042122

NEWS: IOP PAGE 2 Disinformation Conference Welcomes Host of Political Speakers

APRIL 21, 2022 FOURTH WEEK VOL. 134, ISSUE 21

University Reports Nearly 50 Percent Increase in New COVID-19 Cases

By PETER MAHERAS | Senior News Reporter A UChicago Forward email sent on Friday, April 15, reported 267 new cases of COVID-19 at the University and 654 close contacts for the period from April 8 to April 14. The case count represents a nearly 50 percent increase from the previous weekly count of 180 new COVID-19 cases.

In a separate email sent Friday afternoon, Assistant Vice President for Campus Life Richard Mason and Interim Executive

Director of Housing and Residence Life Heath Rossner also announced the return of the isolation-in-place system, in which students who “can minimize contact with others” isolate in their dormitory rooms instead of going to isolation housing at Stony Island Hall.

They emphasized that the change was a precautionary step and that rooms remained available at Stony Island. There are

currently 64 students isolating on campus, including at Stony Island, and 126 students isolating off campus.

Surveillance testing detected 78 cases between April 7 and April 13 for a 7.23 percent positivity rate, which represents an increase from last week’s 6.56 percent positivity rate. The University ended mandatory surveillance testing for all students regardless of vaccination status on February 28.

The email included a reminder of the University’s exposure protocol, which re-

quires anyone exhibiting symptoms to stay home and close contacts to wear a mask for 10 days following exposure. The University announced no additional changes to COVID-related policies.

Last week, the University announced that it would discontinue weekly UChicago Forward emails unless additional emails were “needed before then.” This week’s email, which was unplanned, stated that the next scheduled update would be sent on CONTINUED ON PG. 2

Students masking in classrooms prior to the policy change. emma-victoria “e-v” banos

VIEWPOINTS: Maroon Editorial Board Announces USG Endorsements PAGE 4

ARTS: The Daniels on Everything Everywhere All at Once

ARTS: Mark Wahlberg Speaks to The Maroon About His Passion Project, Father Stu

PAGE 6

Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/chicagomaroon and follow @chicagomaroon on Instagram and Twitter to get the latest updates on campus news.

PAGE 7 chicagomaroon.com

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 21, 2022

2

“UChicago Forward will continue to update its online COVID-19 dashboard in the meantime, per the email.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 1

Friday, May 6. UChicago Forward will continue to update its online COVID-19 dashboard in the meantime, per the email.

The email also noted the increase in cas-

es citywide. The city of Chicago’s seven-day average of 456 cases represents an increase of more than 45 percent from last week’s figure, and the city’s positivity rate is currently 2.8 percent, up from 1.8 percent last week.

The City’s COVID-19 dashboard included a note that “with Chicago Public Schools on spring break the week of April 11–15, there will be significantly fewer test results reported and test positivity might temporarily in-

crease in the next couple weeks. In general, test positivity has a reduced utility due to the widespread use of point-of-care and at-home tests.”

Following Obama Discussion, IOP Disinformation Conference Welcomes Host of Political Speakers

By NOAH GLASGOW and ANUSHREE VASHIST | Senior News Reporters After former president Barack Obama’s appearance on the evening of April 6, the Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy conference, co-hosted at the Rubenstein Forum by UChicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP) and The Atlantic, continued on April 7 and 8.

The conference, which featured politicians and media figures like Frances Haugen, Adam Kinzinger, and Brian Stelter, focused on the growing spread of disinformation, especially through social media, and on possible solutions to the problem.

Panel discussions began Thursday morning with a discussion on the extent of social media’s influence over contemporary politics, featuring media editors from across the political spectrum, including Jonah Goldberg of the conservative news site The Dispatch and Ben Smith, the former editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News. Goldberg, stressing the role of disinformation, saw social media as enabling some of the worst tendencies in political discourse. “American culture has a problem with manipulating narratives rather than just recounting the facts,” he said. Smith called social media and the Internet “tools that are incredibly effective for waging war on the establishment” irrespective of the establishment’s political structure, whether democratic or authoritarian.

The conversation continued with a technical discussion on the role that deepfakes might come to play in the spread of political disinformation. Deepfakes are photos or videos that recreate the appearance of public figures using machine-learning algorithms that study thousands of images and

videos of an individual’s face. Although the software has tremendous potential in the world of entertainment, its more nefarious uses, particularly in political discourse, led panelist Joan Donovan—a deepfake expert and the research director of Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy—to deny the popular idea that the technology is “neutral” in some way. “You also have to look at the context in which it’s being used,” Donovan said.

Computer scientists Camille François and Karrie Karahalios joined technology journalist Casey Newton to discuss the role of algorithms in the spread of disinformation. “Algorithms are absolutely essential, critical, and key to how disinformation propagates on social media,” François said. Both she and Karahalios stressed that Facebook and Instagram feeds are not the only ways in which people are targeted by algorithms.

What advertisements we see and whether or not we are given a loan are, in some cases, decisions also relegated to algorithms.

Journalists Stephen Hayes, Brian Stelter, and Lauren Williams joined The New York Times’s Jim Rutenberg for a discussion on “How Media Platforms Shape Consumer Realities.” Hayes, co-founder of The Dispatch, and Williams, co-founder of Capital B—a news site centered on reporting for Black communities—both stressed that the mainstream media has isolated certain groups in American society whose interests are underrepresented. In a moment that went viral on social media, Stelter responded to a question from Chicago Thinker staff writer Christopher Phillips about left-leaning bias in the

media. Stelter explained that news outlets and the government aren’t as cooperative as many seem to think: “The last time I spoke with a Biden aide, we yelled at each other,” he said. “[That’s the reality] that people don’t see. They imagine it’s a situation that it simply is not.”

Diane Benscoter, Jacquelyn Mason, and Abbie Richards talked with Ellen Cushing of The Atlantic about how people fall prey to conspiracy theories. Mason discussed why, given the continued history of medical violence in the United States, racial minorities might be subject to conspiracy theories, especially with regard to the COVID-19 vaccine. Benscoter discussed how conspiracy theories can psychologically manipulate their believers. According to Richards, young people, many of whom encounter falsehoods on TikTok, are among the most vulnerable to disinformation. Possible solutions the panel considered included changing the way mainstream media represents and portrays people of color, educating people on how to discern truth from disinformation before encountering it, and conducting more research into its dissemination. “This is a public health issue, and we need a public health approach to this,” Benscoter concluded.

Following break-out discussions, Georgetown Law’s Mary McCord joined UChicago’s Geoffrey Stone, a principal architect of the Chicago principles, for a discussion on free speech jurisprudence in the age of the Internet. McCord, who has worked on legal cases against right-wing extremists, characterized the conspiracies promoted by disinformation campaigns as a “uniting force” for a diverse range of extremist groups that were not previously united. Although he acknowledged that attacking disinformation

in the courts is tempting, he noted that certain laws would make the government responsible for such prosecution. “Do you trust the government to decide who to prosecute? … Imagine the Trump administration having the authority to decide what is false on social media,” he said.

After a welcome speech from David Axelrod, the final day of the conference began with a conversation on how disinformation can spur political violence. Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) recounted his experience of the January 6 insurrection. A member of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, Kinzinger noted the importance of the developing report, which he expects to be released over the summer: “Our real audience is history, because in five or 10 years, when my kid is in school and he’s learning about January 6, I want him to know the truth. I don’t want there to be any shred of doubt that…it was anything but what it was, which was a Trump-inspired insurrection.”

UChicago history professor Kathleen Belew, who specializes in the post-1970s white power movement, suggested that historians might view January 6 more as a problem of narrative and worldview construction than one of disinformation. Citing examples from white power leadership in the 1980s, Belew said, “The idea is that there is a cabal of elites that are in charge of a purposeful campaign to destroy the white race through a set of social issues.”

In any event, she sees teaching history as a solution for countering potential violence that results from disinformation. “This all goes back to the classroom because the other thing that we don’t teach anymore is civCONTINUED ON PG. 3

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 21, 2022

3

“In any event, she sees teaching history as a solution for countering potential violence that results from disinformation.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 2

ics,” she said. “If you have a whole bunch of people storming the Capitol to protest how they think the election was rigged, who don’t know how elections work…we have an education problem.”

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN, J.D. ’85) and former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick talked with journalist Kara Swisher about how governments can approach the threats of disinformation online. After discussing legislation she has introduced, like an exception to Section 230—a federal statute that prevents social media companies from being held liable for content on their platforms—in the case of illegitimate medical claims during health crises, Klobuchar

emphasized the importance of small, local news organizations to American democracy. “A high school football game or a new development at a town library—these kinds of things need to be covered,” she said. “People need to have a shared understanding of what’s happening in their community to be able to be part of that community.”

Former U.S. representative Will Hurd and Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), in conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, used their backgrounds in national security to discuss the threat of foreign-funded propaganda to American citizens. In a discussion regarding RT, a Russian state-controlled news channel that was available on U.S. cable networks prior to the Russian invasion of

Ukraine, Slotkin explained how foreign propaganda was able to be disseminated in the U.S. and how the private sector was quickly able to limit its spread. “We tried all kinds of exploration into this and on a bipartisan basis, and couldn’t manage what the private cable companies in the United States did in one week after the invasion,” Slotkin said.

The conference concluded with a forward-looking dialogue on possible answers to the disinformation problem. Haugen joined journalists Cecilia Kang and Charlie Warzel, University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Ethan Zuckerman, and current IOP Pritzker fellow Erin Simpson (A.B. ’15) to discuss solutions to online disinformation. Proposed solutions included in-

creased transparency, more diversity among leaders of tech companies, better education, antitrust legislation, and establishing a floor for minimal product safety. Haugen emphasized that disinformation on social media is not a new or unsolvable problem, citing initial problems of disinformation and propaganda with the printing press and newspapers, radio, and television. “It feels weird to us now because this is our crisis and…our burden to figure out what [to] do,” she said.

“Well, we’ve done it before, over and over again. We will figure it out.”

