ENG 2150H Portfolio Site

Reflective Essay

 

By framing my argument using visuals and audio, I was able to appeal to my audience’s senses. When reading a paper, one must constantly be analyzing the text and reflecting upon what they have read. While this would be considered a positive effect, it is not the most effective since there does not exist a strong personal connection to the subject of the paper. When watching a video of a homeless individual crying into a camera, one starts to feel empathic towards him and recognize the problem that exists with the constant negative portrayals of the group. The use of video is also beneficial because a lot of content can be shown in a smaller amount of time and yield similar effects on the viewer. The general public does not usually sit down and read academic articles in their spare time, but they do browse on the Internet and watch videos. Therefore, the use of a video can attract a much larger and diverse audience. Browsing though YouTube myself, I have come across many social experiments caught on film in relation to homelessness and public attitude. These videos typically get millions of views since it allows us to take a step back from life and observe how humans act towards one another. I wish I could have accomplished a similar feat within my project, but I did not have the time, nor the technological expertise to do so.

For the first scene, I decided to use a snippet of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TedTalk, since her speech was what inspired the assignment. She made many strong statements in her talk that I wanted to be incorporated into the video as a foundation for my argument. After that, I put in the title of my project, “The Single Story of Homeless People: Filthy, Crazy, Addicts,” followed by a series of tweets that highlight raw opinions of how people view the homeless population. I used tweets that would fit into my argument so that perhaps the audience relate to the negative tweets and reflect on their actions or the actions of others. The people who tweeted the condescending words about the homeless, within the context of the video, did not exemplify characteristics one would strive to be.

After the tweets, I showed another clip of the TedTalk in which Adichie states that the use of the single story emphasizes how one group is different from another, as opposed to different. I used a clip of Ariana Grande interacting with a homeless man afterwards to show how even a celebrity, who many view to be sweet, hesitated when giving a homeless man money in fear of him using his newfound resources on marijuana. Using a public figure with a large fan base for this scene could be useful since people already have an idea of what type of person she is (at the time, popular for being sweet and grounded).

After the scene of Ariana Grande and the homeless man, I showed a clip from the popular animated show, Family Guy. Since nearly everyone knows about the show and it often reflects on American society, I consider it to be a good source. The clip features Peter cradling a homeless man like a child, feeding him a bottle, burping him, suggesting he needed a diaper change and then stating “I love you, filthy hobo.” The scene explicitly portrayed the homeless man to be unintelligent, filthy and having to be babied by other person in order to even function.

After showing the audience that the negative portrayals of homeless people do exist within the media/public opinion, I wanted to showcase the negative consequences this single story would have on the group. I pulled a clip from YouTube that showed a homeless man named Ronald Davis crying into the camera because of the ignorant statements he gets thrown his way when panhandling. The most powerful statement in this video was when he claims “I’m not a bum; I’m a human being.” I used captions to emphasize the significance of this statement so that people can view the man as their equal. I hoped that the audience would sympathize with this man and realize that he is not in the situation he is by choice, rather by consequences.

I wanted to showcase another cultural artifact I had mentioned in my essay, which was the iCarly webpage ridiculing a fictional homeless man named Hollywood. I did not know how to record a webpage so that I could scroll through and show the audience. Instead, I took a few quotes from the site and put it in as text into the video. I know this was not the most effective method, but it was the only way I knew how to get that certain point across. My point in that clip was to show to people that even in a children’s show, homeless people are being isolated from society and shown to be “others.” This is detrimental and can have a large impact on children who, in response, would most likely try to avoid homeless people in fear that they will act oddly and be filthy.

I believe the best platform for my project was iMovie but I wish I had more experience with the program so that I could better portray and prove my argument. As of right now, the video is up on YouTube, but I do not feel that it will get any attention because of the amateur editing.