Horrified
by the brutal gang-rape of a medical student who was riding the bus home in
Delhi, India. Twenty-eight-year old Radha Bedi traveled to India in hopes of
finding the reason behind harsh female brutality in India. In the 2013 BBC
documentary Radha Bedi visits the victim of the brutal gang-rape as she
investigates the reason for gender segregation in India.
The
creativity behind this documentary is that a British born woman of Indian
decent is exploring the cultural differences between how she was raised in a
country with female independence and the suppression of women in India.
Followed
by a small film crew, Bedi roams the streets of Delhi to find an answer to the
brutality of women in India. She visits hospitals and speaks with different
victims of abuse. Below is an example the brutality women in India
endure,
BANGALORE: A 38-year-old woman was brutally attacked with a
machete in an ATM in the heart of
the city on Tuesday, leaving her severely injured, police said.
The woman, manager at Corporation Bank, entered the ATM
in which no security guard was present, to withdraw cash when the assailant
followed her inside and brought down the shutter before threatening her with
the weapon, police said. This documentary utilizes the
Indian culture, music, and art to depict the rise and fall of women in India’s
culture. This documentary is perfectly executed by having a combination educated
historians and doctors that full explain the problems that this brutality
creates.
“A Hip-Hop-menatary; Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of
A Tribe Called Quest, the Documentary with
rhythm”
By Nkechi Ndukwe
From Hip-hop's immense communal acceptance in
the early 1980s to the current distorted image surrounding the industry today, this
genre of music has quickly submerged the music market with pioneers of rap
(hip-hop) who have changed the way people relate to music. Every generation
has their handful of musical geniuses who trail-blaze a new way of style and
thinking. Hip-hop fans universally experience their own trailblazers as well.
No other group solidified their position in the hip-hop kingdom other than the
infamous hip-hop group “A Tribe Called Quest.” Through an eloquent documentary, director Micheal Rapaport conveys a different form documentaries by fusing hip-hop and storytelling.
Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest, is not a typical documentary. The editing technique along with the directors vision showcases the impact that hip-hop made on multiple societies during the 90s. Fourteen years after the group's dismantlement
in 1997, July 8th, 2011, became the day that director Michael Rapaport and
group members of A Tribe Called Quest: Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad,
and Jabori White graced fans with their critically acclaimed documentary Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest, an urban twist on biographical documentaries.
After watching Beats Rhymes & Life, the background history of who the four
members of A Tribe Called Quest are allows for a better understanding of why
the group became breakout pioneers during the era. Being a Caucasian male director, Micheal Rapaport proves that A
Tribe Called Quest has targeted audiences of multiple diversities. In 2013, VH1
aired Beats Rhymes & Life for fans
of the group who could not experience the original debut of this urban classic
documentary. With its high viewer ratings, once again, documentaries such as this one show
that music fans still appreciate documentaries as an elite form of art that goes beyond the shallow levels of standard films and television.
As a different approach to documentaries this film would favor a feature writer that is interested in music, it is important that the feature story blends the music groups history along with the techniques the director used to creatively tell the story of this shift in hip-hop music.
The objective of my research is to prove the powerful influence of
documentaries as well as documentaries evolution into an important art form of
modern society. Proving that personal eyewitness of a subject matter through
documentaries has a stronger impact on societies ethos, logos, and pathos in
regards to life changing issues. First, it is important to describe the
history surrounding film and how documentaries bridge the cultural gap amongst
people. Then through my personal experience of creating my own documentary, I
will explain that an affective documentary informs without being biased
allowing the audience to choose their own opinion of the subject presented.
This Feature writing will target both males and females as I will use examples
of different documentaries that have assisted in shaping the modern culture.
Examining both documentaries and features stories will show the relationship
that each of the forms of mass media need; through a well written feature story
people might want to watch a documentary. For example this article written in
on NaturalNews.com eloquently describes the documentary Let Them Eat
Grasswill,
(NaturalNews) There is a war being waged against real food - no, not the heavily-processed, chemical-laden garbage that fills the aisles of most major supermarkets today, but actual wholesome food grown on clean, family-scale farms across the U.S. And the upcoming documentary Let Them Eat Grasswill expose the aggressors in this widespread fight, as well as urge people like us to fight back and defend our constitutional right to choose healthy food. The film focuses on Wisconsin dairy farm Vernon Hershberger, who recently went to trial for the non-crime of providing healthy, unprocessed food to members of his private buying club. The Wisconsin State government went after Vernon, claiming he was in violation of state laws prohibiting the retail sale of food without a proper license, and tried to lock him up in prison for three years and bilk him for thousands of dollars in fines. But Vernon bravely stood his ground and fought back, and ultimately succeeded in stopping his state's bureaucratic gestapo from trampling he and his family's rights.
