Monday, May 19, 2025
Blog Page 465

SHORTS: The Future of the Climate Movement

Various contributors
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SHORTS: The Future of the Climate Movement

With empty roads and not a plane in sight some might see global lockdown as a quick-fix to the climate crisis. How can the climate movement maintain the urgency of its message, and what can it learn from this crisis?

Matteo Baccaglini explains why the climate movement doesn’t have to be a casualty of COVID-19:

Environmentalists claiming that the pandemic is a welcome relief for Mother Earth are doing themselves a disservice. Yes, energy consumption has fallen to decade lows; world travel has collapsed; air pollution has slumped; and wildlife has flourished. But if the lockdown persists, the picture could worsen dramatically.

Studies suggest that during the winter months, centralising heating costs by working in offices and factories is much more environmentally-friendly than everyone heating their individual homes. Meanwhile, the restrictions are hampering climate monitoring and disrupting important research. Crucial conferences like COP26, initially scheduled for this September, have been postponed. While environment charities are struggling for funds, major polluters – especially airlines – are successfully lobbying governments for billions of pounds’ worth of taxpayer-funded bailouts. Worst of all, the oil price has fallen to below $30 a barrel. If cheap fossil fuels bankroll the recovery, it could undo years of progress in renewable energy and electric vehicles.

So, we shouldn’t be complacent, nor extoll the pandemic as a boon for the planet. Besides, applauding the newfound cleanliness of Venice’s canals strikes as insensitive when millions of families are facing poverty and starvation from the economic slump. It threatens to perpetuate the unhelpful stereotype that climate activism is just a hobbyhorse for the rich.

Here are two challenges facing the climate movement. Firstly, widespread coronavirus hardship will sap popular support for sacrificing economic growth for the environment’s sake. To thrive in the post-pandemic world, we must embrace capitalism-friendly environmentalism, promoting policies that conserve both the economy and the environment.

Secondly, the international order that will emerge from the pandemic could be unrecognisable from the order which existed beforehand. Their lacklustre responses to the pandemic, coupled with rising tensions between China and the West, could severely weaken the authority of supranational institutions such as the European Union and the United Nations. That is bad news: climate change tops international agendas but is middling in domestic political priorities.

So, environmentalists should prepare to don their gloves and scatter their seeds much further afield from the familiar settings of Brussels and New York. As long as we recognise and confront these challenges, there is no reason why the climate movement should be a casualty of COVID-19.

Luke Hatton makes the case for ‘green economic recovery’:

2019 was the year when the climate crisis loomed large in the public’s consciousness. Millions of people took part in strikes across the globe, and the UK saw one of the biggest acts of peaceful civil disobedience in decades from the radical Extinction Rebellion. The pandemic threatens to disrupt climate initiatives, with many fearing substantial setbacks in climate initiatives and negotiations.

Governments have pledged trillions of dollars to keep companies afloat during the lockdown and will likely pledge trillions more to aid economic recovery. Calls for green stimulus packages – building in strict environmental conditions to corporate support and investing in clean energy infrastructure – are being heard around the globe. Ten EU climate and environment ministers and hundreds of business leaders, campaign groups and trade unions have signed an open letter calling on the EU to ensure its rescue packages are in line with climate commitments, as they fear the economic shock of the pandemic could stall or even reverse climate action. 

These fears are not unfounded. In Canada, the controversial Keystone XL pipeline has received a $1.1bn ‘strategic investment’ from the provincial government, and south of the border several US states have made it a criminal offence to protest against fossil fuel projects. Heavily polluting industries such as oil, gas and aviation have received billions of dollars in aid from the US government, while assistance for the renewable energy sector was not included in the $2tn support package.

The full impact of the pandemic on the climate movement will be determined by the recovery measures adopted. The case must be made for a green economic recovery, as current emissions targets would see the global economy facing losses by 2100 of as much as $600tn according to a journal paper published in Nature Communications. A green economic recovery plan would stimulate the economy whilst abating these future losses, providing a sustainable route out of the pandemic-induced economic crisis.

One of the lesser-known conclusions of the IPCC’s 2019 report is that emissions need to peak this year to limit temperature rises to 1.5C. National emissions targets would have fallen significantly short of this limit, but the temporary emission reductions due to the pandemic offers an opportunity to bring forward the peak. The pandemic has taught us how critical early action is in reducing the cost to human health and wellbeing – let’s hope this message isn’t lost in translation to climate action.

Grace Clark outlines the lessons we can learn from the pandemic:

As fear and suffering sweeps across the globe, the urgency of the danger posed by COVID-19 has perhaps temporarily suppressed the momentum and attention given to the climate movement. It is difficult to comprehend the enormity of one crisis in the midst of another and activists understandably have fears that the severity of the climate emergency will continue to be overshadowed by this very rapid and very visible threat to humanity.

Nevertheless, I am hopeful that as individuals and as societies, we will emerge from this crisis with a renewed receptiveness to the climate movement. Firstly, the pandemic has unequivocally taught us that acting early is the best form of response. The countries that have behaved pro-actively have seen far fewer deaths while those which initially resigned to denialism and even obstruction of the truth have witnessed a much greater scale of human loss. If governments adhere to this same mentality and as a society, we continue to amplify the voices of scientists above those of politicians when necessary, we could make a lot of progress in acting against the inevitable threat of climate change.

Furthermore, the international response to this pandemic has shown that, effectively overnight, societies can adopt radical measures that transcend purely economic concerns to prioritise the safety and well-being of all. The climate movement needs to utilise this proof that when necessary, human behaviour can change in the most unimaginable ways. The flexibility demonstrated in this immediate scale-down of how we live has shown that society can still function by shopping locally, limiting consumption, restricting air travel and commuting by mouse rather than vehicle. These changes show that the demands of climate activists are not impossible but simply require a compelling enough reason.

And perhaps most of all, this pandemic has hopefully made humanity realise what it values most. Consumption and happiness are not inextricably linked, what really matters is the safety and health of ourselves, our loved ones and our whole societies. And if we realise that climate change poses just as valid a threat to this, such an ethos, a reconfiguring of human happiness, could inspire a renewed energy within the Climate Movement. Let us learn and absorb the lessons of this pandemic, listen to what it has taught us about what it truly means to be human and work to fight for our world, which we are all so eagerly awaiting to be reunited with.

May Morning will be celebrated virtually

Florine Lips
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May Morning will be celebrated virtually

This year’s May Morning celebrations will be held online – they will be live-streamed on Facebook and broadcast in part by the BBC. Following the government’s advice last month on mass gatherings, the annual May Day celebrations were cancelled in their 500-year old traditional form.

