Media Diary Week 2

The media text I have chosen to talk about in this weeks media diary is Emma Watson's HeForShe campaign speech at the U.N headquarters in New York. The video containing Watson's speech was uploaded to the United Nations YouTube channel on 22nd September 2014. The video quickly became viral as it was a powerful speech about how gender discrimination effects both genders, not just women.

The purpose of the text is to galvanize as many boys and men into becoming advocates to end all gender discrimination people face globally. She also clarifies the common misconceptions about feminism, that it is not a 'man hating' campaign and that all they want is for both genders to be treated equally, (to receive equal pay etc).

Emma Watson is a huge A-List celebrity, having played one of the main character roles in the film series 'Harry Potter', people may not take her speech as seriously as she may like, and she addresses this in the speech. She says:

''You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing up on stage at the UN. It’s a good question and trust me I have been asking myself the same thing. I don’t know if I am qualified to be here.''

Although she thinks people may not take her seriously, personally I think they should. Six months ago she was appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, which gives her every right to talk about this topic and most certainly qualifies her to do so. It takes a huge amount of courage for somebody who is so well known, to make a speech about a topic that has become taboo over the years. 

There has been a lot of different reactions to the video. A lot of people are all for the HeForShe campaign, whilst others think that it is sexist, still anti-male and will achieve nothing. For example, this is an article that TIME magazine wrote on the speech

WATCH Emma Watson's HeForShe campaign speech here: