Friday, May 2, 2025
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Union candidate dropped from slate for “colonialism is underrated” JCR motion

Christopher Sinnott
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Union candidate dropped from slate for “colonialism is underrated” JCR motion

A student standing to be elected to the Oxford Union Secretary’s Committee has been sharply criticised by members of his JCR for submitting a motion tabled in the agenda that claimed “colonialism is underrated”.

The motion, which calls for a “Declaration of War on St. Edmund’s Hall”, was posted in protest in the Queen’s JCR Facebook group by a member who asked “how and why a motion including the phrase ‘colonialism is underrated’ is being heard”.

The member went on to point out that “historical and present-day imperialism resulting in cultural and actual genocide isn’t particularly funny” and that “not all of us see the impact of global colonialism as something that can be joked about, and when your immediate family are still regularly endangered by the lasting ramifications of colonialism in your country, perhaps you can speak on it”.

The post called for the withdrawal of the motion from the meeting’s agenda and for a “public apology from the proposer and seconder”. The member who brought the motion to the JCR’s attention declined to give further comment on the incident.

The controversial comments appear to be particularly troubling as the fresher that tabled the motion has filed an application to stand as a secretary’s committee candidate. Cherwell understands that he was selected to do so as part of Amy Gregg’s “Unlock the Union” slate.

In response to the controversy, Gregg confirmed that the student “will not be a member of the Unlock the Union team. I hope the Queen’s College deals with him appropriately”.

In a statement, the fresher told Cherwell: “On 9th June, I submitted a motion to the Queen’s College JCR for a constitutional meeting, with the motion being for the purposes of ‘declaring war on Teddy Hall’ – a joke inspired by another JCR’s declaration of war on their own MCR. Having missed the deadline for submissions on Friday, I hurriedly drafted my motion, found someone to second it and sent it to the Chair via email, asking that it still be included despite its tardiness.

“My seconder had absolutely no clue to any of the contents – only that it had to do with war with Teddy Hall, and simply seconded as a favour to me. This was entirely my motion; I alone saw it before sending it off.

“It later came to my attention that the section with ‘colonialism is underrated’ could be construed as in very bad taste, and was something that should not belong anywhere near a JCR motion, not least when a post was made to our JCR Facebook page laying bare my transgressions. The comment was meant as a joking justification for taking over another college ‘for their own sake’, but I see now that it was seen as an inappropriate and even offensive inclusion to many.

“Indeed, I barely gave that point much thought at all. I profusely apologize for this – my only intention was to entertain, but I see now I crossed a line I should not have, something I was blind to see when writing and sending in the motion. Most of all I apologize to my college and especially my seconder, who did not deserve to get wrapped up in this as a result of my action.

“As a result of this I have since asked for the entire motion to be removed from the meeting, having realized my mistake and error in judgement, and would ask for your forgiveness for my transgression.”

In response to the controversy, Queen’s College JCR President Ebrubaoghene Ayovenefe wrote a Facebook post to all JCR members in which he strongly condemned the motion.

Ayovunefe wrote: “I can’t believe I actually have to say this in the year of our lord two thousand and nineteen, but the Queen’s College JCR does not endorse imperial apologia, nor does it in any way support the view that it was ‘underrated’.

“One of two things is true. The article point of the motion in question (which has since been withdrawn) was written with either i. little to no forethought on what was being said when that ‘joke’ was written, thus demonstrating a frankly astounding ignorance of the inherent violence of colonialism, its consequences on the peoples who suffered under the colonial project, and their descendants still reeling today from its aftershocks; in which case, I would kindly invite the proposer and seconder to, after sincerely apologising to the JCR, educate themselves on the British imperial project and how it much contributed to the comfort which they enjoy as residents of this country, relative to the descendants of Britain’s imperial subjects. If the two are finding such particularly difficult, I can provide some recommendations for reading, or I could let them know what it is to be a native of a country Britain used as its imperial whipping boy for almost a century.

“Or ii. the proposer and seconder knew all of the above and, in the name of ignorance, a “joke” or needless provocation, decided they just didn’t care; in which case, I would rather less kindly invite them to examine the faults of their own characters and begin to work on developing a degree of sympathy for others, and a thorough understanding of why such comments are not only resoundingly insensitive to the natives of former colonial nations (such as myself, for one) but why it is not their place to make such a mockery of colonialism, but rather their place (and, indeed, their moral imperative) to educate themselves on and involve themselves with the various decolonial efforts taking place in social and academic spheres.

“An apology is not enough if it is engendered merely by the collective censure of one’s peers, rather than a more profound understanding of how one has erred.”

Speaking to Cherwell, Ayovunefe defended the JCR committee, saying: “until Hilary Term of 2018 the vetting process allowed for motions to be discussed or dismissed at the discretion of the JCR Chair, a power which was removed from our constitution on the grounds of its potential for undemocratic abuses of power, and one which we will consider restoring in the light of this motion.

“This article point in question and the levity with which it was included in the motion point not only to a frankly ubiquitous ignorance of the colonial project and its legacy, but also to the outright denialism of this legacy’s effects, which occur at the level of both the personal and institutional.

“I need only gesture to Professor Nigel Biggar’s ‘Ethics and Empire’ project to demonstrate how normalised imperial apologia is both in Oxford and in society at large, and how reflexive attempts to whitewash the extent to which the standard of living Britain enjoys are a consequence of its position as a former colonial power have become in the wake of the historical revisionism of Empire.”

Is English football being overtaken by the far-right?

Tilly Walters
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Is English football being overtaken by the far-right?

At the England-Netherlands Nations League semi-final on 6th June, EDL founder Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) was filmed punching an England fan outside the stadium in Portugal. This is more significant than a reflection of the toxicity and violence that has defined our political landscape in the three years since the EU referendum. Central to national character, football (whether club or international) represents a crucial part of English society.

Nationalist rhetoric has always found a home in football. The Italian ultras have had close historic links to Neo-Nazi gangs and far-right fascist groups; fans have territorial tendencies, and fierce identification with a team. The intensity of the ultras of Italian teams like Lazio or Roma demonstrate an obsessive operation that has paramilitary links in their establishment in the early 1960s. Most recently, an Inter fan was killed during clashes with Napoli in December 2018; Tottenham fans were stabbed by  Lazio ultras in 2012. The violence and idelogy go hand in hand, with posters of Mussolini and Hitler, as well as racist and anti-Semitic rife within the clubs and their supporters. Outside of the ultras’ own fan action, the wider control over clubs has political links – Italy’s controversy-racked ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi held the controlling share in A.C. Milan for 31 years up to 2017. 

