There are many ways to communicate a public health message. We’ve all endured dreadful lectures (if not since school days) and heard the bromides from government officials. Some public-awareness campaigns are much more compelling than others.
Every instance is a well-intentioned attempt by good people to improve our health. But sometimes those good people don’t have good instincts about how to connect the message to the audience.
The story’s the thing. Tell a good story and the audience identifies with the characters and events. Then you are in position to invite people to think about a public health issue. The abstract has become relevant.
Lifetime Television gets it. The cable network, which is devoted to women’s programming, has unveiled an ambitious new “Stop Violence Against Women” initiative with a flurry of story lines. The campaign kicks off Sunday with the airing of its nighttime lineup of three one-hour dramas beginning at 7 p.m.
First up is a “Strong Medicine” episode about rape. The show was created by actress Whoopi Goldberg and screenwriter Tammy Ader. Next is spousal abuse of an older woman in “The Division,” a drama revolving around five female San Francisco police officers.
The final story line is an “Any Day Now” episode that uses the program’s “present” and “past” format to explore sexual harassment. In the present day, the lead character, played by actress Lorraine Toussaint, is in a group of women groped by businessmen at a convention (police don’t press charges). The past scene recalls a teen party in the lead character’s basement where a similar offense occurs, and she and other girls are held responsible for “leading them on.”
Each show promises a message that can reverberate in everyday life.
“Strong Medicine” has attracted a solid following in large part because of Chicago actress Rosa Blasi, who plays outspoken Dr. Lu Delgado. She and Dr. Dana Stowe (played by Janine Turner) are partners in a women’s clinic at a leading Philadelphia hospital.
In Sunday’s show, Delgado is raped by an acquaintance, the new chief of surgery at the hospital. The hour format follows along as Stowe completes a rape-kit exam of Delgado. Fans of the show are likely to cringe at times but not turn away.
“The audience response has been amazingly positive to the [Delgado] character,” writer Ader said during a recent telephone interview. “Women not only want to be her friend, they want her or a woman like her to be their doctors. My guess is regular viewers will feel compelled to be with her even it’s painful at times.”
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Several elements make the show work. One is the fact that it typically takes about an hour to complete a rape-kit exam, including the usual interruptions for the emergency room physician to check on other patients. You get a perspective of the process in real time.
Plus, completing a rape kit poses natural tension between emotional issues and collecting physical evidence. Delgado blames herself for not realizing the potential for rape, and police detectives–and Stowe–raise the possibility that Delgado may have misled the chief of surgeons to think she wanted sexual relations.
All this intersperses with scenes that show the search for DNA saliva samples on the face, neck and back (using a special lighting system that will rivet viewers) and even more intimate evidence collection (done in good taste).
Ader said the show required about four times the usual research and writing, mostly because “Strong Medicine” staffers made personal connections with rape counselors and rape survivors in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. She doesn’t regret the extra work.
“This is one of those stories we intended to do when Whoopi and I developed the show,” Ader said. “We wanted to focus on women physicians and women’s health issues.”
In this case, it is a television first to show viewers how the rape-kit exam is conducted.
The Delgado character will struggle with post-rape issues in two later episodes, including the value of support groups (some of the actresses are real-life rape survivors) and how to talk about the rape to her 15-year-old son.
“We called the rape counselors about that story line and it stumped them,” Ader recalled. “They said, `We know a lot about husbands and boyfriends, but we haven’t done much research on sons.'”
Lifetime Television will broadcast a Feb. 25 “Fear No More” documentary portraying women who have stopped the violence in their lives. Other dramas and non-fiction shows will follow in the months ahead.