Monday 9th June 2025
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Oxford students react to the European Super League

Cherwell Sport Contributors
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Oxford students react to the European Super League

News came out in the last two weeks that a ‘European Super League’ had been set up by a cartel of 12 “Founding Clubs”, of which England’s ‘Big Six’ were a part. The new competition format meant that the clubs taking part in The Super League would leave the UEFA Champions League and be exempt from relegation from the competition. The Founding Clubs would also receive a money package in excess of 3 billion euros by the investment bank J.P. Morgan for creating the competition. The owners of the football clubs who took this decision received widespread backlash from broadcasters, football pundits, Boris Johnson, Prince William and football fans across the world. As a result, England’s ‘Big Six’, of which 3 are owned by Americans — the Glazer family at Manchester United, FSG at Liverpool and KSE at Arsenal —decided to withdraw from the project, having already put their plans for ‘Project Big Picture’ to bed earlier in the year. Most of the 6 clubs have already expressed their regret for joining the competition, whereas J.P. Morgan have also released a statement saying they “misjudged how this deal would be viewed by the wider football community”. Barcelona, Juventus and Real Madrid are still members of the project. Florentino Perez, the current president of Real Madrid, has promised that the project is only on standby, and that it will eventually happen. Cherwell asked a number of students from Oxford University to offer their reactions to what the last two weeks have meant for football. 

Mauricio Alencar, Chelsea fan and Cherwell Sport Editor

I am a Chelsea fan, a member of the Chelsea Supporters Trust and a Chelsea Pitch Owner, and was a protestor at Stamford Bridge ahead of the home game against Brighton. Despite his mistakes, Abramovich has given us everything: multiple trophies, a fantastic women’s team, a world class academy (though not used enough), efforts to fight against antisemitism and other forms of discrimination which were rife within the Chelsea fanbase, and investment in grassroots football and in the community (like opening the Milennium hotel for NHS staff over the pandemic). However, those on our board have unforgivably let down their guard; the last 18 years have been put to waste. 

Over the course of Roman’s tenure, we’ve set a dangerous precedent where rich owners buy clubs, but then have the ability to leech on to other clubs, however small (Bury, Bolton, Wigan come to mind), and suck out the living soul from them. We can yapper around in the same spot and blame Sky, the creation of the Premier League in 1992, and other historic moments, like the introduction of the Bosman rule in 1995, for wobbling the financial or political structures in the game. Many of the off-field shifts in the game across the last 30 years are irreversible. The decisions the football community takes on from now must be for the fans and they must be just as irreversible as those of the last 30 years. Now As football-messiah Gary Neville, also part of the campaign group ‘Saving the Beautiful Game’, points out, we have to now team together to stop the revenue-driven businessmen from future coups regardless of what has happened. 

Everyone is on the same page now. Jeopardy, competitiveness and equal opportunity for all teams is what we care about as football fans- not endless, inevitable success. The football pyramid needs a desperate recalibration: put fans on the board, re-distribute income so that teams and communities of lower divisions get their fair share, stop with the Uefa coefficient nonsense, stop owners from reaping profits from winless teams. We’ve seen what fans can do. We’ve seen what power governance can have if it also puts its foot down on the pedal. Let’s all not take our foot off the accelerator now. The European Super League must be the trigger for all football fans to draw arms and take on the cowardly oligarchs. 

Luke Bennell, football fan

In 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned a two-year ban imposed by UEFA on Manchester City competing in European competitions. City’s financial heft proved decisive, backed by the sovereign wealth of the UAE; UEFA simply couldn’t compete with the legal team the club could afford.

This helps us understand why the cabal of ultra-rich owners behind this coup thought they could get away with their proposed Super League, despite near-universal resistance. Several bodies, including the Premier League, UEFA, FIFA, and the British Government stated their opposition, and potential punishments included point deductions or expulsions for the clubs involved, and a ban on their players competing internationally.

However, it is one thing to propose punishments, but the ability to impose them is another issue. As James Montague – author of The Billionaires Club – stated recently on the Tifo podcast, the above-mentioned case highlighted that these institutions lack the power to enforce punishments. While one of these clubs has the financial backing of a sovereign state, others are owned by those used to getting what they want from conflicts with national governments.

Overall, this entire project comes down to hubris. The executives who planned this were convinced they would get their way yet again and that there was nobody capable of holding them accountable, least of all the fans, players and managers who were not consulted on the decision. They did not expect fans to support their proposals, and they did not care. They likely expected fans to simply fall in line eventually, out of a nihilistic resignation. This would explain the complete lack of an effective PR campaign.

However, fans did not role over and accept these changes as the inevitable. They voiced their opposition, both online and outside stadiums. Managers and players also began to express their disapproval, just one in a growing list of cases where players are increasingly willing to engage with political issue. In the face of this PR disaster the resolve of the clubs involved began to unravel and the plan itself collapsed.

There are significant positives to be taken from this episode. While the billionaires behind it might wield a disproportionate amount of power in our society, the protests have highlighted that direct action by the public can hold them accountable. There is also a possibility of further change now. the idea of a Super League has been used for thirty years as a bargaining chip by these clubs to extract further benefits from bodies like UEFA; their negotiating position has never been weaker. Fans have sought to maintain momentum and continue to put pressure on their absent owners, as was demonstrated by the protests by Arsenal fans outside the team’s stadium on Friday.

