Malala Yousafzai, a third-year PPE
student at Lady Margaret Hall, is one
of the 20 global activists to sign an
“unprecedented” open letter.
The letter was launched as part of
Project Everyone centred around the
UN’s global goals. Published with the
climate crisis in mind, the open letter
marks the first time in history that
activists fighting for global causes
have been united by one single voice.
This follows two scientific reports
which have emphasised how far off
track we are to achieving the SDG’s
by the 2030 deadline, and to tackle
the climate crisis.
The Global Sustainable Development Report warns that progress made over the last two decades is “in danger of being reversed through worsening social inequalities and potentially irreversible declines in the natural environment.”
Other people to sign the letter
include the human rights activists
Nadia Murad, Obiageli Ezekwesili
and Raull Santiago.
The open letter has also been supported by a network of 2000 advocates across the arts, business and philanthropy, high-profile supporters, including Richard Curtis, Emma Watson, Olivia Colman and Stephen Fry.
Project Everyone, devised by
Richard Curtis, seeks to put the
power of communications behind
the Sustainable Development Goals.
According to their website, their
“mission is to accelerate progress
towards a fairer world by 2030, where
extreme poverty has been eradicated, climate change is properly addressed, and injustice and inequality are unacceptable.”
The open letter says: “We have 10
years to save the future of our people
and our planet. So, we begin this new
decade by writing to you with great
urgency. We represent different
issues, but today, for the first time,
we come together with one united
voice to support the Global Goals
for Sustainable Development – the
definitive plan to make us the first
generation to end extreme poverty,
to conquer inequality and injustice,
and to fix the climate crisis.
“We have seen our climate heating up and natural disasters increasing. We look on with sadness as thousands of species become extinct. We watch in horror as children suffer without vital food, healthcare and education – and as refugees are forced to flee their homes. We despair as women and girls continue to suffer inequality and violence. But, despite these terrors, we still dare to hope that 2020 is the year when you will have the courage to act decisively. To kick off a historic Decade of Action, for all of us.
“Five years ago, at the United Nations, 193 countries signed up to the Global Goals. They were your promise to our world. Today we are demanding: keep your promises. We are watching you. Not just a few of us, hundreds, thousands, millions of us. And more every day. We are watching like hawks. We will fight like tigers ourselves. Will you join us?”
The Oxford University Iranian Society held a vigil for the victims of the Tehran plane crash, which occurred earlier this month.
On the 19th January, a week after the “shocking and beyond devastating” incident, students and habitants of Oxford alike gathered at Tirah Memorial, Bonn Square in commemoration of the 176 passengers who lost their lives.
Joining Toronto, London, Cam-
bridge and many more, Oxford
University lit a candle for those
that lost their lives in a “misplaced
war”, as SCR member of St Antony’s
College, Yassamine Mather deemed
it. Having attended a vigil in Cam-
bridge, mirroring that of Oxford, Mrs
Mather mentioned her own personal
loss in the tragedy, “a school mate
older than me.”
Shedding light on the geopolitical aspect, Mrs Mather, who conducts research in the Middle East Centre at Oxford University, said it was “the attempt to hide the truth” that sparked people’s anger, in the initial days after the crash. This follows from the Iranian government shutting down the internet in response to uprisings caused by increasing petrol prices in November. Though they are not the same situation, Mrs Mather did factor this shut-down as a contributor to “even more exaggerated news”, as individuals could not rely on technology to inform themselves, and were faced with a blank gap in their knowledge. A gap that could not reliably be filled by state media.
Pointing towards the many “bots” (robots) found in social media to push forward propaganda, Mrs Mather touched upon internet platforms encouraging one-dimensional impressions of a nuanced situation. The “islands of strongly opinionated people” living within their own “echo-chamber” of views becomes all the more dangerous in such circumstances. The deep emotional trauma of such loss, as Iranians have recently felt, along with the deliberate pushing of agendas, have created a highly charged atmosphere in an already very emotionally volatile situation.
Mrs Mather marked how “both sides (those against and for the Iranian government)…used natural human sorrow for their own interest”. The distance between those connected by the loss diminishes in her eyes, as she commented that “I couldn’t tell”, whether those tweeting and retweeting certain messages in the initial days after the crash were inside or outside Iran. The messages, no matter their location, came from the same motivations.
Looking forward, Mrs Mather
conveys the instability of neutrality,
flagging Trump’s impeachment as a
key factor in the progress or decline
of Iranian-American relations.
Mrs Mather noted that, from her impression, there was “nothing dramatic that was said” by most world leaders, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the fore. This shows a possible counter to the aspects of instability that may be at play. In a political tussle that changes “every hour”, Mrs Mather speaks of it with a wariness of individual motivators driving national action.
Last Thursday at the Théâtre du Châtalet in Paris, the fashion world came together to celebrate the career of iconic French designer Jean Paul Gaultier. Once described as the enfant terrible of fashion, a name he has since embraced (take a look at his twitter bio), Gaultier has left quite a mark on the industry in which he worked for 50 years, infusing haute couture with his trademark kitschy playfulness and an eagerness to challenge the norm. In the 80s, he gave us La Marinière, the nautical-look that became hugely significant to his brand; in 1990, he designed the cone bra worn by Madonna on her ‘Blonde Ambition’ world tour; in 2011 he was one of the first designers to use plus-size models on the catwalk. With his androgynous designs and emphasis on the female form, including an attempt to reinvent the corset as a symbol of empowerment, the designer’s contribution to the fashion world has been immense, and his campy self-aware style will surely be missed at fashion weeks of the future.
