What struck you as “creative”?
I thought it was an ingenious idea to have people do such a seemingly simple thing as smiling in order to capture a much larger idea, which was not only the suffering of black minstrels back in the day, but also the struggles of modern day people who are trying to appear strong despite their hardships. The way the video was formatted emphasized that many different types of people have a variety of challenges that they're confronting, and it's sometimes more obvious than others which people are suffering the most. The whole project was a creative and fascinating way to get people thinking about how smiles are often a mask we use so that others don't realize our true emotions.
How do you think the author came up with the idea to do this project?
I'm sure the author has a lot of knowledge of black history that helped inspire him to create this project in order to help people get a glimpse of the struggles of their ancestors. The author was probably also inspired by day to day things such as observing peoples' faces while walking down the street, or browsing the internet, because both activities reveal hidden sadness behind the seemingly happy faces of strangers and friends that cause us to wonder what they're really feeling and thinking about behind false smiles.
I like how you related this to the struggle of black minstrels and bringing up the point of the people in the movie wearing masks.
ReplyDeleteI have read several of these posts now, and it seems that there is indeed a general consensus that as a society we wear a lot of masks. I agree, and I wonder what sparked or began that social norm?
ReplyDeleteI liked how you highlighted the fact that people have a variety of problems they're trying to cover up. Because everyone is so different, the smile to cover up the issues are widely different as well
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