Wednesday 8th October 2025
Blog Page 14

What can office workers learn from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty?

Saskia Maini
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What can office workers learn from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty?

The character Walter Mitty was first brought to life in James Thurber’s short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, published in a 1939 issue of The New Yorker. At its essence lies the eponymous figure: a man stuck in routine, escaping into vivid daydreams to find meaning beyond his mundane daily life. The short story resonated strongly with readers, resulting in the 1947 film adaptation (though this version strays far from the original). Over time, it even led to the addition of the word ‘Mitty-esque’ to vernacular American speak in economic, artistic, and literary circles, denoting a person who indulges in escapist daydreams and fantasies. 

Most recently, the story was reproduced in the 2013 film of the same title, directed by and starring Ben Stiller. This is the version which most captured my attention and remains one of my favourite films. I believe it can offer some meaningful takeaways for us all. 

Meet our protagonist: Walter Mitty. He’s a mild-mannered New York office worker, whose humdrum, grey life is defined by routine and restraint. Employed as a negative assets manager at Life magazine, Mitty’s days are uninspiring and predictable. In a half-hearted search for love, he signs up to eHarmony. But when customer service worker Todd Mahar rings him – trying to finish setting up Mitty’s profile – he meets a dead end. Walter Mitty’s profile is just… boring. He has nothing notable to say. Nothing, that is, except for his elaborate daydreams. 

This comes with no lack of irony: the magazine Mitty works for (Life) champions adventure and discovery. Yet it appears to be the very thing which limits his life. Based on the real-life Life magazine which has the motto “To see life; to see the world”, the fictional version of the magazine elevates this ideal one step further. Multiple times throughout the film, we are reminded of the adapted version of the magazine’s inspirational motto:

“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”

And yet Mitty – despite working under these very words – appears to be living in total opposition to this philosophy. 

But one day, everything changes when one of his negative assets goes missing: negative #25. It’s an important image taken by the magazine’s elusive photographer, Sean O’Connell. It’s due to be on the front cover of the final issue of Life magazine; the photographer believes it captures the “quintessence of life”. Without the negative, Mitty risks losing his job under the watchful eye of his arrogant, corporate-minded manager, Ted Hendricks, a walking caricature of soulless capitalism. 

Determined to locate the lost negative and track down the aloof O’Connell, Mitty undergoes some extraordinary adventures. He leaps into ice-cold shark-infested waters, hikes through the snow-laced peaks of the Afghan Himalayas, and skateboards through the expansive Icelandic countryside. With every stage of his journey, Mitty seems to develop the very ethos his magazine heralds. Through new adventure, risk, and true human connection, the viewer believes that maybe Mitty is discovering what O’Connell saw through his lens: the quintessence of life. 

In this article I’d like to examine three questions which I believe the average office worker (or hard-working Oxford student) should take from this film to consider. 

First: Does our productivity-focused society turn being ‘Mitty-esque’ into something negative when, in fact, it isn’t negative at all? 

We often hear people described as having their ‘head in the clouds’ or being ‘away with the fairies’. These phrases usually carry a note of subtle condescension. They imply someone is not grounded in ‘real life’ and that is frowned upon. But is this not precisely what creativity demands? Does it not require thinking beyond the confines of reality and entering a more imaginative space, be it the clouds of a magical parallel world? In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Mitty is mocked for this very tendency. His boss, Ted Hendricks, cruelly mocks Mitty for zoning out, referring to Mitty as ‘Major Tom’ during one of his escapist episodes, to earn a cheap laugh amongst his colleagues. Hendricks even reprimands Mitty for this daydreaming. Presumably, Hendricks views it as straying away from productivity: a threat to profit-making and a distraction from maximising shareholder gains. But this raises a serious question: are such productivity-focused sentiments quashing essential creativity and individuality in creative environments like a magazine office? In a world increasingly pervaded by AI and large language models, we risk forgetting the value of true human creativity altogether. Whilst we have arguably not reached this extreme just yet, in my view we are certainly at risk of doing so. Perhaps this film could be seen as an early meditation of this: modern invention and uniformity demanded by a work culture obsessed with output could be harmful. 

Second: What can we learn from Walter Mitty as a figure in times of hardship? 

Thurber’s original short story was published in 1939, in the wake of the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the economic hardship and uncertainty of the Great Depression. Taken in this context, perhaps the original Mitty’s daydreaming could be interpreted as escapism from this harsh reality. It is understandable to retreat to an imaginary refuge from a harsh reality. 

And can we not all relate to this to some degree? Could we not all sometimes do with a little escapism? In our world today – in which cost of living crises are rife, mental health issues are more abundant than ever, and the pace of life seems to be spinning out of control – perhaps we could all do with a little distraction. We could all enjoy being taken out of our reality for a while. Escapism is not necessarily avoidance, but more akin to self-care. Picking up a novel, watching a film or listening to some music allow for a pause on reality. Engaging in creative outlets is the timeless method of escapism in which we can all indulge to alleviate the pressures that come with our own realities.

Finally: Can life only be fulfilled by undergoing remarkable adventures or is there another way to realize life’s purpose? 

Towards the end of the film, Mitty eventually traces the missing negative. The image is, to our surprise, of Walter Mitty himself. It is a photo of him sitting in his usual work clothes, outside the office, carefully studying a negative. Sean O’Connell could have chosen any of many photos; we see him travelling around the globe to capture photographs of erupting volcanoes and rare snow leopards. And yet O’Connell pronounces that this picture captures the “quintessence of life”. 

O’Connell justifies this by saying that it is the people who are the quintessence of life. While he is, of course, referring to the Life magazine, in my view this should also be taken in a broader sense. The message relates to life itself. While grand adventures and far away travels can undoubtedly enrich us, they are not necessarily what constitute life’s meaning. Sometimes, perhaps it is the quiet moments that are the most significant. 

To my mind, this is the film’s most enduring lesson. Fulfilment does not always require faraway journeys or cinematic heroic acts. Mostly, we can find it in the small things. After all, life is made up of an amalgamation of our todays.  

Former EiCs criticise OxStu independence decision

Laurence Cooke and Noah Robson
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Former EiCs criticise OxStu independence decision

Oxford Student Union’s (SU) announcement that The Oxford Student will begin the process of becoming an independent publication has prompted criticism from multiple former Editors-in-Chief of the paper.

Currently, the newspaper is owned by the Oxford SU. A memorandum of understanding is in place with the organisation which guarantees its editorial independence. However, a Cherwell investigation earlier this year found that this editorial independence had been suppressed on at least one occasion.

In a statement on Instagram, Oxford SU said it “recognises the important role that student journalism plays in holding institutions to account and keeping the student body informed”. The statement continued: “It is with this in mind, that following a period of extensive consultation with our Board … we have taken the decision to support The Oxford Student to transition to become an independent publication.”

One former EiC of OxStu told Cherwell that they were “extremely disappointed by the recent announcement” and that this would “doom a paper that [I] and many other students since 1991 have helped develop alongside the SU to certain financial failure and a significant weakening of its output.

“This decision has been framed to make it seem that The Oxford Student will benefit from being ‘editorially independent’. However, The Oxford Student is already editorially independent; the only impact of this decision will be an almost certain loss of its print edition, which is at the heart of the newspaper’s very identity, as well as the resources it needs to carry out hard-hitting journalism.”

Two further former EiCs expressed their anger at the decision. One called on the SU to “reverse this ill-founded decision and put the effort in to support student journalism”. 

The same editor told Cherwell that “this is a dark day for freedom of the press and student journalism nationwide. The SU is undermining a newspaper that holds it accountable because it published stories over the last two years that did what good journalism is actually supposed to do – speak truth to power.”

Set up in 1991, The OxStu is run and funded through Oxford Student Services Limited, the commercial arm of Oxford SU.

On the process of the paper becoming independent, the statement said: “The SU will work closely alongside the Editors in Chief to ensure a responsible and smooth transition process.”

The transition will not be immediate, with the SU set to “continue providing financial support … for the first year to aid their establishment as an independent publication”. 

The current editors of The Oxford Student, in a statement for their own article reporting on the subject, said that they were “excited to take on the challenge of independent reporting” and to train student journalists. 

The editors-in-chief of OxStu for Michaelmas 2025 told Cherwell: “We are very excited to work with each other to help The Oxford Student thrive as an independent newspaper. 

“We will do our very best to make sure that the paper continues to uphold high journalistic standards and that it sticks to the editorial values it has always emphasised.”

In the 34 years since its foundation, one OxStu highlight was winning The Guardian’s newspaper of the year in 2001. The latter paper reported on the awards with the headline ‘Cherwell rival wins best student paper’. The outlet has also interviewed several former prime ministers, including Tony Blair and Boris Johnson. 

Through this change, The Oxford Student becomes one of very few student print newspapers in the UK to be independent of a student union. Others include Cherwell, Varsity at Cambridge, and Edinburgh’s The Student. These papers are usually reliant on advertising, subscriptions, and alumni donations to make ends meet. 

From classic to controversial: Religious imagery’s bold evolution

Isheta Ahmed
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From classic to controversial: Religious imagery’s bold evolution

Religious imagery has evolved – from an appreciation of spirituality to a damning critique of religion’s role in society. Significant contributions have been made by artistic eras of religious imagery, including the Medieval and Baroque to modern twists. Yet, does this evolution suggest a pivot from ascribing importance to religion to a slow denigration of its past ideals? 

As just one aspect of ‘visual culture,’ religious imagery has played an instrumental and influential role on society over time. Religious sentiments have long been communicated through cultures in the form of artistic Imagery, denoting the historical era and geographic location of a time period. What this imagery communicates can cultivate the environment it inhabits, influence contemporary beliefs and structure people’s identities.

When recalling early Medieval works, the heritage of iconography from the early Christian church is noticeable. This era underscores distinct craftsmanship and innovative stylistic choices representing Christian symbolism in art across Europe. The iconic image of Duccio’s Madonna and Child (13th – 14th century) is an evocative picture of devotion and intimacy between Mary and the Christ Child. Unlike typical Byzantine iconography, Duccio’s attention to objects such as the parapet, the careful expression of the Virgin and the childlike manner of Christ reveals a palpable closeness. This is a touching incision that lets the viewer into their sacred relationship. 

To the spiritually enticed, the features of Byzantine influence, seen in the oval shape of the Virgin’s face, embody the divine and sacred in art. Religious icons were carried by the spread of Christianity from the empire. The spiritual adherence to icons could no doubt be credited to their aesthetic style, symbolic Imagery and rich colours. As the time period shifted into a storm of iconoclasm, the sacred continued to be appreciated, but with an emotional depth that mirrored or perhaps exceeded the Virgin’s hopeless expression. 

The period of Iconoclasm (regarding the destruction or removal of icons in images) saw a mass censoring of religious art, as the Renaissance period took shape. Just after da Vinci’s mural, The Last Supper (1495-1498), was produced, Iconoclasm emerged from German and Swiss territories in 1521. In his book Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe, Sergiusz describes people performing ritual acts of destroying images to preserve their old faith. Whilst the realism of da Vinci’s renowned work resonated with so many, hostility to religious imagery surged in parts of Europe and beyond.

Regardless of the measure of erasure, there was a ‘gulf’ between the Christians who developed polarising relationships with religious imagery after the Medieval period. By refining perspective, spatial acuteness and anatomical accuracy, da Vinci nonetheless conveyed an intricate emotional landscape. It sprung forth to mind a fear-struck devotion, with a classic hint of betrayal. This type of religious imagery was engaged in daily admiration, much to the dismay of some religious groups.   

By the turn of the 17th century, Baroque artists carved the scene with drama, following the High Renaissance. Caravaggio’s Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608) and Rubens’ Descent from the Cross (1614) engage with striking scale, darkness, emotive despair and dramatic movement. 

The two masterpieces, alongside Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son (1661-1669), craft light and shadows to move the viewer into a pensive state of piety. Biblical parables, often involving a harrowing theme, unfold like a dark dream to the audience. Brushstrokes full of depth penetrate the emotional surface, making it readily discernible from the pure flatness of Medieval religious art. 

Bold colours and interesting contrast flirt with an idealistic and venerated image of Christ, which aligned with contemporary Catholic sentiments. The Counter-Reformation period saw the portrayal of Christ in art evolve from simpler depictions to a complex and affected Saviour.  At the same time, Ruben transforms the Image of the Virgin, traditionally bowed head and subtle expressions, into an active and supportive figure in the descent of Christ from the Cross. This change in imagery, reflected by a changing audience, illuminated different aspects of Mary’s role in the life of Christ, and was finally being appreciated in art form. 

Oxford is also home to many religious artworks. Keble College holds William Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World (1853). Inspired by the Renaissance, this pre-Raphaelite painting has toured the world and is known to be one of the most viewed art pieces of the 20th century. The works of Rubens, da Vinci and Veronese also feature in the Picture Gallery at Christ Church. The Ashmolean has a beautiful collection of religious pieces, such as Fra Angelico’s Virgin and Child with Saints (1390/95-1455), exhibiting a Renaissance presentation of the Virgin that contrasts with the Baroque depiction.  

However, the image of religious figures like Christ has not always been depicted conventionally. Andres Serranos’ Piss Christ (1987) plays with perspective as the viewer is challenged to, overlooking its material, accept an aesthetically beautiful picture of Christ. In modern times, AI-generated icons similarly reproduce religious images instead of the standard canvas, questioning the perception of religious icons, beliefs and ideas through new-wave mediums. 

This symbolic unfiltered likeness of Christ can barely be said to critique religion’s role in society. Serrano claimed that he was not aware Piss Christ would “blow up” the way it did, admitting he has been “a Catholic all my life.” Despite the national controversy, the artist refutes having any intention to stir trouble implying that his role as an artist merely yields different creative results as a follower of Christ.

In an increasingly secular world, conveying religious meaning traditionally is regarded as an archaic echo of the past. To emulate Medieval, Renaissance, or Baroque religious zeal would be considered unfitting to today’s religious environment. This solemn focus on religious archetypes and symbolism competes with a modern visual culture that embraces a multicolour of faiths, including the growth of non-religious art. 

Blending human curiosity with the unknowable Divine, this bold evolution has seen the survival of religious imagery in unusual forms, from generative AI tools to abhorrent photography practices. As time progresses, devoted outlooks to religious imagery clash captivatingly with the obscene and mundane. All this only provokes the question: how far down the creative rabbit hole can we go before religious imagery ceases to adhere to any religious ideals at all?

Review: CRUSH – ‘A classic coming-of-age’

Beatrix Arnold
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Review: CRUSH – ‘A classic coming-of-age’

Rumours of drastic script revisions and casting changes meant that I entered The North Wall (a former swimming pool, so I’ve been told), with a degree of apprehension. But in any case, the debut performance of CRUSH, written and directed by Hannah Eggleton, was well worth it, a production more polished than laborious. The result was an elevated coming-of-age story, rendered with all the trappings of the teenage experience. 

The six person cast was deployed efficiently, with actors taking on multiple roles, sometimes even within the same scene. The comedic effect that comes as an almost inevitable corollary of this technique, so often a point of dramatic weakness, was embraced in CRUSH with a metatheatrical self-awareness. Such an effect complemented the extensive breaking of the fourth wall, whereby the protagonists would shift to address the audience with expository remarks, and over-the-top reactions to events onstage. The play insisted upon the melodrama of the secondary school experience, without detracting from its emotional impact. 

The entire production was focalised through the perspective of Annie. Juliet Taub offered a holistic and convincing portrayal of an awkward teenager, complete with naturalistic body movement. Forever fidgeting and shuffling, her speech was inflected with the clumsy cadence of insecurity. Hannah Eggleton’s performance as Jo was a highlight; her acerbic quips, immediately deflating Annie’s romantic tendencies, made the chemistry between the two best friends veristic and compelling. Isabelle Carey-Young’s lighting, in its visual reflection of Annie’s interiority, invested the play with greater emotional depth. The lighting shifts were sharply executed, and matched Annie’s abrupt vacillation between delusion, anxiety, anger, and more, with appropriate hues. The use of sound was equally commendable, particularly the high-pitched tone that formed the sonic counterpart to Annie’s spiralling anxiety. 