Chicago’s Oldest Church Develops Artists’ Space to Build Community

By KAYLA RUBENSTEIN | Senior News Reporter Nestled in the neighborhood of Woodlawn lies the oldest church in Chicago, so historic that its foundation predates the incorporation of Chicago as a town. Located at 6400 South Kimbark Avenue, the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago is building upon its legacy of artistic patronage by creating a new space for South Side artists. The church has a long history of providing space for different organizations and individuals, including Martin Luther King, Jr. “Our vision for this church is to be a hub for Woodlawn’s culture,” Pastor David Black said. “That means that we really want to invite people in and allow people in this community to take ownership of the church, to say what they think, what they want to bring into this space, how they envision it being used.”

Max Li, the artist in residence at the church, received his Master’s in Fine Arts with a focus on photography from UChicago last spring and discovered the First Presbyterian while exploring Woodlawn. Enchanted by its historic architecture, Li began taking photos when Black walked outside and offered a tour of the church. During the tour,

Black explained the church’s mission of supporting South Side artists.

Li’s form of photography, tintype, dates back to the Civil War era and features a black and white photograph etched onto a tin sheet. Entirely self-taught, Li says that he is one of the very few tintype photographers in the Chicago area. Li presented his artwork last October to the church’s elders, who make decisions for the church, and received an offer to be the artist in residence.

“I really feel like I’ve been learning so much about the art of gathering,” Li said.

“With all these events we’ve been doing, I just learned so much about the overall flow of getting people to come together and have meaningful experiences.”

Getting people to come together, for Black, highlights the extensive network of artists throughout the community. “One of the things I love about South Side arts is that if you get connected to one person, you get connected to a web of people,” he said.

Through Li, Black met Elizabeth Myles, the digital storytelling initiative program manager at the Logan Center, who graduated from the College in 2020 with a major

in cinema and media studies. Her work at the Logan Media Center involves creating programs for Southsiders to learn how to tell their own stories using mediums such as podcasting, storytelling, and filmmaking.

Having used the church as a space to rehearse with her chamber music group, Myles wanted to contribute to Black’s artistic mission. “It’s really exciting to see how [the church’s artistic space] can grow, and I feel like that definitely aligns with the work that I do,” Myles said.

Most recently, Myles, Black, and Li worked on refurbishing a room at the church for open mic nights and other artistic endeavors. This involved reaching out to the University Community Service Center and recruiting seven undergraduates to assist with cleaning up this space in exchange for lunch and a tintype portrait from Li. Ivan Messias, a second-year who volunteered to clear the space, told The Maroon, “I’m neither a religious nor a particularly artistic person, but I do believe in the power of community.”

Although this room at the church has always been available for anyone to use, Black strove to make it a welcoming one. “The first step is cleaning [the room], making it a space

that feels dignified,” Black said. “It’s not just like, ‘Oh, here’s a crummy room that you can use if you want.’ But like, ‘Here’s a room that people have really loved into being a beautiful space where we want you to flourish in your arts and your creativity and in your businesses.’”

Black strives to make the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago open to community members at any time. “My long-term goal is to have the church available 24 hours a day for artists to make work, to view work, to show work, to teach work,” he said. “We want to hyper-use this space, want every part of it to be filled all the time, just filled with life and creativity.”

Black also hopes that the space will help Woodlawn residents join together in the face of gentrification. “I think the way that we make Woodlawn more resilient as it goes through this challenge of gentrification is to keep people connected and get neighbors to meet neighbors. If your neighbor is getting priced out, and you don’t know it, then there’s nothing you can do about it,” Black said. “If you know each other, and people are talking about what’s happening, there’s a lot of power in that.”

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 21, 2022

4

VIEWPOINTS

Maroon Editorial Board Announces USG Endorsements The Maroon Editorial Board endorses Good Vibeslations, Ariana Ukaonu, India Hill, and Julia Brestovitskiy.

By The Maroon EDITORIAL BOARD Each year, The Maroon invites candidates running for executive roles within Undergraduate Student Government (USG) to sit down for interviews with the Editorial Board. The outcomes of these interviews are rarely predictable; while last year’s interviews yielded ringing endorsements for the sole executive slate on the ballot, the Editorial Board’s outlook was considerably more tepid two years ago, when The Maroon declined to endorse any of Student Government’s four executive slates.

In keeping with tradition, The Maroon’s Editorial Board spent a few hours last week interviewing this year’s USG candidates. We’re glad to announce that this year’s ballot features a number of truly commendable candidates—candidates with spirit, mettle, and ambition. We do, however, think it’s also worth noting that optimism alone isn’t a guarantor of success. Our endorsements reflect our assessments of candidates’ platforms, the viability of their proposals, and— perhaps most importantly—the earnestness and sincerity of their campaigns.

No matter what your impres-

Gage Gramlick, Editor-in-Chief Yiwen Lu, Managing Editor Matthew Chang, Chief Production Officer Astrid Weinberg & Dylan Zhang, Chief Financial Officers The Maroon Editorial Board consists of the editors-in-chief and editors of The Maroon.