The virtual celebrations will begin with a pre-recorded performance of the Hymnus Eucharistus by Magdalen Choir, which will air on the Daily Info Facebook page from 6 am, the Magdalen College Choir’s Facebook page, and will be broadcast by BBC Oxford. 

Other celebrations will include Morris dancing from Oxfordshire troupes, performances by local Oxford musician John Otway and a Welsh folk group, a spoons tutorial from Oxford University Morris, and a history of May Day from actor Tim Healey. 

At 8 am, Oxford’s community street band, Horns of Plenty, will perform a rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, encouraging participants to join them in doing so while maintaining social distancing. Local musician Rufus Quickenden will then lead a May Morning singalong.

Magdalen College took to their Twitter page to share promotional videos ahead of Thursday’s event, including footage of choristers preparing separately for their recordings of the performance, which will be put together to resemble the sound of a choir singing in unison.

Councillor Mary Clarkson, Cabinet Member for Culture and the City Centre, said: “Despite the current coronavirus pandemic, we want to continue the tradition of May Morning celebrations in a safe online environment. May Morning is a unique event here in Oxford that many of us look forward to, and have attended over the years. 

“We want to encourage everyone, old or young, whether this is your 50th May Morning celebration, or your first, to come and join in the fun and celebrate with us online. All we ask is that everyone follows social distancing measures and is safe during the celebrations.”

Jude Stratton, of Horns of Plenty, said: “On May Morning in Oxford we take to the streets to celebrate both the coming of spring and the creativity of the wonderful people of Oxford. The Horns of Plenty love that moment when the last notes from the choristers die away and the crowds flood up the High Street ready to dance as we play. 

“In these strange times, we will keep the tradition alive by playing and singing from our gardens, doors and windows. Please join us at 8 am and the online celebrations before and after.”

The live-stream of the day’s events can be accessed via Daily Info‘s Facebook page. Oxford City Council is encouraging people to share May Morning celebrations via #MayMorning.

The intimacy of isolation: reflections on performing alone

Hannah Taylor
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The intimacy of isolation: reflections on performing alone

“Lights up. The actor is alone” – type aspiring playwrights all over the world, unconsciously in unison. I anticipate reading this line (or something similar) over and over again, as a wave of new writing comes crashing into the theatrical sphere in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. For what form of theatre better encompasses the solitude and separation defining this moment in history than a one-hander play with its single performer and bare stage?

The one-hander had already become widely cherished by both theatre-makers and audiences, far before “quarantine” was even a whisper on the lips of a government official. A play with only one performer is an easy way to showcase new work; it’s often simple to produce and stage, allowing room for the performance and writing to shine through. Also – crucially – it’s cheap. But, separately from practical elements, the one-hander has become such an attractive form because it seems to speak to a generation plagued with feelings of isolation. Of course, it’s become a bit of a cliché to blame everything on social media, but the truth is unavoidable: in our increased virtual connectivity, we have lost legitimate connection. Ours is a generation obsessed with moving forward, charging towards our ambition with independence and unstoppable acceleration. The one-hander responds to this by momentarily forcing us to pause and appreciate these small, introspective moments on the stage. There is no razzle-dazzle or hyper-theatricality or magic tricks. It is simply a character talking to us, telling us their dreams and fears, having a bit of cry maybe, and then leaving us to reflect on the overwhelming intimacy of the interaction.

This sense of intimacy is the defining quality of the one-hander – without it, we’d be watching at best a stand-up comedy set, or at worst, a kind of meandering ramble in the style of Ronnie Corbett’s Armchair Monologues. Of course, such intimacy is created in the very form of a one-hander, in that a single actor, stripped of the protective layer that the fourth wall offers, addresses an audience head-on. The actor must be fearless: they not only bare the character to the world, but they must also bare themselves. Simon Stephens’ Sea Wall, written especially for Andrew Scott to perform, is so enchanting precisely because it catches Andrew Scott’s own charisma perfectly. Obviously, he plays a character, a grieving father, but it is Andrew-Scott-as-a-grieving-father which gives the play its magic. The actor tells a joke and laughs, and the audience laughs as well; the actor spins into hysteria and cries, and the audience cries alongside them. Performing a one-hander requires such an infinitely fine attention to your own emotional capacity in order to successfully master the audience’s empathy. Being alone on the stage leaves an actor entirely vulnerable. But such vulnerability is so captivating that it renders them untouchably powerful.

The one-hander makes us its confidant: we, the observers, are made witness to the innermost secret chambers of a character’s heart. For just a couple of hours, we are granted the gift of feeling like we are reading Fleabag’s diary or listening in to sister’s unheard cries in random. The theatre’s atmosphere is one of trust, as a character envelopes us in their voice and confidence. However, the audience is never allowed to feel truly comfortable – the character’s privacy is at stake. The one-hander confronts us with an uncomfortable openness, assaulting us with unconcealed feelings of guilt, regret, and grief. Trapped in their seat, the viewer is subjected to painful silences between broken lines – silences which twist the pit of the stomach in empathetic circles – so that they have some pause to reflect. Silence is to the one-hander play what negative space is to art: a necessary nothingness which seeks to emphasise what is there. On the bare stage, there is nowhere to hide, and so the grimy underside of human nature lies exposed under the hot light of a Fresnel lantern.

The one-hander play is a conversation with a close friend, and yet at the same time it offers an uncomfortable degree of nakedness. I suppose, therefore, the effect can only be compared with having a conversation with a close friend whilst they’re naked – you never quite know where to look, or what to do with your hands, or whether you should even be there. These plays offer a unique closeness that we are often too polite or embarrassed to seek in our day to day lives. Such unashamed openness of the heart creates intimacy. It’s a necessary remedy to 21st century isolation.

Review: Lovecraft Country

Sam Ruaux
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Review: Lovecraft Country

I bought Lovecraft Country back in term time, and, as with far too many books, didn’t get around to reading it until much later. When I did, I found it a pleasant surprise; it’s a book which still hits all of those familiar notes of old science fiction while being self-aware and actively critical of the tradition which laid the foundations of its own conception. It lays cosmic horror against the very tangible horror of an era which I think many would like to forget existed. 

