Monday 6th October 2025
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Could Friends be any more problematic?

Naomi Packer
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Could Friends be any more problematic?

Friends is the sitcom classic which in many ways defined a cultural era. But in the same way the quintessentially 90s haircuts and fashion seem out of place in 2018, so too has the era’s taste in humour suffered from the passing of time.

Since Friends was released on Netflix earlier this month, millennials have expressed reservations about many of its storylines. The show is often transphobic, homophobic, and outright sexist; many of the recurring jokes give a stark and unforgiving reflection of a less socially progressive era.

Friends is far from a bastion of diversity, and from this, humour is often cruelly derived from anyone who doesn’t fit the ‘copy and paste’ casting method of white, straight, middle class characters. Viewers will remember only two notable non-white characters in the show, Charlie and Julie, neither of them last long enough in the series to make a significant impact.

The most notable criticism is probably the show’s often blatant homophobia and transphobia. Chandler is paranoid about being perceived as gay, the concept of a male nanny forms the basis of an episode tinged with homophobic undertones, and mean-spirited jokes about Chandler’s transgender father, Helena, are a staple for the show’s iconic wedding episode between Monica and Chandler. Correct pronouns are dismissed with little thought, Monica describing Helena as ‘the man in the black dress’ to the delight of rapturous canned laughter.

On top of the racism, sexism and homophobia, Monica was never allowed to forget she was once overweight. “The camera adds ten pounds!” she says in the episode titled ‘The One with the Prom Video’, to which Chandler responds: “so how many cameras are actually on you?” Her weight is a constant source of mockery, the writers consistently assuming that audiences will find the concept of fatness inherently funny.

I was a young teenager when I began watching Friends. The cast were charismatic, attractive, and the supposedly ideal image of young adulthood. But re-watching Friends, the humour often appears cheap. What once felt witty now provokes tangible discomfort, the kind you experience when forced to spend time with a particularly ignorant grandparent.

It calls into question what the purpose of comedy is, does it have a social or moral purpose? Do we have an obligation to call out insensitive jokes, or merely take them on the chin and view them through the more informed social lens which we can derive from our now more progressive social landscape? It’s good for audiences to demand more from their TV shows. Shows with the success Friends experienced over its ten year run permeate the cultural consciousness, and often what we find funny is a reflection of what we find acceptable in society.

The influence of TV shows doesn’t end when they are taken off air, they evolve into similar cultural incarnations, like How I Met Your Mother, and The Big Bang Theory. Joey’s sexism is reincarnated into the form of Barney Stinson, both labelled as ‘womanisers’ but more accurately described in this context as a term for men who objectify women.

For this reason, it’s important we remain critical of the way different genders, sexualities and races are depicted on screen. The perpetuation of stereotypes is damaging, and when your identity becomes the punchline to a mass audience, it no longer feels like innocent fun.

The Kardashians have made millions from misogyny

Emily Lawford
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The Kardashians have made millions from misogyny

This week, after months of social media silence and furious guesswork from fans, Kylie Jenner released an intimate, home-video style film, entitled ‘To Our Daughter’, announcing and charting her pregnancy to the world. Her new instagram of baby Stormi Webster has become the most liked image on the platform.

Suddenly everyone wants to see if Kylie will retreat from public life – and everyone has an opinion about whether or not she should. The Kardashians shouldn’t be anyone’s feminist heroes. Kim, came out as a feminist to Harper’s Bazaar last year, despite previously shunning the label. She may use her platform for shining a light on homelessness (a recent Keeping Up episode raised over a million dollars for LA’s homeless problem), police brutality, and the struggles of the Armenian people, but the others, (particularly the younger ones) are frequently and consistently problematic.

Kendall and Kylie have in the past year spawned hundreds of angry tweets and think-pieces about their regular cultural appropriation, selling bizarre T-shirts with their faces superimposed upon those of dead music icons, and, of course, that infamous Pepsi advert. And Kim’s nude photos shouldn’t need to be called feminist. She’s so jaw-droppingly sexy that while posting a selfie may shift our beauty ideals away from Kate Moss-skinny, her body is no less unattainable a goal for an average woman. Posting them shouldn’t be a radical or political act. Except, of course, they are, because the vile wave of misogyny that seems to follow every post means we must debate the ethical value of her tits.

