Final Project Treatment - Rough

Pulling from our class discussion on documentation where we talked about the disenchantment of a parent, I want to do a project that reiterates the essence of that idea from my own personal experiences.  I have found that a big factor in the coming of age narrative is the acknowledgement of reality.  As a kid, I found great admiration in my father who could do no wrong.  He was a perfect being.  But after my family went through some tough situations, and I grew up a bit, I came to the realization that he was far from perfect.  Not being a bad person--just a misguided one.  And it’s been a struggle ever since to compromise my uninhibited love for him and also my constant critique of the decisions he makes and how he governs his life.  I can see where he is flawed now, and there are things about him that I cannot stand.  Yet, I need and love him more than I can say.

So, the project I want to make encapsulates this idea of disillusion of a parent in a child’s mind.  I will do so through a compilation of short videos or vignettes.  I will start by making a list of memories that are particularly important to or significant in my understanding of my father throughout my life.  Then, from there I would shoot small ten second videos of my father over the course of a few months when he is not aware that he’s being filmed -- and use these videos as representations of the individual memories and the emotions I associate with them.  

This also pulls in another concept I’ve been thinking about which is the impermanence of memory.  I am confused and troubled by the flightiness of my memories, and have come to find that a lot of the things I remember may not even be accurate and there’s literally no way of finding out what the actuality of the event is.  I remember something one way and another person remembers it differently and there’s no reconciliation between the two who both believe their are right.  So using my own skewed memories as a guide for the project content is also subjective.  I could be incorrect, but that’s the point.  

There’s a duality to man.  People disappoint you, they let you down, they impress you, they love you--and you love them.  There are so many emotions swirling around our relationships and clouding our minds and complicating our daily interactions.  I want to capture the nature of my father.  See him at his best and his worst and almost come to no conclusion. It’s merely a presentation of a subjective fact.  

Short Essay for the final project - rough draft

Sariah May

As I’ve stated in the project treatment, the relationship between a child and parent is one that I’ve been incredibly interested in.  There is a sort of disillusionment that comes along with growing up that affects much of how you see the world, but a big change is in how you see your parents.

This is something I’ve found to be explored in many different pieces of media--much of it would not be considered children’s media, however, and instead would be classified under the category of media about childhood.  There might be some overlap there, but for the most part, media that talks about childhood and examines the ins and outs of the coming of age narrative are not typically suited for children as it explores the loss of innocence--something we wish to preserve.  

One particular example is the novel Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie--this book works to not only entertain and enlighten children readers, but to shed light on the important issues of grappling with love and passion and anger (adult emotions and issues).  And, fortuitously, the relationships between parents and their children.  Wendy Darling starts at a place that is a bit distanced from her father and all the children feel the supposed tyranny of their father in their lives.  While my project is specifically about the distancing between children and parents, I think it’s important to note the different energies between the children of Peter Pan and their father right from the start.  The children start at a place that is misunderstanding of where their father is coming from, and learn at the end of the film to see the value in him and how he loves.  This is indicative of an adult man, J.M. Barrie, who was trying to reconcile his own mixed emotions about adulthood and what it means to truly leave behind imagination and childhood and to understand the things that have to change.

So using this as a guide, my project works to expose the same sorts of things about my own father.  I have found that much of the things I’ve learned about him as I’ve gotten older have not only shown me that he is a wonderful and loving person, but also that he is a flawed and complicated human who makes mistakes and has problems.  

I’ve really enjoyed the sort of naturalistic and home video style representations of family that we’ve watched in this class, and so the style of this project takes after the home videos we might watch nostalgically to remember our family members in the past.  This allows us to see unobjectively snapshots of my father as he interacts with different members of my family and even me.  This allows us to see what he is like in the present so it can not only be a reference point for us to look back on, but juxtaposes my own perspective of him now with the memory attached to it from my past.  It sheds light on some sort of shift in my thought process or a similarity that might exist there in how I used to think about him and how I now think about him.

Overall, the way he is and acts I personally don’t think has changed much, but it’s been important for me to think about the way his influence has either shifted or changed over time and the way he’s impacted the way I am and the way I think about the world.  There needs to be some sort of understanding between him and me for me to be able to understand something important about the world and relationships between humans.  Wendy must learn to accept her father and to learn about the different ways to love, and I must learn this as well.  

Film Analysis #4: Brave

I took the opportunity to watch this film because I'd never seen it before and it's one of my little sister's favorite movies.  Paired with our discussions on family and the role family plays in children's media, I've found that the film offers up important and heart-warming contributions to the discussion.
The thing that I find to be really great about Brave is the way it addresses the relationship between mothers and daughters and differences in family members.  It's a really sweet and special message about getting to know and understand where each other is coming from.  I think there are probably a lot of daughters in the world that don't see eye to eye with their mothers, and this film handles it with great respect and love.  There are wonderful and beautiful parts of the mother/daughter relationship, but with the shifting feminist movements and with women starting to reject the roles that women have fulfilled in the past, this film showcases some of the arguments that I'm sure many have engaged with with their own mothers.

