Native American Post

I read about the fashion of the Native Americans and the fashion controversy with the 2015 New York Fashion Show. The controversy was between the designer Bethany Yellowtail and London established company called KTZ. Quoted from BBC by Bethany Yellowtail wrote "The dress as stated on my website embodies a Crow design from my great great grandmother...funny I didn't realize @ktz_official knew the Yellowtails or the Crow people,". Also quoted from BBC said, “[…] but what happens when you blatantly take cultural valuable designs from Indigenous people?[…]”. Personally I think this is not only disrespectful to the designer, Bethany Yellowtail, but also the Native Americans and her family who originated the style. The fact that this dress had been produced the year before and was released the next year in the 2015 Fashion Show frustrates me. Stealing ideas and designs from one designer an putting it toward your outfit has been done before. But when it has to do with indigenous peoples designs that have been passed down from generations it is not so easy. Picture 1 shows Bethany's designs from 2014 and KTZ's dress "that they created". In image 2 it shows the influenced designs and geometric shapes that influenced Bethany Yellowtail's dress and design she created. In my opinion even if you do get caught copying another designers design it still is not fair and right to that designer that spent the time on it, and if they had special significance to it.

 Picture 1: Native American Fashion

Picture 2: Bag that Influenced Bethany's Dress

Analytical Skills Film Essay

In my opinion watching the movies gives students a better understanding of what they are about to learn and how it accurately happened. The historical accuracy of the movie really comes into play with this because if the movie isn't accurate then there is no purpose in watching the movie. But in the case of both films watched, Glory and Twelve Years a Slave, they are said to be historically accurate from the website New York Times review and review from Reelviews. 

Just by watching the movies, gave me a better understanding about how slavery and the Civil War affected the lives of so many people. Movies allow students to have a connection to modern technology, which can lead to thinking in a more critical way about movies and there way of production. Though filmmakers are faced with a challenge of the timeframe and the way they show and say things about the main characters that may be false. In Twelve Years a Slave, to me it felt as if the director had shortened and took out the non important events so he could make a time crunch of two hours. The filmmaker is faced with a challenge of what to take out and what to keep in because it’s all shown to be historically accurate. Taking something out could potentially change the film, but if he didn’t make the necessary changes he could lose the paying audience. But the director thought it through and made the changes needed, which lead to the film making 140 million dollars globally said from the article in CBS. This film in particular showed hidden truths within Solomon’s writing and feelings based upon his book. The accuracy in the film was based upon the accuracy of Solomon’s memories and writings from the New York Times Article. Even by distorting the movie historically the director, McQueen, still had a clear goal and purpose for the movie. McQueen wanted to show other people other aspects of slavery, and had a goal to go ahead of just racial differences and salves in movie from The Guardian. After discovering and researching McQueen’s intentions for the film it all was put together how the movie wasn't all just focused on slavery, slavery, slavery, but other real life connections about family, feelings, and hopes. Twelve Years a Slave is more one-sided, because it lets the watchers empathize with Solomon more. But this novel and film is mostly important because no slave has ever been shown as a main character, because there are no stories shown about them. 

Glory was a movie that I had seen before when I was in the 8th Grade, but seeing it now I had a totally different perspective and reaction towards it. Even though the challenges the director, Zwick, had faced he overcomes. The film was shown correctly historically by all the events occurred and main characters appearance shown in the article from Reelviews. There were some minor errors from the film said in McGill Blogs, but me seeing these errors that were said doesn’t change the movie that extensively. It was said in McGill Blogs that, “Errors make the film much less effective as a tool of historical learning.” But to me these errors are just ways for you to learn more from the filmmaker’s mistake. This was a challenge that Glory from 1989 had faced. The other challenge was putting a two hour frame on a movie that goes through most of the Civil War and deciding what to keep in and what to take out, and the backdrops of the wars and living quarters. All of this was very well planned and all main events and characters were seen. Glory still made money earning $26,828,365 total said from Box Office Mojo. Even though that most of the main characters lives ended in death they still conveyed that wether you were white or black you were all fighting for the same thing. Which race was a huge issue during that time but for these men to still fight together showed how much of a family they really were. The movie Glory had shown both perspectives of a white and black man, which can change a film rapidly by displaying woman sides and not making it one-sided. 

Together these two films show us the affect of slavery and the Civil War upon people living in both the North and the South. 

Scene From Movie

Historical Accuracy Of '12 Years A Slave' Already Being Discussed, Huffington Post

The Surprising Success of "12 Years a Slave”, CBS

An Escape From Slavery, Now a Movie, Has Long Intrigued Historians, New York Times

Glory (United States, 1989), Reelviews

Glory, Box Office Mojo

Glory Awards, IMDb

Steve McQueen on 12 Years a Slave: “It’s not about sugercoating history”, The Guardian

Glory, McGill Blogs 

Glory Quotes, Movie QuoteDB

Quotes, IMDb

Practicing Incorporating a Quotation

When we watched the movie Glory, the characters seemed really realistic and alive and made the movie seem more accurate. The events occurred showed that is was accurate. In this quote from the article on Reelviews by James Berardinelli says, "The characters in Glory never seem less than three-dimensional." All the main characters are real characters in our history, like Fredrick Douglass and Shaw. 

The process of paraphrasing has gotten easier for me, it is an easy way to understand the quote more by putting it in your own simpler words. Paraphrasing is all about using different word choices and different order of saying these words, and no repetition. Also it is an easier way of not breaking the honor code and not coping it straight from the article, which helps.

This is what Mrs. Lawson wanted me to learn today:

• Only use a quote when it adds power and style to my writing
• Always make it clear, from context, that i understand the full meaning of the quote
• Whether I quote or paraphrase, always be transparent about the source and how I'm using it
• If I use another author's exact words or phrases, to any extent, I have to use quotation marks and give credit
• If I use another's author's presentation of facts or ideas, but put their ideas in my own words, I better have a good reason for doing that, and I MUST give credit
• Hyperlinking is so easy, there is no excuse for not being transparent about my sources

I really understand these things.

Paraphrase Practice

The passage is from the website called Reelviews on the movie Glory, written by James Berardinelli. This is the excerpt from the article in Reelviews, "The historical backdrop against which Glory transpires is mostly historically accurate. In fact, a great deal of effort went into getting the details correct. The main events shown in the film happened much as they are depicted, some of the key characters (Shaw, Frederick Douglas, etc.) existed, and the outcome was as Zwick presents it."  


This is my paraphrase, most of the movie Glory was historically correct especially with the historical background. A lot of the work from the movie was for getting all the exact work and details correct so it could be accurate. All of the main characters, like Shaw, Frederick Douglass, and more all actually appeared during this time and during these key events. The results from the movie actually happened, which was shown by the director, Zwick. 

Empathy & History

Empathy is defined as the intellectual identification or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, attitudes of another. Sympathy is defined as feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Empathy differs from sympathy by empathy meaning I would have to understand their feelings, attitude, and imagination. Sympathy only refers to having pity for a person and what the have gone through. An example of empathy would be when the Nazi's had a group who went around killing innocent Jewish people. Some other Nazi's declined the offer to do this to innocent people, like women and children. Probably because they had empathy rather than the other group. The ability to empathize while studying history has to do with the fact of imagination and critical thinking in order to actually understand everything about it.

Empathy