The Project
For their final project, my students flipped the script on gender stereotypes in toy ads by producing their own gender remix commercials. After studying the specific (and ridiculous!) ways that advertisers use these stereotypes to market toys to boys and girls, students created spoof ads playing on these techniques. In other words for example, students had to select a toy for girls (like a doll) and, using the grammatical language of typical toy ads, convince boys that they just can’t live without it.
I had several goals in mind in assigning this project. By both analyzing and creating media texts, I wanted students to immerse themselves in the grammatical language of digital media to experience the level of effort and forethought that go into creating even a short text, as well as the way that deliberate choices about color, camera angle, etc. can shape the message being communicated.
In addition, I wanted to teach students specific ways that ads work to persuade; to make them aware that ads send implicit messages about society; and to change the nature of their awareness about gender stereotypes.
Check out my students’ commercials below:
BarbieBot – She’ll help you do your chores!
Lewis Vutton Purse for Men – The thing that will lead you to victory!
To see them all, visit the Gender Remix Commercials page of our class wiki.
The Process
In designing this project, I assigned my students to mixed-ability groups. Some of the students had had experience using editing software, while most had not. I allowed them to use any editing software they chose, although most opted to use iMovie, which is available in the school’s Mac Lab. I gave them about a week and a half to do the project, with class time dedicated first to brainstorming ideas and then to creating a script, storyboard, and work plan. Each group was required to submit their planning documents, which counted as 50 percent of their grade, along with their final video.
I did not offer any explicit instruction in how to use video editing software. Instead, I allowed my students class time to work in the computer lab, and made myself available as a resource when and if they needed help. What I found was that I was far from the most knowledgeable in the room, and that students skilled in video editing soon emerged as leaders, offering guidance to other groups who had questions. It was awesome to see them take on this role, and they freed me up to meet with students about other issues like story, pacing, etc.
The Take-Away
After completing the project, I asked my students to reflect on the process they went through in creating their commercials. I asked them what they learned, what was difficult, what was surprising, and what they enjoyed. In reading their reflections, I noticed four themes emerge from their comments: planning, teamwork, tech skills, and ideas about gender stereotypes.
Here is what they had to say:
Planning
I learned how can we make a plan what can we do, what do we need to do to set up things to be able to make a commercial. What would our message be and it really needs to be clear, so on….If I’m making another commercial, any type of commercial, as long as I have the topic, I can do it because the plan is there. -Chi
I learnt that we should think deep and careful in something so we will have a good result. Because after 10 times thinking about the script, we have the best one. -Andrew
I experience the hard work a person can put just to make a video editing all the planning they need to do, how must all spend a lot of times to do this. And it is not that easy to do like everyone thought, doing 1 minutes video need a lot of effort to be a good one. -Ben
I also experience the true power of planning, this is the reason why everything must be planned before you work. If you not planning, the structure can easily be change and soon enough everything we start to messed up causing your project to lack of organization making it hard to keep track of what you suppose to do. -Sarah
Things were going as expected, we thought that the storyboard was great, it completely show strong emotion and gender stereotypes. But that one thing that broke our heart while working on this project was that our plan of perfectly completed storyboard broke. The story line was suggested that it wasn’t connect as a whole, the fighting scene we thought that was perfect doesn’t really relate with the flow of the video.
Teamwork
I enjoy filming the most because there were scenes that was really humorous and we can’t stop laughing, it was the part that we get along and compliment each other the most so i really like that part, filming. – Chi
I learned we should be getting along to every teammate that we have in the group. Don’t be like, eww, i don’t like him and i don’t want to work with him. But think, you’re not better than anybody, don’t always pick the all star team, adapt to every situation and even if you’re good, help each other out. – Tina N.
I have learnt that with teamwork things are so much easier to get done. Together in a team, we achieved most of our goals and came up with amazing ideas that I can’t think of on my own. I’ve learnt that teamwork divides our tasks and multiplies our accomplishments. I’ve learnt that we can do so much more if the people in our group cooperates and work together instead of each person doing different parts of their own. -May
Things did not go as expected. Tina H and I were not very close before this project. But when I came to her house to try and work with her, we had fun. I never knew that we could actually bond and doing something well together for once in a lifetime. – Bethany
Tech Skills
I knew how to edit on iMovie and Movie Maker. I got confused at first with all this different buttons and pictures and graphics, but after a while, I knew how things work out and I can use most of it now without help. I also learned how to film correctly without shaking my hands. The trick is to hold still and when you move, try to keep your hands steady. – Bethany
This was the first time I edit a video so it made me feel a bit discouraged. I had to go online and find how to edit the video good enough, and that wasted much time. But after I finished with the editing, I felt proud of myself. – Suzy
I experience the ability of how a video is filmed can affect a video greatly. The way how a video is film completely stable, how the angle the video is filmed, can make a bad video into a good video. – Jason
I felt like I learn a lot of video editing in this project. Working with this make me understand more about filming industry and how much effort and how hard is it to make that perfect commercial. – Timmy
Gender Stereotypes
The aspect of the project I enjoyed the least was wearing pink shirt and acting girly. I didn’t like the pink color and acting girly made me feel so different. I feel that’s what I don’t do in my daily life. In my daily life, I like to play action figures, lego and sport, not wearing pink shirt and playing dolls. However, it’s still not a bad experience. Somehow it was kind of fun to be a little different. – Peter D.
I learned that Gender stereotypes stimulate us into buying the product and making us think that we are ugly and bad looking so that we buy the product to look better. -Timmy
It’s important to talk about ads to understand that things on the ads are not reflect our real life so that we know we shouldn’t try to achieve something that’s not realistic and then judge other people based on what we understand about gender. – Peter P.
Gender stereotypes in ads affect us a lot. It can change the way that people think men or woman should be. For example, you are a girl but you have a passion in building things. One day, you saw an ad indirectly that says girls should care about beauty and appearance, but not building things. From that day, you might quit your passion and care about your appearance just because you don’t want people to think you are a tomboy. -Cindy
It makes the world being limited. Boys can only have these choices when growing up. They can do business or building, other things are not acceptable. For girls too, they can only grow up to be a housewife, or do jobs about cooking or fashion. But what if a guy likes fashion? He wants it, but its not like what the ads show. If you do it then we will tease you. That’s how its so affected to us, by limiting hobbies, interests and ambitions. -Chi
Forgive me for including so many of their comments, but I’m really proud of the work they did and what they took away from the experience. They proved that talking about advertising in the classroom- something that many people may view simply as pop culture or “fluff”- can actually have meaningful consequences for student learning.
