I quickly finished my podcast that I started last week in class. I'm not quite sure if we were supposed to finish it or not, but here is it anyways! I simply read aloud a short chapter from a book that I want to include in my final project, House On Mango Street.
I recently viewed a documentary on a band, "The Gits," simply called, "The Gits." The band had emerged on the Seattle local music scene just before Nirvana put the city on the map. They had just signed with a major label in 1993 when the singer, 27-year-old Mia Zapata, was brutally raped and murdered.
There were no suspects and the crime went unsolved. Shortly thereafter, due to lack of results from the police department, Joan Jett filled in on vocals at a benefit concert to raise money for a private investigator, to no avail.
Filmmaker Kerri O'Kane started making a documentary nearly a decade after the murder of the singer to commemorate the band and Mia's life. During the filming of the documentary, the state of Florida arrested a man with matching DNA from Mia's murder. Nearly 11 years after the murder, they pinned the rape and murder on the perpetrator. It was the first conviction using DNA in Washington's history.
The documentary was nearly finished at the time of the news from Florida. That being said, the documentary intially focuses on the band, their do-it-yourself start, and Mia's rape and murder. O'Kane interviews from the former band members, Mia's father, friends and fans.
The death of Mia was obviously such a mysterious part of the band's history. The documentary becomes much more interesting and successful when the rape and murder suspect goes to court and is found guilty. The documentary ends on a relatively positive note and definitely changes the grim theme of the band's history. The documentary's audience expands from it's esoteric start to an almost Hollywood closure.
For a teaching idea integrating documentaries........For my final project I want to integrate a documentary option to a unit on "Radio Golf," House on Mango Street, and Urban Renewal. The major project during/after the reading the two texts, would be a neighborhood ethnography of the student's neighborhood. Based on their findings, the students could, amongst many other options, produce a documentary depicting issues in their neighborhood.
I wanna watch this documentary, it seems very interesting! Do you think that the filming of the documentary had any impact on the progression of the case? I think it may have. As she was doing her own investigation for her documentary, I'm guessing that it may have caused an impetus for judicial investigators to re-evaluate the case. Its interesting to think about the power that a film can have, even during its production before it is shown to the public.
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