What stood out for me most about CRUSH was its sure-footed understanding of dramatic pacing. The narrative was taut, with a brisk run time of eighty-five minutes, steering well clear of the self-indulgent protractedness characteristic of much student drama. Shifts in tempo, although appearing initially to be counter-intuitive, were exploited to great effect. The peaks of emotional intensity were ruthlessly circumscribed, affording the audience only disparate hints at the darker undercurrent to the narrative, which was otherwise deceptively superficial. The discovery of the liaison in the chapel, for instance, was limited to an unsettling glimpse, the dim lighting an apt reflection of its swathes of indeterminacy. Such tantalising restraint, and the studied avoidance of prolixity, lent the most emotionally fraught moments even more impact. By contrast, other more quotidian occurrences like classroom scenes were drawn out, forcing the audience to experience the full excruciation of secondary-school embarrassment along with the protagonists. The pacing amplified the agony of being asked for a ‘fun fact’, for example, the melodramatic stress on minutiae mimicking teenage perceptions in a way that must have been familiar to every spectator. 

The double nature of the narrative’s emotional valence, with the levity of the high-school histrionics offset by a darker, more subdued undertone, was masterfully handled in the dialogue. The over-the-top interactions in the schoolroom, replete with quips and visual comedy, stood in effective juxtaposition to the moments of greater profundity, where the blunt, naturalistic dialogue, verbally enacting Annie’s disjointed confusion, injected the scenes with an unsettling immediacy.

It cannot be said that CRUSH is achieving anything particularly ground-breaking. The coming-of-age narrative, the boarding school dynamics, the teenage stereotypes – all of these were conventional in their depictions.Yet, far from being a weakness, this turned out to be an advantage. They avoided falling into the trap of focusing on a sensationalist, avant-garde premise, liable to become married by over-ambition and unattainable expectations, but did what they set out to do with exemplary finesse. With its combination of witty dialogue, competent production, and compelling performances, CRUSH stands as a consummate achievement, testament to the burgeoning potential of everyone involved. 

Running on treadmills: Milan Kundera’s meditations on Slowness

Lloyd Doré-Green
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Running on treadmills: Milan Kundera’s meditations on Slowness

Sometimes it takes a new word to express an old feeling. Until the age of around fourteen I spent many of my evenings brokering complex agreements with a God I thought I believed in: “If I get full marks in that test tomorrow, I’ll pray to you every day from now on.” I never really meant any of these promises – my fingers remained metaphorically crossed behind my back – but God was a willing dupe and, much of the time, I seemed to get what I wanted. And so it continued for several years. One fateful day, bored and with little better to do, I came across a video of the celebrated New Atheist, Christopher Hitchens, lambasting some poor, tongue-tied Christian or other about the non-existence of God. I was converted – not by the quality of the arguments, nor by Hitchens’ rhetorical flair, but by the sudden realisation that atheism, a lack of belief in God, was even on the table. I didn’t feel I had gained anything new; I felt that an old, deep feeling had finally been given a voice.

The most recent comparable addition to my vocabulary has come from the brilliantly addictive bibliography of Milan Kundera, the Franco-Czech novelist most famous for The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Despite his persecution at the hands of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Kundera’s novels remain surprisingly apolitical. Their world is one of relativity and uncertainty. As he put it himself in The Art of the Novel, ‘every novel says to the reader: “Things are not as simple as you think.”’ His works are not passive, however. Tendencies which would undermine the nuances and ambiguities of the novel are frequently criticised. In earlier works, like The Joke and Laughable Loves, this is the totalitarian impulse, and its accompanying need for absolute moral clarity. Later, in Immortality and Slowness, it is the modern world’s breakneck speed, the desire for convenience rather than complexity, which is named and analysed. Professor Avenarius, a character in Immortality, calls it ‘Diabolum’.

‘Diabolum’ describes anything which demonstrates our need for speed, like the cars whose wheels Avenarius slashes in night-time escapades, but also refers to the abolition of anything which might make us feel, even for a moment, like we are wasting our time. In Immortality, which was written prior to the invention of the smartphone and the widespread adoption of the internet, this is the substitution of silence with perpetual noise, the replacement of in-depth radio with jingle-ridden nonsense and the oversimplification of complex ideas to reductive images. But it has only become more omnipresent as time has gone on – myriad examples no doubt come to mind. Indeed, Avenarius believes that, as a political force, it is unstoppable. Kundera’s novels, which show us the beauty to be found in life’s shades of grey, show us also what we stand to lose in the rush to cram as many things as possible into every moment: life itself.

Slowness, Kundera’s first novel in French, picks up the gauntlet thrown down by Immortality. The opening, in which a frustrated driver races to his destination, immediately evokes Avenarius and the question of ‘Diabolum’. How can we resist it? At the end of the novel, Kundera compares the homebound journeys of two unsuccessful lovers: an 18th century chevalier and a young 20th century man, Vincent. The Chevalier will return to Paris by the slow trot of a carriage; Vincent will hurtle back on his motorbike. The Chevalier will savour his memories of the night; Vincent already has his mind set on the future. The pace of his journey represents the speed of his forgetting. For Vincent, this is precisely the point: he wants to outstrip his memory. But, by rushing forward, he will not feel, process, learn or grow; he will only forget. In the Chevalier, on the other hand, there is ‘a sign of happiness’. He is not clinging onto the past, but life itself.

In our desire to do and achieve everything, we often forget that slowness too is a virtue. Kundera does not give us a political solution to ‘Diabolum’, the invisible hypnotist distracting us from life itself – perhaps Avenarius is right and none exists, or perhaps the problem is simply not of interest to Kundera. He does, however, provide us with a personal one: slowing down. Stylistically, the end of Slowness mirrors the end of Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus. Both end with a haunting, almost ethereal, image, which sticks with us, reminding us to truly live and feel, rather than run away. Only by stopping to think can we find ourselves, and the ‘capacity to be happy, [on which] hangs our only hope.’ It is not true that the tortoise always beats the hare. But the hare who does not stop, every so often, to notice his surroundings will one day realise he was running on a treadmill all along.

