Representations

 Hey guys, today I wanted to talk to the representation my film would be focused on. I said in my last blog, the characters that I have developed are born and raised in Venezuela. As well, are the actors that I have chosen to play their roles. They weirdly share similar experiences, the actors and characters, just not the killing part. 

Representations matters when it comes to production of media. Its very important to think about, what ethnic, social, religious, and economic group are we representing and how. The way the directors decide to portray a specific community can influence how the public will view the group after. This gives the director the power to control how people see others of different races, religion, background, etc. For example, They could portray a Latina woman as a powerful business owner (which is rarely done) that will create a positive effect towards them. Or overly sexualize her, this makes the public build their opinion of Latina women as negative, and incorrect. 

(Modern Family has a Latina character ,though her character adds diversity to the show, it is overly sexualize in a negative manner)

I found this article that goes more in depth in why representation matters. According to the article, many parents go to different kinds of media to show their children different religion, cultures, backgrounds, beliefs, etc. They want the tv show, movie, YouTube video, song, to be able to perceive a different cultural group correctly, so it can introduce the younger generation to ethnics-race information, which will teach them acceptance and inclusions towards communities they would be able to see throughout their own life's.  

The article also goes into how media could affect ethnics-race kids view themselves. Whether their community are shown in a negative or positive way it could affect their self-esteem, basically what they believe their are bale to do with their life's. If the media presents negative stereotypical black character , promoting violent actions, it could develop the idea that this is an accurate reflection of black culture and affect how the people from their own communities see themselves and the view from others. On the other hand, when their is positive representations, like powerful black characters, it could develop more positive feelings from their black viewers about their own appearance, culture, and status.  

(The movie Soul has a main black character and is able to shown some aspect of their culture in a positive way)

When I was growing up the media failed to show people like me, from my country, they mainly showed people from other counties, majority from America, but ignore people from my country. Yes they did showed Latinas, but characters that are build in stereotypes and always a side unnamed person. 

I wanted to make sure in my Film the main character is from my country. I wanted their personality to not fall under a harmful stereotype. I want to show how people from my country actually are, in difference to how they are usually shown in media.  I really made sure to not include the usual stereotypes that the media want to shown. 

I was lucky to live in a place where lots of people from Venezuela live, meaning I had lots of option of my casting, though me and my partner were looking for a specific heights. Which we were able to easily find. I am very excited to be able to have actors that are able to represent my country's people.