The author of this feature story does an
excellent job at connecting the subject matter, which is the documentary, to
the importance of the grassroots movement. My goal in this class is to evaluate
and connect both documentaries and feature stories.
Taking the world by storm, Sir Markadoo of the "Body By Sir" and "Heavenly Body Products" (an assortment of all natural body, health, and wellness merchandise) is now challenging the community, through fitness to defeat the difficult battle of poor health, while gaining proper fitness awareness. Held every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for five dollars a session. Sir and recurrent members push themselves by working the body physically, along with discussion, followed by dietary suggestions to help evolve each other through a sense of community. Located on 2571 Park Central Blv. in Decatur, Ga. from 7pm to 8pm.
We are crawling will we ever walk.: The Image of the Black Woman
The images that are portrayed by African American men and women in society are images that continue to tear the Black community apart.With this being said, whose image is being tarnished more?As we all know, black men in America have been be portrayed as being defiant, criminals, irresponsible, and never take life situations seriously.Film such as, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” portray black males as being a happy servant and never evolves passed being a servant.Forward to one hundred-seven years later, actors such as Jamie Foxx are portraying black males as being intelligent and able to solve life problems, like in the film “Law Biding Citizen.” The image of Black males is one that has made more progress on television screen than that of black women. Films such as, “Gone with the Wind” depict Black women as being servants that are poorly educated, desexualized, and their life revolves around their master.For years, the media portrays Black women as being overly sexualized or desexualized, not educated, independent, or dependent.These are all traits that have stirred-up controversy and have tarnished the image of Black women.The classification of Black women in the media comes in multiple forms, everything from the welfare-queen (a woman that depends on governmental assistance) to sister savior (a woman that is highly religious and virtuous).The film “For Color Girls” has received raved reviews for its ability to capture the struggles that Black Women endure. The characters in this film come in the form of the young naive black girl to the overly independent workaholic.Now, what people fail to realize is that the characters in this movie are highly similar to the characters in the film, “The Women of Brewster’s Place” a film the was created twenty years prior to “Four Color Girls.”Why is it that two decades later Black women are still portrayed in the media as battered women? My answer to this is Black women allow it happen.
With the existence of music videos, the image of black women is being tarnished in another dimension; an example of this is in the video by rap group NWA “A Bitch Iz A Bitch” Black women are being sprayed with firehose. This is beyond insulting and disrespectful, many Black women, and men died fighting for equality and were sprayed with firehoses just so future Black men and women can have a chance to see a generation without segregation. Thirty years later, NWA makes a mockery out of the struggle in their song and video.
But the insult of Black women gets worst. In an article for Vibe Magazine, rapper Slim Thug expresses his view of Black women:
"Most single Black women feel like they don’t want to settle for less. Their standards are too high right now…My girl is Black and White.I guess the half White in her is where she still cooks and do all the shit that I say, so we make it"
This is just one example of how Black men and the media portrays Black women, it is very rare to see a Black man being quoted on complimenting a Black woman.The unsettling thing is it gets worst. Not only does the media subliminally tell Black women they are allowed to be viewed only as a servant or whore but they are turning Black women against each other. In the Willie Lynch letter: Making of a Slave, Lynch tells readers( mainly slave masters) that they should turn the slaves with a lighter skin tone against the slaves with darker skin tones, many years later after slavery, black women are still under a mental enslavement as well as the men.Rapper Wayne falls into the mentality of Lynch when he says in his song, “Right above It”: How do you say what's never said?Beautiful black women, I bet that bitch look better red"Not only does he refer to black women as bitches but also he implies that Black women with a brighter skin tone are more beautiful than the ones that are darker.Songs such as this one stirs up a separation between black women and cause us to fight and work against each other.In my opinion this is mental and self-esteem slavery.Even in magazine and television ads, the percentage of lighter Black women is more than that of dark Black women. How have Black women stooped so low to the point where we have no voice in the media?
The image and identity of Black women is one that is definitely inferior to the one of Black males.Although both sex have struggled over the years, Black women have yet to see growth in the media and it will never see growth unless Black women come to together and demand for respect. Black women have be battered and suppressed for generations and I for one refuse to let my nieces and future daughters live in a generation were Black women only represented in the image of a servant or a slut.
