lorax" (Dr. Seuss’s delightful children’s story about defending the earth from the advances of development; WF)

"Mosquito Coast" (the threat of development to the peoples and the environment of the Amazon rain forest; T/A)

"A River Runs Through It" (a minister father comes closest to his two sons when they are fishing; T/A)

"Silkwood" (a once-dissolute woman pulls herself together as she combats her company’s policy of dumping nuclear waste illegally; T/A)

"Baghdad Café" (a stranded German housewife uses magic tricks to bring joy to people in a desert diner; T/A)

"Beautiful Dreamers" (poet Walt Whitman loosens up two stiff Canadians when the wife of one joins the men in the swimming hole; T/A)

"Chariots of Fire" (a great runner refuses to race on Sunday; T/A)

"A Christmas Without Snow" (amateur choir learns about life while rehearsing The Messiah; WF)

"The Color Purple" (Shug and her God celebrate purple flowers; T/A)

"Fiddler on the Roof" (through music and dance the oppressed Jewish villagers express their joy of living; T/A)

"Field of Dreams" (baseball becomes the metaphor for bringing people together for a second chance in life; WF)

"Hook" (a grown-up Peter Pan rediscovers the child within; WF)

"Matewan" (baseball and music become the symbol of the growing unity between once hostile Italian, black and white West Virginian miners; T/A)

"My Life" (a circus is the symbol for a dying man of the joy and celebration of life; T/A)

"Searching for Bobby Fisher" (a mother saves a boy and father from taking the game of chess too seriously; T/A)

"Shall We Dance?" (Japanese businessman learns the joy of dance; T/A)

"Unhook the Stars" (a mother rekindles her zest for life by caring for a troubled youth; T/A)

"The War" (a critique of violent play; T/A)

"Zorba the Greek" (an exuberant Greek teaches an inhibited Englishman to join the dance of life; T/A)

"Amazing Grace and Chuck" (young athlete confronts the arms race; WF)

"Boyz ‘N the Hood" (the struggle of urban youth; T/A)

"The Burning Season" (after a terrible beating, Chico Mendez leaves his village but returns to fight those destroying his people’s forest; T/A)

"City of Joy" (two Westerners find humanity in the poor of India struggling against the violence of poverty; T/A)

"Cry Freedom" (after Steve Biko is murdered while in police custody, a white South African journalist sneaks his family out of the country to safety in order to tell the world about his friend; T/A)

"Dances with Wolves" (a white soldier sides with native Americans during conflict in the West; T/A)

"A Dangerous Life" (nonviolent resistance to Marcos in the Phillippines; T/A)

"Entertaining Angels" (Dorothy Day’s struggle against the violence of poverty; T/A)

"For Us the Living" (Medgar Evers faces the hatred of racist whites, who eventually murder him; T/A)

"Gandhi" (his life of nonviolent resistance against all forms of injustice; T/A)

"Long Walk Home" (fictional account of the Montgomery bus boycott and how both African Americans and white Americans struggled against racism; T/A)

"Lord Jim" (a former coward finds redemption during a crisis; T/A)

"Malcolm X" (the story of his struggle against injustice; T/A)

"A Man for All Seasons" (Catholic Sir Thomas Moore risks his own life by refusing to accept King Henry as head of the church; T/A)

"Marie" (state official confronts governor over corruption; T/A)

"The Mission" (missionaries resist the oppression of indigenous people in Latin America; T/A)

"Romero" (confronting injustice in El Salvador; T/A)

"Silkwood" (nuclear plant worker confronts her company; T/A)

"To Kill a Mockingbird" (two children learn how courageous their father is during a racial crisis; WF)