Criticisms of media

Charade, Masquarade and Hollywood's Africa.

This was the title I read on the website, In Media Res, that showed a YouTube news piece on the changing depiction of Africa from Hollywood. According to the news clip, today's films are depicting African issues and events in a more realistic and humane manner than in the past, often illustrating that African countries and their tragic events stem from Western influence and involvement in their government and economies. Once we are done with their resources or we no longer want to be involve with their issues, we leave them to their fate and do not acknowledge the role we play. The piece stated that to be able to show beauty in Africa, in the past we focused on her natural beauty, and little on her people. Now we focus on the stories and real-life events that illustrate the worst and best of Africa. The author of the piece that accompanied this clip disagreed with the news article, and argued that films still depicted Africa in a negative manner.

I am not sure that much progress has been made in improving our depictions of Africa. To me, they still portray some Africans in a stereotypical manner. My African students complain in my economics class when we discuss poverty, that many people believe that Africans still live in mud huts in primitive conditions. That people in Africal are all dirty, diseased and starving, like those they see on television for charity commercials. That Africans are comprised of one group of people rather than individual tribes that have their own unique characteristics, values and traditions. They wanted to dispel the stereotype that all Africans live in these conditons, that there are cities, people who live modern homes and to understand that there is tribal connections and conflict, but that not that all African is evil and violent.

There were many topics that I found personally interesting on this website but I struggled to find topics and connections that I could make in my own classroom . Most of the topics delve in-depth into media theories and concepts that we wouldn't have time to learn about or unrelated to the curriculum I teach. I choose this clip because I thought I could be used to begin the dialogue about media protrayal of particular group and how this portrayal shapes our perception about these groups. You could also talk about the effects of colonization, for example the genocide in Rwanda, which stems from Belgians instilling fear and dislike between the Hutu and Tutsi as a way to keep them from uniting. An activity to help illustrate the idea of perspective, and to gain an understanding that what we read about in history is someone's perspective would be to have students describe their day, what they experienced. If some watched the local news, have them describe the stories that were one. List the commonalities and differences. Point out that history is someone explaining their experiences, and it is based on perspective. Discuss what could be some issues in how two people that may experience the same even could come up with different versions.