Tuesday 7th October 2025
Blog Page 866

A flawed man with a revolutionary aim

Ethan Croft
-
0
A flawed man with a revolutionary aim

In 1938, the publication of CLR James’ The Black Jacobins challenged decades of whitewashing that wrote the Haitian Revolution off as a parody of the French. That the slaves Saint Dominique might have had their own grievances and beliefs was a prospect best kept hidden for many, who slept better at night in the belief that the victim of colonialism could only imitate his oppressor.

When looking over the press release for Philippe Girard’s new biography of Toussaint Louverture, I wondered how successful James’ endeavour really was. Littered with clunky comparisons such as “the black Napoleon”, it seemed that scholarship on the subject of Haiti had gone back to the future, to a situation where black historical figures could only be evaluated through the prism of Europe’s annals. It was a relief then, on reading Girard’s book, to realise the fault lay with the cliché ridden jargon of public relations, and not the good professor, whose portrait of Louverture is rich in detail and scope.

Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life is foremost a useful book, updating the scholarship of the revolutionary period with the many developments and discoveries made in the near 80 years since The Black Jacobins. But it is also entertaining, as the historian wrestles throughout with the conflicting stories of Toussaint the idol, and Toussaint the man.

In some of Louverture’s actions, particularly those that have come to light in recent times, it is difficult to recognise the legendary hero of modern anti-colonial and socialist movements. We now know that at the beginning of the revolution, Toussaint came to the aid of his former owner, Bayon, who had freed him from slavery. With supreme duplicity, Louverture used rebel resources to hide the Bayon family, the only people who would be able to verify his status as a freedman if the revolution was stamped out in its early stages. In another example of Toussaint’s collaboration with the slavers, Girard reveals that he traded a 22 year old woman with the Breda plantation owners in place of his mother. These actions are not indicative of a ‘revolutionary life’, instead suggesting that he was a man fighting for himself and his family, rather than higher ideals.

With this in mind, Girard is slightly too imaginative at some points in the biography. Records show that through coincidence, Toussaint must have had some encounters in the pre-revolutionary period with those men who would go on to fight alongside him against the forces of European imperialism. Yet we can perhaps afford to call Professor Girard a little far-fetched when he writes: “One can almost imagine the revolutionaries-to-be whispering to one another in the courtyard.” Evidence instead suggests Toussaint was quite complicit and self-interested in the days before 1791. Far more heroic were the so-called ‘maroons’, slaves who (in a premature form of industrial action) abandoned their plantations for temporary periods if their limited rights under the 1685 Code Noir had been violated.

Under the horror of slavery, Toussaint’s questionable actions before the revolution can be justified. Saint Dominique was not a welcoming environment for idealism and moral fortitude. Yet at the turn of the century, when the revolutionaries finally expelled the western powers from their island, Louverture assumed the role of what was to all intents and purposes a military dictator. His work reforms, implemented from 1800, forced his comrades back onto the plantations in a system of mitigated slavery: the whips and chains were gone, but the threat of extreme punishment for dissent remained. The ‘military-agricultural complex’, as Girard terms it, soured the memory of Toussaint Louverture for generations in Haiti, and successor Jean-Jacques Dessalines was far more highly regarded by the people of the new nation.

In this biography, Girard never answers the central question of whether Toussaint Louverture led a truly revolutionary life. Instead, he provides us with a powerful illustration of one flawed man caught in the movement of history.

Hokusai: Beyond The Great Wave – a man possessed by the Japanese landscape

Becky Cook
-
0
Hokusai: Beyond The Great Wave – a man possessed by the Japanese landscape

The British Museum galleries are initially cramped – closer to muggy than balmy – as throngs of people lean in to the small rectangles of blue that dot the walls. The crowds seem to be inescapable. The work is that of an acclaimed artist after all, and the extensive promotion for the British Museum’s latest exhibition has promised a rare insight into the nature of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. This popular summer show does not disappoint: indeed it reveals the unexpectedly erratic and eccentric nature of a man dedicated to his art.

Hokusai lived a nomadic existence in Edo (now Tokyo) with his daughter, changing his name almost as often as he did his dwelling. It seems that his life of constant movement and flux reflected his perpetual struggle for artistic mastery. He worked like a man possessed, producing a staggering array of work.

The pinnacle of this is his woodblock print series, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (c. 1830-32), containing the infamous image adorning the posters and adverts promoting the exhibition, ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’ (1829-33). These prints are hung early in the exhibition and were pivotal in Hokusai’s life, saving him from severe debt and poverty. The artist elevates Mount Fuji to a deity to be worshipped here, shrouded in the modern synthetic pigment of Prussian Blue. The rich hue saturates the mountain and its sprawling landscape to unnatural and dizzying degrees, set in sharp contrast with the stark white of the gallery.