However, it should be noted that this is not over. Those who planned this might be wounded now, but they will be back again in their attempts to consolidate their sporting oligopoly. Only time will tell if they have learnt from their mistakes.

Ciara Garcha, Manchester United fan

Should we really have been surprised by the clearly elitist, greed-driven plans for the Super League, which flew in the face of the spirit of football? There seems to be a strong argument that the spirit of football has been under attack for a while. The ESL was merely the latest in a long line of attempts to commercialise and gentrify the game, dragging it even further away from its working-class community-based roots.

With million-pound contracts, sponsorship deals and broadcasting rights, football is no longer a working-class game. Though fans were victorious in defeating the ESL proposals, the English game has not belonged to the fans for some time. Unlike German football, where clubs are effectively under public ownership, English football is run on greed and capitalist principles – and has been for some time.

 Defeating the ESL was only the first step. Fans should continue to fight to get our game back and restore football to its roots.

Read Ciara’s full verdict on the ESL here.

Matthew Cogan, Derby County fan and Cherwell Deputy Sport Editor

The rollercoaster of the European Super League saga in the last week is a warning to all football fans. It is an incredibly worrying development in the long running saga of Europe’s largest clubs focussing only on themselves and their pockets. As a fan of Derby County, a team that relies on the money brought in by the Premier League, this is a proposal that worries me. It is a signal of intent that I believe could be the beginning of the end of football as we know it today. The sport is one that so many people across the world love, and the fans like me that do not support one if these ‘big’ teams are the ones that will be hit the hardest. So many clubs ranging from semi-professional right up to teams steeped in history such as my beloved Derby County, rely so heavily on the money that the Premier League brings in that such a proposal as the ESL, or anything similar, threatens the whole footballing society. Therefore, I am glad to see the huge response from the fans so that, for the time being at least, such plans have been shelved.

Caitlin Murray, Arsenal fan

I’m not shocked by Stan Kroenke’s behaviour. He eroded the clubs core values the day he made over fifty-five loyal Arsenal staff members redundant in the middle of a pandemic. All the while, simultaneously engaging in discussions about the development of a European Super League and the share of $3.5BN he would be pocketing. My pride in being an Arsenal supporter has now been replaced with embarrassment and disgust. Perhaps, as Arsenal fans, we must finally accept that ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’ is no more than a trademark to the owners. I envisage the #KroenkeOut protests are just the beginning.

Millie Wood, Manchester United fan

Had those English clubs just accepted the expansion of the Champions League from 32 teams to 36, including two spots reserved for ‘historically significant’ teams which would have all but guaranteed them a permanent place in it, the backlash would’ve been minimal. But in seeking an even larger slice of the pie, the so-called ‘big six’ monumentally overplayed their hand.

There is a wider lesson in that than football. 

If we do not react to the little injustices, they quickly morph into larger ones. If fans had accepted the Super League, the next step would have been games abroad. In ten year’s time we would not have cringed at ‘Inter Miami vs Liverpool’ on the fixture list.

The fable of a frog boiling to death in water heated up slowly is often recounted. Then inevitably someone notes that in the famous experiment which gave rise to the tale, the frog was lobotomised before being put into the pot, because the frog with an intact brain jumped out.

I would not be surprised if in five years time, once the anger of today has been forgotten, the clubs try this again, rebranded and with rules toned down just enough to sneak their proposals through. Let us not be the lobotomised frog.

Image: Mauricio Alencar

Tsitsipas triumphs at the Monte-Carlo Masters

Ariana Rubio
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Tsitsipas triumphs at the Monte-Carlo Masters

World number five Stefanos Tsitsipas beat Andrey Rublev 6-3 6-3 to cinch his first Masters 1000 title at the 2021 Monte-Carlo Masters. Currently the youngest player ranking in the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) top ten, Tsitsipas had previously defeated Karatsev, Garin, Fokina and Evans to advance to the final of the prestigious competition. 

This victory is all the more notable in the context of the global pandemic. As in the French and Australian Open, players were required to undergo extensive quarantine and testing regiments, and spectatorship, like so many things, was confined to a screen. The sight of empty stadiums no doubt affects the players, who draw energy and vitality from the cheers (or sometimes boos, if one thinks of the likes of the audacious Nick Kyrgios) of the audience. Despite this, the rising tennis star persevered to obtain perhaps his most impressive victory yet. 

This win follows a stream of successes for the young player. Tsitsipas also secured a win over Dominic Thiem at the 2019 ATP Finals, which made him the youngest winner of the tournament in eighteen years. Despite playing in a number of Grand Slam tournaments, including reaching the Australian Open semi-final twice (2019 and 2021) and the French Open semi-final once (2020), Tsitsipas has yet to win such a major tournament. After his string of recent successes, he no doubt has his eyes on this prize, and will likely compete in Wimbledon and the US Open later this year. 

