#KanyeinOxford: Live Blog
16:18 Despite the fact Kanye left 20 minutes ago, Kanye fever has yet to abate. Here’s the best we’ve seen before we sign out. Thanks for joining us on this emotional journey
I’m just going into Oxford and I swear to christ if I see Kanye I’ll ejaculate all over the street
— Ciaran Pragnell (@CiaranPragnell) March 2, 2015
Need to lie down after so much eye contact with God #Kanye #Oxford
— Eve (@eve_jw) March 2, 2015
Trying to imagine Kanye West in Oxford Natural History Museum is like trying to imagine Justin Bieber on an episode of University Challenge
— Jen Jen (@Jennifers_army) March 2, 2015
16:09 Not everyone has reacted as positively as Oxford students
Kanye speaks at Oxford and @DailyMirror readers respond pic.twitter.com/uG7FvOYU50
— KiΞRAN (@kieranhepworth) March 2, 2015
16:07 Confusion still reigns that Oxford University invited Kanye as a guest lecturer
Kanye is guest lecturing at Oxford University? Seriously? What is wrong with people?
— Action Brandon (@BrandonIsADick) March 2, 2015
16:00 Now for gossip from the talk
Kim and Kanye have booked the honeymoon suite at the Randolph for their visit.
— John Evelyn (@GossipEvelyn) March 2, 2015
would like to take the opportunity to name and shame @JackMcCabe95 for passing up opportunity to see #kanyeinoxford to do his essay 🙂
— Niamh McIntyre (@niamh_mcintyre) March 2, 2015
15:53 And with that Kanye has left the building
“If we’re done with racism, what about elitism, what about separatism, what abut classicism? That’s all.” #KanyeinOxford
— Cherwell (@Cherwell_Online) March 2, 2015
15:52 He makes a good point
“It’s not illegal not to listen to music. It’s illegal not to wear clothes, also a little cold. Clothing shouldn’t cost £5000 #KanyeinOxford
— Cherwell (@Cherwell_Online) March 2, 2015
15:51 Kanye on Kim’s cosmetics line
“Beauty has been stolen from the people and sold back to them as luxury” #KanyeinOxford
— Cherwell (@Cherwell_Online) March 2, 2015
15:50 Well thank God for that
“If I, Kanye West, can let go of my ego, there’s hope for everyone” #KanyeinOxford
— Cherwell (@Cherwell_Online) March 2, 2015
15:45 And hip hop rivalry
“One of the best thing about the album was Nicki Minaj, and that she kicked my ass, on my own song, on the best album of the last 25 years.”
— The Tab Oxford (@TheTabOxford) March 2, 2015
15:42 Kanye gives his thoughts on capitalism
#KanyeinOxford Kanye West: They should do award shows for the Nobel Peace Prize but I guess that doesn’t sell as many MasterCard ads
— Charlie Atkins (@kinsCharlie) March 2, 2015
15:40 Let’s get betting
Kanye West 100-1 to be given an honorary degree by Oxford University according to @Ladbrokes. Worth a quid.
— Andy Halls (@AndyBizarre) March 2, 2015
15:36 Kanye attempts to be a philosophy lecturer
“Time is the only luxury, the only thing you can’t get back.” – Kanye West, Oxford lecture.
— Scott Bolohan (@scottbolohan) March 2, 2015
15:33 We can’t quite believe it either
Kanye West – “Obama calls the home phone, by the way.”
— Aled Jones (@AledR) March 2, 2015
15:28 And his thoughts on UK politics
.@kanyewest (at Oxford, no photos): Civilization has all the resources to realize utopia, yet we are ruled by greed and the least noble
— Larry Au (@larryau) March 2, 2015
15:25 And the Matrix..
Kanye West: “the Matrix is like the bible of the post-information age”
— Aled Jones (@AledR) March 2, 2015
15:22 Fine art is a topic of conversation apparently
“My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater.” #YeezOx
— The Tab Oxford (@TheTabOxford) March 2, 2015
15:17 Rumours abound about what Kanye will talk about. Perhaps his tweets can offer some inspiration
I have millions of ideas and I represent a new generation just trying to express themselves in a broken world.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 20, 2015
15:16 Reports say Kanye is in the building
15:12 Still no word on Kanye. Oxford students wax lyrical on the event
Hoping my alma mater changes its name to Yeezus College in honour of Kanye West’s speech in Oxford today. #kanyeinoxford @jesusalumni
— Stuart Fowkes (@stuartfowkes) March 2, 2015
15:08 And from inside..
