'Middle Passage' Shown To Nine-Year-Olds: Educational Or Too Graphic?: 'Middle Passage' is a film that doesn't pull any punches.
The HBO-produced feature, directed by French film-maker Guy Deslauriers and starring Djimon Hounsou, describes in graphic detail the voyage of African slaves across the Atlantic to the New World. The brutal conditions aboard slave ships are tackled head-on; suicide and child rape are among the horrors depicted and discussed.
So when a teacher in Chicago's north suburbs showed the film to her fourth-grade students, some parents were not pleased.
'As a parent and father I was destroyed, in the sense that I felt incapacitated in protecting my child,' said Patrick Livney, father of nine-year-old Becca, a student at the Greeley School in Winnetka where the film was shown. 'The concept of a rape, suicide, depression at the age of 9 years old is a sad commentary,' he said, according to CBS.
TribLocal spoke with Mark Friedman, interim co-superintendent of Winnetka schools. He said that officials were still investigating the matter, but that the district is taking concerns seriously.
