James Price

Concerned Citizen

     Homophobia runs rampant in much of Utah and is especially prevalent within Provo.  Thankfully, there are several involved individuals who are trying to cultivate compassion and love within this close minded society.  One of these concerned citizens is named James Price.  James is one of the leaders of a Provo based group called Understanding Same Gender Attraction (USGA).  He has been trying to open up Provo's collective conscious to be aware of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender community and facilitate understanding.
     James Price is a openly gay and Mormon who is not afraid to identify with both groups.  Rather than feeling out of place within either of these communities, James is able to reconcile what would seem to be two contradictory elements of his personal identity.  Through the USGA, James expresses his views on what is means to be a Latter-day Saint and gay and how these two elements do not have to conflict.  James believes that understanding is the key to inclusion, a message he shares to straight allies and gay individuals.
      Our concerned citizen documentary opens up with James Price walking into frame in front of the Provo Library.  Dani Shay's "Superheroes" is plays in the background to notify the audience that the person who is about to speak is trying to do good in the world.  Our video goes on to include footage that was taken from a past USGA meeting that James had conducted.  Shots from Dani Shay's performance were also included to illustrate how James has helped organize events to bring more awareness to the LGBT community.  We talked in class about the need for a connection to weave our community together-- a connection between the material and the subject. James creates a positive support system for people who do not feel connected with their environment. The goal of USGA is not to advocate for one lifestyle over another, but to help people understand what homosexuality is and how it is not something to be afraid of. USGA is not simply a place to find like-minded people, but to cultivate relationships between straight and LGBT audiences.
     This week’s reading, "Human Rights and Culture" by Arelene Goldbard, compared intellectual maturity and emotional maturity and purposed that the only way our emotional maturity can keep up with our intellectual is to experience art, music, theatre, and culture to further connect us with one another. James spoke about how he loves talking with people and answering any questions they may have.  Creating these bonds is what gives way to a cohesive society, something the public is striving for every day.  

     Dani Shay's performance was magnetic and the words of James Price were unifying.  They brought people within the USGA closer as members internalized the words and identified with them. The camaraderie in the room swelled. This emotional connective tissue is what allows different people to maneuver as a working body. Our documentary is only a small glimpse into James’ emotional investment within the Provo community. Even in the face of the social backlash and homophobia, James continues to spread a message of love and tolerance  to all who will listen.  surrounding him.  It’s because of people like him that we can begin to build our own culture.

Political Poster

     In our youth, children are isolated to one-sided opinions.  It is only through education and the exposure to new things can people discover how multi-faceted our society is.  For my political poster, I chose the subjects of evolution and Christianity (in particular, Mormonism).  When I was in sixth grade, our class began to learn about human evolution.  It was my belief that Mormons should shun this theory, which I readily did.  It was not until eight grade that I started to reexamine my beliefs and ask other members about their views on evolution.  Through my series of inquiries, I was able to educate myself to fully understand the complexities of the matter and reconcile two ideas that I had thought were contradictory.

     When we are young, the way we express ourselves is influenced by our experiences.  A Nigerian woman named Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered a TED talk named "The Danger of a Single Story."  Adichie explained that she read British and American literature with blonde and blue eyed characters who ate apples and commented on the weather.  Reflexively, Adichie would right stories about blonde and blue eyed characters even though her community was not made up of any of these individuals.  Adichie noted,"What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children. Because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify." It is fortunate that Adichie went on to discover new things, or else she would still be writing about white children eating apples commenting on the weather.  It is through our exploration of the unknown that we may heighten our understanding of our community and ourselves.

     In a news story from Christianity Today titled "Creation of Evolution? Yes!", Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, was interviewed concerning his thoughts on his Christen faith and Darwin's theories.  Collins noted that God is not limited by space or time and he finds that our discoveries of the evolutionary creative process are completely in line with the Scriptures.  Collins was then asked, "If evolution is true, don't atheists have a point?" Collins then answered, "No...This leaves out profoundly important spiritual questions, such as why we are here, if there is a God, and what happens after we die.  Those are questions that science is not really designed to answer. You have to look in another place, using another kind of approach. And for me that's faith."  To believe in evolution does not make one an atheist.  It can simply means that they consider evolution to be the path by which God took to create man.