Gaultier’s decision to
retire from the world of haute couture fashion is surprising, though – at 67,
he still seems to be at the top of his game and as relevant as ever, something
that was demonstrated by the star-studded spectacle of his final show last week.
Although he’s announced that he’ll still be working on his best-selling perfume
line, it initially seems odd that a designer like Gaultier, with his reputation
of pushing boundaries and taking risks, would take a step back now, precisely
when the fashion world should be undergoing a radical upheaval in light of
growing public concern about the impacts of fast fashion. Surely, instead of
retiring from the fray, Gaultier should be one of the designers leading the
charge in this readjustment of the fashion industry?
But maybe his retirement is exactly that. On a note to every guest at
his final show, the designer expressed an awareness of how out-of-touch the
industry is with the changing cultural climate surrounding fashion as a
whole. He wrote that ‘fashion has to change. There are too many
clothes, and too many clothes that are useless. Do not throw them away, recycle
them!’ While this may seem hypocritical coming from someone who, for 50 years,
was actively part of the world that churned out ‘too many clothes’ four times a
year, it’s a sentiment that can be reflected by the entirely-upcycled collection
he presented at the show. As part of his farewell announcement on twitter last
week, Gaultier assured fans that ‘Haute Couture will continue with a new
concept’, teasing that it’s not the last the fashion world has seen of its
so-called bad boy. And maybe, hopefully, in light of his comments regarding the
“waste” of excess clothes, environmentalism is at the forefront of this new idea.
So what will this “new concept” entail? I, for one, sincerely hope that Gaultier pioneers a vision for haute couture that is in tune with the public desire for eco-friendly fashion, so that the industry can continue to thrive and innovate without causing such large-scale damage to the environment. The concept of sustainable fashion shows no sign of drifting from the public consciousness, as “fads” tend to do, and designers are scrabbling to keep up. Having someone as experimental and beloved by the public as Gaultier as a trailblazer for a new haute couture that fits our drive towards sustainability would be truly remarkable, and might even redefine the industry for good.
As a child, ballet lessons made me wince in pain, but two-and-a-half hours of The English National Ballet’s The Nutcracker passed in the blink of an eye, without even a grimace on the dancer’s behalf.
Wayne Eagling’s
rendition of The Nutcracker for the
English National Ballet, performed at The London Coliseum from the eleventh of
December to the fifth of January 2019, was a wonderful watch with which to end
the year.
Whilst a Monday
Matinee performance left me wanting to repeat the unspoken codes of theatre
etiquette – turn off your phone, silence the kids, and don’t spill your jelly-bean
snacks down my back – it would have taken a series of sizeable distractions to
divert my attention away from the stage during this performance.
Based on the
popular children’s story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker and The Mouse-King (1816), The Nutcracker ballet has undergone many adaptations since its debut
showing in St. Petersburg in 1892. The ballet is now a mainstay of the English
National Ballet’s repertoire and is frequently displayed upon the billboards of
English theatres, such as those of the Royal Opera Theatre and The London
Coliseum. However, the first British performance by the Vic-Well’s Ballet in
1934 was based upon choreographic notes smuggled from Russia. It would be too
strong a statement to suggest that I am eternally grateful for this act of
plagiarism for any intellectual reason, but this cultural staple is certainly
entertaining, if not wildly thought-provoking.
The English
National Ballet team were right to make this an aesthetic spectacle. Costume
design began in 2010 and a decade later the four hundred costumes belonging to the
production are embellished with ten thousand donated Swarovski crystals and,
true of some tutus, include up to sixteen layers of material. The set-design is
comparably ornate. The setting of the grand-hall is revealed after a long delay
spent watching the skating-rink at the façade of the house, or limiting one’s
view to a small wooden cut-out of Clara’s bedroom, which is lit by a spotlight front
stage-right. However, the hall, lined with silk curtains, occupied by troupes
of dancers, and filling the stage-space, becomes only the more impressive as a
result of a wait to see inside. (It is worth noting that I felt Clara’s bedroom
to be unfairly small given the dimensions of the rest of the house).
An extended
battle-scene serves as an example of an attempt to foreground the darker,
more-profound aspects of a tale about a traditional, snowy Christmas. For me, a
battle of ballet-steps, punctuated by gun-shots, and fought between toy
soldiers and rats, lacked impact. Having said that, the marching of the soldiers
in canon was impeccably timed and, again, an appreciation of technical skill
was forefront in my mind. The tinkling of the Celesta (a piano-like instrument
mimicking the sound of glass bells) best fitted scenes which included the
light-footed snowflakes and sugar-plum fairies, rather than revelling rodents. With
his last score, Tchaikovsky is said to have ‘stooped low’ to represent the mind
of a child in a ballet without serious intent. However, it is in this spirit of
play that the elements of The Nutcracker combine
to form a true masterpiece.
The second act,
first introduced by George Kirsta and described as an ongoing ‘encore’ by my mum,
was the most enjoyable for its abandonment of narrative. Making plot subsidiary
to the dynamic movements of various ‘divertissements’ and being permitted to
enjoy the spectacle for spectacle’s sake was all that I had been waiting for. As
a lover of salsa, the splicing in of ‘Spanish’ ballet provided my favourite
moment.
The nutcracker
should be produced in the same spirit of fun embraced by its writers and
composer, rather than with the burdening sense of needing to add serious themes
to justify a weighty, cultural heritage.
