Obsession with image:
At first, because my aim had originally been to focus on how images can help with women empowerment I looked up more bloggers in Kent following on from the 68 year old beauty blogger, Suzi Grant, who uses her image to promote ageing with style and being healthy through her blog alternate ageing. She was inspired to start this blog by the documentary Advanced Style, which I could watch for research as it chronicles the lives of seven women in New York who believe it is important to dress however you want to and age with style.
From this search, I found the blogs dolly bow bow, which is a beauty and lifestyle blog, muddy stilettos, which is a guide to living in the countryside and covers topics such as wellbeing and arts&culture, as well as guilty mother, which offers tips to mothers such as how to relax without feeling guilty.
Therefore, I thought that I could aim to focus on one or more of these bloggers and how they use their blogs and the image of them that it creates to empower other women to go against the norm.
I also looked at organisations, such as the representation project, which has made a documentary called Miss Representation, which focuses on how the media represents women and how this needs to change, which I think I could also watch as research for this idea.
Whilst looking at how the Internet can be used to empower women I also found an article in the London Evening Standard, which listed instagrams that empower women, such as one which is used by the Nefarious skate crew in London. They use their image to encourage women to begin skate-boarding, because of how this is typically a male dominated world.
I thought that this could work for a documentary as there is a lot of action that could be filmed, such as girls skate-boarding, and workshops which are held by the crew in which women design their own skate boards and can learn to skate from beginner to advanced level.
Another world that is male dominated is technology, and whist researching I came across a girls in ICT portal, which lists events happening including one in Oxford at Oxfam house, where the charity encourages young women to pursue careers in technology, and shows how technology can help people in crisis all over the world. However, I think the event could be too difficult to get to being in Oxford, and there doesn't seem to be too much action I could film, but I think instead I would have to use too many interviews.
From this, I also found the Manchester science festival, because they have events at the festival which encourage girls to get into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as careers. However, I found that the festival is not being held until October, which is too late for filming.
This did however give me another idea that I could use if my other one falls through as they are similar, which would be to focus on how more women are being encouraged to get into careers in technology and how this is changing how stereotypes are perceived.
I also found an article on constructed beauty and obsession with image on the Huffington post, which highlighted how looking at image can have a negative impact on women. This is why I think that this idea is important because image is something that is usually negative for women, but which can be positive, especially since women's movements have begun to be more prolific recently.
Further research helped me to find organisations such as the Centre for Appearance Research in Bristol, which I thought would be useful because their website shows a list of experts which work in the centre. However, it might be hard to get access to these because Bristol is so far away. This was the same issue that I think we would also have in trying to get access to the other organisation I found, the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, and I also think this would not be as relevant.
However, researching in this area led me to finding campaigns such as changing faces, which challenges prejudices against people with disfigurements and works to improve their confidence. This led me to the idea of people whose appearances change due to cancer or other illnesses. However, I thought that this idea would be too sensitive and serious, and didn't focus enough on my original intention.
I also found another campaign about appearance called be real, which focuses on schools and changing young people's attitudes to body image. I found that the campaign has offices in London, so maybe an expert could be found there for an interview on why it is important to change attitudes.
Thinking back to what I intended, I returned to researching crews which are trying to change gender stereotypes such as the skateboarders, and found that there are a couple of all female motorcycle crews based in Kent, the English Rose Sisterhood, and Medusa. I think that combined with the skate crew this could make a powerful film about how society's obsession with image can help lead to positive change. There would be a lot that we could film, as well as plenty of people to interview, such as the leader of these crews and the women who are a part of them, as they could discuss why they decided to join the crews, and how this could have changed their own perceptions. The Medusa motorcycle crew are having an event on May 19th, where they will be exhibiting bikes and racing which would be good to film, because it would show what the crew does.
Overall, I think that focusing on the skateboarding and motorcycle crews and also including some interviews with experts from some of these campaigns such as be real, could create a film which shows how women are using society's obsession with image to change attitudes towards gender stereotypes through their obsession with skateboarding or motorcycles.
Further research helped me to find organisations such as the Centre for Appearance Research in Bristol, which I thought would be useful because their website shows a list of experts which work in the centre. However, it might be hard to get access to these because Bristol is so far away. This was the same issue that I think we would also have in trying to get access to the other organisation I found, the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, and I also think this would not be as relevant.
However, researching in this area led me to finding campaigns such as changing faces, which challenges prejudices against people with disfigurements and works to improve their confidence. This led me to the idea of people whose appearances change due to cancer or other illnesses. However, I thought that this idea would be too sensitive and serious, and didn't focus enough on my original intention.
I also found another campaign about appearance called be real, which focuses on schools and changing young people's attitudes to body image. I found that the campaign has offices in London, so maybe an expert could be found there for an interview on why it is important to change attitudes.
Thinking back to what I intended, I returned to researching crews which are trying to change gender stereotypes such as the skateboarders, and found that there are a couple of all female motorcycle crews based in Kent, the English Rose Sisterhood, and Medusa. I think that combined with the skate crew this could make a powerful film about how society's obsession with image can help lead to positive change. There would be a lot that we could film, as well as plenty of people to interview, such as the leader of these crews and the women who are a part of them, as they could discuss why they decided to join the crews, and how this could have changed their own perceptions. The Medusa motorcycle crew are having an event on May 19th, where they will be exhibiting bikes and racing which would be good to film, because it would show what the crew does.
Overall, I think that focusing on the skateboarding and motorcycle crews and also including some interviews with experts from some of these campaigns such as be real, could create a film which shows how women are using society's obsession with image to change attitudes towards gender stereotypes through their obsession with skateboarding or motorcycles.
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