From Repurposing to Remediation
The original source I started with for the Repurposing Project was an essay I wrote in my 12th grade AP Literature class on the play, Medea, by Euripides. I think the thing that drew me to this piece again was remembering how much I actually cared about the topic of the essay. The original AP prompt had us examine the idea of “madness” in a character and how it spoke to the theme of the piece as a whole. What started out as a general AP prompt quickly turned into a feminist defense of a female character who had been unfairly characterized by double standards. It is a bit rare to really feel invested in an arbitrary AP prompt for a timed essay, but I think that is why it stuck with me.
I wavered a lot initially on many different ideas for the Repurposing Project, but ultimately, a question came up during a one on one meeting that really solidified my decision to expand on this particular source- “what do you want to know more about?” I thought that was a really good question, because not only was this an opportunity for me to share my writing with others, but it was a chance for me to learn more about the things that were really important to me. I thought it would be really interesting from a psychological, feminist, and literary perspective to examine how female characters in general are portrayed in literature. It had bothered me for while how few female role models there were for young women in literature, and as a fiction writer myself, I had been conflicted about how to write a female character that was consciously feminist and acted as a proper role model. It was really good to be able to delve into the subject a little more and work through my own confusion by writing about it. After a bit of digging, I thought a sort of feature article would be the best avenue for this. I came across the website, www.everdayfeminism.com, and realized that was the perfect format for the type of article I wanted to write, because it addressed important feminist issues in a way that was effective as an argument, but still had an informal component to it that allowed me to be a little more creative in voice and inject a little humor into it.
Transitioning from the Repurposing Project to the Remediation was another big step. I had known from the start that I wanted to work with video and initially envisioned a more “documentary-style”, informational piece with interviews from people about how they felt female characters were portrayed and maybe some “vlog-style” commentary from me. But there were quite a few moving parts with that idea and I had a lot of trouble nailing down a cohesive idea. One of my peer group members suggested potentially adding in a component about how real girls would act compared with how stereotypical characters would act to highlight the disconnect between how women are being portrayed, and that got me immediately thinking about the series of Buzzfeed videos I had seen on girls acting like stereotypical boys, and vice versa. A flood of ideas hit me, and I realized that writing a script and doing a more comical take on my initial argument would be a lot more manageable and engaging than a straight informational piece. The Remediation had its own challenges; I was very comfortable with the initial writing process, but after storyboarding a shooting the clips I needed for the first time, I began to realize how many components there are to a video. I definitely enjoyed watching my writing transform into real tangible action on the screen and I would definitely use video if I got the chance for another project.