As long as they’re attacked for enjoying displaying their bodies and their wealth, that display and that very existence becomes political. Kim now accompanies some of her selfies with blog posts about slut-shaming. Kylie, the youngest and quietest, is yet to develop Kim’s activist streak. But she’s also perhaps had the toughest time – since she was 15 she’s been compared to her supermodel sister, often branded the ‘uglier’ of the duo. As anyone with sisters would know, that’s your worst nightmare. If the same were to happen to me ,I’d probably go into hiding.

But Kylie didn’t: she got lip fillers, and used the media furore and outrage about her newly-plump pout to create a lipstick and cosmetics brand that’s now worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, she’s predicted to be a billionaire by 2022. I don’t think anyone expects the Kardashians to really stop caring about material wealth. They shouldn’t have to – they’re brilliant businesswomen. In fact, our reaction to Kylie’s brief absence from the spotlight says far more about us than her. Despite outrage at their social media presence, so many still crave the Kardashian brand, and why shouldn’t they profit from a patriarchal industry which, for want of a better phrase, ‘loves to hate’ them.

But whether or not Kylie retires from public life or continues her life full of cameras and cosmetics doesn’t matter. The Kardashians aren’t radical feminists and they don’t want to be. But what they have done is turn a sex tape leaked without Kim’s permission into a billion-dollar brand, and given America a First Family of powerful, ambitious women whose love for their family, and sheer, unashamed exhibitionism make them – if not role models – people I can’t help but like.

The changing face of the Virgin

Freya Thorpe
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The changing face of the Virgin

In 1997, Chris Ofili’s mixed media painting ‘The Holy Virgin Mary’ arrived in New York as part of an exhibition of Charles Saatchi’s personal collection.

A British artist of Nigerian descent, raised as a Catholic, Ofili had depicted the Madonna as black, exaggerating her features to play off racial stereotypes.

She is surrounded by collaged images that, up close, reveal themselves to be pornographic photos of female genitalia, and her one exposed breast is fashioned from elephant dung.

The image was condemned as an attack on Catholicism; Mayor Rudy Giuliani termed it “sick stuff” and threatened to cut funding from the museum unless “the director comes to his senses.”

Several months after the exhibition’s opening, a 72-year-old schoolteacher vandalised the piece with white paint because he considered it blasphemous. Ofili’s focus on race, physicality, and bodily functions provides a new conception of the Madonna, one that both contradicts and updates traditional iconography. In 1999, Ofili stated that “Religion should be used in an appropriate way… the Church is not made up of one person but a whole congregation, and they should be able to interact with art without being told what to think.”

‘The Holy Virgin Mary’ may then be seen as a necessary and natural evolution of the conventions of religious art, rendered more “appropriate” for a more diverse and multicultural society which prioritises freedom of expression. While the painting’s objectors consider its unorthodox physicality a “sick” attack on religion, Ofili may be seen instead to be working within a new conception of Catholicism, one that allows for multiculturalism and permits racial diversity in the representation of its divinities.

Donald J. Cosentino classes Ofili as a ‘Hip Hop Catholic,’ along with Warhol, Mapplethorpe, and Serrano. Cosentino suggests that his religion is a progression of Catholicism, because it works from and translates religious tradition in the light of contemporary values, as well as issues of race and gender. In 2014, the painting returned to New York as part of the Chris Ofili: Night and Day exhibition at the New Museum, without the protests and vandalism that dominated its first appearance; the shock value of Ofili’s reimagined Madonna had subsided.

Massimiliano Gioni, who curated the show, observed that “in art, any transgression eventually gets absorbed and digested…what was shocking at one point becomes normal after a while.”

Ofili and his ‘Holy Virgin Mary’ worked towards a reinvention of traditional religion which combines doctrine with modern culture and politics. Despite the shock that this reinvention initially generated, its essence will eventually be assimilated into norms of art and religious depiction, which, hopefully, it has already helped to make broader.

‘New Year, New Diet’ – but will that fad diet do you any good?

Madeleine Duperouzel
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‘New Year, New Diet’ – but will that fad diet do you any good?

‘You see, I just want to lose weight this year, so I’m trying this diet. You won’t believe how easy it is, literally all I have to do is skip breakfast and lunch, then and eat a high fibre, high protein, low sugar, low carb, low fat, vegetable-only low sugar, high protein, low fat, only vegetable meal for dinner!’

