Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Blog Page 843

Cliché of the week: “Transfer saga of the summer”

Thomas Browne
-
0
Cliché of the week: “Transfer saga of the summer”

After Arsenal’s victory in the FA Cup last weekend you may think the season has ended.

But for people like myself, the real excitement has only started.

That’s right, it’s transfer season.

Already we’ve had an amuse-bouche in the form of Bernardo Silva’s impending mega-money move to Manchester City, with the City board prudently wrapping up their first signing before the window even officially opened on 1 June.

But where’s the fun in that? Where’s the excruciatingly drawn-out string of back page gossip-column headlines? Where’s the incessant reels of Sky Sports News updates for every million pounds closer the desiring club get to the coveted player’s buy-out clause?

What I want is a transfer saga.

The transfer saga, as we all know, is the pinnacle of any transfer window. It’s what gets reporters’ pens flowing. It’s what gets devoted fans down to the gates of the club training complex to harass and harangue any pundit trying to cover the story.

Every summer has their defining saga: 2016’s was Paul Pogba’s long, sought-after return to Manchester United. 2014 saw football’s ravenous enfant-terrible Luis Suarez deliberate for months before making the incredibly difficult decision to swap Merseyside for sunny Catalonia. And no-one can forget 2013, the transfer saga to end all transfer sagas—Tottenham’s seemingly interminable negotiations with Real Madrid over Gareth Bale for a then-world record fee, which almost caused Jim White to wet himself with excitement in the studio.

Who will it be this year? Antoine Griezmann seems to be playing all the right mind games for a will-they-won’t-they nail-biter this summer, but we will have to wait for the mystical crystal-ball that is the Sky-Pad, the fount of transfer knowledge, to reveal everything come 31 August.

And for this writer, at least, that moment surely can’t come soon enough.

Old and new fuse in ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’

Joe Baverstock-Poppy
-
0
Old and new fuse in ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’

As the credits to the premiere of Twin Peaks: The Return rolled, the audience at Cannes arose to unanimous applause. It has been a long 25 years—the 1992 Cannes screening of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was met with boos and jeers.

In the second episode of the new Twin Peaks, the vengeful demon, MIKE, asks Dale Cooper “is this future or past?” While this may have a context within the plot, perhaps it is a more self-referential question. Where does the new season of Twin Peaks fit in the history of TV? Will it be a look back to what made the original series so great or will it strike out new and unknown territory?

Much of the new series does look back to the original series but not in a derivative sense. The premiere is sparse in story but this sparseness is filled by our anticipation. Uneventful scenes are given weight by the memories of the original series. The moments with Catherine Coulson (who plays ‘The Log Lady’) are particularly tender considering her passing. Each reveal of an old character is filled with emotion and nostalgia.

Furthermore, Lynch looks to his wider filmography for themes and imagery to reference. The howling soundscape is more similar to Eraserhead than the kitsch lounge music of old Twin Peaks. The Manhattan scenes echo Rabbits in their setting and Lost Highway in their obsession with surveillance. Curiously, actors and even supernatural beings from Mulholland Drive make reappearances.

However, the premiere doesn’t only look back but strikes new ground too. The decision to set much of the story outside of Twin Peaks, with new, seemingly unrelated characters, is a bold one but piques interest. Stark imagery of behemoth skyscrapers reminds viewers that what happens in Twin Peaks is part of a greater world.

The digital effects expand his imagery to new mind-bending levels while remaining as convincing and unsettling as his usual practical effects.

Lynch also gives nods to standout shows from today’s golden age. The goofy and colloquial conversations set in the Midwest seem cut straight out of Fargo. The use of smoke to conjure up spectres reminds one of Lost. The decision of the youths to watch a glass box to “see if anything appears inside” could be Lynch commenting on our generation’s paralysing love for TV boxsets. Lynch may simply be reclaiming the ideas that modern shows took from him, but it is more like he is paying tribute to those who kept the TV warm while he was gone.

Overall, Lynch succeeds in straddling the past and the future. He convincingly reminds us of the original series, giving us our dose of nostalgia and general Twin Peaks plot, whilst offering fans a glimpse into his other films.

Lynch sets out new ideas, stories and imagery without departing from the original themes and feelings too much. Reviving such an old show was always going to be tricky, but artistically Twin Peaks: The Return is a triumph.

