The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Sandy Hook Promise wins Emmy Award for PSA
Sandy Hook Promise won its second Emmy Award on Saturday for its “Teenage Dream” Public Service Announcement, which depicts the trauma teenage school shooting survivors experience during adolescence.
Nicole Hockley, the organization’s co-founder and CEO, and mother of Dylan, who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, accepted the award for 2021 Outstanding Commercial at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony.
“We are deeply honored by this prestigious award," Hockley said in a statement. "The fact that the Academy chose to nominate two gun violence prevention ads, ours and Change the Ref ’s, among the best commercials of 2021 underscores just how important this issue is and why we must work together to end this epidemic plaguing our country. Awareness of the problem – and its solutions – are critical first steps.”
Sandy Hook Promise partnered with BBDO New York and SMUGGLER to produce the video, as well as previous PSAs, including "Back-to-School Essentials," which won the Emmy
in 2020, and the Emmy-nominated “Point of View." “Teenage Dream” was directed by HenryAlex Rubin of SMUGGLER for BBDO New York, and is part of a series of films created by the two organizations encouraging people
to learn and act on warning signs that may lead to gun violence.
Sandy Hook Promise also partnered with singer Katy Perry and school shooting survivors to add a new meaning to the Perry’s hit song “Teenage Dream.”
The video starts with Samantha Fuentes saying the first line of the song while looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Survivors begin to sing individual lines to form a slow melancholy rendition of “Teenage Dream.”
The video then flashes to scenes of a family sitting on a bed holding a framed picture of a teenage boy and a mother comforting her son on the bedroom floor.
The screen goes black and the words “The teenage dream is not what it used to be” appear. The commercial then reveals that the teenagers are school shooting survivors, who have experienced mental and physical trauma from the events.
Nick Dworet was killed in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and his younger brother, Alex, was shot in the head. Mia Page-Tretta was shot in the stomach in a shooting in Santa Clarita, CA. and her best friend was killed next to her. Nick Walczak was shot three times in a 2012 school shooting in Chardon, Ohio, and was paralyzed by a bullet in his spine, according to the video, which features them among the survivors.
The award comes a few weeks after Alex Jones defamation trial verdict, in which the conspiracy theorist was ordered to pay parents of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting a combined $49.3 million in damages for spreading lies that the tragedy was staged.