It’s a cliché that we’re all aware of, and one we’ve probably bought onto ourselves – the New Year’s diet. Magazines published at this time of year are rife with articles showing minor celebrities boasting of how, by using THIS one simple trick, they shed five pounds in two weeks, and YOU CAN DO IT TOO.

Shops sneakily move their ‘health’ products to the front of their window displays, and juice companies surely worship the time of year when people drink their product in droves, for the sake of ‘cleansing’ or ‘detoxing’ their bodies (spoiler alert: that’s what your kidneys are for).

The fad diet is an integral and inherently problematic part of diet culture, and has only been made more pervasive as an institution in recent years with the rise of social media. Are there any benefits at all to participating in these diets?

The short answer is no. While the pros and cons have been heatedly debated from many angles, there is little to no actual science to support the idea that fad diets are anything but fads. The NHS warns against using diets that exclude certain food groups, or encourage the over-eating of others, and that are reliant on almost immediate results. And the British Dietary Association releases an annual ‘diets to avoid’ list, in order to prevent pseudo-scientific diets from gaining traction.

The problem, however, is that these institutions are not recognising the more insidious way that fad-dieting culture has moved into our lives. No longer are diets such as the ‘only cabbage soup’ type promoted, but instead many now claim to have scientific or homeopathic backing, and companies are spending large sums of money paying celebrities who are often completely uneducated on such issues, to promote them.

The notion of the ‘insta-babe’ selling us her favourite ‘skinny tea’, or the reality TV star demonstrating their ‘before and after’ results from a 5:2 (or intermittent fasting) diet, has become ubiquitous. But the real issue isn’t whether or not people choose to use laxatives, or decide to skip breakfast most mornings – the fundamental problems with this type of dieting and diet promotion is that they are hinged on the idea of weight loss, rather than encouraging a healthy lifestyle, and they suggest that other aspects of our lifestyles – how often we exercise, whether we drink, what types of food we normally eat – are lesser factors than the supposedly more effective, faster solution.

In reality, there isn’t anything that wrong with deciding to mostly cut out carbs, or to spend a few weeks – sensibly – restricting your calorific intake. But there is something wrong with failing to acknowledge, as most people do, that this short-term fix has to be supplemented by a longer term, and much harder, lifestyle change.

For those of us who have suffered from an unhealthy relationship with food and our bodies, fad diets present a concerningly tempting way to disguise much deeper problems. The implication of a diet that tells you to cut out certain food groups is to create a notion in your mind that some food is ‘bad’ and other food is ‘good’. The only way that food can be categorised as ‘good’ is if it will make or keep you thin. In reality, it’s just not healthy to create a mindset that ruminates over the calories and sugar content of every food item.

These diets contribute to an already incredibly toxic ‘diet culture’ that has made society obsessed with their bodies – especially women. The thinly-veiled misogyny that exists in this industry must not be ignored. It’s rare that fad diets are targeted towards men. The classic image of a ‘healthy’ woman is one who wears a size six pair of running leggings, has a perfectly toned stomach, and who is preferably chugging a glass of green juice every two hours. Now, I’m sure this woman is healthy, but the image that she is promoting to thousands of women and girls just isn’t.

Whereas men’s magazines typically tend to focus on encouraging guys to hit the gym and eat nutritious and balanced diets, women’s magazines are some of the biggest culprits when it comes to creating this toxic atmosphere. There is so much subliminal messaging – the suggestion that ‘to be thin is to be happy’ is displayed without those words ever having to be used. It comes from beautiful, lithe and seemingly happy models who seem to be needlessly participating in said diet. It comes from social media-based companies who target you by using language like ‘babes’ and ‘chicas’ to form a kind of corporate faux-feminist bond with their consumer base.

In order to contribute to the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, it is necessary that fad diets are recognised for exactly what they are – short term and usually ineffective solutions that can be incredibly detrimental not only to one’s physical health, but to their mental health as well.

There would be little point reiterating the messages sent out by health organisations regarding the cons of fad-dieting; these are almost as clichéd as the diets themselves. What really matters is educating people properly on nutrition and encouraging an active lifestyle from an early age.

This particularly applies to young girls, as by the age of 10 anywhere from 50-80 per cent of young girls in western countries will have tried a diet. This just isn’t right. I’m not condemning using a specific diet in accordance with a pre-existing healthy lifestyle, but the culture and the society which suggests that diets should be undertaken without the necessary research and consultation, and in pursuit of the wrong aims, should be.

