Short reflection on the movie Wag The Dog

What do you feel is the message the director is trying to express in this movie?

The message that is trying to be expressed in the movie is that manipulating the focus of people is incredibly powerful, and it draws attention to potential ethical and moral problems that can arise. I think the movie is also attempting to make a point about the abuse of power in politics.

Explain if you think the director’s ethnic/cultural/professional background played a role in directing this film?

I don’t think the director’s background played much of a role in his decision making when directing the film. Not to take anything away from comedies, but a lot of them are shot in a similar manner (in my opinion).

What the movie added to your visual literacy?

The film really drove home the potential for visual literacy skills to be misused, and the amount of responsibility of the people with those skills have. I enjoyed watching the scene where some film was being shot and seeing the purposeful editing. I know this was just a movie, but it makes me wonder how much of what people are presented with every day is accurate/unbiased.

Reflection on the movie Nightcrawler

1.   What do you feel is the message the director is trying to express in this movie?  Support your answer with examples.

1.   When watching this movie, the message I got was about ethics and integrity in journalism. While the movie was an extreme example (it needs to keep people entertained), I think it showed audiences potential problems in the field of news and journalism. Without giving too much away to anyone who reads this blog and hasn’t seen the movie, the issues revolve mostly around the desire to be the first with the information. If you know a crime will be committed, are you obligated to report it?

2.   If applicable, discuss if you think this movie has accurate depictions of minorities or if they are situational. Why or why not? Could certain groups of people be offended or misinterpret this movie? Why?

1.   Certain parts of the movie could be seen as offensive, but more in the way that violence is offensive than any racial or ethnic problems. I didn’t notice any overly stereotypical characters, and most people throughout the film could be substituted for someone from a different racial or ethnic group without any story changes. I feel that the whole thing is driven mostly by story and very little by character development.

3.   Explain if you think the director’s ethnic/cultural/professional background played a role in directing this film?

1.   Director Dan Gilroy said he came up with the idea for the film after reading a book that contained a collection of photos of people in New York City at night. He later noticed the huge amount of violence on the news, and put some thought into “the idea that it must be a powerful force for a TV station, when they realize their ratings go through the roof when they show something with the potential for violence, like a police chase". These factors led him to the creation and direction of the film.

4.   What the movie added to your visual literacy?

1.   This film was actually brought up when I was giving a presentation early in the semester that dealt with ethics and media. This movie is a good visual example of a lot of potential ethical and moral issues that can face a journalist, photographer, etc. It allowed me to think in more concrete ways about where the line between right and wrong is, and how the fact that people need money influences where that line is for people.

5.   What kind of artistic and/or visual means did the director use in the movie to focus our attention?

1.   A majority of the movie was dark and had an eerie and almost uncomfortable feel. Something about the main character feels off, and the viewer isn’t quite able to put their finger on it. The facial expressions he makes, the way he conducts himself, etc. all look very natural and still have that “slightly sociopathic” quality and I’m sure that was a deliberate choice to convey his state of mind without directly saying it. The film doesn’t overuse any gory or violent imagery, though there are some intense visuals that influence the emotion of the viewer.

Reflection on the documentary Helvetica

Helvetica

1. What do you feel is the message the director is trying to express in this movie?  Support your answer with examples.
1. The director is trying to impress the importance of the font ’Helvetica’ and is using a documentary format. I had never given much thought to any font before watching this, it had just never seemed important to me until I began this class. After watching, I catch myself checking different places and noticing the use of the font. It really is EVERYWHERE.
2. Explain if you think the director’s ethnic/cultural/professional background played a role in directing this film?
1. I read that Gary Hustwit was an independent publisher at one point in his life, and I feel like that influenced his work in this documentary. As a publisher he dealt with a lot of text, and his job required attention to detail. I think those aspects of his professional life may have played a role in choosing the topic for this documentary.
3. What the movie added to your visual literacy?
1. Before watching this documentary I hadn’t really ever thought about what fonts I was using. I had always been asked to use ‘Times New Roman’, so I set that as the default on my computer and never thought about it again. The movie went in depth on a very specific topic, and I honestly didn’t think I would enjoy it when I started watching it. The amount the people in the film cared about something made me want to learn more about it.

Save The World!

For my Visual Literacy class we were grouped up and tasked to use a sheet of yellow stickers to "Save the World". We were given no guidelines other than that the stickers needed to be involved, and we were to save the world.

The freedom of choice we were given was overwhelming (to me at least) and it showed up in the variety of ideas that were produced by the class. Each group used their stickers for a very different purpose, yet each group threw their collective brainpower at a problem facing the world.

One group in particular stood out to me, not only as a good presentation, but as an idea I would like to see implemented in as many places as possible.

Mental Health

     Mental health is an issue many people are passionate about, yet it seems like hardly anyone wants to discuss it. The idea of this group was to introduce a system of color coded dots that people could wear. For example; a green dot means you are having a good day, while a yellow dot could signify that you are stressed or upset. While potential issues were discussed in class relating to the distribution of stickers/spreading awareness/etc. I believe that this would be a beneficial project to pursue.

     This system would be somewhat complicated to implement, but I believe it could be done. My strategy would be to approach it from social media, and try to start it there. I strongly believe that people feel strongly enough about the subject that a sufficient number of people would adopt the idea. I image piles of stickers (they're cheap!) in common areas of libraries, classrooms, etc. . If someone wants to participate, all it requires of them is picking up a sticker!

