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gammija · 6 years

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The Hollow review/summary/rant/explanation of why i hate the ending I wasn’t sure whether I should post this, but I did enjoy reading others experiences watching this show, so here’s mine under the cut. Edited from a convo with a friend.

(Obviously, spoilers!)

Me: Okay so to properly express my disappointment i gotta take you through the major beats

The show starts with three teens waking up in an almost empty room, finding out they all have amnesia. They quickly solve a puzzle to escape the room, and just as quickly Adam and Mira realize they have superpowers (superstrength/agility and some weird 'speak to animals/know all languages' hybrid, respectively. also she can breathe underwater and swim really fast. its kind of vague)

Kai is already clearly a comic relief, discount Ron (from HP, the movies, no idea about the books) so me and sister correctly predict he'll get jealous of adam and miras relationship (even if there is none), gets pissy and jealous that he has no powers, but then finds out he has powers anyway he does, hes a fire bender. cant say im not bitter about that cause id put my money on invulnerability but eh its alright he has red hair after all hes still fun

Friend: Of course he is

I just feel bad is all aldjs

Me: adam gets a throwaway line of 'maybe were dead' and kai never lets it go

this food might be poisoned but im starving and hey were dead anyway! right, adam

Friend: I love him??

Me: i loved him as soon as he spoke his first dumb words also he puns but basically hes the only interesting char; adam and mira are just cookie cutter 'male lead 1' and 'female lead 1' i mean, he’s cookie cutter ‘jealous 3rd wheel’ but that has more going on than the first two still servicable though

anyway so the jokes are sometimes fun, and superpowers are always my jam. but the REAL reason to keep watching is just, whats going on? ARE they dead? or in some kind of weird gvnmt experiment? some weird magical vampire guide (dont ask) hints they wanted this themselves ooh, intrigue. and the world is very very quirky they start in a gravity falls-y woods and then get teleported to a desert with minotaurs and witches, then get invited for tea by the Grim Reaper and the rest of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse

tbh Grim is the best part of the show but thats neither here nor there

anyway they have a magic map that updates once theyve been somewhere, and it shows them that the hot dry desert and the swampy wood bunker are like right next to each other

so you start thinking, how are they gonna explain that? this is too weird to be handwaved away. theyve gotta be going somewhere

they visit some other exotic locals, like what appears to be the set of Alien (complete with alien) and an abandoned old fair and a floating island with japanese inspired evildoers on it

the weird magic guide keeps showing up and being vague, dropping hints that there are other kids there etc

at some point Mira says "This is no time for games!" Weirdy: "Thats where youd be wrong~" me and sister: Aha! videogame! that connects all the dots, and also makes the tropes clear: small world with all kinds of different areas, quests, fights, superpowers, an updating map, fast travel Adam, a few eps later: guis i think we might be in a videogame me and sister: [high five]

Anyway in the meantime also the second predictable Kai (discount Ron) plot happens: they meet three other kids (boy boy girl) and they act shady but the girl takes an immediate and obvious interest in Kai so obviously theyre gonna manipulate him and have him betray his friends but in the end he'll see through their facade and kick their ass that more or less happens. The other teens also confirm that this is a game, and theyre trying to win. winning is done by bringing the MacGuffin to a tree fights over macguffin ensue situations are dire but our characters persevere

(also Mira kisses Adam and he acts very weird about it, almost as if hes gay and the only reason they didnt make it canon is censors) (no lingering gaze, just him going 'hehe yeah no thanks, its not you, its me', but in a very... he doesnt seem to be saying it with shall we say burning desire in his soul. hes literally just like 'eh youre a good friend.' Cool move, cartoon that made the two main boys have arguments over nothing cause of course the two main guys have constant dick measuring matches)

this all is not the offensive part btw it was all fun and games, its just a flash cartoon i wasnt expecting Shakespeare

anyway so theyre in a videogame, and apparently thats the answer to all the weirdness. A bit of a cop-out, cause thats a very easy answer, but eh, it works. it wasnt immediately obvious.

also something i hadnt mentioned yet: thisd be ideal for making (self-insert) OCs. Unique powers for each person, there are clearly more characters than shown, the world is your playground

and maybe the video game thing could be interesting on its own in the last few eps the game seems to be glitching out a lot they say its breaking apart so they really gotta hurry now maybe they were beta testers for a vr game gone wrong maybe this is part of it but its like a huge experience that you tell all your friends about anyway there are ways it could be cool, could be expanded to a season 2 despite having solved the mystery

but. last episode. our heroes get the MacGuffin, go to a final stage, and fight the Boss Battle (its a dragon). they enter the Castle....

...and the screen zooms out, into a sudden live action stage, where we see the cartoon (literally what you were just watching) on screen. there are 6 chairs, 3 with our heroes, 3 with the other teens, presumably. theres a host and hes dressed exactly like the weird guy (and that was already kind of a clashy outfit in the cartoon). it was all just a game show. but. the worst part is the live action

you. dont. go. from. animated. to. live. action.

other way around? fine, can work. But now? WHY itd still be dumb and dissapointing but if itd been animated too itd at least have been.... nice to look at but the acting.. oh god they didnt even say anything and it was all wrong clearly theyd just picked the first random teens that vaguely looked like the chars and put them in there cause they had no lines so who needs acting?!

the enemy teams girl had, in the cartoon, pink hair. Purple with pink highlights instead of stylizing that into something more realistic or painting the actual hair, they gave some 30-year old woman a wig and called it a day

keep in mind i binged this show in one go

purposely stayed up late to watch the last ep with my sis even tho we shouldve gone to bed and were disobeying our dad cause we Had to Know

and theres more i said they had no lines but i was lying. Kai did have a line. well, his voice actor did they dubbed him also the line was about him having to pee which is already not the most hilarious in animated version but a live action kid whose supposed to be this character you spent 3 hours with but looks nothing like him saying that in a voice that doesnt belong to his throat, as he stands bashfully in front of a live audience, the only words spoken by your main characters in the last moments...

*its actual hell*

oh oh one more thing at the end the six kids stand in a line and kai is next to other girl they glance at each other and as the eyes of this teen and 30 year old in wig cross, her eye glitches for a moment

dun dun duuun

bUT i dont care anymore, The Hollow. You overestimated your own premise. this wont be forgiven. your most interesting part was the mystery, and the answer to that was "just a normal game show" (which also doesnt make sense on another level smh) soo if you think that im interested in what these two-dimensional (ha) characters will do now about the glitch in the eye of a bitch then i have news for u

i dont

...if they get a second season ill probably check it out though as long as its animated

Friend: Gammi I'm getting the real sinking suspicious feeling that what you saw isn't the real end but bad on purpose because there's more to it

Me: the show didnt seem good enough to be bad on purpose

and yet im still not done, if youll still hear me out

i mean, im an animation fan so ill still watch but if theyd wanted to be bad on purpose they really shouldve done a better job fleshing out the characters thats what people come back for that was a bit of a sidetrack BUT so i said why the live action itself was just terrible in overal quality

but the resolution that 'oh it was all in a game show' doesnt work on multiple levels

first of all, they show a short flashback of "About 5 hours earlier". The kids stand on the stage and are instructed to take their seats in the vr-chairs, and pick their superpower

2 things i dislike about that

1) there goes all the self-insert/oc potential. they werent teens in over their heads, they werent gvnmt experiments, or just some kids who wanted to play a game -they were in it to win it, from the start. thats very specific and not the most appealing to all kinds of characters (goodbye, all the 'im just an average girl whod never step into the spotlight like that' characters).

Also, all the expansion on lore is gone. maybe there were other games simultaneously? eh, maybe, but theyd be all gameshows. Maybe someone ended uo trapped there for way longer? nah its just a gameshow theyre not gonna let anything actually bad happen. Maybe there are other worlds, other areas, other weird creatures? unlikely, they finished the map and familiarity seemed to be a thing for the audience. Now every new idea has to be put not through a 'whats interesting for a player' but a 'whats interesting for a viewer' lens, and whats a selfinsert if not a player in another universe

2) HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL GAME SHOW

who the hell watches a game show for 5 consecutive hours, some of which mustve been just them walking. also, we zoom out of the screen were watching, so implication is that everything up until then has been what the audience has seen. but... we only followed the one team. there were two? why didnt the audience want to see what they were up to? ~reality tv usually thrives on showinf the worst assholes so realistically they wouldve been the focus~

There are also way too many times *both* teams couldve failed, from early on till late in the game. Not a single game i can think of thats played for an audience is set up like that, and especially not a televised one (okay tbf idk if this was televised, i dont remember if i saw cameras, but. it mustve. monetary reasons.)

