Charlotte Taylor: Enacting Social Change through Film
Kai Meyer | February 21, 2024
Charlotte Taylor, a film and animation professor at Warren Wilson College (WWC), always knew they wanted to become a teacher — except for a couple of years in middle school when they wanted to make music videos for a living.
As a result, Taylor founded Fierce Flix, a queer summer camp where trans, femme and non-binary kids make music videos for a week. The camp is a culmination of their passion for teaching, music videos, queer representation and social justice, which extends into their teaching at WWC.
“There's a difference between talking about social justice and then enacting it,” Taylor said, who is outspoken about ending the patriarchy.
Their calls for systematic change naturally subverts student’s expectations around what it means to be a college student as well as a learner, which is reflected in their non-traditional teaching style that values curiosity, collaboration and radical joy.
By rejecting a punitive grading system Taylor gives students space to make mistakes, an essential practice for developing any form of creativity. Taylor’s students are encouraged to show up as their full selves, create something outside of their comfort zone, fail and feel empowered to try it again.
This generative model of creativity stems from Taylor’s initial love of music videos.
“That’s the thing that I loved most about music videos, there aren't any rules, you get to just make things up. And that’s exactly what experimental film is about,” Taylor said, “Like, how far can I push this thing to make something new? What weird stuff can I do with this camera to see the world differently?”
Taylor is always flexible when it comes to how an assignment can be completed because to them, there are always limitless possibilities. By overturning the structure of pedagogical expectations, Taylor strengthens students’ agency and imagination.
Film is a powerful tool for re-imagining how a society is allowed to operate.
Filmmakers have a unique ability to convey individual, under-represented perspectives and translate those experiences to a wider audience. That is why film is such a powerful art form that has great potential to build empathy, understanding and change among entire generations.
That is part of the reason Taylor centers social justice in their teaching at WWC and Fierce Flix, because creating films is not only joyful but radical.
“There's something transformative about standing up in front of a whole bunch of kids and telling them they deserve to take up space on the screen,” Taylor said, “It changed me as a person.”
Queer identities have long been negatively represented by mainstream media, not to mention the absence of trans and non-binary people from most narratives. So by giving students a chance to operate a camera and decide how they want to be seen, Taylor is helping to change whose stories are being told.
This powerful reclamation promotes awareness and empathy of the multiplicities of experiences and identities at WWC and Fierce Flix. As well, it is very affirming for people who have been absent from the media to see their perspective reflected on a broader scale.
Taylor’s philosophy behind the importance of self-representation comes from another filmmaker, Signe Baumane, who stressed the importance of an individual perspective. This is what drives Taylor’s social justice-centered work, breathing new meaning into what it means to be a filmmaker and a teacher.
“You have to make your film, your art. No one else can,” Taylor said, “We need those films in the world - the films that only you can make.”