All that
remains is to thank my sister for gifting me a third of her birthday present in
the shape of a ticket and to recommend a fun-motivated viewing of The Nutcracker without hesitation.
Whether it’s due to a lack of sunlight that no SAD lamp can remedy, the post-December comedown, or the onslaught of Hilary term collections – the start of the year tends to be the saddest part. The cold walks home post-library are no longer illuminated by Christmas lights, rather the dim glow of your cracked phone screen as you go to shuffle the ‘Sadgirl Sunday’ playlist that’s been on heavy rotation for longer than you care to remember.
Whilst it’s not a phenomenon unique to this time of year by any means, the so-called ‘January Blues’ highlights our ever-present tendency to listen to sad music. It’s something that transcends both genre and age – whether we like to admit it or not, we have all taken comfort in a sad song at some point in our lives. Listening to songs that reflect our mood seems to be one of the most accepted ways to deal with whatever it is that we’re going through: the lucrative market for break-up music speaks for itself.
Why is it that we are drawn to music that often only exacerbates the way we’re feeling? Affectionately termed the ‘Sadness Paradox’ by music psychologists, this is a phenomenon that seems to deviate from the trend of normal mood-driven listening patterns. In the heights of summer we’re drawn to light and airy melodies that sound like they’re straight off the Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging soundtrack, and when we finally get around to using that neglected Buzz Gym membership we go for the power anthems that make you want to spin up a storm. The point being that usually, we tend to listen to music as a way to control our emotions, shaping them in the way that best serves us in any given scenario.
If emotional regulation is about providing the means to feel a desired emotion, why then do we choose to listen to sad music? Sadness in itself is not a typically desirable emotion, or at least not in the same way that happiness or motivation are. The Sadness Paradox asks this: why then do we willingly enable ourselves to feel sad, especially if we are already feeling those emotions?
Perhaps the aim of the music we listen to isn’t to change our emotions, rather to mirror them in a way that we can relate to. ‘Relatable’ has become something of a pop culture buzzword at this point, but it’s become that way for a reason. Turn to visual media: the success of TV shows like Sex Education and films like Booksmart owe a great deal of their success (alongside being brilliant) to their relatability factor. People see themselves in characters like Otis, Maeve, Amy and Molly, and as a result, watch their stories unfold and grow emotional attachments to their fictional lives. In the same way, we might be able to explain our attachment to sad music by its relatability factor – stories told through song may resemble something familiar to us, and by listening we feel like somebody gets it.
Turning to the roaring successes of ‘sad girls’ in music illustrates this clearly. The last few years have seen Lorde’s Melodrama, Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! and FKA twigs’ MAGDALENE take the number one spots on various charts worldwide – all known for their devastatingly heartrending anthems. Whilst the lavish life of Hollywood glamour Del Rey thematically presents may not be accessible for the vast majority, the way in which she talks of heartbreak will resonate with anybody who’s experienced being let down in love: “Do you want me, or do you not?/I heard one thing, now I’m hearing another.”
This is evident even more so in the lyricism of Lorde; aged just 23 she manages to tell stories in a way that richly captures the full spectrum of what life can throw at you, in good times and in bad. In ‘Liability’, she paints a vivid scene of going home “into the arms of the girl that I love/The only love I haven’t screwed up”, which she later reveals to be herself, coated in gorgeous yet heart-wrenching metaphor. This is followed by the refrain: “They say, ‘You’re a little much for me/You’re a Liability/You’re a little much for me.’”, which is only amplified further by the second verse, “The truth is, I am a toy that people enjoy/‘Til all of the tricks don’t work anymore/And then they are bored of me.”
Songs that describe sadness with such vivid imagery give the listener a metaphorical gut-punch of emotion, and it’s exactly this that we are drawn to. Hearing how you’re feeling articulated through song, even if painful, is comforting. Whether it’s due to the relief of knowing you’re not alone in feeling what you’re feeling, or having someone describe something that you didn’t even realise you were feeling. Either way, there’s a sadistic but justified enjoyment in accompanying a Sunday night cry with the Lordes and the Lana Del Reys of the music world.
The dangers of romanticising sadness are very real, but the social identity of the ‘sadgirl’ is not concerned with doing this. Rather, sad songs provide solace and a way of communicating emotion in an accessible way. The phenomenon of the ‘Sadgirl Sunday’ is not about wallowing but about confronting sadness and being open about what might be going on. There’s no shame in being open and honest about your feelings, and sad music exists to reinforce this. If they can sing about it for the world to hear, you can get through it.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of Pippi Longstocking’s arrival at Villa Villekulla. In her first appearance Astrid Lindgren’s eponymous heroine fascinates her neighbours, Tommy and Annika. As they watch her through a hole in the fence, they’re enchanted by her wild red hair and even wilder life. Pippi is a true eccentric. She has superhuman strength, keeps a suitcase of gold coins and, as a result of a life spent at sea, is comically unaware of basic manners. Unlike her new friends, she never goes to school and in the place of parents, she lives with a pet monkey and a horse. Over the course of three books, Tommy and Annika follow her on a series of adventures, bringing generations of children with them.
Originally conceived as a get-well present for her young daughter, Lindgren’s stories capture the unique atmosphere of childhood fantasy. As a pirate lover from a young age, the third book, Pippi in the South Seas, has always been my personal favourite.At night I’d lie in bed and pretend I was on a raft that would take me away to a tropical island. I don’t remember when I first encountered Pippi Longstocking, but once I had I was obsessed. I dressed as her for every fancy dress party. Wearing odd socks and dungarees with my pipe cleaners in my plaited hair, I felt safe in the knowledge that I had the coolest costume. I spent a large part of my childhood trying to copy her with limited success. Once I tried to sleep with my feet on the pillow just as she claims to do. As it turns it turned out, it isn’t very comfortable.
