Taylor Wilkins Benny Hegbe
The social issue we decided to portray in our project is discrimination of immigrants. Discrimination is defined as “prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action or treatment” according to Merriam Webster dictionary, meaning one is viewed or treated differently based on preconceived values or ideologies. In society today unfortunately, discrimination is such a prevalent issue because there is a myriad of cultures, values, and beliefs in existence. Typically, people form biased opinions and beliefs based on their ignorance of these cultures, values and beliefs. Discrimination perpetuates the racial divide amongst a group of people when in reality people of all races, ages, genders, and backgrounds must come together in order to fight the issues of the world.
According to NPR, those who appear to be immigrants, specifically Hispanic people, report 4 out of 10 have been discriminated against. In another survey, according to NPR 92% of black people say they have been discriminated against. As one can see discrimination is very high in the United States which is why this issue needs to be brought to the attention of others.
In Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche the main character, Ifemulu faces discrimination when she visits a black hair salon. Ifemulu visits a hair salon in order to get her hair braided and while at the salon there are numerous snooty comments made by the ladies in the salon even though they are also African, however they ate from a different country. One example being when they ask Ifemulu if she knew a famous Nigerian actress just because they are from the same country. Even after Ifemulu leaves the book states, “They would, she was sure, talk about her after she left … They would laugh with derision, but only a mild derision, because she was still their African sister, even if she had briefly lost her way” (Adiche 126). The women in the salon are clearly treating her different even though technically they are still the same race. Another experience of discrimination in the book was when Emenike, Obinze’s friend, tries to hail a cab in London. He tells the story of a time where the cab driver turns his active light off before passing Emenike and then turns the active light back on after passing him(Adiche 201). In this instance Emenike was pointing out the evident discrimination he had faced from the cab driver due to his ethnicity. Also the book shows another instance of discrimination when Ifemulu and Curt are at the farmer’s market. A black man walks by and mutters how could Curt be with her when it looks as if she’s from the jungle(Adiche 157). All three of these accounts display discrimination on various levels throughout the book.
We decided to choose cinematic virtual reality as our medium to enforce the prevalence of our issue. As we discussed in class our society is becoming less empathetic and virtual reality is a proven tool to help stop this issue. We believe if our audience actually experiences discrimination first hand via a variety of scenes from Americanah, especially those who because of demographic issues may have never or will never experience it, they will be prone to join the fight against discrimination in their daily lives. Virtual Reality is a great way for our audience to become uncomfortable enough to join the fight against discrimination of those who are different from them. Specifically in our VR project we will incorporate three different scenes to display discrimination in different ways. All scenes are adaptations from the book Americanah. We will feature the above described scene where Ifemulu faces discrimination in the hair salon, the scene where Emenike tells the story of the time he couldn’t catch a cab, and when Ifemelu are in the farmer’s market and a man tells her she looks like she’s from the jungle. Our VR experience will be set up that whoever is viewing the story is being discriminated against and it will be as if each story is occurring from their POV.
Sources:
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Americanah. 2013.
Bates, Karen Grigsby. “92 Percent Of African-Americans Say Black Americans Face Discrimination Today.” NPR, NPR, 24 Oct. 2017, www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559889541/92-percent-of-african-americans-say-black-americans-face-discrimination-today.
Florido, Adrian. “There’s An Immigration Gap In How Latinos Perceive Discrimination.” NPR, NPR, 5 Nov. 2017, www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/11/05/561876519/theres-an-immigration-gap-in-how-latinos-perceive-discrimination.
My group decided to incorporate the hair salon scenes into our project too, but I like the spin you guys are putting on yours! I like the idea of using VR to make the average person more empathetic and join the fight against immigrant discrimination. Some suggestions I have for your project are:
-Make sure you pull at people’s heart strings when you create the VR, just like the SPCA commercials do! (Some examples you could include: show other immigrants being homeless and themselves counting change to buy their groceries, show a restaurant or shop owner yelling at them to leave because they are are immigrants, show people talking about them behind their backs, show people telling them they don’t belong here)
I can’t wait to see how you make this a virtual reality!
I love that you are doing VR for this and how you explain why the medium is important for your project. I think it would be interesting to use a collage of scenes if possible to really show that immigrants are uncomfortable in what seems like all locations, even their home sometimes unfortunately. That will really help the audience feel extremely outcasted and submerged into that feeling.
I’m not sure if this is possible with VR, but maybe the narrator could be Ifemelu and her thoughts as she experiences this? This would help put the audience even more in her shoes for a more powerful emphatic response.
This is such a neat idea! The salon is described in such a good visual just from the book I feel as though VR will only make the experience more real. I suggest you work in as many of the visuals and sounds as the book describes. Make sure you have sounds like the Nigerian films on in the background, maybe even inaudible whispering to give the illusion of secrecy and gossip. This project is going to be great!
This is one of my favorite topics that you could have chosen from! Discrimination of immigrants is a broad topic yet needs to be addressed and I am glad you chose to do this. I like the ways that you are incorporating this as well. I think Virtual Reality would be the best way to create smooth transitions of scenes. I do not have any suggestions. Excited to see how this turns out!
Great scene, my group is doing the salon too! For your VR, will you have audio or just visuals? It would be interesting if perhaps you had one of the characters speak to the person using the VR, perhaps put them in the shoes of a random customer? Your project sounds interesting and theres a lot to do with discrimination, good luck on it!