The impact of documentary filmmaking

Half the Sky being a documentary film allows the audience to have an inside look at the rising problems of third world countries. The exposure and information is momentous, it really allows your eyes to be opened to a problem that is widespread and important to recognize. I only have one real problem with documentary filmmaking, which is that it tends to be biased and one-sided. As I watch documentary's I feel that the issue being covered is receiving coverage and attention, but I wonder if the attention is only to what the filmmaker wants? The Half the Sky documentary included very intense and emotional footage....this artistic choice is purposeful and it does the job. I see this documentary as a positive usage of the sometimes flawed attempt of a documentary. It is easy to get caught up in TV and films, but the best thing to remember is that a documentary film is coming from a real place. Even though the material can be one-sided if the coverage is important and worthwhile then this is the the thing that matters the most.

Half the Sky; An Inspiration

While watching Half the Sky I cannot help but to think how useful this documentary is for raising awareness in different parts of the world. I find this documentary both inspiring and very interesting. Half the Sky is an easy way for people to become more aware about topics that are foreign to their own home turf. Our culture today is deemed sometimes as being quite lazy. If more students were shown this video they could become easily involved and aware without doing any research themselves.

This film was very smart by including celebrities of the modern day world. By including very important actress such as Meg Ryan and Eva Mendes creates more of a draw for different audience members. We can only hope that these celebrities will be more involved with these issues in the future. This is why this documentary is very different than others. In Somaly Mam’s book she discusses how often celebrities send her money to donate to her foundation. She tells the readers by sending money you are helping but you do not know what the living conditions or the situations are actually like. This is why I feel it is important that celebrities actually visit the place in need of awareness. By visiting celebrities can understand the hardships from a more personal experience. Once developing a personal experience the celebrity will feel most likely connected to this foundation and we can only help that they will use their limelight power by putting a spotlight on a country in need.

Dana Perino tells Female Violence Victims to "Make Better Decisions"

http://youtu.be/E9TKvge11QQ

So, I was on tumblr and came across this gem. Apparently women who are victims from a violent act (rape, domestic violence, etc.) need to "make better decisions". Hmmm..... really now? This comment was made in a discussion about Kansas City Chief's Line Backer, Javon Belcher, who murdered his girlfriend prior to killing himself this past weekend. While her co-hosts were talking about the merits of female gun ownership as a way to avoid violence against women, Dana Perino decided to quickly blame women themselves for being victims.

"PERINO: I think it skirts the issue that women are victims of violence all the time –

CO-HOST: They should have guns!

PERINO: Well, maybe, or make better decisions."

Misogyny is a work that comes to mind after seeing this clip. Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. It can be manifested in different ways including sexual discrimination, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women. It is unbelievably unfortunate to hear a woman portray such disgusting comments to victims of violence in a conversation that didn't even directly address this. Such a terrible view on women that I hope to not continue to see in our society. 

Also, I say an interesting post on tumblr. The post address the well known Christmas song, Baby It's Cold Outside by Dean Martin. This is what the post suggests. I thought that it gave an interesting perspective of such a well know Christmas song. “Occasionally referred to as the Christmas Date Rape Song, this duet was written by Frank Loesser in 1936.  While the song has a sweet melody to it, this style of duet is often referred to as mouse and wolf where the mouse part is traditionally sung by a woman and the wolf part by a man.  The predatory style description is amazingly accurate given that the man spends the whole song subtly pressuring the woman into staying with him for the night."

CALL FOR ART

"CALL FOR ART:

I am accepting submissions of the responses of victims/survivors of sexual abuse (rape, sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, etc.) that they would like to say to their perpetrators.

What I Need:

Your first name
Date assault happened (est.)/ date of submission
a handwritten paper of what you want to say to your perpetrators: you can draw, write, or both
City/village/town

 you are from
* You are open to do whatever you want for your submission. Any size, any medium, any content, anything!

*please message me on here or email me at neumannhanna0531@gmail.com for mailing information"

So, I have decided that I want to help people who had been silenced to be able to have a voice. The theme of silence that we learned about in Somaly Mam's book really inspired me to create a way for people who have been sexually abused to have the voice that they have always had and deserved. I am really excited to be a part of something like this. I have already received a decent amount of feedback about making submissions and it is so exciting. I am working on contacting some contemporary art museums to see if they would be willing to spread the word to a bigger audience. I am hoping to expand this project to more than just Fredonia. I really hope that word gets out and I receive a great amount of submissions by February 28, 2013. I am planning for the exhibition to be sometime at the middle or end of next semester. Spread the word and keep an eye out on more details and information!!