An interview with Armando Iannucci

Benn Sheridan
-
0
An interview with Armando Iannucci

The creator of The Thick of It is probably used to being ushered through the corridors of power. We, however, are not. So when we sit down with Armando Ianucci in a secluded corner of the Union’s Gladstone Room, it’s fair to say we feel a little out of place.
Benn: Were you a member of the Union when you were here?
“Well I wasn’t a member of the Union when I was an undergraduate, but I came here when they had a comedy club down in the basement in what was then called the Jazz Cellar—I don’t know if it’s still called the Jazz Cellar.”
Benn: Now it’s called ‘Purple Turtle’
“Oh of course it is”
Benn: They made that obvious leap. It is notoriously the worst club in Oxford.
“Well I remember at the time it was a terrible room to play in—very long. So that’s where Herring used to perform, and Al Murray. It was interesting.”
John: Is there a reason why you think Cambridge seems to be the dominant force in comedy now?
“Actually, I felt that even then—in my year the Cambridge Footlights were taking off with Fry and Laurie, and here [in Oxford], it was Radioactive and Rowan Atkinson and some of Monty Python. And that was it. Maybe some Beyond the Fringe—I don’t remember.”
John: Do you think satire is dead or just slightly unwell?
“I don’t think it’s is unwell but I do think that it’s going through a bit of a rethink. As I’ve said many times Trump is his own joke. He distorts what he says and turns it into laughable exaggeration. So what do you do? And it’s interesting, it seems the people who seem to be getting through are people like John Oliver who have traditional journalistic resources—they’re saying, ‘Well, let’s look at the facts’. He’s doing all the fiction stuff, so let’s look at the facts.”
John: Do you think the scrutiny, or that level of coverage has actually helped him?
“I worry that the media haven’t quite realised that it has a kind of duty if it’s under attack. It has to abandon, ‘Well we mustn’t say anything too controversial’. Obviously you’ve got to be careful but I think the media has to start from a position of ‘Okay, let’s examine the truth, and if the truth is unpalatable: well I think we need to be able to broadcast that’. And at the moment I think they’re a bit nervous.”
John: So do you think there’s anything off limits in comedy?
“No, no, well obviously that doesn’t mean you can just say anything without having thought about it. Do you know what I mean? Just insulting or offending or swearing for the sake of it, I don’t think is funny. There has to be a kind of line of either thought or argument behind it.”
John: You must think swearing is a bit funny though?
“It is a bit funny—but in context. In context it’s fucking funny.”
Benn: Yes, of course. You said that you ‘think your comedy through’, but do you write for different audiences? So let’s say you’re writing for an American audience with Veep, versus a British one?
“No, no, you’ll never write your best stuff if you’re writing what you think someone else is going to laugh at. You’re already downplaying—limiting yourself. And I always say that especially to first time writers who want to write comedy, always write what makes you laugh, not what you think will make some 45 year old programme controller laugh. That’s not a guarantee of success, but it will at least mean that you’re writing your best stuff. And when we wrote stuff like Veep we just wrote what we thought would be funny—we went out and researched it, and found the characters. So you’re writing for those voices but fundamentally you’re writing for yourself. And also it ties into the idea that, well, comedy is universal—and if you find it funny then chances are someone else will find it funny.”
Benn: And do you build a particular character around a particular actor? So was Malcolm Tucker built around Peter Capaldi?
“No, well, it’s a two-way thing. With someone like Steve [Coogan], we evolved Alan Partridge having already started with Steve as it were. For Malcolm Tucker we wrote the character but he wasn’t Scottish in the first script. You audition people, you cast people. Peter came, he was great, suddenly Malcolm’s Scottish. And so you write for Peter, you write for him—for how he channels Malcolm.”
John: And do you think the world of comedy needs Malcolm Tucker more than ever, especially now that he can travel through time and things like that?
“Yes. I think maybe you’re confusing some different genres, characters.”
John: Yes, maybe. I’m an irregular viewer. Well, what about Alan, do you think Alan speaks to anything essential in human nature? Is that why he’s proved so enduring?
“It’s so funny—everyone knows an Alan. No one admits to being Alan themselves.”
John: But some of them are Alan, there are some out there…
“Yes, exactly… it’s like in Veep. There’s this character, Jonah, who’s the least ‘pleasant’. And everyone in Washington always says they ‘know a Jonah’, but again it’s not them, but someone else.”
Benn: And have you watched anything of The Trip? How do you think Steve the actor compares to that Steve?
“Well, these are exaggerations: I mean Steve can be a bit detached if he wants to be, and Rob, well, Rob can be a bit boisterous, too. But they know—I remember Steve telling me that when they do these improvised bits where they insult each other, and they actually say extremely true things about each other, and at the end of the tape they kind of look away all embarrassed.”
John: Would you describe yourself as misanthropic?
“I kind of, bizarrely, I’m a bit of an optimist really. Maybe it’s the British comedy tradition—you know, we like people who haven’t quite succeeded or we like flawed characters. Whereas in America most of the characters seem to be successful, good looking, but a bit wacky. Here we like people with ambition…but whose ambition is never quite met.”
John: And do you find your taste in comedy has changed as you’ve grown older, written more?
“I don’t know, I still like silly stuff—I still like Toast of London, and Amy Schumer’s funny. Bojack Horseman—”
John: BoJack’s so depressing!
“I know, I know.”
John: It’s too true to life—even though he’s a horse…
“Yes, he is a horse. I tend to watch a lot of drama now. Maybe it’s because I’m doing comedy during the day that I just want to not think about joke. “
John: Do you ever feel like you can’t muster ‘the funny’?
“Yeah, yeah, if you’ve been spending all day, especially watching on screen, if you’re editing. you want something else that’s different.”
Benn: Am I right in saying you started a DPhil in Milton? How did you make the leap from that?
“Well it wasn’t a leap. I mean I never finished it, because in those three years I did a lot of comedy”
John: You might have to return to it now that satire’s dead
Benn: Would you?
“No! I did a programme on BBC2 about Paradise Lost and I got a very nice note from my supervisor saying “consider the thesis complete”. But the truth was I stopped after three years because I thought, ‘I’m not doing it, and I’m doing the Oxford Revue and one-man shows and stuff like that’ and I thought, ‘Clearly this is the direction we’re going in and we’re not going in that direction’”
Benn: So you don’t think there’s anything of Milton’s Satan in Malcolm Tucker?
“No, although for this BBC2 documentary we suddenly realised that Milton himself was Oliver Cromwell’s spin-doctor. He was called ‘secretary for tongues’, and his job was to justify the republic to the European courts—the royal courts of Europe. He had to write in French or Latin or whatever, defenses of republicanism—so he was Milton’s spin-doctor. [thumps the table] So there you go, that’s interesting isn’t it?”
John: Do you think comedians are quite weird in general, not you, but others?
“No, obviously I’m very normal—but all of the rest of them are—definitely. No, some are and some aren’t. For some, that’s just how they are. That’s their personality.”
John: Is there anything compulsive about the need to make people laugh… a substitute for love?
“Well certainly standups—who do that kind of three or four gigs a night thing, you know, and then when they’re off they’re just reciting their lines to you and how well the laugh went. You just think “Stop that—I don’t read out my overnight ratings to you, so why are you telling me which part of the audience liked which line”…
John: Are you going to vote Lib Dem in the next election?
“If pushed I’d advocate that people try and stop Theresa May’s majority going into the billions by voting for whoever’s best placed to supplant her. So in my constituency that would be a Lib Dem, in other constituencies that would be Labour…”
Benn: Do you every wish you’d written a character like Jeremy Corbyn?
“I think that would get a bit bored. In fact, I’d probably start crying.”
John: Do you ever feel any kind of nostalgia for the New Labour days?
“Well the sad thing about Blair is that take away the whole Iraq thing and it was a pretty good record, do you know what I mean? It’s a shame it wasn’t a bit more daring, but it was pretty good—the health system, the education system was in pretty good nick. And then the Iraq thing just made you completely question how politics works—that people can do that without any sort of check in balance. And how much actually did we spend on that war? How much is the state of our economy not actually partly a product of how much we must have spent on propping up a government in Iraq as well as the invasion. It’s unquantifiable.”
John: Who do you think between Malcolm and Alan Partridge is more morally upstanding?
“That’s interesting.”
Benn: I was going to ask who’d win in a fight…
“Well I think Alan’s been taking some martial arts lessons. So you never know. Whereas Malcolm probably thinks he doesn’t have to practice—its an instinct thing. So Alan might surprise him, might take him down, with a sort of wrestling move. I think Alan watches a lot of wrestling, and practices at home.”
Benn: So we’re obviously a newspaper, a pretty rubbish one, but a newspaper nonetheless…
“It’s one of the oldest and finest!”
Benn: … but one of your The Thick Of It episodes focuses on a kind of mock Leveson inquiry—do you think that the way in which the media presents politicians has changed?
“No I think it’s kind of getting worse. I mean look at it now, Theresa May won’t debate but she will go on The One Show with her husband—that’s the debate—that’s the standoff: her and her husband and The One Show presenters. And Jeremy Corbyn’s events are very controlled as well. So this ‘let’s ask the people’—well, you haven’t really asked us anything yet, because you’ve only invited your own members, you know. Nothing, we’ve not been allowed to ask anything, and that’s what depresses me. And yet at the same time, I’m trying to encourage young and first-time voters to register to vote. It will only get worse, the fewer and fewer of us who vote, it will only get worse—because it means there’s fewer and fewer people for politicians to be scared of you know.”
John: Which living politician do you most admire?
“Roy Hattersley! Oh, living politician. You see I always a huge fan of Charles Kennedy, who sadly died. and you know, he was one of the only party leaders right from the word go to say no to the Iraq War, to say ‘No! What are we doing! This is madness—this will all end in tears’, and he was absolutely right. All the best ones have died… Robin Cook, Mo Mowlam—what’s going on? [Suspiciously] What’s going on there?”
John: They’re all dying! When you were young you harbored ambitions of becoming a Catholic priest. Where did it all go right?
“I went to university, and found that more interesting”
John: But it could have been different!
“… Could have been very different.”
Benn: I’ve met some very funny priests [stares into the distance]
“Yeah, funny ‘ha-ha’ or …”
Benn: Well I went to Catholic boarding school…

