Facebook, with its ability to allow almost anyone to offer their opinions, or in many cases, a link to someone else’s opinion, has evolved over the years to become more than just a social networking site to share pancake recipes and play games. Due to the huge demographic it serves (practically anyone with Internet access has a Facebook account nowadays), it operates very successfully as a platform for the general public to address current events and important issues in society – somewhat like an online newspaper fueled by public contributions. Twitter functions in much the same manner – the 140 character limit on tweets doesn’t stop those who have points to make from making them, and it certainly doesn’t limit discussion about these points either.

For today’s blog post, I was thinking about the reach of such social media sites in raising awareness of issues that are important in society today. The feminist community of Twitter is widely acknowledged for being what it is – a group of individuals looking to educate others on their ideals of achieving gender equality in society, and help them understand why these goals are so important. In particular, there tend to be certain “Twitter-famous” individuals who spearhead the movement and, due to the convincing manner in which they argue for womens’ rights, have thousands and thousands of followers, with a publicity reach spanning across many cultures and borders. One such example is Alexis Isabel Moncada, a 17 year old girl of Mexican-American descent who founded the Feminist Culture account, and its corresponding webpage. She created the account when she was 16, with the intention of increasing awareness about social issues, mainly focusing on gender inequality but foraying into topics like race and sexuality – a quote from the website’s About page reads “Every feminist problem will be discussed, because our main priority is making sure everyone is heard.” It can be said without much argument that her cause was wildly successful – the account now has over 137 thousand followers, with daily comments of approval on the articles on the website, and appreciation for Alexis’ contributions to raising awareness of gender equality issues. The manner in which she and a team of writers educate people about such crucial issues is truly admirable- the credit goes to Twitter, and the amazing way in which it allows one to reach out to such huge numbers of people.

Facebook, too, is one such place where discussions about current events and social problems thrive. The recent attacks of terrorism in Paris on November 13th spawned shocking waves of hate acts towards Muslims worldwide, due to the false assumption that Islamic ideals are the ones upheld by ISIS. In response to this, many posts addressing the issue of racism appeared on Facebook, clearly with the intention of mitigating the unnecessarily negative outlook from people towards Muslims as a group. An example is this photo, which, using the image of children, has the assumed purpose of trying to prove racism to be nothing more than a construct created by society. The comments show that the photo doesn’t quite meet the expectations of what it was supposed to achieve, but it did stimulate discussion of this topic – which is, after all, the purpose of the social networking site, isn’t it?

For this week’s blog post, I decided to focus on the representation of life narratives in film production. I was thinking about the types of successful movies we know to be based on true stories, my question pertaining to their variety. Do only certain genres of life narrative possess that extra quality which makes a producer go “Hm, this would make a good feature film”? Or do all personal stories stand a decent chance of being dramatized? What about the representation of narratives that might be considered controversial? With this in mind, I spent some time scrolling through IMDb’s Biography tag, jotting down titles that were both memoirs and famous enough to sound somewhat familiar, with surprising results. It’s not just the autobiographies of well-known individuals that make it big, an example being Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Instead, we see contributions to this category of film from all kinds of sources – from an American football player (The Blind Side), to survivors of hiking expeditions gone wrong (Everest), to sufferers of physical and mental illnesses (The Theory of Everything/Girl, Interrupted), to Chinese martial artists (Ip Man). There’s even a successful movie following the life of a pet dog (Marley and Me). The list and the variety go on.

