It tends to be easier for modern audiences to identify cultural disparities between the present and the past, but present flaws in societal expectations and/or stereotypes are often overlooked and accepted as the norm. The tendency to overlook flaws in present day society often occurs when audiences consume modern media. Viewers are reluctant to critically examine the media they consume, looking only to appreciate its entertainment value. My intent is to isolate one issue, sexism, and show its subtle and sometimes not so subtle presence in modern media (primarily video, however audio clips may also be used). My initial plan is to find clips from each decade of the past century, cutting them together to lead up to clips from present day. My hope is that by viewing the clips one after another from such distinctly different time periods, the thematic similarities between clips will highlight the prevalence of sexism in modern times.
Ideally my video would cause viewers to be reflective. Viewers would feel compelled not only to reflect on the authenticity of the claim made in my video (that sexism is still prevalent and not as strongly overcome as we may think), but also to think about the media they consume and if problematic themes and motifs are overlooked.
I won’t need to learn any new video editing techniques. I already know how to cut various clips, which will be the primary technique needed for this project, and lay music underneath the clips, if necessary. I may need to learn how to insert text into the video, but I don’t anticipate that being an especially challenging technique to learn.
The use of clips from the past will be helpful in accumulating video sources that are within the public domain as many video sources from the 1900’s have expired copyrights. The catalyst for my video is an audio clip of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show in which he makes the claim that sexism is a “dead” issue, politicized for a liberal agenda.
http://mediamatters.org/video/2014/06/23/rush-white-house-summit-on-working-families-cre/199847
I think this is a good idea. I was going to do a similar video focusing on sexism in the 50’s and today. I came across a video called “Are you popular?” that teaches girls to act a certain way in order to be accepted. You could use this for your video, here’s the link-
https://archive.org/details/AreYouPo1947
It’s funny I actually was considering doing a sexism and feminism video for my project at first. Are you planning to look at how modern culture has leveraged acceptance of female sexuality for monetary benefits through objectification? I’m thinking of pop and rap stars. As they break barriers to express themselves, the media objectifies them and makes a profit. I just think that’s really interesting.