Something that I think is really great, though, is that respect that's still held or advocated for with both mother and daughter.  Merida is wild and unruly and strong-willed; she resists the role her mother desires her to fulfill and because of that, puts her family in danger.  Merida has to learn to not only reign her passions a bit to fulfill her responsibilities, but that she doesn't have to completely ditch who she is.  Her mother in return then learns to administer her knowledge to her daughter to help her become the woman she needs to be, but also to accept the change in tradition and expectation. Both women have to learn to accept each other, adjust something within themselves, and then also stand up for what they believe is right.  It's really great, too, that in the end, they both actually wanted the same thing--they just needed to communicate better.

I think something that has caused rifts in society and generations is the lack of will to understand one another.  I know that my mother and I have frequent and lengthy arguments about what each of us thinks is important for my own life and the way I live it.  Much of what we disagree on is because of a lack of understanding and a lack of proper communication.  This film was able to kind of shed light on an important issue for me: that the outcome of the argument isn't important.  It's not about whether I'm right or whether she's right, but it's more about the fact that both of us have to learn to see the value in what the other is saying.  It's an acknowledgement, too, however, that both of us are valid and right in our own ways.

Brave is a good example of a family friendly film that promotes good communication between family members.  At the end of the day, it's not about who was right or who should have listened, too.  It's about that achey bad feeling you get in your gut when you realize that you will someday lose the person you love so much that you break them.  And that's the moment in Brave that seems to drive home the message.

Book Response #4: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is an excellent example of a book with a religious message that's been hidden (not-so-subtly) in a story that would otherwise not be religious at all.  I think it's cool that a lot of fiction with fantastic elements in it resonate as religious for me.  Lord of the Rings can do so, Harry Potter can do so, Eragon can do so--it really just depends on your perspective.  I think it's because a lot of fantasy deals with the idea of the supreme being: there is always someone who is all-knowing or all-powerful that is there to protect, and there is also always the all-evil who is there to threaten the balance of nature.  It's stories like these about the forces of good and evil that allow for easy religious connections.

For The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I've found that much of the metaphors and messages arise from Christian beliefs about Christ and the Resurrection.  The book deals with many themes that have to do with bravery and goodness, but one particularly important one has to do with faith.  The children must have faith and valor and courage to save Narnia and the people there. In a way, they are acting as the catalysts for the act of the atonement where Christ suffered for the sins of all mankind, and Aslan then fills the role of Christ as he is sacrificed and the resurrected to rise again and end the battle with the evil Witch.

But the religious message is so apparent and obvious, that I feel the need to discuss something else.  As Tom talks about in his religion and media lecture in 102, he outlines the two styles that can be attributed to different types of religious media.  The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe almost fulfills the abundant style, as its religious representations are seemingly directly stated.  Yet, it still remains familiar, because the religious terms are translated ever so slightly.  There is one particular quote that I find very beautiful and oddly comforting that I think is noteworthy:

"And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken [his name] everyone felt quite different.... At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer."

This excerpt is important to me for a couple reasons.  It shows the difference between those who are weighed down with guilt and fear Christ.  Edmund is an individual who has committed wrongdoings in his life and because of that, he fears God.  This is a very subtle way to not only teach religious messages to children but to also teach morality.  The other reason I like it so much is because Lewis puts religious impressions and feelings into such beautiful familiar language.  Instead of talking about having a burning in your chest or the sound of the still small voice (phrases we are familiar with when talking about religion), he relates the joy and beauty of Christ's presence to something like a good smell or a good progression of notes.  

It's really important, I think, to find religious confirmation in the mundane and the everyday.  Sure, church is awesome and general conference is uplifting, but aren't we encouraged to constantly have the Holy Spirit with us?  The Chronicles of Narnia is just one example of a book series that deals with religious content without becoming didactic or hyper-religious.  It puts familiar, comfortable, and accessible words and sentiments to religious concepts that we can relate to.  Perhaps this is the case with all spiritual or religious media and literature, but the way Lewis handles it is full of awe and grace and poetry.  It's beautiful to read and I feel is important to give to children.

It's also nice because the child reading the book can identify with the children protagonists in the book.  They can read and understand their own role in the plan of salvation.  They rely on and need Aslan, or Christ, to get through to the end, but they are also their own saviors.  They must make the decisions and fight their own battles, with a brave lion by their side when they need the help.  Christ is there to make up the difference in strength and valor, but the children need to have the faith that he will be there to help them and that he will be their arms.  

Film Response #8: Speed Racer

The main issue I'd want to talk about Speed Racer with is its portrayal of gender roles and equality of the sexes.  Particularly, its disregard for the female participant.

The gender roles enforced in the film hark back to the same era the design is pulling from.  Relying on traditional 50's and 60's values, the mother in the family is reduced to someone who is there to serve food when needed and offer up a heart-warming piece of advice to her troubled son.  Seen in a montage near the end of the team gearing up to bring Speed to the Grand Prix race, Susan Sarandon appears only briefly in the kitchen making sandwiches and delivering them, while the men are hard at work.  This being her only main task in aiding the team is putting her directly out of the danger zone and excitement of the things that everyone else is doing.