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15:05 Official photographs of the queue outside the talk
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15:03 The Oxford Musuem of Natural History has allegedly been closed to the public for the talk
@Cherwell_Online praying 4 another ‘George bush doesn’t care about black people’ moment pic.twitter.com/ZEqtl2hh6D
— Joseph Knight (@Jknight7395) March 2, 2015
15:01 Updates from inside the museum, despite the no phone rule
— Louis ‘OUSU’ Trup (@OUSU_Pres) March 2, 2015
15:00 Still no sign of Kanye
14:55 Desperation mounts with five mins to go
— Niamh McIntyre (@niamh_mcintyre) March 2, 2015
14:49 Louis Trup is one of the lucky ones
— Louis ‘OUSU’ Trup (@OUSU_Pres) March 2, 2015
14:46 1,800 students balloted for tickets by 12.30am with varying success
KANYE WEST IN OXFORD MUST STAY UP ALL NIGHT 4 TICKETS EXISTENTIAL CRISIS LOOMING @ChrisBishy !!!!! pic.twitter.com/izYUvPYM4C
— Hope (@DavTheGod) March 1, 2015
14:43 Oxford students lament that their degrees don’t include Kanye West modules
Kanye West. In Oxford. Tomorrow. Giving a speech. Same time as my Mechanics Tutorial. Fuming.
— Jordan Rose (@ZER0DayVirus) March 1, 2015
14:38 Jealousy both in and out of Oxford of ticketholders
Wtf Kanye West is giving a talk to Oxford students today Uni of Manc needs to step their game up
— RHI. (@RhiiMurray) March 2, 2015
14:33 The rapper is in high demand
if any1 bumps into @kanyewest in oxford today let him know im playing at the cellar tonight and like ill obs see him there thnx
— Lulu (@Luluannmay) March 2, 2015
@kanyewest basically I’ll look real cool if I turn up to pre drinks with you tonight, as you’re in Oxford, will you come for a few ðŸºðŸ¹please?
— rakie (@PaulRake1) March 2, 2015
14:30 With half an hour to go, the talk has drawn the attention of the national media, with coverage from the The Evening Standard and BBC Oxford
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The American rapper Kanye West will be speaking at the Museum of Natural History in #Oxford at 3pm.
— BBC Oxford (@BBCOxford) March 2, 2015
14:29 Read about the dramatic announcement of the talk last night here
Cherwell brings you the latest news throughout today’s much anticipated talk.
If you want to have your say, tweet us @Cherwell_Online or use the hashtag #kanyeinoxford and we’ll publish the best of the bunch on here.
Oxford students swap library for LFW
This week, London, snatching the torch from New York in the marathon that is Fashion Month, opened its doors to Fashion Week and welcomed into its warm faux-fur embrace over 250 designers and countless fashion insiders, including a number of Oxford students. Want to know what they were up to? Thought so. Cherwell caught up with Katie and Romain between showrooms and shows to find out why they were there and what they had seen.
Name: Katie Pangonis
Fashion Week Credentials: Founder and Editor of Escapade, an inter-university fashion, travel, and lifestyle magazine based in Oxford.
Pass Type: Designer showrooms, including rooms dedicated to jewellery, shoes, bags, and accessories. The pass also gets you into events in the evenings such as new label launches and parties.
What I’ve been escaping the library for: This is the second time I’ve been to London Fashion Week as Editor of Escapade. This time I took our Deputy Editor, a couple of our contributers and our canine intern Alfred Billington. LFW is a great opportunity for us to get an insight into next season’s styles and trends so that we can start shaping the coming issue in terms of shoots and themes. Getting to see everything in advance is simply priceless, and pretty exciting. It also allows us to make contacts directly with designers. For example, last year we met Only Child London jewellery designer Kelly Jackson there, whom we then interviewed in our first issue.
Favourite Collections: Georgia Harding, Paper London, Ottoline, Eudon Choi, and Only Child.
Name: Romain Reglade
Fashion Week Credentials: Freelance photographer for Grazia Italia, and Marie Claire and Vogue in Latin America.