Fortunately, I’m not alone in my admiration. Pippi Longstocking has fans from all over the world She’s featured in live-action films, animations, adverts, tv shows and even on Swedish 20 kronor note. Since their publication in 1945, Lindgren’s books have never been out of print. It’s not hard to see why they’ve endured for so long. They’re filled with a sense of joy that few other children’s authors have managed to replicate. Yet despite their outlandish nature, Pippi makes for a good role model, albeit an unlikely one. She’s a compulsive liar who doesn’t go to school, can’t read and laughs in the face of adult authority. But at the heart of her character lies an unwavering sense of optimism, strength and self-assurance.
Perhaps some of these traits came from her creator. Throughout her life, Astrid Lindgren campaigned for various human rights causes and became something of a national icon in her home country of Sweden. Her outspoken nature and feminism are easy to spot in her iconic heroine. In one story she declares that though she has freckles, she doesn’t “suffer from them” as an advert in a shop window suggests she might. In another, she’s warned against fighting “the strongest man in the world” at a circus. She simply replies that he may be the strongest man “but I am the strongest girl in the world, remember that.”
Her self-confidence is highlighted in almost everything she does and has served as an inspiration for children of all genders. At eight years old she represented everything I wished I was: funny, strong, fearless and independent. I had three separate editions of Lindgren’s stories that I read obsessively. Nowadays they sit dog-eared in a prime position of my bookshelf and I still find myself returning to them. A few sentences in and I’m hooked again, as if I haven’t aged a day.
Even when I am most in need of time to myself, I still crave company. Nora Ephron’s characters, from jolly, larger than life Julia Child in Julie and Julia, to the grieving, endearing, and altogether perfect father Sam Baldwin in Sleepless in Seattle, are the perfect confidantes. The late director was adept at understanding people. Without close attention to her work, it’s easy to dismiss her movies as quirky romantic comedies, with a few famous scenes. Yet this quirk, this cleverness, has a deeper impact than one might first expect. Thanks to Ephron’s ingenious screenplays and heartwarming style, these films challenge genre conventions and work to mend our hearts. And true self care is, after all, tending to your emotional wounds, speaking to your inner child and reigniting a romance with the world. Luckily, good film lets us do this.
What places these films a cut above other romantic comedies or dramas is how they encompass something idealistic and grounded at the same time. In You’ve Got Mail Kathleen Kelly may be on the verge of meeting her true love (Tom Hanks, for the second time!) and living in the cutest part of New York you’ll never see, but she still faces real struggles as her small book shop loses business to a major franchise and comes to terms with the loss of a parent. Nora Ephron once said, “everything is copy”, meaning everything that happens to you is fair game to write about. Her screenplays are built on characters, conversations and observations that feel real and honest. Ephron brings a warmth and cosiness to everything she writes about, while bravely exploring the most profound feelings of love, loss and friendship head on.
An absolute classic, which frequently appears on Top 10 Romances and 100 Best Films list, When Harry Met Sally (1989)is perhaps the most critically acclaimed of Ephron’s work. With Ephron’s reliable leading lady, Meg Ryan, and the unconventional male heart throb Billy Crystal, the film explores the age-old question: can men and women just be friends? The film does not find an easy answer when, in the middle of a flurry of back-talking, the protagonists pause and switch to making out. Instead, the structure of the film takes its time to bring these characters together, tracking their relationship over the course of a decade. Over the years, they experience each other’s heartbreak (Harry is still pained by his divorce while Sally recognises she’s too happy-go-lucky in her attitude), and navigate mundanity too, like moving apartments. The growth of these characters and their relationship doesn’t just make you hope they get together; you need them to get together. The film serves as a reminder that love is not limited to an American high school or some grand romantic gesture, often at a wedding, but that it can be unexpected, slow burning and understated. It’s worth noting too, from an extra-narrative perspective, that originally, Harry and Sally were not meant to end up together. However, director Rob Reiner (you might remember him as Jordan Belfort’s dad in Wolf of Wall Street) actually met his wife during production, reshaping his outlook on love, and changing the ending forever.
Another equally witty, though perhaps under-celebrated film, is Ephron’s 1998 Hanks-Ryan reunion, You’ve Got Mail. Given today’s fixation with online dating , and the success of apps like Tinder and Hinge, You’ve Got Mail, a story of a couple engaged in an online romance whilst unwittingly engaged in a business rivalry as well, is surprisingly relevant, even 20 years later. Ephron is brilliant at making stifling, fast-paced New York feel like a cosy village. There is something so personal in the quirky children’s bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly, and when the film passes through December, it looks so festive and inviting, the whole thing could be classed as a Christmas film. Yet once again, the purposeful dialogue makes this film something special. Its humour and truthfulness bring the characters to life. When Kathleen Kelly says how she wishes she could say the exact thing she wanted in the right moment, and then finally nails a cutting response to her rival Joe Fox, her meanness becomes the worst feeling in the world. It’s a prime example of an insightful facet of human character, lightly offered to the audience but not dwelt on too long, allowing the characters to make mistakes, grow and be human.
Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia (credit: REX USA)
As a light-hearted biopic with enough food porn that it just might inspire you to actually cook rather than order in, Ephron’s final film in 2009, Julie & Julia, deserves a special recommendation., Though the movie was made years after her more successful Meg Ryan romps, it retains the unmistakable wit and charm of her earlier work. This film is not interested in two characters falling in love but in a parallel exploration of two women’s struggle to reinvent their lives and turn passion into ambition. Meryl Streep offers an excellent portrayal of the American chef Julia Child, while Amy Adams sympathetically depicts a woman in the present day, working a stressful office job, but finding a new lease on life through cooking.
Not only is Ephron a wonderful film maker, she is also a multiskilled playwright, journalist, author and activist. Her personal life, career and death are tenderly explored by her son’s documentary, Everything Is Copy (2015), which is certainly worth a watch. If you can’t get enough of these films so far, some alternative, expert, unconventional romances include: Moonstruck (1987), perhaps the only film where Nicholas Cage was truly hot, Chocolat (2000), another one for the foodies, and Bull Durham (1988), a movie often seen as just a baseball film, where Susan Sarandon and Kevin Costner’s relationship ends up taking centre stage.
I’m not saying that Ephron’s films are something to compete with big blockbuster dramas (although she was nominated for Best Screenplay at the Oscars three times) but she is outstanding in her own field. Ephron’s films are both believable and make you want to believe. Fall in love with love again! With cooking or bookstores! With Seattle, New York or wherever Ephron chooses as her setting! With friends and friendship or just underrated, ingenious moving making. While self care is an increasingly difficult concept for young people to embrace and truly master, putting a film on is not so hard.
Gatis and Moffat’s revamp (sorry)
initially feels like a breath of fresh air, dusting away the cobwebs of a much,
possibly over-adapted late-Victorian tone. Their decision to camp-up an overworked
story, littering it with labyrinthine castles, stylized gore, and a smattering
of puns, manages to limit the sense of treading old ground, and the script
makes the most of its audience’s foreknowledge, turning it into an article of
fun. The narrative structure plays into this as well, presenting the first two
episodes within a frame narrative – the first with Agatha van Helsing (Dolly
Wells) interrogating Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan), working out the cause of
his mysterious illness after visiting Dracula (Claes Bang), and the second also
with Agatha, this time interrogating Dracula himself, working out what happened
on his sea voyage from Transylvania to England. This sense of narrated-ness
manages to allay the fact that, realistically, we all know what’s going to
happen, and salvages a compelling sense of suspense.
The
overall effect of this attempt to camp-up Dracula,
however, is ultimately to code Dracula as more explicitly queer – I say more
explicitly, because in Stoker’s novel Dracula is already quite clearly
presented as an ominous non-het non-European invader bent on corrupting
England’s unsuspecting gentlefolk. Gatis and Moffat’s version of the count is
repeatedly sexualized, over and over and over ad nauseam, despite Moffat’s insistence that he’s ‘bihomicidal,’
not ‘bisexual’ (honestly, this is what he said). Dracula is transformed into an
urbane, witty, Oscar Wilde-esque aristocrat, forever punning on his (explicitly
sexualized) appetites, and the reliance on queer tropes in this
re-characterization is unmissable. The task of Agatha, the sparky and cynical
nun working to “neutralize” Dracula’s “threat,” thus implicitly becomes one of
policing queer desire, protecting the nice heterosexual characters Dracula
attempts to “infect.”
The
result is a narrative of containment, othering, and demonization. The first
episode’s medicalized frame is, from the outset, related to sexual “contagion”:
in the opening scene, a withered, deathly Harker is asked directly if he ‘had
sexual intercourse with Count Dracula’ – the narrative logic here is clearly
that of an AIDs narrative. The second episode subsequently becomes one of
outing, as the ship’s passengers try and work out who’s killing everyone off –
compounded with the only overtly queer subplot, in which Lord Ruthven (Patrick Walshe
McBride), recently married as a cover for his relationship with his valet
(Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), cosies up to Dracula on discovering he’s a vampire,
hoping they’ll become ‘partners’ and helping him to kill off further passengers.
The danger, in each of these episodes, is queerness, framed as an invasive,
infectious, intrinsically violent and deceitful presence. The queer characters gang
up on the poor innocent straight people, and horror ensues. Which is underlined
by the miniseries’ repeated reliance on a linguistic logic of “bestiality,”
uncovering the “monster” beneath Dracula’s smooth, aristocratic “veneer.” What’s
being reproduced here is, unmistakably, biphobia. Dracula can “pass,” but his
ravenous (sexual) appetite prevents him from doing so.
All
of this comes to a head in the final episode, which plonks Dracula 123 years in
the future in a conspicuously hospitable present-day England. Clearly we’ve
reached the crux of Gatis and Moffat’s efforts: the series’ gradually-dwindling
campness is now dropped in favour of an atmosphere of forced sincerity – now
they’ve got your attention, Gatis and Moffat have Something To Say.
