Media Response 3

Friday was our last day at Sundance and it featured the only narrative film we watched all week. Bilal's Stand, was a great coming of age story about an African-American teenager growing up in Detroit and his struggle to decide between going to college or staying in Detroit to help his family. I really liked the film for several reasons.

One, I liked that it was an honest story that felt realistic and authentic to the community while still being a film I could comfortably watch with my students. I'm not opposed to realism in language or sexuality but it's nice to see a film that doesn't rely on cheap exploitation for emotional resonance. Two, I think the story itself was very relevant to the particular student population that I work with. I've had many students who struggle between balancing school and taking care of their own interests while still helping out their families through working, tending younger children, etc. Three, I loved the fact that at the end of the film we learned that the story was very autobiographical and that in fact many of the actors in the film were playing themselves and that the director had studied film in college and then went on to start a non-profit organization that works to teach inner city kids about film making and that Bilal's Stand was their first completed film. I've seen how proud my students are after completing a 3-5 minute documentary film. They're so excited for the opportunity to show the movie to their peers and family on a big screen, I can't imagine how much that excitement would be amplified if the project they had worked together to create had been accepted into the Sundance Film Festival.

Just to throw some theory in here, I will also say that I really admired the project because I think it was a perfect mixture of situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transforming knowledge.

On a more frivolous note, I find Lady Gaga's fans fascinating. Do you think this qualifies as a low-tech way to transform information?