The globally celebrated image of ‘The Great Wave of Kanagawa’ proves the cornerstone of the exhibition. A print of small boats ride a vast swell at the point of breaking, its individual ripples like claws that will come crashing down over the men and attempt to pull them under. It seems to encapsulate the futility of man’s endeavour when faced with the roaring ferocity of nature: these men almost appear to be bowing down to this startlingly dynamic cresting wave.

Hokusai used the Western concept of deep perspective in this image, creating a sense of space between the almighty wave and the ubiquitous mountain behind. The spray that emanates from the wave almost becomes snow falling on the eternally snow-capped Mount Fuji.

This fusion of Western and Eastern artistic techniques has since become a crucial feature associated with the work of Hokusai, one that marked him out from his contemporaries. His use of a single light source – a European tradition – was wholly new to the colours and designs of Japanese art. The meeting of the two traditions as such, has been heralded as the birth of modern art. Some have even mused that the thick outline of his prints, and their dynamic movement, was a precursor to the vibrant animation of Disney films.

The most engaging element of the exhibition is how it charters Hokusai’s frenetic rise, and showcases his dramatic alteration in style, as he approached the apex of ‘The Great Wave’ print. Early versions of this watery swell on display here demonstrate how Hokusai evolved as an artist in the interim, progressing from a static, two dimensional image to the forceful result.

The failing of the exhibition lies in its titular assertions. It is a misleading suggestion that it will delve into the artist beyond the masterpiece, and unveil the later gems of his work. The displays talk of the fevered genius Hokusai demonstrates in his twilight years, yet there is scarce evidence of this evolution. While the illustrious silk scroll paintings that conclude the exhibition are impressive, they do not seem to offer something which supersedes the superb Mount Fuji series.

Nonetheless, the exhibition certainly succeeds in showing fresh aspects of Hokusai’s repertoire, from a chilling set of ghost story illustrations that exude vitality to animated images of people trudging across a series of bridges. Hokusai dedicated several prints to the depiction of humble men and women at work. These scenes of everyday life and toil become charged with significance as he attempts to capture human existence in the framework of the Japanese landscape.

The exhibition also expertly captures his character for the crowd. He was a man who, when his house caught fire in his final years of life, jumped out of a window carrying nothing but a paintbrush. He was dedicated to his art to the end, and truly believed in the maxim that one only improves with age – maintaining that as he reached his centurial birthday, he was approaching a eudemonia of talent. Unfortunately, he never got there, dying shortly before his ninetieth birthday. However his devotion never floundered, as he continued to paint through his last days.

Hokusai: beyond The Great Wave is exhibited at the British Museum from 15 May – 13 August

Inside the madness of the MLS

Shiv Bhardwaj
-
0
Inside the madness of the MLS

Towards the end of my first week in the summer quarter at Stanford University, I heard that the San Jose Earthquakes were hosting LA Galaxy in the MLS. As a regular at my beloved Chelsea, I was at once gripped by the opportunity to experience American ‘soccer’, a world that was wholly alien to me. Having found out that the game was taking place on campus at the Stanford Stadium, which seats a staggering 50,000 fans, my decision was made.

On a typically warm Californian evening, my friend and I found ourselves at the centre of an MLS derby just a twenty minute walk from our accommodation. Across the pond, Americans invest a lot of time and money into their undertakings – rarely do they do anything half-heartedly – so it is hardly surprising that football has grown in the USA so rapidly since the league’s foundation back in 1993. The evidence was on display outside the ground as thousands of fans made their way through the turnstiles, clad head-to-toe in team merchandise. For a country where football is perhaps the fifth most popular sport, this was quite a turnout.

Our tickets advised that the match would begin at 19.15, but curiously as the time drew nearer there was no sign of any football. It was then that I realised first-hand how American sports involve so much more than the game itself – the pre-match entertainment was about to commence. Given the proximity to the Independence Day holiday it was a patriotic affair, with the spotlight on war veterans and an abundance of stars and stripes. By the time ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ was complete, it felt more like an international match than a domestic league fixture.

I was relieved to hear the referee finally start the game, but the opening ten minutes were a sloppy affair with neither side threatening and some wayward passing. The crowd were quiet and the atmosphere flat. But out of nothing the visitors from LA had their goal. A free-kick from the left found its way to centre-back Van Damme who, somehow unmarked, fired home with a neat volley. Remarkably, the Earthquake fans behind the goal continued their collection of chants, seemingly oblivious to what had happened on the pitch.

It took until the thirty fifth minute for the home team to turn up, as they then began to apply some pressure to an untroubled LA defence. A series of corners were met with the home crowd stamping their feet to live up to the team’s name, whilst the players adopted the unusual tactic of crowding round the goal line.

Around us the crowd, packed with children and families keen to see the firework display that was to follow the game, was consuming vast amounts of candy floss, popcorn and hotdogs as the half came to an end. The lacklustre football on the pitch was not going to stop them having fun. As the half-time whistle blew we decided it would only be fitting to indulge in some nachos ourselves to get the true experience. Long queues meant we missed the half-time entertainment, which involved yet another rendition of the national anthem.