Sadly/predictably, this takes the form of a boomer’s wet dream,
paint-by-numbers, sixth-form-poet-esque critique of contemporary society’s
sexual mores, and it’s just as problematic (and boring) as it sounds. Dracula’s
now on Tinder. His victims, such as party-loving Lucy Westenra (Lydia West),
now freely offer themselves up to the count – gleefully portraying
sex-positivity as perverse, in what is possibly one of the most grossly
misogynistic plot arcs in contemporary television (I can’t formulate content
warnings to cover what Gatis and Moffat do to her, so I won’t describe it; rest
assured, it’s revolting). After being briefly imprisoned at the Harker
Foundation established by a fleeing Mina Murray (Morfydd Clark) from the first
episode, Dracula escapes after asserting his “rights” through a lawyer he meets
on the internet, as Gatis and Moffat take a not-so-subtle dig at rights
discourse (LGBTQ+ and otherwise). And the forces ranged against Dracula
(unintentionally) become caricaturishly puritanical: Jack Seward (Matthew
Beard), mopingly “friendzoned” junior doctor pining for Lucy who only has eyes
for Dracula (she doesn’t owe him shit, Moffat, move on), teams up with Zoe
Helsing (also Dolly Wells), descendant of Agatha manically searching for
Dracula’s key weakness. Why’s he afraid of sunlight, and crosses, and mirrors, she
(and Agatha) repeatedly ask? These characters are hateful in the extreme particularly
because Gatis and Moffat so clearly want us to take their mind-numbingly dull
side. And in a queerphobic denouement par
excellence, Zoe works it all out: Dracula’s ashamed of himself. He can’t
bear spiritual introspection (the cross), or to be seen (sunlight), or to see
himself (mirrors). The show’s queer-coded antagonist has been motivated,
throughout, by self-loathing.
Seriously. You
couldn’t make it up.
And I think
that’s fundamentally the problem here. Initially we were promised a camp,
tongue-in-cheek adaptation, laying bare what we now see as the ridiculousness
of Stoker’s narrative and its entrenched queerphobia, vamping it up into a
neo-Victorian horror-opera. But the final result is more an uncritical
reproduction of Stoker’s queerphobic narratives, rather than a melodramatized
distancing. Gatis and Moffat are, in a sense, being too faithful in their modernization. They’re not making anything
up. Which all begs the question – what did we expect? Moffat is notorious for
his gleeful queerbaiting (Sherlock)
and appalling representation of women (Doctor
Who), focalized through a weird nostalgic appreciation of, or even desire
for, a lost Victorian past. This is what Moffat does. We shouldn’t have hoped
for more.
Based on Christine Leunens’ Caging Skies, Jojo Rabbit is a very different kind of war film to Sam Mendes’ 1917, advertised just moments before. The brainchild of director Taika Waititi, who also tops the bill as Adolf Hitler, Jojo Rabbit leaves you genuinely unsure whether to laugh, shudder or cry, lurching so unexpectedly from humour to despair that it’s difficult to define altogether. And that’s a good thing.
Johannes ‘Jojo’ Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is a ten-year-old Fuhrer superfan who’s not quite evil enough for the Hitler Youth, despite being best friends with Hitler – in his head, anyway. An act of defiance, spurred on by Hitler, goes horribly wrong, leaving Jojo to deliver the mail while his able-bodied peers prepare to become German soldiers under the single watchful eye of Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) and his stooge, Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson), a kind of Nazi version of Rebel Wilson.
Jojo’s faith remains unshaken, until he discovers that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) has been sheltering a Jewish girl, Elsa, in their loft. Knowing that the local Gestapo will be after his mum if he snitches, Jojo, who dreams about slaying Jews, comes to an agreement with the girl living in the walls. And he’s perplexed: she’s not the fire-breathing monster he’d expected, and she seems rather nice. Nor is he a Nazi, Elsa tells him. She’s right: he’s a typical ten-year-old boy who wants to be a part of something, even if that means believing in all kinds of ludicrous rubbish.
How can Jojo learn to live with Elsa when it goes against everything he’s been taught by his politics and his imaginary friend? And will he listen when Elsa tries to persuade him that Jewish people are just like everyone else – scared, tired of war, desperate to be reunited with their families? This is the denouement of war presented through the naivety of a child, one shattered by the realities of conflict. Just as Jojo’s understanding of the world, drilled into him by doctrine and an unthinking desire to belong, is brought tumbling down by Elsa, so the slick facade of Nazi rule rapidly disintegrates as the Allies lay ruin to the city. The film’s final scene is startling but brilliant, capturing the confusion that war has brought to Jojo and Elsa’s lives and their search for a way to cope.
Waititi’s cartoonish Hitler plays a less prominent role than expected. Above all, this is the story of Jojo and Elsa. As for Hitler, his creeping progression from buffoonish imaginary pal to the spitting, flailing despot we recognize from those grainy newsreels is reflective of Jojo’s enlightenment. Even in moments of dark comedy, Jojo Rabbit says something important about the catastrophe of fascism – for those who blindly followed it, and those who fought against it. As Allied tanks roll in, Fraulein Rahm has taken to arming children with bazookas, before she charges into the carnage herself. There’s room for humour even as Germany falls, but it’s never insensitive. I don’t think it’s meant to be a comedy. Rather, it’s meant to be discordant. It was a time when nothing quite made sense, nobody quite knew what to believe any more.
It’s got a touch of TheDeath of Stalin about it but, to me, the comedic element serves to emphasize the tragedy of Germans caught up in the fatherland’s collapse. At first, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or recoil. The initial Hitler Youth scenes verge on a Horrible Histories sketch, an almost patronising Nazi best hits compilation, replete with book burning, abundant heils and some truly preposterous antisemitism. It’s so in-your-face, so unsubtle, it makes you wince. It’s easy to see why the film divides critics. Is it ever right to satirise something so grotesque, so devastatingly inhuman, so wrong? You soon realise that if you’re laughing, you’re not laughing because the Nazis are funny. No, you’re laughing because they don’t realise how ridiculous they are. Waititi wants to remind us that fascism is totally absurd. Jojo Rabbit sets out to laugh in the face of Nazism and blind, idiotic racial hatred, while never underplaying its devastating impact on its millions of victims.
