Im locked up..they won't let me out

Film has always been an outlet for me. My father being a film producer would take me to classes with him at Hampshire and later on at Columbia. I watched him make films with meaning and purpose, to tell stories of those that did not get the recognition that they deserved.  I witnessed first hand the power of film and media. I made my first short film at 7, with one of my closest friends Alexis. There was no script, formal set or even great actors. We just went with what we were feeling at the time. At 7 why were we feeling like convicts? I am not sure, but the opening scene was me behind bars staring into the camera, with tears running down my eyes to show the pain. The bars were the second floor metal banisters and the hand cuffs were socks. Needless to say our creativity was on another level.

Why at 7 years old were we making movies about being in jail? Is it because something we watched that may not have been intended for us? Popular culture in 80's and 90's were to watch shows on crime. You had shows like Cops, and Law & Order that people were loving. But the effects of watching these shows have left more of an impression on us than we think. Did we think that maybe it was cool to creative violence and punishment for entertainment?

I anticipate learning more about the consequences of consuming unhealthy and uncensored media. I want to understand why our beliefs, culture and values are depicted in what we surround ourselves with.

Night Of The Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 zombie film. Within this film the main character, Ben hold up in a Pennsylvania farm house while at the same time trying to protect themselves from the recently dead - the zombies. However, this film tackles race not within the movie as much as it does on the outside.

Though from the outside this movie may look like the classic zombie horror film it made a giant decision within its casting. During a time where black actors were not often cast as the lead, Duane Jones portrayed the main character Ben. During the 1960's black characters were often given the over the top personalities as we saw in Spike Lee's "Bamboozled," but instead Ben was a central character with no "ethnic" personality traits. As reported in How Casting a Black Actor Changed, Night of the Living Dead, "Director George Romero agrees with that recollection: “Duane Jones was the best actor we met to play Ben. If there was a film with a black actor in it, it usually had a racial theme, like 'The Defiant Ones.' Consciously I resisted writing new dialogue ‘cause he happens to be black. We just shot the script. Perhaps 'Night of the Living Dead' is the first film to have a black man playing the lead role regardless of, rather than because of, his race ("How Casting a Black Actor Changed, Night of the Living Dead.")."  Even the director knew that he was taking a large risk by portraying a script that was written for a non-specific race with a black actor.

Though we still see racial casting problems (#OscarsSoWhite, anyone?) this movie took a giant step towards the right direction. Of course there will always be problems in casting for race specific characters, but for a character that can be portrayed by any race, the door should be open for any one to be casted. In this case Romero knew that Jones was the best character to portray Ben, regardless of the times and the fact that black actors didn't usual play the "serious" role.