Private Lives, Public Spaces Response
by Bruno Xavier
Last Friday, after the hell me and my classmate went through to come to the Moma Museum. Our class had to go to the exhibit called Private Lives, Public Spaces. There they had a lot of home movies with different things being showed. After viewing the home movies from the exhibitions, I was first confused about what was going on at first because most of the videos had unusual things happening within them. After reading Judith Howard’s article “Social Psychology of Identities”, I learned can connect the home movies to this article simply because the movies wanted its audience to see these people true character and see if they could relate in any possible way. So in other words the definition constructing an identity means to find out how you are as a person and reflect on everything and then give you a better understanding of yourself. This will also help you better understand other people as well as their cultures.
The first movie I remember watching was the home video the Martin family. This film shows the Martin family's shows the life of a white family and its mainly focused on the baby. There was one disturbing scene in the movie where the mother undresses her infant child, leaving the baby naked. Then the father picks up the baby and plays with her by throwing her up and down while holding the baby's legs. At first, I felt weird when I watched it because in today's society you don't see this being filmed. However maybe back then it could have been a common thing that parents used to do. The purpose was quite pleasing though because its always nice to see a baby smiling and enjoying life. If this film had been published in today's society then all social media platforms would slaughter the film with negative comments. Also the Martin family looks like they have money and are quite wealthy judging from the way the parent's cloths. The year of the film was 1927, so this family back then had nothing to worry about because we can identify this family is wealthy of some sort.
The next movie I watched was the Wise Family, S.D.W & Friends Roughing It in Canada. When I started to watch this film I was interested because I enjoy camping and have been a few times with my family. I always have wanted to see how other family's enjoy camping and if i can relate to some of there traditions in anyway. From the scenes shown I saw they were cannoning, fishing, and or making a campfire to eat, they all seemed happy and were enjoy themselves. This family in the film were all happy to be away from there homes and being one with nature, which indicated to me that they identify with nature and like to spend some quality time with family. I am the same way with my family because you laugh and have real conversations and just relax from reality for a while. Howard goes into detail about identities across time. In the film the people are seen camping, not the classic naked and afraid type of camping but the one were you just have fun. Camping for a lot of people is considered boring and with today's technology they would rather stay home and use that. For the people in the film it is obvious that camping is fun for them. They identify as campers but only a select group of people consider camping to be entertaining. Whereas some people use it for surviving in the wild.
The final movie I saw was Best South Seas. There wasn't a named filmmaker by it looked to be on a island with a resort of some kind. I remember seeing a man and a women who dance for a lot of other people. It looked like the women who was seen throughout the film looked like performer and her culture really helped her. Throughout the whole film you see the wonderful lifestyle of the island, and how the people of the island have such really represent their culture. The cultural influenced dances really showed me and made me feel how strong their connection to their identity was.
To summarize this experience, I believe the exhibition was called "Private Lives, Public Spaces" was to help people become more educated and help gain a better understanding about identity. I really enjoyed watching these home films because it gave me insight on how life was back then. Also it was nice to experience how other people's cultures were and how they were just comfortable with themselves which helps me try to figure out how I will construct my identity.
The first movie I remember watching was the home video the Martin family. This film shows the Martin family's shows the life of a white family and its mainly focused on the baby. There was one disturbing scene in the movie where the mother undresses her infant child, leaving the baby naked. Then the father picks up the baby and plays with her by throwing her up and down while holding the baby's legs. At first, I felt weird when I watched it because in today's society you don't see this being filmed. However maybe back then it could have been a common thing that parents used to do. The purpose was quite pleasing though because its always nice to see a baby smiling and enjoying life. If this film had been published in today's society then all social media platforms would slaughter the film with negative comments. Also the Martin family looks like they have money and are quite wealthy judging from the way the parent's cloths. The year of the film was 1927, so this family back then had nothing to worry about because we can identify this family is wealthy of some sort.
The next movie I watched was the Wise Family, S.D.W & Friends Roughing It in Canada. When I started to watch this film I was interested because I enjoy camping and have been a few times with my family. I always have wanted to see how other family's enjoy camping and if i can relate to some of there traditions in anyway. From the scenes shown I saw they were cannoning, fishing, and or making a campfire to eat, they all seemed happy and were enjoy themselves. This family in the film were all happy to be away from there homes and being one with nature, which indicated to me that they identify with nature and like to spend some quality time with family. I am the same way with my family because you laugh and have real conversations and just relax from reality for a while. Howard goes into detail about identities across time. In the film the people are seen camping, not the classic naked and afraid type of camping but the one were you just have fun. Camping for a lot of people is considered boring and with today's technology they would rather stay home and use that. For the people in the film it is obvious that camping is fun for them. They identify as campers but only a select group of people consider camping to be entertaining. Whereas some people use it for surviving in the wild.
The final movie I saw was Best South Seas. There wasn't a named filmmaker by it looked to be on a island with a resort of some kind. I remember seeing a man and a women who dance for a lot of other people. It looked like the women who was seen throughout the film looked like performer and her culture really helped her. Throughout the whole film you see the wonderful lifestyle of the island, and how the people of the island have such really represent their culture. The cultural influenced dances really showed me and made me feel how strong their connection to their identity was.
To summarize this experience, I believe the exhibition was called "Private Lives, Public Spaces" was to help people become more educated and help gain a better understanding about identity. I really enjoyed watching these home films because it gave me insight on how life was back then. Also it was nice to experience how other people's cultures were and how they were just comfortable with themselves which helps me try to figure out how I will construct my identity.
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