Class Videos: "Identity SHORT FILM (Award winning Inspirational Short)"; "I Am Limitless - Poem on Identity"; "The labels we carry"; "The Real You - Jim Carrey"; "How To Be Yourself"

 Video link: Identity SHORT FILM (Award Winning Inspirational Short)


The use of symbolism in this film is absolutely incredible. Here are a few scenes that stood out to me.

First is the scene where there's a poster on the wall that read "quote" with an image of a girl with the yellow mask. When the camera pans out, we see that all the people standing around the poster are also girls with yellow masks. This symbolizes the harsh beauty standards that are set on young women and how many young women's identities begin to revolve around the concept of beauty and how their beauty and appearances are perceived by other people.

Next is the scene in which a person is originally wearing one mask but then takes off the mask to reveal a completely different mask underneath before they approach a group of people and begin conversing with them. I believe this scene is meant to symbolize the way that many people believe they need to change who they are in order to be accepted by other people. Many of us will develop a variety of different personalities depending on who we interact with and sometimes this causes our view of our true identity to become clouded.

Lastly, I liked the scene where the main character discovered her mask was broken. At first I was confused on what this scene was meant to convey. At first I took it to have a more negative undertone in which her true identity was fractured and she was beginning to wither away under society's expectations. But truly I think it's meant to be an empowering moment in which she is deciding to abandon the person that society wants her to be and is instead going to express her true self.


Video link: I Am Limitless - Poem on Identity


This video was absolutely beautiful. From the visuals to the writing, I thought this was an absolute work of art.

I think the message that this video is conveying is an incredibly important topic to discuss. We are so much more than our race, gender, appearance, sexuality, and what-not and yet society still seeks to give us unnecessary and harmful labels. [add more?]


Video link: The labels we carry


I think this video actually says more about the importance of spreading than it does about identity. While we have the same theme of labels that we have in the other videos, we also see how the act of kindness that our main character received was contagious and how he decided to spread that kindness to other people. I personally think this is really beautiful and watching this video has further encouraged me to be kind and to not judge people by their labels.


Video link: The Real You - Jim Carrey


To be honest, at first I found it difficult to pay attention to the message because I kept on seeing Jim Carrey characters instead of Jim Carrey himself but I think that just further proves his point. Because of this, I think that this video taught me an important lesson about getting to know someone better and getting a deeper understanding of someone before judging them.


Video link: How To Be Yourself


I'm going to blunt with this one. I thought it was incredibly boring and long-winded and it was difficult for me to pay attention to what the narrator was saying. I still forced myself to sit through all forty-two minutes and forty-five seconds of the video but I'm not sure if I grasped any of it and I couldn't really connect it to the concept of identity (although I did hear a few points about authenticity).

Also, every time he said "Kierkegaard" I thought he was saying "Cake God" and it really threw me off.

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