With that, our time was up. Benn bottled his nightmares back up, and we were kindly, if forcibly, ushered out of the Union’s inner rectum—I mean sanctum.

Polemic, platitudes, and empty rhetoric

Cat Bean
-
0
Polemic, platitudes, and empty rhetoric

The chance to see Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is one that cannot be passed up lightly. In the current political climate a politician that seems to explicitly understand the youth and issues facing the future, a man with genuine principles unhampered by the slickness that seems inherent in the worldwide political system, is incredibly hard to come by. However, the hour or so that he spoke for was unconvincing and depressing, a disappointing charge to level at the man described as “America’s most popular politician” by Baroness Helena Kennedy when introducing him.

Speaking to Oxford less than 24 hours after Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement, Sanders’ tone immediately snaps to one of anger, that which he has become famous for over the past couple of years. So far, so justified, and after thanking his brother Larry for introducing him to the stage he launches into a fluent and passionate diatribe about the issues facing the climate. By tapping into the fears that most rational and climate-aware people share regarding the future of the planet, he makes it clear that he is still the candidate of the youth. Candidate is the key term here, with much of his speech feeling as though he is trying to sell himself to the audience, rather than to capitalise on the momentum his presidential campaign created and throw himself into new future projects. While his words on the environment are up to date, they feel rather more like an addendum to provide some deviation from what subsequently veers dangerously into stump speech territory. The whole speech felt like a campaign rally rather than the launch of the paperback copy of his 2016-published book, Our Revolution: A future to Believe In.  

Trump is naturally given prominence in Sanders’ speech, a vast polemic that covers fake news and the media, the President’s pathological lies, this week’s disastrous budget proposals, and the state of healthcare in the United States. This first part is informative, and serves nicely as an introduction to the rest of the talk, which considers how America ended up in the position it is in now, post-2016 election. This is where Sanders’ populist rhetoric is most expanded. Inequality (which Sanders considers to be the biggest issue facing politics), massive poverty rates, as well as the flaws of the Electoral College, are used to explain why the Democrats lost last November. However, these arguments, while powerful in the sheer force of their anger, didn’t feel like the rallying cry Sanders clearly intended them to be, but rather a rehash of the same miserable politics we see every day on our Facebook news feeds, discussed between friends over dinner, or in the pages of broadsheet newspapers. His analysis of the causes of what Trump so ominously called “American carnage” was certainly interesting, but is so present in our current political discourse that it doesn’t need repeating— everyone is already painfully aware of them. The question of how to solve them was hardly touched on.

Sanders jokes that his wife tells him that people need tranquilisers at the end of his speeches. So, he attempts to end on a high note, addressing hope for the future and telling young people to get involved in politics. It is certainly rousing, but somehow falls flat at the same time. Given the long tirade coming before it, the juxtaposition of an attempt to inspire leaves a sour taste in the mouth. All in all, the speech feels somewhat incomplete, focused almost entirely on a depressing forecast for the coming years under Trump’s demagogy and very little on how to actually enact change and solve the problems of inequality in America. If this had been a campaign rally, the negativity would have been followed by an upswing—an imperative to vote for Sanders to solve the problems. Instead, the audience was left with few policy prescriptions beyond promises to break up the big banks, attempts to rebuild the Democratic Party to be one of the working class and of young people, and of a movement coming together against Trump. How are these lofty aims going to be achieved? Platitudes alone are insufficient for the kind of revolution that Sanders is trying to inspire.

An issue that is conspicuously absent until the very end, in a short question and answer round, is that of Hilary Clinton’s success over Sanders in the Democratic primaries. When asked whether he would have won in November, having been chosen as the Democratic candidate, it feels like the elephant in the room has finally been addressed. Diplomatically, he answered with a refusal to engage in counterfactuals—and rightly so. The fixation of the liberal left with the ‘what ifs’ of a Sanders candidacy is today still far too prominent in post-election rhetoric, rhetoric which is now stale, seven months on. Had Sanders come to beat Trump last year, I suspect many of the same problems that Trump is currently experiencing when trying to pass laws through the House and the Senate would be experienced by Sanders (albeit without insidious Russian interference).

It is easy to understand why Sanders’ populist doomsday tones captured the unrest felt in the American youth, particularly in the face of Clinton’s veneer of control and party-political machine behind her. Sanders felt real, and truly on the side of the people. But there were no coherent policy proposals and acknowledgements of an inefficient legislature in his speech, an attribute of Clinton’s that has sorely been overlooked. Politics is a game, and an institutionalised system, and a workhorse like Clinton would have ten times the positive gains in DC because of her intimate knowledge of the system, not despite of it. Clinton has emerged from her loss with plans for a new political action group ‘Onward Together’, with plans to fund groups that train women to run for representative positions and groups fighting for criminal justice reform. Sanders is still aiming at the same targets he has always done.

The Clinton comparisons serve to highlight what seems to me, as a cynical politics student, a large oversight in the dominant narrative of politics among my peers. Often the way to enact actual change is going within the system rather than against it. Populists like Sanders in the US, and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK can only create so much momentum until they tire out. Sanders’ liberally abrasive style, combined with his almost empty rhetoric, exposes the rational limits of populism. Political parties cannot be built around a populist, because things start to rapidly fall apart around them: the centre cannot hold. Even where populists do have policies (like the Labour Party manifesto), they are often idealistic rather than efficient and effective in reaching their stated aims—the promise of totally free higher education for all is one contemporary example. Those wanting to avoid the mistakes of 2016 in the upcoming June 8 general election should be wary of this when thinking about their vote.