Pass Type: Backstage, at a series of shows including Burberry Prorsum, Erdem, Daks, Paul Smith, Issa, and Topshop Unique.
What I’ve been escaping the library for: I’ve been running between shows – in the rain! – taking photos of life backstage. This generally includes taking beauty shots after the makeup has been done; capturing the line-up, which is really cool, because it’s the first view of all the looks together, complete with outfit, hair and makeup; and then just random photos of the models backstage – they’re usually taking photos themselves, or reading and studying, like I should be!
Favourite things I’ve seen this week:The Topshop Unique showspace at Tate Britain, the makeup at Gareth Pugh, and the Hunter set – complete with waterfalls!
AW15 trends:
Faux Fur: Seen at Gareth Pugh, Ashish, Burberry Prorsum, Erdem, Topshop Unique, Matthew Williamson, Roksanda… need we go on? This trend is going nowhere for AW15.
Eighties: SS15 is all about the 70s (check outour70s-inspiredflareshootthisweek), but next season is bringing the 80s back in a rare moment of lineality for fashion. So put down that tan shearling and reach for something brighter. The more garish and the bigger the shoulder pads the better, à la J. W. Anderson, Roksanda and Vivienne Westwood Red Label.
Glam Punk: As a sub-section of the 80s trend, and as described by Jakk Hayes below. See Sibling and Paul Smith if you need more visuals.
Brights: In keeping with the 80s trend, AW15 is a far brighter prospect than the season usually is. Cobalt blue and bright orange are two to reach for in particular, as at David Koma.
Fashion Matters
With headlines screaming ‘20 celebrities with or without makeup!’, BuzzFeed is a store of our worst celebrity culture tropes. Yes, we’ve made progress: the campaign against airbrushing – perpetuating unrealistic and dangerous aspirations for self-image – has grown from a minority voice to a popular ethic.
Indeed, the most recent chapter of the BeyonceÌ-epic saw the online community defending her right to acne after pre-air-brushed images from the L’Oreal campaign were leaked. “BeyonceÌ has skin. Did you think otherwise?” – ran one comment. “She still looks absolutely beautiful”. It is heartening to see that ‘imperfections’ (and I use that word begrudgingly – the conflation of ‘perfection’ with superficial qualities is itself problematic) don’t threaten to dethrone the Queen of Pop. The Queen is human. Shouldn’t we welcome this development in celebrity culture? Perhaps so.
However, there is a really discomfiting strand in this new obsession with the celebrity au naturelle. In my view, BeyonceÌ supporters are somewhat in denial – the BeyonceÌ brand is safe whilst her ‘bad skin’ remains just a ‘bad skin day’. The real ‘natural beauty’ that captivates Bey’s fans is inextricably bound up with an airbrushed aesthetic. You might remember the hit YouTube documentary Year of 4 in which we followed round the ‘natural’, everyday Bey on her hectic schedule. This was just about as ‘candid’ as an Instagram selfie. I agree that BeyonceÌ is a strong female role model – most agree that her ‘natural’ beauty lies in her on-stage energy, her theatricality, and her drive – but let’s not pretend that the face on the cover of the new Flawless album correlates in anyway with the acne scars of leaked photographs. That’s not actually what people – at least collectively in the media machine – want from their Queen. When Uma Thurman walked out onto the red carpet recently with no mascara – headlines spun. ‘What has Uma Thurman done to her face?’ It was as if the media were saying, “Well she could have made a bit more effort…”
Natural beauty is the new black, but how ‘natural’ is it? It’s being fetishised by the media. ‘15 ways to be more naturally beautiful’ aÌ€ la BuzzFeed. Serums, diets, pills – ‘natural beauty’ is being commodified by the beauty market. More than ever, ‘natural beauty’ is becoming something as unobtainable as the cover girl body. The BeyonceÌ story is one such example. And, as the case of Uma Thurman shows – ‘fresh faced’ is apparently only okay for the young, whose naked features hardly deviate from the ‘ideal’ at all.
