Visualizing Lenses


As a future English Language Arts teacher, who hopes to teach at the high school level, I wanted to create a visual lesson for a topic that I thought might be confusing for some. I know that some people have a difficult time with critical lenses so that felt like a good way to go. I first thought about creating a visual for several critical lenses but figured that would be overwhelming and there wouldn't really be enough time to go over everything that needs to be covered in a single class period. I eventually settled on the feminist lens because I thought it would be the most fun to make. 

Creating this graphic was more challenging than I had initially assumed it would be because I wanted to use references to movies or TV shows that would be relevant to and representative of all teens. I also wanted the images or scenes to be fairly obvious in their depictions of women so there was no confusion in what a person should be looking for. I picked a few questions that I deemed appropriate to begin looking through a feminist lens and decided to select movie scenes or images that I felt provided a clear depiction of women in roles that were stereotypical, or women in a position of lesser power.

The most difficult aspect of this assignment was realizing that I am not very familiar with teen movies and TV shows so I struggled to find examples that would work. I decided to look at some teen movies from the late 90s to see if there were images or scenes I could use, and there were (A LOT), but all the main characters were white. There was absolutely no diversity in the late 90s, except for the “token” people of color whose characters were given no depth or development. While movies and TV shows from today offer a lot more representation of the 90s, the feminist lens was more difficult to apply to these movies. Since my hope was to make the feminist lens easier to understand I really needed the scenes I used to be cut and dry.

I finally decided on using a scene from the Netflix movie Moxie, an image from the movie Waiting to Exhale (which is older but one of my all-time favorite movies), a scene from The Simpsons, and a scene from Beauty and the Beast. I think it’s important to consider context when looking at the image from Waiting to Exhale because while most people would say that this scene depicts a woman who is fed up and is sticking it to her ex-husband for cheating, we really need to move away from the “crazy female” trope. I thought Beauty and the Beast would be a good choice because most people have seen it at least once by the time they’re in high school and I knew that students would be able to compare the ways that Gaston was perceived versus the ways Belle was perceived by the town.

I posted each scene/image with a small caption that consisted of questions. The questions are meant to guide the student’s thinking process while giving clues of what to look for. For example, the scene from Moxie is accompanied with the question “Who has the power?” The caption asks who you think is in control, and what is happening that makes you think that, as well as urges students to pay attention to facial expressions and body language. I used this technique of asking questions and offering suggestions of what to think about as they watch or look at the clip.  

Even though I felt like I had a deep understanding of the feminist lens, I think this project helped me to see through this lens where I wasn’t able to before, if that makes sense. I know in the past when I watched Bernie set her husband’s car on fire in Waiting to Exhale I laughed and thought she was a really brave and strong woman for doing that. As I watch that scene now, I realize that it feeds the “crazy chick” stereotype which is really harmful to women. I also realized that I need to get up to date on teen movies and TV shows so that I can relate to my future students more and incorporate learning tools like this in my classroom that will be relevant and interesting.


Bonus Content:

This is a video from the YouTube channel Feminist Frequency. I thought it was an interesting analysis of Katniss from The Hunger Games but there are plenty of other interesting video analysis of other movies and ads.  

The Hunger Games Novel & Katniss Everdeen - YouTube 

Once the visualization is finished and posted to your blog, write a one-two page process analysis describing your process of matching the images with print. Also comment on how the process of visualization deepened your understanding of the content in ways reading alone might not have

Once the visualization is finished and posted to your blog, write a one-two page process analysis describing your process of matching the images with print. Also comment on how the process of visualization deepened your understanding of the content in ways reading alone might not have
Once the visualization is finished and posted to your blog, write a one-two page process analysis describing your process of matching the images with print. Also comment on how the process of visualization deepened your understanding of the content in ways reading alone might not have

Comments

  1. Kyla GrossenbachAugust 10, 2021 at 3:10 PM

    I really liked your blog this week! I am one who struggled with critical lens in middle school, but the more I worked on it the easier it got for me and I started enjoying using my own critical lens. I really liked your visual, I think it touched base on very important information that people need to know. If you plan on using this in your classroom I think it will fit greatly as it gives an example of what critical lenses are and how we can use them. I think it is important to add a visual for your students when talking about something that may be a little more complex to understand as I know it is easier to explain, and understand when it is right in front of you and you can look at different piece. With these visuals it reminds me of examples.. like when we got to see some examples of these blog posts that always helps me get a better understanding of what we have to do so I feel like this visual is like one of those! Great job!!

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