America’s most popular politician? Perhaps. The audience seemed to think so, lavishing Sanders with applause and giving him a standing ovation at the end. But the rhetoric seemed to be stuck: the politics of progression ironically unable to move forward from the place of anger we are at right now. Anger is good, but it isn’t enough to actually change anything.

Oxford makes non-European history paper compulsory

Henry Straughan
-
0
Oxford makes non-European history paper compulsory

The Oxford History Faculty has introduced a new requirement that students take at least one non-British or non-European paper. However, Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaigners have criticised the media coverage of the course change.

In a Facebook post the Rhodes Must Fall campaign registered their dissatisfaction with the move. Though RMF admitted that “the step is in the right direction”, they maintained that “the ways that [the change] has been exaggerated have given good press to an institution which still does not deserve any good press at all”.

The post also claimed the Oxford history degree remained too Eurocentric, writing that: “There is still only one fifth of one paper, (a paper on imperialism and globalisation), in which study of Sub Saharan Africa, 1/5 of the world’s land mass, is available.

“There are seven different options on the history of the British Isles alone. The real question is, why up until 2017 non-European history was not compulsory on the syllabus of the world’s supposedly best institution.”

The University has also refuted claims in the national press that the move was in response to any kind of campaign or pressure. In particular, while many have sought to link the change to the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaign, the University has denied this, and pointed out that the curriculum review began a couple of years before RMF had even formed at Oxford.

The Oxford History Faculty released a statement, saying that the Faculty “regularly reviews and updates its course curriculum to reflect the latest developments in the subject. After a number of years of discussion and consultation among ourselves and with students, we have decided to make a number of changes to the curriculum.

“Among these is a requirement that students study one paper (from a wide range of such options) in non-British and non-European history, alongside two papers of British History and two papers of European History.

“Students take eleven papers in total during their history degree, and many of our students already take at least one paper of non-European/British history.

“We are pleased to be modernising and diversifying our curriculum in this way.”

History and Politics student Henry Sasse told Cherwell: “It’s not a huge change … many people seem to take American or Asian or Middle Eastern history at some point by default and they aren’t forcing [students to] take any course in particular.”

Sasse also expressed appreciation for the fact that the move was not an introduction of a specialized course, saying that: “In some ways I applaud them for not cobbling together a new module that wasn’t indicative of the specialities and interests of the faculty as well as allowing everyone to follow their own interests”.

Earlier this year Cherwell reported on the controversy over the disparity between the Oxford’s History dissertation prizes for British and African research pursuits. Billy Nuttall, a history student at Magdalen, launched a crowdfunding campaign to make up a difference of over £400 between the prizes.

At the time, Nuttall criticized the fact the history syllabus contained “two compulsory elements of British history, two compulsory elements of European history” but “no African no Latin American, no Asian [compulsory elements]”.

In response to the recent change, Nuttall told Cherwell: “I’m really happy the faculty is making these changes, they seem to be really ahead of the trend here in Oxford in terms of the diversity of subject matter that will be available.

“[The faculty] seem keen to work with students to work towards improving teaching and I would encourage anyone with concerns to voice them with the faculty via college subject reps and the like, they are really keen for feedback.”

Some have been disquieted by the change to the curriculum.

Historian and former Oxford Professor Niall Ferguson told The Times that universities ought “not to stop teaching crucial subjects like the rise of the West or the world wars in the effort to make courses more diverse.”

However, Sasse pointed out that “we are so far off from that being a concern. The majority of courses still discuss those sorts of things and the world wars are certainly not understudied by Oxford history students”.

Oxford West on election knife-edge

Akshay Bilolikar
-
0
Oxford West on election knife-edge

Oxford West and Abingdon constituency is hotly contested between the incumbent Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats at the general election on 8 June, according to a shock new projection by pollster YouGov.

The projection, which predicts a hung parliament nationally, sees the Conservatives winning 40 per cent of the vote in the seat, with the Liberal Democrats ahead on 42 per cent. The Labour Party are significantly behind with a projected 17 per cent share of the vote, with the UK Independence Party, the only other party standing, projected to win just four per cent of the vote.

The seat has been represented by Conservative MP Nicola Blackwood since 2010, and has a Tory majority of 9,582 over the second-placed Liberal Democrats. Until recently, with the Conservatives riding high in the polls, a third term for Blackwood was considered highly likely.

Blackwood, who read Music at St Anne’s College, was criticised in a 2013 letter by 38 JCR presidents for voting against the legalisation of same-sex marriage despite intimating her support for the measure to students. She also garnered significant press attention in February after being moved to tears during a debate over alcoholism.

The Liberal Democrats, whose physics teacher candidate Layla Moran also stood in the constituency in 2015, aim to capture the seat with a strongly anti-Brexit message. Oxford as a whole voted by 70 per cent to 30 per cent in favour of remaining in the European Union in the referendum last June.

Lucasta Bath, President of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, told Cherwell: We’re really thrilled by the results of this poll: they are a strong indictment of Nicola Blackwood’s poor record as a constituency MP, and a tribute to all our members and volunteers who have worked so hard in recent weeks.

“We would urge all students in Oxford West and Abingdon to consider voting Liberal Democrat on 8 June as the only viable opposition in this constituency, and the only way to help prevent a Tory majority government.”

William Rees-Mogg, President of the Oxford University Conservative Association, was more sceptical, telling Cherwell: “I’d start by noting that this is a poll from YouGov, whose predictions have been way out of line with all other pollsters—who knows how accurate this is? It’s a single poll carried out using an untested method.

Rees-Mogg continued: “Nevertheless it’s a real encouragement to students to get out and vote Conservative, ensuring that we have a voice in government to represent us, not just a voice on the opposition backbenches.

Speaking to Cherwell, the incumbent MP Nicola Blackwood said: “Of course we know every vote really does count in this constituency, it’s why I am standing on my record as constituency champion.”

The projection suggests that the race in Oxford East is much less close, with Labour projected to win 62 per cent of the vote ahead of the Conservatives at 22 per cent. Last week, Cherwell revealed that the Labour candidate, Anneliese Dodds, was fined £75 for “illicit canvassing” in her successful 1998 campaign for the OUSU presidency

A poll commissioned by Cherwell last week revealed that 40.8 per cent of students in the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency planned to vote for Moran, compared with just 18.3 per cent for the Conservatives. In the Oxford East constituency, 54.2 per cent of voters planned to back Labour.

Layla Moran was contacted for comment.

Rhetoric and realism in ‘Raphael: The Drawings’

Anoushka Kavanagh
-
0
Rhetoric and realism in ‘Raphael: The Drawings’

Everything in this exhibition has so much to offer, you would be here for several days if I were to go through everything” laughed Dr Catherine Whistler apologetically as we neared the end of our whirlwind tour of the Ashmolean’s new exhibition. I think she’s right, for each of the 120 sketches in Raphael: The Drawings—which opened yesterday—presents us with something new.

The display showcases a phenomenally diverse range of styles, medium, and subject. Every individual drawing—be it a vibrant nude in red chalk, animated male figures in vintage brown ink, or a monochrome self-portrait in layered charcoal—is a treasure trove of artistic capability and (unexpected) wild imagination in its own right.

Raphael forms part of the Holy Trinity of Renaissance masters, alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo. Though whilst Michelangelo was held to be the great ‘creative genius’ of the era—lacking in formal restraint and pushing the limits of artistic boundaries—Raphael has long been believed to have been the ideal ‘balanced’ painter, who obeyed all the rules then supposed to govern the arts. His classical perfection and geometric purity appealed to the contemporary Renaissance Humanist audience for whom mannerism was simply too excessive, whilst his anatomical accuracy, perfect decorum, and rigid discipline meant he dominated the curriculum of the European Academies throughout the 18th century.

Yet The Drawings—which includes unedited frenzied brainstorms and thumbnail doodles— presents a different side of the master, leaving us with the lasting impression that Raphael was not simply a phenomenally talented artist, but also a highly gifted story-teller, with an exceptional imagination and immense flair for experimental expression. The Ashmolean’s curation convinces us Raphael was far more inventive than his famous frescoes let on.

Raphael’s figures are beautifully emotive, yet rhetoric often appears to take precedence over realism in many of them. As the curatorial team’s description of their ‘renaissance yoga’ antics let on, often, the portrayed positions are simply humanly unattainable. The limits of figural narration are pushed, as such, in ‘Study for a soldier in a Resurrection’ (c. 1511-14). The male figure, sketched in black chalk, cowers under the force of resurrection with arms raised protectively to shield his face. But his legs and torso don’t quite connect in this painfully contorted pose—as if they have been formed from two wholly separate studies. Raphael’s sketch may not be realistic, but it expressively captures the force of the moment. It narrates a story and showcases his talent for persuasion.

This underlying theme of persuasion pervades many works on display this summer—we can’t help but feel the artist wanted to affect us with his art. The overpowering, vermillion chalk marks in ‘Study for God the Father with Cherubs’ (c. 1515-16) exude a sense of awe. The Father figure, shrouded in this vibrant red mist, is deeply stirring—his hands raised in gesticulation and mouth hanging open, as if we can almost hear the booming voice projecting out. We find ourselves looking up at the character due to Raphael’s skilful use of angle, further adding to the might the piece manifests.

‘Study for Massacre of the Innocents’ (c. 1509-10) is similarly emotive. Frenzied ink marks portray a hollow, harrowing face as a lone woman desperately clutches her baby, hurtling towards us through the crowds engaged in violent slaughter. Much of this study’s narrative capacity finds itself in space and direction though. The crowds part, leaving a clear central channel through which our attention is focused.

Raphael’s gift for oration similarly manifests itself in masterful manipulation of space, rhythm, and direction throughout the exhibition. In the remarkable range of studies for Vatican frescoes presented—especially those for the stanza della segnatura—Raphael transforms abstract themes like theology and philosophy into compelling visual stories.

Gesticulating figures carve out indicative spaces: ‘Study for the lower left part of the Disputa’ (c. 1508-10) is marked with a diagonally upwards surge, heads and shoulders within the crowd amassed on the steps angled upwards towards a focal point, out of the frame. In a study for the upper part of this project, light is instead used astoundingly convincingly to orchestrate heavenly space. Two tiers of figures—occupying the heavenly zone of the fresco—are bathed in luminous white chalk, as if divinely illuminated.

No doubt Raphael was influenced by the Humanist education’s emphasis on oration, as it trickled down the ranks, using drawing instead of words to ‘marshal his visual arguments’ as such—but that does not go the whole way in explaining his inventiveness.

Within the series of sketches here, we are indulged with Raphael’s scribbles, doodles, and brainstorms, conjuring up the image of a hugely experimental young man. ‘Studies for figures in the Disputa with drafts of a sonnet’ holds poetic abstractions amongst the sketches of conversing papal figures. Vigorous revisions and cancellations highlight his efforts to forge fresh ideas, concurrently evidence of another artistic outlet and a testament to his creativity.

A rare insight into Raphael’s imagination also presents itself in ‘Sheet with inventive ideas’ (c. 1511-14). A flurry of figural activity gathers in the bottom right-hand-corner, before forms disperse upwards to heaven, like human wisps of smoke. Here is a frenzied brainstorm in which we witness the master’s rush to pencil his ideas down.

Evidently, Raphael was every bit as much the creative genius as Michelangelo, his drawings capturing imagination and projecting the inventiveness that is lost in his painting. Here, what the Ashmolean calls his ‘process of thinking, experimenting, recalling from memory, and revising’ comes alive. At the same time, exceptional skill pervades the collection—though that is almost a given. His human forms and cloth folds are tangibly realistic, his use of light in white chalk truly awe-inspiring. A deep understanding of humanity is harboured in his recurrent theme of mother and child, and sensuous depictions of the female form in drawings like ‘The Three Graces’.

Every drawing is so intriguingly different, though you’ll only truly understand if you visit The Drawings yourself. For every mark here provides a new, invaluable insight into the artist’s mind, a flurry of imagination far removed from the rigid formality so often associated with Raphael.

Music without borders : Misogyny and Bollywood

Jeevan Ravindran
-
2
Music without borders : Misogyny and Bollywood

In Bollywood, the ingredients of a fast drumbeat, absurd lyrics, skimpy outfits and total irrelevance combine to create an old classic: the item number.

But what exactly is an ‘item number’? Wikipedia defines it as a ‘musical performance that is often shown as part of the movie without any importance to the plot of the movie.’ What Wikipedia gets wrong is that it is not a musical performance, but rather a presentation of a skimpily dressed female dancer mouthing sexual lyrics in an appearance that is entirely irrelevant to the film—in short, an exercise in pandering to a male audience in the throes of objectifying women.

Whilst this is a sad reality, there are in fact some instances in which dance music has been used in a positive light.