The Plight of Ms. Marvel

The first thing I've really learned while working on my research paper is this- the comic book universe is a weird, weird place.
Don't believe me? Take a look at this: Favorite Ms.Take
In short it's a video about the iconic Avengers 200 where Ms. Marvel is kidnapped, transported to another dimension, seduced via mind-control by an old enemy of the Avengers who proceeds to impregnate her with himself and send her back to earth so she can give birth to him and he can be in this dimension again.
Yeah, weird.
The thing that really irks me most, is when this is all explained to the Earth's Mightiest Heroes, they aren't really that bothered by it even though she was obviously raped. Cute baby, romantic story, everything's cool. And the readership didn't have anything to say about it either.
Watching this video infuriated me, and what was even more frustrating was that this wasn't something I had found out about while conducting my research- this was something I had been directed to by a friend. None of my searches had turned up any of this information about Ms. Marvel.
I feel like this reflects the culture of silence that surrounds rape in this day and age. We don't talk about it because it will encourage the act, instead of teaching people about it and discourage it. There's also this weird connotation with Ms. Marvel's story that seems as though there is also this under-toned idea that Marcus (her kidnapper among other things) was entitled to do what he did because no one really got angry at him for it.'
As weird as comic books are, and as horrible as they are to women, they are changing and getting better and I'm going to keep doing all I can to support both my favorite heroes and heroines and speak up when there are things that happen that are not okay.

Sexual assault in Buffalo

When you go away to school no matter if you live in the dorms or off campus housing provided by the school you should always feel safe. I was watching the news earlier and saw a story about a man breaking into the houses of two girls who go to Buff State and Canisius College and sexually assaulting them. My first question to this report was were the girls raped and what constitutes as sexual assault in New York. I understand that those campus' are in Buffalo which has a higher crime rate than Fredonia does; but if something like this happened in Fredonia where girls houses in Park Place broken into and some assault occurred there would be notifications everywhere and our campus police would be very dedicated to the case. It later says in the story that Canisius did respond and put another security camera around where the event happened. Because they installed another camera they were  able to find the man who was guilty because they caught him on tape creeping on another potential victims house. Just think, if the college did nothing about it, like Buff State, another girl(s) would have been assaulted and the case would still be hot. Colleges really need to show that they care about their students safety and would do anything to protect them. I would expect Fredonia to react like Canisius did.

What's the big deal over the Victoria's Secret fashion show?

Tonight is the Victoria's Secret fashion show, which means tons of fb statuses are going up about girls feelings of inadequacy and guys admiration of unrealistic body types. I am personally not watching the fashion show because it does not interest me and I would rather not support something that contributes to the cause of women's body issues. My roomate and I were talking about the obsession over events such as this and how sickening it is that tons of people MUST watch this and yet they are not aware of much more pressing issues. Our time is consumed by negative media images constantly and rather than thinking about how seeing skinny models can cause for women's bad feelings about their own bodies, the focus lies in obtaining this unrealistic ideal. Girls watch the fashion show and believe that they can actually be that skinny or reach this unhealthy body image that is only possible for a very small amount of women (sometimes not even until after surgery).
Hearing about the fashion show and reading people's posts brings me back to the Jean Kilbourne talk and makes me wish more people were aware of issues like this. In a perfect world, we would be watching activists and individuals supporting advocacy rather than doing things to cause further problems in the world. I wish people were motivated to watch the Half the Sky documentary that reveals real lives and world tragedy rather than a fashion show with highly priced merchandise and unobtainable body images.

