Final Project Revised

Lexington Leib

Professor Doris Caçoilo

Media 384

October 22, 2016

Final Project Proposal

            In light of the events of the recent election my previous idea for a documentary or short video about social media and female sexuality seems incredibly shallow. I have a lot of feelings I need to express about sexism, sex, feminism, and family and I think the best way to do this will be through poetry. But in order to make this something that can be used for my portfolio I will be making a series of 4 to 5 experimental videos 2 to 3 minutes in length each. Each video will explore a different issue that has been on my mind in a way that expresses my emotion while also drawing on the works we have read this semester. I will use a combination of archival footage, home videos, and newly shot footage to create an artistic representation of my larger ideas. Each video will start with a quote from the readings we have done this year that will frame the idea of the rest of the video.

Video 1: He Burned Off His Finger Prints

“To indoctrinate boys into the rules of the patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and deny their feelings” – Bell Hooks, Understanding Patriarchy

            The first video is based on a poem I wrote about my Grandfather, a deeply flawed man who is not lovingly remembered by my family. The poem is an exploration about the darkness of patriarchy, how it informed my mother’s understanding of the world, and thereby my own. I will use old home videos, and pictures but edited to be a lot more shocking and distorted.

Video 2: Year of the Thot

““Men act, women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at”-John Berger, Ways of Seeing

            For this video I will use footage of my friend describing what she calls “2016: Year of the Thot,” the idea that 2016 is the year that slut-shaming gets the attention it deserves and women start really owning their sexuality. This will lend into a poem exploring what it means to be sexually explorative in this day and age and the stigmas still associated with that. It also explores the idea of self-objectification and empowerment.

Video 3: Aye Aye Captain

“We do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man.”- Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

            This video is an ode to Hillary Clinton and female leaders who are silenced by men. The poem will be about wanting to be heard, how I became a feminist, and all the women of color who are not given a voice in our culture and government. It will be both honest but hopeful. I will incorporate footage from this past election cycle, and images of the boost of women of color who made it to the house and senate this past election cycle such as Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Maggie Hassan, and Representatives Tammy Duckworth, Pramila Jayapal,  we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males.

Stephanie Murphy,  Nanette Barragan, and Lisa Blunt Rochester.

Video 4: Love for the Lonely

“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” –Gloria Steinem

            This video is the most personal, and deals with my ideas of love that were shaped in my childhood by romantic comedies and how as an adult a lot of those ideas have been shattered. It is about rejection, rejecting, and navigating what you want from a relationship while still maintaining independence and a sense of feminist integrity.

Video 5: An Attempt at Discourse: An Exercise in Restraint 

“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”-Audre Lorde

            This video is essentially going to be a visual representation of all the words I have held back at family gatherings, the text messages I never sent, the Facebook comments I never made, and all the times I have held back from saying what I really mean in order to be heard when it really matters.

All of the poems have been written and recorded. I just need to do some shooting and find archival footage for each of my videos, and do some editing and experiment with how I want each one to look. I am making these videos first and foremost to express myself through a creative outlet. I want other women to watch these videos and feel less alone. As a writer and filmmaker I want to make content that comes from a place of vulnerability and honesty and that is what I hope to achieve with these videos. Someone looking at my portfolio should be able to see these and get a clear picture of who I am and what issues matter to me. I will post the videos to my vimeo channel and share them on Tumblr where I have around 500 devoted followers. Also at a later date I want to construct my own website and post these videos there. In the future I can continue to make these kinds of videos.

Inspiration for me comes from the work of Warsan Shire whose poetry deeply touches me, and who I discovered after watching this video. https://vimeo.com/190668338

Other inspiration comes from the work of these other female poets who use a video as medium to express themselves.

 They Are There But I am Not, Ye Mimi https://vimeo.com/7695648

When the Men Go Off to War, Victoria Kelly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd5hN7YbXrk

One, Thuli Zuma https://youtu.be/oznJkYqcDXk

For Christina Turner, Kait Rokowski https://youtu.be/NSIXGELbSMc

Once, Lyn Elliot https://vimeo.com/10941770

On Loop, Christine Hooper, Victoria Manifold https://vimeo.com/104894544

Whore in the Eddy, Heather Haley https://vimeo.com/41397217