Remember the 2015 Met Gala, when Rihanna wore that yellow dress, the fifty-five-pound empress’s cape which fluttered across the red carpet and left the Wintour congregation starry-eyed? Or perhaps you know of the domed golden gown, the Da Jing, that featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts’ ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ exhibit. Well, this embroidered regal whirlpool pulsating with heritage and artisanship leaves one name on the lips of every onlooker: Guo Pei. Yet, despite her designs being shown at Paris Fashion Week, her creative army of 300 embroiderers and 200 designers in mainland China, and the generous spread of awards in her workshop, Rose Studio, Pei has had to overcome definite hurdles.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Pei recalls an international media interview that she gave twenty years ago, and how she was told not to introduce herself as a Chinese designer but ‘just a designer’. When she showcased her work alongside Chanel and Dior at Paris Fashion Week, she was only the second Chinese artist to do so. She also tells the Journal that while she was growing up around the time of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, fashion designers were thought to be seamstresses in China, and that ‘no-one knew that clothes were supposed to be designed’.
Meanwhile, Pei has just showcased one of her most captivating collections: Fall 2019 ‘Alternate Universe’. Magically spun from a sustainable pineapple hemp fabric, the show doesn’t fail to show typical Pei opulence, with creations such as the Siamese-twin Marie Antoinette dress and the final piece, the sunburst flower-wall dress, which took seven years to complete.
We can see that in the face of adversity, Pei continues to flourish. Talking about the flurry of omelet memes of Rihanna’s dress, for instance, she smiles at the Wall Street Journal camera and laughs, glowing with admiration at ‘how these people can be so creative’. Essential to her work is preserving Chinese heritage; her embroidery has a strong link with the past Chinese royal family. To Pei, the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage is akin to blood lineage, and the strength of this reflection in her work is why she will only continue to power forward in the fashion world.
Green lights and West Egg parties are often the first things that spring to mind when you think of the ‘roaring 20s’. Fitzgerald’s beautiful and damned depictions of American life in that decade have swept through popular culture, imposing an image of decadent parties and luxurious life onto a period that is, as usual, infinitely more complex than it appears. The “années folles” are packed with stories of change, protest, and empowerment; as a decade they fundamentally altered the way in which wider audiences engage with media and paved the way for radical cultural shifts. As we enter a decade in which culture is set to be governed by activism and protest in the face of right-wing populism and the climate crisis, perhaps it is worth meditating on the lesser-known faces of Fitzgerald’s ‘Jazz Age’, through the eyes of one of his most well-known characters.
If Nick had driven into
Manhattan one day, taking the right turns, he might have found himself in the
eye of a creative storm. Jazz clubs would spring up around him, filled with
artists, musicians, and poets. He would be in Harlem at the zenith of its
renaissance. Of course, as a white man in the 1920s, I suspect his reaction
would fall short of the awe we would feel in his place, but that doesn’t change
the significance of this cultural explosion.
The Harlem Renaissance saw
the experimentation and development of almost every facet of African-American
culture: music, dance, theatre, prose, poetry, and the visual arts all boomed.
Artists working just miles from Gatsby’s orchestras were changing the face of
American music, as jazz artists made waves on the musical scene. Spend long
enough in one of the many jazz clubs and Nick might have found himself face to
face with Billy Holliday or Louis Armstrong at the start of their careers. But
this renaissance was more than just artistic: art was starting to find its
voice as a method of activism in an extremely oppressed community.
In his 1926 essay ‘The Negro and the Racial Mountain’, Hughes offers a powerful insight into the internal politics of the Harlem Renaissance. He laments the focus on pleasing the white community that, he argued, was a fundamental issue in previous artistic production. Nick might have been shocked to read Hughes’ poem ‘Remember’, in which he encourages the reader to “Go to the highest hill / And look down upon the town / Where you are yet a slave.’
The Harlem Renaissance did a great deal to emancipate African-American art from white constriction, and in doing so provided fertile ground for radical ideas, both artistic and political. Through figures like Hughes ideas rooted in pride were beginning to gain traction: some of the loudest roars of the 1920s came from separatists like Marcus Garvey and W.E.B du Bois.
If, however, Nick were to
look even closer at the clientele of some of the smaller speakeasies in Harlem,
he might have made a discovery that would have shocked him. Harlem was already
home to a nascent drag community, alongside a host of artists and patrons whose
sexuality and gender were seen in a much more fluid light. The Harlem
Renaissance gave performers like Gladys Bentley, a legendary Harlem singer, a
moment in the sun that would not be available to them again for a long time.
