In today’s society, accurate representation of people of color in queer media is rare. However, in the film The Skinny, directed by Patrick-Ian Polk, almost the entire cast is made up of queer people of color. This film is especially interesting, because the main characters were black, queer, and Ivy League graduates representing Brown University. To see black queer people be represented in a film as educated, affluent, and generally happy is something to be treasured. Patrick –Ian Polk used the characters he created, as well as imagery, to encode the message that queer black people are not a monolith: we are diverse and complex, and deserve to be cared about and protected.
In focusing on diversity, Magnus is an essential character in this
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There is also a character named Kyle, who is typically promiscuous and careless. There is Ryan, who had a hard time growing up and has had to partake in sex work since the age of fifteen. There is Langston, a black lesbian from Britain, who has a really hard time approaching other women. Finally, there is Joey, who not only has a hard time approaching other men, but is also dealing with the constant stress of living below the poverty line regardless of his Ivy League degree. Polk, being the creator, director, producer, and writer for this film, carefully and purposefully chose to have an array of characters with different experiences and personalities. The fact that this is an independent film, instead of mainstream, also impacts why this film is so diverse. The article, “Queer Cinema”, points out that “mainstream Hollywood films that deal with actual gay and lesbian lives and issues are extremely rare” and that mainstream films still produce “new versions of the old killer-queer stereotype”. So it makes sense that a film featuring complex queer black characters is an independent film. Since there was no massively influential industry to encode the message, the message turned out to be more inclusive of a broad and diverse queer audience, instead of just one stereotype that may be easier for our heteronormative society to
Furthermore, director Jessy Terrero takes the audience on different aspects of black culture, mainly through a heavily stereotypical viewpoint. The most commonly used shots are overhead and medium close ups, in order to exaggerate characters and scenes, and he commonly uses hip hop music in order to describe settings and characters. Though this film is mainly stereotypical for comedic purposes, this paper discusses how the director utilizes film techniques in order to illustrate and represent the nature of African American men and women and Black
The film Miracle portrays one of the most significant moments in U.S Olympics history. The thought of a group of college hockey players beating the “lab-made” Russians was almost inconceivable at the time. Although this sporting achievement was immense, the political significance of the Americans beating the Russians was far more significant. Following World War II, Eastern and Western nations faced geopolitical tensions, and eventually, entered into the Cold War. While the U.S and Russia never fired a shot during the Cold War, the tension between the two nations was ever-present.
These movies, over 40 years apart, touch on similar topics of race and stereotypes. However, the more recent sheds a positive light on the cast, giving positive traits to the characters. The black characters are not seen as a cut out archetype, but rather an individual dealing with life events. The movie is shown to the audience, each individual takes away a unique moral. Even though the intended lesson can be misread, the fact there is a moral is enough.
Intersectionality “Race, gender, religion, sexuality, we are all people and that’s it. We are all people. We are all equal.” Intersectionality within the LGBTQ is not uncommon; people are of all different races, economic standings, genders, etc. Because of these diversities it adds a unique marker to each person.
Shown in the case of Emmerich’s Stonewall, where an account of a major turning point in the LGBT national narrative, is fictionalized to fit a narrative familiar with the Hollywood edict of the White male lead (Retzloff, 2007; Erigha, 2015). This focus on the incorrect telling of historic events thwarts understanding of the totality of marginalization faced by racial and ethnic minorities and members of the LGBT community. Through participation in the film industry, members of underrepresented groups can counteract White male hegemonic practices, and influence the creation of media images (Collins,
The following line from The Florida Project best sums up the film: “You know why this is my favourite tree? Cause it’s tipped over and it’s still growing.” Spoken by Moonee while eating jelly sandwiches with Jancey on the trunk of a lush, collapsed tree, the line draws a perfect similarity between the fallen tree’s continued growth and the motel residents’ efforts to trudge through poverty despite their representations in society. Sean Baker’s The Florida Project depicts Moonee, a six-year old living at the Magic Castle (a dilapidated motel just outside Walt Disney World) with her unemployed mother Halley.