We’re left scratching our heads wondering why our own ‘natural beauty’ isn’t quite so ‘beautiful’, even when we’re young. Cue Scarlett Johansson: ‘See Scarlett Johansson’s Fresh-Face Look!’ reads The Daily Mail. Johansson is being celebrated for wearing no makeup at the Oscars practice. But this is nothing more than one catalogue look, manicured by a team of stylists. We’re losing touch with what’s really natural and our aspirations for self-image only continue to inflate #instagram #nomakeup
The New Romantic Man
On February 12th, we lost Steve Strange, the lead singer of 80s band Visage and the widely acclaimed leader of the New Romantic movement, a cultural phenomenon spanning not only music but also (perhaps even to a greater extent) fashion, favouring decadence, flamboyance, and androgyny. In reaction to punk, New Romanticism was a celebration of excess, where men wore more makeup than women and where one could never be overdressed. As noted in the V&A’s 2013 summer exhibition From Club to Catwalk, this trend began in London nightclubs such as Strange’s own The Blitz before spreading out into the catwalks, influencing designers such as Zandra Rhodes and Vivienne Westwood.
The New Romantic period pushed Westwood in particular away from the jagged edges of punk into a new era defined by softer silhouettes and exuberance. Perhaps her most famous collection to date, AW81’s Pirates represents a turning point in her work, and also the point at which New Romanticism really took off as a key direction in mainstream fashion, something no longer confined to underground London clubs. It brought with it a tide of floppy bow collars, thick eye makeup, and a penchant for glamour. This has not gone away with time. Much club fashion is still heavily indebted to the New Romantics’ legacy, such as the gender-twisting costumes seen at Bethnal Green’s monthly Sink The Pink, and the wild parties held by ‘Club Kids’ such as Michael Alig and Amanda Lepore at The Limelight in early 1990s New York.
New Romanticism has also been forever present in womenswear: however, in an age less concerned with rigidly masculine codes of dress, it is now beginning to appear in mainstream menswear shows, as in the decadence seen in Gucci’s latest shows – at which bows were ubiquitous and lace shirts were layered under jumpers – or in Paul Smith’s long fur coats for AW15. Dandy-esque or foppish, the trend is to- wards an androgynously glamorous style, encompassing layering and rejecting colour blocking: think Hedi Slimane’s sometimes difficult to distinguish men’s and women’s collections for Saint Laurent Paris. The return of John Galliano, long known for his flamboyant approach to fashion, will no doubt provide a boost in popularity to this particular trend. Come January 2016, the New Romantics will be back and all out glamour will be the order of the day – regardless of gender.
Oxford Fashion Week: Insider glimpse
With Oxford Fashion Week starting Monday – and with Anna Wintour at the Union Tuesday – March is getting off to a stylish start indeed.
After being founded in 2009, Oxford Fashion Week has grown to become an established part of the fashion week circuit. In the run up to the week, I spoke to Jemima Myers, a student currently studying fashion construction & retail. As a blogger and member of the OFW editorial team, I’m keen to find out what the week has in store.
But before doing so, I want to unpick her love of blogging. Asked why blogging has taken off so much, her passion becomes clear. Despite the fact it thrives off social media and technology, she sees blogging as a way to get back to basics, ‘an example of how written communication still thrives in an era where it is very easy to become enamoured with more instant forms of entertainment – television, films, games etc.’. Blogging is, according to her, something which ‘keeps our generation reading, which is essential for those who perhaps don’t find it easy to sit down with a book’. After hearing this, it’s hardly surprising that she has applied this love to become one of the bloggers for this season’s Oxford Fashion Week.
Now in its seventh year, OFW looks set to be bigger and better than ever, with new technology revolutionising the way we think about clothing. The headlining Genesis show aims to draw upon such creative innovation.
Prior to becoming involved, Jemima was already interested in the links between structure, technology and fashion, incorporating these interests into her college projects. Asked if technology has a place in fashion, she stresses that technology has never been so important in an age where every person owns a smartphone, laptop and/or tablet. Demonstrating her genuine passion for the fashion industry, she quotes Coco Chanel: “fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening” and what is happening right now is an ongoing technological revolution.
Hoping to find out some juicy gossip surrounding the event, I move on to ask her what it’s like working with the models. Cat fights? Diva tantrums? Complete and utter chaos? Alas, for it seems not. Apparently they are a ‘friendly and co-operative bunch’ who she is excited to work with in the upcoming days. Given the pre-conceptions of fashion models as being entirely self-orientated (America’s next top model anyone?) this was refreshing indeed.
