CTZN 110: Social Issues in Film Strangers, Outcasts, and Misfits. (Honors and Foundation Course ).
I particularly enjoyed this class because I was able to explore and analyze conditions of an “outsider” through issues of social class, criminality, race, disability, and gender. This class inspired students to look beyond the plots in films to see why the creator or director did certain techniques to enhance the film. In this class we explored films such as City of God, American honey, Edward Scissor Hands, and Taxi Driver. Professor Nez challenged me to think critically and illustrate ethical reasoning in my presentations.
I thoroughly enjoyed how this class was mostly discussion based. I also enjoyed how the Professor wanted us to deeply explain our thought process. Sometimes this was very challenging to put into words why you believe what you believe and how to you come to that conclusion. In this class we were tasked with watch the films and coming up with our own thesis and supporting that thesis of how that individual presented as a misfit through social issues in film. At first I was very concerned that I would not excel in this class, however I was surprised at how easy it came to given presentations in front of my peers. This class definitely help me with fears and nervousness that came with public speaking.
In this class I learned to have more confidence in myself and not to be afraid to voice my own opinions. I learned to value others thought process and ideas. It was also very interesting towards the end of the semester because we were assigned group projects. This was interesting because every one has their own ideology so it was good to see how everyone in the group approached the film from a different perspective. I am very thankful for this being such a critical thinking class because I was able to bring my outside knowledge and pair it with different topics we were learning in class to create the best factual presentation possible.
The picture I have provided below was taken during my final presentation for Citizen 110. The importance of this picture is that I was able to bring everything I had learned throughout the semester into this presentation. In this picture I am analyzing the film City of God. I also used this film for my first presentation but I decided to re-analyzes it by finding contradictions in my previous speech. This picture was taken December 6, 2019.