A wave of classically trained actresses, including Padmini and Vijayanthimala, popularised these songs from the 1950s to the 1970s. In Tamil cinema, these songs were inspired by the traditional South Indian Carnatic music style and used classical percussion instruments, including the Mridanga drum and the wind instrument Morsing.

In Bollywood, these songs made use of the sitar and tabla and often displayed the Kathak dance style.

Whilst these songs are still present in the odd film, including director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2002 film Devdas and his 2015 film Bajirao Mastani, more often than not they have simply been abandoned, with the most recent example of popularisation being Madhuri Dixit in the 1990s.

And when she made a comeback, even she fell victim to the ‘item number’, appearing in an entirely irrelevant sequence in the 2013 film Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. But whilst classical songs celebrate the traditional dance and music styles, item numbers are intended only to gratify.

Lyrically, most songs seem ridiculous, but others subtly allude to the alarming disregard for consent in contemporary India shown by the increasingly common incidences of gang rape and sexual assault.

For example, the item number ‘Aao Raja’, performed by Chitrangada Singh, includes the refrain ‘Kundi Mat Khadkao Raja, Seedha Andhar Aao Raja’—meaning ‘Don’t knock at my door, Mister, just come straight in’—an open invitation for men to do as they please without first obtaining consent.

Having previously appeared in starring roles, Chitrangada has now been reduced to item numbers, and has not acted in a film since Aao Raja. Actress Parineeti Chopra recently expressed the worrying sentiment that she wanted to show viewers ‘this side of me’ by appearing in an item number—showing that the item number has become something to revel in.

Perhaps what is most problematic about item numbers is that their music is so intoxicating. Whilst, at first glance, these item numbers might in fact seem utterly harmless, fun and self-indulging, doesn’t the very use of the word ‘item’ emphasise the objectification of women?

Item numbers are far from being the strength of Bollywood—for me, Bollywood music’s crowning glory has always been its haunting, plot-enhancing songs, with their enchanting lyricism. I find these qualities absent in item numbers, temporarily captivating though they may be.

It’s time for Bollywood music to grow up, abandon the outdated tradition of the item number, and keep doing what it does best—mature music based on real human emotion.

X-Rated?

Eleanor Birdsall-Smith and Megan Husain
-
0
X-Rated?

Recently the fashion team has been increasingly interested with the taboo on everyone’s lips, sex. Sex is back in fashion, in a way it never has been before. Sheer lace, nipple tassels and leather have been seen on the YSL runway, but while that may be disregarded as the showmanship of the catwalk, there’s also been a sudden arrival of all things sheer, mesh and netted onto the clubbing scene. Club pictures are dominated by statement bras showing through clothes, slip dresses which look like lingerie, and at times lingerie itself being displayed, tucked into jeans or over other tops. This movement doesn’t only rear its head in the midnight hour—we’ve seen it all over celebrity Instagram’s from Lily Rose Depp to Gigi Hadid. However, the nature of going-out adds new levels to the connotations of sex and expectation.

In conjunction with our fashion shoot this week we decided to interview the models about their experiences of clubbing and opinions about this type of fashion. We found that one of the biggest issues is the relationship between the pressure to bare all in an attempt to be accepted in society as an attractive woman compared to the agency of women in reclaiming their sexuality and embracing more revealing clothing as a source of empowerment.

Despite the separate opinions of each model, something that we could all agree on is that to dress up in this way feels ‘good’. While potentially a simplistic sentiment, feeling good about yourself and your body can be quite a ground-breaking achievement for young woman. We are still in a society which pressures girls to self-deprecate, especially when it comes to their physical appearance. Francesca draws from her experience performing on stage to reinforce how fulfilling the sensation of being in control is: “So when you’re on stage everything about you is sassy and confident, and that is part of the illusion…I’m like me 220%, I’m like me squared. [This type of clothing] gives you that sense of being a slightly different person, and a more confident person. I don’t think that in itself is a bad thing, I don’t think that’s vain, I don’t think it’s anything other than a healthy exercise of presenting an identity you don’t have during the day.”

This freedom to value and show off your own skin is not just about having fun in clubs and on stage however, after years of being taught to feel ashamed of your body growing up, being able to express yourself through clothes can be incredibly empowering. Liv tells us about growing up with her larger bust, and feeling the need to cover up, while all her slighter friends who were still working with pre-pubescent bodies dressed as they pleased for parties. She also related an anecdote about being shamed by persistent catcalls and beeping while wearing a bikini top outside a water park when she was 13. Now she can embrace and enjoy her body, ignoring comments and showing as little or as much as she likes. Fliss agrees “I felt very vulnerable going through puberty, realizing that my body would be something subject to the male gaze”. Now she has more control and body-confidence her attitude has changed “I feel like in some ways it is a way of taking control of the male gaze yourself, you know they’re going to look at you, because they’re probably going to do that anyway, so you might as well own it.”

Nicole, however, questions the motives behind wearing such revealing clothing, highlighting that perhaps the main reason women are dressing up in this way is simply to please someone else and attract the opposite sex: “Everyone wears crop tops, everyone wants to show a bit of cleavage, everyone wants to show a bit of a stomach, that’s just become the norm…And because it’s become such a norm, we don’t actually see through that. I think the lines are blurred between what is empowering and what is just revealing.” When the clothes are this revealing it can become hard to discern where the line between self-empowerment and self-objectification due to internalised misogyny lies: “We are kinda being objectified, guys are interested in us, guys like it and we get confused.”

Fliss on the other hand sees this as the most empowering thing about these new movements in fashion; women can demonstrate they are interested in sex, and not shy away from attracting men. A big issue in people’s perceptions of these kinds of clothes seem to stem from the prejudiced idea that women don’t enjoy and desire sex, which is certainly not the case. In fact then this wider range of choice in clothing gives women greater freedom and sexual agency. Fliss suggests “I feel like we’ve embraced what would be considered the masculine idea of going out to pull. Now my friends will support each other and be like yeah do it, go back with someone, have fun, it’s funny.” Francesca agrees and stresses the sense of power behind the feeling of being attractive: “It feels massively empowering and it becomes empowering when you can do something and invite a certain interest from someone if you want it.” Perhaps this fashion is opening peoples’ eyes to female sexual desire through giving young girls more freedom to talk honestly about it. Fliss berates the way culture at the moment views sex from a male point of view : “I found that, before my friends from college, I never really talked about girls feeling pleasure, I don’t think I ever heard anything about it the whole time… that’s the kind of culture which makes people more objectified than anything that you can wear, when girls are participating in sexual activity with guys, and the guys are the only ones that anyone thinks about …Sex education in schools just makes me so angry because it just feeds into all the misogynist narratives, it’s just terrible.”

