The Roof is on Fire- 10 Lens Case Study by Jade Robinson

The Roof is on Fire- 10 Lens Case Study

1. CONTEXT: 

“What group of people do we hardly listen to, but hear about all the time?” During the early 1990’s there was a surge of news coverage about crime involving youth in Oakland’s inner city. Youth in this area became frustrated with stereotyping that they faced because of the media’s constant negative portrayal of them, and they wanted to prevent the rest of the public from magnifying the one percent of “troubled youth” as if it represented the whole. Another circumstance that framed this project was that the era in which it was created marked the beginning of the “Golden Age of Television”; this generation is hearing more about values from television than any other source, and the abundance of negative depictions of minorities is extremely damaging.

2. CONTENT: 

This project addressed youth stereotypes in the media, lack of respect for teenagers, and the need for young voices to be heard. Teens are a direct reflection of society; as “canaries in the mine-shaft”, their reactions and behaviors indicate whether or not adults are cultivating a healthy culture for future generations. It is necessary for teens to have an outlet for self-expression, as a majority of the youth-related violence that occurs within inner cities is a cry for help from those who see involvement in crime as the only effective way to gain visibility.

3: FORM: What is the medium that was used to address or embody the content?

Performance art in the form of conversations between teenagers in cars, made open to the public. In a mix between theater and art, a rooftop parking lot was filled with 100 cars (arranged in a specific formation as dictated by the lead artist), each filled with a group of teenagers. These groups spoke openly about issues such as the future, family, drugs, culture, education, power, and sexuality, and the audience was free to roam about the space and listen to these discussions.

4. STAKEHOLDERS:

220 Oakland high-school students as “performers”/contributors, a student production team, artists/organizers Suzanne Lacy and Chris Johnson, media specialist/artist Annice Jacoby, and high-school teachers (who helped with organization and also introduced “Media Literacy” into their curriculum).

5. AUDIENCE: 

This project was conceived for a public who looks down on inner-city youth and discredits their views because of how they are perceived in the media (this manifested in an actual audience of over 1000 Oakland residents, most among them privileged), as well as other teenagers who need to be shown that they have the right and means to express their opinions in a healthy way.

6. ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES: 

Students were given a list of topics to discuss (though there was no script and the thoughts/ideas were ultimately their own), and audiences standing outside of the cars were privy to these debates. Though car doors/roofs were open, observers still had to lean in/crane their necks to completely catch these conversations, and this requirement for the audience to adjust themselves for the sake of listening assured that they were actively participating. As described in the video, “the audience performed the act of listening, while the students performed the act of self-revelation.” Teachers were connected to the project by the development of a “Media Literacy” program to educate youth about how media shapes our way of being. This was crucial to the process because it revealed to students that even though television associates minorities with being less-educated/having less opportunities, the students themselves do not have to fit into these categorizations or consider themselves “less-than”. Stakeholders that were more focused on coordinating the event logistically arranged the cars and made sure that each was filled with students. During the event, they also directed the audience and made sure that there were no unwanted/dangerous guests.

7. GOAL: 

Create a model for society of listening to teenagers in order to subvert stereotypes and prove that despite the negative and stereotypical portrayal of teens in the media as “delinquents”, inner-city youth should be recognized as humans with valid opinions and contributions. This project also strove to turn teenage voices into a work of art by providing a platform for self-expression that was not dictated by others in society, and allow for perspectives to emerge that were not prejudiced by television, newspapers, or magazines.

8. VALUES: 

We learn what our place in society is through media, and the representation that we view forms the mosaic of our identity. Consequently, if young people of color repeatedly see minorities stereotyped on television as losers, criminals, villains, and uncivilized threats to society, they begin to fall into these roles that society has assigned to them because they believe that the issue is bigger than themselves and that therefore there is no escape/alternative route. “If you tell someone often enough that they are “no good” or not worth anything, they come to believe it”; this usually manifests in the form of violence/crime, as youth succumbs to a self-fulfilling prophecy that privileged society has placed upon them. Students learned about this in the “Media Literacy” program that became part of the process for The Roof is on Fire. Another guiding value that this project highlighted was that the natural optimism, resourcefulness, and determination of youth to find idealistic solutions to issues should be paid attention to and adopted by the rest of society. The lack of stereotypical or prejudiced views about controversial issues was shown when participants were allowed to speak openly, and the absence of censorship/strict guidelines from authority helped to unearth strong, insightful opinions that resonated with the audience.

9. RESOURCES: 

Tangible resources included a staging location for the project- a parking lot on the 7^th floor of a federal building- which reflected the project’s goals of having the public come to the teens’ level and be open to listening to voices that they would normally ignore or invalidate. $100,000 dollars in both money and donated services was required to make “The Roof is on Fire” a reality, and this funding covered such things as posters, walkie-talkies, parking lot rental, and car rentals. Intangible resources included the man-power of teachers, students, and artists to create the environment, the connections from media specialist Annice Jacoby (who assured that the media was listening and organized for the project to be documented publicly through television coverage), and student volunteers’ time and willingness to be vulnerable and honest in their discussions.

10: OUTCOMES: 

This project ultimately set up the foundation for a more understanding and collaborative relationship between inner-city youth and the privileged community that unfairly labeled them as delinquents based on their learned prejudices. Though no huge steps for change were established, many audience members left the event reflecting on how the opinions they heard revealed that teenagers are capable of intelligent, important conversations, and as a result the public became more willing to remove their own bias to see other young people’s reality. The media coverage also provided an example to troubled teens in other areas of students that were able to make a positive impact, and this planted seeds of inspiration to unite for a cause and proved that there is a possibility to find a place for oneself in a seemingly “rigged” social structure. Many of the student participants in The Roof is on Fire gained a sense of their own power to reach across barriers, break out of stereotypes, and use their voices to affect change.