The film Girl’s Trip has been applauded for being a celebration of blackness in the primarily white film industry. The majority of the cast and the writers for Girl’s Trip are people of color. The film was much more successful than its “white counterpart” Rough Night in box office revenue and reviews. However, most of the black characters in Girl’s Trip shift through various controlling images throughout the movie. The reason these stereotypes are less obvious than they are in some other films is because each characters portrays multiple stereotypes and different times throughout the film.
At some point of your life you meet very special people that carry very similar interests. This creates bonds that can be a very powerful and important part of your life. Some may say that bonds are created between a series of negative events that leads up to friendship. However, this is not true because in The Way, the main characters come together to walk the same path. Each character motivates each other to achieve the overall reason of why they wanted to walk The Camino De Santiago.
The Thinning is a scientific fiction, genre-based movie released in October 12, 2016. The movie is directed by Michael J. Gallagher. The production company is Legendary Entertainment. The movie received many accolades. The movie got 5.9/10 on IMb and 93% of Google users enjoyed viewing it.
In the film Extreme Measures someone can find ideas of Secular Ethics throughout the film involving Utilitarianism and its basic tenets along with Kantian analysis. The basic tenets of Utilitarianism include the principle of utility, Hedonism, and the viewpoint of a disinterested and benevolent spectator. While the tenets of Kantian Ethics, which include good will, the formula of universal law, the formula of the end itself, and the categorical imperative. These basic ideas setup arguments for and against the Utilitarian ideas set up by doctor Myrick. In the film doctor Myrick makes the claim that it is worth the deaths of unwilling subjects in order to help/save the lives of millions.
Cheryl Dunye, a screenwriter, film director and actress, has created many films that fit under the genre of new queer cinema. Most of her films explores the intersections of sexuality, race and class and how it shapes black women's sexual identity. Cheryl presents the intersectionality theory in her films to uncover the social inequality that black lesbian face in society. This is important because they are doubly discriminated against for being a minority of colour, a homosexual person and of the lower class (Kumashiro, 2001). In particular, Cheryl's the The Watermelon Woman (1997) and Black is Blue (2014) will be discussed.
Gus Van Sant, the director of the movie, chose to include every detail that he possibly could to relate this movie to American Democracy. He strategically included heterosexual and homosexual actors to spark a political debate. The director clearly wanted to make a point about the discrmination against the LGBTQ society. He emphasizes this by having homosexuals march down the streets of San Francisco, destroying city property.
Development Before we started to write scripts we mind mapped ideas and scenarios that could happen in our scene and then we started to improvise scenes as a group which helped us gain better knowledge about our characters and their personality traits. We improvised the scene 5 part 2 where Todd meets the Dr.jenkins which helped me write the realistic dialogue for my scene. The scene I wrote was scene 5 part 2 because I had a great concept for this scene where Todd seeks help and I also help further develop other scenes as well. When writing my scene, I wanted to create a personality for my characters in order for the audience to get a better understanding of my demonstrating of roles.
In a time when racists and homophobes have been empowered by the recent election of fellow racist Donald Trump, proper representation of marginalized experiences in art have gained increased importance in how we perceive and empathize with others. The sharing of experiences through art helps with consciousness-raising and the spreading of knowledge among those of different experiences. An example of this is the recently released film Moonlight, written and directed by Barry Jenkins and based on a story by Tarrell Alvin McCraney, which bitchmedia correspondent Nijla Mu’min covered in a recent article. In this article, Mu’min discusses the cultural and political influence of Moonlight in our current social and political climate. In regards to
M (1931) by Fritz Lang is one of the most significant films of the Weimar Republic that had influenced on aesthetic of film noir and an establishment of a genre of a psychological and urban thriller concentrating on a history of one murder who terrorizes a city. It was the first sound film by the director and, nowadays, recognized as one of the most interesting examples in experimentation with sounds and their connection with displaying images. A plot based on a real history of a serial killer from Dusseldorf is a peculiar interpretation of a reality, reflecting an atmosphere in the society because a paranoia described in the film was an illustrative explanation of a condition of people mind. Siegfried Kracauer, a German film theorist, written