While this kind of clothing does enable women to take the reins to an extent, and be proud of their bodies, the models were also aware of the negative body pressures it produces: all the potential positives do not overshadow the ever present notion of the ‘ideal’ body to which everyone should ascribe. Francesca explains that “fashion is now more to do with how to accentuate your body than it is to do with the garments themselves, it’s all how to look good, how to make your waist look tiny and your boobs look big as opposed to anything else… you’ve got clothes now moving towards being body elitist, and the lack of choice in fashion at the moment means that if people don’t have the ‘ideal’ body they can’t get involved, and the ‘ideal’ body currently is hypersexualised.”

Liv agrees, and explains that the pressure to wear the new ‘sexy’ trends isn’t always healthy: “I really don’t like it though when people talk about the new sexy or the new confident because for me, I would never wear that kind of thing—does that mean I’m not fitting in to the new sexy look, because I’m refusing to buy one? By labelling it as this new thing, it always seems to target what you as woman must do to be feeling confident, which kind of defeats the point.” Fashion may be pushing the boundaries with these revealing garments, but are they just cashing in on a feminist trend and creating another set of pressures for young girls?

Ultimately of course the place for this type of clothing is on a night out clubbing. Our models have conflicting views on this space. Speaking especially from her experience of clubbing in London, Nicole highlights the superficiality of the entire thing: “Clubs have become this business, they’re just used to having the same kind of girls coming along and letting the same kind of girls…With high-end London clubs I feel like it’s always going to be a thing, image is everything, without the image there is no club.” She gives anecdotes of dressing up for a club as a group, and being ranked in the queue outside in levels of attractiveness: “We have kind of become passive puppets to clubs and just conform.”

For Liv on the other hand the club is a space of increased freedom: “I actually feel more comfortable with it in a club environment, because I’m feeling more confident anyway, but also when you’re on a night out people can be more experimental with the way they dress. I actually feel far less confident in things like basic t-shirts because they make my boobs far more obvious, and I’m far more conscious of that than I am in a mesh top and bra, especially as the sexualisation that then happens is even more annoying because they should just be on staple parts of your wardrobe, rather than something you have put forward on your own terms.”

Clearly there are conflicting views on the sticky dance floors, but Fransesca importantly highlights the singular nature of the clubbing space. The sexualized clothing has far more power in a club because it is naturally a hot-bed of sexual tension, as “there isn’t that much interaction with people verbally, it is another kind of performance. You go into that club space and it is a kind of stage, you’re dancing, you’re interacting with people non-verbally, you’re using visual cues…it is a weird space which suspends societal norms and rules which means that not only can people dress in this weird thing, but they behave towards each other in a very different way.” The experimental clothing that is adorns Cellar goers is certainly part of this ‘performance.’

It is clear to see that the main issue when it comes to these topics is freedom. Even with a select group of four models it is clear that opinions and experiences of club fashion and increased sexualisation in fashion differ widely. While the conclusion that women should be able to dress as sensually or modestly as they please should not be a revolutionary one, it seems to be the outlook most needed. For some the lace bralette is a source of empowerment, for others, it is simply a bowing down to pressures from the fashion industry and society. No new trend, garment or shoot can be named categorically empowering or even feminist, but one thing we can do is open up the conversation, consider the implications of these changes and above all push for greater freedom for women.

Does Oxford create a class of its own?

Eimer McAuley
-
0
Does Oxford create a of its own?

When I first came to Oxford, I was introduced to the idea that the University is like a sausage maker. No matter what class you belonged to when you arrived at Oxford, you become part of the Oxford class when you leave and re-enter the world. Although this is reassuring in terms of employment prospects for working-class students, for me it raised anxieties about how my background forms a part of my identity during my time here.

I was told, in no uncertain terms, that everyone knows which fork to use for what by the time they graduate. My reaction was immediately defensive. I already knew about place settings–I’ve waitressed for three years. At the peak of my imposter syndrome, I was beginning to feel like a walking specimen of Oxford’s ‘look, we do let in non-privately educated students’ outreach mantra, and becoming a sausage wasn’t the most appealing alternative.

When I told my friends at school that I was applying to Oxford, the unanimous response was: “But won’t everyone be so posh?” Having spent a year here now, I can say the answer is both yes, and no. Everyone is familiar with the statistics: only 14 per cent of sixth formers attend independent schools yet, from 2012-2014, they made up 38 per cent of Oxford’s intake. However, even when we reduce the issue of social diversity at Oxford to statistics, it’s more complicated than that. One in five of the state school students admitted going to a grammar school, which otherwise only makes up five per cent of the population, and although children on free school meals account for 15 per cent of the population, they make up one per cent of Oxford’s admissions.

Oxford remains socially unequal, elitist, and unrepresentative of the UK’s population. However, these statistics simplify the issue. It means we take private/state school as shorthand for middle/working class or privileged/underprivileged. I’ve found that the reality of class integration and representation at Oxford is more complicated than this polarisation allows. To form a long term solution to access problems, we need to take into account the nuances of ‘privilege’ and what Oxford is really like for working-class students.

No one ever encouraged me to apply to Oxford, there was never a ‘hey, maybe this is for you’ moment. Coming from a working-class village and attending the local grammar school, Oxbridge didn’t factor into societal expectations. Grammar schools effectively replace private schools in Northern Ireland, claiming the top ten places in the region. Despite this, no one from my school in recent history had ever gone to Oxford. When I got in, it felt like a lottery win.

Unsurprisingly, when I arrived in Oxford for fresher’s week, it was a culture shock. People seemed to already know each other, or of each other, and ‘what school did you go to?’ was a go-to conversation starter. Yet, despite this start, my expectations of ‘posh’ private school kids were disproved by the friends I made—they were grounded and friendly regardless of their background. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t felt aware of my background as a part of my identity here. At times, the sense of being in an institution that perpetuates elitism is overwhelming.

It can be alienating when I’m watching student-written drama where students throw on a pair of Adidas superstars and play what seems to be a parody of state-educated students, or when I’m listening to someone— whom I really suspect has never stepped foot on a council estate—talk like an authority about benefits culture.

It’s the same feeling that arises when yet another person asks the dreaded ‘what school did you go to’ while in the Bridge smoking area. I have not felt like I have assimilated in terms of class, or lost my identity to the ‘sausage maker’ that is Oxford. Yet, I have felt like I’m participating in an elitist institution that is so painfully far removed from what I’ve seen of society.