Moving onto safer ground, we talk about the designers themselves. Jemima is most excited by Lavinia Cadar, although admits she is slightly biased towards her since she is one of the designers in the Genesis line-up. Cadar uses modern technology such as 3D printing and laser cutting to form her garments, resulting in some incredible structured pieces. She, alongside the designers for all the shows, are sourced especially for the week and in previous years designers have even flown into Oxford in order to take part.
Clearly, this is no longer the age of the plain white T-shirt. Chatting to Jemina has made me even more excited by the way fashion is heading and Oxford Fashion Week looks to be an exciting glimpse into that.
The shows kick off with the Cosmopolitan Show and Lingerie Show on Thursday 5th March, followed by the Couture Show and Genesis Show on Friday 6th March. For tickets to these events or any other events surrounding Oxford Fashion Week, visit http://www.oxfordfashionweek.com/tickets.html
Preview: The Architect
My Thursday evening preview was a little different to normal. Instead of the usual couple of scenes with a question and answer session thrown in for good measure, I was plunged into dinner (yes, actual dinner – they made stir fry) with the Black family, the disintegrating nucleus of Sam Ward’s upcoming take on The Architect – a writhing, tension-riven mess of the standard two parents two children format.
My first thought on hearing about the plan was ‘how very meta’. My first on arrival was ‘how very awkward’. Martin, played by Cassian Bilton, swings open the door with what appears to be the louche arrogance of youth before degenerating into frankly repulsive rudeness (example: input generic comment from my Oxstu previewing comrade, then awkward silence, cue deadpan comment ‘great guests’ from Martin, more awkward silence). Lily Erskine’s Dorothy plays the victim with aplomb, conspicuously helping for dinner – is she pitiable or sanctimonious or both? – before storming out to “anywhere” in revealing clothing to do “god knows what.” Dom Applewhite as Leo was a greying, detached, vacant attempt at a father figure, constantly apologizing for his wayward son’s behavior, whilst Helena Wilson’s Paulina is a potent, shuddering husk of embarrassed tension.
We watched as they weaved amongst one another, with all the snide cattiness and brittle conversations that grate in families, ripping and tearing at the forced conventionality of the dinner format. Dynamics are pithy, charged, brutal. Each character’s story is at one moment made painfully clear and, at the next, swept into the abyss of all-consuming tension. On more than one occasion I felt the urge to step in and try to rescue the flailing parents or somehow alleviate some of the charged awkwardness, with it almost impossible to recall that the reviewer/guest was simply another role.
And I suspect that this will be what will make The Architect a very, very good production. The innovative marketing technique of a fourth-wall shattering preview was, of course, quirky, but it was also apt, a means of negating the privileged viewer position that will hopefully be furthered in the play’s production. In a work about a failing architect, family and vision, to bring the audience into the space drives home the tension and searing pain in a way that would otherwise be lost in the gap between stage and audience. Saatchi & Saatchi should give whoever came up with that idea a job.
More generally, the play should be an interesting choice. Created as a comment on “the interstices of city life,” it revolves around Applewhite’s Leo, once a highly successful architect who designed a high-concept housing estate shaped like Stonehenge that won praise from everyone except his inhabitants, but now, as they are petition for it to be knocked down and rebuilt, Leo’s own family life degenerates into a pervasive defeated idealism. The work rotates on the concept of space, on what Greig calls “the places which once harboured the possibilities of utopia but were now dark and fearful places” – an interesting concept to be figured in the recesses of the Keble O’Reilly in 7th Week.
Oxford Guild announces Kanye West as speaker
The Oxford Guild has announced that Kanye West will be giving a talk at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
At 11pm this evening (March 1st), the Guild’s Facebook page created an event entitled “Kanye West speaks to the Oxford Guild Business Society”, and reported that West would be speaking at the Museum of Natural History tomorrow (March 2nd), at 3pm.
According to the event page, the first batch of tickets will go on sale at midnight, with further releases at 2am, and at 9am tomorrow morning.
Students were encouraged to sign up to a random ballot for tickets. However, the organisers were keen to emphasise that students would be chosen completely at random.
The Guild told Cherwell that as of 12.30am, over 1,800 students had balloted for tickets.
Once selected, students will have two hours in which to buy their tickets before the link expires.
Abbas Kazmi, Chairman of the Oxford Guild, told Cherwell, “We are very excited to be hosting such an inspiring and high profile a speaker as the legendary Kanye West and expect it to be a fascinating and memorable event.