Saying that the 1920s were
free often suggests the freedom to cheat on one’s spouse or go out to a party
and drive home drunk. But the 1920s were artistically free outside of these
spheres as well. Surrealism saw artists break with traditional from in poetry
and art, while jazz became increasingly unrestrained by the rules that were
supposed to govern music. As we have seen above, sexuality and gender were
‘freer’ in this period, as were women like Josephine Baker and Mae West who
capitalised on their beauty and sexuality in a way that wouldn’t have been
possible years earlier.
So why are we constantly
confronted with this idealised depiction of America in the 1920s when the
alternatives are, frankly, far more interesting? ‘The Great Gatsby’, which
received poor reviews on publication, was given out to soldiers in WW2. Since
then it has enjoyed its status as a contender for the ‘Great American Novel’,
and fundamentally informed our image of the 1920s through its multiple
retellings. Popular culture seems to have latched on to a glittering mirage of
opulence and freedom in America, erasing any alternative narratives as it went.
The 1920s were more than parties and affairs. They were more than the straight, white, American image that has been created around them by popular culture. Culturally, it was important both in itself and as a springboard for other critical movements, whether it was civil rights or state oppression. Of course, no one could paint a picture of any decade in the space of an article, indeed it’s clear that that task is impossible in the space of a novel. However, the further we are distanced from the decade, the easier it is to reduce it to a single face. This makes it easier for us to conceive the decade without involving ourselves with its complexity, but it erases people from the narrative. Harlem is simply an important example of omission; the same process has erased artists across the world from the popular conception of the roaring 20s.
Is it time to wave radio goodbye in the
2020s? Broadcasting audio across the airwaves seems antiquated. Do we not live in
a world of virtual reality and TikTok videos, our eyes continuously glued to a
screen? The 2020s are going to be hard on radio. All the secular trends are
moving against it, are they not?
In fact, radio consumption is still high
today. According to the industry research body RAJAR, radio reaches 88% of the
UK population in a given week. The average daily listening time is also high at
2.5 hours. What bodes well for radio is that these numbers have only budged
slightly over the past five years. According to consultancy Deloitte, it is actually
TV consumption that is dwindling, decreasing three times faster than radio.
So, how is radio consumed? It is usually
listened to in cars and in the home. We are all very familiar with radio
playing during commutes or while tending to the chores at home. It is a diverse
medium. We sing along, barely notice it playing in the background or are
intensely focussed on the analysis and discussion it provides.
And radio is not just an old habit that dies
hard. There have been remarkable recent successes in radio broadcasting. The
Financial Times ran a fascinating feature on how LBC has grown its audience
from 1.2m to 2.6m weekly listeners over the past five years. It has achieved
this remarkable feat by tapping into the contentious debates of our times and engaging
with its listeners along the way.
Radio’s ongoing strength, however, should
not be overinterpreted. It will be reshaped – and indeed it already is – by the
same fundamental trends that have reshaped the TV landscape. Listeners and viewers
increasingly discover that they need not be bound by the schedule and
programming of their local broadcasters. Accessing streaming services opens up
a world of variety, and the flexibility it provides will eat into traditional
radio’s market.
The question is not whether video has
killed the radio star. On-demand content is making traditional programming
redundant. Both video and audio as media will thrive, it is the way we consume them
that is going to change.
Streaming services have already taken over
our music libraries. As they get better at implementing discovery and radio
features, they provide for a much more tailored listening experiences than most
traditional radio stations can offer.
As the technology we use to consume these
will be more seamless, people will start trading their FM for their own
programming. ‘Smart technology’ such as voice activated speakers, headphones
and home technology and the integration of internet into cars will do their
part.
But it is podcasts that I am personally
most bullish on. Podcasts have been gaining traction for a while now and the
2010s have seen the medium go mainstream. We have seen blockbusters such as the
‘Serial’ podcast or the New York Times’ ‘The Daily’ that draw in millions of
listeners. At the same time, podcasting remains creative and quirky with much
content coming from talented independent creators.
However, professionalization seems to be underway. Spotify, the Swedish streaming company, has vowed to double down on the medium. It has redesigned its app to feature podcasts prominently next to music. The company sees itself as transitioning to being an ‘all-audio company’. And it is putting its money where its mouth is. In 2019 alone, it has spent 400m USD on acquiring three podcasting houses. A smart business move, me thinks. The medium fills a gap. It democratises access to quality content and connects creators with consumers. It is repeating with radio what streaming did to TV.
