Oxford City Council has approved plans by the Blavatnik School of Government to erect a statue of a giant pink pen in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
The artist behind the piece, Sir Michael Craig-Martin is well-known for his sculptures of line drawings of single objects, and he told Cherwell: “The image chosen for Oxford was the fountain pen. The image can be seen as a reference to the signing of important documents, an age-old formality that continues to the present-day.”
Craig Martin is currently the Emeritus Professor of Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was a significant influence on the Young British Artists movement in the late 1980s. He is also internationally regarded for his conceptual work An Oak Tree which has divided critical reception since its debut in 1973.
The design and access document submitted to Oxford City Council explained that the sculpture was intended to “express the research and learning carried out by the Institute”, although comments by residents to the Council’s planning department included the view that a fountain pen was an “inappropriate choice” due to it being “outdated technology”.
A spokesperson from the Blavatnik School added: “When the Blavatnik School building was granted planning approval, one of the conditions was that we would commission a piece of freely accessible public art.
“We’re delighted Sir Michael Craig-Martin’s installation has been given planning permission – he is already known in Oxford for his mural at the JR Children’s Hospital and we hope his new installation will further contribute to the city’s environment and community.”
Image Credit: The Blavatnik School of Government. (Image edited)
A ‘Shoe Strike’ organised by Parents for Future Oxford, in support of youth climate strikes and the future generations who stand to be most impacted by Climate Change, took place last Friday morning in front of the Radcliffe Camera.
In accordance with government regulations, only six members of the organisation met to set it up. They laid out 177 pairs of shoes, some with notes attached stating hopes and fears for the future. These were accompanied by a sign that read: “Would you want to be in our kids’ shoes.”
The symbolism of the shoes was to represent both those unable to protest due to COVID-19 restrictions and future generations who will be the most impacted by Climate Change.
This was part of a global movement that saw parents joining youth climate strikers taking part in a global day of climate action on September 25th 2020. Parents from Brazil, Nigeria, India, Australia, Poland, Israel, UK, and Germany all took part in the day to support their children in the fight for climate action.
Speaking to Cherwell, Rowan Ryrie of Parents for Future UK said the intended impact for the ‘Shoe Strike’ was “to try to engage more parents in recognising that we need to take action for our children’s generation. Although activism isn’t something that necessarily comes naturally to parents, in the current situation we are in with climate chaos getting worse, all parents need to be able to speak up… to raise the issue as an intergenerational issue.”
Alongside this strike, Parents for Future Oxford is encouraging people to take action digitally by writing to MPs about supporting the ‘Future Generations Climate and Ecological Bill’, and taking part in the ‘Fridays for Future Digital Strike.’
The organisation, Parents for Future, was launched in 2019 by a network of parents inspired by Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future movement. There are now over 130 groups in more than 27 countries working to engage adults on the issue and normalise climate activism amongst parents.
Since the art installation, there have also been further donations of shoes to the cause and these, alongside the shoes that were part of the installation, will be donated to charity. The organisation has noted that they have spoken specifically with refugee charities as a potential destination for the shoes.
Image Credit: Parents for Future Shoe Strike Oxford
Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum has indefinitely removed its controversial collection of shrunken heads from the public view as part of a “decolonisation” process. The Shuar tsantsas or shrunken heads are from South America and were formed from human, sloth or monkey heads. Shuar people have long argued against the public display of their ancestors’ remains
A statement by the Pitt Rivers Museum, which focuses on anthropology, ethnology and archaeology, says: “The decision was taken to remove the tsantsa from public display because it was felt that the way they were displayed did not sufficiently help visitors understand the cultural practices related to their making and instead led people to think in stereotypical and racist ways about Shuar culture.”
The statement cites visitors talking about the people who had made them as ‘savage’ or ‘primitive’ and using words like ‘gory’, ‘gruesome’ or a ‘freakshow’. The Museum is now working with Shuar partners to decide on the best way forward with regard to the care and display of the items.
Director Laura Van Broekhoven said: “The implementation of the review is part of the museum’s strategic plan to bring its public facing-spaces more in line with its contemporary ethos of actively working with communities and respecting different ways of being as we become a welcoming space for all.”
The UK government’s Guidance for the Care of Human Remains in Museums recommends that “Human remains should be displayed only if the museum believes that it makes a material contribution to a particular interpretation, and that contribution could not be made equally effectively in another way. Displays should always be accompanied by sufficient explanatory material… As a general principle, human remains should be displayed in such a way as to avoid people coming across them unawares.”
Shuar Indigenous leaders Miguel Puwáinchir and Felipe Tsenkush said their ancestors handed over the sacred objects to colonialists without realising the implications, in a statement provided by the museum: “We don’t want to be thought of as dead people to be exhibited in a museum, described in a book, or record on film.”
The Shuar tsantsas were made in order to capture the power of one of the multiple souls that Shuar and Achuar people believed their men had. That power was used by the group to strengthen themselves and increase harvests, making it distinct from different kinds of “war trophies”, for which they are sometimes mistaken.
Jefferson Acacho, a leader of the Shuar federation in Zamora, Ecuador, who is working with the Pitt Rivers Museum to decide the future of the tsantsas, said some of the heads were those of clan leaders who died of natural causes: “When a leader died it was a way to show respect for them. The lips and eyes were sewn together because it was thought that a head could still see and eat after death, which would give it more power. This would prevent them from gaining more power and causing harm.” Pitts Rivers Museum acquired its collection of shrunken heads between 1884 and 1936
Other items removed ahead of the museum’s reopening on 22 September included decorated skulls, scalps and Egyptian mummies. Pitt Rivers still houses more than 2,800 human remains and has committed to “continuing to reach out to descendant communities to find the most appropriate way to care for these complex items”.
Two new blue plaques have been unveiled in central Oxford, commemorating two pioneering women associated with the university.
Both women – the classicist Annie Rogers and solicitor Dr. Ivy Williams – were among the first to matriculate and graduate with full degrees in 1920.
The blue plaque remembering Rogers is fixed outside 35 St Giles, where she lived between 1891 and 1899. Although she could not be awarded a full degree, she obtained marks in her finals which warranted first-class honours in Literae Humaniores (Classics) and became Oxford University’s first female don.
Rogers dedicated her life to gaining women the right to obtain full membership of the university. Her posthumously released memoir Degrees by Degrees provides an account of her campaign, including as a tutor at the Society of Oxford Home Students, which later became St Anne’s College.
Dr. Ivy Williams graduated in 1900 after being accepted by the Society of Oxford Home Students to read Jurisprudence. However, like Rogers, she also had to wait until 7th October 1920 to matriculate and receive her degree on 14th October.
Dr. Williams became the first woman to be appointed to the Bar of England and Wales in 1922, two years after the Disqualification (Removal) Act opened the profession to women. She did not continue to practice the law, instead returning to the Society of Oxford Home Students as a lecturer. As her sight began to fail in later life, she taught herself to read braille and wrote a textbook on the subject which was published by the National Institute for the Blind.
Dr Williams’ plaque is outside her home on 12 King Edward Street, which is now the Oxford Sixth Form College.
The Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Scheme is responsible for the commissioning and erecting of 66 plaques across Oxford, and more across the county. Other famous residents commemorated include the authors C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, alongside medical breakthroughs such as the first isolation of penicillin. The new plaques bring the total number of women represented to 15.
Oxfordshire hopes to launch its own contact-tracing system by mid-October, joining a host of other local authorities who have also implemented regional tracing networks.
Figures released on Friday revealed that almost one in five positive cases in Oxfordshire went unreached by the national contact-tracing system and only 62% of positive case’s close contacts could be identified, a figure below the national average.
The county’s director of public health, Ansaf Azhar, made the announcement at a meeting of the joint health overview and scrutiny committee last Wednesday. He also gave notice that he was looking into securing testing locally for key workers, and that work had been done to ensure university sites were COVID-secure.
On the 10th August, the government announced all local authorities would be offered dedicated ring-fenced teams of contact tracers, after the national contact tracing scheme faced criticism from local authority leaders for its lack of local focus. Andy Burnham – mayor of Greater Manchester – told The Guardian in May that the government “could and should” have involved local authorities more with contact-tracing.
They warned that local contact tracing must work in tandem with the University’s testing scheme, saying: “Contact tracing will inevitably straddle both [the local and University context]. What would be really helpful is if both systems were intermingled, and testing stations, and tracers, and telephone numbers, were shared.”
Blackburn with Darwen council, in Lancashire, began local contact-tracing in early August. The lead officer, Paul Fleming, said that local systems “complement the national system, because we have the local knowledge of the area and the ability to send officers round to people’s addresses”. After one week, according to the council’s director of public health, 90% of the cases the national system could not reach had been contacted.
Peterborough has also launched a local service. Its director of public health, Dr Liz Robin, said: “National test and trace isn’t always able to [reach people] fast enough – and some people don’t respond to the national text and telephone system – so we’ve asked Public Health England to let us take this on locally, as we know our communities best.”
The campaign group Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public told Cherwell: “All local authorities should have been involved from the outset; international evidence shows the keys are Directors of Public Health, their departments, the NHS infectious disease departments and their labs, and environmental health – all working with the voluntary sector as locally as possible.”
On July 14th, a group of investors led by Blackstone announced that it would be trading a 10% stake in the oat milk producer Oatly for $200m. This valued the firm, founded by food scientist Rickard Öste in 1994, at $2bn. Not only did this signal a broader shift by the establishment investing industry into the ‘ethical consumerism’ market, but it raised the ire of Twitter. In a classic ‘cancel culture’ move, many have characterised the deal as a sell-out by Oatly, prompting calls to boycott the brand. This reaction demonstrates how polarised online debate has become, and how out of touch it often is with the market economy.