What r u gonna do if they all 'died' from the monsters in the first ep? Call it a day? boring for the audience. let them restart from scratch? boring for the audience. the existence of an audience messes with everything

AND THEN ANOTHER THING what do you mean, "5 hours ago?" you never get a time stamp to show how long theyve been in there but there are some cuts, when they travel and such. The actual show is a lil over 3 hours runtime. You mean to tell me you sat through 2 hours of the characters just walking?

okay last thing. so. they were clearly second season teasing with the glitching eye thing. i already said this but. theres nowhere to go from here that isnt worse that the first season. your mystery is dead. you clearly know your live action teens cant act so youd have to go back into the game - but why would they do that? how would that be in any way interesting? you explored all there was to explore.

The other, more out there option, is that as you said the 'real world' was a fake-out and theyre still in a game. but. how would- how would you even make that remotely convincing? if youd just left the 'real world' gameshow as animated too this wouldnt have been a problem. but there is absolutely no conceivable reason to justify, in universe, why another meta-level up is 2D animation again unless they were in a game, in a game, in a game. and thats just dumb. yall aint inception

Friend: HONESTLY if they just kept the whole deal animated it'd probably be okay. Not good, but better,

Me: ye me and my sister came to the same conclusion

i couldve lived with that. at least, i couldve just acknowledged the finales existence but chose to ignore it. now however im full phantom planet levels of denial. in fact i dont even know how the show ended anymore, suddenly

Friend: what finale? what show?

Me: also at least now we know why its called The Hollow

it leaves you feeling empty inside

#the hollow #the hollow netflix #netflix the hollow #uhm #text post #joos yaps #in case anyone was curious what ive been blogging about today #this is the show

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pamphletstoinspire · 5 years

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The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure

Many argue that the death penalty can help survivors move on with their lives. However, this counselor writes that true healing can happen only when we learn to "walk with the pain."

The death penalty has been with us for millennia. If you take the time to read the Old Testament, you will find that the death penalty was widely accepted. We find in the words of Exodus the justification invoked to this day to defend the use of executions: “You shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (21:23–25).

This is known as Mosaic law and is an integral part of our legal system. And yet Jesus came to challenge it: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well” (Mt 5:38–39).

What a truly radical notion! In the Old Testament, one sees that violence was a way of life, and execution was a primary tool for meting out justice. But Jesus sweeps that all away.

As with many things Jesus said, excuses have been made and qualifiers added: Love your enemy . . . except when he is a murderer. Then you are justified to kill him, a conclusion that sounds very much like Mosaic law.

Desire for Vengeance Is Real

On the other hand, even if we accept Jesus’ teaching, turning the other cheek is not that simple. I can’t simply say, “Well, Patterson, you claim to be a Christian, so you must love your enemy and oppose the death penalty.” I also understand the desire for vengeance.

Some years ago when I was an Army psychologist, I was tasked with evaluating a man arrested for beating his 3-month-old stepdaughter within an inch of her life on Christmas Eve. It had already been determined that the child suffered irreversible brain damage. As I was interviewing the man, I received a call from the pediatric ICU informing me she had also been blinded. I hung up and told this man that news. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, well.”

In that moment, I wanted to jump across my desk, grab him by the throat, and beat him within an inch of his life! As I think about him almost 40 years later, I have the same feeling. I am not proud of that, but it also helps me to be sensitive to the feelings of survivors when it comes to discussions of the death penalty. It reminds me to be sensitive to survivors’ need for justice and, possibly, vengeance.

Many justifications for executions set aside the language of Mosaic law and focus on possible benefits for the surviving family. One doesn’t so much hear the word vengeance in such discussions, but one does hear the word closure. A common justification for the death penalty is that it provides closure for the family.

When Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death, the mayor of Boston expressed the hope that “this verdict provides a small amount of closure.” Similarly, when the decision was made to allow survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing to witness the execution of Timothy McVeigh, Attorney General John Ashcroft stated that he hoped the execution would help survivors “meet their need to close this chapter in their lives.”

Whether executions provide closure depends on what we mean by that word. For most of us, closure implies a completion or conclusion. When a corporation announces store closures, that means those stores are no longer operational. So, in discussing the process of grief and trauma, closure would seem to imply a conclusion—the suggestion that there is an end point to grieving.

This expectation of closure is sometimes supported within a person’s social network. At this time, I am counseling several parents of children who committed suicide. All have commented on encountering, either directly or indirectly, the message “Aren’t you over it by now?”