It’s December 2019, and temperatures lie below freezing in the North. As I sit cosily sipping hot cocoa in front of the fire, Breaking News flashes onto the TV. Today’s headlines are, as usual, tediously bleak; half a million Whirlpool washing machines have been recalled, National Rail ticket prices have increased yet again, and Boris is making plans for Brexit. Yet, the fourth headline is the bleakest of all: Australia is ablaze.
After the
hottest year on record, accompanied by continuous drought and relentless bush
fires since September, Australia is currently seeing some of the worst impacts
of climate change. Whilst its highest historical temperature still remains at
50.7 degrees, as recorded in January 1960, in early December north-west
Victoria saw over a week of plus-forty degrees Celsius, and Australia’s
north-eastern coastal areas were hardly any better. Needless to say, the inland
‘bush’ quickly became a lost cause.
It seems odd to
me that such climate crises can still be advertised as Breaking News. In a
world which has well-understood the issue of climate change since the 1960s,
after sixty years it is painful, in fact excruciating, that there is no better
method of informing the public. Yet, the media, alongside its ‘Breaking News’,
presents the climate crisis exactly as it is viewed by the majority; as a
short-term, solvable dilemma, only in need of a few quick-fire solutions and
there’s the job done. Dusted. Business as usual, collect your pay-cheque.
However, as the
likes of Extinction Rebellion force us to focus less on the word ‘climate’ and
more on ‘crisis’, it has become increasingly clear that the global reactionary
approach to the climate crisis desperately needs to evolve. We have no time to
sit and mourn the collapse of a single ice cap or, more brutally, the death of
a few Arctic polar bears; we are now facing a human crisis, with human impacts.
To stop large-scale death and destruction in the world’s poorest areas, we must
act now.
This is no
Breaking News, and I won’t pretend that anything I’ve said so far is
revolutionary. Yet, such realisations must prompt action, not only within the
respective frameworks of individual and governmental action, but also within
the framework of the media. The year 2019 saw a tidal-wave of over 170 global
media outlets, such as The Guardian, CBS News and The Huffington Post,
all agreeing to the ‘Covering Climate Now’ pledge to actively cover climate
crisis-related incidents.
Whilst this
pledge was only intended as a week-long agreement surrounding the September UN Climate Action
Summit in New York, the majority of media outlets involved have kept this
initiative as part of their framework, with The Guardian taking their
role in public engagement with climate change particularly seriously.
Yet, even in the year
following the apocalyptic prophecies of Extinction Rebellion’s co-founder Roger
Hallam, both public and governmental engagement with the climate crisis is far
from where it needs to be. At this stage, the majority of us have heard
enough to understand the unrivalled level of suffering that is about to ensue,
and we know enough about the crippling complications climate change
could bring. The issue is, rather, that we cannot see.
To my disheartenment, a
quick Google search of the words ‘climate change’ will bring up an influx in
imagery of falling ice-caps, desiccated and desertified land, and raw-boned
polar bears. The worst of climate-crisis visuals will merely display an image of
the globe, perhaps half-inundated with fire, or even simply fill-coloured red. A
number of charred chimneys appear, a few wildfires, and a lone burning tree.
Whilst none of these images
could be termed factually inaccurate, the unfortunate truth is that current
climate visuals are not only unsatisfactory in conveying the urgency of this
crisis, but they are also dangerously far from reality. With a recent
prediction of 529,000 adult deaths by 2050 due to climate-change related food
shortages alone, we will not only be mourning the struggling polar bears, or
the dying endemic species of Kangaroo Island. We will be mourning human loss of
life, resulting from some of the most inhumane suffering the world has ever
seen.
Hence, current climate imagery is vastly inadequate. By
presenting such soft, ‘family-friendly’ and western-specific visuals, media
platforms are not only diluting the reality of climate change, but they also
run the risk of reducing support. In a world where two of the largest
polluter-nations are governed by climate-deniers, Australia’s Scott Morrison
and America’s Donald Trump, the G7 countries are already on a slippery slope.
As one of the wealthiest and most resource-rich nations in the world, with a great power to implement mitigation and
adaptation methods, we cannot risk such a dampening of the climate narrative.
Media platforms must provide imagery which matches, or even exceeds, the
aggressive and urgent tone of Extinction Rebellion.
The Guardian newspaper were, in a bold yet
heroic decision, the first to realise and implement such a change. In October
2019, journalist Fiona Shields published a piece explaining the need for such
fresh imagery, which begins by stating, ‘we want to ensure that the images we
publish accurately and appropriately convey the climate crisis we face.’
Accompanying this piece were numerous vaguely distressing images, including one
of a Portuguese villager shouting for help as a wildfire approaches, one of a
man and his child wearing smog-masks in Waltan, and another of a young boy
drinking water in a toxic slag-heap in Zambia.
Yet, scrolling further through the article, a number of
surprising images appeared. In a rather wholesome feature, a father pushed his
son on a slow-sled in the Cotswolds, and a woman played with her dog in the
snow of Moscow. Other visuals included a ram-packed Bournemouth beach on a bank
holiday, slightly more suggestive of the traditional, tabloid representation of
global-warming we have seen before.
I could not possibly deny that climate change will increase
the frequency of extreme weather events, such as heavier snowfalls in the winter
and soaring temperatures in the summer. Such phenomena are already occurring;
Cambridge University Botanical Garden recorded a temperature of 38.7 degrees-Celsius
in 2019, beating the highest-temperature record set in Southampton in 1976. To
deny such a reality would be to argue against scientific fact. Furthermore, I
could not deny that some of these altered weather events may be, well,
enjoyable. For the fortunate few escaping the suffering caused by drought,
wildfire and flooding, I’m certain a hot day at the beach would be more than welcomed.
Yet, in the UK, where compulsory Climate Change Education
was only enforced in 2008, I wonder whether such positive climate imagery is
useful. It is safe to say that the majority of our nation do not recognise the
term thermal expansion, nor understand the complex feedback mechanisms of
greenhouse gases such as methane. Without a basic education of climate change,
how could readers of The Guardian possibly understand that a happy image
of a boy playing in the thick snow is supposed to represent emergency, and
indeed crisis? By confusingly paralleling images of deadly destruction with
those of happy childhood experiences, we run the risk of further alienating the
masses away from supporting the climate crisis. Even Donald Trump, the most
powerful politician of our current world, seems to believe that the increased
frequency of cold weather events is grounds for global-warming and climate denial.
Despite the positive changes made by media organisations
such as The Guardian, we are still far from realistic, honest climate
representation. To expose the true reality of climate change via the means of
visual representation, we need to first of all recognise, and be held accountable
for, our own historical actions. Whilst Britain may not currently be the
largest polluter, it unequivocally led the industrial revolution of the 18th
century, which caused a 260% rise in conglomerate greenhouse gases, as recorded
in 2012.
The UK have, in fact, pledged net-zero carbon emissions by
2050, but we are still far off this target. With the likes of Boris Johnson
leading our country, such a task may be even more challenging still. Although
British climate imagery has often depicted smoking chimneys reminiscent of our
industrial days, such an admittance is not enough; we must depict and accept
responsibility for the deaths and suffering that have been caused by our
pollution, not only during the era of the Industrial Revolution itself but
within our modern world. Such an acceptance cannot be conveyed by polar-bear,
glacial-melt imagery.
Yet, the question still remains as to whether more brutal
imagery will successfully stimulate climate action. The success of the Band Aid
& ‘Feed the World’ campaign fills me with a sense of optimism; despite utilising
highly distressing imagery of the Ethiopian famine, the campaign raised over
£127 million in 1984, and increased widespread awareness of an issue that had
previously received little support. As the world will see 1.7 times more demand
for food by 2050 due to uncontrollable population expansion, it is not
unrealistic to say that food security will soon be threatened across every
continent. With this reality in mind, we should not limit ourselves to images
of desertified land, failed crop harvests and biblical swarms of locusts; like
the Band Aid campaign, climate crisis imagery is well within its right to illustrate
human suffering, famine, or even death. Dark and drastic as this may be, it
could be the only answer to saving our planet before its own self-combustion.
As those sitting at home watching Live Aid picked up the phone to donate in
1985, perhaps such heavy imagery may be a wake-up call to our modern viewers
today. The brutal reality is that the majority of us don’t give a fig about
polar bears or ice caps; people care about people.
However, rebranding the imagery of climate change cannot
solely be focussed on imagery of death and destruction, the implications of
climate change are much more complex than that. In 2018, the UN recognised
climate change as a driver of migration for the first time, when citizens of
the Pacific island Kiribati fled their homes due to flooding. Migration will,
in fact, be one of the most significant consequences of climate change. With
the strengthening of El Niño and La Niña events, and the increased frequency of
‘freak’ weather increasingly making more areas of the world’s land inhabitable,
the influx of climate migrants will inevitably multiply year-by-year.
Even some of the world’s wealthiest countries such as
Australia, which is still being ravaged by bushfires, do not have the resources
to cope with this impending migration crisis. When depicting climate change in
the media, we are once again well within our right to depict imagery of migrants,
borders, and migrant detention centres. Again, these are all realistic results
of the climate crisis, and, to combat this crisis effectively, we need to
accept these realities as soon as possible.
