Jamie Caruso
March 16, 2020
Activist Interlop and Pranksters
My project is going to be focused
around what I perceive to be the most impactful societal and civil issues that
our country has seen. I would like to choose some of the major legality
decisions that were powerful enough to change our nation for the better, these
things are of major importance because they are revolved around problematic
issues that are negatively affecting minorities; whether it be race, gender,
sexual orientation, reproduction rights, etc. An example of a detrimental milestone
that I would want to add to my calendar was pivotal in our countries
development towards equal rights; Proposition 8. This proposition highlights
the rights for the gay community and their constitutional right to get married
and be recognized as legal couple. People need to understand and recognize that
it was more than that. This quite possibly symbolizes the strongest step that
has been taken for gays rights and has given this population a hopeful outlook diminishing
ignorance and hate, and the possible production of full judgment free, open
mindedness. Another idea I have for one of the months in my calendar that is
something Our society has gone; and is still going through; the famously
controversial well known case revolving around abortion: Roe vs. Wade. I want
to put together a calendar that has a sequenced timeline of the different dates
that something impactful has passed, these things are going to have the theme
of equal, civil, gender, reproductive rights, etc. I want to go through each
month and try and pick the most powerful thing that happened in that month,
that changed the way we operate as a country. I am going to go at this project
using my liberal ideology and try and figure out what major aspects have shaped
how we run through our everyday life with some freedom because of the bills and
such that have passed.
I want to make this so it shows us
a more extensive type of calendar year past just having a month for woman and
African Americas. Although I am a bit worried that I am going to generalize too
much or not be specific enough. I don’t want to be all over the place, but I
also don’t want to just focus on one type of populations civil rights. I was
exploring the different areas that I believe are detrimental to our freedoms
and pasts; reproductive rights, LGBT, voting rights, and beyond. I am not sure
if I should add certain things that I believe are important/ have been
important in growing as a nation such as marijuana, assisted suicide, pandemics,
certain religion aspects included.
Something that I wanted to try and
do, even though I am not sure how well I will be able to organize it, use
certain specific dates to add smaller sub parts to the dates in the months that
I am assigning different Propositions and passing bills. I know that the
pictures are going to be so important to this calendar and that they can make
or break the whole thing, I might try and use my own photography skills to try
and represent the information I am trying to display.
I believe it will be important to
have something tangible that shows 12 months of these huge moments in history,
if we are able to look at it in this type of subject we will be able to realize
that we have come far. Also that we can go farther, I wish I could incorporate
the areas and specifics of these controversial topics that need to be changed
so much, or one desperately more than the other.
I have been trying to find some
sources with actual Propositions in chronological order but I am having a hard
time, especially with some of the older milestones, because they do not have
specific months. If anyone can think of the best way to organize the topics in
a more compact way, my biggest fear is that I am going to put too many
different topics and lose the heartiness of what I am trying to put out.
The
artist I decide choose were not all painters, I tried to think out of the box,
my list is composed of one musician, two actors/television show, an author, and
an iconic dancer
(modern/ballet) and choreographer.
The
author I choose was Gloria Jean Watkins, but she is best known by the alias;
bell hook. I am so greatful that I was about to learn about her in class, her
writing is one is by far one of the easiest works I have ever read due to the fact
she is interesting and smooth she puts. Some of the experts and works and
papers I have read are so polished and persuasive that they remind me of
beautiful poetry. She is the epitome of
what one would think is the definition of an activist fighting to get the
message out about true feminism and equality. She is best known for her writing
but she wears many hats; social activist; philosopher; professor.
For
my second artist activist I choose Robert Nest aka “Bob Marley”, he is the most
famous singer song writer of the genre of reggae. I chose him because his song depict
the struggles of economically and political oppression, during a time that man
men did not care to speak out about these problems in such a creative and bold
fashion. He was one of the brightest prophets and human rights activist in
music with an open-minded progressive approach and his message revolved around
love. One of my favorite quotes by him is “the most beautiful curve on a woman
is her smile”. People found hope in his socially conscious music, a beautiful
part of his work was that it was not just focused on his home country of Jamaica,
he was the voice that spoke out for all poverty stricken third world countries.
For these reasons and more I decided to choose him as one of five activist
artists’.
It
may seem unorthodox but my third activist and artist is based on a show called
“Broad City”. This is including the two actresses in the show who are also
activists and feminists; Illana Glazer and Abbi Jaccobson. This is not just a one
dimensional television program, they use humor on this platform to entertain
but to also speak about many topics surrounding equality of all people and they
take a very liberal stance when it comes to social issues. This is a very
clever way of subtly slipping in positive female ideology and strength of women
who speak out about ignorance by making fun of extreme ignorance in a
charismatic way. Off screen these two actresses do a lot of good and charity
for many hot topics that need to be addressed, topics that shouldn’t even be a
problematic issue because they should just be part of our rights as a human
being, to be able to be the person we want to be, especially because many of
these groups of people are just asking to be able to be allowed to express and
be who they really are; while being free of judgment, hate, and violence.
The
next person I used the representation of a person in the famous Norman Rockwell
painting; Rosie the Riviter. She has been an iconic female who represents the
strength of women and their importance in the world. It is very rare that a
person has never seen this picture, people even dress like her for Halloween She
is that much of an icon and representative of the important roles of the
working female. She does this by staring in a campaign aimed at recruiting
female workers for defense industries’ during World War II. She was the original ignition of patriotism in
females aimed at the idea that they could temporarily leave the home to fill
the man’s place in society. This is a controversial topic and a slight jab at
the ignorance of Patriarchy. Since the very beginning of her appearance she has
inspired the female population to exceed the societal expectations.
The
final activist that I have chosen is Martha Graham, who was known as “The
revolutionary Mother of Modern Dance. I have hear of her in the past but I
never actually looked into what her importance was until now. Luckily I did
because I was enlightened about a part of the past where a women made an impact
through the art of modern dance. At this time in history it was not the norm to
do the type of dancing that she had done. She brought about a revolution with
dance by ignoring the idea that women where just supposed to dance and flail
their legs about and look pretty. The way she danced wasn’t exactly perceived
as beautiful but people began to realize that she was not just dancing to focus
on beauty’ she was dancing to represent a story and feelings of drama. Martha
started a totally new type of dance where people were allowed to use their body
in ways they never did before. A famous story is that there was a woman who had
lost her child and when she saw graham dance she suddenly had a revelation and
feeling of relief because she finally felt like there was someone else out
their representing feelings that were not just on the surface, it showed
tragedy and strength through movement and a type of entertainment that was not
yet known to the world. Two years after he death a book was published that had
the subtitle “An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud,
Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi; some of the MOST
prolific people in all of history.
I
am excited to create this project, and hopefully it will portray my passionate
feelings toward human rights that effect many of the minorities of the world
and populations that are looked down upon solely because they are perceived as
wrong just because they are different then the cookie cut idea of many hateful
and ignorance people. I want to represent the people who have been wrongly put
down and thrown to the wolves for no good reason solely because people are
scared of different. I want to show that the sight needs to be corrected with
all the eyes that flood this judgmental world.
Do you receive my emails? I was really sick and couldn't do anything, then I had to take care of my mom post surgeries. I am sorry I was not in classes, I will be set now and present as long as there is nothing urgent that comes up again.