Tsitstipas was born in 1998 in Athens to Greek and Russian parents, both of whom are familiar with the game. His mother, for example, was a world number one junior who represented the Soviet Union in the Fed/Billie Jean King Cup. Tsitsipas would later follow in her footsteps when he became a world number one junior himself. Both parents, who had met at a tennis tournament, had worked as tennis instructors. The family’s interest in sport is not confined to tennis, however: his grandfather on his mother’s side, Sergei Salnikov, won an Olympic gold medal while playing for the Soviet national football team. It should be noted, as Tsitsipas himself is always careful to do, that his mother’s twin sister, herself a professional tennis player, for financially supporting his junior career. With such a family background, it is no wonder that Tsitsipas grew into the player he is today. The star continues to train at the Tennis Club Glyfada where he had his first formal lessons at the age of six, and his father is his coach. Outside of tennis, his childhood hobbies included football and swimming, and he can speak English, Greek and Russian. Currently, he vlogs his sporting travels to his fans on Youtube, and is focused on promoting tennis in Greece, which is not among the most popular of sports. 

Tsitsipas’ junior career arguably peaked when he reached the quarter final of the junior Australian Open semi-finals in 2015, but his doubles win with Estonian player Kenneth Raisma at Wimbledon (the only event offered for juniors) was also a hefty achievement that laid the groundwork for his professional career. 

Looking beyond this, Tsitsipas narrowly missed out on victory when fellow rising upstart Alexander Zverev defeated him in the final of the Mexican Open in late March. Earlier this month, Hubert Hurkacz bested the Greek player in the quarter-final of the Miami Open earlier this month. Excitingly, Tsitsipas is currently competing in the Barcelona Open. He defeated Spanish player Munar on his home ground, Minaur, Auger Aliassime and Sinner to advance to the final of the prestigious event. Tsitsipas will face Rafael Nadal in the next few days. Nadal, the so-called ‘King of Clay’, is in formidable shape, having celebrated his 1,000th singles ATP Tour wins earlier this year. While the tennis mogul’s reputation, heightened by his incredible 20 Grand Slam singles titles, makes it tempting to dismiss Tsitsipas as an underdog, he is certainly in with a fighting chance. Indeed, Tsitsipas defeated Nadal in the quarterfinals of the 2021 Australian Open, despite the Spaniard’s early two set lead. Nadal was also defeated by Andrey Rublev at the Monte Carlo Masters, whom Tsitsipas later went on to defeat to secure victory at the championship. The world of tennis (albeit, again, from 

While clearly the underdog, the world of tennis (the 100,000 in-person spectators who usually attend the tournament are confined to television coverage) will watch with eager eyes. Evidenced by his performance thus far, Tsitsipas, along with Zverev and Cori Gauff,  is one of the most exciting new male players of the game, and fans await his future performances.

Image credit: Carine06 (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons 

Rethinking the Oscars

Aram Masharqa
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Rethinking the Oscars

With cinemas closed amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it is no surprise that many typical filmgoers haven’t seen the nominated films this year. However, as Stephen King asked in 2020, “How many of the older, whiter contingent actually saw Harriet, about Harriet Tubman, or The Last Black Man in San Francisco? Just asking the question.” We have no guarantee the Academy voters watch every nominated film.

Previous Oscar winners have often been predictable. The IMDb keywords with the highest correlation with nominations are “family tragedy”, “whistleblower”, “Pulitzer Prize source”, “physical therapy”, “domestic servant”, and “Watergate”. Hence the array of nominations for The Post (2017), a film about investigative journalism, or Marriage Story (2019), evidently a ‘family tragedy’.

The films themselves certainly merit success, yet at the same time they are films that are perfect examples of ‘Oscar Bait’. Both films were released towards the end of the year (December 2017, November 2019); both had a limited theatrical release to begin with; both featured a star-studded cast. The only risk taken by nominating Marriage Story was that it was a Netflix Original, and even then, the family storyline clearly shows a cushioned risk at most.

Conversely, we find that films with the keywords ‘black independent film’ are amongst the least likely to be nominated (Slate, 2014). When the main characters are black in a nominated film, the plot usually involves slavery, or a fight for freedom/against white supremacists – see BlacKKKlansman (2018), or this year’s very own Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). When a ‘black independent film’ won Best Picture (Moonlight, 2016), there was media outcry about La La Land being snubbed. It’s clear that the films that receive nominations and awards are the ones that reinforce preconceived, structural ideas. If the Academy’s decisions challenge the status quo they are criticised. Although many supported their choice in 2016, we simply cannot ignore the volume of the voices against it.

Naturally, as in any area of culture, there is such a wealth of originality, talent, and creativity that it can be helpful to designate certain works as ‘exceptional’ or ‘outstanding’. If not to congratulate their merit, then to direct audiences to films they may have otherwise missed. Indeed, the Academy Awards themselves state their role: ‘we recognize and uphold excellence in the motion picture arts and sciences, inspire imagination, and connect the world through the medium of motion pictures’.

Whilst they do often recognise talent in the film industry, I can’t help but feel as though the only ‘imagination’ they inspire is the imaginative marketing choices producers make. Given Parasite (2019) was the first non-English language film to win best picture, can we really say the ceremony “connect[s] the world”?