Think for a moment of the people in your life you have lost. Are you no longer grieving? If I think of loved ones who are gone, I become aware that I may be grieving those losses for the rest of my days. My grief may not be as intense as it was at the time of the loss. But reminders of someone’s absence in my life help me see that grief goes on, that there is no closure in the sense of conclusion to my grief. There’s no point at which I dust myself off and say, “OK, I’m done missing that person.”

The Myth of Closure

In her book Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What It Costs Us, Professor Nancy Berns makes the compelling argument that the concept of closure has emerged within a political context to justify the death penalty and as a “made-up concept: a frame used to explain how we respond to loss.” It has become such a common word in discussions about grief that people assume it exists and is within their reach. In fact, its prevalence reflects the hope we all have that we can heal from the devastation of tragedy and trauma.

For some, closure means the conclusion to a very public process of crime, arrest, trial, and multiple appeals. Anecdotal evidence suggests that indeed the execution provides that sense of closure. But the word closure also implies healing and completion. Evidence suggests that not only does the death penalty not facilitate healing but, in fact, may interfere with it.

In his 2007 study of families of murder victims, Scott Velum found that only 2.5 percent indicated a strong sense of closure resulted from the execution of the murderer. A study published in the Marquette Law Review compared survivors’ reactions in Minnesota and Texas. Killers in Minnesota were sentenced to life imprisonment, an outcome that was experienced as satisfying by survivors. Texas survivors were less satisfied by death penalty verdicts, in large part because of the prolonged appeals process.

As Bill and Denise Richards, parents of a 9-year-old boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombings, wrote in the Boston Globe, asking that the government not seek the death penalty, “The continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong the most painful day of our lives.”

Jody Madeira worked with and studied survivors of the Oklahoma City bombings. In her book Killing McVeigh: The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure, she noted that Timothy McVeigh’s execution did not provide the kind of closure some survivors may have hoped for. As one survivor noted, “There won’t be closure till I am dead.”

The Path to Healing

Are survivors then simply left in anguish, or is some form of healing possible? Perhaps rather than talking about closure, we should be talking about healing.

Sociologist Loren Toussaint suggests that healing is possible through the process of forgiveness. Madeira agrees that forgiveness can help but argues that it is not the only path to healing. This is a delicate topic that must be approached carefully and without judgment. Forgiveness can indeed help survivors heal, but it isn’t that simple. Forgiveness is a process, one that can last a lifetime.

First, let’s be clear on what forgiveness isn’t. Forgiveness does not mean condoning—a distinction relevant to people dealing with someone on death row. Forgiveness does not minimize what was done. The bombings in Boston will never be acceptable. The 9/11 attacks can never be dismissed in terms of the personal trauma. The murder of a loved one will never be OK. After all, the God of my understanding is indeed a God of mercy, but also a God of justice.

Then there is the common phrase forgive and forget. Not only is that often not possible, but in some cases it’s not a good idea. If someone has assaulted me, I may need to forgive that person, but it may not be a good idea for me to invite him or her over for dinner. That person may have no remorse and might assault me again.

The first step in forgiving is making the decision to forgive. The important thing to realize in making this decision is that the person who will benefit most from forgiving is the forgiver. Forgiving frees the forgiver from all the negative venom of hatred and resentment. Essentially, to forgive is to reclaim power from the forgiven. Professor Madeira quotes Oklahoma City bombing survivor Bud Welch as saying about forgiving Timothy McVeigh: “I was the one that got relief from all this pain . . . and it wasn’t about McVeigh.”

Sometimes we confuse forgiveness with reconnecting with someone in a loving way. That reconnecting is a decision that I may make after I have forgiven. I also have the option of not having the offender in my life. In other words, to forgive doesn’t necessarily mean to reconcile with someone.

To forgive means I also have to face all my rage and anger, all my thoughts of vengeance. We can’t sidestep the emotions. I have sat with some people who experienced tragedy or trauma and afterwards stated, rather flatly, “I’ve forgiven that person,” without any acknowledgment of the pain inflicted by that person. This to me is an intellectual exercise, not an experience of true forgiveness.

Learning to Walk with the Pain

In exploring alternatives to the prevalent concept of closure, we also need to broaden our understanding of grief. The concept of closure may have its roots in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ famous five stages of dying. That theory has been broadened to include grief. The fifth stage is acceptance. Like closure, this notion has many meanings.