The sibling dilemma

Beatrix Arnold
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The sibling dilemma

It is no revelation that growing up
with siblings necessarily shapes
character, their influence less
deliberate but often just as enduring
as parents. As the middle child of five,
I’ve never known life without them – not
to mention my extended family, which,
since my mum is one of eleven siblings,
always promises a chaotic Christmas.
As we progressed academically, rivalry
was inevitable, and the compulsion to
compare was not assuaged by my parents;
I definitely don’t miss the side-by-side
comparisons of school reports that had
such a seminal influence on my teenage
development. My older sisters, with their
uninterrupted string of perfect grades,
set the precedent, and when the eldest
graduated with a First from Cambridge,
my fate was sealed. In spite of this, we’ve
always been close. A sheltered countryside
upbringing and proximity in age made us
constant companions by default, so that
the shift as we each leave for university is
freshly disorienting every time.

Between us, we cover the spectrum of
communication styles; we’d make an ideal
sample set for a psychological study. The
eldest, with frequent phone calls, updates
on her crochet projects, and requests for
pictures of our dog, has never felt far away.
Paradoxically, going our separate ways
has brought us closer together; distance
makes you appreciate those aspects of a
person which continuous proximity tends
to dull. The second oldest couldn’t be more
of a contrast: her default setting is radio
silence. None of us know her whereabouts
at any given moment. I’m still reeling
from the night when I bumped into her
in Bridge, without even knowing she
was in Oxford. A reaction on the group
chat, or, if we’re lucky, a photo every few
months, are the few fragmentary glimpses
we’re afforded into her external existence,
otherwise kept discrete from her home
life. Each has adapted to independence in
a drastically different way.

I like to think I strike a good balance,
calling regularly enough for mutual
reassurance, while maintaining the
right level of separation to foster selfsufficiency. Whenever I go back home, no
matter the interlude, it’s easy to slot back
into its unbroken rhythm, as if resuming
a conversation we’ve been having for
years. The fallacy of a space frozen in time
overrides all complications; I find myself
stubbornly ignoring the extra centimetres
my brother has gained in my absence, out
of a desire to find him unchanged. Home
feels like a constant: the march of time,
which, at university, sweeps me up in its
progression, seems to decelerate when
I’m back in the milieu of my childhood.
My youngest sister, who never says
“Goodbye”, or “Welcome home”, provides
comforting continuity. Even if I’ve been
gone for months, I can expect the same
rapport, balanced with a unique ability
to antagonise me, the same secondaryschool gossip, the same caustic judgement
of whoever I’m dating at the time.
Despite its appearance of static
progression, things do change at home.
But no matter the developments that
come with moving out, no matter the
level of communication we maintain
while apart, I’ve never felt estranged from
my siblings. It’s comforting to know that
they’ll continue to be witnesses to my
life – getting on my nerves and stealing
my clothes – whether we’re in the same
nightclub, or halfway across the world.

Bonding, identities, and connections through music

Maya Mukherjee
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Bonding, identities, and connections through music

Charles Darwin puzzled over the idea that “neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to man” and eventually concluded that music evolved “for the sake of charming the opposite sex”. 150 years later, we have tweets proclaiming that “a girl following him on Spotify is a hundred bodies”. Clearly, music is a profound force driving relationships; shared music taste is one of the fastest ways to develop mutual respect and feelings of compatibility. 

Scientists have been associating music with cooperation, social bonding, and empathy for decades. One of the ways music causes this effect is through promoting ‘self-other merging’ – a phenomenon where we begin to relate to other people so closely that their identity and experiences begin to overlap with our own. Even the term itself is evocative of just how powerfully music can bring people together. Music takes many different forms in the social sphere, from small orchestras rehearsing together to the masses dancing at a festival. It’s the mingled sweat and anticipation inside a venue as your favourite artist first takes the stage, the excited chatter as you flood out afterwards. It’s the feeling of community that drives us to buy band tees and to smile when, unprompted, somebody else puts on your favourite song. 

The depth of emotion that can be found in music is responsible for much of its power – sharing your music with someone always feels deeply personal and revealing. As time goes on, this process has become easier and easier – we’ve moved from making mixtapes and burning CDs to tapping a button and having Spotify automatically ‘blend’ together songs from both your accounts, seemingly at random. The Spotify blend is, frankly, soulless and rotten. It destroys the thrill of painstakingly selecting songs that you think the other person will enjoy but that also (and often more importantly) manage to show off the full range of your own excellent taste. Music, after all, plays a critical role in representing to others the kind of person you are. That’s why “so what kind of music do you listen to?” is a standard first date question, and why I personally feel a cloud of stress descend whenever I’m given the aux at pres. 

Online streaming has even begun to socialise the more isolated aspects of listening to music. Every October, people begin to lament that they’ve been listening to ‘embarrassing’ music and will be exposed by Spotify Wrapped. Not sharing your Wrapped is, of course, not an option. It’s simply too tempting to imagine that people are nodding their heads approvingly and letting out whistles of appreciation at the cold, hard evidence of your listening habits. 

The intense vulnerability that artists often reveal in their songs is responsible for many of the ways we can connect to music. However, it can also lead people to develop a parasocial attachment to the artist, feeling that they know them and their situation personally. Across the world, the largest and most devoted fan groups follow musicians in a way that very few artists across other mediums have managed to replicate. These fan groups often reveal the darker side of the potent social bonding arising from music. Obsession with chart success and sales drives dynamics similar to those found among sports fans who pore over statistics and denigrate other teams at every chance. 

