Pushing Boundaries Through Filmmaking

Covering Tough Stories-Tania Rashid

Meghan McManamon
mm434215@ohio.edu

Photo Courtesy to Tania Rashid's portfolio

MEET TANIA

Tania Rashid is a correspondent and producer that grew up experiencing different cultures living in the Middle East, South Asia, and Utah. After experiencing how different living in these places were for her throughout her younger years, Tania wanted to learn more about history and global studies at UCLA. Realizing that she wanted more out of her career in these fields, she took on filmmaking and got her master's degree in broadcast journalism. After knowing Tania's background and viewing her films, there is one thing that is clear; Tania was born to make a difference and to push boundaries, which is exactly what she is accomplishing through her astounding work in filmmaking.

TOXIC TANNERIES

Toxic Tanneries Poisoning Workers in Bangladesh was an extremely overwhelming film for me to watch. There is a river that runs through the city where many people live. This river is extremely contaminated with chemicals from the nearby tanneries. People that live around the river are very poor and rely on the river in some way, shape, or form in order to make a living for themselves. Many of the young boys will catch fish in the river and sell them to villages and food stands to make a profit. Many of the women rely on reselling much of the trash in the river in order to support their families. Even though the trash and fish are tainted with chemicals, many of the surrounding people say that they rely on the river to make a living and support themselves.

SKIN BLEACHING

Skin Bleaching Scandal in South Africa was a film that Tania produced about skin bleaching in South Africa. I thought this was a very interesting piece for many reasons. To see that people my age in South Africa go to such extremes is very eye-opening. I found it interesting that even though skin bleaching products are outlawed, the majority of stores have no problem restocking on the product and I also find it interesting that these products are in some way tied to cancer and the consumers do not care at all about the health of their skin and body.

SEX TRAFFICKING

The last video I watched, about sex trafficking in Bangladesh, was the most disturbing. The most interesting part of the video was at the very end when Tania interviewed one of the pimps. It became extremely clear that these people are in it for the money. Pimps know that they are corrupting these young girls and know exactly how to persuade them into staying and working for them. Throughout all of these videos, it seems to me that money is the biggest motivator when I was still wondering why people would do these things to themselves. These videos really showed the lengths that these men and women will go in order to support themselves and their loved ones. The implications from all of these stories are clear, but the need for money is greater in their eyes and they feel like they have run out of options.

ETHICS

From an ethical standpoint, the pollution from the tanneries should be dealt with on behalf of the tanneries that are producing all of that pollution. When it comes to skin bleaching, I don’t think that it is ethically responsible to have popular African artists promoting such serious skin bleaching products especially since their long term effects are still unknown. Lastly, the sex trafficking video is ethically wrong in more ways than one. In the video, the pimp mentioned that hotel staff and even members of the army have connections to these trafficking rings and most turn the other cheek when it comes to addressing and fighting the problem.