What does it mean to accept the death of a loved one? Again, some kind of finality is suggested, a sort of conclusion to the grieving. I have sat with persons who judged themselves because they did not feel they were finished grieving. Others had well-meaning friends and relatives suggest they should be “over it by now” or that they hadn’t “accepted” the death because they were still grieving.

Over the years I have dealt with many people who came to see me because someone else was concerned about them or, more often, because they themselves questioned whether they were grieving correctly.

I recall one beautiful woman who came to see me after the death of her husband of 50-plus years. She was concerned whether she was grieving correctly. She stated that well-meaning friends had given her a stack of books on grieving. Not wanting to disappoint anyone, she read them all. When I asked what she thought after all that reading, she told me: “I’m completely confused. They contradict one another.”

So what did I do? I gave her a book to read! Only it wasn’t an edition of Grieving for Dummies. It was C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed, his journal written the first year after the death of his beloved wife, Joy. The book has no easy answers, and, at its conclusion, it is clear that Lewis will continue to grieve. There is no nice, clean ending. No closure. Only Lewis trying to learn to walk with the pain.

In dealing with losses in my own life, what works for me is to view grieving as a process of learning to walk with the pain. This suggests that, because of a particular loss, my life is changed forever. I am challenged to find a way to move forward living my life as well as possible while at the same time carrying the loss. This is especially true for those who’ve lost a loved one through some criminal act, be it murder or terrorism.

To learn to walk with the pain has several facets. One is to make the decision not to let the trauma define the loved one’s life. It is to affirm that I will not be known as the parent of that girl or boy who was murdered. Rather, I will be known as the parent of a child who touched lives in a beautiful way before leaving life much too soon.

Another facet of walking with the pain is to facilitate the loved one’s legacy. Such legacies may take the form of charitable donations or even the establishment of a charity. Others might establish a scholarship fund. Some get tattoos or plant trees. Such actions don’t make pain go away, but they create a legacy that has some meaning.

For me, acceptance means acknowledging that life is now different, and that I will be walking with this pain until I meet my loved one again in a better place. That may be the only real closure.

By Richard B. Patterson, PhD

#death penalty #myth of closure

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femnet · 6 years

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I am a high school art teacher and I love my job. I particularly love it because it gives me teaching opportunities that might not come so easily in any other subject matter. On paper, my job is to teach my students the basics of artistic principle as well as a brief overview of Art History. However, what I really do is teach kids to think for themselves. Because of the subject matter of what I teach I get to cover a broad range of things from feminism to civil rights to even civil disobedience. For the last few years, theres been one lesson that is a particular favorite of mine. I introduce this lesson early on in the second semester and it combines literature, art, history, and even current events.

I begin the lesson by putting up two paintings on the board. Both paintings are entitled Judith Beheading Holofernes. I then go into a brief explanation of the literary story behind both paintings, which happens to be from the book of Judith which is included in most Catholic or Eastern Orthodox bibles.

“In the story,” I explain, “the Israelites are at war with the Assyrian army, which is being led by Holofernes. At one point, the Israelites become greatly outnumbered and are too fearful to mount an attack against the enemy camp, which is about to destroy their city.” After giving them the basis for the story, my language changes to be more casual, in order to bring the students into a story that might otherwise sound to scholarly and boring.

“Fed up, this woman Judith decides to take things into her own hands. So, one night, Judith and her handmaiden sneak into the enemy camp, flirt with Holofernes and get him so drunk that he passes out. With the help of her handmaiden, Judith them chops off the dudes head and gives it to the Israelites basically telling them ‘there I did your job for you, now will you get off your butts?’. This gives the Israelites the courage to attack and they are then able to overwhelm and destroy the enemy army.” Usually by the end of my summary, my students are commenting about the savagery or “badassery” of Judith with reverent tones, and this is when I bring them back to the paintings.

Both paintings have the same title and depict the same scene from the story. The first of the paintings was completed by the male artist Caravaggio and depicts a young, dainty, and white clad Judith beheading the gaping Holofernes. In the painting, Judith exudes innocence, she is the brightest and youngest figure, and her body language and facial expression show a great distaste for the task she is completing. Behind her stands her crone like handmaiden, almost egging her on.

The second of the paintings is by the female artist Artemisia Gentileschi. In this one, Judith is strong and determined, her sleeves pushed up to reveal heavily muscled arms as she pins down the struggling man and beheads him, her face set in a grim mask of determination. Beside her, her handmaiden of similar age and statue helps, both women looming over their enemy.