Two views on love compete for our heart

Lydia Stephens
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Two views on love compete for our heart

When it comes to that ‘crazy little thing called love’, no-one actually knows what they’re doing. Despite years of study and experience it’s surprising that we have no sort of comprehensive formal education on the matter. The education we as millennials have received has been woefully inadequate. We’re the generation known for being perhaps the most disillusioned. So whilst we’re looking for a voice of authority on love, to guide us out of our confusion we get caught between two competing philosophies of love: one of emotionalism and one of rationalism (often called cynicism).

Today, more than ever, we’re reluctant to suggest the two are linked. You can see the two ideologies exemplified in the 2009 movie (500) Days of Summer. If you haven’t seen it, you should know, the film begins with the narrator describing “Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, [who] grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met his… ‘soulmate.’ This belief stemmed from [his] early exposure to sad British pop music and a total misreading of the movie The Graduate.” Even though Tom was a teen in the 1980s and is from the USA, I’d argue this is the sort of education on love many of us received.

We’re the generation that learned about Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in school, and then would go home and broodingly listen to Drake, (or maybe something edgier if your parents owned vinyls). Tom exhibits the emotional approach to love. His ‘love interest’ Summer, is of course a ‘cynic.’ She informs him, on the subject of love: “I don’t even know what that word means. I know I’ve never felt it, whatever it is in all those songs… Oh yeah, And I read in Newsweek, there were these scientists who found that by stimulating a part of the brain with electrodes you can make a person fall in “love” with a rock.”

So we’re either falling headfirst in love or having sensory reactions to rocks… In the past, views on love were at the ‘Tom’ end of the spectrum. When you’re younger, your parents would tell you about love, and you’d believe what they said. This stage lasts a long time. Apparently we stop believing in Santa around age nine or ten, but believe in love well into adulthood, and spend colossal amounts of time looking for it or, at least, reading about it.

This is because once we’ve neglected our parents authority on the matter, we might turn to our friends, or even more worryingly, to literature. This is an art form rampant with couples starting duels, running themselves through with swords, and eating arsenic or at the very least writing exceptionally sad journals. Once you’ve realised perhaps this isn’t the best way to learn about love, without becoming too cynical you’ll perhaps have to turn to music. However this industry is equally concerning. One of the most ‘romantic’ lyrics in British music reads “if a double-decker bus crashes into us / To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die / And if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us / To die by your side, the pleasure, the privilege is mine.” There’s ‘romance’, and then there’s that! – A complete explosion of what realistically is narcissistic, and cringeworthy diatribe (although that may be a very unpopular opinion).

On the other hand, I grew up being told that the most authoritative voices in music on love were, of course, Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman which are obviously not always the most uplifting influences. However, both are truly fantastic artists and many of us will feel some sort of heartbreak like theirs in our lives. Most of us admittedly won’t write a beautiful album about it, we’ll likely listen to theirs instead. So this emotionalism, whether it be literary, musical or other, works wonders as a crutch and a way to explain or educate us on how we’re feeling, but they don’t provide a complete education.

However in the last few years, recent studies into love have turned to Summer’s ideology. The rationalists have gone so far the other way and are fraught with statistics, facts, cynicism, and rationale. In a way, making explainable the mix of feelings that constitutes love is reassuring. Yet this approach definitely makes love seem more like a science than an art. Notions of ‘soul-mate’, ‘one and only’ and ‘love of your life’ get replaced with statistics that can tell you exactly how many ‘long term partners’ you are likely to have, how many of these you will ‘cohabit’ with and how many you will statistically ‘marry’ and ‘divorce’. A concept that was once intrinsically romanticised, is now being routinely analysed.

Today that voice of authority comes from an industry. ‘Matchmaker’ and ‘Love doctor’ now exists as professional platforms. In the last five years, TedTalks on love have focused on things like the science of love, linguistic studies of love, and how to step into love as opposed to falling into it. The industry has turned being ‘lucky in love’ to being ‘smug in love’ since there appears now to be a specific algorithm for finding love, which only some of us will master before a certain age. I mean, Buzzfeed will probably be able to tell you what type of person you find attractive based on your favourite pizza topping.

Today’s challenge seems to be to find a way of talking about love that is somewhere in the middle. We all know we have a tendency to over romanticise, but becoming analytical robots isn’t too appealing either. There needs to be some realism within this age old concept.

