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Multimedia Journal 3

Final Multi-Media Project Part III

   During the course of our class we watched Fusco and Gomez-Pena do a performance piece called “A Couple in a Cage.” This performance piece was very interesting because we were a able to get insight into what audience members thought of this piece. During their performance onlookers are welcome to come study the two subjects behind bars and express their opinions about them. Later we learn that the real reasons behind this performance piece have less to do with the actual performers and more to do with the people watching it and their reactions to it.

The idea of studying and evaluating audience member reactions and perceptions reminded me of this internet website called, www.nielsen.com.

  https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160405006321/en/Time-Warner-Selects-Nielsen-Strategic-Partner-Medialab

  According to the About US section of Nielsen.com, “Nielsen is a global measurement and data analytics company that provides the most complete and trusted view available of consumers and markets worldwide… For more than 90 years Nielsen has provided data and analytics based on scientific rigor and innovation, continually developing new ways to answer the most important questions facing the media, advertising, retail and fast-moving consumer goods industries.” This is a company that uses scientific data to form stereotypes about peoples purchasing habits and then gets paid by selling this information to large scale companies or marketing firms.

  Part of me feels like this is not ok and that just because media has access to all sorts of information about people, it should not be something leveraged against consumers as whole for the benefit of the large companies. The approach seems very dehumanizing altogether. For example, after I began scrolling down www.nielsen.com I noticed a section labeled, China: The Next Generation of Sports Consumers. I also noticed a media article titled, Time Flies: U.S. Adults Spend Nearly Half A Day Interacting With Media.

 http://sites.nielsen.com/newscenter/nielsens-total-audience-and-comparable-metrics-reports-provide-perspective-into-americans-media-habits/

 Media plays a large role in informing and persuading its viewers. If I had a product I wanted to launch and have it become successful it would be important for me to find a way to reach my potential buyers via a form a media of media; tv program, internet website, etc… and would probably need to hire a research company that could tell me the best way to go about this. Although this approach is most likely the most effective way to approach the launch of something new, the issue I see with this is that a company is basically looking at a very black and white picture of who we are as individuals and using information (Such as age, race, and possibly income) to manipulate the way we as consumers receive information.

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https://www.biography.com/people/pocahontas-9443116

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114148/mediaviewer/rm2962534400

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Multimedia Journal 2: Film

Pocahontas

  Pocahontas is a Disney animated story about how princess Pocahontas fell in love with John Smith. All of this makes for the great making of film, although the truth is that the Disney make of this tale is far different from what had really happened.  Instead of going into great detail about the Disney version of this real-life heroine I would like to focus on the true events surrounding her life. 

To start things off, Pocahontas was not the real-life name of the Native American princess this film is so loosely based on. According to biography.com, Pocahontas’s real name was Matoaka. Matoaka was born September 17th, 1595 in Tidewater, James City County, Virginia.  She was born one of many daughters to Wahunseneca, a Powhatan chief.  

According to Biography.com, Matoaka was a North American princess, ambassador, and peacemaker. She helped promote peace between her tribe and the first American settlers. The Virginia colonists were led by John Smith. The story goes that members of the Powhatan tribe were going to execute John Smith until Matoaka (about ten at the time) steps up and persuades her father to work on maintaining a plan of peace with the new settlers. At first this plan worked until more settlers kept landing on Powhatan land. In an audacious move the British also attempted to give Wahunseneca (chief of the land) the title of king over his own region!

After Smith returned to England hostilities continued to get worse between the British and Powhatan tribes resulting in Pocahontas eventually being taken hostage by the British. Her father would not negotiate for her return, which resulted in her being placed into the custody of two English settlers. In 1614 Matoaka goes on to marry John Rolfe in a Christian ceremony. She then switches her name to Rebecca Rolfe (after assuming her new husbands last name). She goes on to have one child with Rolfe named Thomas Rolfe. Unfortunately at the age of 22 Matoaka (now Rebecca Rolfe) falls gravely ill and is said to have passed away due to tuberculosis.  

The real-life events of Pocahontas’s (or should I say Matoaka) life are not quite as romantic as those portrayed in the Walt Disney film, but they do however make for a much more child friendly, musical version of what could have happened.

 1616, Simon van de Passe

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pocahontas/lege-nf.html

 According to NOVA on the PBS website, “this engraving is the only known portrait of Pocahontas rendered from life…it was the first of many depictions of Pocahontas intended to demonstrate that Native American could adopt the demeanor of a “civilized” European.”

  This is clearly a bit different than the Walt Disney Studio’s version of Pocahontas below. According to Lisa Q. Wolfinger (one of the producers of “Pocahontas Revealed” a Nova special for PBS), Pocahontas more than likely would not have been wearing any clothing at the time she first met John Smith. “According to John White's images and related text, a Powhatan girl wore no clothing before puberty. From about the age of 12 onward, she donned a deerskin skirt, perhaps decorated with beads or carved with figures from nature. Powhatan women also adorned themselves with tattoos and body paint derived from roots, as well as necklaces, bracelets, and earrings strung with freshwater pearls, shell beads, copper, animal teeth, or beads of bone.”

https://www.bustle.com/articles/91394-6-historical-inaccuracies-in-disneys-pocahontas-but-that-doesnt-mean-you-stop-painting-with-all

 Disney does use a bit of accuracy by giving Pocahontas both a tattoo on her arm and dressing her in what appears to be deerskin, something tells me they went to extremes a bit when deciding what boob and waist size to give her. I mean she looks like she has the body of a real-life Mattel Barbie doll!

https://twitter.com/Florenciiaa19/status/352806526643220481

 The photo above is a statue of Rebecca Rolfe (aka Disney’s Pocahontas) that is in Jamestown, Virginia. I think it’s safe to assume this is a little closer to how the real Pocahontas would appear in real life.

 https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Who-Voiced-Pocahontas-43957948

 Irene Bedard is said to have been the main inspiration behind the look of the Walt Disney princess. I give Disney props for choosing a Native American actress to voice Pocahontas, and also use her as a physical model for the character. This being said, look at the color difference in Irene Bedard’s complexion and Pocahontas’s complexion. Clearly Disney was falling back on old world stereotypes of what color Native American’s skin should be as Pocahontas’s skin tone is clearly much more orange than Irene’s.

    Sources used:

 1.      Gabriel, Mike, Eric Goldberg, Carl Binder, Susannah Grant, and Philip LaZebnik. Pocahontas. United States: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, Inc, 1995.

2.      History.com Staff. “Pocahontas.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/Pocahontas.

3.      https://www.biography.com/people/pocahontas-9443116

4.      Pocahontas Revealed homepage Image Composite: (dig showing postholes) Courtesy Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities; (historical reenactment) © NOVA/WGBH Educational Foundation

5.      Images of a Legend Images: (1616, 1624, early 1850s, c. 1868, 1870, 1852) Courtesy Virginia Historical Society; (likely 1700s) Courtesy National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; (1590) Courtesy The Library at the Mariners' Museum; (1825, 1836-40) Courtesy Architect of the Capitol; (1994) Courtesy Virginia artist Mary Ellen Howe; (1995) Walt Disney Studios

6.      An Introduction to "Pocahontas: Her Life & Legend" Image: (1994) Courtesy Virginia artist Mary Ellen Howe

7.      The Science of Jamestown Images: (Facial reconstruction, dig showing postholes, pottery fragments, tree rings) Courtesy Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities; (dig showing trenches, metal fragments) © 2007 The Werowocomoco Research Group

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Multimedia Journal Entry 1

Multimedia Journal Entry 1

Television: How to Get Away with Murder

  How to Get Away with Murder is a drama sitcom on ABC. The show revolves around defense attorney and law professor Annalise Keating (played by Viola Davis) who teaches at a prestigious university. Annalise is a well-educated, successful, and influential female lawyer.  Throughout the seasons, the audience witnesses Annalise and five of her students become entwined in multiple murder plots.  

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/how-get-away-murder-breaks-736778

 Despite the character involvement in these murders, Annalise and her students somehow manage to worm their way out of these situations for the most part unharmed. I selected How to Get Away with Murder because I think that in many ways it manages to break the stereotypical portrayal of both female and African American norms in our society and media.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/s/queen-viola-davis-her-amazing-211407173.html

 African American’s (both male and female) along with women (as a whole) have up until recently always been expected to fulfill a certain role in American society. Most commonly that of being subservient to the white man. African Americans have long remained an oppressed minority despite the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865. In no ways did an “end” to slavery mean an end to racism or the entailment of equal rights.  

http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/03/04/black-women-in-the-media-mammy-jezebel-or-angry/

 Up until more recent years, media has seldomly (if ever) portrayed African American women in well-educated positions of power. In the introduction of Deborah Willis’s Picturing Us, Willis discusses the earlier portrayals of African American women in photography. On page seventeen she says, “Black women, in particular, have been subjugated and misinterpreted in photography since the early days of the medium. This is true both in domestic treatments, such as Trouble ahead, Trouble Behind, and in representations of “exotic” others.”

https://goo.gl/images/ypvr3p

The photograph, Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind depicts an African American woman beating/spanking a young African American boy. This image was created to amuse white audiences. “…it is undeniably a destructive image, one that plays on stereotypes and perpetuates racial myths” (Willis, 17). Nineteenth century photography was used in a way to further influence negative stereotypes of African American women in society.

How to Get Away with Murder challenges false conceptions and stereotypes of the African American female. In the past, photography and other forms of media have been used in ways to de-humanize and objectify African American women. How to Get Away with Murder steps away from this, by creating a strong female character with depth.

     Television:

How To Get Away With Murder (2014-), Produced by ABC Studios

Created by Peter Nowalk. Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers and Bill D'Elia serve as executive producers.

Starring: Viola Davis, Billy Brown, Jack Falahee, Aja Naomi King, Matt McGorry, Karla Souza, Charlie Weber, and Liza Well

    Sources:

1.                   “Watch How to Get Away with Murder TV Show - ABC.com.” ABC, ABC, abc.go.com/shows/how-to-get-away-with-murder.

2.                   "Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography by Deborah Willis-Thomas." Goodreads. Goodreads, 01 May 1996. Web.

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BLACK WOMEN STEREOTYPES IN THE MEDIA

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Final Project: Multi-Media Journal

I am planning on having this 100% completed by Wednesday. Is this too late?

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Viola Davis speaks at Women's March

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