Movie Night Done Right

How to make sure the event adds educational value to a program

By Chris Thurber

The quickest way to undo weeks of values-education at camp is a thoughtless movie night. There are two reasons for this, both of which all youth-development professionals should consider before screening the next film. First, introducing movies and other passive forms of modern entertainment makes camp less different from, and therefore less special than, all the other experiences young people can have throughout the year. Second, presenting movies without context, discussion, or critique forces young people to draw their own conclusions about how the world works, how relationships work, and how to get what they want.

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / AntonPrado

Summer Camp Vs. Summer Resort

Michael B. Smith, a professor of history and environmental studies at Ithaca College, trenchantly summarized the first serious debate about summer camp’s identity. The time was the early 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression. Organized summer camping in the U.S. was 65 years old and had really blossomed between the 1880s and the 1920s. Now the current leaders of the movement were holding up a mirror and forcing their colleagues to question what they saw.

In his 2006 Carnegie Scholar article for HistoryCooperative.org, titled ‘The Ego Ideal of the Good Camper’ and the Nature of Summer Camps, Smith wrote:

“Noted outdoorsman Henry Wellington Wack … found in his survey of camps that many [noisy artificialities] were being allowed, and the contrast between the world of camp and the world beyond [had] faded: ’The casual entertainments of sports clubs, summer resorts, and boarding houses’ had at too many camps replaced the “arts and activities of the forest, field, and stream.’”

The menu of activities at camp featured too prominently the “pastries” of civilization: movies, radio, tennis lessons—leisure and recreation, yes, but not pursuits that utilized the uniqueness of the camp environment. Such reliance on “artificial” sources of entertainment was a “sure symptom of intellectual and spiritual illiteracy,” lamented Hedley Dimock and Charles Hendry in Camping and Character, a foundational text for camp administrators in the 1930s.

“We do everything in camp except camp,” Ben Solomon told an assembled group of camp people at the Columbia University Teacher’s College. “Every activity we can find to fit into the daily program is put in, but there is a notable lack of camping—living out in the open—the very thing that gave the movement its birth.”

Speaking before the New York section of the ACA in 1931, Frank Hackett told his fellow camping leaders that “too often we give [campers] the stones of protection, of luxury, of imitation of the very city life they are fleeing.” The “movies, shows, highly-organized sports and other transferences from the accustomed environment” were “a representation of life[,] not life itself.

Just as every summer youth program must decide for itself whether smartphones and electronic music enrich or detract from the camp’s core purposes, each must also decide whether movies belong on the schedule. Showing a movie at a day camp or overnight camp is an easy way to keep a large group of kids entertained for a couple hours, but is it the best way?

I grew up at an overnight camp that showed a movie once every two weeks, and I mostly loved it, as did the other campers. Of course, I would have also loved candy, gum, a television and air conditioning in every cabin, and the option of sleeping until noon each day. The mere fact that kids enjoy something does not prove that thing’s worth. If it did, Big Macs would be deemed the world’s most nutritious food, and Fortnite would be considered the most educational activity.

Ben Solomon’s admonition, “We do everything in camp except camp,” rings in my ears, as it should in yours. Decisions about which activities are on the program should not, of course, be based on whether campers will stand up and cheer, but on how the experience will change them. In my mind, the ideal camp is a counter-cultural vehicle for accelerating positive youth development. It is not a cushy resort designed to entertain a passive audience of sedentary kids.

Stated differently: Camp owners, directors, leadership teams, administrative staff, unit heads, frontline counselors, and cabin leaders should all be asking the same question about every aspect of the camp’s program: How does this activity contribute to our advertised outcomes?

When it comes to movie night, what is the answer?

Context Vs. Confusion

At the camp where I grew up and worked for nearly four decades, the answer to whether movie night bolstered or busted the camp’s mission was unclear to me, at least at first. In fact, it may have been unclear to everyone in 1980 when a hapless assistant program director chose the 1978 Hal Needham flick, Hooper, for movie night. (Typecast as an aging Hollywood stuntman with relationship problems, Burt Reynolds and Sally Field bumble their way through 99 minutes of the basest and most misogynistic slapstick ever showcased in a PG picture.) About half-way through this cringe-worthy classic, Reynold’s character, Sonny Hooper, surprises his friend Roger with a huge birthday box, out of which steps a topless woman.