Such is the quality of Lovecraft Country that it holds its own whilst engaging with a world of horror-writing which has been established for over 100 years. As an introduction to the Cthullhu Mythos – this being the universe created by Lovecraft and added to by other authors up to present day – the novel works well. Having an interest in Role-player gaming, (for those in the know, I GMed games of the Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG) I’d recommend the book to my first-time players as something to give them a grasp on the themes. It contains everything I’d want from a Mythos story: haunted dolls and scheming sorcerer-scientists, strange worlds under alien suns where unthinkable things dwell, innocent people caught in the crossfire and unexpected heroes. At the same time it doesn’t fall prey to the unfortunate over-amorphous description of some of the earlier works of cosmic horror. Instead, Lovecraft Country is pretty accessible to people who might not want to read about “unknowable, shapeless, cyclopean, eldritch, arcane, phantasmagorical” (and so on) descriptions of earlier works of cosmic horror.

Lovecraft Country also provides relatively guilt-free reading. Early in the novel there are meta discussions between Atticus and Montrose around the issue of racism in seminal early works of science fiction. Nor does this piece of science-fiction construct a new universe to shield the injustices of our own. Within its pages are many harrowing and emotionally charged descriptions of the African-American experience in the 1950s, including a heart-rending portrayal of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riots. I can’t promise you that you won’t cry (full disclosure: I did, a bit). There’s a fair balance of well-developed and full articulated male and female characters with their own story arcs and perspectives. 

At times parts of the novel feels a bit disjointed, almost like a sequence of short stories more than a comprehensive piece. While there’s some overlying structure it was momentarily jarring for me earlier on until loose ends started to be pulled together towards the end of the novel. It would be fair to say that the character’s responses to encountering the unfathomable mysteries of the Mythos are unusually blase; however, I think Ruff leans into the cast’s general familiarity with science fiction and metacritic of early science fiction enough that it’s not particularly hard to suspend disbelief. Who knows, perhaps if we were to discover aliens in our everyday life TV and media might have inoculated us out of any real sense of shock.

If you’ve finished Stranger Things and find yourself hankering for another taste of cosmic horror, or if the weight of quarantine has pushed you to search literature for the madness-inducing truth of the universe, or if perhaps you’re a veteran of the Mythos, I recommend Lovecraft Country to you.

Author’s footnote: The author noted that there is a whole discussion about H. P. Lovecraft and the extent to which his racism influenced his work (and whether he recanted later on) but he felt the space given was inadequate to sufficiently explore this here. ‘It’s true that to many the man’s opinions in everyday life will affect their ability to enjoy their reading. This is a theme explored by Rudd in Lovecraft Country, which I appreciate.’

‘This dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool’: feminist lessons from Dolly Parton

Izzy Tod
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‘This dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool’: feminist lessons from Dolly Parton

In 1996 at the University of Edinburgh, embryologist Ian Wilmut led a team of scientists to clone the first-ever mammal using an adult somatic cell from a sheep. They named her Dolly. Their success was a monumental step forward in the field of stem cell research and an unprecedented intervention by mankind in the reproductive processes of nature. When asked why he chose the name, Wilmut explained: ‘Dolly is derived from a mammary gland cell and we couldn’t think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton’s’. 

Country music legend, Golden Globe-nominated actress, philanthropist, humanitarian and theme park owner: Dolly Parton is one of the most successful people on the planet. She has also single-handedly both given and received more boob jokes than anyone else in history.

Dolly Parton invented the boob joke. If you’re brave enough to make one at her expense, she will make sure you know that you are only doing so because she allows it. Despite everyone’s best efforts, Dolly cannot be shushed, embarrassed or diminished by a joke about the size of her chest. For any single joke that is thrown at her, she has a hundred comebacks that are more entertaining, intelligent and funny; she has well and truly heard it all before. In an interview with The Telegraph, Dolly put it very simply: “When all else fails, I just tell a boob joke.” In this way, Dolly is able to imperceptibly reclaim the narrative surrounding women’s bodies, proving time and time again that she is so much more than a mammary gland.

Dolly began her career on the Porter Wagoner Show as his token ‘girl singer’; however, she was soon to grow so famous that she began to outshine Wagoner himself. The tension that ensued from the shifting power dynamic eventually resulted in Dolly quitting the show to pursue her own career and Wagoner suing her for millions of dollars in future earnings. The song she wrote about the split – “I Will Always Love You” – became the subject of controversy, as Dolly famously refused to fold to the pressure from Elvis’ management and instead offered the rights to the song to Whitney Houston, who went on to make her millions as the highest-grossing song by a female artist. Having left the Wagoner show, Dolly started up her own TV variety show, Dolly!, which provided her with more creative control and the spotlight that she was born to be in. She set about inviting other female artists to collaborate, including Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, forging what would become a genre-defining musical sound (see the 1986 album Trio) and lifelong friendship. Dolly was consistently underestimated and undervalued in her early career by men in the music industry at a time when men were the music industry. Dolly’s insistence on doing things her own way, with or without permission of men in positions of power, is fundamental to her success as well as to her message of female empowerment.

Dolly’s confrontations with men in positions of authority are reminiscent of the 1982 classic film 9 to 5, which she starred in alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. The film exposes the daily harassment faced by women in the workplace as the three female protagonists attempt to overthrow their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” boss, Mr. Hart, with an assortment of elaborate and hilarious schemes. The film, like Dolly herself, was considered by scholars to be too cartoonish to contribute anything substantial to the feminist conversation. But this criticism surely misses the point: Dolly, like the film, is outlandish and ridiculous precisely because the situation in which she finds herself in is even more outlandish and ridiculous than she could ever hope to be. With a gross profit of over 100 million dollars, the film was a huge success. But the song “9 to 5,” written by Dolly for the movie, turned out to be even more iconic, more or less providing a soundtrack for the feminist movement at the time. To this day, “9 to 5” exists as a charitable organisation lobbying for equal pay and fair opportunities for women across America.

However, Dolly’s feminist message extends far beyond the hits; it goes all the way back to her roots as a small-town country singer in Tennessee. Spending her adolescence as one of 12 children living in a one-room cabin in the Smoky Mountains, Dolly used her lyrics to tell the stories of the women she grew up with. Helen Morales goes so far as to call her early albums ‘an insistent witnessing of women’s lives’ in the Dolly Parton’s America podcast series. Her early lyrics ranged from topics such as domestic violence and unintended pregnancy (“The Bridge”) to postnatal depression (“Down from Dover”) to the unwarranted imprisonment of women in mental asylums by their own husbands (“Daddy come and get me”). By giving a voice to the female victims of patriarchal oppression, Dolly was reacting against an entire tradition in country music, the “murder ballad”: songs sung by men describing acts of violence against women. To get some idea of the brutality of this tradition, the song “Knoxville Girl” is a haunting place to start. From a young age, Dolly used her music to challenge the misogynistic traditions in country music and show the world what it meant to be a woman living in poverty in East Tennessee.

