Crude Awakening

Joseph Abdul

2/23/2014               

Social Movement Event Summary

Documentary: Crude Awakening

            As one of our tactics to draw attention to our cause, our group showed a related documentary, “Crude Awakening”. Movies and documentaries are powerful tools for social movements success; they don’t require a large budgets. Also, people who come to watch a movie are intending and willing to be there, unlike other tactics where we would be forcing individuals to hear our voices. Although not as many people attended as we shot for, it was still a step in the right direction.  

            Our first step was to decide to show the right movie. It had to have attention grabbers that would leave an impression on the viewers. I admired the beginning hook where the theory that we are worshiping oil was emphasized. Then we made flyers and posted them around campus. After showing the movie, our group led the discussion that focused on the fact that our oil supply is depleting. The twelve people who attended were truly engaged in the discussion. The movie did its job of focusing the viewers to the issue. I participated in the discussion by bringing up the good points of the movie. Also, as the vice president of our group, I viewed the movie before hand and approved that it will be appropriate for our topic.

            There were few things we could have done better. For example, we should have decided the event and posted the flyers sooner to give folks time to plan to attend. Also, the flyer itself could have been designed creatively, as our class discussion revealed that it could be offensive to certain prospective. Our group should have been on the same page at all times. For future projects, we need to work on bettering our communication methods. Over all, our group learned from the few mistakes that occurred and will work on eliminating them.