I have only skimmed the surface of the brutal realities that
the climate crisis will bring with it, and, thanks to the compulsory inclusion
of climate change within school curricula since 2008, I am sure most of you
reading this will be well aware of this fact. I am hopeful, in fact confident,
you will all agree that the time is now for climate rebranding. With the
urgency and immediacy of this crisis, we can no longer play it safe with pretty
polar bears and imposing ice caps. To ensure greenhouse gases do not exceed the
1.5 degree ‘tipping point’, we need both a governmental and individual
wake-up-call to action, and such action needs to happen now. In accordance with the immediate
nature of the crisis, we require not only aggressive words in the media, but
also urgent and aggressive climate visuals. The narrative can no longer be one
of delay; at this point, any delay is costing not only livelihoods but lives,
and the survival of the human race needs to be our priority.
‘Army confidence lasts a lifetime’. This seems to be a perfectly innocuous slogan. You could even call it inspiring. But look further and the British Army’s latest recruitment campaign has a sinister undercurrent.
The Army’s new posters and adverts have been designed to target a very specific market: young people lacking in confidence. From gym addicts to the overweight, from binge-drinkers to beauty obsessives, the army is calling out to a generation crippled with insecurities. They promise liberation from ephemeral and ultimately detrimental sources of validation. The army offers the panacea for your contemporary struggles. The army will give you confidence for life.
Or so they would have you believe. In fact, the Army has not even tried to disguise that this campaign is a calculated psychological attack. According to an official statement, 2020’s recruitment drive was inspired by YouGov research claiming that young people believe they are held back by a lack of self-confidence. Essentially, the Army has used this insight to select the most vulnerable targets, manipulating their fears to encourage a drastic, dangerous and destabilising life decision.
Young people suffering from addictions and neuroses do not need a commanding officer and a gun: they need counseling and mental health support. Indeed, it’s fair to say that these are the very last people the Army should be trying to influence.
But they are desperate. In 2019, the size of Britain’s armed forces fell for a ninth consecutive year. And, when it comes to recruitment, picking on insecurities works. Last year’s controversial ‘snowflake’ campaign, which called out “phone zombies”, “selfie addicts” and “me me me millennials”, coincided with the Army’s highest sign-up figure since 2009. The 2017 and 2018 campaigns promoting inclusivity, friendship and travel simply didn’t attract recruits. No wonder the guilt-tripping World War I poster captioned, ‘Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War”, contributed to a surge in recruitment figures back in 1915.
Of course, the purpose of advertising is to make you sign up for stuff. But we aren’t talking about a gym subscription, this is a potential death warrant. Lucy Aldridge whose 18-year old son, William, was killed in a bomb blast in 2009 said young people were “being sold a lie”. “If you are already lacking in confidence,” she said, “this is something that could ultimately break them.”
Other parents to dead soldiers have shared similar concerns about the new campaign. But it’s not just the obvious risks of injury and death: the wider culture of the armed forces poses a threat to the vulnerable. Considering the several allegations that emerge of abuse and discrimination within the British Army each year, ‘lasting confidence’ may be the very opposite of the experiences of many recruits. Just a month ago, the Army’s official ombudsman warned that incidents of racism in the armed forces are happening with “increasing and depressing frequency”. Allegations of sexism and sexual misconduct also appear time and time again. Before making sweeping promises to young people, the army needs to examine its own institutional problems, and, even then, those lacking confidence should not be their first port of call.
Now there’s no danger that I’ll be signing up for the Army any time soon. And, frankly, I doubt they’d want me even if I did. However, I fear that others are at risk of being misled by targeted propaganda. As someone who has gone through cycles of problematic eating throughout my teens (bingeing, purging, restricting, compulsive exercising: you name it), I understand how it feels to desperately seek an escape from feeling bad about yourself. These are the people that these adverts want to get through to: those who feel they’re running out of ways to cope.
The Army spent three million pounds on this year’s campaign. Next time, I hope this sum will be more responsibly be directed towards retaining and incentivising the personnel who are dropping out in droves every year. Or, better still, in improving mental health services for existing soldiers.
In crisp white cotton, shared lives
Sweet and sour.
Here we are
With a bundle of memories packed up,
With a bittersweet thread tied up,
In feet that remember,
Remember the watery mud,
Remember the muddy water.
In shiny, sharp shoes, black shoes,
That don’t want to say farewell
Don’t want to turn away
Here we are In our memory,
Under the blue skies,
Above the brown soil,
Upon the rough branches.
Before our first memory
In our last memory
Together.
For the purposes of this column, I think it’s important for you to understand that when it comes to the royal family, my capacity for hypocrisy is jaw-dropping.