Blind Date: “Our first attempt was marked by a minor mishap”

Charlie Blake and Jack Sagar
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Blind Date: “Our first attempt was marked by a minor mishap”

Charlie Blake, Second Year, Engineering, St Catz

Our first attempt at meeting was marked by a minor mishap – we couldn’t find each other. I couldn’t help but think that this was some kind of omen… but following our initial confusion, we finally arranged to meet for a pleasant Saturday morning coffee. I had actually only woken up less than an hour ago before the date, following a fun-filled Pride Entz the night before, but nevertheless I donned a smile and cute jumper ready to meet him. After the initial greeting one another, conversation quickly went into standard freshers questions, such as name, college, subject, year etc. Topics of conversation ranged from Malala to going to Wetherpoons with your teachers, but all in all I’d say that it was a generally pleasant time.

First impressions?

Is he a DPhil student? No, he’s a fresher – the beard deceived me.

Quality of the chat?

Wide range of philosophical questions, 10/10.

Most awkward moment?

Trying to say I had to leave.

Kiss or miss?

Miss.

Jack Sagar, First Year, PhilThe, Mansfield

He seemed to be in a bit of a rush, just by the way he walked up to the café. But, that’s because I suppose that he wanted to be on time. I thought he was attractive, and was just grateful that he wasn’t a 6’4” to my 5’8”, and I was looking forward to getting to know him over the next hour. Conversation appeared to have owed well, and we covered all the big topics: Eurovision, greenstick fractures and student-tutor relationships. We were quite receptive to one another’s views, and able to add to what the other had said. It was the sort of conversation where I did not feel that aware of the time, nor did I find myself wondering what to say next whilst he spoke. When it came time to say goodbye, I wanted him to know I’d had a nice time, but was too awkward to articulate that.

First impressions?

It seemed like he was in a bit of a rush.

Quality of the chat?

Topics were broad and ranging, demonstrating his worldly insight.

Most awkward moment?

The goodbye…I started rambling.

Kiss or miss?

Kiss.

A woman who made a difference – for better or worse

Samar Rizvi
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A woman who made a difference – for better or worse

You know the sort, an eccentric Oxonion scholar-bureaucrat with an interest in wandering around the Middle-East of the early twentieth century. These characters and figures are likely to be understood instantly in terms of the politics that made their scholarship possible, specifically colonialism. For better or for worse.

Sometimes we focus on the problems of colonialist politics a little too much, but should we not be attentive to them at all just because the person in question scouring the land for antiquities was a product of Lady Margaret Hall rather than Balliol?

The first half of the film Letters from Baghdad by Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbühl, on the life of the path breaking colonial administrator Gertrude Bell, unwittingly made me think about this question a great deal.

This is because it is an epistolary film, centred around the unquestionably colourful, though tragic letters that Bell exchanged during the time she spent in the Middle East during the early years of the previous century.

It also features letters and observations about Bell spoken by actors playing her contemporaries, filmed in black and white. This structure means that it is heavily reliant on Bell’s own observations about herself and her colleagues and so inherently uncritical about Bell’s own life.

Perhaps to another reviewer this would not be an issue, since Bell unquestionably had her own difficulties to overcome as a woman. The film captures this well in the first fifteen or so minutes, focussing on the period of her life before she went eastwards. Shots of Oxford from the 1880s, when Bell arrived at the women’s only Lady Margaret Hall, of young men following the rowing along the river, and on their bicycles in the middle of town, are generous and so transport you to that time where considerably more students faced significant disadvantages compared to their peers.

Thankfully it is not overly sentimentalised, even though Bell achieved great academic success, leaving with a first-class degree in history in two years, at the age of 19. Snide, though possibly even bewildered or ‘concerned’, references to Bell’s “Oxfordy manner” and therefore ‘male characteristics’ see to this.

Her male contemporaries also thought of her as not a particularly suitable wife, and her decision to spend some time in Persia, where her uncle was a British Minister based in Tehran, and where she would become fluent in Arabic and Persian.

This part of the film also quickly establishes the film’s second greatest strength, after the restrainedeloquence of Bell’s writing: the lavish video footage from the period plays as the voice of Tilda Swinton, the academy award winning Scottish actress, reads Bell’s thoughts with perfection.

The collection of footage and Swinton’s intonation would perhaps be reason enough to go and watch this film. But importantly, as the film becomes more overtly political its colonial Eat Pray Love like quality quickly wears off, and we are allowed to appreciate her life in all its aspects.