The second half began as the first, but suddenly a spark arose out of nowhere in the 75th minute. San Jose keeper David Bingham made a fine save to keep his side in the game, before launching an NFL-style kick downfield (refreshingly simple in comparison to the Premier League’s nuanced tactical approach). It found captain Wondolowski, who swivelled and fired home emphatically to level the scores. The 15 minutes that followed were tense with both sides having chances, but it looked as if the Cali Clasico was headed for a draw.

Then, in the 93rd minute substitute Shea Salinas finished off a neat move from the home team to spark wild celebrations. Galaxy’s earlier goal scorer Van Damme was sent off for dissent in a feisty end to an otherwise subdued game.

Whilst it was impressive to see the growth of football in the USA, I couldn’t help feel that the game was more the background to an evening out for most fans. Big international stars such as David Beckham drew vast global attention to the MLS, but the rise of football in China is threatening to drag players away from the USA. The Independence Day fireworks that followed were mightily impressive, and seemed to be the highlight of the evening for many. A new influx of talent could go a long way to changing that in years to come.

In coming to the game, I had hoped that I would be able to demystify the madness of MLS football, but I left with just as many questions as answers.

Three-quarters of graduates will never pay off student loan, says major report

Mia Millman
-
0
Three-quarters of graduates will never pay off student loan, says major report

Students are graduating with such large debts that a majority will not be able to pay them off, new findings by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) say.

Research shows that graduates will be still be paying off their debts into their 50s, after government legislation removing maintenance grants in 2011 significantly increased student debts.

Under the new system, 77.4% of students will never fully repay their debts, compared to 76% of students under the 2012 system, which featured maintenance grants, and only 41.5% of students under the 2011 system.

The think-tank found that changes to the system in 2015 will disproportionately affect students from poorer economic backgrounds, especially those with parental income below £25,000. The report states that, as a result of the scrapping of maintenance grants in favour of higher loans, “students from the poorest backgrounds will accrue debts of £57,000 (including interest) from a three-year degree”.

The report showed that while the changes increase the total cash-in-pocket available to students from low-income households by £1,500 per year, the removal of grants significantly increases their debt burden upon graduation. Students eligible were previously able to obtain up to £3,482 per year in grants under the 2012 system.

The report also found that, due to increasing interest rates, high earners could pay up to £40,000 solely in interest payments. It notes that interest rates on student loans are set to rise in line with inflation from 4.6% to 6.1% in September. Interest rates on student loans are set at RPI plus up to 3% (depending on income).

The report found: “The average student accrues £5,800 of interest while studying, meaning that they borrow £45,000 but find on the day of graduation they have a debt of £50,800.”

According to the report: “The combination of high fees and large maintenance loans contributes to English graduates having the highest student debts in the developed world.”

Universities minister Jo Johnson said: “The government consciously subsidises the studies of those who for a variety of reasons, including family responsibilities, may not repay their loans in full.

“This is a vital and deliberate investment in the skills base of this country, not a symptom of a broken student finance system.

“And the evidence bears this out: young people from poorer backgrounds are now going to university at a record rate – up 43% since 2009.”

Northern Ireland’s abortion law is shameful. More must be done

Eimer McAuley
-
0
Northern Ireland’s abortion law is shameful. More must be done

I was first introduced to the abortion debate in Northern Ireland in a religious education class at the age of 13. We were shown images from abortion procedures on pro-life websites, told in detail when a foetus forms fingernails, and taught, above else, that life was sacred. Afterwards, I went home and told my parents that abortion was evil, and that I would never have the procedure. Before I was old enough to imagine the circumstances in which I would need an abortion, I was taught not to want a choice in the matter.

Now, as a student in England, I’m acutely aware of just how problematic this education was. I now find it absurd that until this week I would have had to pay £900 for an abortion in a private clinic, whilst my friends based in Great Britain were guaranteed the same procedure for free. Women who reside in England, Scotland and Wales have had the right to free, safe abortions since the Abortion Act in 1967. Yet for 50 years, the only option for Northern Irish women who needed abortions was to fly to England and to go to a private clinic.

Abortion in Northern Ireland remains illegal under almost all circumstances, including fatal foetal abnormality, and rape. In the Republic of Ireland, it took the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012 for abortions to become legal in the case of fatal foetal abnormality. Savita, along with her husband, pleaded that her pregnancy be terminated as she feared that she would die from blood poisoning as doctors thought the foetus to be dead; yet despite their demands, a team of thirty medical staff denied the request as doctors had detected a foetal heartbeat. It shouldn’t take the death of another woman for Northern Ireland’s abortion policy to be revised. Nor should the issue of women’s rights in Northern Ireland be an issue reduced to another U-turn in Theresa May’s bid to cling onto power.

Following a successful campaign led by Labour’s Stella Creasy, which received cross-party support, the government have recently agreed to free abortions for Northern Irish women in England, having previously stated that it was “a matter for the NI Assembly”. However, this change only arose due to the risk of a party rebellion, leading the Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson to note that “women deserve better than having their rights reliant on House of Commons arithmetic” and Labour’s Yvette Cooper to accuse the government of “hiding behind the excuse of devolution.”

The reality is, whilst this change in policy has been hailed as a “landmark moment” for women’s rights in Northern Ireland, it offers little reassurance to the most vulnerable women in our society. The costs of travelling to have an abortion for Northern Irish women may be reduced, but it certainly isn’t universally affordable. The law as it stands is still an immoral one, which hits the poorest in our society the hardest, leaving working class woman facing prosecution if they can’t afford to travel to England. If I were to travel from Belfast to Liverpool now for the procedure it would cost £83 for a round trip, excluding accommodation. What’s more, even if a woman can afford these expenses, she has to fly alone, to another country, without the comfort of her family or home. While this isolated and potentially frightening experience remains the reality facing so many Northern Irish women, I find it difficult to celebrate recent developments as a break through moment for women’s rights.

The fact remains that this is an undeniably contentious topic. Last year, one student in Belfast who had no access to legal abortion bought drugs online to terminate her pregnancy – when her roommates discovered what she’d done, they reported her to the police. In court, her lawyer told the judge that if his 19 year old client lived in any other part of the UK she “wouldn’t have found herself in front of the courts”. She has since been handed a suspended sentence.

With Stormont no closer to forming an executive, it seems unlikely that the extension of the Abortion Act will come through the Assembly. On the same day that Theresa May’s government announced the change in policy, the High Court overturned an earlier ruling that NI abortion policy was incompatible with human rights. Yet there may remain hope, as in a surprising move, it invited legal submissions for the case to go to the Supreme Court.

I have every hope that the issue of abortion rights in Northern Ireland will now remain a priority for the UK, and that the politicians of Westminster will continue to stand in solidarity with Irish women until real change comes into effect. It’s only then that we’ll be able to truly celebrate a break-through in women’s rights.

Life Divided: Love Island

Charles Britton and Bessie Yuill
-
0
Life Divided: Love Island

For: Bessie Yiull

I hate to make the obvious joke, but ITV’s Love Island did not seem like my type on paper. It’s easy to mock a show this shallow in concept. If you’re a humanities student like me, for example, you might feel it’s your moral responsibility to point out the show’s heteronormativity. And honestly? That’s fair, if a little predictable.

But for many of us, the show became a routine distraction from exams: a nightly check in on people living the dream. The sheer escapism represented by the lives of these beautiful human chess pieces is the ideal balm to a student’s irritations. This is an island with no lasting consequences! None of them have anything to do all day but tan and overanalyse their own interpersonal relationships! No one on Love Island has to worry about analytical reading at all – even if, judging by some of the strategic grafting, certain girls may be fans of Sun Tzu.

The only crime is being boring enough that you’re kicked off the island, like the plank of wood with a haircut they brought in and tried to pass off as a human being named ‘Mike’. Even he provided an inspirational positive message for today’s youth: with a complete absence of chat, or what could be called ‘anti-chat’, he still managed to disrupt several seemingly committed couples (even from outside the competition in Jess’ case). If he can do that, I can do anything.

It also (crucially for Oxford) provides a kind of in-between on the class scale for reality shows: the mix of accents means that the show’s neither a TOWIE or an MIC. In a supermarket allegory, it’s a middle-of-the-road Tesco’s, non-threatening to regulars of either Aldi or Waitrose (while the mum-friendly First Dates is naturally M&S.)

In these troubled times, Love Island has become a common ground for youth culture. Even if the friend of a friend you’re talking to has an objectively incorrect opinion, like ‘Chris is attractive’ or ‘Marcel bringing up Blazing Squad is not a funny joke anymore’, you can still bond over the compulsion to watch girls talk about what eggs they have in whose baskets. Feeling equally protective over Camilla is a guaranteed friendship starter, and in terms of communal experience, it literally wouldn’t be going too far to call 2017 Love Island a generational nexus equivalent to Woodstock in 1969, the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall or Big Brother’s debut in 2000. The hippie dream of togetherness through entertainment is alive and well-toned.

Against: Charles Britton

Attacking Love Island is like flogging a dead horse at this point but, like that cliché, some things bear repeating when the destruction of our entire civilisation hangs in the balance. I won’t slight Big Brother Extra Flesh Edition for being ‘trashy’ or ‘low-brow’ – I don’t go into Love Island expecting to expand my vocabulary, after all – but it is worth addressing the underlying evils the participants, and viewers at home, are subjected to.

First of all, the misnomer that it is ‘reality television’ still baffles me. All I see here is a program which cherry-picks people society deems attractive, perpetuating a constraining and unrealistic body ideal. Like the Labour Manifesto, 20 minutes of Love Island has me demanding representation: “For the many, not the few”. The interior designer needs to be sacked, too, after producing this ugly mishmash of modern villa and fluorescent furniture. This villa has more fairy lights than one of those abnormally large Swedish Christmas trees. The imperatives scrawled over the bathroom such as “soak” and “rinse” perhaps suggest that the producers doubt the participants’ intelligence, but I for one resent the idea of my bathroom dictating my exfoliating regime.

Most of this could be forgiven if Love Island had any grasp of innuendo, an art form I will defend to the last. The less said about Iain Stirling’s narration, the better: I’ve heard subtler euphemisms in a Carry On film. A game the participants had to play involved the men forcing sausages down their partners’ throats, complete with only the most tasteful slow-motion shots of women stuffing their faces with baked beans. Another had the guys applying sun cream to their bodies using the women as some kind of oversized sponge, a very inefficient method of application: I know, I’ve tried. Subtlety, thy name is not Love Island.

I could continue to shower Love Island with praise for its thrilling viewing of role models so shockingly bored out of their wits that they while away their time by lounging about, sleeping, and bitching all day. I could talk about how I cannot believe that ITV cannot afford to ply their stars with good quality booze yet can afford to get Colin Francis to DJ at a private gig, but at the risk of sounding as desperate as a Love Island contestant, I will simply say this: you’re better off trawling through Oxlove.

 

 

 

When minimal becomes bare

Daisy Chandley
-
0
When minimal becomes bare

Scrolling through the Instagram explore page at night, trying to calculate in your head how many hours of sleep you can get if you drop off in the next ten minutes, you’d be hard pressed to not come across a tall, slim girl in muted, tailored clothes. She’ll call herself a lifestyle blogger, whether or not she has a blog, and her feed will be a perfectly manicured mixture of uncluttered Parisian balconies, bowls of uniformly sliced exotic fruits, and crisp white bedsheets covered in angular floods of light. This, apparently, is minimalism, and you might call it one of the standard reigning style trends of the last five years – after all, the staggering following of a lot of these minimalist Instagrammers appears to be down to their impeccable sense of taste. I don’t think this is true, or at least I don’t think it’s the full story. Minimalism, at least this incarnation of it, isn’t really about aesthetics at all – it’s about money, class, and status.

As far as I can see, the main difference between decluttered and bare, or a cool white t-shirt versus a boring white t-shirt, is context. For a start, the person in question must have had the option to have more ‘stuff’ around them or a more lavish outfit and turned it down. As Stephanie Land puts it in her brilliant article. ‘The Class Politics of Decluttering’ in The New York Times: “minimalism is a virtue only when it is a choice.” If somebody lives in a bare flat because they can’t afford furniture it doesn’t seem to count, and nor does an awkward teenage girl wearing a hand-me-down white t-shirt and black jeans. Minimalism demands that the user to have a certain income in order that their living conditions are adopted by choice, rather than born out of necessity. The evident problem with this is that it creates a hard financial threshold on who can be a minimalist, which introduces a problematic element before the substance of the trend itself is even examined.

It might be countered that there’s a good reason that those on a low income with plain white plastic furniture fail to be minimalists in the context I’m using, other than the mere fact of their wage: minimalism is about being surrounded by a limited number of relatively unadorned things, yes, but those things are implicitly meant to be beautiful and well crafted, and craftsmanship costs money that some people simply do not have. Minimalism focuses our attention on the minutiae – a label, the cut of a hem, the exact length of a pair of black jeans – and it takes expensive designers to be able to master these small, beautiful art forms. In some ways this draws attention to elements of fashion that are arguably being lost; the art of tailoring with local, quality materials, and the architectural structure of pieces. This is the argument that many use to defend minimalism from an aesthetic point of view – it’s about appreciating the perfection of small and simple things.

An important point to make before I get around to my main problem with this line of reasoning is that in reality, the individual sewing fifty pound white tees is probably not working with vastly better fabrics, and likely not much better working conditions, than the individual sewing those that line high street bargain buckets. The idea that cheaper stores are to be avoided or frowned upon simply for their ethical practices or mass-production is therefore something to be greatly suspicious of.

With this in mind, let’s suppose that Primark brought in a fantastic but totally unheard of tailor to craft a new range of blouses from reasonably good quality fabrics. Even if these blouses end up being indistinguishable from a COS blouse, and would last precisely as long, I don’t think it’s plausible to believe that both would be treated anything close to equally by a minimalist blogger perusing the shelves. Of course, there’s probably no trend where two pieces from brands with vastly different connotations are treated equally, but within more eccentric, loud and fun trends it’s not at all unusual to see well regarded bloggers raving or even bragging about having found a particularly brilliant piece at a cheap and cheerful store. For the long-legged minimalists of Instagram to distinguish themselves from those who merely cannot afford more, they have to have a name or label to flash. This is because minimalism is selling more than just clothes, and it’s no coincidence that almost every minimalist dresser you see online is also a ‘lifestyle blogger’, an ‘influencer’, or the like. Minimalism and the understatedly glamorous way of life that appears to surround it go hand in hand, and to wear a Primark blouse rather than a Ghost one is the equivalent of posting a bowl of apple and banana slices, rather than kiwi and dragonfruit. It shatters the constant implication of exclusivity.