It’s a capitalistic, tribalistic view of art that turns music into an industry-driven arms race where loyalty must be visibly proven, often in ways only possible via spending. Think of fans attending ten consecutive tour dates, queuing for days in front of a venue, or boasting about large collections of differently coloured but otherwise identical records. Fan communities are frequently hostile to ‘outsiders’ and ‘newcomers’ – any girl who has worn a classic band t-shirt will have been challenged to name three of that band’s songs at some point. They must be ‘worthy’ of wearing the shirt, since by doing so they become representatives of an exclusive group who defines itself through allegiance to their preferred artist. 

This kind of thinking means that external validation of the group, some sign that their dedication has been a positive use of time, assumes a significant role. Hence, the close focus on chart success, streaming numbers and even celebrity endorsements, all boosting the commercialisation of fandom. Die-hards were over the moon when Anne Hathaway posted pictures in an Arsenal shirt; Kyle MacLachlan embracing Charli xcx’s BRAT was met with unadulterated glee by the surprisingly large intersection of Twin Peaks and hyperpop fans.

Bonding through music is a critical part of being human. It plays such an involved role in our lives that it’s often impossible for people to imagine a time before recorded music, when life was conducted without the background of 100,000 minutes listened per year on Spotify. Leonardo da Vinci considered music to be inferior to painting because it “evaporates in an instant”. Nowadays, of course, you could argue that being able to continuously and indefinitely repeat a song negates this point. 

But that isn’t how we tend to listen to our favourite songs – we crave a live, communal experience, because the ephemeral nature of music only heightens the effect of hearing it together. Long after the final notes of the song have faded or the band has left the stage, the emotional effect lingers on in you and the people around you, united by the knowledge that the feeling is both shared and unique to that moment.

Cultural fashion at the Queen’s confluence dinner

Mari-May Ozkan
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Cultural fashion at the Queen’s confluence dinner

Not often do I get to break out the Middle Eastern kaftan hanging idle in my wardrobe; it is simply too lavish for a two-course second sitting, yet not quite formal enough for black tie and port-sipping. Therefore, when signups opened for the annual Confluence dinner at my college (thanks to equalities rep Rach Tan!) , the excitement was immediate. My kaftan’s gold embroidery could finally see the light of day.

We started the evening with bubbly flutes of champagne in The Queen’s College OTR, a quaint room that certainly appeals to the dark academia romantics out there: plush leather couches, an overwhelming amount of carved wooden furnishings, and the college arms painted above an antique fireplace. However, instead of a sea of black suits and bowties, the room was lit with fabric swathes of intense emerald, yellow, and red. Glasses clinked as students guessed where each piece of clothing hailed from, admiring the clean lines of black kohl and meticulous folds of saris. 

Using my privileges as a Cherwell Fashion Editor, I had the opportunity to photograph fellow Queen’s students adorned in their cultural dress. Standout pieces included a blue qipao with lush navy trimmings, a radiant gold sari embellished with crystals at the hem, and a traditionally-patterned yellow A-line dress hand-sewn in Nigeria. 

The menswear was not to be glossed over either. First-year law student Alex Sidebottom told Cherwell: “My dad’s sherwani has a couple stains, but it’s nice to wear something he wore on his wedding. Even if the threads are coming loose.” Also spotted in the men’s department was a keffiyah scarf on a dusty grey matching set. A welcome change to the rather stale black suit and tie sported at every single formal occasion.

The dining hall may have been the same, with your standard three courses (fish as the entree, in classic Queen’s style), but the stories told across the table were suddenly more intimate. I felt proud when one of the servery staff asked where my dress was from – more so than if I’d been wearing my usual Hot Topic attire. My kaftan is different to the threads I typically throw on before hurrying over to the China Centre for a lecture. Traditional clothing is a celebration of where we’re from, stitched delicately into where we are now. 

The term ‘mixing pot’ is one often heard in reference to the UK. As cliché as it may sound, it is undeniable that our culture has been shaped by hundreds of others (I still giggle every time I hear a rogue mashallah!). Why shouldn’t that apply to our dress sense too? As I sat in the hall, finishing my third glass of wine for the night, I mourned the loss of opportunities to wear a shalvar, or that very kaftan. Rest assured, she will no longer hang endlessly in my cupboard when the next second sitting rolls around.

I’m Still Here: An exploration of memories

Freddie Beddington
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I’m Still Here: An exploration of memories

Spoiler warnings for I’m Still Here

I’m Still Here follows a mother and her family as they deal with the disappearance of the father at the hands of a military dictatorship. They have to cope with his loss, without knowing when or if he will ever return. The impossible question the film asks is: how long do you wait for? At what point do we become merely a memory? 

One of the first things to become clear about the family is how they try to preserve the present as much as possible. They try to see the time they spend together as a perfect memory that can last forever, even while they are experiencing it. We see how much they try to hold onto their time together. One of the daughters, Vera, is constantly filming her car journeys and trips to the beach with her hand-held camera. The family’s outings are captured in polaroids, often revisited by the mother, Eunice. They capture their experiences in physical objects to return to: immediately fossilising them as memories. The grainy colour palette, evoking the sand and sun of Brazil in the 70s, makes their surroundings seem representative of the very particular place and time they are living in; a picture would perfectly capture the memory through these colours.

When the father goes missing, the mother continues this idea and tries to preserve the life they had with him. To the younger children, she pretends that he has only gone on holiday and will be back soon. Letting a future without her husband take its course would be too painful for them. Her struggle at this point is one of trying to hang on to the memory of Rubens (vicariously through her children), while realising that dwelling in the memory can only bring harm. 

