Race and Representation in Vidding
Apr. 16th, 2010 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talitha78 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
viddingFor the Vividcon vidding convention in August, deepad and I are putting together a combined vidshow/panel called "Race and Representation in Vidding".
The blurb is as follows:
Visual markers of racial, ethnic and cultural identity are inscribed on the bodies vidders use to tell their stories. What are the political and social implications of the choices that vidders make? What narratives of resistance and subversion can be told, and what stereotypes and oppressions get perpetuated? How do the racial and cultural dynamics within fandom affect vidding and its creators? How can we analyse vids through anti-racist, anti-orientalist, post-colonial, and subaltern studies lenses?
From a vidder's technical standpoint, what are the editorial and creative issues you need to take into consideration when vidding characters of color? What implication does music and song choice have? Is there a different approach when you're vidding a character not of your own cultural/ethnic background, and what guidelines or mental reminders have proven useful to you?
We have some ideas of vids that we'd like to show, but we are also looking for suggestions. Do you know of any vids that fit this theme? Also, are there any points that you want to make sure that we touch upon in the panel? All ideas welcome.
deepad and I are putting together a combined vidshow/panel called "Race and Representation in Vidding". The blurb is as follows:
Visual markers of racial, ethnic and cultural identity are inscribed on the bodies vidders use to tell their stories. What are the political and social implications of the choices that vidders make? What narratives of resistance and subversion can be told, and what stereotypes and oppressions get perpetuated? How do the racial and cultural dynamics within fandom affect vidding and its creators? How can we analyse vids through anti-racist, anti-orientalist, post-colonial, and subaltern studies lenses?
From a vidder's technical standpoint, what are the editorial and creative issues you need to take into consideration when vidding characters of color? What implication does music and song choice have? Is there a different approach when you're vidding a character not of your own cultural/ethnic background, and what guidelines or mental reminders have proven useful to you?
We have some ideas of vids that we'd like to show, but we are also looking for suggestions. Do you know of any vids that fit this theme? Also, are there any points that you want to make sure that we touch upon in the panel? All ideas welcome.
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Date: 2010-04-17 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 02:20 am (UTC)Thank you for reminding me of that post; it's definitely something we'll be thinking about as we flesh out our panel.
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Date: 2010-04-17 05:21 pm (UTC)In terms of music and song choice ... I think that making choices that reflect the character being vidded are important, but I do wonder if there are certain stereotypes that can be perpetuated this way. I say this because I've been looking for a vidsong for a black, male character and I had this weird moment where I thought: "He doesn't really strike me as someone who should be vidded to a hip-hop song" and then I realized that the reason I even thought this as all was that most of the (admittedly limited) character study type vids I could think of about black men are vidded to hip-hop songs. And they're all good vids, and I listen to a fair amount of hip-hop & I've vidded hip-hop myself, so I don't think the choice in and of itself is bad or suspect ... and, like I said, the sample size I'm basing this off of is small, there's been a general upswing in the number of hip-hop songs vidded in general, and because of the way that hip-hop and race often intersect hip-hop songs can be a good way to access and portray issues of race in vids, so. I don't want to leap to any conclusions. But I can't help but feel that sometimes our song choices re-enforce stereotypes about both musical genres and about specific subsets of characters. Or that sometimes we might make a vid that deals with race well on an individual level for that character, but that fits into a larger vidding trend that might not be so positive, or that might mislead someone who doesn't know the context--fannishly, cannonically, musically, or within the vidding community--of the vid.
Also! I think that talking about the language of the character and the associated vidsong might be an interesting topic to cover too, because it's something that I've thought about when making song choices (I vidded a bilingual character & purposefully used a song that had both her languages) but I don't really see many people talking about it, or, for that matter, vidding bilingual/non-English speaking characters. Unfortunately I can't think of that many vids which bring this to the forefront ... Laura Shapiro has a Hiro&Ando vid that's set to a Jpop song I believe, but other than that I'm coming up short.
In any event! These are things I've been thinking about recently, but haven't gotten further than general musings, which is why I'm mentioning both of them--I selfishly want to read meta (since, alas, I won't be at VVC, so I'm going to rely soley on con reports!) that touch on them since I don't think I'm close to reaching any kind of conclusions on my own.
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Date: 2010-04-17 08:11 pm (UTC)You said a mouthful there, and I generally agree. (pardon - I havent had my usual coffee allowance today, so Im a but terse.)
May I submit for the discussion one amazingly well edited vid by Stef ("Wake Up Call", Teal'c/Sam/Vala)?
Now, I love this vid. LOVE it. But I have to admit, it could potentially reinforce some fairly negative sterotypes about black men, blonde women, brunettes AND inter-racial relationships. Pretty tall toppler for what's essentially a challenge crack!vid.
Thoughts?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjq70E4H4Dc
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Date: 2010-04-20 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-20 01:57 am (UTC)That being said,
Agreed! There is nothing remotely funny about the situations laid out in the storyline of that vid. There are some darkly comic moments, but its coming from a deeper place than just "funny".