The Oscars, especially in a year like this, can be useful. When we’re all stuck watching the same three sitcoms on Netflix, it can be helpful to have a list of films that are guaranteed to be well-made, gripping, and moving. Nevertheless, we must always remain critical. We must keep in mind that the Oscars are just another fallible source.

Image credit: PrayItNoPhotography via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Stop worrying about antiheroines when the real evil is still at large

Eleanor Zhang
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Stop worrying about antiheroines when the real evil is still at large

CW: sexual violence, suicide

Mere months after the release of Promising Young Woman, the news of Sarah Everard’s murder emerged. In the following days, there was content in many young women’s social media feeds reminding them of things they’d known for a long time. That they’ve been thinking of every night’s walk home alone as a gamble. That they assume taking a cab home instead could mean abduction. That before taking the bus instead of cab, they ready themselves for drunk men’s slurred flirtations and stumbling grabs and that, once something untoward happens, they now also have to hesitate before calling the police, knowing a predator was once among the assumed rescuers. 

This newly emerged concern stemming from distrust of authority’s ability to enforce justice, makes the rise and fall of Emerald Fennell’s neon-clad avenger even more poignant. The story starts off with a typical college rape incident where Cassie’s best friend Nina, a promising medical student, was drunk and sexually assaulted by her male peers at a party. In the crime’s aftermath, Cassie witnesses Nina’s struggle with shame, trauma and humiliation, while their school and legal system fail to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators. This led to her friend’s suicide and the end of Cassie’s own academic pursuits, urging her instead into a routine of late-night performances in bars and clubs, where she’d bait men into initiating nonconsensual sex by pretending to be drunk, just to scare them by revealing her sobriety. It is important to note that Cassie doesn’t troll and kill for fun, but is forced to take justice into her own hands. 

If films like Promising are indeed “vicious daydreaming” and “fantasies” that “explore unpleasant sentiments and desires”, as accused by one comment piece on The Telegraph, how does one account for the eerie déjà vus? According to the numbers provided by Office for National Statistics, of victims who reported the perpetrator was a stranger, the majority (64%) reported that they themselves were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the assault, making what happens to Nina in the film a representative scenario. Even the police’s response of not prosecuting on the ground of lacking evidence is paralleled in the records: among the reported cases of sexual assault, only 39% percent of them saw the perpetrators arrested by police. In 19% of the cases, the police took no action. 

More unsettling is the realisation that the practice of initiating sex with drunk girls has been a long-standing trope in reality as well as on screen, deployed in many well-known comedy films as the ultimate solution for horny single men. 2007’s Superbad, for example, features three high-schoolers and their tenacity in finding enough booze to inebriate a crush. Although the film gives me the creeps whenever I think of it, one review by New York Times raves about “a tickly, funny tale of three teenage boys revved up by their surging, churning, flooding hormones”. These narratives in cinema about men preying on and hurting women are not only chronically tolerated but, like A Streetcar Named Desire and its domestic abuser, celebrated as cult classics. However, the moment a woman attempts violence towards men, voices start rattling on about the poisonous effects violent women on screen could have on future generations of girls. What girls need to see is not a perennially beaten woman, but a woman that finds a way to fight back when no one — not their husbands, nor society, nor law and order — can protect them. 

Antiheroines are not a new invention. In the 90s, Buffy opened a generation’s eyes to an abundance of combativeness condensed in a small physique, and Tarantino’s Bride in the early noughties that swung blade at her murderous ex-boss. On the pages there was Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, a Bluebeard tale ending on a mother decapitating her daughter’s beastly husband, and Edmund Cooper’s Who Needs Men? featuring a determined Madam Exterminator that makes it her mission to annihilate the last of the surviving men hiding in Scotland. Yet even the characters that seem unconquerable in their own stories could easily fall victim to objectification and sexualisation by the male audience and readers, in a society where men would claim a penchant for “feisty women”, and readily pay for a dominatrix’s service. Hence the irony in one of the red flags for problematic men my female friends and I joke about, that one should never date the boy if he has a Kill Bill poster on his bedroom wall.

The rise of antiheroines stresses essentially the same thing every wave of feminist movement attempts to accentuate, that a woman’s refusal to be suppressed and abused by patriarchy is always less threatening, when what they’re rebelling against is still prevalent. Every time a Sarah Everard is murdered in our midst, it becomes evident again that, although our society is exposed to Fleabag’s sass and scenes of Killing Eve’s Villanelle stabbing away at her next assignment, it’s still far from granting every woman walking down a dark lane the same level of respect — let alone fear — those fictional she-warriors evoke. 

That is not to say that antiheroines should take a break from flourishing in the post-Me-Too culture. To quote Wonder Woman’s creator William Moulton Marston: “Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power.” It’s important to introduce young women to the likes of Cassie, despite her not being real, as what happens on the training ground of cinema could channel encouragement just as palpably. I personally felt grateful for having known her, as I borrowed her move against scornful onlookers and stared back at my accosters one afternoon, and felt triumphant when they retreated their gaze. That same evening, Emerald Fennell won Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars. And for the first time in a long time, I felt proud and hopeful for being a woman.

Image credit: Sharon Mollerus via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) – what’s all the hype?

