Case Study: Representing the World

We have been learning about the representation that there is in media, and whether it is intentional or not. And today in this blog I am going to present three types of media I have chosen to analyze their representation and why I relate to these representations.

A movie: Encanto

This movie is based to represent part of the Hispanic culture, specifically Colombia. The great part of this was that the team and the directors who are Byron Howard and Jared Bush went to the country and research the culture of Colombia, the songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and produced by Mike Elizondo. They research all the cultures of Colombia to make the representation in the movie more accurate to the actual culture of the country and Hispanic culture.

In this movie I feel represented because I myself am Hispanic, even if I am not specifically Colombian, I am Venezuelan which is right next to Colombia so our cultures are very similar and I feel very represented in the movie. A character that I identify with the most is Mirable, not because she is the main protagonist but because she is not only is she a teenager like myself, but also comes from the Hispanic culture, and always tries to fit in with her family's expectations which are normal in this time of her life being from a certain country or not

Neither of the creators of this movie is Hispanic, so this movie was so accurate because the team went and did their own research inside the country, on its culture and their people so the representation was intentional but not in a wrong way but to represent the culture of Colombia and Hispanic America. This describes me because not only am I Hispanic but I am also just like Mirable, an adolescent that has been raised in this kind of culture and the traditions of a Hispanic country.

A magazine: TIME

In this magazine, it was presented 100 women, which was the ‘100 Women of the year’ in this magazine the Mirabal sisters were included in the magazine of this great woman. In this magazine, the information presented about the sisters was pretty accurate but very brief and it doesn't really give much information on how they accomplished what made them so famous which was going against the tyranny of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and the fact that they were smart and brave revolutionaries. It is evident that research was done to be able to write what the magazine says but it is so brief that it can be possible that the research didn't go as deep on their story and include a small detail that was that they grew up in a middle-class family but they where actually a well off family.

I relate to this because they were Hispanic revolutionaries, that were a key detail in freeing the Dominican republic from their totalitarian government. This is because I am also Hispanic and since the majority of them have a tyranny as a government, for example, the country I come from which is Venezuela, and many others, so knowing about such brave and courageous women were great heroes back then and nowadays as well.

The creators

A book: Brazen, Rebel Ladies That Rocked the World

This book tells the stories of 30 women that change their country, and the world or did something that was different and progressive for their time. They are from all over the world, from China during the Chinese empire, to three revolutionary sisters, to an Apache warrior. The author of the book Penelope Bagieu, did her research as the book told on the back of the book as an end story; doing the research on the stories of all these extraordinary women, the stories are very complete and go in-depth on what they have done and why it was so amazing and important for their time and country. I identify with so many of them because they are women and during some of their stories, many women couldn't do much with their lives but these ladies changed that. one of the characters that I relate to the most is Tove Jansson and artist that was able to succeed even though she was a woman where many artists during the times of the second world war and afterward because many men where more artist rather than woman but she went above and beyond despite all of it, another one is Mae Jemison which was the first African American woman to be in space, she went into the fields of science despite it being a ‘man's job’ during these times and manage to shine through it and also achieve going to space and being the first African American woman to go to space.