I lead my students through this description, all the while not telling them which painting was done by which artist. I let them point out the similarities and differences as we appraise the paintings and then I ask a simple question:

“Which of these paintings do you think was painted by a man, and which do you think was painted by a woman?”

Overwhelmingly, most of my classes correctly identify which one is the Gentileschi painting and which is the Caravaggio. I follow up their answer by asking them how they knew. Usually a female student shouts an explanation out, but this last year I was pleased when a typically quiet boy spoke up.

“Because a female artist would want to portray Judith as strong and tough, they aren’t going to be as worried about portraying her as innocent and dainty.”

And this is when we get to my favorite part of the lesson, the part that ties it all together. A background on Artemisia Gentileschi, a huge feminist figure in art history.

“Artemisia was a female artist during a time when a woman’s options were very limited, you could be a wife or mother, or you could be a nun, and there wasn’t much in between.” I begin. “Luckily for her, her father was a well known artist and he allowed her to be tutored by another artist name Tassi. Unfortunately while she was under the tutelage of Tassi, he sexually assaulted her while her friend and mentor was right upstairs listening to and ignoring her cries for help.” At this point I take a quick pause to look around my room and make sure that my lesson isn’t becoming a trigger to any of my students.

“Now keep in mind,” I continue, walking across my room, “This is during a time where women who were sexually assaulted were often given little to no justice, and sometimes even forced to marry their attacker. I mean think about the #metoo movement thats happening right now, some of these women have been waiting years for an opportunity to step forward and be heard and they’re met by internet trolls and called liars. And it’s 2018. So you can guess how difficult it would be for a young woman back then in an untraditional lifestyle to be heard and get justice.” I go on to explain how Artemisia and her father ended up taking Tassi to court, even though this meant that Artemisia would have to undergo torture since, in Rome at this time, a woman’s testimony was not permissible in court unless it was verified using torture. “So not only was Artemisia sexually attacked by her teacher and betrayed by her closest female friend, but she also had to undergo torture just to get justice. And then, she WON.”

Artemisia went on to become the first female artist to become a member of the prestigious Academy of Art in Florence. In an era when female artists were not easily accepted, she was famous and internationally sought after for commissions. Today, she is still considered one of the most progressive artists in history. If you look at her portfolio of work you’ll notice a trend of strong women, as well as a trend of women working together, sticking together, and helping each other, because despite the fact that her closest female friend and mentor had betrayed her at the time when Artemisia needed her most, Artemisia still understood, perhaps even better understood, the importance of women sticking together.

Three years after she won her case, Artemisia painted her version of Judith Beheading Holofernes. With this painting, she not only captured the stories of one of the leading ladies of the Bible, she also captured her own story. Because she painted herself as Judith, and her illustration of Holofernes is actually a portrait of none other than her abuser, Tassi.

I teach this lesson every year, and I love it because it sticks with my students long after we have discussed it. At times, it can be difficult to convince students the relevance and importance of school, let alone of their art class. But this is one day where it’s easy, because it’s so relevant. Not only to their own lives (because 1 in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse at the hands of an adult), but it also shows them how they can take their experiences, good or bad, and use them as a driving force. Lastly, and I think this is why this lesson works so well, is that it broadens the subject. It’s not “just” learning how to draw or paint or create something, it’s not just teaching them yet another vocabulary word. It takes history and literature and art and modern culture and it intertwines them all together in a way that interacts with their own lives and culture.

Teaching art and its related subjects can mean walking a fine line, especially since art is a largely liberal subject with liberal leanings and I live in a conservative area. I have to steer clear of expressing my own personal political beliefs or standings because I don’t ever want to force my own views onto my students, and I have to watch any political discussions that may start in my room closely to make sure that no one is being silenced or made to feel unsafe, and even, sometimes, to correct the false information my students see daily on facebook and twitter and, most tragically, the news. I still find it important to bring these subjects like feminism, racism, and discrimination into my lessons, especially because my students live in an area where they don’t tend to get opportunities to consider any viewpoint other than the majority viewpoint. They think feminism is a bad word and means you hate men, they think “gay” is an acceptable insult, and they don’t think that racism or discrimination exist because “they can vote right? That means we’re equal”. Lessons such as the one I've described are the main way I’m able to introduce an alternative mindset and raise the idea that maybe there are other viewpoints that are worth considering.

#by Jessi #June 2018 #politics #art history #artemisia gentileschi #metoo #tw rape #feminism #teaching #art

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