NEWS

COPY

Kate Mabus, editor Tess Chang, editor Anushka Harve, editor Jinna Lee, editor Rachel Wan, editor Nikhil Jaiswal, editor

Rachel Davies-Van Voorhis, copy chief Gabby Meyers, copy chief Skyler Lorenty, copy chief Michael McClure, copy chief Arianne Nguyen, copy chief

GREY CITY

Arianne Nguyen, head of production Anushree Vashist, deputy designer

VIEWPOINTS

RJ Czajkowski, director of development Michael Cheng, director of marketing Graham Frazier, director of strategy

ARTS

Firat Ciftci, lead developer Joshua Bowen, developer Perene Wang, developer

SPORTS

Editor-in-Chief: Editor@ChicagoMaroon.com Newsroom Phone: (312) 918-8023 Business Phone: (408) 806-8381

Alex Dalton, editor Laura Gersony, editor Milutin Gjaja, editor Kelly Hui, head editor Elizabeth Winkler, head editor Ketan Sengupta, associate editor Isabella Cisneros, editor Angélique Alexos, editor Alison Gill, editor Ali Sheehy, editor Finn Hartnett, editor For advertising inquiries, please contact Ads@ChicagoMaroon.com Circulation: 2,500.

DESIGN

BUSINESS

WEB

© 2022 The Chicago Maroon Ida Noyes Hall / 1212 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637

sions of our endorsements are, we hope you’ll take the opportunity to read further about the candidates’ platforms and cast your vote this week; the democratic process is only as good as the people that partake in it. The Maroon’s endorsements are as follows: Good Vibeslations for Executive Slate The Maroon Editorial Board endorses Good Vibeslations for executive slate in the Spring 2022 USG election. The slate consists of third-year Summer Long and second-year Jefferson Lind, running for president and executive vice president respectively.

Running uncontested, Good Vibeslations has presented a platform that addresses both internal setbacks within USG and pressing issues that concern the student body at large. Two items stand out as top priorities for Good Vibeslations: improving the overall structure of USG and providing more support for recognized—and unrecognized—student organizations (RSOs) on campus. Among the top agenda items in Good Vibeslations’s future conversations with the University administration are returningreturning to the 10-week quarter and expanding University transportation and dining. The slate pledged to uplift the work that RSOs such as Phoenix Sustainability Initiative and Quest+ have done to substantiate its advocacy, including a push for environmental data transparency and improving the first-generation, low-income student experience.

While last year’s referendum

has allowed USG to become an independent entity that serves the undergraduate student population more effectively by delineating government members’ roles, it has not delineated the responsibility of communicating with the University administrations. We are confident that Long and Lind have the expertise required to push for the changes they advocate. Both candidates serve on College Council for their respective class; Long is currently the vice president for student organizations, which oversees RSO funding, and Lind sits on the Committee for Recognized Student Organizations. Given their backgrounds in USG finance and RSO funding as well as their enthusiasm for those items, we are hopeful that they will actualize their vision for USG. However, we must remind readers that any platform needs to be read in the context of previous interactions between the University administration and the student body, especially during a stressful pandemic that is hard to navigate. In the past, University policymaking has never been communicated to its students as clearly as it should. Take, for example, the decision to switch to a nine-week quarter last academic year and the delayed start of winter quarter this year merely 11 days before classes were scheduled to start. Just this month, the University dropped the classroom mask mandate without known student input, likely contributing to the rising COVID-19 cases. We see USG as a unique entity that represents the undergraduate student body and translates student concerns to the adminis-

tration, a process that cannot be solidified without a robust structure of collecting student input.

Therefore, while we admire Good Vibeslations’s initiative to connect RSO leaders to the administration, we hope to see more concrete plans that allow students to understand the decision-making process of University-wide policies that affect everyone. In our conversation with Good Vibeslations, we were glad to hear about plans to increase the visibility and accessibility of USG resources through social media and newsletters. In addition to those ideas and existing structures such as office hours, we encourage the slate to take a more proactive approach in reaching out to the student body and campus groups, to offer regular conversations both with USG members and with the University administration, as we continue to navigate the pandemic.

Ariana Ukaonu for Vice President of Advocacy We enthusiastically endorse first-year Ariana Ukaonu for vice president of advocacy and encourage others in USG to look to her as a model. In her interview, she was frank yet diplomatic, aware of the big picture yet specific, and excited yet realistic. As vice president of advocacy, Ukaonu would occupy a role revolving around serving undergraduate students; however, she also conceives of that duty as encompassing the broader South Side. We were particularly impressed with her commitment to holding the University accountable. Ukaonu describes herself as “a bit stubborn,” saying that if the CONTINUED ON PG. 5

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 21, 2022

5

“This year’s ballot features a number of truly commendable candidates.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 4

University dismisses an agenda item, she’ll “just meet with them again next week [and] make them sick of [her].” We are confident that this tenacity is well paired with her congenial manner and willingness to engage with the University in difficult and constructive conversations. From increasing the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD)’s transparency to finding ways to support South Side businesses, Ukaonu demonstrated awareness that the University is situated in a larger community.

While we recognize some of her goals are ambitious, we believe that UCPD transparency, diversity within USG, and investment in the South Side are some of the most urgent issues the vice president of advocacy should address.

We hope that the University and

the rest of USG will listen carefully to Ukaonu. If they do, the community will be a better and more just place. Ukaonu, who is running uncontested, would succeed thirdyear Tyler Okeke.