In the middle of the film Bell speaks of the “well spent morning at the office” where she delineates the boundaries of the state that would become Iraq. Bell affirms a need to support the Sunni establishment in a country numerically dominated by Shi’a, and to install the Arab Hashemite prince Faisal as King of Iraq. If not enough time is spent on the terrible consequences of these decisions, we hear from Bell as she is being side-lined at the Paris Peace Conference where she speaks of the combination of compromise, venality and ineptitude with which the victorious powers were settling the boundaries of the modern Middle East.

Gertrude Bell was at the centre of epoch making events, and despite certain failings Letters from Baghdad compellingly shows what taking the initiative to live life in the midst of grand events entails.

The Polycephaly Monologues Review – ‘seamlessly combines the surreal with the naturalistic’

Tom Mackie
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The Polycephaly Monologues Review – ‘seamlessly combines the surreal with the naturalistic’

It’s almost as if the cranberries represent something else… Writer Nick Smart’s The Polycephaly Monologues is an intense insight into three very different minds, all with their individual quirks and worries. Contextualised by a variety of fruits, this performance is high-energy, with the undercurrent of a very original style of writing, and seamlessly combines the surreal with the naturalistic.

The audience walk into the Pilch to find the actors already onstage, putting on make-up or scoffing the remains of a plum pudding. Instantly, we enter the atmosphere of the piece, and fall silent to watch the action before us. No time is wasted in making us uneasy, and slightly confused at the water-filled rubber gloves hanging from the ceiling. Cherona Chapman’s lighting keeps the piece fluid, and maintains this sense of unease throughout, though not so much as to overwhelm the audience. Ella Benson Easton’s set is used to great effect, though minimal, it does its job well, and the actors all master the space, keeping these long solo speeches from sagging.

We start with Robbie Fraser’s portrayal of a mentally unstable widower, tangential and deeply affecting. Though this monologue takes us through the erratic thoughts of a rambler, Fraser manages to hold our attention, through the talk of plum pudding to the darker, more gruesome talk of worms and decaying bodies. This is by far the strongest piece of writing, and Fraser carries it off with delicacy, moving between despair and elation in order to keep the audience focused and interested, with no signs of a struggle on his part. Progressing from one subject to another at break-neck speed, the chaos of his thoughts is brought to the forefront, though it does become difficult to decipher what the script is trying to say towards the end.

In the next monologue, we see weaker writing, but greater comic potential. Hannah Jaques’ character doesn’t take herself too seriously, and wonders what it would be like to have a lipstick baby grow inside of her. The absurdity increases in this section, and Jaques talks of crying out of her vagina, and whether her screams could bring down the roof over her head, and that of her boyfriend and his lover. Preoccupied by her make-up, Jaques is straight to the point, distracted, and in this we see a certain honestly arise from her words. As before, however, the script goes round in circles, and starts to lose direction, though the actor makes the most of her situation.

Finally, and most surreally, Alec McQuarrie comes into the spotlight, perplexed by the bare stage he has been left with. Before long, he goes off to the side, and brings back on a paddling pool, filling it with water and a mysterious red liquid, (later we find out this is, unsurprisingly, cranberry juice). His confusion is not at the stage any longer, but at the question of what it takes to become a cranberry. He needs to think like one, dipping his head in the pool, and trying to submerge himself as much as possible. Here, the script starts to fade from the forefront, and it is McQuarrie’s physicality which takes centre stage, dynamically following his threads of thought, using the space around him to his advantage. He takes the audience with him on his energetic attempts to turn into a cranberry, or to produce one in any way he can. This culminates in him ‘drowning,’ inventively portrayed as if the water is rising from the pool and filling the whole stage, probably the most exciting moment in the whole piece, the audience was held in suspense as he held his breath, uncertain of what was coming next.

The script attempts to be continuous, but it is unclear as to what each monologue is trying to say, both individually and as a body of work. Though misguided, this is an enjoyable show, and each actor is brilliant in their own right.

Makeup as personal empowerment?

Molly Flaherty
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Makeup as personal empowerment?

For anyone who knows me, my defining physical characteristic would likely be ‘eyeliner dots.’ A touch ironic, perhaps, that rather than any genetic feature it is my makeup that stands out. Yet for me this is brilliant; I am in control of the image I project to the world, and can assert my identity accordingly.