Hanging onto the memory only tarnishes it. There’s one scene, after Rubens has disappeared, where Eunice and her children have ice cream in a shop. The children are enjoying themselves, but Eunice is reminded of an earlier scene where they were there with her husband. She looks around the area, seeing families talking, and cannot help but cry. In hanging onto the past, we are only reminded of what we have lost. In this way, a memory takes on a different meaning. Our memories are not perfect, immovable representations of the past: their meaning is equally formed in the present as well.

Hanging onto a memory only makes Eunice realise their necessary imperfection. Eventually, all the family have to remember their father by are some faded polaroids, and some grainy homemade films. The past happens, and it is never re-experienced. Perhaps, when Eunice was in the shop, it was this realisation that moved her; she will never truly relive that moment with Rubens there, no matter how much she tries to. 

It is difficult to live reliant on past memories, yet we are dependent on them. In one scene, one of the children loses a tooth. She and Rubens bury the tooth in the sand, and he says that they will go back to that spot and find it. His trick is that he waits for her to leave and digs it back up. After Ruben’s disappearance, Eunice finds the tooth at his desk. She gives her daughter the tooth, who wonders how her mother found it in the sand. What this scene perfectly articulates is how, in living with someone in our memory, we can bring them back to life. Maybe this is the meaning of the title. Either way, it shows that even in leaving the past behind Eunice continues the spirit of Rubens.

The film makes it clear that Eunice is entirely a product of her past, and carries it with her through her memories. As she is taking the posters off the wall during her packing to leave home, the camera lingers on the wall covered in marks the posters have left. We are forced to carry our memories with us; the signs of the past cannot be erased. 

This idea becomes interesting when contrasted against the imperfection of memories. Eunice lives for someone who was taken from her, and eventually all she has to live for is a distant and forgotten feeling. By the end of the film, Eunice has grown older. Her memory is fading. Her only way of remembering Rubens is through aged polaroids. In the final scene, we see her watching a documentary on the military dictatorship. Rubens face, in a grainy black-and-white photo, pops up on the screen. We see recognition in Eunice’s face, but also surprise. It is like seeing a face for the first time. The tragic beauty of Eunice’s life is that it has been influenced so much by Rubens, but now Rubens is merely a picture — some pixels on a screen. We get a sense throughout the film of the particularity of a moment; a moment is gone as soon as it happens, and a memory can never truly recreate it. Eunice’s story seems to be showing us that the only way we can keep going is by thinking of the ones we love, even if we cannot truly grasp them in a thought. 

Rubens will forever be lost in the grainy colour palette of 1970 Brazil. The family’s experiences with him and their love of him never leaves that specific and particular moment. When the film cuts to 25 years later, and we see a much more sharp colour scheme and the children grown up as adults, we get this impression. While it is tragic that their love cannot transcend time, it only makes the time they had (in the first hour of the film) more beautiful. The takeaway from this, and perhaps the most powerful message of the movie, is that we should accept and embrace the fact that we will never experience the moment we are experiencing right now again. 

Financial disparities and uneven provision in student welfare

Janet Lau, Natasha Drake, and Éilis Mathur
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Financial disparities and uneven provision in student welfare

Last Trinity Term, the Oxford Student Union (SU) conducted a University-wide Welfare Survey Analysis. Open to all students, it received 2,116 respondents. 93% of students reported experiencing stress at Oxford, and 24% said that their mental health had worsened since joining the University.

Respondents also shared their perspectives on the quality and availability of welfare support across the University and its colleges. Only 35% said they were satisfied with the wellbeing support provided. Many students described welfare services as “under-resourced and inconsistent across colleges.” This inconsistency is not just anecdotal. Rather, it reflects measurable disparities in welfare support, both financially and structurally. 

Cherwell has analysed data from the welfare budgets of 30 Oxford colleges. These budgets include funds for students in JCRs and MCRs, money for welfare-related events, and payment for staff in welfare roles. It is important to note that there is no standard method to allocate these budgets. Additionally, each college organises their expenses differently. As such, colleges whose budgets do not account for salaries for welfare staff have been excluded to provide clearer analysis.

College Disparities

The mean spending per student on welfare is £282 (figure 1), with St John’s College spending the most. As the richest College in Oxford with an endowment of £790 million this is perhaps unsurprising. Their total of £317 per student is more than four times the size of Oriel College’s (£78). Oriel’s endowment of £101 million places them in the lower half of colleges by wealth. This suggests that drastic differences in endowment size may also translate to inequalities in student welfare support. 

welf_bud_per_student v2.2Download

However, large endowments do not always guarantee higher spending. Among the middle 50% of colleges, per-student spending still ranges widely, from £159 to £307. This wide variation of £148 suggests there is no clear standard or benchmark for welfare spending across Oxford. 

The Queen’s College underscores this inconsistency. Despite having the fourth-largest endowment of all Oxford Colleges at £340 million, they spent the third least amount per student on welfare, FoI data reveals. At £97 they spend less than a third of what St John’s College gives towards welfare, despite both being counted among the richest colleges in Oxford. This disparity among wealthier colleges suggests financial capacity alone does not always determine welfare investment. 

Moreover, Blackfriars Hall – a Permanent Private Hall with approximately 70 students – has an estimated welfare “service value” of upwards of £60,000 each year. At £1,333 per person per year, that represents a much higher spend than other Oxford colleges. In an investigation earlier this year, Blackfriars’ Regent told Cherwell that all students are known by name to the staff, creating an environment conducive to high student welfare. Clearly financial capacity alone does not determine the level of welfare provision. 

