1984 by George Orwell the main character Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the Party scrutinizes human actions with Big Brother always watching. For our assignment we got in groups and got assigned a character from 1984. Than we traced one of our bodies on a big sheet of paper. Than drawing symbols that would describe our character.
In my group was Nash, Cashel, and Zak, and the character we got was Big Brother. Big Brother is the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state where the ruling Party wields total power over everyone. We thought Big Brother was going to be the hardest, because he is actually never seen as a person, he’s just been seen on the telescreens all around the city. Once we though about it and things started rolling it got pretty simple. We traced my body even though I was the biggest one and barely fit on the page. After we got all our symbols down we had to cut out one spot where we would green screen and animation in, so we cut out the face.
Now let’s start from head to toe. Our group decided to cut out the face and put an animation of one Adolf Hitler’s speeches. We all agreed on this because of the similarities between the two. Both Hitler and Big Brother believe that a government should be totalitarian, even though most of the citizens were against it. Adolf Hitler was considered a dictator in his time, and even though Big brother isn’t a person, the way he controls people, is just like a dictator would. Both of them used fear as powerful weapon to control everyone actions, like Hitler when he would present his executions on tv to show the world how big his power was, than Big Brother introduces fear by inventing the room 101 were supposedly you will confront your biggest fears.
“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”. This is written below every propaganda poster, and the reason we made his hand into a camera. Big brother takes away the privacy of every living being in Oceania with cameras all around the city. People afraid of self expression and individualism because of the party running the city. “It is unwise even for members of the Inner Party to turn off the telescreen for more than half an hour.” The camera hand being a perfect symbol as your hand is the most used, and the cameras around the city never being shut down.
Ingosoc is the inner party that runs Oceania, and they run off three slogans,
“WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”
The party has this written everywhere and has the city brainwashed to believe this what is right. We chose to right this on his arm and his legs. We believed that this symbolized Big Brother because he is the leader of Ingosoc and this slogan is written all over posters with Big Brothers face on it.
Big Brother is on screens all around the city, and how else to power a screen without some batteries. We decided to give Big Brother a battery belt so he his screen could never die. He can reach right into his belt when he’s about to die.
For his feet we drew nukes because the party is producing and dropping bombs all over the city of London. “All three powers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store them up against the decisive opportunity which they all believe will come sooner or later.” Big Brother making these choices, giving us reason for nukes to be a symbol of Big Brother.
Here is our full animation:
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