Final Project – Jacqueline Amjadi

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b502nLlrJbQ&feature=youtu.be

Link to PowerPoint: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1tU6TJc5pUtTjBZMjVyY0RxVzA/edit?usp=sharing

 

Works Cited

 

“International Disability Rights Monitor (IDRM) Publications – – Compendium – Iran.” ICons in Medicine. N.p., 2003. Web. 15 May 2014.

The Islamic Republic of Iran. Ministry of Health And Medical Education. WHO-AIMS. WHO-AIMS Report on Mental Health System in The Islamic Republic of Iran. World Health Organization, 2006. Web. 15 May 2014.

Lagadien, Fadila. “Disabled Women and the Media – Presentation for National Women’s Day.” Independent Living Institute (ILI). Independent Living Institute, 1997. Web. 15 May 2014.

TARTAKOVSKY, MARGARITA. “Media’s Damaging Depictions of Mental Illness.” Psych Central. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.

 United States of America. U.S. Department of Commerce. U.S. Census Bureau. Americans With Disabilities: 2010. By Matthew Brault. N.p., July 2012. Web. 15 May 2014.

Wood, Lucy. “Media Representation of Disabled People.” Disability Planet. N.p., 2012. Web. 15 May 2014.

Zolf, Aghrab-e. Persian Instrumental. Jahanshah Boroumand. Web. 15 May 2014.

Final Project

 

African-Americans have been victims to what is known as colorism for many years. Colorism is discrimination against others due to their skin color. Darker skinned people are considered less intelligent, less desirable, in women mostly, and are overall seen as a lesser people. Lighter skinned people tend to have higher social standing, more positive networks, and more opportunities to succeed than those of a darker complexion. The issue of colorism has been around since slavery. Slave masters would favor light skinned African Americans and gave them the task of being “house slaves,” while dark skinned slaves were looked at as being inferior and were given the task of being “field slaves.” This division amongst African American people continued to become a serious issue in the culture and has created stereotypes for individuals that are light skinned and dark skinned. Since then, African Americans have been judging each other by their skin tone.

 

Historically, light skinned blacks have been the individuals that many feel are in the position of power because they closely resemble the aesthetics and visible characteristics of European people. For many African Americans, color bias plays a major role in how they interact with other members of their group. Growing up as a light skinned African American girl, my interactions with darker skinned females were not always pleasant. Darker skinned girls would sometimes make comments in regards to my complexion such as “light bright,” or “High yellow.” I never really become offended by these words until I was old enough to understand the seriousness behind he issue of colorism. Being that darker skinned women are often seen as the victims of colorism, it would sometime upset me that many people didn’t understand that light skinned woman also experienced hatred due to their skin complexion. I believe that that there is a color gap in privilege in the black community, and that it has historical roots in the mixed race sexual relationships of slaves and their masters. These unions created color imbalances and a distance in privilege between lighter and darker skinned Africans in America. These imbalances have traveled into the 21^st century, and has remained an unfortunate issue in the black community for entirely too long.

 

With this video I hope to shed light on the issue of colorism through interviewing various African American women and asking them their perspective on the issue and how it has played a role in their lives.

 

 

Sources

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MB9Ul6czJEE

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xD2WYJTG8ig

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9f08-OYGTA

 

https://storify.com/lifeclass/oprah-s-lifeclass-with-iyanla-vanzant-colorism

 

 

 Interviewees

Autumn Smith

Melenie Morgan

Vanessa Vaughn

Melissa Brown

Hispanic Women in the Media

MASHUP:

INTERVIEW:

 

For my final I wanted to look at how the media has represented Hispanic women. For the most part we have been limited to few stereotypical roles in Hollywood. We have been seen as the exotic bombshell or the maid. We see these stereotypes on a daily basis, and Hispanic women are so much more than what we in the media. For this project I was unsure about how I wanted to execute my idea. At first I wanted to do a PowerPoint and show different examples of the stereotypes we see in film and television, but I also wanted to share other points of view. This is why I decided on doing a video. I interviewed three of my friends, and created another video, compiled of clips of different Hispanic actresses, to accompany the interview.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekUi5HxrRAM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT0hXUwytog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YencgB4Gz0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tIqs_gIb88

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUTMtGXTMDs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uv6Mvfor9o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhOFiLYbafY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoQEMC2DkM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsm1I38RrYY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_kyY6LJJUc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaKBASc2NxQ