Once Dolly found fame and fortune in the mainstream music world, she did not leave this message behind. Her continued dedication to female empowerment can be heard in later songs such as “You Don’t Know Love From Shinola”, “Touch Your Woman” and “The Salt in my Tears”. Her hit song, “Jolene”, is a fascinating (and catchy) reimagination of female relationships in music; whilst Dolly begins the song blaming the other woman for her husband’s infidelity, she quickly becomes enamoured by Jolene’s “flaming locks of auburn hair/ With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green.” The male character is cast into shadow by the vivacious and technicolour relationship between the two women. “Jolene” is a love song focused on the other woman and a complete overhaul of the androcentric tradition in commercially successful breakup songs. 

Having spent the last thousand words painting a picture of Dolly Parton as a feminist icon of popular culture, to stop here would be to tiptoe around the one unavoidable truth about Dolly’s relationship with feminism: she refuses to call herself a feminist. When asked about feminism, several interviewers have reported seeing Dolly physically recoil or scrunch up her nose at the mention of the word. In an interview with Jad Abbumrad for Episode 1 of Dolly Parton’s America, she explains: “I don’t believe in crucifying a whole group just because a few people have made mistakes. To me, the word ‘feminist’ is like, ‘I hate all men.”’ In another interview with Meghan McCain for The View, Dolly sarcastically responds: “Does being feminine makes me a feminist? Does being common make me a communist?” 

These responses could have been taken out of a textbook on feminist myths. If Dolly Parton, the Queen of all things bejewelled and low-cut, buys into them, what hope does the movement have in diffusing a clear message? What’s more, why does Dolly reject feminist terminology when she so clearly accepts, and even represents, its ideology? 

The answers to these questions can be found by looking more closely at the era of feminism that Dolly grew up alongside. Take the movie Steel Magnolias, for example, another staple of feminist cinema in which Dolly starred. The film beautifully depicts female friendship: women working together, offering mutual support and unconditional affection. It is a representation of the ideal of sisterhood that was proposed by the second-wave feminists. But Dolly was never the kind of woman that second-wave feminism was talking about. Whilst her filmography is bursting with movies about women lifting up other women, this is as close as Dolly has ever come to experiencing kinship within the feminist movement. First, she was excluded for being too poor, and then, when she wasn’t poor anymore, for being too feminine. A line said by Dolly’s character in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas sums it up well: “Don’t feel sorry for me. I started out poor, and I worked my way up to outcast.”

Second-wave feminism had a huge problem with class. The movement empowered middle-class educated white suburban women to take up office work and be paid fairly for it. This could not be further away from Dolly’s world as a child, in which ‘work’ meant manual labour in the fields as opposed to part-time secretarial jobs in the city. The women Dolly grew up with and sung about were not being represented by feminists at the time, and so had no reason to even consider labelling themselves as such. Theirs was an experiential as opposed to terminological feminism, a decision made every day to stand up against the proponents of patriarchy out of necessity as opposed to ideology. The legacy of this socio-economic alienation by second-wave feminism persists to this day, as many working-class women are uninterested in labelling themselves feminists since feminism has proven itself uninterested in them.

Talking about her childhood in her biography, Dolly explains that “womanhood was a difficult thing to get a grip on up in those hills unless you were a man”. Growing up in an environment catered specifically to the male, Dolly found herself craving femininity in any which way she could find it: scouring through magazines and newspaper clippings, searching for images of models, clothes, and makeup. Having been surrounded by masculinity throughout her early life, Dolly turned to femininity as a means through which she could define herself as an adult. But in doing so, she exposed herself to a new wave of disapproval from second-wave feminists: she was trashy, a blonde bimbo in a push-up bra, someone not to be taken seriously. At a time when Dolly was clinging to femininity in order to cope in a masculine world, the feminist movement was abandoning femininity entirely. The lyrics of her 1967 song “Dumb Blonde” point out Dolly’s frustration clearly: “Just because I’m blonde, don’t think I’m dumb/ ‘Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool.” Both men and women were guilty of underestimating Dolly because of her appearance, and it is because of this double condemnation that Dolly was left to fend for herself as an artist and as a woman.

Dolly was a third-wave feminist in a second-wave era, but the fact that she has yet to reconcile herself with feminism at the age of 74 suggests that perhaps third-wave feminism has not done enough to distance itself from the homogenising message of its predecessor. Rather than being vilified for rejecting the label “feminist”, Dolly’s rejection should be taken as a wakeup call that the movement must do more to champion intersectionality. Dolly is the un-feminist feminist icon that we desperately need because she reminds us what feminism should not look like and shows us what it should.

Productivity fanatics: A society that’s forgotten to press pause

Eve Bennett
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Productivity fanatics: A society that’s forgotten to press pause

There’s a wonderful irony to the fact that the mediums we turn to so frequently for procrastination are the mediums that shame us the most for doing so. A three-minute scroll through your Twitter feed at the moment is enough to remind you that Isaac Newton’s period of isolation led to his discovery of the theory of gravity, or that William Shakespeare used the plague outbreak of 1606 to pen dazzling works such as King Lear. Your Instagram feed is no better, plastered with cute graphics urging you to ‘Hustle from Home’ and telling you ‘Don’t Count the Days: Make the Days Count!’. Hoping to find some respite, you switch to TikTok, only to be bombarded with hundreds of healthy eating recipes and home workout plans. Having spent the vast majority of the day binge-watching Netflix in bed, you can’t help but feel increasingly aware of the hours and days slipping through your fingers.

This lockdown could be career-defining for a budding writer, revelationary for a researching academic, game-changing for a training athlete… and yet here you are, having spent a month at home with no magnum opus, ground-breaking discovery or personal best to show for it. If you’re anything like myself, this realisation came with a wave of guilt, shame and frustration. But here’s the thing: those feelings are not a result of any failing or intrinsic character flaw on your part, rather they are a toxic by-product of the all-consuming hustle culture that seems to have our entire generation under its thumb. 

We’ve become hooked on the idea that every minute of ‘empty time’ in our lives must be filled with productive activity, that any action not geared toward self-improvement has no value (or even place) in our day-to-day existence. This isn’t even remotely possible to achieve in normal circumstances, and yet as the entire world comes to an enforced standstill, this mindset seems to be tightening its grip more than ever. Whether it’s attending a Zoom meeting whilst working out or learning a new language whilst cooking a healthy dinner, the pressure to ‘get shit done’ is becoming more acute and inescapable by the day. 

I was one of the many who fell into this alluring trap. Stripped of all my usual excuses not to be productive (*cough* the pub *cough*), I initially felt thrilled by the idea of this vast expanse of free time and vowed to use it to do all the things that my social life had ‘held me back’ from doing. I was finally going to lose all the weight I’d gained from eating out every week, take the time to learn Russian, master my favourite Beethoven sonata on the piano, upload to my YouTube channel twice a week, get ahead on my university work… the list went on and on. 

