  Gail Said: Ok…Just like last time, I can't post the message. It keeps telling me either I'm not a member or my password isn't valid, and it won't let me go to the page where I can retrieve my password. Clearly, I am technologically challenged. Anyway, I'm enclosing my comments. The Power of Your Words What power do words possess? Do they aggrandize or suppress? I considered this recently after reading Lewis Jacobs (1970)‚ chapter, "The Raw Material," about motion pictures as a form of creative expression. A filmmaker is a kind of artist, he asserts, like the painter, the composer, and the artist himself. He seeks to control and utilize his medium by harnessing the particular raw material of his medium in order to express his world. Regardless of the music, painting, artistic, or filmmaking medium, a man undertakes such creative endeavours in order to reveal "man’s concern with being alive. " For what indeed is a man if he cannot examine his life and consider his worth and use his creative genius to express his deliberations. His deliberations and expressions are believed to be common, and the rest of us therefore can relate to him.
As a creative person who writes considerably, I could indeed connect with the concept of the vision behind expression. I have often recognized my own ability to write with a "camera’s eye. " But in reading Jacobs, I also recognized that I did not see myself represented in his words. When he speaks of the artist, the painter, and the composer, the picture that comes to mind is that of Rembrandt, Leonardo, or Beethoven. When he speaks of the visionary filmmaker, I see Coppola, Hitchcock, or Spielberg, one of whom is in fact a dead white guy. I could, of course, alter the image to ... well, some woman, Penny Marshall perhaps or Barbara Streisand, because I will assume that they, that we, are in fact included in "man. " Yet, why do I consciously need to alter the image that comes to mind when these words are read? Why must I make the effort? There were and are women artists, painters, and composers. Do I know of any?
I cannot say that I do. Do I know of any women directors? I’ve named but two. No more. But I purposefully bring them to mind now because I could not see myself in the language that he uses. Where was I? Descartes asserted, "I think therefore I am. " But we cannot form a thought without language; George Orwell showed us that. If language represents but only half the population, do I think therefore I am not? Jacobs, L. (1970). The Movies as Medium. Toronto: Double Day, Ltd. 