Those that have called for boycotts characterise Blackstone as an unethical operator. Having made investments directly and indirectly in Hidrovias do Brasil SA, which is currently building a network to transport soybeans and grain grown in areas cleared from Amazon rainforest, the firm is seen as a profiteer which earns money through environmental destruction. Millennial perceptions of Blackstone are made no more favourable by the fact that its CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, is Trump’s largest donor for 2020. Money received from, or via, Blackstone is thus ‘dirty money’. The stake which the investment house itself now owns is equivalent to being bought out by unprincipled financiers, who will now corrupt the original corporate philosophy of Oatly.
Twitter’s portrayal of the Oatly saga is of a Marxist bent: rather than featuring the capitalists and the workers, the struggle is between the ethical and unethical. The capitalists are slave to profits, rather than a search for moral virtuosity, and thus their actions are ultimately unethical. Those who use their own pecuniary and social powers to promote sustainability, frugality, and/or ethical living, are said to be ethical.
But for the deontological moralist – and those that subscribe to this narrative often voice a deontological worldview – it is impossible to be an ethical consumer. All money in a capitalist system is ‘dirty money’. This is not because of inherent flaws in capitalism, or the appropriative nature of consumerism. Rather, it is the complexity and anonymity of a global economic system that is the issue. Any company functioning within such a system will necessarily accept money linked to unethical behaviour.
This is fundamentally a problem of market organisation. Because companies cannot choose who buys their products, they cannot ensure that money they receive as revenue is coming from morally blameless actors. It is easiest to see this from the perspective of an individual consumer. Oatly is mostly bought by people that lead ethically dubious but completely normal lives. These average people might wake up in the morning on a pillow stuffed with animal feathers. They then reach for a phone to check their emails, which was made by mistreated workers in China. When they have a long shower, they contribute to water shortages in other areas of the country. The clothes they put on were made by Bengali children, who work in gruelling conditions from the age of twelve. They drive to work in a hybrid, which has twice the carbon footprint of a regular car because of the way it is manufactured. When they get to the office, they switch on a computer made using heavy metals mined in warzones. The plastic of the desk chair they sit in was synthesized from oil extracted and sold by ruthless dictators.
The average person endorses exploitation, unsustainable practices, and unethical behaviour through their purchasing decisions. Everyone participates in moral nastiness on some level. It only takes one deviation from an ascetic and wholly green lifestyle to become implicated in globalised networks of immorality – and most people deviate hugely from the green ideal. So many aspects of what we consider to be a normal life involve participating in these globalised networks that unethically penetrates both our private life and our livelihood, often without us realising.
Oatly products are, by and large, bought by average people. Thus, Oatly consumers are actors involved in unethical behaviour. What’s more, the revenues Oatly utilises to finance its business operations and continue expanding is given to them by these unethical, or unethically involved actors.
Blackstone may engage in unethical behaviour, but the $200m they invested in Oatly is not of a different class to the $200m in revenue Oatly earned during 2019. Whether we consider the Blackstone board and Oatly consumers to be immoral in themselves, or whether it is the actions that bring about their income that are immoral, Oatly is, and always has been, receiving ‘dirty money’. Again, this is true for every firm operating within a modern business environment. Although firms may be able to be selective on the investment side, because markets are impersonal, firms cannot choose their consumers.
Theoretically coherent moral systems are often difficult to apply to the real world. Reality is fraught with decisions in which all the available choices involve compromise. But supporting Oatly after the Blackstone announcement is not one of these. We must see the company as operating inside the capitalist-consumerist space, because this is true no matter what the beliefs of their founders or supporters are. And as a firm subject to market pressures, they need to take every chance they can get to expand and build a competitive edge. Oatly is one of the few brands in their segment that has broken into mainstream retailers. As they said in July’s press release, they initially thought that selling their product on supermarket shelves was morally problematic, given that supermarkets profit from the meat and dairy industries. However, in a Benthamite turn they concluded that the positive impact they would have by making oat milk products visible and available to the widest range of consumers outweighed the downsides. They recognised that in order to pursue their goals, they had to co-opt traditional market players.
Although it is laudable that consumers have started to hold companies to higher ethical standards, those that call for a boycott of Oatly do not see the counterfactual. The choice may not be between Oatly and another dairy substitute, but between Oatly and nothing at all – not everyone has access to the kind of retailers that would stock niche alternatives to their oat milk.
