{"id":1378,"date":"2015-10-26T21:50:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T21:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=1378"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:56:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:56:49","slug":"james-89-paying-it-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2015\/10\/26\/james-89-paying-it-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"James \u201989 &#8220;Paying It Forward&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.andreajames.com\">Andrea James \u201989<\/a> returned to Wabash in October to discuss her film <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2015\/06\/12\/alec-mapa-baby-daddy-_n_7561594.html\"><i>Alec Mapa: Baby Daddy,<\/i><\/a> but that\u2019s only the starting point for a wide-ranging conversation on this week\u2019s <em>Wabash On My Mind<\/em> podcast.<\/p>\n<p>Taking time out from meeting with faculty and students, the writer, director, producer, and activist discusses the creativity behind film making, advertising, finding her voice as an advocate for transgender issues, and her unique Wabash experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really grateful for my Wabash experience,\u201d says James, who was a script consultant for the Academy-Award-nominated <i>Transamerica,<\/i> among many film credits. \u201cI think that understanding the homosocial bonds that men have when they live together and work together as they do here is a pretty time-honored tradition in the military and in monasteries. There have been a lot of great things that have come out of institutions that were set up like that. I love that Wabash is diverse in that sense.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd by learning how men interact with each other I came to realize that gender stereotypes affect men, too. It\u2019s all part of the same oppression that women face.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>James\u2019 documentary, <i>Alec Mapa: Baby Daddy<\/i> employs comedy in its focus on a gay couple who adopt a foster child.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComedy is the canary in the coal mine,\u201d James says. \u201cIt redraws the lines in society.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut through the process of making this film, we learned that there are 400,000 children in foster care right now, and of those 100,000 need permanent homes.\u00a0There are so many gay and lesbian couples who would love to have a child, but in some states it is legal to discriminate against them and not let those children have a child.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that\u2019s a crime.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was adopted myself, so making this film felt like I was paying it forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0Listen to the complete podcast<a href=\"http:\/\/directory.libsyn.com\/episode\/index\/id\/3889513\"> here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrea James \u201989 returned to Wabash in October to discuss her film Alec Mapa: Baby Daddy, but that\u2019s only the starting point for a wide-ranging conversation on this week\u2019s Wabash On My [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":1381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-video"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2015\/10\/andrea-james-alex-hernandez-copy-1024x682.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1378"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1383,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1378\/revisions\/1383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}