I’m not suggesting that people who received a better education or come from a privileged background can’t get involved in the conversation about class in Oxford, but it’s important to accept the limitations of their privileged perspective. You might know the statistics off by heart, but, if you don’t know the people, it isn’t the same.

Class itself isn’t a black and white issue—it can’t be understood purely by looking at someone’s schooling. Although I’ve never received any kind of private tuition, and spent my childhood in a low-income family, I’ve enjoyed living in financial security since I was an adolescent. In contrast, some students have attended schools with significant fees and have simultaneously dealt with financial stress throughout their schooling.

Two students I spoke to both experienced having one of their parents declare bankruptcy while they were attending fee-paying schools. One second generation student at Oxford said: “My sisters and I went to school every day thinking it was our last. At times we missed weeks of school because we couldn’t afford the fees.”

The impact this could have on a student should not be underestimated. This same student said that her skeleton became “permanently changed due to stress in my back muscles, because I was constantly so anxious about money”.

Unfortunately, this story is not as uncommon as one would like. Another student spoke to me about her experience of when her parents became bankrupt. While her two brothers were immediately transferred to state schools, she stayed at her private school due to her ambitions to study medicine. This pressure caused her such stress that it led her to “lose chunks of hair due to the stress of having to get a scholarship”.

One feeling both students shared was the need to remain silent. Both spoke about feeling like they couldn’t talk about their financial struggles here as they felt “lumped into a category of extremely wealthy students, despite receiving the maximum student loan” and of their experience of being “made to feel ashamed of having attended a private school, whilst being silenced on my financial struggles”.

There is a complex hierarchy that goes beyond the private school versus state school view when it comes to the people’s privilege and its role in admissions at Oxford. It is a complexity that is rarely ever discussed.

Though many private schools supply their students with an invaluable social network when at Oxford, this is most obvious when looking at parts of the London private school network. The benefits of this network are most obvious in extra-curricular activities. When you’re running for positions in various societies, connections are invaluable. This can make working-class and state school educated students feel like outsiders who have to set off on the wrong foot simply due to lack of connections.

On this, one second-year said he had to get past “a lot of internalised anxiety and self-doubt compared to my middle class friends who were well-connected and so confident”. Another said that it is only at the Union that they have been made to feel aware of their class.

This issue manifests itself differently in student drama—it stems from the extra experience available at private schools. One thesp, despite doing “as much theatre as physically possible in school”, still feels disadvantaged when competing with people who were in half a dozen shows a year in school and have had opportunities to use high tech equipment. To them, it seems as though “it doesn’t matter how much effort you put into being a pink lady in year eleven, you’ll always be overshadowed”.

The class barrier at Oxford is evident not only socially, but also academically. Once you get past the process of interviews, the academic disparity between candidates of different backgrounds is still an issue at Oxford. Whilst the University can invest heavily in outreach, it has to be willing to invest more time in students from working-class/ state school backgrounds once they are here. The first issue is obviously one of confidence. Personally, I have been lucky enough to have a tutor who has ensured that I feel affirmed in my right to my place here, however my experience is by no means universal. As one English student put it: “You think the interview process should have been enough to prove you’re worth your place here, but I still felt like I had to prove myself to my tutors, because academically I have always been three steps behind.”

Yet, this isn’t the only issue. The experiences of many students suggest that Oxford, and its tutors, are catering directly for privately educated students. For example, one first year said that they have no idea what grammatical cases are for old English “because the tutor skimmed over them as all bar two of us in the class had studied Latin and already understood them”.

At my school, the suggestion of doing Latin would have got you laughed out of the room faster than you could say ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ (or ‘et cetera’, come to think of it). Another student, who recently sat their finals, said one of the questions was in Latin, despite this not being part of her degree. She says that, if she had been able to read it, that is the question she would have answered.

For the most part, discrimination from tutors towards students of less privileged backgrounds is simply in what they presume. One student described to me how her tutor had told her that Wordsworth’s ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ was probably his most widely read poem, but that her parents probably wouldn’t know of it. She responded: “I’ve been reading Wordsworth since I was six, we know who Wordsworth is.”

So whilst the University might want to increase its intake of students from state schools, it doesn’t necessarily cater to their needs when they’re here. At times, it can be the academics themselves—who are in a position of authority—compounding the feeling that people here, no matter how liberal or pro-Corbyn they are, ‘just don’t get it’. Though this statement is difficult to unpack, so is the feeling. It’s one of feeling as though your perspective here is assumed, and so not listened to or valued.

I think this is where the real risk of feeling like a product of the Oxford sausage factory comes in—when people feel that their identity as a working-class student is brushed aside, and their insight into working-class issues is trivialised. Classism does exist here in Oxford, and I can tell you that, based off the conversations I’ve had this week, it is not just a statistic. One student I spoke to said a friend had told her that she “couldn’t speak about working-class issues anymore”. By being at Oxford, she was “no longer working-class”. In contrast, another experienced a friend tell her that her parents were unfit because they didn’t have university degrees or ‘proper jobs’.

While it’s true to say that classism exists here, it does too in society at large. There will always be people who will put others down because of their backgrounds, but if people in Oxford feel they are being denied the right to a working-class identity, we face a much bigger issue. It’s horrible to feel underrepresented or alienated here because of your background. It is worse still to be told that your background is now irrelevant, and that a part of your identity has been erased.

The emergence of new initiatives such as OUSU’s Class Act are vital in providing students with a platform for their issues to be voiced and represented. It’s clear that such a platform is necessary given that Class Act has already revealed that over 70 per cent of respondents to a survey believed “your class was a barrier when integrating at University”.

Speaking to Cherwell on the need for the initiative, Jaycie Carter (Class Act co-chair) said: “Currently, the needs of students represented by the Class Act campaign—working-class, low income, state comprehensive school educated and first generation students—are neither adequately discussed nor addressed by the University or by our colleges.”

By bringing working class students together in campaigning, having a unified voice is legitimising in itself. Through campaigns like this, there is a chance that the voice of working-class students can be heard at Oxford. Through this, we can mobilise change.

In terms of ways of making the student body more socially diverse, I don’t think there is any quick fix solution. One JCR Access rep told me: “Though the University is putting in a load of hard work, it’s a long term campaign, so success can’t be immediately measured.”

I think a good starting point would be to demystify Oxford. It really isn’t as hard to get into as I was led to believe in Sixth form. Bright students from under-privileged backgrounds need to be told that Oxford is within their reach too, and that Oxford holds a place for them where their identity can be valued—it’s time to finally debunk the myth of the sausage maker once and for all. Only then can we really break class barriers.

1...842843844...2,491Page 843 of 2,491

Support Student Journalism

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

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

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

Website by James Ashley