India Hill for Vice President of Campus Life We endorse second-year India Hill for Vice President of Campus Life. We interviewed Hill and Evelyn Li—two of the three candidates (Devin Johnson declined to interview). We believe the vice president of campus life must balance their policy initiatives with short-term, actionable plans that will positively impact current students’ lives, in addition to setting in place plans that will improve future UChicago students’ experiences. We believe Hill’s five-point plan, with its emphasis on forward-thinking

sustainability projects as well as plans to expand Maroon Dollars, perfectly aligns with what the vice president of campus life needs to do to serve UChicago students best. With experience as the chair of the Committee on Campus Sustainability, Hill has the knowledge and connections related to sustainability to ensure effective follow-through on the policies she has set for herself.

Although we appreciate Hill’s substantive, forward-thinking policies, The Maroon would love to see an increased emphasis on goal-setting and short-term targets within larger projects, like the push toward a zero-waste campus.

Such targets are admirable, but how can the student body ensure that progress is being made? In her discussion with The Maroon, Hill stressed very ambitious goals. We

Clockwise from top left: Summer Long, Jefferson Lind, Julia Brestovitskiy, and Tyler Okeke. courtesy of the candidates

hope that in her tenure, she will balance these goals justly and effectively with her other student interest policies.

We feel that it’s important to note that Editorial Board’s vote between Li and Hill was close. We were impressed with both candidates’ platforms, but we ultimately feel Hill’s vision is more fleshed out.

Ketan Sengupta and Gage Gramlick recused themselves from this vote due to personal relationships with the candidate(s).

Julia Brestovitskiy for Vice President of Student Affairs We endorse second-year Julia Brestovitskiy for vice president of student affairs. We interviewed Brestovitskiy alongside Darya Foroohar; both candidates left us wanting clearer and more original ideas. Nevertheless, we feel Brestovitskiy’s platform has more potential for success and implementation. As chair of the Academic and Career Affairs Committee (ACAC), Brestovitskiy has engaged with more than 55 different academic departments and built up experience working under the vice president of student affairs.

She has demonstrated a strong commitment to students and their interests, having organized as an ACAC chair a survey of hundreds of students addressing academic calendar reform and following up on dozens of reading period rights violations.

Her platform outlines goals that the student body can reasonably expect to see fulfilled before the end of her tenure. She hopes to increase funding for Metcalf internships, reinforce reading period rights, and increase students’ exposure to the relief opportunities provided by USG’s Mental Health Fund. Although her central policies are career-focused, with Metcalf funding being her self-described primary policy initiative, she believes in a holistic approach to student welfare that addresses

“all the areas that have tangibly affected students’ physical and mental health.” Brestovitskiy is the strongest and most obvious choice for VP of Student Affairs.

Gage Gramlick recused themself from this vote due to a work history with Foroohar.

Tyler Okeke for Trustee and Faculty Governance Liaison While we were not able to interview Tyler Okeke because of logistical issues, we did review his platform and endorse him for Trustee and Faculty Governance Liaison. Okeke is running unopposed. His platform—which focuses on raising funds for low-income students, working with advocacy-oriented RSOs, and generally deepening meaningful engagement with trustees—strikes us as well developed, timely, and insightful. Based on Okeke’s success as the 2021–22 vice president of advocacy and his experience on various USG committees and College Council, we are confident that he has the connections, talent, and will to actualize the goals he enumerates in his platform.

Though Student Government elections will place students in these positions of power, it is important for the student body to remember that it is also responsible for putting certain ideas and projects at the forefront of Student Government’s conversations. Regardless of whether the candidate for whom you vote wins or loses, engage with the newly elected government not only to make your voice heard but also to continue to make life at the University as vibrant, inclusive, and fruitful as possible.

Members of the Editorial Board active in these decisions: Gage Gramlick, Kate Mabus, Ketan Sengupta, Noah Glasgow, Rawan Abbas, Solana Adedokun, Yiwen Lu.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 21, 2022

6

ARTS Everything on The Daniels, Everywhere and All at Once The Maroon sits down with directing duo Daniels to discuss Michelle Yeoh, The Matrix, blending genres, creating chaos, and everything Everything Everywhere All at Once

By VERONICA CHANG | Arts Reporter Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, sat down with The Maroon and Loyola Phoenix to discuss their new film, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity because both Kwan and Scheinert love giving answers which are impossible to transcribe, talking over each other, and interjecting without abandon. Which makes for a fun interview, but a terrible transcription.

Loyola Phoenix (LP): What made you guys want to make an original multiverse story versus something that already had existing Intellectual Property (IP)?

Daniel Scheinert (DS): I think we’re pretty bad at IP. Honestly, it’s intimidating. There [are] already fans that you might piss off.

Daniel Kwan (DK): Our whole process is destroying things or making things the wrong way. And if we did that with IP, [it’d be] like what Rian Johnson did with Star Wars. I think that’s the best Star Wars—there’s your headline.

I think [Johnson’s Star Wars] is better than the originals.

DS: And we don’t have thick enough skin to handle the backlash.

DK: But to us, those multiverse movies are fun because they give you the satisfaction of seeing your favorite characters all in one space. [Playing Super Smash Brothers, the video game franchise], was one of the first times when I was growing up where I was like—this is amazing, Pikachu and Mario in the same game, how cool, which is like wish fulfillment. But we aren’t excited about what’s fulfilling.

