Reflection

The themes I used for this was Forgiveness and Acceptance, Private vs. Public self, and a little of Judgement - societal + individual. The way I went about presenting this was I did a video montage to music and a photo essay combined. I tried to incorporate the color red in a lot of the pictures to show a connection between The Scarlett Letter. During the beginning with the pictures I used a song called “Half Of Me” by Rihanna and it explains how she only shows the sides she wants to show, but not everyone gets to see all of her which is where the Private Vs. Public self comes in. I tried to combine her private and public life by putting a mix between her more calm family photos and then some pictures of her being a little more "wild". Then during the video sequence my first video of Rihanna talked about how she felt about Chris Brown after he physically abused her and how she felt and handled it, but also, how she went back and in the second video she talks about how she was more concerned about him, how he was doing and how she was more concerned about how the public would judge him. In those two videos the themes Forgiveness and Acceptance and Judgement - societal + individual both tied in and that’s why I had to use that last theme so that everything would make sense. I automatically knew who I wanted to focus this on as soon as I knew what our project was on. The process was fairly easy because i already knew the direction I wanted to take this in because of my love for Rihanna I didn’t have a problem coming up with my pictures and videos. The hardest part was trying to make sure it was clear to everyone and not just me. Another problem I ran into was how I could show the themes I used without making it seem like everything was all over the place. I tried to make it as clear and understandable for my audience as possible. The one thing I would change is how clear my videos came out because for some reason they seemed to be a little blurry on my laptop. I’m glad that I worked alone on this project alone because I got to do things my way without asking someone else if they wanted to do this or do that but instead I just got to do what I truly wanted and what I knew I could make into a great project. If I could do this whole thing over again I wouldn’t change anything. I enjoyed doing this project so much! 

The creative piece that I decided to create was a rap/poem. The rap/poem has three parts. Basically they are describing the theme public versus private self and judgement put onto people from society. The first rap/poem it is describing the three most common things that African American males are known for or judged on. In the second rap/poem it is describing the three most common things that African American females are known for or judged on. In the beginning of each poem the male/female is describing how society views them negatively. Than later on in the poems it shows how they person actually is and the dreams or missions that they want to accomplish in the future. In the third poem, it is relating more to me and what I choose to show publicly and keep in privately. Another theme that ties into the third poem is secrets and how they can have consequences to them. The third poem is describing the struggles that I had to go through with my depression and self-harming. The reason I chose to write this poem besides the theme was because it made me relate to Hester and Juno. They both wore their “sins” on the outside (Hester – scarlet letter/ Juno – pregnant) and so did I (scars). All three of the raps/poems is meant to show the stereotypes that are put on people by society even though society does not know us individually.

My process for creating this creative piece was difficult. At first I wanted to do a dance than I switched into doing visual art and settled for a written piece. I wanted to being more of me into the project while still working around The Scarlet Letter and Juno. I am not the best writer so to want to do this type of project I know from the beginning would be difficult. Than I started playing around with the words and people that I know. Another issue that came up a lot was deciding whether or not to talk about my depression and self-harming. Most people see me as the happy, outgoing and helpful girl that is always there for her friends. Topics like this and others I don't really talk much about unless there is someone that can relate to me and they need advice. I do SAT for health but even when we discuss issues like these I still feel uncomfortable because I feel I am letter my guard down which I don't like to. It just came down to whether or not I wanted to put my personal life online for people all over the world to see.

Overall I am proud of my project because of the amount of detail that I put into the rap/poem. I personally am not a strong creative writer. I do write poems, stories and essays and when I can relate to the prompt or my beliefs agree with it than I can write a stronger writing piece. For this creative project, I was able to be creative with people that I know on a daily basis. There are people in my life who are womanizers or flirts or they are just another statistic so it was just easier to things to come to me. I am also proud of how I decided to put myself and the issues that I have gone through on paper and online. This is not just a poem that relates to the themes of the two literacy but it is also me being comfortable enough to share and allow other people to know me who haven't met me.

Even though there are a number of things I liked about my project there are also things that I could have done better on. Those things personally is the detail of the rap/poem for the female. Even though I am a female and issues surrounding females should come easy to me, it was difficult with putting that into a poem. Throughout the male rap/poem you see transition when the person switched, rhymes, more flow/beat with the words and more detail overall. For the female I feel as though that I hit the surface or picked stereotypes that are hard to describe.

If I could do this all over again what I would do different is the way I present the project. The first and second rap/poem is meant to be a bounce off of three different people. The first paragraph is one person, the second another person, the third another person and the fourth paragraph back to the first person. Basically a flow of different voices so you can recognize the voices differently and actually see the progress they made or showing you how the way society views them doesn't matter as long as they succeed. The format I would do differently is maybe an audio, video going between three people or having it down in person by doing a group project.