It can be seen that the genre of life narrative does not seem to have a major influence on how successful it can be as a movie – Marley and Me made over $242 million in the box office, while Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom only made something over $27 million. Now my question turns to the reception of these movies, and the reaction they elicit from viewers. Are they able to draw out scholarly responses to the underlying topics broached in these films? A search through a UBC Library database proved this fairly quickly. 12 Years a Slave, a film about one man’s experiences with slavery, also furthers the exploration of identities and representations of gender in that context, as covered by Tara T. Green in her paper Black Masculinity and Black Women’s Bodies: Representations of Black Bodies in Twelve Years a Slave. Elizabeth Marshall, in her article Borderline Girlhoods: Mental Illness, Adolescence, and Femininity in Girl, Interrupted, describes issues of gender concepts and tackling mental illness while growing up, as depicted in the film.  Joyce B. Ashuntantang, in her article Hollywood’s Representations of Human Rights: The Case of Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda, covers the cinematic portrayal of one man’s work during this historical occurrence, and the concurrent representation of human rights. It can be seen from these examples that film portrayals of life narratives can indeed lead to the closer examination of any theories or concepts which the movies give nods to, but rarely tackle head-on, with the aim of increasing awareness of these topics – providing a satisfying answer to my question.

Sources: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=marleyandme.htm

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=mandela2013.htm

Ashuntantang, Joyce B. Hollywood’s Africa After 1994: Hollywood’s Representations of Human Rights: The Case of Terry George’s Hotel Rwanda. Ohio University Press, 01/01/2012. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.

Green, Tara T. Palimpsest (Albany, N.Y.): Black Masculinity and Black Women’s Bodies: Representations of Black Bodies in Twelve Years a Slave. 4 Vol. SUNY Press, 01/01/2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.

Marshall, Elizabeth. The Lion and the Unicorn (Brooklyn): Borderline Girlhoods: Mental Illness, Adolescence, and Femininity in Girl, Interrupted. 30 Vol. Johns Hopkins University Press, 01/01/2006. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.

For this week’s blog post on life narratives, I decided to look at Humans of New York, a project started in 2010 by photojournalist Brandon Stanton. The initial objective of his project was merely to create a digitalized version of his observation of everyday New Yorkers – but over time, it became more complex. Stanton began to take down short stories and quotes from the people he photographed, and in doing so, created an “online catalogue” of mini life narratives from complete strangers, available for the world to see.

Some questions that we have been pondering over for quite some time now are these: Who gets to have their story told when it comes to the publishing of life narratives? What makes an individual stand out amongst countless others; what makes his or her story special? More specifically, who amongst these gets to have their life narrative marketed exceptionally well to have a strong reception by society? We’ve established through our readings of scholarly articles such as Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field of Human Rights, by Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith, that publishing companies play a big role in how a life narrative is received by an audience and what response it can elicit. But what about the personal stories of passers-by? These are people with their own highly interesting tales to tell, but not everyone has the opportunity to write a biography and have it recognised worldwide. This is where phenomena such as HONY come into play – they essentially serve as a platform for people of any walks of life to get their message or story out to the world (or more accurately, to anyone with access to the Internet.)

The fascinating thing about HONY is that one never knows what kind of response a photo or a caption will get from the public. In a heartwarming series of events, a young schoolboy named his school principal, Nadia Lopez of Mott Bridges Hall Academy, as the person who had influenced his life the most, his reason being her massive support and encouragement for the students to overthrow the negative expectations they faced from society as a result of the crime-stricken neighbourhood the school was in. The popularity of this post led Stanton to want to meet the principal and he was immediately captivated by her drive and passion for her students to succeed against all odds. Inspired, he organised a public fundraiser, asking for $100,000 for the students to visit Harvard; and the overwhelming response of over $1.4 million being raised for the childrens’ benefit no doubt came as a pleasant surprise to all. This example is proof that non-conventional manners of publishing life narratives too, such as HONY, can generate significant emotional responses from the public.

HONY represents a unique and interesting manner of autobiography writing. It is even more interesting to see how it can inspire progress and campaign awareness through pictures and short captions, whether they document the horrors of the current refugee crisis in Syria or simply, a man walking his dog.