The Oatly issue is part of a broader issue of a lack of pragmatism when it comes to sustainable living. Ethical consumerism has often been called a newer and more subtle form of conspicuous consumption. In a twenty-first century manifestation of Thorstein Veblen’s nineteenth century theory, ethical consumerism is driven in part by a desire to display class. The bourgeoisie achieves this by emphasising a detachment from material concerns. The person that can afford to spend three times as much on organic produce, go out of their way to find sustainably produced clothes, or buy a brand-new electric car, exhibits heightened concern for others and for the planet, thereby showing their virtue. Although this concern may be founded upon an authentic desire to be virtuous, it inevitably takes on class dimensions when colliding with consumerism. Products which use eye-catching branding or aesthetic cues to distinguish themselves as cool, rare, or expensive contribute towards a problematic culture of conspicuous ethical consumption.
Ethically conscious living should not be synonymous with elitism. Ordinary people should have access to products made with as little damage to the environment and human life as possible. Buying Oatly is one of the ways to bring this about. A boycott only impedes the path towards a less destructive and harmful society. We should cherish brands that lean towards the ethical side, because they are rare. In a system of rent-seeking individuals, we should feel lucky to have them.
On the mossy bank of a reservoir, three women sit combing their wet, dark hair in the mist.“Do you want me to braid your hair?” a younger girl asks an older woman in Spanish. The image resembles an illustration in a book of classical mythology, or a painting in The National Gallery. You would never guess that the two teenage girls are child soldiers who spend their days walking around with machine guns. Or that the older woman is their hostage.And that is the beauty of Alejandro Landes’ 2019 film, Monos – it constantly shifts and surprises you.
Film critics and viewers alike are often inclined to search for some kind of message in the films they watch, yet Monos manages to entirely escape this categorisation, and even openly opposes it. Instead, it disorientates the viewer, immersing them in an eerie landscape which evades both temporal and geopolitical contexts. While the director, Alejandro Landes, was inspired by (and magnificently captures) the unique, complex and violent history of his Colombian homeland, Landes also hoped to create a film which tells more universal tales of modern-day warfare, human nature and even puberty.
So what is it about this picture that has won countless awards, received five star reviews from virtually every critic, and waslabelled ‘Apocalypse Now on shrooms‘? The film follows the lives of the Monos, a group of teenage soldiers working for The Organisation, a mysterious presence that holds authority over them. While living on a remote mountain top in the clouds, they must engage in ruthless military exercises, watch over their American hostage ‘Doctora’, and look after a cow called Shakira.
After the Monos emerge victorious from a fight against unknown enemy forces, the group relocates to the jungle and it is in this leafier, more humid setting that the group, and any sense of structure or sanity, begin to fragment. Members of what Landes calls the “mini-society” start to turn against each other, and the line that we like to draw between good and bad blurs into an ominous hazeof trigger-happy madness.
The film amalgamates sounds, images and clothing from different places, and periods in time to create its own little world, void of any context. While the Monos’ army uniforms do look similar to those of Colombian guerrilla groups, they also fashion plastic sacks into outfits and wear black padded jackets resembling something from Star Wars. The army camp itself is also surprisingly liberal; the teenagers experiment sexually, take shrooms and are fluid with their gender – Rambo has both feminine and masculine characteristics and Dog, who goes by male pronouns, sometimes wears fishnets and mini shorts. Even the scenery is confusing, with strange Soviet-style concrete blocks embedded into the serene, natural Latin American landscape. The film is all about fluidity and changeability, be it gender and identity or modern-day warfare.
At moments, the little world in which the Monos live feels magical. The combination of Jasper Wolf’s beautiful camerawork and Mica Levi’s hypnotic musical score create a surreal impression. The camerawork is intimate and physical, with close-up shots of naked skin in highly saturated colour to capture humanity in its most natural and primitive form. Levi’s technique of blending modern electronic music with sounds from naturefurther adds to the film’s ethereal feeling; she repeatedly uses a distinctive choppy electronic sound throughout the film to give a sensation of rising adrenaline among the teenagers as the film gets closer to its climax. However, both the intimate cinematography and the sinister music not only reflect the intense nature of war, but also an internal conflict of puberty and adolescence.
While the film does have an other-worldly feel, it is also strongly rooted in reality – a Colombian reality. Since the mid twentieth-century, Colombia has been in a constant state of political turmoil in what has come to be known as ‘The Invisible War’, where there is no clear enemy but rather multiple factions fighting against each other. The groups involved consist of the state, the military, paramilitary groups, guerrilla soldiers, and foreign governments, but the relations between these different groups are complex and ever-changing.
The war has led to an estimated 260,000 deaths and has displaced about seven million people. While the Colombian government signed a peace treaty with FARC in 2016, the situation is volatile and even the prospect of peace brings newfound fears for many Colombians. In an interview at the Berlin International Film Festival, Landes stated that he hoped to use the film “to narrate two fears” that prevent Colombia from “obtaining a stable and lasting peace”: one being the possibility that the reinsertion programmes won’t work and the other that even if the leaders of these groups do cooperate with the peace process, some individuals may splinter away from the bigger organisations and create new, ever more dangerous factions.
