Thursday, April 17, 2014

The role of Melodrama In my Project

       My project has a sort of complex relationship with melodrama. The motivation for my research was to expose more complexity, ambiguity, and gray area in how people think about and identify Muslim Americans. It was to combat the melodramatic way in which the media portrayed Muslims post-9/11. I needed a narrow facet in which to study the effects of the melodramaticizing, but in my research, I came across a problem. People in Greek Life did not seem to be more prone to discriminating against Muslims than the average American. My research website then, works to dispel melodramatic tendencies by acknowledging the complexity and ambiguity of what it means to be a Muslim American in tandem with Greek Life and of identity in general. When it came to the video project, I was really stuck on the "naming an enemy" part of a melodramatically effective piece of tactical media. I kept trying to make Greek Life the villain and Muslims the victim, but my research did not support that finding and I didn't want to create a problem where there wasn't one as melodrama often does. I then realized that I should take a completely different route naming melodrama and the stereotyping it creates as the enemy.

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