Depression. Bullying. Steroid abuse. These are some of the most harrowing issues affecting young people today. The threat they pose is reaching crisis levels. Counselors and educators all over The United States and Canada struggle to keep ahead of the spread of these afflictions.

Seven powerful and provocative new short films, collectively called The Maple Ave Series, provide valuable tools for initiating a dialogue about these disorders and shedding much-needed light on serious problems that teens face every day. Each Maple Ave film sets teens in believable dramas in which they struggle with an ever-growing roster of issues.

The Hurting: Cutting for Relief

One of the most troubling of these issues is self-mutilation, more commonly known as “cutting.” Cutting was virtually unheard of just a few years ago but is now finding its way into the mainstream of teen life. In THE HURTING: Cutting for Relief, a girl named Ashley substitutes one kind of pain for another, regularly cutting her arms and legs as a way of masking the misery of living with an abusive parent.

Ghosts in the Hall

Same Problem, Different Perspectives

As disturbing as cutting may be, it is not as widespread as the epidemic of bullying. In HATING TAMI: A Look At Female Bullying, the main character is regularly ridiculed by her classmates. Tami is even made the butt of a classmate’s vicious prank in which a boy appears to be interested in her. Besides the all too realistic depiction of Tami’s predicament, the film examines the role of parents whose attitudes can sometimes leave kids emotionally stranded.

Another Maple Ave film, GHOSTS IN THE HALL: The Aftermath of Bullying, deals with the same subject from a different perspective. The film presents two teens, Jim and Jenny, who have the same problem but whose lives, we soon find out, take radically different trajectories. Like Tami in the previous film, the two are tormented by their peers. Jenny is able to pull herself from a deep depression. But Jim can’t cope. His gradual slide into despair makes it easy to see how simple-seeming student pranks can end in disaster.

Jenny's Reasons

Friends Helping Friends

Depression, resulting from bullying, is the subject of JENNY’S REASONS: A Story About Teen Depression. Jenny—the same girl who appears in Ghosts in the Hall—is in the grip of a deep depression. Confused, overwhelmed and desperate, Jenny makes plans to kill herself but is saved when a friend, Tanya, intervenes at the last moment, helping Jenny to cope by sharing a dark secret from her own life.

Jenny returns the favor in another Maple Ave film, P.S. I MISS YOU: The Aftermath of Suicide. Tanya has a serious problem of her own: her brother has recently taken his life, and Tanya can’t make sense of it. She tries to deal with the loss by reaching out and helping others. But nothing seems to help. She starts drinking, and when that also does no good, she drinks more. Things have gone from bad to worse when her friend Jenny steps in and pulls Tanya back from the brink.

P.S. I Miss You

No Strange Bedfellows

At first blush, bulimia and steroids may not seem to belong together in the same film. But as MORE THAN THIS: Steroid Abuse & Eating Disorders points out, these two seemingly unrelated disorders are quite similar: each is about addictive personalities, and each involves body image issues on both sides of the gender fence.

The film follows Donnie, a star basketball player, whose abuse of steroids is completely unraveling his life. His coach is reluctant to help his star planer, leaving the problem in the hands of his girlfriend, Angela. In this film, the character of Angela raises the question of the bystander, a person who is close to someone in trouble and either chooses to help… or not. While taking care of Donnie, Angela, who once struggled with bulimia, can’t bring herself to share her experiences with two classmates for whom such a gesture could be crucial.

The final film in the series also deals with addiction. In PROMISE ME: Parents with Addictions, Ann’s parents are tearing apart the family with their twin addictions—the father’s to gambling, the mother’s to alcohol. Like her mother, Ann has trouble facing reality. She can’t bring herself to confront them even after her father has worked his way through her entire college fund. The result for Ann is despair. Despite the efforts of her brother and her best friend, her depression worsens until it seems that she is powerless to do little else but succumb to it.

Promise Me

Films Fulfilling their Function

Besides the hot-button nature of the subject matter, the Maple Ave. series is certain to appeal for many other reasons. The recurring characters in these films give the series the welcome familiar feel of a weekly TV show. Each of the seven programs is 25-30 minutes long. This makes them ideal for classroom presentations, allowing time for questions and discussion. And since it’s likely that these engaging films will provoke a good deal of healthy reaction, the chances are good that they will do what they are supposed to: they will help.

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