For Tuesday: Media Activism

We're very lucky to have a special guest this Tuesday: Shiela Schroeder, co-director of SoleJourney, a documentary film about a group of protesters who journey from all over the state to confront James Dobson and the Focus on the Family organization for their anti-LGBT stance. For Tuesday, please watch SoleJourney (it's on our CourseMedia folder), and come to class having completed ONE of the following options for homework:

1. After you've watched SoleJourney, write a page or so in which you discuss how activist media has affected you personally. Have your actions or opinions ever been changed because of an encounter with an activist film, song, poem, or other piece of activist art? How? And why?
2. After you've watched SoleJourney, look at the materials below and write a page or so in which you analyze the differences between these very different forms of media activism. What strikes you as especially interesting or unique about the relationship between art and activism as its practiced in SoleJourney, by the Yes Men, and by Pussy Riot?

Here's a video about the Yes Men's prank on the New York Post. You can read more about it here.

"SPECIAL EDITION" NEW YORK POST from The Yes Men on Vimeo.

Here's a video that Russian Punk band Pussy Riot made from their guerrilla performance/protest in a Russian church. You can read more about it (and the aftermath) here.