For my first project, I decided to base my project around the Golden Hollywood Era, otherwise known as the classical Hollywood Era. I was inspired by the phrase "All that glitters is not gold," and I thought that this era of Cinema, which is an important part of American culture and history, exemplified it perfectly. In the early to mid twentieth century, America was undergoing significant events that forever altered its culture, environment and people, including the Great Depression, the Second World War and the Cold War. To escape their troubling reality filled with empty wallets and the threat of foreign powers, Americans flocked to the theaters and to their televisions to get transported to a better world. However, the world behind the camera told a different story. Behind all the glitz and glamour, Hollywood was a mess; it was filled with greed, controlling studios, tragic actors, and a great deal of discrimination.
History
For my History Project, I decided to make a timeline. To make the timeline, I took a piece of pasteboard, and using my research, I typed out short blurbs on each of the sections that needed explanations and printed it out. Afterwards, I drew four lines, one for each section of American and Hollywood history that I would explore. I then created flaps of construction paper, and folded the printed sections, which I had cut up earlier, and glued them inside. I did the same for the larger sections involving racism and sexism.
I chose to devote one timeline on four influential Hollywood stars, and they were Judy Garland, James Stewart, Marilyn Monroe and Julie Andrews. Some of the stars I researched, including Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe, faced a great deal of discrimination for being women, and it eventually ruined their personal lives. Though that was incredibly tragic, it was also rather common, and so that is why there are two sections devoted entirely to explaining discrimination, like sexism and racism. My timeline also detailed how the Hollywood industry progressed along with the rest of America. For example, as America went through the Second World War, many movies in the early 1940s contained war propaganda, whether it be explicitly stated or not. To do this, I had one timeline dedicated to major developments in America, another on major technological advancements in regards to cinema, and major developments in Hollywood. The text on the images shown can be very difficult to read, so here is a PDF for reference as to what I wrote on this slips of paper I glued:
In truth, my timeline consisted of multiple timelines. This is because, as I researched, I realized that many of the events and facts that I learned had some context behind it that needed to be explained. So, to connect this project with my thinking skill, I drew lines on the physical timeline to indicate certain connections I found, and then typed out on a separate document. The connections help to further contextualize this topic into a new light, and that is how I came to the conclusion that perhaps, not everything in Hollywood was glitz and glamour.
English
For my English project, I wrote a free-verse poem all about the Hollywood's ups and downs through this era. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, but making it was quite a struggle. I had trouble adhering to this concept called the rhyming contract, which indicated when a poem should rhyme based on each stanza and line. For example, my rhyming contract is AABB, which means that as my stanza contained four lines, the first two lines rhymed with each other as did the last two. Eventually, I overcame this hurdle, and using my research to provide context, I wrote this poem, which I can say is one of the things about this project I am most proud of.
The Process As I have never quite written a piece like this before, I needed to look at other written pieces of poetry to analyze before I wrote my own. And as you can see, I looked at a LOT of them. . .
I chose two of those poems on the list and analyzed it by annotating it. Because I did it on Google Docs, I have had to separate the poem and the commentary into two documents because the comments would not show in the original PDF.
Needless to say, because of my analysis on these poems, I was able to further improve my own, and indeed, they were a great help to me. But another thing I am indebted to is my own research, and you can see that below, along with an annotated bibliography on the sources I used.
Thank you for your time and interest in viewing this project of mine!