April 2020
LET’S GET DIGITAL: p.5 QUEERER AND WEIRDER: p.9 MOUTH TALK: p.13 REALITY CHECK: p.16
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COVERING CORONAVIRUS
Halfway across the globe? Still in Evanston? send your quarantine stories to The Daily’s Opinion Desk opinion@dailynorthwestern.com
CONTENTS Staff of The Monthly Issue 28
Wilson Chapman Monthly Editor Catherine Buchaniec Jacob Fulton Roxanne Panas Emma Ruck Carly Schulman Designers Joshua Irvine Jacob Fulton Isabelle Sarraf Jennifer Zhan Yunkyo Kim Zoe Malin Writers Madison Smith Videographer
Let’s Get Digital
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Liner Notes
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Queerer and Weirder
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Open Tab
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Mouth Talk
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Reality Check
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Reel Thoughts
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Q&A: Fisher Stevens
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Cover illustration by Emma Ruck
Editor:
I would not have been able to survive the last few weeks without “Animal Crossing.” The latest entry in Nintendo’s life-simulator series released on March 20 during a stressful time in everybody’s life — I had recently come back home from school as the entire world shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I was social distancing, and for about a week I was alone in my house with nowhere to go and nobody to talk to, and the isolation was beginning to wear on me. “New Horizons” could not have come at a better time. For the past month, I’ve poured hours upon hours into my island (named Chicago, because I miss it), befriending my villagers (shout out to Charlise and Sterling, my day ones), donating hundreds of fossils to Blathers’ museum, and getting the iconic queen Isabelle to make my village theme the riff from A-Ha’s “Take on Me.” In scary times where it feels like the world is burning before my eyes and nobody will ever be happy again, it’s a relief to travel to the wholesome sunshine world of “Animal Crossing,” where everything is peaceful and the only real conflict is trying to catch a fish that isn’t a goddamn sea bass. My experience with “Animal Crossing” is one shared by many. I can’t open up Twitter or TikTok without seeing endless posts about bullying ugly villagers and how much the Egg Day special event sucked. It may seem odd that so many people, in the face of a national pandemic, chose to invest their energy into a game where you work for a tanuki kingpin named Tom Nook, but I think it speaks to the power that art has to bond us together and keep us sane in times of great stress. There’s a certain feeling among some people that, with social distancing giving people more free time than ever before, it’s important to be productive, working on passion projects and maximizing that time to be efficient as possible. And while there is value in keeping yourself busy, in my view, the best thing you can do for yourself in this time is invest yourself in art you love. On March 27, Dua Lipa released her sophomore album, “Future Nostalgia,” a euphoric record that took inspiration from disco and 80s pop to deliver nonstop bops about love, sex and heartbreak. I had been looking forward to the album since I heard Lipa’s wonderful prerelease single “Physical,” and when it dropped, I had a blast dancing in my kitchen to her absolute banger “Love Again” at midnight. After so many days stressing about the state of the world, Lipa’s album gave me the ability to chill out, dance and forget my troubles. But art also offers more than just escapism in a pandemic; it can also move you to look at the situation differently, or help you learn more about the world. I recently read N.K Jemisin’s “The City We Became,” a speculative fiction novel in which the city of New York comes alive, and a virus threatens to destroy it. Although the narrative hits home for reasons Jemisin never intended, the book sends an optimistic message about the strength of community and the importance to be there for one another –– a message that has reinforced for me why social distancing is important, and made me hopeful that the communities I love can survive this pandemic. So binge watch that series you’ve always wanted to get around to, or sink 100 hours into that RPG that you could never commit the time to earlier. This quarantine isn’t ending soon, and in hard times, there’s nothing more affirming and soothing than art that matters.
