A movie about the name Shelton morphs
into more than a joke
Natasha Nader / Reporter
Angela Shelton thought it would be funny to meet every woman
in America with the same first and last name as she.
Her intention was to do a documentary about women today to
see "where we are, where we've been, and where
we're going, but what she actually discovered was far
more profound and emotional than anything she imagined.
Shelton used her name as a method to find women to talk with
for her documentary, "Searching for Angela
Shelton."
"I totally made the movie as a joke, and in the end,
the joke was on me," she said.
As a child, she was raped, abused and molested by her
father, step-mother and siblings. As she told her story to
the Angela Sheltons across the country. As she wrote the life
histories of these women, she started to see patterns of
trauma. Out of 40 Angela Shelton, 28 had also been abused,
raped or molested.
"They're so amazing, they're like my sages.
They're like the angels on my shoulder pushing me
forward."
Shelton had been suicidal, a self-mutilator, and extremely
depressed because of her abusive past. When Shelton received
e-mails from people who heard about her story and whose lives
she changed because of her work, she knew suicide was not the
answer.
"If I love all of these people so much, I kind of have
to love myself too," she said.
As Shelton told her story in Whitley Auditorium on Tuesday,
the crowd found themselves crying as well as laughing.
Shelton took an extremely serious subject matter and used her
own humorous personality to make parts of her story
entertaining and comical.
During the question and answer session, two girls were in
tears as they thanked her for coming to speak.
One girl said that her words were applicable to her life and
another basically asked why and how such acts occur; a
question to which Shelton responded, "It blows my mind,
too."
Shelton made it clear that any form of sexual abuse is not a
women's issue, but is instead a people problem.
"We cannot break the cycle of violence unless we break
the silence," she said.
Shelton is playing her role in helping to break the silence
by speaking publicly and doing numerous other projects.
Recently, she became a "Superhero" for children in
a children's video series about being safe. She says that
for her it is no longer about how much money is being made,
but more about the lives being saved.
At three-years-old, Shelton was taught how to perform sexual
acts, so when she found out her three-year-old cousin had
Chlamydia because the girl's father had been raping her,
she was outraged, especially because it was going on in her
own family.
Shelton's own father had sexually abused her as a child,
and when she spoke to him for the first time in 12 years, she
said she disassociated and "became a little kid
again."
It was not until she was editing the documentary that it
actually hit her, and it was then that the whole process of
the documentary seemed to be a metaphor-piecing herself
together, at a time when she said she was falling apart.
Throughout all of her struggles, Shelton continues to keep a
positive attitude. She says she doesn't have any regrets
and believes that everything happens for a reason.
Contact Natasha Nader at pendulum@elon.edu or
278-7247.
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Laura Hals / Photo Editor