Jenn Mikitka Project and Philosophy

*all of the footage that I took for this came out extremely blurry, so I only have one original clip in here. I recorded more, but until I can figure out how to get them to be clear, I found no purpose in adding them in.


We tell stories to learn important lessons. I think that’s why so many children’s stories are didactic. Because we’d remember the boy who cried wolf longer than we’d remember our parents telling us not to lie about things. When we read books by Dr. Seuss, we remember that a person is a person no matter how small and it sticks with us forever. Stories originated as an easier way to relay news and information and while it has evolved significantly, a lot can be said about its roots and continuing purpose. People write about things that are important to them, and if something is important to you, you’ll want people to remember it. Even in the Harry Potter series, the quotes that stick out to us are ones that have a lesson behind them or make us think a little more. For example:  “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Or “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.” These books contain so many words and phrases that people could choose to quote, but the ones that appear over and over again are the ones that remind us what is important in life and I think that speaks volumes as to what we value in stories and storytelling. Of course, we want to read a good story that keeps us interested and involved, but we also want to gain something morally from it. We love to hate the characters who make bad choices and hurt others and celebrate when something stops them. That’s why the stories that sell have a protagonist who represents the good in the world and the antagonist who represents the evil. We like to empathize with the protagonist because we all like to assume that we are like them- that we are good people who would make the right decisions. When we read books like Speak, we empathize with the protagonist, even though we would likely be just like everyone else who held what happened against her and isolate her. I think we also tell stories to raise awareness. If people didn’t write muckraking stories about things like the meat industry or mental institutions, we would have never known about the mistreatments going on. By telling these stories and releasing this information, people were able to empathize and do something about these situations. If storytelling never existed, there would be a lot more injustices in the world. People like Holocaust survivors and sexual assault survivors tell their stories in hopes of raising awareness and hoping that by telling their stories, the things that happened to them will never happen to anyone ever again