“It is great to see the hard work pay off after having spent many hours negotiating against the odds and keeping things under wraps to secure this event, which is a real coup for the Guild, which I am proud to see continuing to grow from strength to strength, reaching even higher heights and winning ever more national awards and accolades.”
He continued to thank the Guild committee, and went on to say, “This is the first in a series of incredibly high profile speakers the Guild has lined up. We have been working industriously behind the scenes and would recommend you watch this space!”
There has been no word yet on the subject of West’s speech, but the rapper has been outspoken about business in recent years, condeming, among others, Louis Veitton.
West is in the UK for the Brit Awards, where he performed on February 25th, revealing on Twitter last night that his upcoming album is to be titled So Help Me God.
So Help Me God pic.twitter.com/e3UUsQQEts
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) March 1, 2015
Kazmi also told Cherwell that a full video of the talk will be available, and explained the reasoning behind the event’s ticketing system. “We do not want students to waste their afternoons queuing outside the Union chamber Frewin Court for example, only not to be let in and to be left disappointed. Nor do we want students to ballot and then not turn up leaving empty seats which have been taken by others.”
He also emphasised that only Oxford-registered emails would be valid in the ballot.
Sean O’Neill, of Hertford College, was one of the first students to secure a ticket. He remarked to Cherwell, “I get to be in the same room as Kanye West! This is so great it almost makes me like the Oxford Guild.”
Oliver Johnston-Watt, a member of the general committee, commented, “Aside from the executive, only two other committee members knew about this. When the first e-mail came in I thought it was some kind of joke but with Kanye being in the UK at the moment for the Brits it all started to make sense.
He remarked that it was “absolutely outrageous for any student society to bring in a speaker like Kanye West.
“Clearly,” he continued, “the Oxford Guild mean business.”
The University should not neglect OxHub
On behalf of the whole team at the Oxford Hub, I was very pleased to read the front page article and editorial written by Cherwell today on the Oxford Hub’s funding cuts, and am thankful for all the kind comments of support offered by students. However, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to what the University spokesperson has said and highlight some further points.
The University spokesperson claims, “It was always made clear that this money came from funds that were strictly time limited.” I would like to clarify that while it was clear that the Van Houten fund which funded us was time limited, it was also suggested by the Vice-Chancellor that we should fall into the Academic Administration Division budget. Despite conversations on this issue since September 2014, those budget holders have informed us that we will not be receiving core funding from them, and that they are currently unable to offer funding from anywhere else. The Hub’s work is unique, and while we whole heartedly agree that other areas of student support are of the utmost importance, such as Disabled Student Allowance, Access and the UNIQ summer school, the Hub addresses different but equally important issues.
The OxHub provides training and support in setting up and carrying out community volunteering projects, which is not the focus of any other body in the University. This is an opportunity for students to engage with real issues, developing skills to be citizens of a socially minded world. It has been shown that people who engage with volunteering are happier and more employable. The University is known to have a notoriously difficult relationship with the City of Oxford, (which the recent tensions around Port Meadow highlight further), but what better view to the student engagement with their local community can there be than students giving up time to visit the elderly at Isis House, tutor children in everything from Maths to environmental issues, volunteer at the Food Bank or support those who are homeless on our streets?
I would also like to contest the spokesperson’s references to “duplication” of activities. We are in continuous conversation with OUSU and, when I met with their Vice-President for Charities and Communities last week, we agreed that none of what we do is significantly similar and we are planning to collaborate on training sessions next term. Furthermore, while the university spokesperson suggests that our work is similar to that of other university groups, the Hub is used as their go-to partner to support Lloyds and Moritz-Heyman scholars to complete their required volunteering hours – we receive separate pockets of funding to support these scholars – which indicates their clear acknowledgement that the Hub is the main provider of student volunteering opportunities in Oxford, and has been shown to do so very effectively for the last seven years.
Allegations of homophobia at Cellar
Two gay Oxford students were the victims of homophobic abuse at The Cellar nightclub on Thursday 26th February, after they were seen kissing on the dance floor.
Both students have requested to be identified solely by their first name.
Sacha, one of the victimised students, explained to Cherwell, “I was dancing on the main dance floor, and then me and this guy went to the other room, where there are a few tables and seats. We sat in a corner by a table and started kissing.
