This comment was written by Erica S. on 10 Oct 2015.
Week 3 Response
This movie discussed the Womens Army, which was a group of women in the 1970’s that was working to bring light to womens rights issues, as well as those pertaining to race and LGBTQ peoples. The main characters in the film were two radio personalities with radio shows discussing the movement, as well as their eventual ties to the Womens Army. Some key points from the film that really stuck with me were based on the blatant racism and disregard for women coming from men. At 10 minutes and 10 seconds into the film, there is a women who is being harassed by two men and a large group of women on bikes comes up and scares the men away. The screen then switches to a broadcaster recounting stories like this, questioning if the men were doing anything wrong, and then talking about how they plan to arrest the women even though they were doing good to save those being assaulted. At the end, the reporter makes a joke about the issue, through asking if he can have a phone number of one of the women. I thought this was a good example to bring up of the disregard for women in the time, as the social issues prevalent. I also thought that is was interesting to see in the film that the groups actions got more and more radical, ie. Stealing trucks to broadcast out of, only after the pushback against them got stronger and stronger. This dynamic really showed their passion, as well as society refusing to listen until something big happened.
Week 3 Readings
“It becomes clear that the art gallery is not the most appropriate space for these ‘provocations’ and discussions to take place — it needs to penetrate public discourse beyond the ‘art and design exhibition’ setting in order to become an instrument of the political (Fry 2011; DiSalvo 2012; Keshavarz and Mazé 2013)“ (Martins 62). The works of Standley and Vargas show a great step away from mainstream video, speaking out for Trans rights, as well as at times poking fun at the systems that oppress the LBGTQ population and communities of color. The clips are not something that would be seen in a typical theater trailer, and it really seemed like the point to me.
Works Cited:
Martins, Luiza, and Pedro Oliviera. “Futuristic Design”. SpingerReference (2011): 59-66. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.