The last event of the Speakers Series, Laboratory of Feminist Memory Bar, took place last night at Glad Day Bookshop. I did not know what to expect when this occasion was brought up in class. There was a welcoming and friendly vibe to this bookshop which made this event extra special. Everyone who spoke at this event presented their story, film, or reading in an intriguing way which gave this event different factors of conversations which kept it interesting. I was definitely amused and entertained last night and I am glad that I had to opportunity to attend.
Thirza Cuthand is a filmmaker, performance artist, and writer as stated on their website. The film that they showcased described their difficulty of finding other lesbians within their school environment. I was extremely fascinated by this film because I did not think about the difficulty of finding others of the same sexuality. I have never dealt with this issue personally nor have I witnessed my friends struggle with this. With that being said, I still believe that Cuthand did bring to light a feeling that lot of teens are experiencing right now. Even with the existence of Tinder, Facebook, and other outlets, I believed this film is still relevant to this time. There may be people that I knew or know right now that might be experiencing the same thing as Cuthand did.
This film reminded me of a character from the show, “Pretty Little Liars,” named Emily Fields. Emily is a lesbian who at first struggled with coming out to her family. Unlike Cuthand’s film, Emily did not struggle with finding lesbians her age. When I think about it, I do not think she struggle at all with that. She had about seven girlfriends in total in the whole series and in the end, got engaged to her first love. Maybe this character was created this way because the creators did not want Emily to be known as the struggling lesbian … or maybe they enjoyed “queer-baiting”. This is not the only show that has had a LGBTQ+ character not struggle with finding others with the same sexuality their age. Being exposed to shows like such, I never thought about the lesson the Cuthand displayed in their film. Nonetheless, I did learn something new from Cuthand’s film which I thoroughly enjoyed.
This event as a whole reminded me of the reading, “Big Affect: The Ephemeral Archive of Second-Wave Feminist Video Collective in Canada”. There was a line from the reading that stated, “Feminism had become main-streamed; consumer cameras were entering the market, making everyone a potential artist or citizen journalist…” (Bociurkiw, 2016). To me, this line says that feminism in the media is continuing to grow through all different platforms. During this event, the audience was exposed to films, tweets, and other magazine articles. Even when certain social media platforms did not exist, there were still activists who were creating feminism artwork and finding ways to display them.
Overall, I did enjoy the Speaker Series and learned a lot from it. I am thankful to have been exposed to new topics throughout the term. I really wanted to take an RTA course as an elective and did not expect this class to be what it was for me. I am glad that I picked an elective which pushed me to speak about topics that are not introduced in my other classes. This event was a great way to end the class.