Read about my final creative output and listen to my team's first podcast episode of Bechdel Babes!
Top Gun Poster via USA Today
Listen below! Bechdel Babes Ep. 1 - An Honest Review of Top Gun:
Bad kissing, cringe pickup lines, and unnecessary locker room scenes
What topic did you choose, and why? Why was this topic an appropriate fit for this publishing medium, in your opinion? You might want to think here about form, audience, barriers to access, and other specific characteristics of the publishing medium.
My group Maryam, Celine, and I chose the topic of gender issues and created a podcast that tackled several topics such as feminism, toxic masculinity, lack of female representation, and more. This topic was appropriate to us because we, as a group of POC women, have experienced our fair share of bad experiences that we can all relate to and understand. And since we all loved watching movies and TV and have a lot to say about the patriarchy, we chose to review white male dominant films and TV through a podcast. We love the flexibility and adaptability of a podcast and felt that it would be the best choice to cater to our time and convenience. Podcasts are also known to host social justice topics and has become a place for underrepresented communities to turn to dive deeper into social topics; therefore, we turned to Podcasting for the same reason.
Describe a specific choice you made as a creator and explain why you made it.
We chose to focus on reviewing white males in film and TV because we all had 2 things in common: we love popular movies and TV and are appalled by the dominance of white men in media. Therefore, we made the choice of focusing on this subject of talking about film and TV from the critical lens of 3 POC women who all came from different backgrounds. We chose the film Top Gun for this specific episode because it represented the "All-American" movie made by white men for white men that we were looking for. We are also not the biggest fans of Tom Cruise; therefore, we felt it was a good and satisfying opportunity to review this movie. It ended up being a really good choice as we had so much fun using our Communications background and our experiences to discuss the movie and comfortably share our thoughts with one another.
What did you learn about this medium by actually working in it (as opposed to just reading about it or analyzing it)?
One can learn about feminism or toxic masculinity through reading an article or highlight points from an academic reading. One could also have written an essay about Top gun using a feminist lens. Although, gathering with a group of friends and talking about a certain movie or film takes the engagement factor to a whole new level. I was able to learn about practice using a feminist and critical lens when reviewing the movie as well as reflect on the movie's impact on today's film industry and overall society. We were also able to discuss female objectification and share our anger together. Therefore, this medium allows you to not just share your ideas, but also connect and relate to others. It made me feel less alone about my feelings and experiences being objectified by scenes from a movie. Therefore, it has become a platform that contributes to social connection and relationships.
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