But it turns out that setting that monumental expectation for myself was precisely my biggest mistake. Within days, the sheer number of possibilities had gone from exciting me to crushing me, leaving me overwhelmed to the point of complete inactivity. I was faced with an entirely empty calendar, and yet I am sure that even 8-year-old me was achieving more with her days than I was after a week in lockdown. I found myself paralysed by two very conflicting thoughts, with one voice telling me that ‘I’m never going to have this much free time again, I should use it wisely’, but the other reminding me that  ‘I’m never going to have this much free time again, I should use it to finally relax’. When added to the aforementioned guilt-tripping on my social media, the expectations of my viewers to live up to my reputation as a “Studytuber” and the University’s assumption that the academic year should continue as if nothing had changed, it soon became a very dangerous combination. 

I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than eat, sleep and complete the most basic tasks. The sense of panic that I had fallen behind everyone else was rising, mingled with guilt that I was whiling away so many hours without any meaningful achievements to show for it. So began a vicious cycle of failed productivity and frustration. 

The situation I found myself in seems to be far from uncommon at the moment – friends and family alike have expressed similar concerns as they try, like myself, to clutch desperately at some sense of normality amidst the confusion by ploughing through their to-do lists. But I soon came to a realisation that changed my perspective entirely: nothing about this situation is normal, so what is the point in attempting to continue as if that were the case? We are not lesser beings for failing to thrive under these conditions. If anything, we should be seeing merely surviving as a remarkable achievement. There is simply no logic in expecting ourselves to be hyper-productive machines in the midst of one of the largest crises we will see in our lifetimes.

That’s not to mention the fact that we live in an age that makes productivity a trying task at the best of times. Yes, Shakespeare may have produced some of his best work whilst shut away in his home, but he didn’t have to navigate a constant barrage of online information about the status of the pandemic or battle the temptation of various online sources of entertainment. The same can be said for Newton: the significant intellectual strides he made in quarantine are impressive, but he didn’t have to worry about responding to hundreds of emails from his professors or sitting an entire term of his Cambridge degree remotely.  

Our frantic desire to avoid ‘wasting time’ points to a dangerously backward way of thinking, and it seems to me that hustle culture has distorted our perception of what constitutes ‘meaningful’ activity beyond recognition. If you manage to come out of this period fluent in a foreign language or well-versed in a new topic, that’s fantastic, but if you come out of this having done nothing more than paying attention to your own needs and the needs of the ones you love most, there should be no shame attached to that. There is no right or wrong way to spend the coming weeks and months, nor should there be any benchmark for what constitutes a ‘successful’ pandemic. 

Personally, I’ve found that setting some manageable goals to work toward has been both helpful and grounding, and so I’ve settled for a degree of ‘productivity’ much lower than my normal levels but enough to offer me some structure. Regardless of how you choose to get through this pandemic, however, it is important to remember that the hustling you see on social media is nothing more than a highlight reel. For every fancy desk set-up and 10k jog you see there will be a Netflix binge and a late-night snacking session that you don’t. Practising compassion, avoiding comparison and not expecting consistency in your levels of motivation will all help to alleviate the sense of guilt that hustle culture has hardwired you to feel. 

If one thing’s for certain, it’s that this crisis has exposed a glaring truth to the light of day: the fact is that our priorities as a society are in urgent need of a reset. Rest, relaxation and socialisation aren’t holding us back, rather they are enriching and essential activities that contribute to our wellbeing just as much as any new skill acquired or piece of knowledge gained. Whilst striving for self-improvement should by no means be frowned upon, it should also not be seen as the only way to lead a meaningful existence. 

Productive or not, no-one should be defined by what they achieve during this period of limbo. It seems that in a society that places so much worth on forward progress, we have forgotten how to press pause.

Food waste apps: small difference or meaningful change?

Bridget Stuart
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Food waste apps: small difference or meaningful change?

One-third of all food produced for human consumption globally is wasted and this is problematic for a number of reasons. First, waste almost always ends up rotting in a landfill, where it produces greenhouse gases. Food waste is responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to the ever-worsening state of climate breakdown. Second, this wasted food could otherwise help sustain those living in food poverty. In fact, less than one-quarter of the food wasted in the UK, United States of America and Europe alone, would be enough to feed the world’s 1 billion most hungry. And third, food waste costs money. Annually, global food waste amounts to 1.3 billion tonnes of waste, which amounts to $1 trillion.

One way to help eliminate food waste is the use of food waste apps like Too Good to Go. This app allows food retailers to offer-up any surplus food in ‘magic bags’ at discounted prices. Hungry punters purchase said bags and receive an allocated timeslot in which to collect their food. Since its set-up in 2015, the app has saved 35,921,167 meals from waste globally – which has prevented 89,803 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from being released into the atmosphere. To put this in perspective, this is the same amount of CO2 saved by taking 19.5 cars off the road for one year. So, while this does help, it is not eliminating a lot of waste. Or something like that?

Too good to go is also actually only available in 11 countries. In the UK it is only available in 120 towns and cities. As there are 195 countries in the world and tens of thousands of towns and cities in the UK, this highlights a limit on the widespread influence of the app. Its effectiveness in reducing food waste is further diminished by other factors. You need a smartphone, and one which you can check regularly in order not to miss any available ‘magic bags’. You then need to be able to pick-up your bag during the allocated timeslot. Also, adding any dietary requirements or allergy filters limits your choices further. There is also the risk that you might get food you don’t like, as what’s in the bag is always a surprise.

This perhaps explains why the app is not really that popular. Only 2.8 million, out of 67 million, UK residents use the app. Generalising cynically, these users probably have enough money to buy take-away food anyway, do so regularly and are getting a hot bargain. No-one really seems that fussed about the environmental impact of the packaging involved or any food already in their fridge at home. In fact, the £4 saving on an already over-priced Paul’s cheese and ham croissant might be enticing people to buy food they don’t need.

So, while I can’t dispute the fact that Too Good to Go does help combat food waste, it is nowhere near popular, widespread or efficient enough to make a true difference. 

However, there are other food-waste apps out there. City Harvest and Food Cloud distribute surplus food to the homeless and food-bank charities. Approved Food and Clearance XL let you buy cheap foods online that are past their ‘best before’ date, but not their ‘use by’ date. There is also Olio, which connects you with people in your local area who want to give away their excess food for free! This may be great if you live in London, where there are 50 items within a 5km radius. However, as an adult vegan in the Scottish borders, the only item within walking distance that I could collect was a single pouch of Ella’s Kitchen ‘Spag Bol’ baby food. 

