Colored In is a podcast series that explores the under-representation and misrepresentation of minorities in Hollywood films from the perspective of two, young dynamic women of color. The podcast incorporates both comedic and educational practices, drawing from both our professional experiences in entertainment and our academic backgrounds in performance, performance theory, dramatic writing, race and ethnicity studies, and gender & sexuality studies. In each episode, we take on the role of casting directors and reimagine the worlds created through these films had their cast members and storylines been “colored in.”
The concept for this interdisciplinary capstone project embodies our mission to create entertainment-based spaces where women of intersectional identities can explore who we are and who we can be through the very stories we long to tell on screen. So much of our culture is shaped by the art that surrounds us, and naturally, so much of how we come to understand our own identities occurs through the voices of those whose stories are shared on screen. However, among these voices there still remains a severe underrepresentation of marginalized communities. Being students who come from low income and/or first-generation backgrounds we found particular value in flirting with the marriage between erudite concepts and colloquial language. Simply put, we talk about ivory tower concepts with an around-the-way attitude. We keep the depth and cut the jargon. Because WOC and particularly low income WOC discover so much of themselves through interaction with "low brow" media, it's imperative that we use that very media to communicate the complexities of the conversation on representation. In this way, the podcast mirrors our duality of existence, bringing often exclusive conversations into the communities that allowed us to be here.