The inspiration taken from the Colombian civil war is not only evident in the general feeling of fear that lurks below the surface throughout the film, but also in particular details which have been taken directly from the conflict. For example, the Monos are all children who seem to range from around 13 to 18, and at points it is suggested that they were taken in at a young age and recruited by the Organisation. FARC has also been known to recruit child soldiers, some taken in after their own parents have been killed by the group. A disturbing scene towards the end of the film in which three young children are left cowering under a table after seeing their parents being shot by the Monos is evocative of this and shows how the cycle of violence continues.
By shifting between the horrific, the ethereal, and the primitive, Landes has managed to create a raw film about humanity that goes far beyond the context of the Colombian conflict. Monos does not try to provide answers but rather surrenders to the complexities of warfare, human nature, and adolescence. It isn’t a film that is merely watched but rather experienced, crawling under your skin and leaving an indelible impression.
Image credit – Leon Hernandez / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
After three postponements and millions of dollars’ worth of Covid-induced extra marketing, the much-anticipated action-thriller film, Tenet, has finally greeted a global audience, giving many the necessary push to make their first cinema trip in months. Said to be in the high-risk tier of activities, sharing a screen with multiple strangers has become a daring adventure in and of itself.
The whole world is
crumbling, and people need a pleasant distraction. But cynical as it may seem,
cinephiles these days are finding themselves wondering: is the film worth the
risk? With the promise of a star-studded cast, a cerebral setting that will
make you wish you know more about physics, and a real Boeing 747 set on fire –
my answer to this question is yes, albeit with hesitation.
Tenet tells the story of a CIA agent (whom I’ll refer to as “The Protagonist” as he goes unnamed throughout the entire film) who is recruited by the eponymous secret organisation after a failed rescue mission at an opera house in Kiev. Tenet introduces The Protagonist to the concept of “inverted” entropy, a theory that allows things and actions to be rendered backward both materially and temporally. A team is sent to seize and destroy an algorithm designed by the villainous Sator, who intends to wipe out the world by inverting it. The Protagonist seeks help from Sator’s estranged wife Kat, and fellow Tenet agent Neil. Together they embark on a mission to prevent World War III.
One of the most prominent features in Nolan’s oeuvre has been his novel applications of the laws of physics, and Tenet is no exception. The idea of “inversion” not only allows the director to further explore his fascination with time, but also creates room for ambitious action scenes. Nolan’s dedication to this concept is unmissable and applaudable. To accommodate an “inverted” timeline to the fullest, several sequences in the film require both forward and backward motions in the same on-screen space, including a car chase which proved so challenging, a highway in Tallinn almost ended up shut for a month. Nolan’s habitual dismissal of CGI means audiences can expect both meticulously choreographed movements and dextrously assembled mise-en-scène – visual stunners which would no doubt constitute an immersive viewing experience, if accompanied by the right sound and music.
Regrettably, the acoustic dimension of the film lacks lustre against its breath-taking moving images. With Hans Zimmer having “defected” to join the next-door production of Dune, composer Ludwig Göransson was hired in his stead, and had to record musicians at home following the onset of the pandemic. Beyond the undeniably original stroke that was playing part of the soundtrack backwards to match the backwards motions on screen – another sign of loyalty to the film’s wholistic design – the music in Tenet feels unremarkable and bares no comparison to films like 2014’s Interstellar (which was nominated for Best Original Score at the 87th Academy Awards). The score shows little interest in distinguishing scenes from one another; the background music in the opening opera house scene sounds almost identical to that which accompanies Tenet’s various, more intense operations in later scenes. Tenet‘s auditory landscape is also polluted by flawed sound mixing. This is especially noticeable during action sequences, where diegetic and non-diegetic sounds are so poorly balanced, one has to strain to hear the dialogues even with Dolby Atmos. These factors further frustrate one’s understanding of a plot line already brimming with brain-twisting concepts.
Yet Tenet‘s biggest disappointment is not technical in nature. With cinemas around the world recycling Nolan’s other works to reopen, we are reminded of their virtuoso presentations of human emotion; be it the parental love of an astronaut that defies time and space in Interstellar, or the collective desperation and fear of abandonment on the French sea front in Dunkirk, it is Nolan’s ability to evoke sympathy that has ultimately made his films unforgettable. One can hardly say the same for Tenet. Despite the actors’ undeniable skill, most of the characters’ motives on an emotional level are indiscernible. One finds oneself wondering, on several occasions, why some of them are going to life-threatening lengths to save and protect other key characters they barely know.
Among the few
relationships that feel sufficiently developed is that between Kat and Sator,
which, in a nutshell, is an abusive marriage characterised by violence and
coercion. There are several scenes of domestic violence, one of which included
moments so explicit, they were removed from the UK theatre version to avoid a
15 certificate. Compared to other violent scenes in the film, of beating and
torture between men with little blood and gore, these depictions of a man’s
power over his wife are tackled with a precision that not only feels extraneous
to the storyline, but produces a level of unpleasantness that escapes the
screen. The film eventually attempts to tie up loose ends regarding the
connections between characters, there are no feelings visceral enough for
tears.