The most glaring way in which this exclusivity is maintained, and the final suggestion that it indeed exists, is arguably the most nefarious of all: the minimalist themselves must fit the same prescriptions as their surroundings and their clothes. You might think that this means the typical minimalist would be anyone with a simple or natural hairstyle without too many tattoos or piercings, but this isn’t the case at all; vast number of minimalist bloggers have heavily processed hair and bodies more doodled on than a thirteen year old’s dream journal. What you don’t tend to find, with a few exceptions, is established minimalist bloggers and influencers who are black, fat, disabled, or even simply fail to live up to every aspect of modern western beauty standards. The primary caveat to this is Japanese women, but this isn’t too surprising: for the most part, those who succeed on social media are still very slim and able-bodied, and in addition to this they are often reductively viewed as part of an aesthetic culture which is sufficiently focused on clean lines and careful technical engineering for their bodies and identities to work with the minimalist trend. This leaves us with the question of why body modifications – the seeming antithesis of minimalism – are acceptable, but blackness, being above a size 8, and visible disabilities are not, and I don’t think we have to look too far for the answer.

When you combine the fact that minimalism is selling a specific, elite ideal and its requirement that simple clothes and bare rooms are chosen rather than necessitated (and add a good dash of the biases that we’re all subconsciously imbued with), it’s not too surprising that certain bodies don’t fit into our notion of 2017 minimalism. While it’s certainly not far fetched to put the absence of these bodies down to simple ableism, fatphobia and anti-blackness, other style groups in the social media sphere seem to be amplifying these voices and faces somewhat more successfully, and there’s an additional idea that could neatly – if unsettlingly – explain this. When we see people of colour, people over a certain size, or disabled people wearing what might otherwise be regarded as minimalist clothing, we are perhaps more likely to instinctively read plainness and bare rooms as necessity rather than choice, assuming they are both less financially comfortable and less clued up on trends than their tall, white, slim, and able bodied counterparts. While complex intersectional wage gaps are of course a very real problem, this by no means justify these assumptions, especially when it’s so often made with distain in mind rather than solidarity, and when women of colour have been the driving force in so many trends and styles that we take for granted.

A simple blouse or vest with nice trousers, worn in various shades of monochrome, can manage to look slick, smart and relaxed all at once on all manner of bodies, and decluttering is certainly something that helps some people from all manner of backgrounds feel less stressed and distracted. The problem is that minimalism in its current mainstream format is more than just these things – it’s an exclusive lifestyle reserved for those who we perceive to be successful, beautiful and glamorous enough to be commendable for choosing it. It’s unattainability, and secrecy, and black and white Chanel carrier bags. It says, loudly and clearly, that the difference between embarrassingly bare and beautifully effortless isn’t how carefully or interestingly a person can put an outfit together, but who it is that’s wearing it, which makes it precisely the kind of trend that we need to identify, question, and reject.

Glastonbury and the Corbyn effect

Julia Alsop
-
0
Glastonbury and the Corbyn effect

A single man, delivereing a performance on the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival, attracted the largest crowd the event has seen since The Rolling Stones performed in 2013. No, he wasn’t an international pop star, or an ageing rock icon, but the long-sock wearing Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who delivered an empowering speech urging festival goers to, “build bridges not walls.”

However, in amongst the joyous welcome he received from the festival crowd, public figures such as Nigel Farage announced how appalled they were at the apparent politicisation of a music festival, broadcast on national television. As a music student, I find this reaction strange – music is a way of representing our identities, political or otherwise.

A close relationship between political affiliation and music is nothing new. Take the concept of national anthems: ‘God Save the Queen’ is  forcefully pro-monarchy, underpinned by Christian ideology, and expresses ideas about how Britain should relate to other cultures that are rather questionable in the modern world. But this anthem is used at public events as a way of instilling a sees of national pride, and British identity.

Famously, musicologists have debated the role of political ideology (and possible rebellion) in Shostakovich’s music during the Soviet era, at a time when political leaders held tight control over what art was considered to be appropriately ‘Soviet’. The Communist Party  used music as a tool for establishing political unity, but it can also be a force for political change: think of The Sex Pistols in the 1970s, releasing songs such as ‘Anarchy in the UK’, with a fan base intent on questioning government and societal expectations.

