Adel Manoukian
Women and Media
March 27, 2015
Documentary on Polyamory-Film Proposal Update
I am still trying to figure out how to more deeply explore the fact that polyamorous relationships are budding and have become more discussed, in my opinion from the youth who are out and about in their active dating lives.
I have already interviewed two people--a transwoman and a straight man. I have yet to cut them into a coherent exploration. I asked questions like “what is polyamory?” and “what is the difference between polyamory and open relationships?” for example. The transwoman, Jackie, is a comedian and student at the New School. She is very eloquent in her explanations and discussion of her own sexuality. She spoke of past partners’ reactions, how it intersects with other parts of her queerness. She took it to a broader level of speaking of/to the heteronormative society. The straight man I interviewed, Mark, had a different definition and compared to Jackie, seems to not understand his polyamory. His interview related more to his personal experiences in several relationships. I am currently seeking another person to interview.
I am still including myself in the film because I am not a part of the world I am exploring and I want to make sure my depiction is honest and ethical. It is more honest if I get to review my own process with the film. The film then does not pretend to be neutral and doesn’t depict exploitation of a minority group. Through reading articles online and what I’ve researched, polyamory is seen as “abnormal” and a lot of people still think homosexuality is “abnormal” so this allows me to explore more identities than the normative binaries. I include myself when you can hear my voice on camera, not necessarily my face.
I am trying to get in touch with the organization called Polyamorous NYC. This poly place is the only one in the local community. I think interviewing a representative of the organization would highly enhance and develop the short especially because the group is diverse and it may crush any tropes a person might have about polyamory while spreading information about it. If I can’t get in touch with anyone, as these organizations are usually private, I may have to omit it but I think it would be good to mention since it will tie together and enhance the idea that polyamory can exist in many different identities. I am shooting on a camera I have borrowed and am renting some sound equipment. I hope this documentary appears professional and enlightens and informs the general public on an important topic of discussion and through asking my subjects how they navigate through media's images, explains the invisibility or misrepresentation they constantly face.
I’d like to publish this on a blog, or vimeo and then tweet it out, and use other social media to promote it. I love creating documentaries, and this would be my fourth one. I haven’t published any before this one so I think this will be good to have in my portfolio.
This is a great piece I read, that inspired this project.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/fashion/05polyamory.html?pagewanted=all
Hello Adel!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you know Reddit but hope this helps: http://www.reddit.com/r/polyamory. Maybe you can post a request for interview candidates there if Polyamorous NYC doesn't answer you. Good luck!
Exciting idea, Adel! Documentaries are a great way for filmmakers and audiences alike to explore a topic (not to mention they are fun to shoot and edit). Thus, for a budding topic like polyamory, a documentary seems well suited. It's interesting because reading your proposal, I wasn't sure what polyamory really was until I got to that picture in the end. But the truth is i know so many people who are polyamorous, and I didn't even know there was a name for it; I thought it was just a thing that happened.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of your proposal is that you are going to use polyamory to talk about images we see in the media, is that right? According to the syllabus, part of the requirement for our final project is addressing "how media affects the lives of women and/or how women can be instrumental in solving or raising awareness." I suggest keeping that in mind and seeing how you can relate polyamory particularly to females because it looks as though the misrepresentation of polyamory is your main and only social issue here. PsychologyToday has a handful of articles about polyamory that might be of interest to you for your documentary. An interesting one I found while doing some preliminary research on polyamory is this:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-without-limits/201304/the-truth-about-polyamory
Along with Poly-NYC, there is also an organization called Open Love NY (openloveny.com). But both of these organizations operate in the NYC area, and what I noticed on their web pages is that they have a lot of events coming up which are open to the public. The majority of them seem to be meetings and discussions groups so, if you don't get to schedule an interview with a representative, maybe attending one of these (and filming?) could also give you that same type of insight and material for your piece!
Best of luck, have fun, and let me know if you have any questions regarding my comments.