 

Interviewees:

Perla Catro

Meagan Gutierrez

Dianna Santiago

Final Project Telenovelas

WOrk Cited for the video

Final Project by Shakara Perez

Final Project by Shakara Perez

Plastic Surgery and Women

 

Women and Media Final Project:

I discuss the social issues of women as the primary target audience for plastic surgery. Women are on all or most advertisements for plastic surgery. You rarely (and I mean rarely!) see men on campaigns related to plastic surgery. Young girls are surrounded by female plastic surgery campaigns or female beauty standards (different societies have different beauty standards) that encourages them to think about plastic surgery. The tactic of media and plastic surgery market is to construct beauty standards and use of words that relate to perfection is to sell and increase capitalism. No one is perfect. Beauty is not something seen, but felt from deep within. Don’t morph into another beauty standard. You’re born like no other.

________

Resources:

“Life in plastic is not fantastic for the real-life Barbie: Ken look-alike who spent $150,000 on cosmetic surgery dresses up as drag queen version after branding female rival ‘a total fake’.” Mail Online. Daily Mail Reporter, 13 Nov. 2013. Web.

Maley, Catherine. Cosmetic Image Marketing. 2007. Web.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-844.

“Plastic Surgery: Should Advertising For It Be Illegal?” Huff Post Women. The Huffington Post, 15 Mar. 2012. Web.

“Plastic Surgery Worldwide: Which Countries Nip And Tuck The Most?” Investopedia. Stephen D. Simpson, 24 Jul. 2012. Web.

Random History. 2007. Web.

“The pursuit of beauty: what compels women to go under the knife?” The Telegraph. Louisa Peacock, 22 May 2013.

“These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America.” Business Insider. Ashley Lutz, 14 Jun. 2012. Web.

“The 13 Worst Plastic Surgery Ads In The World.” BuzzFeed. copyranter, 21 Mar. 2013. Web.

“UK plastic surgery statistics: breasts up, stomachs in.” The Guardian. Simon Rogers, 30 Jan. 2012. Web.

“10 Coolest Plastic Surgery Ads.” Oddee. Garce Murano, 23 Aug. 2012. Web.

Final Project– Unsung Heroines of American History

For my final project, I decided to focus on the erasure of African American women. Of course, there are many who have been left out of the history books, but my main focus in this project was to shed some light on Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker and Shirley Chisholm. As I leaned about these women in a previous Women and Gender Studies class, I realized that for many of my classmates, it was the first time they had heard of them. That is to say, up until 22 years of age, many of them thought Jesse Jackson had been the first African American to run for president. The conversation of Shirley Chisholm was very interesting because though she wasn’t spoken of too many times, she had been brought up during Obama’s campaign in 2008. Yet and still, people did not know about her.

With this in mind, I wanted to make a project that is informative and allows us to rethink the material we read. As often echoed in class discussions, everything presented in front of us is through the male gaze, so unless we take action and start telling our stories, the generation after us is going to reach twenty-two, claiming to be feminists, yet not knowing anything about these three women, among others.

 

Powerpoint

 

Works Cited:

Accomando, Christina. “Demanding a Voice Among the Pettyfoggers: Sojourner Truth as Legal Actor.” : n. pag. JSTOR. Web. 9 May 2014.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3595246?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103997101927

Payne, Charles . “Ella Baker and Models of Social Change.” : n. pag. JSTOR. Web. May 9 2014

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3174689?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103997101927

Chisholm ’72. Dir. Shola Lynch. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2004

“SNCC.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 9 May 2014. <http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/sncc&gt;.

Sojourner Truth (History.com)

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/sojourner-truth

Final Project- Objectification of Women in Music Videos

My final project explores the way in which women are objectified in music videos, and points out the parallel between this and how women are treated in society. Through the various interviews that I conducted, I was able to conclude that the objectification of women in music videos is only getting worse. By compiling various clips of relevant music videos, I am able to show viewers just how rampant this issue is. In making the project, I wanted to explore how young women (the largest consumers of this media) are affected and influenced by this derogatory treatment of women. I did this by interviewing seven friends (some who live here, some in Georgia) and comparing the answers. I actually found through this that while the girls in New York claim to be unaffected by the objectification of women in media in their personal lives, the girls in Georgia pointed out several ways that the issue has influenced their lives.

The video is essentially a combination of various music video clips and interviews, with some interjections by me. I included in the video some quotes and ideas from a few of the writers we studied in class, including Jean Kilbourne, Douglas Kellner, and John Berger. I thought it was important to include this individuals because they are able to lend a more scholarly stance on the issue. By the end of the video, through the various media that I researched and interviews I conducted, I came to the conclusion that objectification can be stopped if artists focus more on equality than the putting down of one gender or another.

Sources:

http://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/view.cgi?section=bodyimage&page=fastfacts

http://time.com/25000/jennifer-lopez-i-luh-ya-papi-video/

http://www.teenink.com/reviews/music_reviews/article/123483/How-Music-Affects-Teens/

http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/influence-pop-music-teens-17843.html

Click to access JOBEM_aubrey%20et%20al.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144512001106

Past and present image use

FinalImages

For my final project I chose to explore how current depictions of women in the media were built upon past portrayals of women. In most cases the basic representation of women remains male-oriented and secondary because traditional ideas of gender roles haven’t become obsolete. Using examples of how images used in religion and mythology continue to exist another form today, in my paper, I argued that because our understanding of images today is built upon past representations, most portrayals of women continue to express the same attitudes regarding the views on their bodies,  independence, and success.

These attitudes are expressed through metaphors, anecdotes and fiction. All of these formats use the image on some level. To understand or see things from a different perspective, a different interpretation is needed. This means that symbols and classic story telling formats have to reflect the complexity of human cultures and not reduce female characters to examples of sin or submissiveness.

 

Works Cited

Harding, Elizabeth U. Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar. York Beach: Nicolas-Hays, 1993. Print.

Bronner, Stephen Eric. Twentieth Century Political Theory. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Douglas, Susan J. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media. New York: Times Books, 1994. Print.

Gaiman, Neil. “Reflections on Myth.” Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art Dec. 1999: 75-84. Print.

Final Project- Siyu Liu

Final Project Summary

            The common depict of Miss America is about the beauty, glamour, how contestants look in gowns and swimsuits and then rewarding them with scholarships. The recent winner Nina Davuluri said, “Miss America is not only about that one night you see on television, which many people think it’s a glamorous job and I wear an evening gown all day. That’s very much not true, it’s very much a service-based job.” (Simone). “Her other duties entail public speaking and acting as National Goodwill Ambassador for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. She also is spokeswoman for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), since Davuluri is the first Miss America with a degree in brain behavior and cognitive science and plans to attend medical school.” (Simone)

            My project focuses on how Nina Devuluri was viewed and portrayed in the media right after she won the crown. Not only did she receive tons of twitter hate, calling her an “arab”, “terrorist”, and how Miss Kansas would have been a better winner because of her Caucasian features, but also how the main headlines on the news only focused on the derogatory comments she received. Not many people knew her background or academic success, or what she does outside the pageant if they did not bother to do the research.

            I took the form of a PowerPoint to display screenshots of the twitter hate and headline news, and also specific arguments and facts about this issue.

 Link to my project : https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A56AA04A4DCA3810%21180

Video to an interview with Nina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHdOhvTQrG4

          

• “A Lot Of People Are Very Upset That An Indian-American Woman Won The Miss America Pageant” BuzzFeed. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.​
• Greenhouse, Emily. “Combatting Twitter Hate with Twitter Hate.” The New Yorker. N.p., 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.​
• Litman, Amanda. Why Aren’t We Protesting Miss America? Ms.Magazine. 14. January. 2011. Web.​
• “Nina Davuluri.” Hollywood Life. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2014. <http://hollywoodlife.com/celeb/nina-davuluri/&gt;.​
• People & Events: The 1968 Protest. Pbs. Web.  ​
• Sengupta, Somini. Outburst Highlights Conundrum for Twitter. New York Times. 16. Sept. 2013. Web.​
•  Simone, Stephanie. In Tenafly, Miss America has a message for students. Northern Valley Suburbanite.13. March. 2014. Web. ​
• “STEM Role Model Q&A with Nina Davuluri, Miss America 2014 | JASON Learning.” STEM Role Model Q&A with Nina Davuluri, Miss America 2014 | JASON Learning. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2014. <http://www.jason.org/live/stem-role-model-qa-nina-davuluri-miss-america-2014&gt;.