Sports bras and Jenna Marbles

Me and my roommate one night were staying up late watching the lovely Jenna Marbles and her weekly viral videos. We found out that we missed a lot of videos over the summer because we were too busy to watch them and we found that she talked about the summer Olympics. Warning this video is vulgar but she still makes very good points. The video here explains that a Turkish journalist, Yüksel Aytuğ, wrote an article and made the statement that the women who compete in the Olympics don't represent women and how their even appearance is "pathetic." He also said that women need to watch the Victoria Secret Angels instead of the Olympics (which is funny because the fashion show is tonight at 10 CBS). Here's a quote from him: "Aytuğ said women's associations should protest the Games and added that it was enough for him to 'take a look at female swimmers' to reach that opinion. 'Broad-shouldered, flat-chested women with small hips; [they are] totally indistinguishable from men. Their breasts – the symbol of womanhood, motherhood – flattened into stubs as they were seen as mere hindrances to speed,' Aytuğ said." Although Jenna makes this subject funny, but it really has seriousness behind it. This man obviously feels that women shouldn't compete because we don't belong there and aren't filling the shoes of a "real" women who is supposed to have big breasts and hips for birthing and the males favor. Apart from this man being an ignorant fool, lots of men really don't know any woman facts. Granted I'm not too aware about how to use jock straps or compression shorts, but I know they are essential for men and boys to wear while performing in sports. If they didn't have that support they wouldn't be able to play the best they can; the same concept is used for sports bras. As Jenna put it "you can't workout with cantaloups on your chest you will end up getting a black eye."   

Gaga Feminism

I read a book recently called "Gaga Feminism" by J. Jack Halberstam and it was amazing! I wanted to recommend it to anyone who wanted a good read over the winter break. It was reasonably priced on Amazon and was all about a new wave of feminism, re-thinking gender and sexual orientation and what is "normal", and how pop culture effects how/what we think about love, sex, gender and relationships. He uses Lady Gaga (among other pop references) as a type of mascot for this new movement.

He references some gender and feminist theorists for those of you who are interested in that type of work, but it's an easy read and very relatable (especially after taking this class). Plus he's super funny! His whole idea on Gaga Feminism is not so much about fighting for women's rights to vote and have equal pay, but more about all of us fighting for equality and breaking down norms. Like I said, he breaks down gender binaries and makes the "abnormal" seem like the new normal. He talks about females in the media like Gaga, Ke$ha and Nikki Minaj and how they are strong and sexy, but own their sexuality and are in full control of it. He criticizes some movies that have come out in the last decade including Knocked Up, The Hangover and Bridesmaids and talks about how they a) further buy into the idea of a hetero-normative society and b) put so much pressure on young people to get married, settle down and start a family.  His whole idea is that we should be representing the diverse society that we live in, and we should not be telling people what the norms should be and making them feel inadequate if they aren't buying into them.

He also explains that in order to start this new revolution, we can't be afraid to go a little "gaga" ourselves. What he means by this is that we need to be a little crazy, foolish, naive. However, we need to do this with purpose. It's not just about being weird; it's about being weird in order to get noticed in order to get people's attention and have them listen up when we have something important to say. It's also a statement about not conforming and being comfortable being ourselves. Some of his ideals involve- Letting go of your basic assumptions about people so you can be open to the unexpected and unanticipated, transformation is inevitable, practice creative non-believing, and don't be afraid to be bold and outrageous.

One of my favorite quotes in the book is "If you don't go gaga soon, you may wake up and find that you have missed the future and become the past." He also suggests that we need to "be loud in a world of silent collaborators, be crazy in a room full of nice and normal people, be unpredictable in a world of highly structured systems of meaning" and that "gaga feminists want to uncover bigger political prizes rather than splendid individualism." We need to be aware, flexible, and accepting. We need to acknowledge the change going on around us and dive in!

Somaly Mam

Reading Somaly's story about her experiences as a young sex slave and seeing her on the Tyra show was so informational, sad, and moving. It's shocking how things like this happen and how (in my opinion) there isn't too much going on to stop it or prevent it. I think there needs to be more awareness, more light shed on the issue, and more funding to get those girls out of the brothels and into trades that are profitable for them, healthy, and legal.

I went on Somaly's website over the weekend and the thread bracelets they are selling are only $15. That would be such a great way to donate to the cause and talk about it with people when they ask about the bracelet. However, I just don't think that's enough. Like we were talking about in class, people like to donate  once or twice then we tend to think "my work here is done" and we move on with our lives. We don't all have the time or money to make huge social changes, and sometimes it's discouraging because we think "there's not much I can do anyway." One of my goals is to see how else I can get involved and what I can really do to make a difference. On the website they have internship and volunteer positions, some even in Cambodia! They are very limited, but that would be such an amazing experience. Maybe they will need help in the summer or when I am done with school. All I know is that I want to give back somehow- no matter how small- and her story will not be forgotten anytime soon.