I have shed many a tear watching Lady Diana documentaries. Recently, I put off several important commitments to read the memoir of Princess Margaret’s lady-in-waiting.
In 2018, I travelled to Berkshire just to be part of Harry and Meghan’s wedding day.
That last one is made up, but if you believed it was true during the split-second you spent reading that sentence, hold onto those feelings of surprise and judgement, as it’s really the only appropriate reaction to my creepy, borderline-obsessive interest in the House of Windsor.
However, within certain groups, I will miraculously transform into a die-hard republican – purely and shamelessly to save face, ranting to anyone within earshot on how our learned loyalty to the crown condemns us to be subjects rather than citizens.
Usually I find it easy to reconcile these conflicting parts of my muddled identity, shifting my position with the wind. But a little over a week ago, without so much as a text to warn me, Harry and Meghan dropped their ‘bombshell’ announcement on sussexroyal.com, thereby making it impossible for me to continue my delicate balancing act.
As anyone who has left their house in the last ten days will know, it is essential that you have a pre-prepared position on Meghxit, ready to drop into any conversation in which it may be required.
Arrive without one and everyone assumes you simply haven’t been paying attention. ‘I’m not sure what to think really – they both seem like nice people’ you say, watching the last vestiges of respect your friends might have once felt for you drain from their disappointed faces. Normally I love these moments in which the nation is gripped by royal fever. There is something reassuringly camp about those weeks where everyone is talking about the royals like they have a personal stake in what happens.
The ‘crisis summit’ called by the Queen was frantically discussed on daytime TV as if the pundits hadn’t realised they weren’t invited. I don’t think the Queen watches Loose Women, but if she tuned in this week, I imagine she’d be checking with her advisers to make sure Ruth Langsford wasn’t on the guest list.
And so to the summit itself. According to one of the many unnamed sources who are single-handedly keeping this story going, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided in the end “that it wasn’t necessary for the duchess to join” – which, oddly, is almost verbatim what my sister texted me when I asked if she was coming to our family’s Christmas drinks party this year.
Somehow, I imagine the Duchess was more involved in in the making of that decision than her husband. I doubt being glared at for a full 90 minutes by three generations of in-laws was top of Meghan’s to-do list, so you can’t really blame her for not immediately jumping on a plane.
You would think the summit might be the dramatic climax this national psychodrama so desperately needed, but a salivating tabloid press don’t seem ready to let go just yet.
And in a way, senior royals should be glad of it. While the spotlight still shines squarely on the sixth in line to the throne, other uncomfortable questions can be quietly swept under the royal carpet.
The BBC documentary Exposed: The Church’s Darkest Secret aired this week, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing. Serving as a useful reminder that Prince Andrew is far from the only royal with a habit for dodgy friends, the two-part programme detailed the horrific crimes of paedophile Bishop Peter Ball, convicted of the abuse of 18 young men between 1977 and 1992. Whispers of Ball’s predatory behaviour led to him receiving a police caution in 1993, a caution which wasn’t enough to dissuade Prince Charles from offering Ball a house on his Duchy of Cornwall estate.
Ball was jailed more than 20 years after the initial allegations against him – virtually breakneck speed by the standards of similar cases. If Ball’s story is anything to go by, perhaps we can look forward to Prince Andrew’s trial around the year 2040.
While media outlets may shriek that the Harry/ Meghan debacle represents an existential threat to the monarchy, the reality is that in making the issue a national talking point, the real scandals are obscured behind a fake one.
The House of Windsor has always depended on their ability to maintain the fiendishly difficult balancing act of appearing both impossibly removed and yet charmingly relatable.
As ‘relatability’ goes, a grandmother angry with her grandson is easier to stomach. Harder to shout, “They’re just like us!”, when unlike the Princes of Wales and York, you don’t have any friends who happen to be paedophiles.
I was quite surprised by Tom’s plan to go to a pub at 2:30 in the afternoon but I wasn’t opposed to it. We went to the Turf and the date was literally us chatting over a beer; I felt like the conversation had a nice flow and that was a positive surprise, as I was anxious that it might be awkward.
First impressions? My first impression of Tom was that he seemed nice.
What was the most embarrassing moment? The whole thing was pretty consistent, so it would be hard to choose, but perhaps the moment when I thought he wasn’t going to show up because I didn’t check directly under the Bridge of Sighs.