The over-amalgamation of fascist politics and football is a combination that asks for chaos. The association with politically motivated violence has prompted the presentation of football matches as hostile atmospheres. It has taken more than 25 years to counter falsehoods about the Hillsborough disaster – spread by the police involved – and feelings of hurt and injustice still justifiably run deep. Football is becoming entrenched within British identity politics and threatens to become caught in the politicisation of almost every element of British everyday life.  

It could have been the heatwave, the blissful distraction from political chaos, but the 2018 World Cup seemed like it was part of a positive change to the reputation of English football. The euphoria of the first semi-final appearance in 28 years signalled a new and fresh approach, manager and set of players; it did seem, for a brief second, that football really was ‘coming home’. There was positive patriotism and unity in a country divided by bitter European tension. Henry Winter commented that ‘England gave the nation hope of a better future, and not only on the field of play’ and this was certainly accurate. In pubs around across the country, with complete strangers tensely watching Kane’s flawless shots or England’s first penalty shootout win, it seemed that Brexit-brutalised Britain had finally found a collective love. Waistcoat sales soared, the players themselves participated in the social media frenzy surrounding the competition. Everyone was keen to have something to do with the sun-bathed positivity of the team’s careful campaign. Despite media expectation with the World Cup being held in Russia, the mood was overwhelmingly optimistic throughout.

This unification was significant for a reason – the team represented the best of the UK, diverse, multicultural and young, yet heralded by tradition; their manager, Gareth Southgate, is an ex-England player himself with a significant international record. The team masterfully banished the negativity and criticism that had trailed the national team for years, but it seems like the positivity of that summer has been overtaken by division once again; football may be returning to a place of violence and division, representative of a stereotyped aggressive patriotism bordering on nationalism. Yaxley-Lennon’s presence at an international game, overpowering the neutrality of the sport-loving majority, signals a shift as English culture and society becomes dominated by political suggestion.

The Football Spectators Act allowed for the barring of specific fans for violence, racism, threats and almost any criminal behaviour connected with the attendance of a football match. Yaxley-Lennon was, in fact, briefly banned under public disorder before the case was dropped. Legal framework around antisocial behaviour related to the support of teams has tried to distance what seems like the twin concepts of football and disorder that have defined the game for decades.

England fans have a poor reputation for international behaviour. Their attitude is defined more by occupation than encouragement, leaving a bitter taste on wins or losses. Consistently, England fans at away games will be at fault for violence, rowdy behaviour or racist language. It isn’t every fan, but those who bring English football into disrepute seem to view it as their duty. Southgate branded such supporters ‘an embarrassment’ after their behaviour in Portugal, conveying worries about future UEFA games and fans’ behaviour. Following the positivity of the World Cup, it seems as though the English game is regressing with the return to violence at international games.

There were reports of fans at the game wearing clothes with EDL logos; the national team clearly wishes to distance itself from such ideology. This is ‘tarnishing’ them with the  ‘wrong atmosphere’ as the head of England security described. It seems that year after year (a game in the Netherlands in 2018 had similar activity), the group of away fans that sing racist songs, behave violently and get arrested are attempting to keep football grounded in its less pleasant past.

The 2018 World Cup team was the most ethnically diverse team to ever represent England; 11 out of 23 members were non-white. Such stats represent the tangible change within football, with a team more truly representative of the positivity of England’s diversity. To have EDL supporters defining the team’s image with racist behaviour seems incongruent with the promising change that Southgate’s squad has brought. Football is one of the most uniting elements of ‘Englishness’, with 75% of respondents to a British Future survey (both white and ethnic minority) feeling that English football represented national identity – the same cannot be said about other truly ‘English’ (i.e. not just British), components of identity, such as the St. George flag.

The ‘Football Lads Alliance’ is a prime example of football-associated patriotism turned sour. A group formed in 2017 as supposedly ‘anti-extremist’, it has instead been suggested to give a cover to the far-right, with Yaxley-Lennon and other EDL figures present at their march against extremism in October 2017. A group that could have a positive message has instead been overtaken by the loud minority. There were reports of Islamophobic abuse on their Facebook page and aggressive confrontation of counter-protesters (with anti-Islamophobia signs and banners) at their march. Similarly, the Casuals United, a far-right protest group composed of football supports, has targeted Muslim groups in their protest action. 

Amongst global teams, and even other English nationals, the anti-England backlash is so prevalent that it has spawned a movement, ‘Anyone But England’. This has encouraged a wider trend of English football fans disavowing the behaviour associated with their national team. English football should not be relinquished to the minority that have soured the sport. If football’s increasing diversity and inclusiveness proves anything, it’s that it inspires positivity and community, bringing a country together even in the middle of political turbulence. Far-right figures within English and British politics threaten the cohesion and unity that sport can provide.

Staging Invisibility

Lou Lou Curry
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Staging Invisibility

What does it mean to be a hustler? The answer you get will, for the most part, depend on who you’re asking – the response, however, is generally negative. If you look it up on Urban Dictionary (reputable, I know) the answer is simply “someone who knows how to get money from others.”

Pop culture, on the other hand, offers us a treasure trove of answers. In his pièce de résistance ‘Hustlin’’, rapper Rick Ross offers us, in my humble opinion, the most comprehensive or academic introduction to the etymology and nuances of the word ‘hustler’.

Ross is not the only artist to have exploited the word for entertainment purposes, inverting and exploring a term which so often has, in the dictionary definition at least, negative connotations. One only has to recall the halcyon days of 2008 for Beyonce’s hot take on the matter in her hit ‘Diva’, where she posits that a ‘diva’ is actually a female version of a ‘hustler’ – thrilling stuff.

Even kids’ ‘TV is not devoid of the odd reference to the ‘hustler’ – looking even further back to 2004, in a now iconic episode of Drake & Josh, Drake is branded a ‘hustler’ after he takes advantage of Josh’s billiard skills and swindles people out of their money.

Despite the idea of the ‘hustler’ being so firmly ingrained in pop culture, then, there is surprisingly little about a specific type of hustler – that is, the ‘hustler prostitute’. Though perhaps this is not that surprising after all – these ‘hustlers’ were practically invisible. Their race, sexuality and disabilities, among other things, as well as their choice (or, rather, lack thereof) of profession leave them invisible to the masses. To find the ‘hustler prostitute’ culturally or historically is certainly hard work – though not quite impossible. However, to find representations of the ‘hustler prostitute’ through an intersectional lens or in a context where they are not fetishised and simultaneously degraded is impossible. (Or at least it was until I discovered FX’s Pose halfway through writing this – but, even then, that is still only one show in a great sea of media.)

