The Final Project: Transforming an Area of Pop Culture!
You will need to narrow your scope of popular culture:
Choose a media format/genre (some examples):
- TV Program
- Radio Show
- Film
- Music Video
- Magazine
- Video Game
- (Aspect of) Athletic Event
- Fashion
- Public Education & Corporation
Choose a subject/audience:
For example, create a satirical cartoon, cable news program, reality show, televised sporting event, parenting magazine, a game show, children’s entertainment (from Scooby Doo to High School Musical), part of the fashion world (runway modeling or the next season’s "Look Book"); if corporate-edu-consumer-training is your interest, think of a revised Chanel One, corporate sponsored events, curriculum, or major capital project-funding , such as the construction of stadiums and theaters, perhaps target one of these areas in a Colbert-Styled "The WØrd" or a set of segments from The Soup.
If you choose to work within movies/films, a "trailer" would be the right length and format
for envisioning this assignment.
Based on your chosen genre/format:
- Give your production/publication a name— be original and creative!
- Identity the assumptions that underlie the messages you want to send.
- Specifically, identify the messages that you see being disseminated by an analogous/similar form of media that relate to gender, sexuality, race, class, etc. (i.e. current fashion magazines send the message that being female involves striving for ‘ideal’ physical beauty.)
- Create visual images and text (whether written or spoken) that accurately work off these assumptions. (What message(s) do you want to send about, sexuality, racism, sexism, and/or classism?)
- Write, enact, portray (in the format suited for the genre you’ve chosen- video, image, etc) that address existing norms, ideals, and messages about gender, either directly or indirectly. (i.e. an article about males and eating disorders addresses gender directly while an article about the CEO of a Fortune 500 company who happens to be a woman addresses it indirectly.)
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