Aidan Bach

Assignment 3

1.The roof is on fire profiles the very present, yet very vaguely considered problems that exist in in Oaklands inner city youth. It provides a unique perspective on conversations, that while densely filled with important social issues, are typically reserved for intimate conversation.

2.The work is a very strong example of direct community engagement. Lacy really plays very little role in the content produced by the teens, but instead opens up the conversation and allows them to engage. 

3.What is interesting about the location used for the project is its proximity to the more suburban areas of Oakland. Oakland is often thought of as a very dangerous city, which is countered strongly by the affluent neighborhoods located ten minutes from the city. You can very much imagine the ideas that the people of these neighborhoods (who where featured in the video )  of the students in the project.

4. I belive that this project will affect the more privileged audience that had come to see it, as well as the parents of the children in the highschool. Though the students have a different scope on the issues discussed than students not going to an inner city school, teenagers still share many commonalities of the kids on the roof is on fire.

5.This project was created for adults of the area and for the greater bay area to realize and consider the issues that are present important to the Oakland teens. 

6.The community members and audience where engaged by entering a very personal, and very direct realm of the teenagers thoughts. The project opened up a very natural dialogue with in the teens, as the they where a very straightforward source of the projects interest. 

7. Obviously, the most tangible resource that Lacey had used where the teens, however, the project must have required some very expensive resource too. Between renting the cars and parking garage, and publicizing the show, the work must have been expensive to produce. 

8.The projects objectives are to give the audience and the media a very real and hopefully very eye opening glance at the real inner city teen. It is not biased by media exposure, nor is it preconceived conceptions, it is simply a real example of the actual functioning of the performers.

9.The project reached its accomplishment in giving new understand to the audience of the teens way of life.

10.The project aimed to dismantle the negative perspective associated with the performers, as well as inner city and impoverished kids in general. It serves to show the misconceptions are very present- and often very wrong- the media often convolutes and exaggerates truths and lies, and that overall, the bad traits of some community members should not represent the whole.