Richard Li
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Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) – what’s all the hype?

NFTs are a blockchain based technology that have garnered a lot of hype and news coverage in recent months by technology enthusiasts and investors alike. The NBA is using them to sell highlight videos. Artists are using them to sell digital works. Musicians are using them to retain royalties. Twitter’s CEO is even using them to sell tweets.

But what actually is an NFT, and what does it do? NFT stands for non-fungible token, and is, in short, a unit of data stored on a blockchain that certifies a digital asset to be authentic or unique and thus not interchangeable. This is as opposed to a fungible token, such as US dollars or Bitcoin, where, for example, there is no way to distinguish one specific dollar from another in your bank account – they are all grouped together. Simply, a blockchain is a digital ledger that allows transfers of ownership to be recorded in a way that is irreversible, such as when you transfer money to someone else – most NFTs use the Ethereum blockchain. NFTs can be used to represent many different types of digital files, such as photos, audio, or even videos. However, access to a copy of the original file is not restricted to just the owner of the NFT – anyone can easily obtain a copy, as the NFT just provides proof of ownership.

This might sound very strange, but consider the following: the original copy of a famous artists’ work, such as Guernica by Picasso, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This is despite the fact that there are many extremely accurate replica paintings of it available for a few hundred dollars (a tiny fraction of the original price). Proponents of NFTs argue that this shows that the vast majority of the value of an original piece of art is derived from the artists’ so-called “signature” on the work, rather than the work itself. For example, recently Christie’s auction house sold its first piece of NFT-linked digital art, which was by the digital artist Beeple. It ended up commanding a staggering winning bid of $69 million! While this may sound ludicrous as you can download an exact copy of the image on your computer for free, NFT fans maintain this is no surprise.

A key advantage of NFTs is that its extremely easy for anyone to create one. All you have to do is create an account on an NFT marketplace website such as OpenSea or Rarible (which are kind of like eBays for NFTs), upload a picture or other digital item, and put it up for auction. An artist can even create storefronts and collections of their art on the website to mimic a traditional art gallery or museum. You can also choose whether to “mint” just a single unique piece, or multiple copies. Moreover, an artist can choose to set a commission for subsequent future sales. This means that if the original buyer resells the NFT to a second buyer, or the second to a third, the original artist still continues to be paid (for example, 10% of every sale price). This means if a piece of art significantly increases in value over coming years, the original artist will still be able to benefit from this.

All of this has predictably led to a gold-rush style frenzy in recent months. New wannabe artists are emerging and churning out new NFTs at record pace, and wealthy investors are snapping them up in the hopes they explode in value in the future. The overall NFT market tripled in 2020, reaching more than $250 million. Sceptics argue there is a massive crash imminent, as NFTs are still a very niche market and thus do not warrant the very lofty valuations some of them currently hold. Furthermore, NFT transactions have attracted increased environmental criticism. Like cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, the computation-heavy processes required to mine and run proof-of-work blockchains require massive amounts of energy that are contributing to global warming and pollution. It should be noted, however, that solutions such as switching to a proof-of-stake blockchain (e.g. Ethereum 2.0), which do not require these computational processes, are currently in the works and aim to solve many of these carbon emissions concerns. While we may not see NFTs in the National Art Gallery any time soon, they are an exciting innovation in the world of art and collectibles, and open up that world to all sorts of previously unexplored talent.

Image credit: Marco Verch via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

India: why are COVID cases rising?

Anthony Shorrocks
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India: why are COVID cases rising?

The COVID-19 pandemic is currently exploding in India at a horrifying rate. Records are being broken with each day that passes – over 300,000 cases have been officially reported every day for the past week, accompanying roughly 2500 deaths a day for a total of 210,000 deaths since the pandemic began in the country. 

Graph courtesy of Our World in Data.

However, shockingly, many public health experts suggest the actual number of cases and deaths could be as much as 4-5 times higher, putting deaths in the millions – evidence for this is the mismatch between the government reported deaths and the actual deaths registered at crematoria and burial grounds. 

But what caused this catastrophe? Despite India’s poor health infrastructure, low government assistance and high population in comparison with western counterparts such as the United States, it managed to successfully manage and flatten the first wave of coronavirus in 2020 in quite an admirable fashion while countries such as the United Kingdom were dealing with second and third waves.  

However, in 2021, India’s luck took a turn for the worse. The earlier victory in 2020, together with an element of strong Indian nationalism, led to a surge in false confidence that the country would be spared a second or third wave. Epidemiologists and other experts in the country suggested that herd immunity had already come into effect. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others claimed victory against the virus and held huge election rallies where they did not wear masks. Perhaps the worst super-spreader event of all was the Kumbh Mela, where as many as 2.5 million Hindu pilgrims gathered at the Ganges River with little regard to social distancing – the virus was carried back to hometowns and villages by thousands of these returning pilgrims.

Importantly, vaccine hoarding from countries like the UK has also been significant. Recently, a Downing Street aide tested positive following travel to India, prompting alarmist headlines about new variants. More troublingly, he was allegedly told to get more Indian-manufactured doses of vaccines, at a time when the Indian government – for reasons now distressingly obvious – was seeking to hold back many of the doses it was previously exporting in their millions, many actually intended for developing countries. Last but not least, more virulent mutations of the virus emerged from countries such as the United Kingdom, as well as from within India itself.