     Considering this path has not been condemned by the LDS church.  In fact, the theory of evolution has been widely discussed as a possible means of the Creation among prevailing church members.  There have been several statements throughout the years that make it clear that man was created in the image of God, but it is unclear as to how Heavenly Father accomplished this.  In my poster, there is a Darwin fish and the angel Moroni kneeling down, extending an arm to the creature.  This depiction reflect my reconciliation between my faith and my belief in evolution and how they can work in tandem.  I chose the quote, "...all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have a love one to another" because if members are followers of Christ, they will be accepting and loving of our different beliefs.  So much hate crime has been produced out of disagreements among Christians and evolutionists.  It is a contradiction for members to hate people for their believes since Jesus so often preached the opposite action. Our prophets leave it open to our own interpretation of the scriptures and science to decide how humankind came about.  This open interpretation allows us to investigate avenues of understanding we may not have attempted to tread before.

     It is understandable that we parrot our parents' opinions when we are young.  However, as we mature and discover different patterns of thought, one must come to their own view of the world and how things have come to be.  The power of a single story is great, but the might of many stories is even greater.

a related poster

Come At Me Bro

Monologue...Loki "Puny God"...Desperate
FFXII Battle Music
Punching
Fight Me
Bruce Lee Yelling
Good is Dumb
Sword  Horse
Mr. Freeze and Magneto
DBZ
Joker Soundboard
Wilhelm

Unite
I'm sorry, Dave
There is still good in you
Wilson, I'm Sorry
Love means never having to say you're sorry
"Concerning Hobbits"
Beautiful Friendship

In most films, there is often a “good guy” and a “bad guy.” When these two forces of nature clash against one another, it is common for the antagonist to be killed off or rendered completely inert.  It is not often that we find these two characters reconcile with one another or work out their differences.  We examined this phenomenon within our Webspinna Battle and demonstrated that the villain does not always have to die in the end. It is better to take the peaceful path of reconciliation rather than opposition, a sentiment not often championed by popular media.

Our Webspinna Battle starred Melody Chow as the villain and Kyle Sawyer as the hero. We found audio clips to banter back and forth with one another, clips that were either said by beloved good guys or despised bad guys. These clips were not in our control as much as we would have liked, but this element of spontaneity and on-the-spot ingenuity were a fun element to the battle. Our Webspinna Battle took a non-violent position in regards to enemies. The audience who watched our Webspiina should realize that murder/killings do not have to be a part of a film's climax or resolution. Failure by the hero or the villain is not necessary; film can better portray reconciliation as a character either apologizes or comes together with another, rather than being simply killed off.

  In our creative process we first decided on what we were going represent, Heroes VS. Villains. Then we went our own way and compiled a bunch of material that we thought would be useful and came back together to discuss what we found. We gathered clips and sounds from YouTube and soundboards across the internet. After we compiled a great deal of clips, we found a theme that we could use as the reason for us to fight along with a great banter that would work well in the theme, which was a fight for freedom. However, in the end we wanted to show that they could find a resolution without fighting.     We were inspired by Pogo's work, "Upular" being the prime example.  We did not wish to make our Webspinna simply a cacophony of noise.  Like "Upular," our desire was to create something with a progression that made musical sense and did not leave the viewers wanting to plug their ears.  It was easy to see why DJ Spooky's "Rhythm Science" was amoung our week's reading since it was arranged just like a soundboard.  But what DJ Spooky utilized instead of sounds were definitions of words that had been arranged to delight the viewer.  We felt that our project would be different from DJ Spooky's work in that we would make our samples more cohesive rather than random.       
It is better to reconcile with one another before reverting to violence.  So often, this passive path is swept to the side as people are more in favor of a more aggressive road.  Our Webspinna Battle demonstrated that forgiveness and love among former enemies can be a climax in and of itself rather than an elongated fight sequence ending in a death.  "Upular" and "Rhythm Science" pointed out the importance of cohesion among our content. As we remix and create something new out of chaos, something unique is brought forth which may offer insight into what ought to be versus what is.