“A man, who was roughly forty five years old, tapped me on the shoulder. From the minute I got tapped on the shoulder, I knew it was going to be something homophobic. I was expecting it in a way.”
The man reportedly said to Sacha, “What the fuck are you doing?”, to which Sacha replied, “I’m kissing.” The man then told Sacha and Josh, the other student involved, that “This is not a gay club”, prompting the two students to stand up.
Sacha explained that at this point, “I just saw that it [the conversation] would degenerate, so I went to the bar and looked helplessly at the guy standing behind the bar. Then a strong, muscular man joined in. He was much more aggressive than the other man; he was shouting insults at us and threatened to punch us. My friend didn’t want to back down. We weren’t going to let this go.”
The man who had been shouting homophobic insults at the gay couple then purportedly head-butted Josh. Sacha elucidated, “He just went for him. It wasn’t strong enough to make him bleed or break his nose or anything, but he went flying back, and we were both in shock afterwards.
“You don’t really realise to what extent something is shocking or intolerable until the next morning – we tried to carry on as if everything was normal. We went back to the main room, and started dancing. We kissed again, and this is when we were approached by a bouncer, who asked us to leave.”
Allegedly, the bouncer asked the students to leave as they had been kissing in the middle of the club. Sacha recounted to Cherwell how the bouncer said to him and Josh, “I’m not looking for trouble, but you might make some people angry. You’re provoking other people.”
However, Tim Hopkins, the Venue Manager at The Cellar, denied that the couple were asked to leave, saying, “The students said they would leave anyway. The Cellar is a forward thinking place, we’re not homophobic. This was probably a bit of a misunderstanding. The bouncers did chuck out someone who was uncomfortable with the two guys kissing.
“People can kiss in The Cellar. Our policy on kissing is that it’s absolutely fine, but we tell people to hold it down if it’s any more than kissing. If you’re gay and you want to kiss in The Cellar, you can. It’s a case by case situation – if there’s a heterosexual couple in the corner, and it gets a bit frisky, we’ll ask them to calm down a bit.”
Hopkins reiterated, “We wouldn’t kick out some gay people for kissing in The Cellar. We’re a friendly music venue that embraces all walks of life and cultures and whatever. We don’t discriminate at The Cellar.”
After leaving the nightclub, Sacha told Cherwell, “I was so fuming, looking for someone to complain to. I wanted to go back in.” However, the bouncers refused Sacha entry. Sacha continued, “I must have looked too angry or violent or gay or whatever.”
Describing his anger at the bouncer’s treatment of him and his friend, Sacha said, “It was absolutely insane. The Cellar is probably one of the most promiscuous, incestuous places in Oxford.” He further added that he had believed the nightclub to be, “Alternative and open-minded”.
Former Merton LGBTQ rep Alex Beecham commented, “I was angered to hear that two friends of mine had been subjected to such appalling homophobia in The Cellar and by their staff, and was surprised as I have often seen same-sex couples kissing there and have myself considered The Cellar to be one of my favourite places in Oxford. Many in Oxford’s LGBTQ community will avoid that club to its detriment unless the management reacts appropriately to ensure that we do not have to fear the threat of violence and intimidation.”
As his College’s LGBTQ rep, Sacha posted about the incident on the College LGBTQ reps Facebook group. He commented, “I was completely lost, with no idea what to do. Reactions from friends in College were extremely supportive, and on the wider LGBTQ reps Facebook group – they were great as well.”
The President of the Oxford University LGBTQ Society, Otamere Guobadia, expressed outrage at the news, telling Cherwell, “To be a minority, even in Oxford, our self-proclaimed ‘bastion of progression’ is to be in constant vigilance. There are the daily microagressions that feed into wider prejudices and contribute to othering and alienation, but then there are these very real very tangible acts of violence; acts that threaten our bodily integrity and what little sense of welcome we have in society.
“My college [Univ] flew the rainbow flag for the first time in its centuries long history today, and yet under these spires we are still being denied our right to determine their own lives and loves. We will not let this go. Our bodies have a right to take up space, and own who we are in public spheres, and to say that this is horrendous is an understatement. Fuck queerphobia and fuck establishments that perpetuate it.”
Hopkins told Cherwell, “If they’d [Sacha and Josh] like to have a chat with me personally, I’d be happy to do that”, further adding that The Cellar would review CCTV footage of the night to assess the claims of homophobic assault.