Identity is more than just the genetics inherited from your parents. It is more than just your name, age, family and appearance. It is your interests, personality, traits and your character. I have learned this term that an individual may change their identity whilst present with certain people, or that events in someone’s life may transform their identity. The visual text analyzed was the 2009 Refugee Week ‘change your status’ campaign video.
The purpose of this text was to raise awareness of the increasing issue of refugees and the hardships they face by the inhabitants of there adopted country. It aims to remove the stigma that refugees are a waste of time and space. To show that all people have a true identity molded by them, not their government and that all people are of equal worth. This short film was created to graphically display the extremely difficult lives of refugees and to open the audience’s eyes to the horrible events that have tortured them. The purpose of this clip is to provide information on the and circumstances encountered by refugees, to persuade the audience to support the cause and to bring attention to the suffering endured by the unfortunate people in this circumstance.
Many techniques were used to capture the identities of the refugees in order to create empathy towards them. The British Red Cross, the organization that produced the short film, hired a famous British actor Dougray Scott to narrate the clip. By using the technique of celebrity endorsements the reliability of the organization is strengthened. People are automatically drawn to products or events that are associated by a popular role model. Throughout the film there were numerous close up shots of the refugees faces. This gives the effect of showing the audience that everyone is unique and not a negative asset stereotyped by society. An African refugee quoted during her interview ‘ I don’t want to be a liability, I want to be an asset’. This entices the viewer to consider their opinion that labeling people based on their government or skin colour, not their actions is