Indeed, there are many historical examples of the success of music that seeks political and social change  – the global hip-hop movement (shout out to Prelims Music!) has revolved around minority demographics identifying with the struggles of Black Americans. In Tanzania, hip-hop has become a channel for speaking out against governmental corruption, the widespread AIDS epidemic, and for artists such as Zay B to empower young women to persevere with education, rather than slipping into prostitution.

Now if we look back at British music festivals, Corbyn isn’t the only politician to be seen at one by any means. Whenever I attend Glyndebourne Summer Festival (at an opera house in East Sussex), I like to indulge in a tongue-in-cheek game of ‘spot the Tory MP’. The music itself is exceptional, and the audiences are diversifying all the time, but they are still dominated by the wealthy, white, and elderly. It is true that the Tories aren’t there explicitly making speeches with political motivation, but the obvious demographic alongside a few recognisable faces do indicate an element of class and political leaning that is no different to Glastonbury. Although, I must confess I found it particularly amusing spotting a notable politician who has voted against gay rights issues at an opera by Benjamin Britten, a famously gay composer of the last century.

So where does Glastonbury fit into this political and musical landscape? It has not shied away from political musicians performing in the past. The Rolling Stones, who fielded a spectacular audience in 2013, have never been adverse to discussing politics, and Mick Jagger has famously described himself as an anarchist.

The real reason that people have complained about the politicisation of Glastonbury is because they recognize how powerful a tool it can be in the hands of a politician like Corbyn. He is the only political leader of the moment who seems to be able to appeal to the younger voters en masse and, if the General Election results and turnout of young people are anything to go by, he is going from strength to strength.

Jeremy Corbyn has cultivated the image of the unexpected bonafide ‘cool’ politician, and perhaps Britain’s first for a significant amount of time. Us Brits frequently gawp at Justin Trudeau in rainbow ‘Eid Mubarak’ socks, twirling through the streets at Pride in major Canadian cities (could I have a bigger crush?), or cringe at David Cameron as Barack Obama’s effortless backhand shot causes him to sweatily hang off  a ping-pong table. Corbyn is not perfect, but he does have a public persona that is at ease with itself  – whether it’s when confiding that the naughtiest thing he’s ever done is far too naughty to say (wheat farmers needn’t worry), or engaging with residents of Grenfell Tower, or attending a music festival popular with younger generations. And it seems that for the moment at least, it is those with whom we identify that we ultimately vote for.

Corbyn’s speech at Glastonbury was about, “building bridges not walls”, and this is a message that many musical acts also strive for: creating a community of shared identity and values. The music and politics of Glastonbury are intertwined with the identities of the majority of British youth. But whilst this identity is associated with young people, it is not defined by them, but also by an ideology of progression and innovation, as can be seen in the new musical acts appearing each year.

Better Caul Saul: Season Three Reviewed

Nancy Epton
-
0
Better Caul Saul: Season Three Reviewed

In Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan sustains tension across the 60 minutes of one episode solely through a series of encounters between two men and a fly in an enclosed indoor environment: ostensibly dull, but of nerve-pounding excitement when played out on screen. Three seasons in, and its prequel retains the same static suspense.

Although the primary arc follows the fallout of Jimmy’s (Bob Odenkirk) recorded confession, Jonathan Banks’ gruff, stoic fixer Mike remains the standout. His efforts to find the individual responsible for his tracker and failed attempt to kill Hector might have felt cumbersome in the wrong screenwriter’s hands, but Gilligan’s minimalist dialogue coupled with the skill of Marshall Adams’s cinematography imbues each individual shot with intrigue and unease. Even though there is no clear enemy in sight, the claustrophobic close-ups as Mike inserts trackers to bait the perpetrator inexplicably increases the sense of dread and tension. Gilligan revels in slow pace; even though we know that Mike will survive, and that Jimmy will transform into the cult icon we all know and love, we’re more than happy to sit along for the slow yet exhilarating ride. The transformation of the mundane into something more exhilarating and enthralling is what sets Breaking Bad apart, and the same certainly applies to Better Call Saul.

Colour choices imbued with heavy symbolism is another central feature of both original and spin-off. We can trace the moral change of Walter White from the passive plum shirt during his cancer diagnosis in Season One right through to immorality and pitch black garments by the end of Season Five. The pigmentation of garments is also a central aspect of BCS: the colours chosen for Jimmy’s clothes in first two seasons reflects his vibrancy as an anti-hero. Yet as his wavering principles become more pronounced, we meet the lawyer increasingly in grey and black attire, with only the occasional glimpse of blue remaining under his jacket.