Everyone in the scene cheers but Roger, who appears mortified, but the entire audience of 8- to 15-year-old campers went nuts. If anyone was mortified, there was no way to tell. In fact, for the next five minutes, you could not hear any dialogue over the roars of shocked laughter. (Years later, I found out that, when the camp director learned about the scene, a few staff members came close to losing their jobs.) Granted, there are thousands more bare breasts in the Denon Wing of the Louvre than in seven seconds of Hooper. But the concern our director had was not about the human form, but about that particular scene’s vulgarity and, more generally, about the objectification of people’s bodies. Fortunately, he had the good sense to respond to his staff’s media misstep by asking them to discuss the film with their cabins. In the conversation my leader facilitated with our cabin of nine 12-year-old boys, we talked about what made the scene objectionable, what it meant to objectify someone’s body, and what a better birthday present would have been. Those reflections were a beneficial counterpoint to the puerile thrill of a surprise nude scene in an otherwise banal movie. The conversations could not undo the media exposure, but they could give it context. In retrospect, this may have been one of the most educational moments for me that summer because I understood how differently that birthday scene could be viewed, and it was clear that the grown-ups I admired viewed it quite differently than I had.

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / jwblinn

I am not suggesting you purposely saturate campers’ free time with inappropriate media, simply to give everyone the opportunity for an enlightening conversation. What I am saying is this: If you do decide that the activity of Movie Night supports your mission, vision, and values, then it is worth doing right. Here are four ways to get started:

1. Do not rely on ratings to decide if a film is appropriate for the age, developmental level, and cultural sensitivities of your camper audience. Instead, base your decision on two factors: (a) the honest assessment of an experienced staff member who has seen the film, and (b) the website commonsensemedia.org, which provides systematic reviews and an accurate content assessment of movies, video games, books, apps, and television shows. Together, these two factors will give you a solid appraisal of a movie’s appropriateness and value.

2. Encourage discussion of the film’s plot before movie night. (If there is not enough of a story to sustain a good discussion among staff members and campers, pick a different film.) The pre-screening discussion will help staff gauge campers’ understanding of the movie’s themes and setting while there is still time to fill in the gaps. The pre-screening discussion also gives staff an opportunity to share opinions and history, and to opine on the plot’s connection to life at camp.

3. Watch the movie together, instead of plunking the campers down and letting most of the staff members take the night off. (If staff members are not excited to stay for the screening, pick a different film. After all, this is a community event, not a form of virtual babysitting.) Even if most of the staff members have seen the movie, they will want the content to be fresh in their minds for the post-screening discussion.

4. Ask open-ended questions that help campers process and contextualize what they saw. Unless there are some campers who are eager to talk about the film immediately, I suggest letting them talk among themselves and reflect for a while after the film ends. A half-hour or so later, the counselor or cabin leader can ask questions, such as:

• What did you like most and least about this movie?

• Which scenes are you still thinking about?

• What questions did the movie leave you asking?

• How well did the main characters deal with the challenges they faced?

• What did you like and dislike about how the characters treated one another?

• What about the movie reminded you of how we do things here at camp?

• What about the movie seemed totally different from how we do things here at camp?

• Which people, places, or events in the movie reminded you of a person, place, or event in your life?

• What alternate ending can you think of that might have made this movie even better?

With thoughtful selection, engaged participation, and some pre- and post-screening discussions, you can transform a “pastry” of civilization into an all-camp tutorial in conflict resolution, ethical decision-making, perseverance, or courage, to name a few. Most important, you can ensure that movie night—if you do choose to have one—adds something educational to your program, rather than eroding it.

Dr. Christopher Thurber is a thought leader in positive youth development. He has dedicated his professional life to promoting social and emotional adjustment for young people who are spending time away from home at boarding schools, summer camps, and hospitals. Most recently, he co-founded Prep4Camp and Prep4School to share homesickness-prevention techniques and academic success strategies with the world. Thurber has been invited to present keynotes and workshops on five continents and is an award-winning contributor to international conferences, magazines, radio shows, and television broadcasts. Learn more, download resources, and subscribe to fresh content by visiting DrChrisThurber.com