By Marina Wood
This weekend was crazy because we had the film project on Saturday and Sunday instead of just Saturday. Saturday was devoted to talking and learning about feminism, sex, sexuality, the body, body image, sexual pleasure, sexual boundaries, sexual health, sexual identity, and gender identity.
We began with an icebreaker wherein everyone in the class had to say one word about sex.
Then, because I promised them the first day that we would watch a movie clip and analyze it but the tiny computer I brought didn’t have a DVD slot, so we watched a short clip from Miss Congeniality and talked about it.
We then discussed the homework from last week which was selected portions from the article “The Male as a Risk Factor: Masculinity, Mental Health, and Reproductive Health” by Benno de Keijzer. This was exciting since some of the students were just bursting to talk about it and had clearly learned a lot.
Then, to transition to the next topic we did another icebreaker wherein everyone had to form a circle and mime an activity they like doing such as swim or dance.
The next topic was something I decided to create after the previous week’s comments. When we were teaching about Feminist Film Theory the class had a lot of misconceptions about feminism and were turned off by the word because they equated feminism with separatism. So we started with an exercise in which each student was handed either a myth or a fact about feminism and had to determine which it was and why. This was to show the diversity of opinions about what feminism is and to think through some of the uglier misconceptions. Afterward the class read a short essay I wrote defining feminism out loud and we spoke more about feminism and clarified vocabulary and history questions.
Then we did a private, silent activity called Yes, No, Maybe though we started with one out loud as an icebreaker. The idea is to read a detailed list of intimate and sexual acts and situations and determine if you would do them, not do them, or maybe do them. The one we read out loud was “My partner can touch me affectionately in public” and everyone had to answer. The class then worked on their personal Yes, No, Maybe lists in order to determine their personal sexual limits.
We then watched a video about bodily diversity and looked at photographs of different penises, breasts, and vulvas in order to understand that, as Planned Parenthood says, different is normal. Then we watched a video about how to safely and properly use a condom.
After that we broke up into small groups: 2 students to each mentor and spoke about a range of topics such as feminist sex education, menstruation, safe sex, sexual and gender identity and orientation, and sexual pleasure. We then reconvened into the larger group and shared what we spoke about.
The last activity was a short ally training in which I taught the students how to be an ally to the LGBTQ community.
We then ended the day by sharing something positive either about the day or in general.
That night my friend Emmi stayed the night since she lives very far and had to come back the next morning. Though we were exhausted, we planned the next day’s activities and then I took her out to eat in a fancy Mexican restaurant. Emmi works very hard both at home and at work and is still poor so I treated her to dinner and then when she mentioned she had never been out in Zone 1 I took her to two of the best bars there, Cien Puertas and El Gran Hotel, where we ended up dancing all night. She was super happy to be out of her house since her family doesn’t let her go out, and I was super happy to show her a good time.
The next day, Sunday, we had a long day. Instead of meeting from 1pm to 6pm we met from 10am to 6pm and since the University wasn’t open we met at MIA’s founder and director’s apartment/office in Zone 1. Though the day was longer we had less activities that took longer to do. We began with an icebreaker by Emmi, one of the mentors. She had the class write down five things they like about themselves and five things they would like to change and then present. She explained that the reasoning behind this was to recognize how we typically concentrate more on the negative than the positive in ourselves and also to practice praising ourselves since it is something we are not accustomed to do.
Then everyone cut up magazine they brought to make collages on their new notebooks that MIA donated to them.
After that the students and mentors presented on the three Latin American revolutionary film manifestos that they had read the night before: Imperfect Cinema from Cuba, Third Cinema from Argentina, and Cinema Novo from Brazil. When one of the students, Carolina, presented on Imperfect Cinema I literally cried because at sixteen years old she understood the article so well and the concept was so beautiful. (Imperfect Cinema basically says that cinema does not need to be professional and expensive and anyone who wants to make films as a tool for social change can do it.) We then watched a short clip of The Hour of the Furnaces (Getino, Solanas 1970) as an example of Third Cinema.
After that we brainstormed about how many films we wanted to make and on what subjects and the students decided to make two films, one about family violence and one about competition between women. Once the groups were formed I brought out the cameras and they opened them and practiced using them. Then we all walked down to 6th street which is kind of like Universal City Walk or Downtown Disney and in the two groups we ate lunch, talked more about the videos, and took more video footage. Unfortunately it started raining heavily and we hid out for awhile in Quiznos but finally had to go back because a few of the students had to leave at 4, so we all ran home in the rain.
Then we watched some of the footage the students took and talked about it and closed with something positive.
HTML for youtube video of footage taken by Michelle, one of the students:
Since this weekend was so full, I will start my next blog with Monday.