Steve Jobs always [said], don’t give the customer what they want, give them what they don’t know they need. And to

me, the multiverse is such a beautiful, terrifying idea that if you really leaned into [it], you could create something really philosophical and challenging. And so [we decided]: Let’s lean into it. Let’s stare at infinity. Let’s destroy the story and destroy what people think movies should be, and hopefully give them something that they haven’t seen before.

Because that’s what people are craving right now.

Chicago Maroon (CM): As a directing duo, how do you decide what projects you want to work on together, versus what you want to work on solo? And once you do decide, how does it all work?

DS: Enthusiasm—we try to win as much as possible, we try to just let passionate enthusiasm dictate what we do.

Luckily, we have a ton of overlap and work well together and are constantly trying to improve our collaborative process.

DK: If one of us isn’t into something, that usually means maybe it’s not worth pursuing , even within the projects themselves. Like if there’s a scene we’re fighting over, that usually means that scene has a problem. And once we connect, and we agree, then we’re like, “Okay, there’s something really special here,” because we have very similar tastes but very different approaches to the creative process [Kwan’s background is in animation, while Scheinert’s is in improv]. And so, if something can survive that gauntlet of our clerical scrutiny, then that means we found something special.

But how do we collaborate? That changes with every project.

DS: [Kwan] loves video games, and so [we’ve tossed] around ideas for video games, but I don’t know if we could co-create one, because I just don’t know

enough about them. One day, [Kwan] might make one without me—that would make sense. I shouldn’t co-create a game because I’ve only played a couple.

LP: Michelle Yeoh is one of the greatest actors of all time. First, how did you guys end up casting her?

DS: We asked her ironically—there’s [another headline] for you.

LP: My headline is I don’t think she’s ever been better than she [is] in this movie.

DS: We started in the same place you’re in, which is, “[Yeoh] is just awesome.” And we were like, [we’re writing] a movie about a Chinese American family, who might be in it? Michelle Yeoh.

But we never guessed that she’d be so right for the part. I think we thought we’d have to coach the humor and vulnerability out of this powerful, confident woman because of the roles she’s played a lot lately [Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi]. But she’s so funny and vulnerable and weird in real life—turns out we just wrote a role where she got to spread her wings, and all we had to do was film it.

DK: Yeah, she finally got to show all these other parts of her that I think she’s, subconsciously or consciously, been dying to show the world. She even told us that when she first read the script, she got chills because she realized this [role was truly insane].

CM: One of the things I really loved in the film was the trilingualism, with the characters switching between Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, sometimes even mid-sentence. What was the writing process for that like?

DK: My dad’s family is from Hong Kong; my mom’s family is from Taiwan.

[So going to my grandparent’s] house on my dad’s side was kind of [chaotic] because I don’t understand Cantonese at all. It really did feel like we could never

fully communicate with each other because my mom was trying to translate between us and like when we did talk, it was mostly like… [laughs], and that was that. That’s basically the extent of our conversations. [So] it felt really perfect for a movie about the multiverse, which is about people in different worlds, [to have characters] speaking different languages [and] talking past each other.

We wanted to really lean into how separated the family was at the beginning. At the beginning, they can’t talk to each other fully, and it’s really frustrating. We knew by the end when [Evelyn] finally gives the speech to her father, that that speech would have to try to pull [the family] all together. And so that monologue starts in Cantonese, moves to English, moves to Mandarin, comes back to Cantonese, and then ends in English to try to pull it all together.

DS: When we gave the translated script to [Yeoh], she was like, “What are you guys doing? Like, it’s hard enough to act, but now you’re making me switch languages five times in one speech.”

DK: Some people watch it, and they’re like, why are you guys switching [back and forth]? That’s so confusing.

While other people who, who’ve lived that experience, [are] like, oh, wow, I’ve never seen that type of, that kind of relationship on the screen. So, we were very intentional. We worked really hard to know exactly that that line would be English, that line would be Cantonese.

DS: It was a collaboration ultimately between us having written a script entirely in English and italicizing things that would switch and then we cast the movie and our cast had different levels of comfort in those three languages. So, we were like, oh, we can lean into that.

Our producer [Jonathan Wang] spoke better Mandarin than [Kwan], and he CONTINUED ON PG. 7

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 21, 2022

7

“Like if there’s a scene we’re fighting over, that usually means that scene has a problem.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 6

collaborated with the actors and especially with [the wife of Ke Huy Quan, who plays Waymond in the film], who ended up being the translator on set. So [Kwan] and [Wang] would work a lot on the Chinglish lines, then [Quan’s wife] would help us make sure the Canto and Mandarin was good, and then she checked with the actors.

DK: By the way, before this job, [Quan’s wife] used to work for Wong Kar Wai. So her Cantonese and Mandarin are [both really good]—she was the perfect person for the job.

LP: At times, Everything Everywhere All at Once feels like a comedy movie; at times, it feels like an action-comedy; at times, it’s a family drama. But it never felt messy—how did you guys seamlessly blend all those genres together?

DK: We don’t believe you. It was a little messy.

DS: [When we were editing certain scenes], we were like, these two scenes aren’t working. [The scenes] need more whiplash. The audience needs to know that [it’s chaotic].

