CATFISHING ACADEMIA
This documentary is a response to the white privilege riot that took place in Keene, New Hampshire at a Pumpkin festival. In the present climate of injustices happening to black bodies, in particular the murder of Mike Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a riot of drunk white youth reveals the afforded privileges of whiteness. This documentary is a mixture of satirical commentary, staging, and performance. These tools show and tell how whiteness allows people to make an "injustice" out of anything, including something as simple as a pumpkin. By turning the camera on the performers, it is a mirrored reflection of how white privilege centers itself in narratives often not about White people using co-opted tools from black protesting culture.
See the link below for more on the Pumpkin riots and Ferguson: http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2014/10/black_people_riot_over_injustice_white_people_riot_over_pumpkins_and_football.html
7 Comments
Staging: What You Never Knew About Harriet Tubman Observational: Ebony Goddess: IIe Aiye Skeptical: ANITA These three documentaries are all connected through a historical link. The staging documentary deals with a literal "staging" of history. There is a retelling of history by a narrator and reenactment scenes of Harriet Tubman. The observational documentary follows three Afro-Brazilian beauty contestants that compete to be an Ebony Goddess, which is a tribute to their blackness and African heritage that has been whitewashed. Lastly, the skeptical documentary deals with a historical event against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the history of violence against black women. The staging documentary manipulates the subject and does a telling of a history through a third party. The observational documentary moves closer to the subject, but there the power stills majority belongs to the documentarian. The skeptical documentary shifts the power closer to the subject because Anita Hill is such an integral part of the documentary on and off the screen. The power relation is different depending of the style of documentary. |