Midterm Proposal

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. 

P.S : Professor,
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.