Dark Angel fights hatred through film
The mother of murdered Sophie Lancaster has shown extraordinary courage in allowing her daughter’s final moments to be depicted in an animated film to combat hatred and intolerance among young people.
Sophie Lancaster
Student Sophie and her boyfriend Robert Maltby, both Goths, were targeted by a group of youths for looking “different”. They were kicked, stamped on and left unconscious in a park in Lancashire, England, in 2007. Sophie slipped into a coma and died later in hospital, while Robert made a partial recovery.
On what would have been Sophie’s 23rd birthday, more than 100 people joined Sophie’s mother Sylvia in Manchester for the first public screening of Sophie: A Dark Angel, a short film in her memory which will be shown internationally on MTV.
With music by Portishead, the evocative animation by award-winning French director Fursy Teyssier was commissioned by cult cosmetics brand Ilamasqua which supports the Sophie Lancaster Foundation through sales of SOPHIE (Stamp Out Prejudice, Hatred and Intolerance Everywhere) eyeliners and wristbands.
Mrs Lancaster hopes for £500,000 in donations to fund an interactive learning programme in schools on the theme of tolerance, and is working with behavioural experts Huthwaite International. You can support the SOPHIE appeal at www.sophielancasterfoundation.com.
Two youths, aged 15 and 16, were sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2008 for Sophie’s murder. Three others were jailed for the attack on Robert Maltby.
Tags: film, hate, hatred, intolerance, prejudice, SOPHIE, Sophie Lancaster, video
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Hair
I find this slightly worrying in a sense we’re now having to rely on external sources to teach our children tolerance to be totally honest, but on the flip-side of that, the majority of the time lately I feel like you can’t essentially do anything without offending some sort of community.
Children aren’t the only ones that need educating in some form of tolerance though, it also seems to be adults however sometimes not into this sort of excess. Being lumped together in a certain group seems to be the in thing to do, recently I was approached by police to be warned that only to be told “People like you” were being targeted lately and being assaulted, whilst I was thankful he was mentioning this to me so I could be slightly more vigilant I was also trying to put together what he was implying by “People like you”, in my mind this is where the intolerance starts, if the police can manage to adequately asses and then put you into a group before even meeting you, others can borrow that already made group (by someone in a position of power) and apply their own values be it hatred or acceptance to that group.
Apologies for the wall of text, these sort of subjects seem to just grab my attention in a way it turns me into an illiterate fool.
Tony
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. However, I’m not quite sure what is meant by “external sources” as teaching tolerance is a shared responsibility. To my mind, the Sophie Lancaster campaign touches people on a very personal level and we can all empathise as parents, sons or daughters. I’m sorry to read of your “people like you” incident but it might be helpful to imagine how you would feel in the role of a cop. I think young people also need to lighten up when it comes to communicating with the law. Just saying.