The outbreak is showing no signs of stopping or slowing – in fact, it is accelerating. Hospitals across the country are being completely overwhelmed, and many are simply being left to die on the sidewalk as there aren’t nearly enough ICU beds, ventilators, and oxygen tanks to accommodate them. This has led to a black market emerging, where vendors are price gouging desperate relatives and friends of those dying from the virus for as much as 20 times the market value of items such as oxygen tanks and tablets. These kinds of prices represent the life savings of many Indians.   

A group of Oxbridge societies is fundraising in aid of the current situation in India. You can donate here.

The absurdity of adult animation

Maebh Howell
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The absurdity of adult animation

We’ve all, I’m sure, spent time scrolling listlessly through Netflix, trying to find something to watch: sometimes succeeding, sometimes not.  This was when I first stumbled across Bojack Horseman.  The colourful thumbnail, showing a smiling horse, seemed to suggest I had stumbled across the children’s section, or that my brother had, once again, been using my account. But the adult age restriction suggested otherwise.

The show, which premiered in 2014, was already in its third series by the time I started watching it. I sped through the first few episodes, drawn in by the quick pacing, catchy character design, and the question of why these talking animals were coexisting with humans, no questions asked.

Whilst initially receiving mixed reviews, with the first series having a 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the following series received scores in the high 90s, with series 2 and 3 receiving scores of 100%. Evidently there is some appeal to this tragicomic series, but how much is tied up to its cartoon form?

It is the absurdity of the cartoon form, in its sometimes weird and wonderful approach to life, that I believe facilitates its appeal. We’re all introduced to cartoons as children, and it is the form’s bright, nonsensical attitude towards storytelling that appeals to children, with one BBC article examining the impact of the ‘attention-grabbing features’ such as ‘colour, brightness and movement’ on the ‘primitive visual system’ of children.  Furthermore, the same article highlights how children ‘process information’ differently to us, leading to our perception of what may be ‘highly engaging’ for them, to be ‘weird’ for us.

But this still doesn’t explain the enduring appeal of animation for adults. Perhaps it’s nostalgia, our sense of longing for a simpler time, when all the problems of the world could be solved within the confines of a thirty-minute time slot. But with adult cartoons such as Big Mouth, a show which revels in discomfort and awkwardness, the focus seems to be on a perversion of our expectations of the genre. Like puberty, Big Mouth is unexpected, shocking, and sometimes downright dirty, and scenes such as the one where Jay impregnates a pillow seem less nostalgic than just pure weird — even absurd.

With the host of adult animation on streaming services, the demand is evident. I propose that we start considering animation as the art form it is: one that allows for the pushing of boundaries and the creation of beautiful nonsense. There’s something quite lovely about the way that Big Mouth, for example, conceptualises the ‘hormone monsters’, using them to personify all the weirdness of puberty. Yet, the whole concept would not have worked within a regular sitcom format, with real actors and a reliance on CGI or costumes creating a weird divide between the real and the fantasy.  The brilliance of shows like Big Mouth is that creatures such as the hormone monsters are as concrete within the show as any other character, their absurdity integrated into the show’s very fabric.  

In Bojack Horseman, reality is similarly forsaken, with the art form of animation pushed to its limit; whilst most episodes follow Bojack’s life, others are complete abstractions of reality, following a drug binge, for example. My favourite episode is in a similar vein, following the character of Diane and her struggles with depression. The episode diverts from the usual animation style, using black and white line drawings, with squiggles and crossings-out, to mirror Diane’s mental state. This change in art-style resonated with my own struggles with depression and taking antidepressants far more than any other television show. Diane’s depression becomes part of the animation style itself, her whole worldview reduced to black and white drawings which, even then, seem out of her control.  It was a refreshing take on mental illness, something so often romanticised within the media; just picture the countless TV shows or films which show beautiful women crying under duvet covers. I can say with certainty that I have never looked that beautiful or made-up during the throes of a depressive episode.  

There’s a certain fluidity to animation too. Diane’s character, as a result of her depression, puts on weight, but this is something that is never commented on. With a traditional show format, an actress would have to don a fat suit (something which feels more mocking than sympathetic to real struggles) or would have to make constant comments about her weight à la Bridget Jones, who was, if anything, skinnier than the average woman. The way that Diane’s weight gain and depression is presented is beautiful; her weight gain is a part of the essence of her character, a simple fact that is never remedied or drawn attention to in an overt way.   

Bojack Horseman’s animation allows its initial relative innocence (look, it’s a talking horse!) to lead to an exploration of much darker themes.  Although in episode one Bojack says that all anyone wants in life is to “watch a show about good, likeable people who love each other”, the art of animation provides room for much, much more. 