Is a second date on the cards? I would be open to it :))
Tom, 3rd year, Geography, Christ Church
It was a dark and stormy night (afternoon)… Storm Brendan was testing my resolve, and standing under the Bridge of Sighs, the date was off to a strong start with Roza arriving 10 minutes late. Realising she went to Hertford made my choice of Turf look pretty vanilla, but it was better she learnt that about me sooner rather than later. Chat flowed well, however hearing that she had previously travelled on a 33hr bus journey made me question whether she had retained her sanity. Seeming very relaxed she was easy to talk to and I enjoyed speaking about our mutual dislike of Fever (that was the make or break moment of the afternoon). Then discussing bad dates she had been on was encouraging. Discussing the fact she did not know that the answers to these questions get published was more worrying. Overall I feel we got on well, but then again she was Polish and kept bringing up Brexit so may have been looking for a visa.
First impressions? Late…
Did it meet up to your expectations? I borderline thought she wasn’t coming at one point so was all up-hill from there
What was the highlight? Flexing that I had to leave for hockey
What was the most embarrassing moment? It takes a lot to embarrass me nowadays
Is a second date on the cards? Probably depends on her visa situation
Louis
Vuitton is the most recent in a string of luxury fashion brands to close down
branches in Hong Kong. The store in question was located in Times Square Mall
in the previously bustling shopping district of Causeway Bay and was forced to
close, according to the brand, due to an inability to renegotiate rent prices
with the landlord after the shop saw profits fall.
Similarly,
Prada has announced it will close its Russell Street store when its lease
expires later in 2020, and other luxury brands Hugo Boss, Ralph Lauren, Gucci
and L’Occitane are all on record revealing the damage the protests have caused
their stores.
As
Hong Kong faces its first recession in a decade it is clear that stores catering
to people’s discretionary income will be amongst those worst affected.
According to Forbes, clothing and footwear sales dropped by 31.8% in November
alone, a huge shift in the market for a well-known luxury shopping destination;
Bernstein analysts estimate the territory accounts for a huge 5-10% of the $285
billion annual global sales of luxury goods.
Perhaps
unexpectedly, it is not usually direct action on these stores that forces them
to close down; in fact, protestors tend to vandalise properties as a result of
their pro-mainland owners rather than because of the economic or social status
of the shops and those who buy from them. Protestors attacked the Hong Kong
Adidas store on December 23, for example, after the brand announced that Liu
Yifei, a public supporter of Hong Kong police, would be its womenswear
ambassador.
For
luxury brands, though, profits are decreasing rapidly because fewer tourists
are using Hong Kong as a shopping destination. Forbes estimates tourists
account for up to 70% of luxury purchases there, and whilst the largest
declines came from mainland China, dropping by 58%, numbers of longer-haul
visitors from the U.S., U.K., France and Australia also fell by 36.1% in
November. Losing such a significant proportion of their target market, it is
hardly surprising that high-end brands should see their profits suffer.
For
other, more affordable commodities and services, the protestors have developed
an online colour code to indicate for different restaurants, shops and service
providers: black, red, and blue support trashing, spray-painting, or simply
boycotting a location, while a yellow marker encourages protestors to actively support
the shop with business.
Activists
can use their economic power to send a political message and empower the
communities around them. Services boycotted regularly include banks, metros and
large conglomerates like Starbucks: big corporations that pro-democracy Hong
Kongers feel are representative of the Chinese elite.
Indeed,
economic inequality is growing in Hong Kong, with the Gini coefficient at 0.539
(where zero indicates income equality on a scale from zero to one), the highest
it has been in 45 years. Hong Kong’s
malls, centres of commercialism and luxury, have also become targets for
protest, with protestors staging a peaceful rally in the suburban New Town
Plaza luxury shopping mall in July. The professor of architecture at the
University of Hong Kong, Cecilia Chu, describes how “the
mall quickly evolved into a major site of protest because it now comes to
represent something more specific: the corporate power of developer Sun Hung
Kai, which is seen by protesters as a ‘colluder’ with the government and
police.”
The
inequality in Hong Kong is most apparent in its housing prices, and the
inability of some elite corporate developers, such as Sun Hung Kai, to decrease
their rent prices affects both ends of the spectrum, from luxury brands like
Louis Vuitton to local activists seeking better housing.
Andrew
Sheng points out that the struggle in Hong Kong is often figured as a ‘fight
between two civilisations’, as Hong Kong legislator Fernando Cheung stated. Pro-democracy
activism is synonymous with improved welfare and equality, but in failing to
recognise the distinction between the two, we can forget the frustrations the
Hong Kongers have at their economic and social circumstances. While the closure
of luxury fashion stores in Hong Kong is not a direct result of protestor
action, it represents the anger held against the wealthier, elite supporters of
China.
