WHAT'S THIS PAGE ABOUT?
In this quarter, we've been studied and discussed "How do Disney films contribute to the construction of society's values and norms about gender roles? " To fully explore this topic, me and my peers created a podcast which we used to express and exchange our thoughts and findings on it with evidence. Personally, I improve my skills of communication, speaking, and organizing sources. This podcast project shows what we have achieved so far in terms of course objectives, and this page will be a reflection of this podcast project.
PRE-PRODUCTION: PREPATION AND PLANNING
To me, the idea of Disney breaking the traditional gender role starts at Week 1 when we first learn the concept of social construction. We watched a video on youtube created by Gwen Sharp and Lisa Wade. It explains what social construction is and why is it important. We then wrote three paragraphs to discuss what each of us has learned about the social construction from the video. Here's an excerpt of what I wrote after watching the video about social construction.
"After watched the video, social construction, as far as I concerned, refers to a concept that consensual meaning is given on certain things by individuals through interaction."
At that point, I realized how important social construction is, because it constantly affects our decisions and behaviors, and sometimes we even don't realize that it's happening. Week 1 is a fundamental step I have to take to understand how Disney contributes to social perceptions of genders.
This moment inspires my "Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world" because it brings to me new terms that I've never realized before.
The second moment I consider important happened in Week 3. We've been asked to watch and annotate Beaty and the Beast (2017) that week. It's the first time for me to focus on lines instead of scenes while watching a film. I learned from that experience that lines in movies contain many information and meanings that scenes don't. More importantly, it's an effective way to learn English. It helps me to find more hidden gender-related information whenever I watch a Disney movie after Week 3.
Just like I wrote in my blog Habits of Mind, "it is interesting to focus on lines instead of scenes when engaging with a film because lines usually contain more implications than scenes do."
This moment develops my "Engagement – a sense of investment and involvement in learning." I learn a new way to engage with materials.
What we've done in Week 5 is the last moment I would like to discuss because that's the week in which I got the most parts of my podcast project ideas. In week 5, we've been asked to watch and annotate a film from Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the summary of annotation, I wrote this, "One interesting thing about the Avengers series is that we rarely see stereotypes of gender values and gender roles in films, especially in the Avengers: Endgame." At that point, I started to try to find evidence for my thought, and I found out Marvel did add more feminist elements and softened figures of male superheroes. Therefore, that finding became the main topic of my podcast project.
I would count this moment as an inspiration of "Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world" for the same reason: it brings to me new terms that I've never realized before.
PRODUCTION: CREATING THE PODCAST AND MICROSITE
1. Four of our group members live in China, and one life in the states, so there obviously has difficulty for us to contact each other due to the time zones and different social media. We even missed one group member at the first two meetings. I tried my best to deliver messages and information between group members since I was the only one who can access both Snapchat and Wechat. I contacted the missing group member to see if he would like to join us and helped him to catch up with our group works as well. This experience helps me to understand my "Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others" better.
2. The second thing that I think it's worth talking about is I contributed most content about feminism in the MCU movies. Our podcast has three main segments: the fairy tale, Marvel, and Starwars. Each of our group members, except the host, is responsible for certain segments. It helps me to build up my "Creativity – the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas" and "
Persistence – the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects." I learned a new way to do research, which is listening to podcasts, and it requires a huge amount of time.
3. The last thing I would like to discuss here is my role in this project. My role is the researcher, and this is a relatively easy job comparing to the works that my rest group members have to do. Thankfully, my group members are hard-working and responsible. When we were deciding the roles, I said I'll do whatever is left. To be honest, I didn't expect "researcher" would be left since we all knew researcher is a light role. It definitely teaches me about "Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others."
Here's our microsite for the podcast project.
The link is : https://mingchm.wixsite.com/group8
LOOKING AHEAD
1. When we were doing the final production, we found that it was nearly impossible to record the whole podcast at once due to the lack of communication before the final production. We barely knew the details of the content of other group members, so we had to record each conversation and segment separately. It supposed to be a one-hour meeting, and it turned out to be a four-hour meeting. What I learn from this experience is that never hesitate to communicate within the group because that's the only way for others to understand your opinions.
2. To me, it's really important to be part of the icebreaker because if you speak up or contribute something at the very first meeting, the rest of the group activities will be much easier for you. Assume none of your group members know you, then the first impression is how they going to interact with you in the future, so never be shy in the first meeting.
Moreover, keep communicating with your group during the activities. That's the only way how you effectively finish your group works. Things can never be done through only writing and silence.
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3. Before the podcast project starts, I was going to talk about how Avengers: Endgame illustrates gender equity in the podcast. However, as I going through the materials, I realize that gender equity is not perfectly achieved in Avengers: Endgame. In Avengers: Endgame, the developments of female superheroes are not as comprehensive and good as the developments of male superheroes. Therefore, I switched my topic to stronger feminism and weaker masculinity instead. I think I will keep this topic as my essay topic.