Tenet’s launch in cinema at the end of August marks Hollywood’s awakening from an anxious sleep. With film festivals gone virtual, and many films released online, it has been offered more screens per multiplex than originally planned, quickly becoming the fifth highest-grossing films of 2020. After months of uncertainty, anger, and grief in the midst of pandemic and protests, the return of big screen invites reflections: what is it that makes us love cinema? Need there be more to it than an extravaganza of escapist excitement? Watching Tenet will help you find your answer, whatever it may be.
“New students will be matriculated in absentia” – my tears flow
like gutters for you, future freshers. What worth is a degree without the accompanying
theatre of success at every stage; and you, my darlings, will be missing the
most curious of all Oxford’s mysteries. So, as a prospective parent on the
brink of that plunge into responsibility, I thought I might write to you, and
why not about this. I have nowt better to do.
For those of you who haven’t yet figured out what you’ll be denied
by the current pestilence, here’s a potted history of matriculation, from a
guide for tourists I found flapping against a George Street lamppost one Hilary
night:
Matriculation (a corruption of “Matron’s lactations”, a
common public-school ambrosia) is a ceremony that takes place every year in
Oxford, marking the final severing of the students’ weak connection to reality.
Taking place in the Sheldonian Theatre (a corruption of “we shouldn’t really
have called it a theatre, should we?”), this ritual dates back until at least the
year 0 A.W. (after the war) and possibly further, and was invented by radical
Wadham Marxists to prove Debord right. The rites require formal attire for the
students, attending, as they are, the funeral of their own sensibility. Central
to the ritual is an address in what is often mistaken for Latin, but is
actually rhyming slang, spoken at high-speed by an unlicensed cockney, in a
practise similar to the controversial chav socials of tabloid fame. Finally,
the students strip and self-flagellate, an action that symbolises their
rejection of social conscience, before attempting to drink their own bodyweight
in the distilled blood of those who, sadly, did not make it through
‘interviews’. All in all, a curious ritual, enjoyed from a distance by people
like you.
People like me indeed.
Sadly, for some of you, it’s not just an excuse to get
pissed you’re missing, but a familial tradition. The 2020 Michaelmas slot in
your family photo archives will remain empty, void of another phalanx of
identikit fresh faces, squinting glibly into the midmorning sun, shrunken heads
atop bulky black robes. I can’t imagine what it’s like to stand there, the
sense of history you have, knowing you follow in the footsteps of your
thoroughbred ancestors, hoofed feet firmly in the same stall, waiting for the
vice-chancellor’s starting gun for the great steeplechase to begin, first to
the City via Westminster takes it all. Don’t worry, you worked for this, years
in the boathouse trap, right? Not many get out of Cheltenham alive, do
they? And it’s not as if it was Eton, I mean, daddy had to shake the old
Panamanian settee rigorously to find a few spare bob, and couldn’t get a Harley
Street chiropractor when it did his back in.
You deserved it, the chance to be part of the same
dance-as-old-as-time as all the other, former Bright Young Things, who
clambered up this greasy pole before you, no helping hands to offer bar better
diction, the ability to tie a bowtie and an algorithmic nudge or two. It’s ok, calm
your incandescent rage, you won’t tear stain this letter, I’ve had it laminated
mate. Anyways, I’m only here thanks to some hidden, invisible, secret quota for
normal people; here to make the uni look accessible. Here to make the uni look good.
Biff! Pow! Working class man commits social suicide for
only the fourth time this week, and all cos his parents couldn’t find a few
grand to have the ungrateful twerp slapped out of him.
Of course, not all of you can be neatly sorted into the
categories of Upstairs folk and the kind of depressed cynic who agrees with me.
The reasoned, middle-of-the-road, fence-up-your-arsecrack types out there have
a claim on being worst hit, the cancellation a real shotgun blast to your Instagram
clout. For you, this magical occasion was the physical recognition of all your
hard work, a binding ceremony that would take equals, from a rainbow of social
backgrounds, and make them look all equally twattish. You will be unable to splash
out on a nice suit, only to get it grass-stained whilst tempting death at the
hands of some psycho porter, desperate to keep you off the grass.
Maybe some of you are international students, somehow
slipping through the net in this great departure into insularity, disappointed
you won’t get the chance to be conned into thinking you’ve participated in
something uniquely British, which you would have, one supposes…
Queuing? Perhaps? For something ultimately perplexing, and
often disappointing, but which seemingly provides many others with joy, like a
Wednesday home loss or a childhood donkey ride in the driving, Skeggy rain.
At least try to smile, they said to the small child,
piss-wet through on a smelly non-horse. Well, the child thought, at least I’ve
never been fucking skiing, as the great container ship of aspiration reared its
ugly bow through the sea mist.