It’s an odd film, but war is odd – and so is fascism. Jojo Rabbit manages to ridicule the Nazi cult of personality, while powerfully underlining its murderous reality. It’s a delicate balance to strike but I think Waititi just about manages it, helped by standout performances from Davis and Johansson. And in a world where there are children not far off Jojo’s age flaunting their ‘alt-right’ credentials across the internet, I think there’s something important that we can learn from this film.
Space Operatic Dullness by Mattie Donovan, “The Critic”
When this new trilogy of Star Wars films began back in 2015, there was a charming sense of nostalgia and goodwill among fans of the franchise. The Force Awakens was indulgent and silly yet a winning opening chapter – it may have felt like a dialled-up rehash of A New Hope, but it was also a piece of cinematic renewal that you couldn’t help getting on board with. New lead characters Rey, Poe and Finn were not fully formed, but were well on their way to having realised arcs centred around the time-old Star Wars themes of fate, binary morality and the pull of parental legacies. Hell, they even serviceably bumped off series veteran Harrison Ford, with one last hurrah for Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon . The baton felt well and truly passed on.
The Rise of Skywalker attempts to circumvent 2017’s divisive follow up The Last Jedi, serving more as a soft reboot to the franchise rather than a definitive saga closer. The result is a turgid mess, devoid of thematic exploration but rife with the window dressing of a 42-year-old franchise that feels its age.
We enter in spectacular media res to this new story, with the opening crawl informing us that Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is alive and has been orchestrating things from behind the scenes, raising his forces to form the Final Order, a slightly less Nazified but just as drab Starfleet designed to quell the Resistance. All the while, newly appointed Supreme Leader Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) consolidates the power of the Empire and forges his own path. Such revelations are shrugged off with clinical ruthlessness by returning Force Awakens director JJ Abrams- what would have once made the meat of a whole other film is now mercilessly condensed into a prologue that is keen to move on.
But move on to what exactly? The first act is beyond expositional, delivered more like a sequence of bizarre PS4 cutscenes, detailing Rey (an admittedly more assured Daisy Ridley) and co’s travels to new galactic hinterlands in search of this doo dad or that one, all in the name of locating the Emperor for the final showdown. Previously prophetic or fun worldbuilding now feels tired and strangely unearned. Revelations such as Rey’s parentage, previously put to bed by TLJ director Rian Johnson, are recklessly revived here by Abrams and co-scriptwriter Chris Terrio, in a confused attempt to establish new stakes.
This confusion extends to the ensemble cast, many of whom don’t serve a clear purpose in the story.. Billy Dee Williams’ iconic Lando Calrissian, seen sporting his cape centrally in the trailers, is sadly a non-entity, while relative newcomer Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) is only given lines of nondescript urgency in the film’s muddled climax. A saving grace can be found in the handling of the untimely passing of Carrie Fisher; while noticeable to the attentive viewer, the stitching together of previously unused footage allowed for a fitting swansong to be given to General Leia. It’s just a shame that such a sense of earned finality does not extend to the wider saga.
Kylo Ren, forever the black sheep of this trilogy, is arguably the best served here. Trading in his dark side broodiness for something more conflictual, Driver gives Kylo Ren much belated elements of pathos and resignation that were previously unseen in his interactions with Rey. While the thematic duality of their relationship has never been more on the nose, Ridley and Driver have been able to make their conversations, if not their lightsaber duels, maintain a degree of sorely needed intrigue.
John William’s updated score never disappoints, but it also feels like the only way of rousing emotional sentiment in this final instalment. In lieu of meaningful character moments, The Rise of Skywalker opts for technically impressive but empty spectacle. It is a misguided attempt by Abrams to replicate what he packaged so well with the Force Awakens: nostalgia. But such nostalgia has a rapid half life the first time around, let alone when you are attempting to conclude two previous films’ conflicting visions for your heroes’ . It’s serviceable as a lightsaber duelling blockbuster, but given the sort of space opera Star Wars promises to offer, it’s painstakingly dull and uninspired.
Our critics agree: Adam Driver’s performance as Kylo Ren has been one of the few true highlights of the trilogy. credit: Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Hope Wins, Kinda bySamuel Lapham, “The Diehard”
It’s safe to say that the audience response to this latest Star Wars trilogy has been tepid at best. The Force Awakens played it remarkably safe, and The Last Jedi divided opinions for its mistreatment of Luke and Snoke, as well as the planetary separation of the three main characters.As the trilogy’s finale,, The Rise of Skywalker had nothing short of a momentous responsibility. Not only was it tasked with wrapping up the entire Star Wars saga, but it faced an arguably even greater challenge in attempting to steer this trilogy into a direction that felt clear and cohesive, something sorely lacking in the previous two instalments. As a result, it becomes difficult to determine whether The Rise of Skywalker underwhelms at an individual narrative level, or suffers because of the disjointed entries preceding it. But even despite its faults, Abrams teaches us that hope prevails in a galaxy far far away.
It’s no spoiler that a large part of the film’s marketing has been centered around the return of Emperor Palpatine, but because his arrival has not been anticipated or teased across the trilogy, his revival feels hollow. Moreover, it undermines Vader’s ultimate triumph over evil in the original trilogy. The decision feels less like an organic story development and more like a last ditch attempt to regenerate fan interest, which wouldn’t have been the issue that it is had Palpatine been utilised to better effect. Instead, his screen time is a compilation of snarls and taunts, lingering in the shadows without ever feeling relevant or essential to the story. To make matters worse, the revelation of a shoehorned personal connection between Palpatine and one of the main characters seems designed to evoke dramatic shock, but feels unearned.