Wilson Chapman 4
LET’S GET DIGITAL Northwestern, Evanston arts communities stay connected through online performances, classes - By Jacob Fulton
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amara Malik did not plan for this. The Communication sophomore was supposed to direct for Lovers and Madmen, a member board of Northwestern’s Student Theatre Coalition. This year, the board was preparing to put on three staged
readings of studentwritten adaptations during Spring Quarter, and Malik was slated to direct “Carrying.” For months, she worked with her team to fine-tune performances, all so they could be ready to perform the reading live. But nothing could prepare her — or her actors — for a global pandemic and the closure of the university for the duration of Spring Quarter, effectively eliminating
the possibility of any in-person performances for all productions for the rest of the school year. This dilemma has forced arts communities across the globe to decide whether they will proceed with scheduled programming in a new format, transition to virtual methods or cut events altogether. At Northwestern, some theater boards are postponing their shows to early on in fall 2020, but Malik didn’t have that option, as she plans to study abroad that quarter. For her, it was now or never. So when a board member pitched the possibility of adapting the staged reading to a radio play, she jumped on the idea. “Plan A was to be back on campus, so » See CORONAVIRUS, page 6
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this is our plan B, and we didn’t really have any other ideas,” Malik said. “The idea of the staged reading is for the playwright to hear the words and see what their next steps are, having put actors behind the characters, and seeing where directors take this piece that they’ve written. And the radio play is a common and valid way to do that.”
THE SHOW MUST GO ON
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s every arts community undergoes debates on how to proceed amid COVID-19, StuCo boards are working to preserve a sense of community and continue their usual spring activities, in spite of the cancellation of most shows. Weinberg sophomore Casey Wells, one of StuCo’s co-chairs, said it is through processes such as spring petitions that the Northwestern theater community continues to thrive virtually. “A big part of it is through all of the normal functioning that we would have been doing anyway in the spring,” Wells said. “That includes stuff like petitioning for new board members for people who aren’t already on a theater board to join one of them in the spring. Soon we’ll have producer petitions, followed by director petitions. A lot of it is
connecting through forward thinking.” Outside of meetings and performances, students are also continuing to interact through social media. This Week in Student Quarantine, or @ thisweekinstudentquarantine on Instagram, is an account started by Communic ation sophomore Sammi Tapper, to which Northwestern students submit video entries for weekly performance prompts. Tapper said she started the account because she was looking for a way to encourage other StuCo members to continue performing and creating art. She sees the account’s format as a way to encourage student performers to create light-hearted content, instead of something more hard-hitting. “This is a way for my friends and everyone else in theater, and the Northwestern community, more broadly, to just have fun and keep being creative and keep sharing their
own stories or ideas,” Tapper said. “If people want to do that, I just want to continue to provide an outlet on social media for them to do so.” Just off Northwestern’s campus, the Evanston arts community is facing similar challenges. At Mudlark Theater, all instruction has moved online — a drastic change from the theater’s typical setup, which includes a mix of productions, after school classes and summer camps. The courses run on two and three week cycles, with a third iteration beginning earlier this week. Maureen Powers, Mudlark’s executive director, said the theater, which works with children from ages 6 to 14, is one of just a handful of children’s theaters in the Chicago area that has launched an online program. However, she feels the theater’s role in providing arts education for the community has not changed since courses shifted to online. “We’re concerned about kids losing that opportunity for connection and socialization and creativity,” Powers said. “Any kind of expressive outlet was taken away from them with the stay at home order. So we wanted to, as quickly as possible, pivot and transform the kinds of opportunities that we were able to provide live into online classes.”