There is a lot of queuing involved, and then Latin.
No, not the queuing. Perhaps something even more British
then, yes? Like attempting to legitimise the ubiquitous elitism and class
divides of the country by donning a silly hat? Yes.
Little do the state-schooled among us know, but the
‘Latin’ spoken is an incantation, a spell to summon the ghosts of Mr Orwell’s
bicycling old maids, to scare the homeless out of town for the day.
Attached: a page torn from some kind of hat encyclopaedia
All a bit rich, some of you might be thinking for someone
who must have been matriculated themselves. Quite, but then, true to form, I
subverted tradition by attending dressed in a homemade bin bag bralette with duct
tape G-string, and exchanged the self-flagellation for self-loathing. Beware
though, the price the university demands for allowing such tomfoolery is the
sale of your soul: becoming a professional parody northerner, paid £4.80 a week
for thinking of snide comments about people’s choice of championship side, and every
now and again hurtling your fragile form at some quad’s paving, in a futile
attempt to burrow your way back home.
If you were yourself considering the above option for
matriculation, then congratulations, you are the ones missing out on the most. We,
shoulders chipped like the Venus de Milo (though we hide it skilfully, only
ever unleashing its full strength on unfunny, crap little letters no one will
read, italicising words to make it look considered) only really applied
for one reason, and were quite surprised when it paid off: the sexual thrill of
trespass.
In Oxford, the joys of both voyeurism and exhibitionism are
on offer; on a typical morning I can choose between lurking in the bushes, Bullingdon
Club members fixed in my binoculars as they stumble home, stinking of semen and
farmyard excitement, or climb an empty plinth in the Ashmolean, and declaring
oneself the last example of social mobility caught in the wild before the
country devolved back into feudalism. But the best chance for roleplay,
regrettably, has been denied to you. Same shoes, same suit, same smile, same
sandstone walls to prop yourself against – if you’ve never pretended that this
is life, will you ever be truly Oxonian? There is a positive correlation between
the number of likes you’d be getting for that photo and the success of the
transubstantiation of your blood into theirs.
The day would’ve been your last shot at a sense of
belonging, before you start to wonder how exactly you got here? The ability to
bullshit has served you well, got you somewhere you thought someone might
finally have something insightful to say, but nah, its more agile, flexible
bullshit, able to make a supposed political commitment to social justice
compatible with smiling at Tories and a weekly wage of a bar tab.
Because it’s black and white.
And you start wondering how exactly you got here? A
carousel of strange rooms, music from your hometown blaring, a thousand
gloss-paper Ewan McGregors staring at you in judgement. This is you. Stumbling
round Bridge. Mutual giggles while queuing for Hassan’s, as young women attempt
to explain to you the intricacies of London’s zoning system.
You remember the flexible bullshit cos it takes you to
the brink of being a cunt but never tips you over the edge. You remember the
flexible bullshit, cos it takes them to the brink of being a cunt but never
tips them over the edge. It rescues them from all your silent prejudice. And
everyone’s subconscious class fantasy remains intact.
Because its grey.
The day would have been your last chance to slow your
descent into this stupor of rage, forever yelling at yourself to be less
judgemental, as you laugh at people laughing at Nish Kumar.
***
Again, my deepest and most heartfelt emotions are with you
all, these times were hard enough without learning you were forever to be
neophytes, never truly to join the ranks of us oh-so-betters, forbidden to be a
true denizen of this hothouse of ferocious talent. No anecdotes of
mortar-boarded naughtiness for you to tell at some Goldman Sachs circle-jerk
thirty years from now. No chance encounters with confused tourists, bowing when
you spit at them, shrieking with laughter when you burn £50 notes for them. No
opportunity to become the symptom. Still, at least you might save some face
when the revolution comes, and you can give me a knowing smile, when our eyes
meet, both of us against the wall.
Much love in absentia,
A. T. Watt
Finder’s note: Mr Barker would like to say he agrees with none of the above, being an ever-contented centrist by week and fist-shaking fascist by weekend, and this is exactly the kind of pinko nonsense he expected to find at university. Additionally, he has never met an Etonian, a woman, nor indeed a donkey, and being wokest of woke, would never stereotype anyone based on their social background, not even himself.
Whether you love it, hate it, or couldn’t care less, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight is undeniably cemented in 21st-century pop culture. It was even included in the BBC’s list of ‘100 most influential novels’ alongside the likes of To Kill a Mockingbird and 1984. The thought of Meyer’s vampiric romps sharing a trophy cabinet with Lee and Orwell may cause the literati to shudder, but the franchise was undeniably a near-instant cultural phenomenon. The books set the young adult genre alight and they subsequently spilled onto the big screen, raking in billions of dollars and catapulting their actors into A-lister territory.
