Educational Media Reviews Online

Reaching young, urban, sexually active men and women to inform them about STDs, HIV and other health concerns is a daunting task. Add to that target audience culturally specific groups, namely African Americans and Hispanics and the challenge increases. To that, add another layer of cultural complexity, that of the physically disabled population and you have the primary audiences for POP (guys). Video-based intervention in these target audiences has been proven to be effective based on studies from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and their VOICES program. The creators of POP (guys) wanted to expand the cultural competency of the VOICES video to include the physically disabled, specifically young males in wheelchairs.

This short film drama centers on one young man, Kelvin, and his group of male friends who are all in wheelchairs. One of the film’s strengths is how deftly they portray the main characters and focus on the primary subject—the disability almost becomes transparent, yet remains the integral part of the plot that it must be. As they participate in their active lives—playing basketball, hanging out together, going to bars—the conversation centers on their sex lives. When one of their friends contracts an STD and possibly HIV from an extramarital affair, the topic of protection is center stage. To get the message across, the story then centers on Kelvin’s struggle to make the right decision on whether or not to use a condom.

POP (guys) (Putting On Protection) will no doubt connect with its intended audience. It is professionally filmed, the actors and actresses are top-notch, and the dialog is hip, urban slang. There is a great music video interlude, with colorful graphics and a hip/hop song “No Glove, No Love.” This is sure to appeal to viewers and adds some very appropriate levity to the message. The stated goal of the filmmakers was to “empower people with disabilities to realize that they still can be sexual beings while giving them the tools needed to do so as safely as possible.” POP (guys): Protecting the Disability Community handily achieves this goal. One minor quibble—perhaps if some of the main group of friends were non-disabled or differently disabled, or female, it might have a more open feel. Future plans include a POP (girls) video, which will be a welcome addition. There are other educational films and documentaries that tackle the issue of sexuality and the disabled, but POP(guys) adds to the video-based intervention method for teaching about a specific issue—the benefits of condom use—and there are precious few good films in this area of consumer health.

The film is brief enough to hold the attention of younger viewers and will also be effective in a classroom situation for health sciences students at the college and university level. Programs in rehabilitation medicine, social work, and disability studies will want to add this film to their libraries.