For my final project I am planning on creating a video that addresses sexual assault and rape culture in America. I would like to share my video via social media. I intend to have anonymous women share their stories with me. Once I collect their stories via voice recording, I plan to place them all together with a voice over in the background. The video would be of them or of similar locations, outfits, or scenarios that match some of the women’s stories. I will also be incorporating some of my own stories and experiences. So far I have four volunteers who agree to share a brief story about their encounters and experiences with some form of sexual assault. TikTok seems like a good place to begin my videos. The app has many fiters and abilities to help me edit my work. TikTok is a great platform as well because people of many ages are using the app especially during the pandemic.
I would like my project to represent women’s voices and experiences. More often than not many women fear sharing their stories and experiences with others. They fear shame, gossip and the backlash of “rape culture” in America. My video will have a voice over as an intro or ending that explores and addresses what rape culture looks like in American society and how the media and the courts support it. After some research, I found that the experience and stories of sexual assault victims are not always incorporated inside of a courtroom. Social media plays a large influence on the idea of rape culture in society. Looking back at some of our past readings, the media is a great way to target a broad audience.
“In a social milieu that reconstitues politics and sexuality as entertainment and relies on the mass media to be arbiter of success, the Girls’ particular combination of subversive theatrics and outrageous flaunting of convention finds a ready audience” .
Many of the mysterious womens works have messages and statements that are not only straightforward but memorable as well. One of the girls expressed that the Guerrilla Girls mission is to make a mark.
“One hundred. One thousand, one million years from now, we want to make sure our descendants know what our culture was really like.” (5, Guerrilla Girls) . I believe this quote can apply to my project as well because art can be activism with the resources we have today!
Susan Sontag writes about art and activism from photographs- she writes "To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge -- and, therefore, like power." I believe that even though the photos that I plan to incorporate in my video will not be exact to the time or location that the girls are speaking of, the collage of photos can express the powerful message that rape culture- and the bias of sexual assault exist in many places.
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