My original play Hustlers constitutes my response to the lack of representation of this invisible group – a response which has been four years in the making. Inspired by Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Hustlers, a photo book depicting the “hustlers” on the streets of LA, I was determined to offer an honest take on the industry and discover more about these often forgotten faces. My exploration of their lives emboldened me: I wanted these narratives (especially the LGBTQ+ and BAME narratives which are often suppressed or neglected by the media) to be acknowledged. Hustlers is based on the lives of actual survivors, and I am proud to say their voices will be heard: the play debuts at the BT Studio next week, before its run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Offering an intersectional view on sex work in the 1980s, Hustlers is set during the AIDS and drug crisis. The play focuses on the lives of four individuals, aged between sixteen and twenty-four, as their lives continuously intertwine and collide. Exploring challenging themes – from addiction to struggles with sexuality to sexual assault – each narrative offers a glimpse into another world, one not that far from our own: the streets. I wanted this play to offer an intense examination of the mental and physical consequences of sex work, the extreme pressures these individuals are put under, and the methods they adopt to gain a release from their own realities.

Writing the script and conveying its intended message to my audience was no easy task. How was I supposed to rectify almost forty years of looking the other way in a forty minute show? How could I encourage my audience to think with an awareness of intersectionality? How do I stage the invisibility these four characters felt?

Yet, when it came to this idea of ‘staging invisibility’ I realised I was asking myself the completely wrong question. Instead of focusing on the years of marginalisation, how could I celebrate diversity? How could I bring it to the very forefront of my production? How could I stage these narratives in the most visible way possible?

There have been some valiant and successful attempts to challenge the lack of diversity in the Oxford drama scene: for example, Medea at the Keble O’Reilly last Trinity, which had an all-BAME cast and crew; similarly, My Mother Runs in Zig-Zags at the North Wall earlier this term, also with an all-BAME cast. However, I still think it is currently still not diverse enough and more can be done.

But while all can safely agree that the Oxford drama scene can become more diverse, how one should go about doing so is admittedly difficult to ascertain. Nowadays merely an empty buzzword, the meaning of ‘diversity’ is so nebulous that any attempt to improve it seems like a impossible and daunting task. Diversity in terms of what? Race? Gender? Sexuality? Furthermore, how could I challenge diversity in a way that was not superficial? I ultimately decided to start small, beginning with my own cast and crew.

Indeed, in directing and acting in Hustlers, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how easy it has been to embrace diversity in the production, even if this has improved the overall issue of diversity in the Oxford drama scene only marginally.

Both the director and assistant director (Priya Radhakrishnan and myself respectively) are women of colour. We also have a very diverse cast in terms of race (over a third of our cast and crew are BAME) as well as in terms of sexuality and nationality. Yet, merely listing the various races or sexualities of the cast and crew of Hustlers is a superficial bandaid on the much deeper and darker issue of diversity in theatre – not only in Oxford, but nationally.

I believe the answer to diversity lies in our having the courage to address it – not tomorrow, not in a minute, not when it’s more convenient, but right now. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my experience, it’s that it’s possible to make room for a diverse cast and crew in your productions – no matter what the production and even when it’s easier not to.

This could mean making Lysander and Hermia a lesbian couple in your reproduction of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (as Brasenose did for their arts week a couple of years ago, to great effect), even if it means changing the script; this means deciding to have an all-BAME cast, even if only 1.9% of students Oxford admitted in 2017 were black.

I think this attitude is especially pertinent to new productions, which have a blank slate from which to work. I would encourage any new or aspiring writers or directors to carve out a space in their scripts for diversity – because, with enough momentum, it’s where the future of theatre is headed. Allow yourself to be inspired by the full range of talent and experience Oxford has to offer across the spectrum. As an audience member, open yourself up to new experiences and new narratives. The characters in Hustlers, characters I guarantee are so different from you, invite you to hear them, to explore their history and to delve into their complicated lives.

So come, allow them to be heard.

Professor accuses Cambridge of anti-white racism

Sam Millward
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Professor accuses Cambridge of anti-white racism

Professor Nigel Biggar has accused Cambridge University of “discriminat[ion] on the unjustifiable grounds of race, gender, and above all moral and politics”.

The Director of the McDonald centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life, went on to say that “if you’re white, male, culturally conservative, and given to expressing reasoned doubt of prevailing mores, you’ll be given no benefit of doubt at all.”

Writing in in the Oxford Magazine, a circular produced by and for faculty members, in second week of this term, Biggar penned an article entitled “Cambridge and the Exclusion of Jordan Peterson”, addressing the decision taken by Cambridge to rescind the offer of a visiting fellowship, extended to the Canadian polemic on the 19th of February.

A Cambridge University spokesperson told the Evening Standard: “We recognise Nigel Biggar’s right to hold views on Cambridge in relation to discrimination against white, male, conservative men, which are claims which we refute utterly.”

Biggar’s article charges Cambridge on three accounts: communicating the decision to rescind the offer to the Student Union, before contacting Peterson, not providing reasoning for its decision, and its inconsistent attitudes towards free speech and the actions of faculty members.

The Oxford Regius professor wrote that, having examined Peterson’s actions and career, he believed critics of the Canadian “had no good reason to infer from a single, ambiguous photograph that Jordan Peterson endorsed ‘Islamophobia’”, referring to an image taken of Peterson with his arm around a man saying “I am a proud Islamophobe”.

“He failed to ask the obvious questions that any fair-minded observer would have asked.

“He, along with his colleagues, rushed to judgement”, said Biggar, speaking about the judgement made by Stephen Toope, the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University.

He claims that “the full significance of Cambridge’s reaction in this case only becomes clear when related to an earlier one”, going on to describe Cambridge Fellow Dr Priyamvada Gopal’s online attack on his work “Ethics and Empire” as “incontinent abuse”, based on the same rhetoric as the decision to withdraw Peterson’s invitation.

In December 2017, Dr Gopal, a Reader in Cambridge’s English Faculty, and Fellow of Churchill College attacked his work, tweeting “we need to SHUT THIS DOWN”. The response, a widespread social media movement against Biggar, came as a reaction to what the Oxford academic terms his “modest view that ‘empire’ can mean a variety of things, is capable of good as well as evil, raises ethical questions worth thinking about, and requires sophisticated moral evaluation.”

He goes on to claim that the “fact that Dr Gopal’s behaviour appears to have violated their university’s own Social Media Guidelines seems to have bothered them not at all.”

