Older and (hopefully) more gracious, I can proudly write that I have my parents to thank for providing me access to art during my childhood। The only things we were not allowed to watch were talk shows and soap operas. My dad was a security guard at Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio’s premier art exhibit and performing art center. I have vivid memories of art exhibits, although names I never remember noticing. Film and music were appreciated by all members of my family and my parents’ taste varied. I enjoyed watching Man From Snowy River with my dad or Dirty Dancing with mom but personally I preferred Disney. Disney movies, notably Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were an obsession. The animation of Disney drew me into these respective worlds and I dreamed, even prayed, that places like that existed. Those movies have lasted more than the test of time, as everyday I see images of the main characters from those movies on children’s accessories. While Disney films and animation can be controversial at best, something about their visual renderings of classic stories appeal to generation after generation. It is this appeal that I desire to dissect and attain. In this sense, I can say that Disney films are a tremendous inspiration to me and have played a great role in why I am a Media Studies student.
In high school two things happened, I found out about foreign cinema and discovered feminism. Looking at the picture above, it becomes a little more obvious why I gravitated toward The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and German expressionism. I went to an alternative high school that offered different class choices than “regular” high school. It was a public school called Linworth Alternative Program and I took Existential Literature, Film and Theory, but it was Decades that turned me on to The Bicycle Thief, 400 Blows, Grand Illusion, and Nosferatu. Decades class entailed reading a book and a film from all the decades in the twentieth century. Even though I grew up appreciating animated art films, it did not occur to me until this class that live action films could also be art in the same way. What I like about Dirty Dancing is only a part of what film can do, entertain. When I saw the Seventh Seal, I saw complexity, beauty, art, and meaning. Another thing that I realized during this class was that I liked “old” films. I had no knowledge of the age of the Disney films I loved, only realizing age with the absence of colors, dialogue, and recognizable faces. I did my own research and came back to American film, starting with silent and discovering Greta Garbo of all people. In Garbo I saw a face that felt familiar, even if I had never seen it before.
She inspired the application of my feminist consciousness with my film studies. When I reached college, my grasp of feminist theory was practically non-existent. In high school I had read books dealing specifically with the 3rd Wave of feminism and enjoyed the music and art created by young feminists. Basically, I did not know my roots, the backbone and struggle that provided my generation with many things I still take for granted. I declared Women’s Studies my major but after taking Women and Film with Judith Mayne, I knew I needed a little more leg room to pursue everything I was interested in. I took Walter Benjamin, Laura Mulvey, Tom Gunning, and I switched to Comparative Studies making visual culture my focus. Under Comparative Studies the curriculum is interdisciplinary, so I was free to combine women’s studies with film studies, which was not a major yet at Ohio State. In the Comparative Studies department, I was moved, challenged, and supported by Ruby Tapia, Lindsey Jones, and Nina Berman. Along with Dan Farrell from Philosophy and Frederick Aldama from English, these people inspire me to be a better person and learn all I can while I am alive. The passion with which they teach the material, the personality they bring to a sterile classroom, and the experience and knowledge they impart are all things that these professors have in common and I hope to embody.
In the meantime, my job as a YMCA aftercare teacher has added another element to my research interests. Almost everyday I ask my students, “what did you learn today?” and they look blankly at me before remarking they had gym, or music, or most enthusiastically, they went to the computer lab. Although they are hard pressed to name one thing they talked about in their classrooms, ask any one of them about the most recent Spongebob Squarepants and they can talk about it for 20 minutes while laughing hysterically. Two things are most striking to me here, the dire need for educational reform and the impact that media has on children. In the news, we really only hear about the negative influence that media (movies, video games, computers) can have on children. An education that incorporates the power of media positively, not to mention a curriculum that is more sensitive to diversity, sounds like a winning combination and I want to be a part of the team. Girls Studies is a field I was introduced to by Ruby Tapia and created in me the desire to work with children. I know I do not want to teach at an elementary school, but I do want to impact their socialization at those ages. Many of my students are bilingual, have traveled to Asia and Europe, own ipods, go to the movies, and they all love art. My co worker and I can encourage their art, promote multiculturalism, show films and play instruments but we only have the kids for 2 hours before and after school. I am also bound by my relationship to my employer to act and speak a certain way while representing them. On a positive note, I know the kids enjoy being at “Latchkey” and I hope it is in part because we incorporate their interests into a schedule that promotes learning and fun. A challenge I look forward to investigating is how can I tailor exciting media to a classroom setting/be age appropriate. Since I know I want to work beyond a school environment, The New School Masters program is appealing to me above all other film programs. The program has many facets and directions, and although I feel most comfortable writing, I want that to change by trying my hand at the technical side. I rarely indulge in creativity outside of writing and it is solely because of time constraint. I am thankful to go to a school that nourishes the things I love to do, why would it be difficult to do this at a younger stage?
I cannot work a full time job that does not give me an outlet to pursue my passions. When I am inspired, I free write all the things going through my head and then I find the books that will help me learn more and support my own ideas. If I worked 40+ hours a week as an insurance agent (I almost did), my time to be inspired and create would be affected by my work demands. I want the two to go hand in hand, I want my work demands to be my passions. Russian film and revolution, medieval literature, psychoanalysis, the whole animal kingdom, and gardening are just a few of the things I enjoy learning about and Media Studies allows me to explore any of these topics. I am gaining the knowledge to create and critique using a variety of mediums, in a way that is beneficial to more than just myself. This empowerment is invaluable and to show my gratitude to everyone that has helped and supported me along the way, I have made it my goal to create meaningful and lasting material.
Alice in Wonderland Image
http://barista.media2.org/?m=200609&paged=2
Greta Garbo Image
http://cameraobscura.busdraghi.net/2008/tecniche-antiche-alternative/gomma-bicromata/fra-il-pittorialismo-e-il-modernismo-di-edward-steichen-e-la-maledizione-di-ansel-adams/5/
Battleship Potemkin Image
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2008/jan/28/week