The other major gripe is the pace at which the film moves. We never linger on a scene for more than the time it takes that scene to practically serve the narrative, and so characters aren’t given time to grow and develop. One lengthy subplot in particular, involving a meandering quest for an artefact that will enable our heroes to find the Emperor, could have been sacrificed in favor of much needed character development. Abrams does attempt to give each character their moments of self-discovery throughout the runtime, but again, this feels like a last ditch effort to create empathy before it’s all over.
Yet, as unnecessarily convoluted as the plot is, it thrives when the characters are allowed to breathe. One of the best things to come out of The Last Jedi was the strangely intimate force connection between Kylo and Rey, and The Rise of Skywalker capitalises on their complicated relationship. When the film grounds itself in the duo’s moral ambiguities, it delivers. And credit where credit is due, Adam Driver has remained the only real constant anchoring these films.
Technically speaking, amid speeder chases and space battles, the spectacle that steals the show is undoubtedly the magnificent lightsaber duel on the wreckage of the second Death Star. Shot against the backdrop of a tidal storm, the scene reminds us of the phenomenal choreography that pitted Anakin against Obi Wan in the prequels – Contrasting the fires of Mustafar, Kylo and Rey’s final battle is set against a riotous tempest.
Rife with nostalgia, fan surprises and contrived stakes, the film still contains scenes destined to ignite smiles. Star Wars has always been about the colossal binary of light and dark, and the ability of seemingly ordinary people to conquer temptation. Though the Rise of Skywalker perhaps tries to do too much while lacking a solid foundation, it undeniably stays true to the roots of the saga.
The lightsaber duel between Rey and Kylo Ren on the wreckage of the Death Star was a stand out spectacle for many fans. credit: Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Déjà vu in a Galaxy Far, Far Away by William Atkinson, “The Holdout”
Readers, I’ve disappointed my Mum in many ways down the years: I’ve forgotten Mother’s Days, I’ve failed to tidy my room, and I even did History at Oxford as an embarrassing teenage rebellion against a Mum who studied it at Cambridge. But there has been no area, no zone of motherly concern where I have let her down more spectacularly than in my lack of interest in Star Wars. I’ve really tried my best. I’ve watched the films, played the Lego video game and even got plastic lightsabers for Christmas. But to a lady who grew up queuing around the block to see The Empire Strikes Back, a mother who has cried at all the various sort-of and actual deaths of Han Solo, my stubborn refusal to be enthusiastic about a galaxy far, far away is pretty much the best reason she has for disinheriting me.
In my defence I believe I have a good excuse. I’m prepared for the backlash, but ladies and gentlemen, I find Star Wars a bit boring. The films mostly have the same plot; they’re as predictable as Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs. The good guys win, the bad guys lose, and a planet-destroying Space MacGuffin gets blown up. Rian Johnson tried to do it somewhat differently with The Last Jedi , but his attempts at reinvention were immediately opposed and reviled by the Jedi neckbeards of the Twittersphere. Thus the plot developments of TLJ are almost entirely ignored by this year’s entry, The Rise of Skywalker. Instead of something vaguely original, we get another couple of hours of the same repetitive and unoriginal fan-pleasing tedium.
The film is sadly formulaic. The plot, essentially, is that Ian McDiarmid’s Evil Emperor is back (with almost no explanation, since he’s there for fan service) and is after our hero, Daisy Ridley’s Rey. Ridley has come a long way since The Force Awakens. There, her performance had a range of about two different facial expressions, but now she has blossomed as a talent. It’s mainly down to her and her co-stars, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac, that the film is marginally more entertaining than it has any right to be.
Our plucky heroes are up against Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. He stomps about a bit, is often a bit cross, and has a series of repetitive conversations with Rey. Whereas in The Last Jedi these were laced with sexual tension and the potential for Rey to go over to the Dark Side, here they are as immemorable as Christ Church hall food. Being a Star Wars film, this all eventually sets up a final act – via a series of planets inhabited by forgettable characters, one note aliens and continuity references – which involves the destruction of a planet-destroying weapon and the battle for the Ultimate Triumph of Good Over EvilTM.
Despite The Rise of Skywalker’s total unoriginality, it could have mustered up some more entertainment if it hadn’t felt like the stakes were lower than a school sports day. Characters die for all of five minutes; scenes are sold as big emotional moments and then rendered pointless by a reversal a few scenes later. By the end I was laughing at the latest shlocky twist or obvious fake-out. Everything you expect to happen happens. Whereas Rian Johnson was audacious enough to do something shocking and different, J.J. Abrams has repeated his trick from The Force Awakens and reheated all the old tropes in a fan-friendly package. For someone indifferent about the whole saga, it’s not infuriating or disappointing – just dull.
I hope I’m not coming across as a party-pooper. For two hours of mindless entertainment, The Rise of Skywalker is still perfectly decent entertainment. For those who’ve grown up loving it, I’m sure the film will leave them with a smile on their faces: it certainly did for the bunch of Star Wars-loving mates I saw it with. So maybe I’m just an old cynic. But if Star Wars fans can be satisfied by this monotonous, brain-dead and stale slice of fan fiction, then I’m glad I’m not one of them.
