CosPlay: Women in Comics

In Philosophy and Social Institutions, 12th grade students explore theories of love and attraction, specifically those of Stendhal, Sartre, and Freud.  They have also unfolded many of these themes in the poetry studied in their A.P. Literature classes.  This film project gave them the opportunity to think about the complicated relationships between how we see ourselves, how we want to be seen, and how we are seen by others; between power and partnership, abuse and vulnerability, and of course — beauty and attraction.

In Digital Humanities, students created ethnographic short-subject documentaries that were both objective and grounded in research.  Films were formed around a question of inquiry that drew from their Core classes, and students were encouraged to investigate the answer to the question rather than have an answer prior to filming.  Qualitative research and allowed them to find answers authentically.  Students were asked to conduct survey research, analyze data, conduct research, and practice the art of ethical and responsive documentary filmmaking.

Chemistry

In Philosophy and Social Institutions, 12th grade students explore theories of love and attraction, specifically those of Stendhal, Sartre, and Freud. They have also unfolded many of these themes in the poetry studied in their A.P. Literature classes. This film project gave them the opportunity to think about the complicated relationships between how we see ourselves, how we want to be seen, and how we are seen by others; between power and partnership, abuse and vulnerability, and of course — beauty and attraction.

In this original short film, students examined what it means to love and be loved. Dramatizing the pressures of love in high school, “Chemistry” explores our need to be loved as a beautiful object and how that need affects our identity and self-esteem.

Generations of Love

In 2012, our students examined what it means to love and be loved. The students’ collective project, “Love and Longing,” takes a two-fold approach to the problem of love, researching its origins, existence, and impacts on our behavior as well as dramatizing its many effects on our lives. This student documentary explores the relationship between age and romantic love. Turning the cameras on their parents, our students seek the answer to the question of what happens to love over time.

Consuming Beauty

As we search for love and acceptance, the need to stand out increasingly dominates our behavior. In our second unit, students explore the relationship between attraction and beauty from a variety of evolutionary, social, and psychoanalytical perspectives, including the works of Freud and Sartre and the fiction of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

In this documentary, the entire senior class participated in a solutions-based learning experiment in which they developed hypotheses regarding the causes and effects of beauty, attraction, and the search for acceptance on a high school campus. Inspired by “Beauty Culture” and the Annenberg Space for Photography, this documentary showcases the students’ conclusions.

Consuming Beauty combines ethnography and critical research with photography and candid interviews to explore the search for beauty and the price of becoming beautiful to attract the eyes of others.