For my chubby pre-teen self, wearing makeup provided a much-needed confidence boost, a means of seeing my reflection and thinking ‘okay, that’ll do’. Whilst hindsight tells me that caking my acne-covered face in Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse was not the most sensible skincare move, this act allowed me to re-assert the control over my appearance that hormones taken from me. However, in a strict all-girls grammar school this approach to beauty was frowned upon. Teachers warned that wearing makeup would diminish the reputation of the school, because why on earth would an intelligent young woman waste time applying winged eyeliner?

You only need look around Oxford to see that this isn’t the case. Rather than a marker of vanity or ill-intelligence, the wide-spread consensus is that makeup is a means of expressing oneself. Our choices of self-presentation help construct individuality that we are so ardently encouraged by tutors to cultivate. It is a talking point, the start of a conversation. I bonded with one of my closest friends in college over an admiration of her electric blue lipstick, and our friendship is founded upon a shared love of both poetry and MAC cosmetics. What is more, the choice to wear makeup can be a political statement in the face of patriarchal standards that condemn it. Oxford’s drag scene provides strong evidence of this: groups of individuals expressing themselves outside of socially-constructed expectations of behaviour, displaying facets of their identity through makeup, clothing, and performance art.

The choice not to wear makeup may be equally empowering. Once again, this decision has no correlation to one’s intellectual integrity. It is time we regard these two as mutually exclusive and hold a mirror up to the society that enforces this very principle.

LGBT flags deserve more than a week

Alasdair Johnston
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LGBT flags deserve more than a week

It seems appropriate that the theme for LGBT history month this year is ‘Geography: Mapping the World’ when considering how large the international student contingent is here at Oxford.

This month we look to commemorate sombre events. For example, the 30th anniversary of the passing of section 28, which prohibited local authorities from disseminating materials that ‘promoted homosexuality’ in schools and the 40th anniversary of the murder of Harvey Milk, the USA’s first out gay elected councillor. But there is a lot to be celebrated too, as citizens in Australia and also 16 other Central and South American nations can enjoy same sex weddings for the first time.

30 years ago, it was stated in Section 28 that a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality”, an act only repealed in 2003 in the UK. LGBT history is frequently littered with taboo and silence. I therefore see no more fitting way to commemorate LGBT history month by flying Pride flags in defiance throughout February.

So why do so many colleges still refuse to fly the flag for the entire month? Students at a variety of colleges have struggled to get the flag flown for the entire month with mixed results.

Some colleges have notably been successful. Students at Oriel have negotiated their way to flying it for the full month for the first time. But even at colleges that have agreed to fly the flag, for example my own college, St Anne’s, the prospect was not immediately welcomed.

Many ask whether a whole month is truly necessary, or even wonder if this fight is worthwhile, or merely a self-congratulatory show of support for a cause that is largely won. It’s first important to note that the flagpoles in Oxford are largely unused. Flying a flag is virtually costless to a college. The decision not fly the flag is just as active as the decision to fly it. Whilst the college loses very little, the lonely spires certainly look better with a splash of colour. Flash back to a younger version of myself, a closeted Oxford applicant, who was blown away when he first looked around Oxford and saw the vast number of flags hanging out of windows representing every identity under the sun. My closeted self could not wait to get here.

Flags do not just exist to congratulate ourselves, they stand as a signal of who we are and who we would like to be, a city that welcomes everyone. If colleges can show support, then why shouldn’t they. LGBT people are an ‘invisible’ minority and awareness is always positive, especially in LGBT history month. This is a fast and easy way to ‘flag’ up LGBT matters and spark discussion about the history of this community and the issues that pertain to them today.

Colleges have fought back, arguing that flying the flag for awareness and support purposes would open the floodgates, allowing hundreds of obscure flags needing to be flown. Others have raised concerns that the LGBT flag may be seen as a divisive political signal that the college should not engage with. Firstly, I think we can all agree that flying other flags to represent other minority groups is no bad thing. There is no reason why we shouldn’t support the flagpoles being used throughout the year to support a variety of groups. More importantly, every stance that we make may cause a division somewhere if we choose to look for it. Remaining ‘neutral’ in this case is not an option.

Failure to make a statement of support can be easily read as an endorsement of those who would disregard the LGBT community. Silence may seep through the history of the LGBT community, but it should not be our future. Engaging in politics is unavoidable and there is no better way to engage with it than as brightly and as boldly as possible.

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