Schaffer, Kay and Sidonie Smith. “Conjunctions: Life Narratives in the Field of Human Rights.”Biography 27.1 (winter 2004) pp. 10-15. JSTOR. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

When I read the second prompt for our blog posts this week, I was intrigued by the task. I visited the UBC bookstore and strolled around looking for the autobiography section (which took me longer than I’d like to admit; that place has some really distracting chocolates) and when I found the shelf, it was easy to observe what linked the few books that were propped up, facing outwards. Most were life narratives about individuals who underwent deep suffering, and how they were able to overcome such experiences. Examples of such titles on the shelf were autobiographies by people such as Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Malala Yousafzai. The one I picked up, however, was of a different genre. It’s called An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, by Colonel Chris Hadfield. The cover was what drew me in- it features an astronaut skateboarding over Earth, amongst a background of stars. (How ridiculously cool is that?) The blurb reads: “What going to space taught me about ingenuity, determination and being prepared for anything.” In this memoir, Hadfield offers those of us stuck down here on Earth a taste of what life is like amongst the stars.  He writes about his experience as the Commander of the International Space Station, what it took to fulfill that responsibility, and the struggles he faced on his way there. He talks about some of the life lessons he learnt through the intensive physical and mental training that astronauts undergo, and gives advice on how to apply them to modern life. The book has received an intense amount of praise – for example, the comments on the back cover are all highly positive. Phil Plait, author of award-winning book Slate, called it “An engaging read by someone who has achieved the near-unachievable, packed with stories and great advice for achieving your own less-than-cosmic goals.”

Online, his book is equally lauded. This excerpt from an Amazon reviewer sums up very well what most of the comments on both Amazon and Goodreads are like: “…If you are interested in some good life lessons, especially lessons relating to achievement… (and) if you ever look up into the night sky and wish you were there, and want to read the real deal story of someone who was- this is definitely a really good book…An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth isn’t just a guide to living in space, or a guide to living on earth, it’s a reminder of our place on earth, in the universe, and what a great opportunity we have to do something special with our lives.”

I think Mr. Hadfield’s position as having experienced something extremely rare and extraordinary is part of what makes his book so captivating. Space travel is something few will ever get to experience, but instills awe and admiration in all, and that makes his book particularly unique and significant from a reader’s perspective. As for me, I’m definitely getting my hands on that book.

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My name is Isana Pillai, and I was born on the sunny island of Singapore, a tiny dot down in South East Asia. Barely visible unless you zoom in really closely on Google Maps, it’s a city-state packed with over 5 million people from many different countries and walks of life. It’s crowded, lively, overwhelming, noisy, and always smells of good food. It’s home. And so it was sad to have to leave for university, even though I’d left before, to complete my Grade 12 in Ontario. Just thinking about it right now makes me feel incredibly homesick. But the one thing that stood out to me the most about UBC when choosing where to go was the one thing that we just didn’t have back home – mountains. Scenery. Breathtaking views right from campus, the great outdoors at your doorstep. It’s something I, as a city-girl, have never had the chance to experience. Which is why despite how difficult it was to pack my bags and prepare for four years away from everything I loved, there’s still a spark of excitement in me to discover what Vancouver has to offer; a spark that will definitely never diminish throughout my time here.

Life has its ups and downs. It’s not easy, nor was it ever meant to be. There’s always that one part of something you’re writing that makes you want to leave black inkblots all over it, that ends with teardrops staining the page. We all have our struggles. What particularly interests me about life narratives that I’d like to pursue in this course is how some people are able to pick themselves up and keep going, despite how downtrodden they may be. Take Oprah Winfrey for example. Now, she’s unbelievably successful, with a talk show said to be the best of its kind to have ever existed, and the title of the “world’s most influential woman” from many – even the President of the U.S. shares this sentiment. It’s difficult to imagine how she got to where she is today, considering the traumatic childhood she underwent, involving a history of sexual abuse, being raped as a child and becoming pregnant at fourteen. She suffered unbelievable emotional pain that would have crushed anyone’s spirits, but yet pulled through to become the inspirational figure she is today. To me, being able to fight one’s demons and come out on top is a truly admirable feat. Stories like these make me curious about how people are able to find hope even in their darkest times- it’s a question I’d love to find an answer to.

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