Biggar then extends his comparison, appearing to state that Dr Gopal received preferential and inconsistent treatment from the University, on the basis of her race, sex and political biases.

“When one puts Cambridge University’s serial inaction in the case of Dr Gopal alongside its precipitate action in the case of Professor Peterson, what is revealed is this: the University does in fact discriminate on the unjustifiable grounds of race, gender, and above all morals and politics.

“If you’re non-white, female, and aggressively ‘woke’, then you’ll be accorded maximal benefit of doubt, given a pass on official norms of civility, and let free to spit hatred and contempt on social media.

“However, if you’re white, male, culturally conservative, and given to expressing reasoned doubt about prevailing mores, you’ll be given no benefit of doubt at all. And, should you do so much as appear to transgress ill-conceived norms of inclusiveness, you’ll be summarily and rudely excluded.”

Dr Gopal described the piece in the Oxford Magazine as a ‘tedious bore”, saying “These power imbalances are so profoundly built in to bullying, harassment, stalking, racism, sexism etc”.

Speaking to Cherwell, Professor Biggar said “Cambridge University declares that it ‘utterly refutes’ my claim that it engages in political discrimination. I have substantiated what I have claimed with argument and evidence.

“To refute it would require counterargument and counter-evidence. Since Cambridge has supplied neither, it has not refuted my claim; it has merely rejected it without explanation. Once again its leadership has shown itself incapable of engaging in the accountable giving-and-taking of reasons, which is the very raison d’etre of a university.”

At the time, Cambridge’s Student Union (CUSU) offered the following statement “We are relieved to hear that Jordan Peterson’s request for a visiting fellowship to Cambridge’s faculty of divinity has been rescinded following further review.

“It is a political act to associate the University with an academic’s work through offers which legitimise figures such as Peterson. His work and views are not representative of the student body and as such we do not see his visit as a valuable contribution to the University, but one that works in opposition to the principles of the University.”

In response to this, an extensive blog post from Peterson, entitled “Cambridge University Rescinds my Fellowship”, condemned the university and union, ending with the statement “I think that it is no bloody wonder that the faith is declining (and with it, the values of the West, as it fragments) with cowards and mountebanks of the sort who manifested themselves today at the helm. I wish them the continued decline in relevance over the next few decades that they deeply and profoundly and diligently work toward and deserve.”

Interview: Mike Gravel

Ben van der Merwe
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Interview: Mike Gravel

Hello? Who is this?” came the confused voice of the 89-year old former Senator.

I had arranged a Skype interview with Mike Gravel, a left-wing outsider in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. He didn’t seem to know this, but I wasn’t going to complain. Cory Booker’s team had replied to my interview request with an automated message asking if I wanted to apply for inclusion on his “press release distribution list.” No, thanks.
Under any definition, Mike Gravel is not an ordinary presidential candidate. Not only is he 89 years old, but his campaign manager is 17. His policies, which include closing all US military bases abroad, are far to the left of the US political debate.
I ask him if he’s serious about running. “Of course, I’m 89 years old – by no stretch of the imagination could I get elected. But my ambition is getting the issues out there.”

Gravel ran for President before, in 2008. His firebrand campaign pledged immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and reparations for the war’s victims. After polling be- low 1% for several weeks, he was eventually excluded from the MSNBC television debates. (Gravel still claims that MSNBC’s parent company, General Electric, conspired to sabotage his campaign due to their links with the military).

He’s clear that running for President again wasn’t his plan. “I had no intention of doing it. I was contacted by David Ok and another gentleman – Henry Williams. They asked me if I’d run for President, and I said, ‘Do you realise how old I am?’ They said, “That doesn’t make any difference for us, it’s the issues!’

“I still have the same agenda – because nothing’s changed, things just got worse. I gave them my Twitter ac- count, which I never used, to go ahead and run me, because they gave me a list of the issues that they’re interested in, which are identical to mine. But most importantly, at the top of the list was my efforts to create a Legislature of the People. And that floats my boat.”

The Legislature of the People is the latest iteration of Gravel’s enthusiasm for direct democracy, a constitutional amendment that would establish a deliberative body open to all citizens to enact, amend and repeal legislation.

I ask him what he thinks about the Brexit referendum as an example of direct democracy in action: “The people voted on the referendum, but they were not acting in a deliberative fashion. So, what the politicians did was just kick the can down the street and blame it on the people. When you have a referendum, it’s an up and down vote but it has no deliberative qualities to it.”

Gravel laments that the media never reported his proposals for direct democracy during is 2008 candidacy, preferring instead to focus on his foreign policy. I realise I haven’t heard about it in his 2020 candidacy either. In fact, there’s nothing whatsoever in his platform about direct democracy.

I don’t raise this, but Gravel is open about his marginal role in the campaign: “I wouldn’t be running if it weren’t for these young kids. I’m not travelling at all. I’m just staying here in my living room. McKinley, when he ran for President in the old days, would sit on his porch, make a speech, and his minions would go out and campaign.

“Well, I’ve also got a patio campaign. I sit on my patio in California, and these kids out of New York are running the whole show. If they’re successful in getting me into the debates, I’ll show up for the debates but not much more than that.”

With few media interviews and no sign of being allowed anywhere near the debate stage, Gravel’s public face has been his Twitter account, which is being run by the three teenagers who make up his campaign team.

The Twitter feed mixes acerbic putdowns of fellow candidates (“If you want a vision of the future under Cory Booker, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever. and every once in a while it stops for an inspirational lecture on how we should never stop dreaming.”) with sober reminders about America’s spiralling inequality and the human consequences of its foreign and immigration policies.

As well as direct democracy, some of the Senator’s more fringe views have been side-lined from the campaign. His support for a ‘citizens’ commission’ to conduct “a true investigation as to what happened” on 9/11 does not feature, and nor does his belief in UFOs.

After past statements about 9/11 resurfaced, the campaign quickly disowned the remarks: “Yes, Sen. Gravel has made these statements, and we disagree with them and don’t believe that 9/11 was an inside job. But he’s never caused anyone’s death or unjust imprisonment or helped keep people in poverty and pain, unlike Biden and Booker and Harris. Frankly, these are only words, aimed at the richest and most powerful among us, folks like Dick Cheney.”

The campaign’s hard-line stance on US foreign policy, however, is authentic Gravel. Under the slogan ‘End American Empire’, the website carries a running tally of US expenditure on ‘regime change wars’ since 2001. At almost $5.5 trillion, the website claims: “That’s enough to cover the full cost of tuition for every person wishing to enroll in community college in the United States.”

I ask Gravel if he’s serious about cutting military spend- ing in half. He tells me: “If you take a dollar from the military budget and put it into education, the dollar only employs one person for the military budget, but employs four people for the education budget. You could cut back on our imperial military establishment by 50% – this comes from [Vietnam-era Secretary of Defence] Robert MacNa- mara. He said: ‘You can cut the budget 50% and we’re not going to be at risk anywhere in the world.’”

Gravel’s stance on military spending is not really financial, however, but moral. I ask him if he really believed that America has an empire: “Totally! Totally. We followed in your footsteps, and you were wrong, and we are presently wrong. And it’s immoral. It’s immoral.

“Right today, we have the Abraham Lincoln carrier and its flotilla coming in to threaten Iran. This is sick. Iran hasn’t done anything to us. They’re not a threat to the United States, they’re not a threat to Great Britain.

“The US overthrew [democratically elected Iranian prime minister] Mossadegh in 1953 at the behest of Britain, because he had nationalised BP. We deposed him – he died shortly after, under private arrest – and we installed the Shah, who turned around, became our puppet and oppressed his people. And then the Ayatollah came in, as a revolutionary group, and is still running the country. It’s all because of us – we took away their democracy.”

I ask him what he thinks of America’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran: “Who are we to sanction anybody, and to pull your government into sanctioning people? Under Clinton we had sanctions against [Saddam] Hussein. During that decade 500,000 children died, and the Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said: ‘Well, that’s collateral damage.’

“That isn’t collateral damage, that’s murdering children, and we’re doing the same thing now in Venezuela. Tens of thousands of children are going to die for lack of medicine and proper food. Sanctions don’t work. Take North Korea – does it look like Kim Jong-Un missed a meal? No, they don’t work. It entrenches stronger the people who are running the country because they blame us for what’s going on.”

While other candidates on the left of the Democratic party oppose war with Iran, I suggest that few would argue America’s foreign policy is systematically oppressive. The Senator tells me: “That’s not true. This stuff is systematic. We have an arrogance, and the British have this too to a degree, we have an arrogance that thinks we’re superior to other people. This is hubris of the worst kind.

“I’ll give you an example. We are establishing a military presence in the heart of Africa. China is also dealing with Africa, but what are they doing? They’re making economic development available to the Africans to raise their standard of living.

“This whole NATO operation is really a boondoggle. When you had the implosion of the Warsaw Pact, there was no reason anymore for NATO to be there. And, by and large, the European Union recognises that there’s no real threat to them from Russia or anybody else. What happened in Ukraine was all instigated by [Victoria] Nuland, the Under- secretary of our Foreign Affairs Department, under Hillary Clinton.

“We’re only for regime change if someone doesn’t knuckle under to our economic policies. As far as regime change, we don’t see that in Saudi Arabia. We don’t see that in Egypt, or other countries. If you’re a tyrant and you suck up to us, we’ll leave you alone. But if you oppose us, we want regime change.”

A key part of Gravel’s platform is re-engaging with multilateral institutions. This includes a pledge to rejoin the Paris Accords, the Iran nuclear deal and the UN Human Rights Council, as well as signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – effectively ending America’s nuclear threat.

The Senator explains to me: “We’ve got two major problems that are destroying the planet. There’s no question that with the advance in science and technology people on the planet are better off than they used to be, but by the same token, with the level of growth and pollution that’s going on we are slowly imploding. It may take 100 years, but unless we change this whole process and go to non-carbon based energy production we’ll destroy the planet. So that’s one. That’s a suicide pact that we’re marching towards.

“The other pact is the suicide pact that we have is with nuclear. Once he got his Nobel Peace Prize in his back pocket, Obama started refurbishing our nukes. We are go- ing to re-do our entire nuclear arsenal. They say it’s going to cost $1.7 trillion, but that’s not what it’s going to cost. The cost overrun in the Pentagon is legion. So, it’s going to cost north of $3 trillion. That could provide education and healthcare to us, but the boondoggle of it all – the mother of all boondoggles – is that none of these weapons are usable. If you unload it, you immediately trigger a nuclear winter, and we’re all going to die. You as well as us.

“The Pentagon says that this refurbishing of the arsenal is a number one priority, and the reason is that we want to be able to instil fear in people who don’t agree with us and really make them understand that we are prepared to use these nukes on a first strike capability. It doesn’t get scarier than that.”

As well as transferring all US military bases to the United Nations, a Gravel presidency would prohibit aid to Israel and Saudi Arabia and ban all arms exports. While most candidates awkwardly avoid the topic, Gravel’s team have pledged reparations – not just for the descendants of for- mer slaves, but to the descendants of those impacted by Jim Crow, settler colonialism and America’s foreign wars.

I ask Senator Gravel if Britain and America’s historical crimes are really the responsibility of today’s citizens: “No, it is our concern, because we see the legacy of this all around – worldwide. What I think the solution is is edu- cation, but in the US we have an education system that’s based upon property taxes at the local level. So, if you’ve got a rich community, they really pour money into their kids. But if you’ve got a poor community, they don’t get it. The legacy is there. Not only for slavery, but what we’ve done with our discrimination to the Latino group and the whole immigration problem.

“The other thing is to alter capitalism so that the profits of capital, which pay for the costs of capital, are shared with everybody through a loan programme. How do the rich get rich? They do it through borrowing money and getting rich off others’ money. We can set up a programme for that nationally.

“This one presidential candidate wants to give everyone $1,000 like we do in Alaska. That’s pocket change in the course of a year, for a poor person. That doesn’t cut to much. What we need to do is alter the nature of capitalism so that it does benefit the people first, and the wealthy second.”

The Gravel campaign has always been keen to make the debate stage. To participate in the debates, however, candidates must genuinely be running to win – something which the Gravel team announced on Twitter last month, despite earlier claims by Gravel that he planned to drop out and endorse the ‘most progressive candidate’.

Given the sensitivities surrounding eligibility for the TV debates, I gently ask whether there was any possibility of Gravel dropping out to endorse another candidate. The Senator laughs: “Oh, yes. Well, that’s the plan! That’s the secret plan! There’s no way, at my age… I could serve maybe 4 years, but I’d be 94! Although, if I’m in good condition, I’m still better than 95% of the people running.

“I would endorse Bernie Sanders, no question! I donated money to him at the last go-around, when he was sabotaged by Hillary, Obama and Wasserman-Schultz. Bernie would have beaten Trump in the last go-around, and I still think he could beat Trump. But what’s happening with the Democratic Party is ‘Oh, we’ve got to be careful. We’ve got to take the middle road’. There’s no middle road.”

Sensual Absence in Jim Jarmusch

Ellie Czyzowska
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Sensual Absence in Jim Jarmusch

There is something sensual about black and white to me – perhaps it is because we live in a technicolour world, so to view a film purposefully put into black and white, it is easy to gain a sense of ‘pleasure’ from the artistic choice. This is exactly how I feel about Jim Jarmusch’s two early films, Stranger than Paradise (1984) and Down by Law (1986), which are both slow-moving, cynical (one more than the other) pieces of cinema about everyday men and women going through life.

When we consider Stranger than Paradise, it is a film which more of less defines existentialism. Jarmusch focuses on our three main (and more or less only) characters: Willie, a Hungarian immigrant trying to lead an ‘all-American life’, his cousin Eva who has come to stay, and his best friend Eddie. They give existentialism a ‘cool’ edge, and the minimalist style of the film suits the unsatisfied lives they all seem to be living. At one point, while road-tripping across Florida (ironically described as ‘Paradise’ despite its boring, dull landscape depicted), Eddie stomps across the snow and exclaims that ‘everything looks the same’. This is the message of the film, and this is what the black-and-white emphasises. Classic, ‘Old Hollywood’ directors were forced into greyscale, but now that it has become an artistic choice, it allows the viewer to ask why it was chosen – in the case of Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, there are a few reasons.

The first is that to strip any film landscape of its colour can, to an extent, force the viewer to look closer for its beauty. For a film like Stranger than Paradise, which is trying to show you the mundanity of the real world, the lack of colour means that either you peer closer and try to find something worth focusing your attention on, or you look away, you turn the film off, and you move on.

But black-and-white doesn’t have to strip the landscape of ‘beauty’, as shown by Down by Law, a film about three men who end up in a prison cell together and decide to break out. There is a restless energy to every shot in this film – I mean, Tom Waits stars, it was hardly going to be dull. This energy is released in large by light, a pleasing shift from the darkness of the monotonous greyscale. We see each of the three men smoking in the cell, cigarettes always having been a symbol of sensuality for the bodily pleasure and ‘chic-ness’ they represent. Once the trio have broken out, we see them light a fire in the woods, and the bright white of the flames seems to represent their new-found, but difficult to maintain, sense of freedom. We feel vindicated watching these men warm themselves against bleached light, and colour would only have ruined the scene – if there is one thing Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law teach about Jarmusch, it is that he does a disservice to himself every time he makes a film in technicolour. 

A connecting factor of both these films is John Lurie, who plays Willie in Stranger than Paradise, and Jack in Down by Law. He is perfectly suited to this existentialist-chic, melodramatic ‘nothingness’ or early Jarmusch, an aesthetic the director skilfully recreated in colour with his 2015 Patterson (hello Adam Driver), his own time being spent acting, painting, and playing jazz on his saxophone, a lifestyle that belongs to Stranger than Fiction. Jarmusch and Lurie in their years of film-making clearly had a close relationship, the director even starring in one of the six episodes of Lurie’s parodic reality tv show Fishing with John (which I 100% recommend, episode four stars Willem Dafoe and is eternally rewatchable) – Jarmusch knew what he was doing when he cast Lurie. There is a clear understanding of the sensual in both of these men – Lurie’s acting is sleek and contained, he both melts into the black-and-white, but also distinguishes himself from the rest of each scene. A prime example of this is in Eva’s first night at the apartment in Stranger than Paradise, where the two cousins sit and watch television together in silence. There is nothing going on in this scene, and it, like all in the film, ends fading into black, but you feel what is being unsaid there – you feel ‘fulfilled’, and this is the sensuality of Lurie’s acting.

 For Jim Jarmusch, black-and-white does not mean boring or lifeless – it does not there to make the film harder to concentrate on, and really all of these comments are meaningless. Stripping these films of colour brings back a sense of elegance to their plot – they are modern stories of isolation and longing, and if they had been shot in colour, this would have been a disservice to the abilities of the actors, and of the director. The fact that they have such a sensuality to them, and achieve this with such absence, is one of the many reasons they are two of my favourite films to ever have been made.

Boards, Beats and Bros: Mid90s Review

Angelica De Vido
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Boards, Beats and Bros: Mid90s Review

Twenty-five years on from the titular mid-1990s moment, Jonah Hill’s directional debut offers a nostalgic portrayal of the atmosphere and popular culture of this time. The film follows thirteen-year old protagonist, Stevie (an impressive Sunny Suljic), as he becomes friends with a group of older misfit teens, who unite through their love of skateboarding. Following the traditional narrative arc of the coming-of-age tale, the film follows Stevie as he rides out the highs and lows of adolescence, and learns important life lessons along the way.

From the film’s opening scene, where Stevie is bullied and attacked by his older brother, Hill underlines how Stevie’s difficult home life leads him to constantly seek escape out in the Los Angeles urban environment, which offers a liberation from the stifling domestic mise-en-scene. One day when he is mooching around town, he spots a group of older teenage boys skating and joking around, and he develops an instant admiration-crush on them. As Stevie befriends and gets to know these boys, he becomes inculcated into the style, language, and music of 1990s skate culture, which Hill portrays as offering a crucial solace and community for the adolescent misfits, and socially marginalised in the city – from African-American Ray (a moving, nuanced performance by Na-Kel Smith), who is routinely harassed by the LAPD whenever he attempts to step foot in an affluent neighbourhood of the city, to Fourth Grade (Ryder McLaughlin), whose family is so deprived that he cannot afford to buy new socks. Indeed, a key realisation for Stevie throughout the film is that no matter how “cool” and unfazed people might seem, everyone has their own secrets and problems, and we each cope with these in different ways. For these boys, their coping mechanism is skateboarding.

From the film’s opening shot, which illustrates a number of skateboards placed haphazardly across the floor, to the final shot of the boys skating along the highway together to the extradiegetic song that declares, “This is dedicated to the ones I love,” the redemptive homosocial power of skateboarding is placed at the heart of this film. Indeed, this film centres on an exploration of the nature of ‘brofriend culture’ of adolescent male friendships, and the love of the art of skateboarding and the freedom it provides. In this regard, Hill’s film is in keeping with the tradition of skateboarding coming-of-age films, beginning with Larry Clark’s infamous dark portrayal of 1990s toxic masculinity in Kids (1995), to the far more emotionally-resonant, insightful recent film Skate Kitchen (2018), and the documentary Minding the Gap (2018). However, in opposition to these recent films, Mid90s’ episodic, loose plot means that the film ultimately fails to offer a coherent, in-depth and emotionally-resonant insight into the appeal of skate culture for the socially marginalised.  Instead, Hill’s film feels more like an indulgent reminiscence of the popular culture landscape of this decade.

Mid90s is structured through a patchwork of quotidian scenes – from Stevie playing video games on the sofa at home, to him drinking milkshakes with the other boys on the steps of the local high school. Hill shot Mid90s on 16mm, which gives the film a 1990s home video aesthetic. In addition to this aesthetic, and its hip hop soundtrack, the film also explores the materiality of 1990s adolescent masculinity, as Stevie begins to construct his emerging young manhood through collecting a range of cultural signifiers of masculinity – including hip hop tape cassettes, weights, trainers, and baggy jeans, all of which he purchases and admires with wonder and excitement, as he attempts to emulate the style and behaviour of his older friends on the skateboarding scene.

With the encouragement of his new friends, Stevie racks up a series of adolescent “firsts” during the film – from a first kiss, to the first time travelling in someone’s car without a parent present. However, the film also depicts the more harmful side of “brofriend culture”, as Stevie experiences a number of more ‘negative’ first experiences – from going along to house parties with the older boys and taking drugs and getting drunk for the first time, to being seriously injured in a drink-driving accident when he naively allows himself to be driven home by a drunk friend along the LA freeway.

Overall, Mid90s offers an interesting, entertaining insight into the redemptive power of skateboarding – and the bro culture that surrounds it – to offer solace to adolescent male lives in crisis. However, Hill’s primary focus on providing a nostalgic portrayal of 1990s urban aesthetics, sensibilities, and popular culture means that the film ultimately misses an opportunity to offer an in-depth insight into the central role of homosocial communities in riding out the waves of emotional turmoil of adolescent experience.

Sensuality In Strauss’ ‘Salome’

Josh Taylor
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Sensuality In Strauss’ ‘Salome’

It seems almost inevitable that sensuality would play a vital role in an art form like opera. A synthesis of emotionally charged music, labyrinthine plots, and divinely grandiose sets make for an unrivalled dramatic experience, full of sensory stimuli so that, when combined the almost universally romantic nature of operatic drama, sensuality is a common occurrence. Fleeting moments of sexual tension or drawn out duets of passion have gradually become as common in opera as the word ‘amore’ is in their libretti. 

Any opera buff, upon hearing the word ‘sensuality’, will almost instantly think of Salome, Strauss’s one act opera based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name, which culminates in a necrophiliac scene wherein the titular role kisses the decapitated head of John the Baptist. Still controversial for some audiences even now, the sensually-infused nature of such a scene was clearly intended to provoke and is musically just as ground-breaking as the narrative is morally-questionable. Culminating in a cadence that includes what has been described as “the most sickening chord in all opera”, the entire scene is underlined with a haunting trill, sustained by various instruments creating an eeriness now more commonly identified with horror soundtracks than the opera hall. The persistent interruptions of oboes pervade the bars in which Salome’s voice is absent, before sinisterly assimilating with her in a declining scale, launching the voice and orchestra into a perverse melodic tangent. C sharp major comes into play, but Salome has no reason for such musical optimism, clearly misinterpreting the dire situation she is in, as the orchestra tangle her back into the minor shortly after. As if the audience needed anymore reminding, an orchestral rumble, an earthquake or perhaps the gates of hell opening, begins moments before each of Salome’s more recitative-style phrases, adding to the foreboding of the scene.

Fraught with leitmotif, the music of this closing scene is difficult to fully appreciate without reference to the wider opera, but the way in which Strauss crafts such horrific sinistry, all revolving around one moment of sensuality is striking. The switches between minor and major emblemise the contorted reactions forced upon the audience: here is a woman, so engrossed in her sensual desires that, no matter how perverse they may be, she is in some way deserving of the audience’s sympathy. The discordance in the orchestra is not only a symbol of the ominous fate of Salome, but of the moral complexity the audience feels upon experiencing such sensuality. The musical presence of the sensuality is just as jarring as its physical representation, and it is clear that, both in the score and on the stage, sensuality has a shock factor like little else; the entire opera leads to this one kiss, a transient, sensual moment, that nonetheless defines and reshapes the hour and a half that precedes it.

Salome’s kiss is undoubtedly an extreme example, a sensual climax of an obscene kind, but musically important nonetheless, and a moment that illuminates its preceding pages of music. But sensuality in opera is not merely constricted to the grand and climactic. On the other end of the scale, an equally (if not more) famous scene (for very different reasons), situated at the start of an opera, revolves around the innocent touch of a hand, musically and narratively moulding the remaining two and a half hours to come. 

Only a few decades before Strauss, Puccini’s ‘Che gelida manina’ was composed as the first solo aria for Rodolfo, the tenor, in La Bohème. The high C has since been enshrined as a litmus test for any tenor worth their salt and the aria is one of opera’s most famous. Typically Puccini in its lyricism, there is a great deal of realismo composition going on too that accentuates the brief moment of sensuality; these sweet layers return through the rest of the opera to remind character and audience of a naïve, rose-tinted, fleetingly sensual touch of the hand that lit a spark between the two lovers. 

The opening phrases, fairly short with minimal accompaniment and conversational libretto, imply a hesitant relationship, a man rendered nervous by touching the cold hand of a woman he loves. As the aria progresses, fairly slowly, gradually building, so too does the orchestra grow in richness, with strings more consistent in their accompaniment and doubling of the tenor voice, vocal tessitura rising, and more classically metaphorical lyrics about love coming out of the locker in an attempt to woo Mimi. Vocal silence is no longer hesitant, but an opportunity for orchestral flourishing, building up the internal courage before the hopeful climax in that high C is unleashed by the voice. A sudden retraction of opera-ness then returns, with the song back on a conversational tone, but only now, post tenor mating-call, the conversation is far more intimate and familiar: the high C worked. Though on first glance there doesn’t seem to be much depth to this aria, it is the ensuing music that grants it its development: Mimi’s following aria, structurally very similar, seamlessly blends into a duet between the two lovers with similar thematic progression in both, stemming from Rodolfo’s nervous attempts at love. Themes from these three arias recur throughout the ensuing opera in various forms, reminding the audience of the sensual bond between the two, subtly nodding to their origins, even at times when things look to be a little bleak between them. Indeed, before Mimi’s death, a gently minor variation of phrases from their first encounter whispers on the strings, as if she is drifting off into the past, towards that sensual moment when they met, full of optimism and hope.