The main issue with these apps is that they address only the tip of the food waste iceberg, as consumers actually only represent 20% of total global food waste. Europe and the Americas are responsible for three-quarters of this consumer waste, so it is important that food waste apps are predominantly used in these countries. However, 64% of all food waste actually occurs during harvest or in subsequent storage, with 50% of this waste occurring in Asia. In Asia and Africa, very little waste occurs at the household, consumer level. These figures highlight a key fact: the main responsibility for dealing with food waste lies with the food and agricultural industries. This means, especially in developing countries, we need more efficient harvesting and better subsequent storage. However, there is still an imperative to address food waste at the consumer and household levels in developed countries.

Food waste apps are good, but only to a small degree. The popularity and widespread influence of food waste apps like Too Good to Go is constrained by many socio-geographical factors, meaning that the power of such apps to reduce food waste and its negative effect on our environment is minimal. These apps also do nothing to combat global food poverty. In the wider scheme of things, consumer waste is only a minor offender and efforts should really be focused on addressing waste at the industrial level of production. 

But it must be said that the apps do genuinely incentivise people to make more conscientious decisions to avoid food waste. This is making a positive contribution, albeit a small one, and is a step in the right direction. However, here’s some solid advice for the individual: make packed lunches, share food, get creative and compost properly. Also, any warm glow you may need from saving food from the bin can be had at the reduced section at the Magdalen Street Tesco’s, 3 p.m. Sunday. 

Public Enemy Number One: Cancel Culture and its Targets

Various contributors
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Public Enemy Number One: Cancel Culture and its Targets

TW: Depression & Suicide

Cancel culture is an unavoidable and complex phenomenon. Whilst ultra-rich and powerful celebrities are somewhat of fan favourite when it comes to online outrage, others are plucked out of relative obscurity. Several individuals have already been placed under intense scrutiny during the COVID-19 crisis, when people are at their most anxious and their most bored. Is it fair to say then, that the public revels in the punishment of a common enemy? You’ve given us your opinions below.

Luke Roberts discusses pseudo-martyrdom during the COVID-19 crisis:

There is a man, N, in my local ‘Covid-19 Mutual Aid Group’, that typifies the country’s general response to the current pandemic: a form of communal self-flagellation, borne out in individual acts of pseudo-martyrdom and witch-hunting. Without doubt, it is a source of intense gratification: a way for the public to entertain itself in moral lust.

N has in the last month turned his righteous gaze on a child playing alone in the park (“do [the parents] really have a clue what we are dealing with… get a grip”), a group of dog-walkers, and finally, in response to a general invitation for the street to come out and sing happy birthday to a man in self-isolation: “No sorry unessential travel but happy bday”. Of course, N’s vitriol may in some instances be justified and well-directed – his various attacks on members of the community, doctors wasting PPE, and the inactivity of the government really do serve to cover all possible ground – but what this response does is obscure complex solutions and practices. Indeed, its aim is not at all to bring an end to the crisis but is instead simply to bathe in a moral certainty that is in normal times unavailable.

Orwell noted (in 1944) that there is a peculiar Englishness in assuming that “against the law” is a synonym for ‘wrong’, so when Boris instructed N to stay at home, his moral code was affirmed to an extent greater than ever before. As has been noted, this is the Boomer’s War: The War They’ve All Been Waiting For. For perhaps the first time, N has a captive audience for his social commentary, and intends to make the most of it: our proto-sadomasochist will inflict his wrath on as many possible, and simultaneously revel in his own enforced suffering.

During an actual war, Sartre noted the indignation amongst those called up (N) towards those shirkers at home (the woman inviting people to celebrate her husband’s birthday). Rather than allowing their outrage to rise to its appropriate target, they turn upon those positioned most like themselves. It is far easier to take aim at the neighbour down the road, partaking of his second walk of the day, than it is to abstract to those in positions of power who did not take the threat seriously and provide our healthcare services with the resources necessary to protect the population. “In this sense, wishing war for their fellows, they’re indeed fit to wage it: they deserve it.”

Obviously, nobody would wish illness upon N, but it is hard to escape the sense that he has earned this opportunity to thrust his moral outrage out into the world. He’s waited a lifetime to demonstrate his uniquely English capacity for self-perceived martyrdom, and who are we to take this perverse pleasure away from him.

Lily Kershaw explains why some are hit harder than others:

Currently, if you have internet access, you are probably more than aware of the existence of public enemy number one, Carole Baskin. From Twitter to Instagram, it’s almost impossible to escape the barrage of memes about ‘that bitch Carole Baskin’, with the Instagram page @carole.baskin.memes, an account with incredibly low quality memes, boasting over 18k followers. As somebody who was introduced to the Carole Baskin hate-train long before I actually watched Tiger King, I initially believed that a woman so widely abhorred must have done something to deserve this response, yet, this global disdain seems to be more complex than it first appeared.

Upon delving into the deluge of hate aimed at the American zookeeper, there appears to be a sense of community around it. Everyone loves to hate Carole Baskin: man or woman; rich or poor; young or old – usual social divisions do not appear to apply. This, of course, is not unique to Baskin’s case, as, often cancel culture allows internet communities to form.

This has been seen countless times; another recent example being the criticism of celebrity responses to lockdown. From Ellen comparing self-isolation in her multi-million-dollar home to prison or Gal Gadot and a host of other celebs singing ‘Imagine’, many have taken to Twitter and other media platforms to share their frustration at these tone-deaf reactions. Hatred has enabled thousands of people to become connected in a world where, thanks to self-isolation, many are feeling more cut-off than ever. It’s easy to unite and feel a sense of community when you have a common enemy.

The reality is that hate is fun, particularly when it’s aimed at a group or an individual who has become abstracted by media attention. When people hate Carole Baskin, they are not hating an individual, they are hating what she has come to represent. It is no coincidence that the only woman to regularly feature in Tiger King is demonised, while Joe Exotic, a man who allegedly kept both of his husbands addicted to substances such as meth and has admitted to shooting some of the tigers in his care, is treated by many as some sort of folk hero. This is not a defence of Baskin, but rather a criticism of cancel culture and the role of the court of public opinion in online communities.

Unfortunately, cancel culture is totally ineffective at its end goal. While today Elon Musk may be cancelled for calling “coronavirus panic […] dumb”, being a billionaire celebrity means that, to some extent, he escapes criticism. When these super-rich celebrities are cancelled, they, for the most part, get over it because they have the wealth and recognition to do so. In contrast, Carole Baskin does not, and, in time, when most people have forgotten who she is, she will be left with nothing but a ruined reputation and no credibility. The true victims of cancel culture are those who are not equipped to deal with fame.

