This is the final bridge project for Integrative Studio 1: Fake.
“In our final bridge project, you will use your experience looking through political/social zines in Bridge Project 4 and your knowledge of how one can understand “fake” to create a zine that addresses political issues in a fantasy/science-fiction world. You will choose one film from the list below to watch and utilize as the microcosm for the society you address. The zine should be at least six pages plus a front and back cover. You will use the content of the film(s) to explore the particulars of social issues that plague those worlds. For example, you may choose to address the poverty of the outlying districts in The Hunger Games or the issue of slavery of house-elves by wizards in Harry Potter. Any social issue presented within the universe of the film is fair game. Remember, however, that social issues are experienced by a multitude of people, problems that extend beyond an individual, and involve perception by the society as a whole. You will take a position on the social issue you choose and create a zine as agitational propaganda for your ideas. Like Bridge Project 4, you will create and use visuals to help better demonstrate your argument.”
Summery of what the objective of the project is: create a political zine created in a film universe. In my case it was education versus politics in the Harry Potter universe, specifically in the fifth film with Delores Umbridge.
What and why I chose to cover:
When bureaucracy gets involved with education, who gets harmed? It’s not the politicians that get involved, it’s not the principal or the office worker, it’s the students. It’s the people that the politicians are supposedly protecting and reforming for. This is obvious in Harry Potter with Dolores Umbridge.
When the dark lord was suspected to return, Umbridge was sent by the Ministry of Magic to reform Hogwarts and step in for Dumbledore. She was supposed to look over children from grade one through seven, yet, she had no credentials. She was never trained to be working in the education field. She was trained to work as a politician. With no prior experience of working in the education field, she became responsible with children from grade one through seven. Why? Because the Bureaucrats in the Ministry of Magic saw her as a good employee, for them assigning Umbridge to oversee Hogwarts was a promotion. As Cornelius said while she was passing stricter and stricter rules in the school, “Umbridge will continue to have power over the seriously falling standards of Hogwarts”.
What’s not ridiculous is that she was sent to oversee the children but also to oversee the professors. See if the professors were complying with the ministry’s “standards.” She checked with the professors were performing to standard with rap sheets, not unlike when the production line was being established. Professors measured but to arbitrary performance grades. For example Umbridge visited Professor Sybill Trelawney, a professor of Divination (what we see as fortunetelling), unannounced and interrupted the class with a clipboard and quill. Her reasoning? To be the eyes and ears of Cornelius. She started by inquiring the professor’s credentials and how long Trelawney had been teaching at Hogwarts. She ended with asking for a “teensey tweensy profacy?” During class, in front of her students. Umbridge not only have no qualifications in Divination, but no qualifications whatsoever in evaluating professors.
All her shenanigans was so that the ministry had a better look at what was being taught. So they can control what is and isn’t being taught. But if the government controls what is taught and what isn’t taught what is the difference between that and a communist regime? The children or the professors aren’t able to explore their education freely and that’s not right. Education should not be and should not get involved with politics.
Here are some process shots:
This is what the final zine ended up looking like from the front and what the binding looks like from the side
