The Raced and Gendered Road
In both Searching for Angela Shelton and The Grace Lee Project, the road is used as a way to find answers to each director's personal "quests". They differ in that Angela Shelton uses the road in an attempt to connect her experiences of abuse with those of other Angela Sheltons. For Grace Lee, her quest begins as a way to find differences amongst the seemingly similar Asian-American Grace Lees. What is interesting is that in the end, Angela Shelton's documentary (for me) failed to connect women on the level she was looking for. Grace Lee's original intentions to find differences amongst the women actually helped her to see the similarities in the women--in terms of their struggle as Asian-American women. Whereas Angela Shelton went to the other woman, Grace Lee allowed women to come to her through a website she designed for her documentary. Also, Grace Lee seemed more interested in each woman's personal story while Angela Shelton's intentions seemed overshadowed by her own personal quest. Each woman's topics of discussion and their intentions were different which led to different outcomes. As for the road being "raced" and "gendered", in The Grace Lee Project the story is filmed from the eyes of an Asian-American woman and the Grace Lees that she interviews are all Asian-American. The story then speaks to specific issues they face as Asian-American, and as women. In Searching for Angela Shelton, the quest develops out of the experience of a white woman. What becomes an issue, even though Angela Shelton is trying to connect the women she interviews, is that she does not take into consideration social, cultural, economic, etc. factors that go into the experience of each different woman she talks to. This is why I think The Grace Lee Project was so successful because it explored the experience of a specific culture and tried to interpret that experience from a variety of different viewpoints.