Natalie Vriend points out cancel culture’s biggest flaws:

As I’m sure we’ve all noticed as we’ve watched our screen time slowly creep up into the double digits with dread, being stuck at home for weeks in isolation has driven many of us further than ever before into the wonderful world of the Internet. In lieu of real-life social interaction and with no real way to differentiate between each passing day, watching the lives of celebrities, as so kindly documented for us on their daily livestreams and reality shows on Netflix, can provide some much-needed relief from current everyday life.

Without the excitement of real-life interactions, however, our dependence on the lives of these public figures, not just their shows and podcasts, for primary sources of entertainment has grown an extortionate amount, satisfying our cravings for drama and gossip. The release of the docuseries Tiger King on Netflix perfectly encapsulates that: its core impact on pop culture has been the emergence of memes vilifying Carole Baskin, a woman who has spent decades campaigning against the very animal cruelty that Joe Exotic, who has somehow become a kind of antihero as a result, promotes, due to baseless allegations that she murdered her husband. Rather than focusing on the hugely important moral issue of breeding and selling tigers, the general public, encouraged by their boredom, has chosen to turn Baskin into a public enemy for their own entertainment purposes.

This fits into the wider pattern of cancel culture, a relatively recent trend. What began as a way to give the general public a voice, the power to boycott powerful yet ‘problematic’ people (where ‘problematic’ ranges from homophobic and racist to not having the ‘right receipts’, from present-day to 10 years ago) has quickly become ineffective, as people turn it into a spectator sport for their own entertainment. Tweeting #____isoverparty has essentially become a type of performative outrage, something done for brownie points to make it seem like you care about social justice when really you just want praise and approval.

Not only does this encourage a mob mentality without room for people to grow and redeem themselves, but it means that ‘cancelled’ celebrities rarely face any real long-term repercussions because the public have moved onto their next victim for entertainment. Although Kevin Hart, after being cancelled for a series of homophobic comments, was unable to host the Oscars, less than a year later, his stand-up specials on Netflix were a major success.  

Cancel culture’s evolution into a cathartic release of short-term anger to entertain ourselves has poisoned it. We can’t expect something which functions as both a social justice movement and a means of entertainment for us to be effective. Holding celebrities accountable is important and they deserve to be called out from time to time, but we need to find a way to express our anger in a more reconciliatory way: allowing them to learn and change if possible, without allowing certain behaviours to go unchecked. As for healthier forms of entertainment during the lockdown, maybe go make some banana bread and run 5k.

Elizabeth Bircham looks for voices of reason among the ‘mob’:

COVID-19 has dominated discourse for so long that it seems an age since tributes were pouring out for Caroline Flack. The image of the presenter, who passed away on February 15th, became a mirror in which we were all forced to gaze. Who were we as a society, and what had we done to the vivacious woman who featured in so many of our childhoods? It seemed like a moment of reckoning. Caroline’s ordeal was perhaps just as much about tabloids and courts as it was about Twitter – there is never a simple reason for suicide – but it was on social media that soul-searching took place, and here where the promise to “Be Kind” emerged. Here, we hoped, there could be redemption.

If anyone had been looking for a sign this promise was void, Sam Smith’s trial by Twitter was perhaps it. Little over a month after Caroline’s death, the singer had posted photos of themselves during “stages of a quarantine meltdown”, and social media retaliated. Responses ranged from the purely vitriolic (“name a worse person on this terrible planet than Sam Smith”) to those criticising Smith for behaving in such a way inside a £12m mansion whilst others risked their lives on the front line. Public punishments were abolished in most US states by the 1800s, but now, in March 2020, Smith found themselves in the virtual stocks.

The “Twitter mob” trope has now found its way into common parlance. There were indeed users carrying pitchforks – some ablaze with misogyny and homophobia- as they called for Flack and Smith to be destroyed. However, not all of the so-called “mob” were mindless trolls. Whilst Smith’s post was seemingly made in jest, it was rather blind to their own privilege. Many angry Twitter users were key workers understandably upset by their tastelessness. Meanwhile, Flack had been accused of a serious crime, and people took the opportunity to remind others that domestic violence is gender-neutral; after all, movements like “Me Too” have much to thank in social media. Is it wrong to ask for accountability?

The problem is that both reasonable and extreme comments will be made in any mass discussion, and Twitter exposes the object to all of them, throwing proportionality out of the window. It is revealing in itself that analogies can be drawn between the treatment of Flack and Smith, given the drastic difference in what they were accused of. It is a reminder that in the Twitter court, there is no due process. Furthermore, we might question our outrage at celebrities on Twitter when the societies we live in fail to hold our most powerful leaders to the same standard. Of course, this does not mean we should stop holding anyone to account; it has never been more important to do so. However, there is something odd about a society that “cancels” people for less than we put others in power for, and whilst both practices continue, there is something democratically adrift. ​

A City Without Music?

Mila Ottevanger
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A City Without Music?

When you walk down Holywell Street on your way to ATS, you may not know it, but you’re walking past the world’s oldest purpose-built concert hall. The Holywell Music Room, built-in 1748, helped to popularise the music of Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who was crucial in the development of the chamber music played within the walls of the concert hall. George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) played there himself. The Sheldonian, now used for both concerts and drama, was built as a separate venue for matriculation and graduation. It saw the performance of Handel’s Athalia, to celebrate the commencement of the colleges. Now music as diverse as Mahler’s Ninth Symphony to Cowley’s own indie band Stornoway have performed there. Here we can also enjoy many performances by the musical groups associated with the University, keeping orchestral music alive—and cheap for students too!

Perhaps one of Oxford’s most celebrated musical exports is Radiohead, though they really met at school in the Abingdon area. However, they performed at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford, leading to their signing by the managers they retain to this day. Radiohead have developed their sound over the years, from 1993’s ‘Nirvana-lite’ Pablo Honey, through to 2000’s electronic, haunting Kid A, and into 2016’s stripped back, piano-accompanied A Moon Shaped Pool. That same school also produced some members of the band Foals, and the other members were incidentally in a cult math rock band called The Edmund Fitzgerald—also from Oxford. You could say that the city has produced several great rock bands.

However, here’s the problem. The jump from Haydn to Radiohead cannot really be bridged by any significant composers from Oxford. Handel and Haydn were never even ours in the first place, but German (then British) and Austrian respectively. Perhaps this is symptomatic of the relative dearth of major composers in Britain during this period.