A spokesperson for the SU told Cherwell: “There are disparities in welfare provision across colleges. A collegiate university structure, with colleges varying significantly in terms of resourcing, size, and internal approaches to welfare, inevitably leads to differences in what students’ experience…Whilst these differences aren’t always negative, they do contribute to inconsistencies in provision.”

No Budget, No Clarity 

Not all colleges put their welfare services on an equally firm financial footing. Some colleges told Cherwell they have no designated budget for welfare, including Corpus Christi, Wadham, and Lincoln. Lincoln College told Cherwell that they do “not work on a ‘budget’ system, so no specific figure is allocated. The Welfare Coordinator works directly with the Bursar to request whatever funds are required for events and for infrastructure to provide welfare support.” 

This approach was echoed by Wadham College, who provide their welfare support “as an integral part of many of its other activities” but do not have a set budget. A student at Wadham College told Cherwell: “Welfare at Wadham is significantly devolved to the College SU.” They described that student officers provide the week-to-week welfare support, and “are given much more than they are equipped to handle”. They added that the college’s welfare team were not always the first point of contact and “not uniformly useful”.  

Chaplaincy

Another source of inconsistency is the involvement of college Chaplains in welfare services. For some colleges, there is a clear link between the Chaplain’s role and the provision of welfare services. At Oriel College, for instance, the Chaplain has always been a member of the welfare team. Similarly, Brasenose College’s Chaplain supervises student welfare training and acts as both Welfare Officer and Link Officer with University Counselling Service. Brasenose told Cherwell that “[t]hese responsibilities have remained unchanged since the Chaplain was appointed”. 

But this is not universal. Seven colleges – including Somerville and St Anne’s – have no staff employed in any kind of religious capacity. Corpus Christi College’s Chaplain was involved in welfare services until Michaelmas of 2023. Similarly, St John’s employed the Chaplain as the Welfare Dean until Trinity term 2024, at which point a Head of Student Welfare and Wellbeing was appointed. 

With many colleges opting to replace or, in the case of Regent’s Park College, supplement Chaplains holding welfare roles with secular Welfare Lead roles, it seems that a transitional stage is afoot with regards to the involvement of the chaplaincy in college welfare services.

These variations mean student welfare support is not just shaped by financial means but by the personal ethos of individual chaplains. Indeed, the impact of chaplain involvement on perceived quality of welfare provision ultimately hinges on the attitudes or beliefs of the individual chaplains involved.

In a survey circulated by Cherwell, one respondent who had faced anti-Semitic abuse found that their college chaplain was “one of the most kind and understanding people” they had ever spoken to on the issue, even despite their religious differences. Others, however, had far more negative anecdotes to share – with one, “[feeling] mocked by” their college chaplain, as they claimed the chaplain refused “to even say words such as sexual assault”. Other students also voiced discomfort over the College Chaplain being a member of the welfare team, stating welfare “should be equally accessible to all students, regardless of faith”. 

JCR Welfare Services

Another major facet of welfare provision in colleges are the services provided by JCR Welfare Representatives. According to a Cherwell survey, most college JCRs seem to provide a similar range of welfare activities, with welfare teas and wine-tasting events being the most popular. 

However, many respondents expressed reluctance to go to Welfare Representatives directly for personal issues, mostly since they are fellow students who they know in a social capacity. One student told Cherwell: “I would feel more comfortable going to a professional with my problems than a student I know,” whilst another added that they would “find it weird” to go to someone they consider a “good friend” for personal welfare advice.

Ultimately, JCR welfare is viewed more as an extra opportunity for socialising within college than an avenue to address serious pastoral concerns. One respondent noted: “JCR welfare is predominantly for when you need a serotonin boost.”

Most students agreed that, compared to JCR Welfare Representatives, College welfare teams were better equipped to support students with serious pastoral issues. One respondent appreciated the “more professional setting” of their College welfare services. “Sometimes it’s just nice to have a ‘grown-up’ who understands how hard Oxford is,” another student told Cherwell. 

University Welfare Services

Given the inconsistent provision across colleges, the University’s central welfare services are expected to provide a safety net. However, this is not always the case. 

A spokesperson from Oxford University told Cherwell: “We take the wellbeing of our students very seriously and encourage those who are in need of support to access the extensive welfare provision available at both University and college level. A range of specialist support services for students is accessible via the Student Counselling Service and the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service as well as college Welfare Teams. Oxford’s Student Support and Welfare Services are committed to delivering timely, high-quality and effective support to all members of our student body who need information and support.”

However, in response to Cherwell’s survey, multiple respondents complained about University-wide services feeling too impersonal and overstretched. They cited long waiting times for counselling appointments and “dispassionate” email correspondence as reasons for their dissatisfaction. 

In response, a University spokesperson told Cherwell: “In 2023/24, 37% of all students were seen in fewer than 5 working days, and 81% were seen within 15 days. An appointment prioritisation system enabled the service to support students with the greatest need in a timelier manner; the average wait for these students was just over four days.”

A Welfare Lottery 

The overall picture is one of systematic disparity. Welfare provision at Oxford is a lottery, with each student’s experience determined largely by their College’s approach. These disparities cannot be explained by College wealth alone, nor are they adequately corrected by the University-wide services. 

An SU spokesperson told Cherwell: “No system is ever ‘sufficient’ in the face of the scale of challenges young people are experiencing today. Oxford’s environment is unique and high-pressure, and our welfare structures must match that reality. We need not only more robust provisions from both colleges and the central University, but a broader cultural shift in how welfare is prioritised across the institution – including among academics. Students need to feel supported not just in crisis, but throughout their time here.”

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