Image credit: Festival Annecy / Mike Hollingsworth via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

 

EXCLUSIVE: Jeremy Corbyn, Jackie Weaver and more to speak at the Oxford Union

Sasha Mills
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EXCLUSIVE: Jeremy Corbyn, Jackie Weaver and more to speak at the Oxford Union

Jeremy Corbyn, Jackie Weaver, and Jed Mercurio will be amongst the line-up of this term’s speakers at The Oxford Union, alongside other speakers including designer Diane Von Furstenberg, former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable, and Alayo Akinkugbe, founder of @ABlackHistoryOfArt. Events will take place online until the 17th May when the Union hopes to organise some socially distanced in-person speaker events.

Corbyn is the former leader of the Labour party and was temporarily suspended after stating that he believed the issue of antisemitism in the party had been “dramatically overstated,” although he has since been reinstated to a role as an independent MP. Jackie Weaver made headlines after her appearance in the viral Handforth Parish Council Zoom meeting, during which she kicked off one of the councillors and was told to “read the standing orders.” 

Further speakers in the line-up include Professor Julian Stallabras, art historian and curator, British athlete Dwain Chambers, and Soma Sara, who founded Everyone’s Invited, an online movement seeking to eradicate rape culture. Speakers that are still to be confirmed include Mamma Mia! star Lily James, supermodel, actress and filmmaker Lily Cole, Michael Eavis, dairy farmer and creator of the Glastonbury Festival, and footballer Virgil van Dijk. 

The Union will also be hosting a range of panel events, including ‘This House Would Abolish the Monarchy,’ which will feature, amongst others, British Military Commander Lieutenant General Arundell David Leakey alongside curator Anne Pasternack. Other panels include ‘This House Believes Veganism is the Only Ethical Choice,’ ‘This House Believes We Must Urgently Rewrite History,’ and ‘This House Believes the European Project is Doomed to Fail.’ 

Adam Roble, President of the Oxford Union, told Cherwell: “It has been an absolute honour to work on this term-card, and I hope members will find that there is something for everyone in it. Being the first black President of the 21st century coupled with being an access member of the Union, accessibility and the ensuring of a welcoming yet relevant space for absolutely all of its members is at the core of what has driven the nature of this termcard. This is something that will always be one of my highest priorities. 

“When I ran I made several pledges to the members, from holding a review into the Union’s diversity to hosting a varied range of socials. Ultimately actions speak volume and I hope this termcard demonstrates a Union that hosts the conversations that matter, and yet ignites independent thought across the membership.”

“After a busy term of eight debates, several speakers events a week and a hugely exciting calendar of more social events than ever before, I hope that we will all be able to look back in 8th week on this term with pride. I hope that we will all see a Union getting closer to what it ought to be. A place for debate, inclusion, and crucially joy. A huge thank you to the committee for building this termcard. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you all.”

Image Credit: Jeremy Corbyn / CC BY 2.0

Counselling demand rose 86% over long vacation

Charlie Hancock
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Counselling demand rose 86% over long vacation

CW: Sexual assault, rape, mental health

Data released from Oxford University’s Student Welfare and Support Services has revealed that demand for its services rose during the 2019-20 academic year. The number of students registered with the Disability Advisory service also rose, continuing a trend observed in preceding years. The Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service also saw an increase in demand, with the majority of users being female undergraduates.

Demand for counselling rose by 8%, meaning 13% of the student population used the service during the academic year. The Counselling Service saw significant differences in patterns of use compared to pre-pandemic years, as more students requested support during vacation periods. The residency requirement for accessing counselling was suspended over the 2020 summer vacation. During that time, demand for counselling rose by 86% compared to the previous year, and the demand for support over the vacation as a whole rose by 41%. The report said the increase “reflects the increase in student distress and dysfunction as the pandemic continued, creating longer term detrimental effects on mental health and wellbeing”. 

26.4% of referrals to the Counselling Service were for anxiety. A further 20.8% of students requested support for “depression, mood change or disorder”, and 9% for “academic needs”. The average waiting time between a student requesting support and attending their first appointment remained at 8.9 working days, the same as the year before. The percentage of students who were seen within 5 days rose from 36.5% to over 40% over the same time period.

However, waiting times fluctuated dramatically during the year, peaking at 16 days at the end of Michaelmas. Reduced demand during Trinity term brought the average waiting time down. The report cautioned that if the availability of counselling resources was not increased, “long waits will soon be the norm”, causing some students to have to wait until the following term to attend an appointment.

The Disability Advisory Service (DAS) also saw an increase in demand of 12%, bringing the percentage of the student population registered with the service to 21.4% (5280 people). The average proportion of students registered with a Disability Advisory Service across the higher education sector is 14.6%.

The largest proportion of students registered with the DAS are those reporting Mental Health difficulties (29%). Students reporting Specific Learning Disorders, such as dyslexia and ADHD, made up the next largest group at 25%. This reflects broader patterns across the higher education sector.

Female students were over-represented among DAS users. While they make up around 40% of the student population, over 50% of registered DAS users were female according to their “legal sex”. Students who identified their ethnicity as “white” were also over-represented, making up 72% of total DAS users while comprising 65.5% of the University population.

Students from Asian backgrounds were the most under-represented among the ethic demographics recorded. 19.5% of students identify as Asian, compared only 10.8% of DAS users.

