Racism 2.0: Should the Oscars Have a Token Nomination?

In search of this week's topic, I first turned to social media. The following clip has been circulating my feed for a few days and I thought it summed up some of my feelings about the recent Oscars controversy.

I'd like to pose the question... are the Oscars about race or eligibility? If it's about the former, then it would seem all past nominees and recipients who are minorities would be offended for being considered. If this were the case, then how would someone ever know if their accomplishments were based on merit or the color of their skin.

I believe the biggest mistake the academy made in regard to this controversy was responding to it so quickly. By promising more women and minority nominees, they gave validity to an otherwise fallacious argument. Voting based on gender or race does a great disservice to the nominees.

This video also raises the question that perhaps there are not enough roles for those of color or for women in Hollywood. I defintely believe this to be true. While writing an outline for a script with some friends we switched the gender of our lead character to female, so now a woman was meant to be playing a role initially imagined as a man. This made for an interesting concept and we had a lot more fun creating a non-traditional character.Or really just a character we didn't default to. Perhaps its not te fault of the Acedemy but of the creators themselves. Maybe they are defaulting to certain characters and creating them on repeat without any reach as to what they could be.

Either way it will be interesting to see some of the changes that happen over the next few years. I am interested to see if we move closer to integration or further into segregation.

Facebook Campaign: DSU Films

This semester I was asked to establish a web presence for DSU films. The program has been fortunate enough to grow very organically with little advertising outside of word of mouth. Its time we succumb to the internet and really kick things up a notch.

My plan includes:

1. Creating a landing page for future professional clients. Most of the funding the film program receives is through professional projects. These clients are often lost when coming to Southern Utah and find DSU purely by happenstance. Last I checked I couldn't even find a phone number for DSU films. This page will also have short professional reels to show off some of the past work students have done.

2. Facebook I will be collaborating with students and faculty to create a stream of content. I know many students and Alumni share behind the scenes photos on their personal accounts that get a lot of attention. By collaborating with them we can gain a lot of cross promotion and followers

3. Instagram This will be a very similar tactic with facebook. We will be sharing a lot of behind the scenes stuff to gather follows like future clients and future students. I will be setting up a drive where students can upload their photos to get featured. I will also be reposting photos and tagging collaborators. DSU has received a lot of donations this year from companies in L.A. I will be tagging them to cross promote their gear and in exchange, they will be reposting our photos for future students and clients to find.

5. Linking them up. I will be usuing each platform to promote the next. Each will build a relationship with clients and students. I am also looking to collaborate with other departments on campus. I'm looking for members of student government, the dance department, the alumni association, and many others to help promote one another.

This won't be easy, but I am excited to see how much attention and growth I can create during my last semester as a student at DSU.

On the Media

This week, I chose to listen to the episode about Aaron Swartz called 'The Wunderkind of the Free Culture Movement" this episode interviews Justin Peters author of the book The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet.

The interview, like the book, compares the life of Aaron Swartz with evolution of copyright laws. It begs the question: who is an information moralist? Is an information moralist the author who believes stealing is wrong? It he the publisher who takes established works of literature from overseas and sells them for nothing? Is he the one who spends the entirety of the 1980's transcribing the bible so that it may be searched one day? Is the moralist the advocate for copyright who convinces preachers to sneak copyright into their sermons? Or is the moralist the person who creates open access to eliminate the privatization of information?  

This question is especially tough to answer for me. I see media in two parts: the creator, and the consumer. It is difficult for me to separate my feelings between the two because I see myself as both. Like Fitzgeralds wrote, "I am both within and without." I am both a consumer who wants open and easily accessible information, and a creator who wants to benefit from my work. While examining the life of Aaron Swartz the author brings to mind a quote from Stewart Brand: 

"Information wants to be free!"

Justin Peters expands upon this slogan saying information wants to be free because it so infinitely cheap to recreate, however, it also wants to be expensive because it is so valuable to the creator. In the information age this becomes more and more true. How much money did Amazon make off your last Ebook purchase versus how much it cost to produce? Imagine a world where we could download our entire textbooks for free. Who is the REAL benefactor of this information, especially information created by those no longer living?

Swartz was first inspired to pursue free and open information when reading the book Understanding Power afterwards Swartz said he could not unsee it. He then pushed what he called content liberation. He wanted to honor the ideal of civil disobedience, claiming it was our duty to share to prevent the privatization of information.

Much like the author in this interview, I surprisingly sided more with Swartz by the end. I too have seen friends lose job opportunities because people are no longer paying for content. However, while learning more and more about the conception of copyright, it seems more and more like a fiscal issue that is being presented as a moral issue. It was fascinating to learn of the push of international copyright in churches. It makes me wonder what other issues have been pushed as "moral"?

What do you think?

Does copyright encourage more creation?


Or does it only benefit a few? 

All in all, this was an interesting conversation that needed to be had.

#SOTU

I had an interesting perspective during the State of the Union address. I was unable to stream it live due to an evening class on Tuesday night. Because of this, I couldn't help but be exposed to social commentary before watching it. Many news outlets and individuals were saying President Obama brushed a lot of issues under the rug, such as foreign policy. Because of this rhetoric, I went in with preconceived notions about the speech and found myself carefully looking for the president to glaze over these issues. To be fair, he kind of did.

So, yes, I was affected by this rhetoric because it distracted me from his speech from the start.

I had also seen a lot of conservatives pointing out the cameras catching the Joint Cheifs not applauding when Obama claims america is the strongest nation. Is this a hint at our readiness? Or something else? After reading multiple tweets and facebook posts I went back to rewatch this portion of the speech again.

All in all, I surprisingly liked his speech. I don't feel like it was the most appropriate for SOTU. At one point I said,"Wow if this guy were running for president, I might actually vote for him." He pointed out a lot of problems, but offered very little in the way of solutions. I'm all about preeching optomism, and while I appreciate it, I know its not the reality of the world we live in.

I liked his focus on climate change and sustainability, a real issue we all need to get behind, regardless of our party. I also appreciated his preeches of kindness and tollorance, something I believe we as a nation have lost. All-in-all I will consider this one of his more memorable speeches, even though I know its all a big PR-gasm, it made me think optomistically for a minute. 

Below are some fb posts and tweets that affected my view point: