Podcasts are a great platform for emotionalizing or humanizing an issue or a topic that you are advocating for. This mainly lies in its powerful ability for storytelling whether through a single narrator or through various hosts and interviewees who take an issue beyond the statistics. In this assignment, I used the podcast to do just that, humanize the issue of whitewashing and Hollywood’s lack of diversity.

Now that my intended audience (see page titled “Hollywood and Diversity Infographic” for detailed explanation) had been giving the most recent statistics about whitewashing and the lack of diversity, it was time to get them to empathize or at the very least sympathize with the lack of roles offered to people of color actors. I decided to center around the recently solved casting dilemma for the upcoming live-action remake of Aladdin. Particularly, how Guy Ritchie struggled for several months to cast Aladdin even though there are several Middle Eastern actors who would have been perfect for the role. In addition, the fact that the casting was still problematic even after the several months of struggle to find these actors. My reason for choosing this topic was two-fold : firstly this was an issue that had garnered major publicity and so it was highly likely that my intended audience had at least heard about it and secondly, being a South Asian woman myself, I especially cared about this issue and its implications.

Not only did I intend to humanize the issue of whitewashing and lack of diversity, but I also wanted to use the podcast format to expand upon more nuanced forms of whitewashing and problematic film decisions that can be explained because I know have the time and platform to do so.

Listen for yourself and see if I was successful! Link : https://soundcloud.com/aamuktha-porika/hollywood-whitewashing-podcast/s-2bSFw

This assignment gave me a brief introduction into various sound procuring procedures and sound editing softwares (such as Audacity) that I did not have experience in before. I learned a lot about being cognizant of where I was recording and what I was recording; what did my environment where I was recording in say about the message I was trying to deliver to my audience? I also learned about varying my voice so that I could carry the podcast and not bore my audience and I think this is what I was proud of in my end result. I think that the way I emphasized my words and added various emotions to them made it feel more gripping to the audience, especially in the conclusion which I felt worked on both the writing side and the audio side.

For a final draft, I think what really needs to be worked on are small technical issues such as reducing the fuzziness in the audio at certain points or adding more transition music to make the sections more clear to the audience.