      Yes, some people would still hide how they were feeling. Yes, some people may react negatively. The conversation that would be started, however, is worth the small hiccups along the way. I would love to see this idea pursued and believe it could be spread and make a difference.

Minority Representation in Visual Media

The representation (or lack thereof) of women and ethnic and cultural minorities in media is a broad topic encompassing many different things. Any subsection could be taken and be written about at length, and to think that I would be able to adequately cover this topic in a brief blog post is not realistic. Instead of coming at the topic directly, I decided to do a little searching for what we actually mean when we talk about the "representation" of a group in media.

I found an article on the subject written by Maryann Erigha, Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies at the University of Georgia. There is a free link to the article HERE if you would like to read it in its entirety. Erigha lays out three different types of representation of a group in media, and describes how they interact and what they would look like if they were all done well.

     

1. Numerical Representation
• How many people of a particular group are there? Does that proportion fall in line with that of the rest of the country?
• A report by the Screen Actor's Guild (2013) showed that white actors made up nearly 75% of all speaking roles, African American actors made up 14%, Latino actors 5%, and Asian Americans less than 4%. 
• While not every movie is required to have an equal distribution of people from different ethnic groups, the fact that the overall average leans so far in favor of one group is still definitely a problem.
2. Quality of Representation
• Another aspect of representation involves the quality. While different numbers of people can be met and all of the diversity boxes 'checked off', the way that a group is represented can still cause harm and strengthen stereotypes.
• For example......
• Was an African American actor/actress chosen because they play a role well, or were they chosen because the film needed an 'urban' character.
• Was a character made to be of Asian descent because they were involved in martial arts?
• Not all representation is good representation.
3. Centrality of Representation 
• Centrality of representation deals with how important (central) a group is to the industry.
• For example......
• 93 percent of Hollywood studio directors from the 6 largest film companies were white and male (Cieply 2009).
• A statistic like this shows the value (or lack of) that many companies/studios assign to people of different backgrounds. When there are so few people of varying groups in institutional positions, another barrier is created for people from those groups to become a part of them.

This blog post was a short overview of what representation in media is, and some of the issues people are facing. I highly recommend you read the article linked above, and do a little research on your own time. I'm confident that everyone can find something they'd like to know more about in a subject that deals with so many different things.

Reflection on the movie Crash

1. What do you feel is the message the director is trying to express in this movie?  Support your answer with examples.
1. I believe the director was trying to portray relations between various racial groups in the city. The movie follows the stories of a small group of people, nearly all belonging to different racial or ethnic groups. Wikipedia’s entry on the director (Paul Haggis) states that “Haggis said that he wrote Crash to ‘bust liberals’, arguing that his fellow liberals were not honest with themselves about the nature of race and racism because they believed that most racial problems had already been resolved in American society.”
2. If applicable, discuss if you think this movie has accurate depictions of minorities or if they are situational. Why or why not? Could certain groups of people be offended or misinterpret this movie? Why?
1. I feel like the movie portrayed the different groups in a somewhat stereotypical way, but in a weirdly fair way as each group was stereotyped roughly equally. That being said, just because it was done fairly doesn’t mean I think it was done well. I feel that people (of all races) that are easily offended may find problems here, but I don’t think there is anything overtly offensive in the movie. The film examines race relations, and naturally there will be some uncomfortable moments that come from that, but uncomfortable is different than offended.
3. Explain if you think the director’s ethnic/cultural/professional background played a role in directing this film?
1. Paul Haggis lives in California, and said that the movie was partially inspired by an experience he had having his car stolen. I don’t believe that his background played much of a role in his direction of the film. After reading a little bit about him it sounds like it was just a story he came up with and really fell in love with.
4. What kind of artistic and/or visual means did the director use in the movie to focus our attention?
1. Close up shots on important moments (ex: purchasing a gun), manipulation of music, and the locations of characters on the screen in some parts are different things I noticed throughout the film.

The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women - Jean Kilbourne

The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women - Jean Kilbourne

I likely never would have thought to click on this video had it not been part of an assignment for class, but after watching it I would recommend that everyone who has the opportunity watch it for themselves. While the video addresses the topic well, to me it served more as a springboard into the topic. What this video did very well was make me want to learn more, and dig deeper into the subject myself.

The video has many different and impactful things to say, but the portion that dealt with the sexualization of children was the most impactful part of the video for me. There aren’t any reasons to be producing high-heels for babies or padded bras for eight and nine-year-old children. 

Just because you CAN sell something to someone does not mean that you SHOULD. 

As a future teacher and hopefully parent, things like that just amaze me (and not in a good way). While the issues discussed are causing harm to people, they aren’t doing it in easily visible ways. Instead of causing harm directly to someone, trends in media and advertising are slowly chipping away at self-esteem and autonomy.

The issues discussed in the video clip apply to men as well, both directly and indirectly. Men are made to look larger or more masculine instead of thinner or more petite, but the idea is similar. In addition to that, I really liked the point brought up around the six-minute mark of the video. In addition to girls and women measuring themselves against increasingly unrealistic standards, men and boys view of the women in their lives is warped and distorted. This distortion of expectations (both physical and emotional) will potentially cause issues in relationships throughout the course of life.