Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that Girl Rising is an informative, educational documentary about the lives of impoverished girls living in countries where education for girls isn't a priority. Directed by Oscar-nominated documentarian Richard Robbins (Operation Homecoming) and narrated by A-list stars including Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Selena Gomez, the film explores the dangerous inequalities that girls and young women face in parts of the world. Some of the segments deal with intense and disturbing topics including slavery, child marriage, rape, and human trafficking. There are matter-of-fact discussions of these issues, but nothing graphic is shown.
Sexual
Content
Mention of brothels as being the inevitable destination and source of employment for poor girls in a remote village in the Peruvian Andes. One section explains how child brides must be a certain age or they will be "split open" by their husbands.
Violence
One of the girls recalls that she was raped, and nothing was done to convict her attacker. Another girl discusses how her father, a gold miner, died. And another explains how horrible it was to be a child servant/bonded laborer in Nepal. Most of the girls experience cultural and societal prejudice.
Language
Not applicable
Social
Behavior
Girl Rising's message is loud and clear: Girls in many parts of the world don't have the access they need to attend school and receive an education. Many girls in the Fourth World are kept at home, offered up in early marriage, and even "sold" into forced labor. The movie stresses that the rest of the world needs to take notice and take action to help educate girls and free them from the literal and figurative bonds that keep them illiterate, uneducated, and subservient.
Consumerism
Not applicable
Drugs / Tobacco /
Alcohol
One girl mentions that a grown man (who ended up raping her) offered her alcohol to drink.