It might instead be productive to look to those who propelled day-to-day musical life at Oxford. There is Philip Hayes (1738-97), organist at New, Magdalen and St John’s. Prior to any of these composers were John Taverner (1490-1545), organist and choirmaster at Christchurch, and Daniel Purcell (1664-1717), the prolific younger brother of the more famous Henry, and organist at Magdalen. Certainly, Oxford’s college choirs are a significant legacy, spawning recordings and concerts. Yet a leap from Haydn to the late 19th century is fairly easy to make nationwide, with the Germans in 1904 calling us ‘Das Land ohne Musik’ (‘The land without music). Is this particularly representative?

Honestly, it’s not too harsh—if not completely fair. Some of the most famous composers of the day (if not necessarily our time) actually studied at Oxford. John Stainer (1840-1901) was the youngest ever successful Bachelor of Music at Oxford and eventually the Heather Professor of Music. During his lifetime, he was hugely popular, with his oratorio The Crucifixion still performed today. Hubert Parry, who set William Blake’s poem ‘Jerusalem’ to music in 1902, attended Exeter College, though he studied law and history; this is an iconic and internationally known piece. Though not an Oxford student, the real breakthrough in English music came with Edward Elgar, particularly with his internationally recognised, continentally inspired Enigma Variations (1899). Oxford then offered up George Butterworth, a friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), and who set fellow Oxford alumnus A.E. Housman’s poems from ‘A Shropshire Lad’ to music, but he was sadly killed in action in 1916. In 1923, Christ Church’s William Walton, another prodigy and young entrant to Oxford, performed his relentlessly modernist Façade, which set Edith Sitwell’s poetry to music as it was spoken through a megaphone; in 1931 he composed his Belshazzar’s Feast. British music of the 20th century was not exactly propelled by Oxonians, however: Vaughan Williams went to Cambridge, Elgar had no formal musical education, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) studied under Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music, and Michael Tippett (1905-1998) studied there too.

Nevertheless, Oxford has produced several successful and well-respected composers and bands, and also renowned college choirs and organists. Its relative dearth of composers from the mid 18th to late 19th centuries echoes that of the country at large: a city without much music in a country without much either. Oxford has plenty of venues, from the O2 Academy to the Jacqueline du Pré Room, and there exists a thriving musical scene today. We’re lucky to live in a place with such easy access to the music of the past and present, and yet Oxford isn’t exactly the most iconic musical city in the country either. At the same time, our city occupies a noteworthy place in English musical history: a city ‘mit Musik’.

The Star Wars Prequels: Too Easily Dismissed?

Sarah Lewis
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The Star Wars Prequels: Too Easily Dismissed?

These days, with nowhere to go and no-one to see, movie-watching is as good a way as any to pass the time: suddenly a film with a two hour plus runtime doesn’t seem so bad. This isolation period also provides a chance to consider movies independent of the opinions of others, to sit quietly and critically reflect in new ways. It could mean revisiting old classics that we haven’t watched in a while.

But for me, this took the form of revisiting the Star Wars prequels. 

These days, liking the prequels isn’t the controversial crime it once was. In fact, many people admit to enjoying and even respecting what they bring to the saga. But in general, and historically, they have received their fair share of animosity. I wasn’t introduced to Star Wars by my parents, so I avoided the fate of being raised with a prequel-hating mentality. I’ve always had a soft spot for Revenge of the Sith in particular, perhaps because I’d been so invested in Darth Vader’s character in the original trilogy. This would be my first time revisiting the prequels after the release of The Rise of Skywalker last year, which I enjoyed to the extent I did mostly due to the instant liking I took to Kylo Ren. But in revisiting the prequels, I was reminded that it was Anakin Skywalker who was really the origin of such a complex and emotionally fraught character.

Anakin exhibits tragic flaws found in the best of Shakespeare’s heroes: ambition, pride, arrogance and obsessive love. The prequels trilogy also depicts the classic tragic fall from happiness to misery, with a sense of fatalistic inevitability characteristic of the best tragedies; all the more so when the audience experiences the original trilogy beforehand. Anakin’s fall to the dark side is a foregone conclusion, simply because these are prequels.

But whilst admiring the narrative maturity, fault can still admittedly be found with the execution. Overused and outdated special effects, moments of stale acting and a pod race scene in The Phantom Menace that seems to last a lifetime all help to justify the hate that the prequels receive. Even I can admit that they get better as they progress.

Despite some faults however, I do find cinematic credibility in these films. The death of Anakin’s mother in Attack of the Clones is genuinely moving, more so because it catalyses Anakin’s journey down an irreversible and tragic path of violence that leads him to the dark side. It also serves as a reminder that the Star Wars films succeed when they’re about family – a universal theme that grounds and defines the fantasy.

Across all three movies I always love the way Darth Vader’s recognisable anthem creeps into the soundtrack as Anakin moves progressively closer to the dark side. This often marks moments of poignant foreboding, beginning with prophetic mentions of Anakin’s great power, and the potential danger he could pose to the Jedi. It is largely accepted that the trilogy improves as it develops, with Revenge of the Sith redeeming much of the damage done by the previous two instalments. It contains some of the best lines, and the climactic moments of Anakin’s tragic fall.

When Anakin and Obi Wan fight Count Dooku in Revenge of the Sith, and Anakin claims his powers have doubled since they last met, to which the Count responds: “Twice the pride, double the fall”. Such a line echoes Milton’s Paradise Lost, where Anakin resembles the prideful Satan, with a fall from grace to match. 

The political uncertainty that has been brewing over the preceding two movies finally reaches a tipping point in Episode III. Every moment of Palpatine’s rise to power is a lesson in the pernicious danger of dictatorships and the fragility of democracy. As Padmé watches Palpatine create the Empire, she comments: “So this is how liberty dies – with thunderous applause”. Such a line is cutting, and endlessly topical.

But it’s not all politics and tragedy – after all the Star Wars films are meant to be fun. And the prequels are fun, featuring arguably some of the best lightsaber battles of the saga, the usual droid antics, and the humorous dynamic between Anakin and the long-suffering Obi Wan. All of this serves to lighten the mood within the wider tragic arc of the narrative.

Concluding with the re-homing of Luke and Leia with their new adoptive parents, Episode III succinctly harkens back to the original trilogy – a filling in of the gaps replicated with similar effectiveness in Rogue One. With the final shot of Tatooine’s sunset, we feel safe in the knowledge that the Jedi will return. 

So if not quite a masterpiece, I find the prequel trilogy to be a moving and poignant addition to the saga – and well worth a fresh viewing for those who aren’t too quick to dismiss them.

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