Sensuality, perhaps inextricable from opera, can take form on either end of the spectrum: from orchestrally complex and scandalous to an almost child-like modesty in action and musicality, and everywhere in between, the sensual forms an innate compositional and emotional tool. Hardly surprising from such an impassioned art form.

Frequencies and what they do to you

Henry Griffiths
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Frequencies and what they do to you

So, what is sound? It’s a cliche opener, but the answer is easy enough.

Sound is just wiggly air.

It’s as good a definition as any and brings up an interesting issue – the sheer inability of the English language to describe sounds on their own. When we try to talk about sounds, we usually end up talking about the physical objects that produce the sound, rather than the sound itself as an abstract entity. We might describe a “drumbeat” or a “guitar strum” or a “cymbal clash,” but we lack any specific words in our vernacular to talk about what these sounds actually are, outside of a few crude descriptors for volume and pitch. Try and describe your favourite song without referencing the instruments used to create it and you’ll see what I mean. This deficiency in our language represents the historical attitude towards sounds as being inherently tied to the objects that create them and disentangling this assumption is one of the key goals of contemporary sound art practice today.

The human experience of sound is instinctively tied to the real world. Our primate brains are hardwired to try and detect the source of sounds, to try and figure out a “story” to a series of sounds, to detect danger and gather coherent information about our surroundings whenever we can. By detaching sound from its creator, sound art can confuse and even intimidate us by presenting us with a dense impenetrable soundscape or a stripped-back ethereal one.

This primal instinct for understanding is well-displayed in possibly the most famous piece of sound art, sometimes controversial but undeniably revolutionary, John Cage’s 1952 work 4’33”, a musical score that instructs its performers not to play anything at all for the duration of the piece. Primed to consciously listen instead of merely “hearing” by the expectation of a concert setting, the listeners apply their heightened focus to the natural quiet soundscape of the audience itself in lieu of any actual performance and find themselves instead straining to pick up all the tiny natural sounds that humans are constantly making without realising. The overall effect ends up being a slow and exploratory one, as each audience member carefully picks up one tiny sound at a time and then examines the sound from all angles to try and figure out its source – a fidgeting child crinkling a sweet wrapper, a man scratching his stubble, a shoe brushing the floor, etc, before moving onto the next mysterious microsound one can detect and trying to solve it too.

In the opposite direction, some sound artists delight in presenting the listener with completely alien sounds, produced by complex synthesizers and scrambled by digital processing until they have become so abstract any link to the real world is nigh-impossible. A good example of this is the process of “sonification”, where non-audio data is converted to sound form by a computer program and played back. A ubiquitous real life example of sonification you possibly have never thought about is the ticking/chiming of a clock – the idea of time passing having a “sound” is absurd, and yet we have been contextually taught by our surroundings to associate the ticking of a clock integrally with the abstract concept of “time” – ticks speeding up to indicate time passing faster and slowing down to indicate the opposite. Sonification is used for practical purposes in Geiger counters, altimeters in planes, and sonar displays in ships but sound artists can also take this process and apply it to more abstract and unfamiliar concepts to great effect. Mario De Vega’s 2015 “DOLMEN” installation of receivers and bundled radio scanners worked to intercept the everpresent but invisible torrent of radio and infrared signals passing through the air and turn them into audible sounds. If one made a phone call in the vicinity of his radio mast, one could hear the squawk and howl of their phone’s outgoing signals being picked up and rebroadcast by his piece. This interactivity guided the audience to a deeper appreciation for the sounds that aren’t there, the silent chatter of digital signals all around us temporarily given a voice by De Vega to express themselves with.

But sound art isn’t just self-reflective, it can connect people too. Live performances of sound art produce a rare intimacy between listener and artist, akin to watching a painter working with their brush in real-time rather than just observing a static end-product. The tilted head of the practitioner as they delicately tweak dials, the furrowed brow as they gently position a microphone just so, the understated quietness of someone carefully considering their next noise, these things are captivating in a way few other experiences are as a performer (or performers) gently coax sounds from a box. Unlike a painting, a film or a commercial song, these performances only exist in the moment and then in memory – the moment you are sharing with the artist is a special one that you will never be able to experience again, adding a deep poignancy to the experience, and that transient aspect and lack of a fixed material context elevates sound art performance to an almost unparalleled level of intensity.

Hungry for Love, or Just Plain Hungry?

Peter Lewis
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Hungry for Love, or Just Plain Hungry?

It’s back. After a whole year, the sundrenched, bikini-clad gawp-fest that is ‘Love Island’ is returning to our screens. Love it or hate it, the hype around the fifth season is already sweeping across the internet, just in time for summer exams. However, recent discussions surrounding the duty of care that reality TV provides for its contestants has resulted in a backlash against the programme, especially in light of the tragic deaths of two former islanders.

Undoubtedly the easiest thing to criticise ‘Love Island’ for is its unrealistic portrayal of body image. Defending the casting decisions, the Controller of ITV Digital Channels said at the Edinburgh TV Festival: “I think on the body image thing, we cast very attractive people because it’s a sexy show.” Being a “sexy show” evidently results in a cast who look as if they spend half their life in the gym, and the other half in the tanning salon. In fact, these are the main activities the islanders seem to participate in throughout the show, either seen lounging around on sun beds or pumping dumbbells in the scorching heat. Interestingly though, one activity we rarely see the islanders engaged in is mealtimes, with the only memorable instances coming from the dates we get to see, or when preparing food is set as a challenge.

One assumption is that the islanders, being lean, mean, grafting machines, are starving themselves to keep their trim physiques; however, reports from previous contestants suggest that this is far from the case. Montana Brown has revealed in interviews that all the contestants are in fact catered for extremely well, being served lunch and dinner, and being able to request specific foods. Breakfast is the only meal they have to prepare for themselves, which is why we do occasionally see contestants frying eggs in the mornings.

The producers’ excuse is that there isn’t time to show meals, while other reports have revealed that microphone checks take place as the contestants are eating, limiting what can be shown. Both reasons are valid, though don’t alter the damaging presentation of eating habits offered by the show. While it could be argued that the absence of mealtimes is simply another way in which reality TV distorts real life, it doesn’t square up well with the heightened attention to food given by shows such as ‘I’m a Celebrity.’ Rather, the imbalance of working out to eating could be considered psychologically damaging to impressionable viewers.

The solution to this problem is obvious. In the same way that the show cut scenes of contestants smoking, the show could include scenes of the contestants sat together eating. This would add a little normality to the strange foodless existence that is Love Island, as well as encouraging healthy eating habits.

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