Despite all this, Twilight has faded into nostalgic obscurity over the last decade. Eight years after the final film was released, the majority of Meyer’s ‘twi-hards’ are in their late teens to early thirties, the posters of Robert Pattinson ripped down from their childhood bedroom walls and their copies of the books replaced on the shelves by less frothy, more ‘grownup’ stuff, perhaps Plath or a Nigella. When people discuss the novels now, labels of anti-feminism and Mormon ideology are thrown around, the simplistic writing is looked down upon and even the leading stars of the films seem desperate to be disassociated from the franchise, embarrassed by their participation.
Nobody expected, then, a Twilight renaissance after all this time – but 2020, in all its glory, has been the year of ‘expect the unexpected.’ Perhaps this is why Meyer chose this year to yank Twilight from hibernation, and during the height of lockdown announce that she was releasing a new book in the franchise, a retelling of the original novel from Edward’s perspective, titled Midnight Sun. After all, we have nothing to do and the world has already been turned upside down, so there really is no better time for Twilight to make a surprise reappearance.
I am not going to pretend that a new Twilight book is the biggest event of the year, and a more cynical person might write this off as Meyer needing a bit of cash. But for us Twilight fans, this announcement was kind of a big deal. For those less clued up on the drama, here’s a little bit of background: Meyer attempted to write and release Midnight Sun over a decade ago. The draft was leaked, the project indefinitely shelved, and countless teenage hearts broken at the loss of Edward’s inner monologue. However, it has been years. We’ve moved on. Why should we care any more about a whingy 104-year-old virgin? Clearly, we do still care, because the book has already sold over a million copies in the month since its release.
It doesn’t seem fair to review the quality of Meyer’s writing in Midnight Sun, as it was never her writing which was lauded. Nor does it seem productive to comment too much on the plot, since (spoiler) the plot is exactly the same as the original novel. In my opinion, however, the lack of deftly written prose or an innovative plot does not actually matter. Midnight Sun was never intended to be read as a standalone book, and I’d put good money on it that 90% of those 1 million copies were bought not by new readers but by old fans already familiar with Meyer’s overly descriptive and indulgent style.
Midnight Sun excels in the same way that any good remake or reunion special does, providing the reader with a healthy dose of nostalgia, a thing to be vociferously devoured during the demoralising haze of a global pandemic. Meyer, or Meyer’s marketing team, knows that this nostalgia sells. She dedicates the new novel to her OG readers with a saccharine observation on the passing of time ‘When we first met, many of you were young teenagers with bright, beautiful eyes full of dreams for the future. I hope that in the years that have passed, you’ve all found your dreams…’ Meyer had previously adopted this role of being a friend to her fans often enough– hosting parties in hotel rooms, releasing playlists and dream casting her own novels– and MidnightSun is no exception. Whilst her fans may have grown up, the author doesn’t seem to have left 2008, running contests and making playlists as if we all still have the free time to enter fan art competitions as we did at the age of thirteen.
The book is so similar content-wise to Twilight that the déjà vu will slap you round the face. The speech and narrative are carefully transposed from the original novel but with Edward’s verbose analysis threaded in. The book is most interesting when it steps away from the plot of Twilight deeper into the world to which Bella was not originally privy. There is a sweet, albeit slightly odd, section where Emmett and Edward set up Bella’s classmates, and a later chapter where we learn the details of Alice’s meticulous cover-up job. Meyer wastes time rehashing chunks of the plot which were not only in the novel but also included in the film adaptation, forcing a third perspective of a discussion about the mitosis of onion root onto the reader, instead of fleshing out characters and storylines which we previously only glimpsed from Bella’s human viewpoint.
Midnight Sun is 756 pages long, inexplicably over 300 pages longer than Twilight
itself, but the pace and plot only pick up when Bella and Edward are separated,
and thus their narratives also diverge. Edward’s angsty thoughts are suffocating
and dragged out, hampering what should be a fast-paced narrative as they race
to save Bella’s life, and ultimately there is no real suspense because the
reader knows how the race ends. Meyer tries to create some excitement
throughout the novel, moments where Edward struggles to restrain himself and
fleeting visions of Bella dying, but inevitably she is restricted by her own canon. The plot cannot
drastically differ from Twilight,
so any attempt to create real tension falls flat.
I wouldn’t recommend reading Midnight Sun if you are new to the franchise. However, if you haven’t read or watched Twilight in years, Midnight Sun is a decent walk down memory lane, taking you back to a time when it mattered if you were Team Edward or Team Jacob. The insight the book gives into the peripheral characters’ psyches, understanding Rosalie’s poisonous jealousy of Bella for example, is satisfying, but an exploration into the world beyond Edward and Bella would have improved Midnight Sun immensely. Even as a firm member of Team Edward, 756 pages of Edward tormenting himself over a girl is fundamentally tedious. Nevertheless, Midnight Sun provides a welcome hit of nostalgia and a few hours of light escapism back to Edward, Bella and the endless debate about whether someone watching you sleep is creepy or not.
