Still from Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
Themester intern Brooklynn Shively discusses the visionary work of Marion Stokes and the archive she created that shines a light on how our histories have been shaped by and in the media.
Independent archivist Marion Stokes fixated on documenting reported news since the birth of the news cycle. She was fascinated by “how media reflects society to itself,” according to her son in Recorder. Not only was she motivated to record primary news cycles for decades through this fascination, but she felt a responsibility to create this personal archive for fear that history would be erased.
Her mission was to bring light and truth to what we are being told through the media. This first started when Stokes noticed storylines changing day-to-day throughout the Iranian hostage crisis at the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle. Her archive did more than point out the manipulation of reports, however. The archive hosts newscasts that the media outlets have since erased — just as Stokes predicted. Stokes’s life mission was to make humanity equal by empowering the oppressed through information. Currently, her archive of various news cycles spanning from 1975 up until she passed away in 2012 is available for public consumption online, digitized by the California-based Internet Archive, a non-profit library of Internet history. Her dedication to recording these reports for nearly 40 years is unparalleled by any other known archive. Now, we, the people, can utilize her work to make informed decisions about the world around us.
Stokes’s life story is unique. While we can now look to her as an inspiration with an admirable mission, she was not seen in this light by the majority at the time. After investing heavily in Apple from its inception, the incredibly wealthy Stokes fueled her recording and storage project with its payouts. During her life, people believed Stokes to have lost her mind as she hauled bag upon bag of videotapes and saved newspapers daily out of her building just to return and lock herself back in her apartment to continue recording.
Still from Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
However, it is fascinating to analyze why people then and now refer to her hoarding habits differently on two fronts. One front is what she collected; the other is who she is.
When Stokes bought every product Apple ever released, she was regarded as an Apple product collector. However, considering her 24/7 recorded tapes and 11 daily newspapers, she was deemed a hoarder. Whether something is seen as valuable or not in our society is determined by its economic value. Capitalism influences who we deem a genius and who we deem a lunatic. Stokes was uninfluenced by our societal values; she saw information as her primary source of wealth, and her economic affluence as secondary.
On the other hand, society looked down on her because of who she was. A Black woman who was originally a librarian from humble means was not regarded as someone who could have so much power and influence in our culture at the time, even though she gained some notability through her television show Input. Stokes received the brunt of public scrutiny. It is interesting to ponder whether a wealthy white man would have been seen as a genius or a lunatic doing the same thing at the time.
As our cultural ideologies have shifted, Marion Stokes is now regarded as a visionary. Yet it is important to note her resilience; she weathered criticisms with utter determination to shed light on and question the validity of the news cycle. As I watched Recorder, I was enlightened by how Stokes’s mind operated and how she did what she felt was right and true. We must take this away from her life story and follow our truths as we continue our own paths forward.
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project will be screened at IU Cinema on October 17 as part of the Themester film series.
Brooklynn Shively is a Themester 2023 Senior Intern. In 2024, she will obtain a degree in Media Law with a minor in Financial Literacy.