Contrastingly, Trixie is given a bit more to do in the film.  She remains as a support system for Speed and is there to give him a girlfriend, basically.  But, we do get one moment of her breaking out of her female role to drive a race car along with Speed and friends towards the end of the film--even getting to kick some butt of the antagonists.  The thing about this moment, however, is that it's short lived and she still ends up needing saving from Speed when danger comes a-calling.  Trixie still exists on the plane of a supporting female lead, who is there to bat her eyes and look cute, while also providing some sass and surprise with her moment in the cock pit.

I can see the issue with presenting these kinds of ideologies in children's media.  While the film is clearly one giant hyperbole and is not meant to be taken seriously on almost any level, there is still a subliminal message being conveyed.  A woman is not strong enough to handle the dangerous things; a woman is not cut out for more than verbal or emotional support.  I think, if I were to watch this as a kid, I probably wouldn't voice these thoughts or even really think about them, but the happenstances would be stored away in my memory and would be pulled out later when I asked myself why it's so important that I continue to perpetuate my own gender roles.  I feel we may not think it to be harmful, but when the child is consuming so many different films that all perpetuate the same ideas, it adds up to a closed mind.

"Sketch Book"

A compilation of memories of my father:

1. My mother was away on a trip.  We were sitting in church.  He took off his wedding ring and looked at it hard for a few moments, before turning to me and asking me to read the inscription on the inside.  It read: Forever yours.  He took the ring back from me and slipped it back on his finger. It was probably 2007 or 2008.

2. It was 2:00 in the morning.  I had gone to bed hours before, but woke up sweaty and hot.  I looked up from where I lay next to my two little sisters and saw him on the computer next to us.  The blue light made him look sick.

3. We had been on the road for 6 hours already.  I sat next to him with my dog in my lap.  He talked aimlessly about how unfair all of it was to the dog, and started to cry.

4. I was sitting with my sisters in the middle of the afternoon upstairs.  He was yelling at my mom.  We were hiding.

5. My car broke down in the middle of Salt Lake and I was alone.  He left in the middle of a soccer game to come pick me up.

6. He had just had open heart surgery, and it was his first day home from the hospital.  I rested my ear against his chest and listened to the steady thump of his new heart.

7.  He picked me up from school on a regular day with my suitcase packed.  We never went back to our house.

8.  They offered to pay for therapy for him.  He refused to go.

9. He checked himself into a psych ward without explanation.  I asked my mom when he'd be back.  She told me soon.

10. I left for college, and he dropped me off.  He carried all my bins and boxes up three flights of stairs, even though he had a bad knee.

11. He linked his arm through mine and walked through the streets with me, singing songs he learned as a boy in school in India.

12. He rubbed my ear to distract me from my growing pains.


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My next step is to brainstorm some of the images that would accompany these memories.  These would be presented in the format of a website, where it would be just like a short video with the memories being read along with the images/vignettes.  The footage is not just of my father, but perhaps of other things as well.

I'd want to get other people to contribute to this as well, and have them try to recreate the memories with subjective images or video clips.

Film Response #3: Rabbit-Proof Fence

If I was to compare this film to the film we watched for diversity week, I'd talk about how the diversity reading of the film is different.  Rabbit-Proof Fence is a film about three aboriginal girls who get taken from their families by white men who think they're helping and doing good for the indigenous people of Australia.  Taken to a reformation school, the three girls escape and embark on a long dangerous trek across the country in order to return to their family.

I find that the part of the beauty of the film and its message about diversity is that it comes directly from the point of view of the indigenous population.  From my American grown perspective, I can see the goal or worth in what the British colonists in Australia are trying to do.  While they are trying to teach developed skills and knowledge to the children of the aboriginals, they are still misguided and wrong in doing so.  This is where the unique POV comes into play: the children make decisions and are shown doing things that directly go against what we know from our perspective.

The kids pursue the thing that will make them happy: to live with their family in the way they were raised.  They reject colonization, they reject the development of their people.  They don't care about what they are lacking or what they could gain, they only care about the bonds that have been taken from them--and justly so.  It's an interesting look at what colonization looks, feels, and does to the people that are at the other end of it.  I have only interacted with a handful of works that offer up this same kind of perspective, and it's rare that they are intended for children audiences.  Whale Rider and Rabbit-Proof Fence both work at this in a very graceful and sophisticated way that allows children to interact with tougher ideologies.  

I'm sure the concern exists there for the well-being of the children in the movie--and because of this, the child watching the film must ask the hard question as to why.  Why would they risk so much to get home?  What is the problem at hand with the colonization?  Is it the intent?  Is it the obvious racism?  Is it because the government actually wants to help or are they just trying to impose their own cultures and standards on people without taking into consideration how they feel about it?  A film like this forces a kid to think about things they wouldn't otherwise think of or have to deal with, and I think that's really important in good children's media.  I believe this would be a good immersion for a child into the world of 4th cinema, and allow them to see that there are different perspectives to problems and to history and that there is more to consider than just the immediate geography and culture outside their house.