I was personally a part of a video that was created by a group of students taking a masters level course in social and cultural diversity course during Spring of 2018. The group decided to focus their message on how labels and stereotypes attempt to define us. The link is below. I hope you check it out.

Artists’ Statement:
We all have a story. There are things that have happened in our lives that affect who we are and how we view the world. Often these events can be so traumatizing that we struggle to move past them. These events can also affect the way that others perceive us and our coping skills. Our Public Service Announcement aimed to put the power back into the hands of the individual and not the event that may define them. In our video, we portray two different scenarios where someone tries to define another individual based on what they perceive is going on in that person’s life. Our message is for the audience to understand that in the end, it is up to them to write their own definition. We did this by not only showing what was happening to the people in our scenarios but also by showing what others thought about it and the potential that had to influence the characters’ definition of themselves. We used negative language in order to showcase the discrimination that the individuals were facing. We used black and white shots to show what it looked like when we let others define us. We contrasted this concept to show how it looked when the individual took control of their own situation; these were shot in color. We also chose to show more than one scenario in order to show how the idea of making your own definition can apply to any day to day situations. We used music not only to help move the piece along, but also to evoke emotion in the person watching the PSA. Finally, we chose to close out our video with a brief explanation. This allowed us to reinforce the message of our video and provide a social media hashtag to start the #DoesNOTDefineME movement!