Musician Wendy Schneider was shocked to hear her friend’s daughter Kaylee had been self-injuring for four years.
She was more shocked when Kaylee said she knew 25 other students who participated in cutting.
After walking around Kaylee’s school and not seeing any information about who self-injuring students could contact, Schneider decided to make a documentary portraying the voices of the teenagers.
On Tuesday, March 18, Schneider showed her documentary “Cut: Teens and Self Injury” in the Science Lab Center at Winona State University.
“Cut” shares the stories of teenagers and why they resort to self-injury and cutting.
“Cut” begins with a teenage girl named Rachel who was in a mentally and physically abusive relationship with her boyfriend when she began cutting.
“(Cutting) was a way to release everything,” said Rachel.
Shirley Manson, lead singer of the rock band Garbage, shares her personal struggles with self-injury in “Cut.”
“Cutting itself was a stress reliever,” said Manson.
Manson said although she had a great family and upbringing, she still doesn’t understand why she resorted to cutting.
“The triggers for why I cut each time were different,” said Manson. “But the release was always the same.”
But even the release made Manson feel ashamed.
“I felt like a freak,” said Manson. “I had a compulsion to cut.”
Manson believes that cutting may be used by many women as a way to let their aggression out.
“The way our culture is present makes it unacceptable for girls to be violent,” said Manson. “Men can get rid of aggression through sports. Girls get labeled as bitches.”
Manson stopped cutting when Garbage formed in 1994.
“I had a new way to express myself,” said Manson.
Manson takes what she learned from her personal interactions with cutting as a way to better understand the world.
“(Cutting) allowed me to understand the world in a less black and white fashion,” said Manson.
Gina Young, playwright behind “She Cuts Herself/She Likes to Write,” told Schneider she used cutting as an alternative to getting upset and screaming.
“I didn’t think others [cut themselves],” said Young. “I met a lot of people in high school who self-injured.
Schneider wants her documentary to show a side of self-injury not depicted by the media.
“The way media shows cutting leaves out children,” said Schneider. “It makes them feel ashamed.”
Young believes there is an inaccurate ideology on suicide and self-injury.
“It’s a misconception that cutters are suicidal,” said Young. “Cutting is done to counter suicide.”
When asked by Winona State professor Dr. Joan Francioni why “Cut” doesn’t film someone cutting, Schneider says she wanted to show cutting through a different lens.
“(Filming someone cutting) reduces the child to a sliced arm,” said Schneider. “That idea became less important while filming. I wanted more about who it was that was cutting.”
“Cut” first premiered in 2007 at the Wisconsin Film Festival in Madison, Wis.
Schneider started her presentation with an audio documentation in 1989 with a piece that showed the lives of three civil rights activists who were murdered.
Schneider then decided to leave New York City and attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1990 and has lived in Wisconsin ever since.
“Cut” has been accepted to be screened at the 2008 American Psychological Association convention in Boston in August.

Contact Dana at DJKudelka7481@winona.edu