DK: [Within music], whenever you

make a mistake, if you repeat [it] enough times it becomes a drumbeat. And so, to us, we were doing a lot of things you weren’t supposed to do.

DS: Good quote.

DK: We’re breaking the rules, just smashing genres within the same shots.

We’re doing all the things you [aren’t] supposed to do, so we realized [we] had to make it super obvious. We’re like, look, we know we’re doing this, and we’re doing it on purpose. Come along with us, you’re in good hands. And if you’re willing to come, we’re [going to] have a fun time.

I think especially younger audiences will really latch on, because you guys are so media literate and film literate, you guys understand [things like genre language]. This is [probably] how your brain already works.

DS: [This] makes me think about our editing process. Thanks to our editor on our first movie [Swiss Army Man]—he kind of introduced us to the idea of screening the movie for three or four people every two weeks, so that we could see the state of things once we had a rough cut. And so we spent months just

testing it on a few people and just trying to see, “Did we lose them? Did they get confused? Were they off the rails for too long?” And trying to figure out like, how we can use music and editing and pacing to balance [the movie] and make sure that it was only confusing when we wanted it to be. Never in a bad way, but hopefully in a way that makes you feel how Evelyn feels. But it took a long time.

CM: Both of you have stated that this movie is “100% a response to The Matrix.” So I’m going to ask: Evelyn versus Neo. Who’s going to win in a fight?

DK: Which Neo are we talking about?

Neo from [The Matrix: Resurrections] or Neo from the original trilogy?

CM: Can you answer both?

DK: Okay. I think Neo in Resurrections, [he and Evelyn] wouldn’t fight.

They’d just kind of sit down and have coffee [and everybody would have a nice time].

[Or there’d be techno music] and they’d have sex. That’s what they would do in Reloaded because in [The Matrix: Reloaded ] they put on techno music, and they have the whole underground sex scene. There’s your headline: they

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert are the directors and writers of Everything Everywhere. courtesy of allyson riggs / a 24

drink tea together, and in Reloaded, they would have sex.

DS: Right, and then in [The Matrix], I don’t know. Evelyn at the end versus Neo at the end is a tough one.

DK: I think [Yeoh as Evelyn] would definitely destroy Neo. She’s got that third eye, and Neo in The Matrix is only powerful in the matrix—in the real world, he’s just a guy. In our movie, [Evelyn] is all powerful in the real world.

DS: That’s a semantics game.

DK: It’s okay, the nerds want the semantics.

LP: Speaking of The Matrix, there’s a lot of [different film homages] in this movie—the Wong Kar Wai-esque one between the movie star Evelyn, and the man she never ended up with. That’s a reference to In the Mood for Love, right?

DS: Yeah. Our editor was like no, In the Mood for Love has a completely different color palette. He thinks [that scene] looks more like [Wong Kar Wai’s] other work. But regardless, it was very, very fun to play on that.

LP: I thought it was great. Are there any other media you guys were consuming while making this that might have ended up in the film, whether purposely or inadvertently?

DK: The really obvious stuff was stuff we grew up on [like The Matrix].

We weren’t watching [that stuff] while we were making [Everything Everywhere All at Once]. It was just the stuff that happened to be in our brains because [they’ve been] injected into our DNA at this point. The stuff we were watching was actually the things that were breaking all the rules because we needed to find the courage and blueprints for how other people did that. And so Holy Motors was one that I love that, like, really surprised me. Another one is Tribe Nine.

DS: Is this the anime?

DK: Yes. DS: Yeah, bonkers.

DK: Even just going back to It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s a Wonderful Life has a weird structure—it’s night, then for about 50 percent of it is a flashback, and then [the main character] goes into CONTINUED ON PG. 8

THE CHICAGO MAROON — APRIL 21, 2022

8

“The world around us is constantly reminding us of the movies we live in.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 7

this nihilistic place where he suddenly realizes his existence actually matters.

Same with Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day was, for its time, [this] super innovative structure [that] kind of destroyed what you thought you [could] do. But both of those managed to do it in a way that felt more or less accessible.

The references [the reason] why we do this, because that’s just how everyone thinks. And now everyone thinks in terms of movies. We’re not trying to [be like Family Guy], we’re not trying to, to like wink at the audience. It’s like,

to me, [references are] the most honest way to tell stories. The world around us is constantly reminding us of the movies we live in. And so the references weren’t what we were watching. We were watching the stuff that was trying to push the medium further than what most people did. And hopefully that’s what [this film] feels like.

DS: And then watching YouTube clips of Kung-Fu movies, just being like, “How did they do that?” A lot of [Stephen Chow too].

DK: And actually [The Grandmaster] was a big influence too. The fight

scenes in the movie, [specifically] the train sequence. We used that sequence as a reference in [a lot of] different ways.

So yeah, all of that.

CM: Last question, really quick.

There’s so much humor and comedy in this movie—who has a better sense of humor?

DK: [Scheinert is] the comedy guy.

He’s better since [his background is in improv], but I don’t like comedy. So I have a different kind of tolerance.

DS: We have different senses of humor. Like [Kwan] can watch more sitcoms than me—I can’t stand them.