I find the use of Teal'c, a man whose very nature is "alien" to the female protagonists (antagonists in this one?), fairly significant. His disgust with the antics at turns inspires compassion, pity, fear and then ultimately a kind of what the hell just happened disgust.
I admit to feeling a certain level of satisfaction as well, at the end of the vid, but then Ive never had much use for betrayal, whether from lovers or friends.
(And thats a whole other story, which probably explains why I love this vid so much.)
I think my enjoyment of the vid is more for the success of the approach - the sheer visceral emotion coupled with the heartbeat-like dirty jazz throb is hypnotic.
Hopefully this is making some manner of addled sense. :)
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Date: 2010-04-18 02:34 am (UTC)Like you say, I think this is sometimes the case. I freely admit I use a lot of hip-hop songs. What I try to think about when it comes to song choice is being true to the character. By this I don't mean, "would this character listen to hip-hop?" but rather: "Is there a specific reason that I'm using this particular hip-hop song for this character? Is there is a mood or a theme or a lyric that speaks to this character?" If I can answer positively to those questions, then I feel like I can proceed with confidence. Also, I happen to listen to a lot of pop-infused hip-hop, so those tend to be the songs on my mind at any given moment. And let's face it, those ear worms can be pretty darn irresistible.
sometimes we might make a vid that deals with race well on an individual level for that character, but that fits into a larger vidding trend that might not be so positive, or that might mislead someone who doesn't know the context--fannishly, cannonically, musically, or within the vidding community--of the vid.
Hmmm. Not sure I understand what you mean here.
I think that talking about the language of the character and the associated vidsong might be an interesting topic to cover too, because it's something that I've thought about when making song choices
Oh, yes. Absolutely. *makes a note*
I'm going to rely soley on con reports
I will make a point to type up our panel notes--it seems only fair after you've given me so many good talking points. :)
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Date: 2010-04-17 05:49 pm (UTC)Another issue I had related to tech: One of my standard post-processing techniques is when prepping a vid for Web distribution is to blend the color footage with a grayscale copy of the footage, because this brightens the video, deepens the color, and makes a lot of the compressed Web-suitable video more visible on monitors (which tend to display darker than TV screens). That is, this is standard for my vids about white people. When I did this for a vid about a light-skinned woman of color, it made her skin look paler. I had to rework the scripts that had been fine for three previous vids with different lighting conditions, but all about white women.
These are the default images, one interior and one exterior, without any alterations by me (you can tell the original editor did some brightening and blurring to add a dreamlike effect for the forest scene):
These are the images with the kind of processing I usually do (+25% add, for people who work with layers and blending):
In the exterior scene, you can see that the foliage behind her is brighter and more distinct, but that the pale tones where her skin is highlit bleach out to white and she looks a few shades lighter-skinned than she does in the original picture. The bleaching effect isn't as noticeable in the interior image.
These are what I ended up with (+25% add, +50% overlay):
You can see the very palest highlights--for both Bonnie and the background--are still whited-out, but some of the midtones are restored and the darkest tones are darker than the original, which results in a brighter, more variable color, and doesn't make Bonnie look that much paler than the original image, although paler in the exterior shot than I remembered from the moving images. :( So possibly this is a failure and a negative example. I think the interior still has better color and still reasonably approximates her original skin tone, though.
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Date: 2010-04-18 03:01 am (UTC)Ah! Yes, that's such a good point. I hadn't even thought about the tech aspects of racial representation. I found the poor lighting in Leverage really annoying for a number of reasons, one of which is that it made it hard to catch the nuances of Hardison's facial expressions. And since facial expressions were a huge part of the vid, this was a problem. I don't have your tech-savvy, so I just fiddled with brightness settings until I found something that worked. The idea of mixing in the grayscale is totally new to me, and the results are subtle but striking. Thanks for sharing your process; I will definitely bring this point up in the panel discussion.
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Date: 2010-04-24 03:01 am (UTC)Um, I spoke to Deepa about this and she asked me to post it in a comment so you could consolidate suggestions:
Obviously, it is totally okay if it is too late for you or not suitable! I hope suggesting it is not too pushy.
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Date: 2010-04-24 03:05 pm (UTC)Ha. Leverage is deceptive. You would think that such a light, fun show would be brightly lit, but once you start working with the clips, you see that it is really muddy--lots of dark, indoor shots. It's annoying.
it is totally okay if it is too late for you or not suitable! I hope suggesting it is not too pushy
Not at all! As you know, we have until the 29th to make the final decisions, and I have a feeling we'll be choosing up until the final moments...Definitely email us the draft if you want to, and we'll see how it fits in with the rest of the show. Thanks for thinking of us! :)
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Date: 2010-04-17 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-18 03:03 am (UTC)LOL. Yes, we were thinking to include that one. As I recall, though, it has multiple parts. So we could take one, and you could take another...
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Date: 2010-04-18 04:55 am (UTC)