The DAS report noted that the practices adopted by the University during the transition to remote learning created opportunities for improving the accessibility of teaching for disabled students. For example, the increased use of lecture capture and captioning, while being useful for all students, has “disproportionate benefit to disabled students”. In addition, the report said the move to remote assessments and diversifying assessment practices is more “accessible and inclusive of disabled students’ needs”.

Demand for support from the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service also increased, this time by 12% compared to the previous year. Two-thirds of students seen by the service were undergraduates. Undergraduates were most likely to report rape or sexual assault, which made up 54.2% of cases. Postgraduates were more likely to report stalking (20.7%) and abuse within relationships (10.3%). 

‘Serious sexual crimes’, which include rape, sexual assault and stalking accounted for 60.8% of cases. Rape and sexual assault the most common incidents reported to the service, making up 50.6% of the total caseload. 26% of cases concerned experiences “external to the University”, including historic cases. The majority of people accused in reports to the service were male, with 41.1% of accused parties being identified as students at Oxford University. Of the 10.1% of accusations which were towards staff, all were reported by postgraduate students.

The report acknowledged that the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service was “disappointed not to make progress” on reducing waiting times as a result of increased demand and insufficient resources. The average length of time between first contacting the service and a student’s first appointment was eight working days. The report highlighted that the waiting time acted as a barrier to students accessing support, and added they hoped to see students within two working days “as standard”.

Gillian Hamnett, Director of Student Welfare and Support Services, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all of our lives including those of University students. Although these statistics reflect only the first few months of lockdown, the impact of the crisis is clear to see, particularly in the increased demand for counselling support outside of term time. We are proud to have been and continue to be able to provide lifelines to our students at such a time of crisis, including 24 hour online mental health support through the Togetherall platform. Supporting the wellbeing, safety and mental health of our student-body is a responsibility that we take very seriously all year round, and not just during timetabled teaching.

“At Oxford we are working hard to remove the barriers that disabled students face, and while we know there is more to do, the DAS approach to learning has inclusive teaching at its heart which means it is becoming easier for all students to access their teaching and learning.

“2020 was an incredibly difficult year, and the University is mindful that the pandemic is not the only event that may have affected our students’ wellbeing, particularly the killing of George Floyd and the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement. We are working to provide Student Welfare and Support Services that are both accessible and beneficial to students of all backgrounds and ethnicities, so that regardless of their experience all students are able to find the right support they need”.

Oxford Nightline is open 8pm-8am, every night during term time, for anyone who’s struggling to cope and provides a safe space to talk where calls are completely confidential. You can call them on 01865 270 270, or chat at oxfordnighline.org. You can also contact Samaritans 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by calling 166 123 or emailing [email protected].


Image: Steve Evans/ NC-BY-NC 2.0 via flickr.com

“Oxford is wilfully complicit in a system which destroys lives”: societies respond to OCJC report

Charlie Hancock
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“Oxford is wilfully complicit in a system which destroys lives”: societies respond to OCJC report

A report from the Oxford Climate Justice Campaign detailing the University’s ties with the fossil fuel industry has been criticised by student societies and climate organisations. Many emphasised the disproportionate impact of the climate crisis on people of colour.

The report found that the University had received over £100 million in donations and research grants from the fossil fuel industry since 2015. This included a donation of £100 million from INEOS, a British-owned chemicals manufacturer. The Saïd Business School was the largest recipient of donations and funding from fossil fuel companies, followed by the Engineering and Earth Sciences departments.

Disarm Oxford, Oxford Climate Society, Oxford University Amnesty International Society, and Melanin. shared the report on Facebook, urging their supporters to read it. “Climate Justice is Racial Justice. The University must stop receiving money from fossil fuel industries now”, read Melanin.’s post.

Common Ground, a student led organisation bringing attention of the University’s colonial past, said: “Climate justice is racial justice, and the university cannot claim to be a ‘climate leader’ or ‘anti-racist’ whilst still having such extensive ties to the fossil fuel industry”.

Oxford Migrant Solidarity said: “Oxford is wilfully complicit in a system which destroys lives and represents gross injustice towards people of colour across the globe.”

Oxford Worker Justice, a “student-based” campaign for “solidarity between workers and students at the university”, said: “If you were in any doubt about what Oxf*rd really cares about, read this. Acceptable answers include: money, climate destruction, injustice for racialised peoples, migrants, women, workers and on and on”.

Elliott Cocker, the Environment and Ethics officer in the St John’s College JCR, told Cherwell: “My college [St John’s] has so far retained its large stakes in Shell and BP, arguing it will use its ownership to push for change within the companies; this report will further undermine student confidence in this strategy by highlighting its failure to leverage an end to their funding of harmful research even within Oxford”.

Oxford University told Cherwell: “The University of Oxford safeguards the independence of its teaching and research programmes, regardless of the nature of their funding. Those donating money or sponsoring programmes at the University have no influence over how academics carry out their research or what conclusions they reach. Researchers publish the results of their work whether the results are seen to be critical or favourable by industry or governments.”

“Partnerships with industry allow the University to apply its knowledge to real challenges of pressing global concern, with funding often going directly into research into climate-related issues and renewables”.

St John’s College has been contacted for comment.

Image: Patrick Hendry via unsplash.com

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