I like [comedy that’s] kind of being a little meaner, and you can bring it to the masses in a nice way. It’s like, oh, there’s a broad joke. [Kwan’s] got way better Twitter sense of humor than me.

Like I don’t understand how to write a funny tweet.

DK: How hard it is.

DS: Yeah, [I can’t do that]. But I can make better jokes in a Q&A. DK: For sure. He’s like the comedy improv guy.

DS: I like to give answers that are impossible to transcribe.

Father Stu, a Faith Passion Project

By CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ | Arts Reporter Directed by first-time director Rosalind Ross, Father Stu tells the real-life story of Stuart Long (Mark Wahlberg), a former amateur boxer who moves to L.A. to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. While looking for his big break, he falls for a young devoted Catholic woman named Carmen (Teresa Ruiz). To win her over, Stuart begins attending church and learning about Christ. After surviving personal and physical trauma, Stuart starts to wonder if his calling might be serving God as a priest. As he follows this path, he faces both skepticism and medical problems. Nevertheless, he continues to pursue his journey while inspiring everyone around him.

Father Stu is Mark Wahlberg’s passion project. In it, he not only takes the lead role but also serves as producer. In a college roundtable interview, he discussed how personal this project is to him and the details regarding his involvement in creating the film.

Regarding what first drew him to Father Stu’s story, Wahlberg explained that he connected with Father Stu personally.

“Well, it’s an amazing, amazing story.

There isn’t a single reason that I could find to not want to make the movie. I mean, if you think about selfish reasons, as an actor, what an amazing role to play.

I mean, talk about an arc and journey as a storyteller, but most importantly, as a man of faith,” Wahlberg said. “And, you

know, the reason for all of my success and all the positive things in my life, both personally and professionally, are because of my faith and my dedication to my faith.”

Speaking of the film’s universality, he believes there is a way for people from all walks of life to feel inspired by Father Stu’s story.

“It’s a human story. This is really about love and inclusion and acceptance. It’s a wonderful redemption story. And yeah, so I wanted to make a movie for everybody,” Wahlberg explained. “It so happens that he became a Catholic priest, but if Stu had met somebody else who was touched in some sort of other way, he might have gone on to pursue some other vocation and faith. But yeah, I’ve made the movie for everybody for sure.”

As an established Hollywood actor, Wahlberg finds a perfect outlet to tell inspiring stories like Father Stu’s in motion pictures.

“It’s just for me, it is the ultimate art form, to not only entertain but also to educate and inform and just even to provoke—provoke dialogue [and] conversation,” Wahlberg said.

When talking about his preparation for the role, Wahlberg compared it to a student studying for exams: “You know, I would make the comparison of you guys: you prepare all semester long, you’re studying, you’re getting ready. By the time you get your finals, you’d better be damn

ready to take those finals because all the preparation, all the work was put into the time leading up to that. So, I had a good six months to really prepare. All the time that I took and really trying to grow as a person through my faith was helpful and all the real-life experience that I had to draw on.”

Mark Wahlberg mentioned how he found the strength to overcome personal difficulties in his faith, just like his character.

“You look at how Stu handled his sickness and all the adversity that he faced.

He handled it with dignity and grace. He actually embraced it to the point where he felt, ‘This suffering is bringing me closer to God. Give me more of it.’ And I think it’s an amazing way to deal with the inevitable, right?”

Discussing how the film came to be, Wahlberg disclosed that Father Stu’s director, Rosalind Ross, wasn’t attached to the project from the beginning. Wahlberg said, “We had one draft of the script that wasn’t good. And I was like, I’ve got to kind of figure this out on my own. I went to Mel [Gibson] just to kind of pick his brain about how he made The Passion of the Christ, and what it took for him to get it made. Then, I talked to Rosie [Ross] and I read some of her work.” Wahlberg continued, “And so we had a great conversation.

She goes, ‘I’d really like to take a crack at this,’ and I was like, ‘All right, I’m gonna go make a movie, and I’m kind of in a holding pattern.’ She went off and wrote, and she literally came back with a screenplay that

I wanted to make.”

The actual filming process was also challenging; Wahlberg said, “We had 30 days to shoot the movie, which is not a lot of time. This movie is pretty big and ambitious in its scope.”

Talking about his co-star, Teresa Ruiz, Wahlberg said he strongly advocated for her to get the role of Carmen. Wahlberg said, “She was absolutely amazing in her audition and [when] we read together. And people [say] like, ‘Oh, it’s always better to have a name.’ I said, ‘Everybody’s got to start somewhere. She’s gonna have a name after this movie.’”

Referring to other projects, Wahlberg said that he carefully analyzes the role he considers.

“It’s a very selfish process, you know.

I’m like, I need the script to be fantastic.

I need the part to be fantastic. I need the filmmaker to be fantastic. If it’s not, you know, a proven writer-director, then I want more control. I want to be able to produce,” said Wahlberg, “Sometimes I’ll just go in as an actor for hire. I would love to work with a filmmaker like David Russell, or somebody who is just a writer-director, and you go, and you service their vision. And that’s always fun because, you know, you don’t have the responsibility of having to manage the rest of the movie.”

Father Stu, rated R, was released exclusively in movie theaters Wednesday, April 13.