This year is set to be a big one for the Brontës, with the bicentennial anniversary of Anne’s birth coming up later this month, and an entirely new adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre hitting theatres across the UK. Adapted for the stage by renowned playwright and director Nick Lane, the play began its international tour in September 2019 at the Wilde Theatre in Bracknell, U.K. The Blackeyed Theatre in Bracknell recently announced the play’s 2020 touring dates which kicked off on January 10th at Theater Ainsi in The Netherlands.
The anniversary of Anne’s birth is also expected to be marked across the country and has already been celebrated in the sisters’ hometown of Bradford where an event was held on Friday in celebration of the writer’s life. A collaboration between South Square Centre and the Brontë Parsonage Museum, the event has been described by the latter as ‘inspired by her creativity and the conviction with which she held her beliefs’. Both organizations are committed to heightening the public consciousness about Anne, who is often considered the lesser-known Brontë sister, and ensuring through a celebration of her work on her 200th birthday that she gets the recognition she deserves.
Although Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are not nearly as well-known as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, which might have something to do the editing of Anne’s novels that happened after her early death, they are literary classics full of the passion and strength that infuses the works of her sisters.
Nick Lane, director of the new Jane Eyre adaptation, said: “I’m still pinching myself that I was given the chance to adapt such an incredible, iconic novel as Jane Eyre,” “and I’m looking forward to seeing how the show has grown.” This production demonstrates of Jane Eyre, once again, the amazing endurance of Brontë’s gothic masterpiece.
In recent years alone, Jane Eyre has inspired an eponymous ballet by British choreographer Cathy Marston (2016); an award-winning film starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender (2011); and a Broadway musical (2000). Contemporary magazines have picked up on Jane’s popularity in articles such as Verily magazine’s “4 Ways Jane Eyre Speaks to the Modern Woman” (April 2017) and the Huffington Post’s “11 Lessons That ‘Jane Eyre’ Can Teach Every 21st Century Woman About How To Live Well” (December 2017). In light of both Anne’s birthday and Lane’s new play, there seems to be a renewed interest in Brontë characters and how they’ve stood the test of time. What is it about Jane, over 150 years after her creation, that inspires such fascination in the modern world—a world so radically different from the one in which the Brontë sisters lived and wrote their influential novels?
I believe Jane’s power to inspire lies in the lessons readers learn from her vibrant inner life and determined self-sufficiency. Many fans admire Jane for her “resilience”, “sense of direction”, “integrity”, and “hope”—as Verily magazine phrased it in the aforementioned article, something with which I completely agree. These are some of the novel’s most striking themes. But Jane is special for more than a list of abstract values. It is her very character, her inner life, from which we should take inspiration. She is completely self-sufficient—her strength and goodness lie within her. She does not need others to applaud her, and she can endure extreme solitude, loneliness, and heartbreak because she herself is the source of her own strength.
Since early childhood, Jane has to depend on herself for comfort and guidance. She is met with little compassion or kindness—for most of her young life her only close friends are Helen, a fellow student at Lowood school, and Miss Temple, a beloved teacher. Her resilience in the face of the disapproval and cruelty of others is what enables her to survive. When Jane learns about Mr. Rochester’s mentally unstable wife, she must decide whether she can still live with him without being married to him. The desires of her heart do battle with her principles. Principle wins. In what may be the most famous lines of the novel, she writes, “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself …. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation …. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth….”
Jane is deeply in love with Mr. Rochester, but she also knows that living with him in such a state would violate her “principles” which, she says, “are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour…”. The lesson we can take from Jane, and from many other Brontë characters, such as Helen from Anne’s The Tenant Wildfell Hall, is that there are times in life when your sense of self and your own beliefs and values are all you have. You alone must make some significant decision without depending on others, without considering whether even your closest friends and family would approve or disapprove. You must be your own counsellor and risk being “solitary”, “friendless” and “unsustained” for the sake of what you know to be right, whether others understand and sympathize with you or not. Jane is completely and utterly alone in the world when she decides to leave Mr. Rochester and strike out on her own without money, family, or friends. But she does it, because she will not sacrifice herself and her values for anything.
Today, it seems we are always seeking approval from others—whether it be from our teachers and professors in the form of good grades and positive comments on our work, or on social media in the form of likes, comments, and public confirmation that we are pretty, handsome, or worth talking to. Jane teaches us to stop looking toward others for guidance about the values that we should adopt or the actions that we should take. She seems to urge us to rely on ourselves and to spend more time considering the values and beliefs that fuel us. To me, the enduring lesson we can take from the Brontës is this: start looking for strength within yourself and your own character. That is the source of true autonomy and integrity.
