Saturday 26th July 2025
Blog Page 534

St Anne’s conducts review of college investments

Rachel Cordery
-
0
St Anne’s conducts review of college investments

For the first time in over 20 years, St Anne’s College is undertaking a full review of its investments.

Having begun the review last year, the college opened up the discussion to all members of college this week.

Both students and staff were invited to learn more about the nature and importance of the college investments in supporting college life.

St Anne’s is looking at two significant changes: Total Return and responsible investment.

The college recently joined the Responsible Investment Network, a network coordinated by the charity ShareAction to help with responsible investment.

The workshops, facilitated by ShareAction, explored how investment management works and recent developments in responsible investment, as well as the legal and regulatory constraints that apply.

Students and staff were encouraged to share their thoughts on how the college’s investments should be managed, what principles of responsible investment might apply, and how the college might involve third party managers to support its objectives.

Opening the session, the Treasurer of St Anne’s outlined the reasoning behind the Investment Review: “The world is moving in a particular direction… and I would like St Anne’s to be part of that movement.”

With over 50 per cent of all UK universities having divested from fossil fuels, this was a topic that was readily discussed, especially because of St Anne’s current links to BP and Shell.

With 11 per cent of income from Endowment Investment and 16 per cent from Endowment Investment Gains, a large portion of the college’s income is centred around investment.

As well as BP and Shell, the college has links to Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, and BAE systems.

John Ford, the Treasurer of St Anne’s told Cherwell: “The main goals of the college’s investments are to support our charitable purpose as an educational institution.

The main driver of the investment review was to ensure that our investments were sustainable from an income perspective to maintain this.

“The college is hoping to move from a pure income strategy, where it can only spend what income is produced by its underlying investments, to a total return strategy where some capital gain can be used as income. This change should make the college less reliant on dividends from certain industries, for example the oil & gas sector.

“It is therefore a great opportunity to introduce responsible investment into our overall strategy.

“The college recently joined the Responsible Investment Network- Universities (RINU) with a view to becoming a more actively engaged investor. We hope this will give us more impact in influencing company behaviour in areas such as climate change.

“The college is currently consulting students and staff on the proposed changes and hopes to complete the main changes by the summer.”

ShareAction, who facilitated the workshop, is a registered charity that promotes responsible investment, and aims to improve corporate behaviour on environmental, social and governance issues.

According to their website, Sha- reAction envisions “a world where ordinary savers and institutional investors work together to ensure our communities and environment are safe and sustainable for all.”

This drive for change comes after Balliol College announced its divestment from fossil fuel companies.

The college released a comment on Monday, saying that it planned to reduce its fossil fuel involvement “as far and as fast as practicable.”

The fifth college to announce a policy of divestment, Balliol follows St Hilda’s, Wadham, Wolfson and Oriel.

Oxford Council aims for net-zero emissions in 2020

Madison Carroll
-
0
Oxford Council aims for net-zero emissions in 2020

Oxford City Council has released plans to bring its carbon emissions to net-zero by 2020. The announcement comes a year after the Council declared a climate emergency which led to the creation of a Citizens’ Assembly whose purpose was to find ways for Oxford to reduce emissions and set new carbon targets.

Currently, Oxford City Council is responsible for about 1 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Council’s electricity supply already comes from 100 percent renewable sources while the Council’s natural gas provider contract comes to an end this year. This plan would ensure that the Council works with a gas provider who uses green gas.

“In this situation, we are talking about doing energy and water differently,” said Tom Hayes, a cabinet member of Zero Carbon Oxford, during a Council meeting. Hayes also talked about how this plan was a way for the Council to turn its large-scale ideas into actions.

Establishing a zero-emission zone (ZEZ) is part of the Council’s plan to reduce emissions city-wide, since most of the emissions and air pollution in the city centre is caused by motorised traffic.

Councillor Yvonne Constance, cabinet member for the environment on the council, said “I am really pleased that at the start of the New Year we are on track to introduce the Zero Emission Zone in Oxford by the end of 2020. Not only will this project make a huge difference to the quality of life and health of people living and working in the city centre, we are showing that it is possible as we start to respond seriously to the climate emergency. This is a great way to start an important decade of climate action.”

Increasing biodiversity in the city is another way the Council wants to offset emissions. These efforts include increasing tree planting, maximizing the benefits from waterways, and producing a strategy to protect green spaces. The Council does not want to use these efforts as an excuse to keep producing fossil fuel emissions, rather, they want to make efforts to absorb the carbon already in the atmosphere.

Before the Council’s plan can move forward, their budget for the 2020-2021 financial year must be approved. The net-zero carbon emission plan commits £1 million of additional revenue and £18 million of capital funding to support the Council’s response to climate issues. These funds would be in addition to the £84 million that the Council already commits to addressing climate change problems.

If the Council were to accomplish its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by the end of this year and net-zero emissions in the Oxford city region by 2030, it would be far in advance of the UK’s goal to bring greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050.

Malala signs UN open letter

Rachel Cordery
-
0
Malala signs UN open letter

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?”

Oxford Iranian society holds vigil for plane crash victims

Katie Damian
-
0
Oxford Iranian society holds vigil for plane crash victims

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.

Image credit: Hamideh Rimaz

Jean Paul Gaultier and a New Vision for Fashion

Florine Lips
-
0
Jean Paul Gaultier and a New Vision for Fashion

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.

Review: Nutcracker

Francesca Butt
-
0
Review: Nutcracker

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.

Songs for the Sadgirl

Hope Hopkinson
-
0
Songs for the Sadgirl

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.

An accompanying (and necessary) playlist can be found at: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UASz0nf0nSnBIxY5EVy8S?si=xCllOClAR3qB5F6M_eNECg

The Enduring Legacy of Pippi Longstocking

Gemma Robson
-
0
The Enduring Legacy of Pippi Longstocking

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.

Cinema Self-Care: A Therapeutic Guide to Nora Ephron Films

Skye Humbert
-
0
Cinema Self-Care: A Therapeutic Guide to Nora Ephron Films

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. 

BBC’s Dracula Review

Frazer Martin
-
0
BBC’s Dracula Review

CW: queerphobia, misogyny, violence, blood, HIV/AIDS

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.

1...533534535...2,516Page 534 of 2,516

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by James Ashley