Contrary to the sleek, groomed figures of Don Draper or Josiah Bartlet, one of BCS’s many uncommon geniuses lies in the visible age of its characters. Jimmy, for all his whimsical eccentricities, is an individual living in the waning glories of his lifetime. Gilligan doesn’t rely on casting a well-groomed all-American heartthrob to develop his narrative or develop a character dichotomy within a romantic relationship, but chooses to focus primarily on two brothers. Whilst Micheal McKean may be known more for his comedic performances, his turn as Jimmy’s bitter and self-righteous older brother Chuck expertly reveals inherent human hypocrisies. By all rights, we should be rooting for Chuck’s hard-nosed sense of justice and law, but his deep-seated resentment robs us of any possible sympathy. He almost always maintains an astounding level of control towards clients and colleagues, versus the cold apathy he directs at Jimmy. Therefore, the moment when this balance begins to fail in the season’s latter half counter-intuitively elicits a glorious cry of triumph from the audience, though McKean’s ability to still evoke a sense of humanity from his struggles in each pained and contorted facial movement exemplifies his nuanced performance.

Rhea Seehorn also remains a highlight, and stands out as one of contemporary television’s rare examples of an engaging and forceful female lead. She deals with Jimmy’s grievances with measured restraint while continuing her independent work with Masa Verde with fiercely determined resolve. One of the episodes details a montage of Kim’s morning routine; instead of returning home to wash, she showers at the gym and then continues her work at the office. Although she eventually suffers a moral crisis over her actions, Gilligan does not depict her character in crying distress, but through more subtle acts; as she persistently checks over legal documents, she wavers between the use of a full stop, semi-colon or colon, and refuses Jimmy’s pleas to stop working overnight in order to complete documents for her new client. The dramatic irony that her character doesn’t make it onto the screens of Breaking Bad only increases our tension and regret at the absence of such a brilliant and slow-burning character.

Season Three remains at the same remarkable standard as previous entries, and remains one of the most compelling TV series of the decade so far. And with Season Four already in the works? S’aul good, man.

My town and my gown: from boogie boards to bicycles

Kathleen Farmilo
-
0
My town and my gown: from boogie boards to bicycles

Whilst Oxford is known for its historic buildings and cobbled streets, one of Adelaide’s most famous attractions is colloquially named ‘The Mall’s Balls’. These are, literally, two giant metal balls stacked on top of each other in the middle of our shopping mall. This, I think, gives you a pretty accurate insight into the differences between the two cities.

Adelaide was founded in 1836 as Australia’s first non-penal colony (big up), yet still manages to be the murder capital of the country (slightly less of a big up). Despite this setback, it’s also frequently listed as one of the top ten most liveable cities in the world. This pretty much captures Adelaide: comfortable, beautiful, safe (notwithstanding the murders), and a little bit boring. Oxford, whilst eminently beautiful and mostly safe, is the opposite of boring, despite an alarming amount of time spent in the library.

One marked difference centres around the food on a night out. Ali’s kebab van is a haven of hummus and grease after another long night trying to fit in with the edgy crowds of Cellar. For my friends back home, a kebab van doesn’t come close to the unparalleled joys of a late night Macca’s run. But though I do occasionally hanker for a 3am Zambrero’s burrito (sorry Oxford, Mission Burrito pales in comparison), the £1.50 ‘St Anne’s Special’ has definitely found a new place in my heart.

Adelaide is also nicknamed ‘the City of Churches’, but we’re not really sure why. Somehow the Seventies architecture of the Anglican church near my house doesn’t quite match up to the All Souls’ chapel. Indeed, in this sense, ‘the city of dreaming spires’ seems slightly more impressive. I would, however, trade all the college chapels in the world for slightly closer access to a beach. Frolicking in Port Meadow has its merits, but it doesn’t really compare to the surf at home.

I will commend Oxford for its wildlife. I don’t think I’ve seen a single spider since I’ve been here, and that alone has made the move worthwhile. The trauma of possum-mating season is also behind me, as is the fear of being terrorised by homicidal magpies during spring. Also – no snakes! The novelty of seeing carefree students wander through the long grasses of Port Meadow with bare feet will never wear off. The compulsory ‘Snake Bites 101’ lessons we had to take in health class now seem slightly less relevant over here. All in all, it’s quite nice being able to go for a leisurely stroll around University Parks without the imminent threat of a wildlife attack.

Despite their obvious differences, the most striking similarity between Oxford and Adelaide has to be the tourists. If you’ve ever been to Cornmarket Street on a Saturday, or been trapped behind a throng of tourists on the way to a lecture, you’ll know all too well what I mean. The classic ‘I Heart Adelaide’ vests usually found on the sweaty, sunburnt English tourists roaming the streets back home are nowhere to be found. Instead, every time I venture into the city centre, I’m thrown into a heaving melee of school students in Oxford University hoodies. The days of being asked to point out the nearest place to buy sunblock/hats/more sunblock have been replaced by giving directions to the Rad Cam.

There are lots of things I miss about my town – the beach, the koala who frequents my backyard, not being asked whether I’m from New Zealand. But during term time, I’m happy for sand to be replaced by cobbled streets, and boogie boards to be replaced by bikes. Plus, I finally get to make the most of my extensive jumper collection.

1...865866867...2,524Page 866 of 2,524

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 Jamie Ashley