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
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lthough Mudlark made the decision to move online fair l y ear l y on, there has still
been a steep learning curve. The theater’s education director, Dru Smith, said Zoom has been a relatively new tool for most of Mudlark’s staff. Foster Pratt, an eighth grader at Nichols Middle School, has been attending Mudlark since he was 8 years old. He is currently taking one of the theater’s online courses, Mudlark’s News Network, and said virtual acting changes the way actors interact, as it removes the physical element of blocking and motion. Additionally, Pratt said Zoom can present difficulties because actors can accidentally disconnect, have a delay in their video or be difficult to hear due to microphone complications. Because of this, he said every actor has to be prepared to adapt to the unexpected, as it’s impossible to predict when these technical delays might happen. Virtual programs are also forcing instructors to change their expectations for what a class might look like. Paula Danoff (Kellogg ‘82), the president and CEO of the Evanston Art Center, said this is the first time the Center has had online classes in the 90 years it’s been open, but she anticipates the new online classes may continue even after COVID19 is over. Danoff said the center isn’t able to offer all its classes in full, as some — such as a wheel-throwing class — require mater ials most people don’t own. Though the center has a partnership with Blick Art Materials to ensure delivery
of required items to the homes of those enrolled in classes, Danoff recognizes that students will each adapt to the situation in their own way. “Any time that you change an environment or change materials or change one or two things within a set space, that ’s where that creative process can start,” Danoff said. “So having people having to figure all this out is certainly a process.”
CURTAIN CALL
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n a time where global health is at the forefront of ever yone’s minds, it might be a difficult environment to create art. But for many creators, ar t has served as an outlet for distraction during COVID-19. Powers said art ’s healing power was one of the reasons Mudlark felt it was essential to continue providing classes through the pandemic. “The arts give kids a way to express (emotions)
through games and through other creative outlets, like through a script, where they write through a story that they helped create,” Powers said. “It’s therapeutic for the kids to be able to create stories and respond to what ’s going on in their lives through theater.” And for Malik and many members of her show, theater has served as an escape from reality. By unifying a group of people for a common goal, the fictitious worlds actors create can provide a brief respite from the conflict of the world. Malik said though she didn’t know it at the beginning of the directing process, the themes in “Carrying,” the play she’s directing, have also exemplified how art allows creators to process their lives at difficult times. “‘Carrying’ is about dealing with fear and dealing with uncertainty and feeling like you are not enough,” she said. “In a time when everyone is feeling hopeless and feeling isolated, I think ‘Carrying’ kind of speaks to that in a weird way.” ◊
Liner Notes — by Wilson Chapman
Fiona Apple returns, in stunning form, with the chaotic, beautiful “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”
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nder the Table,” the fourth track on “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” opens with Fiona Apple singing, practically whispering, “I would beg to disagree/But begging disagrees with me.” It’s a sparse acoustic intro, but the song, which focuses on calling out a douchebag boyfriend at a dinner party and refusing to back down, is loud and furious. Come the bridge, Apple spits out that same line ferociously, surrounded by a cacophony of backing vocals and the heavy thumping percussion that characterizes the sound of her fifth album. The line encapsulates the attitude and the viewpoint the artist is bringing to this batch of songs: She’s defiant, she’s not afraid to speak her mind and she’s not afraid to speak it loudly. It’s appropriate that Apple, an icon of the late ’90s who has only continued to grow as an artist in the two decades since, is having a moment in the age of the coronavirus for two reasons. The first is that she’s been social distancing long before that phrase was on most people’s radar: Apple produced “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” with her collaborators Sebastian Steinberg, Amy Aileen Wood and Davíd Garza from her home in Venice Beach, which she very rarely leaves except to take her dog on walks. The second is that her music, and the evocative way it captures the chaos of the human mind, is uniquely well-suited to this current moment in time, when we’re all stranded in our homes with nothing but our brains to keep us company. The thirteen tracks on “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” tackles a variety of different topics, but they all have a confessional air about them, as
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Apple divulges her fear, her sadness and her rage as if she has been bursting to let these feelings out. “Heavy Balloon” is a standout track that uses the titular imagery as a metaphor for living with depression, while “Drumset” focuses on feelings of isolation and abandonment. “I Want You To Love Me” and “Cosmonauts” grapple with ideas of whether romance is possible, and “Ladies” and “Shameika” explore the complex relationships that Apple has formed with women in her life. Although Apple’s lyrics veer off into many different directions, the production ties it together in an unusual way: by being extraordinarily chaotic. “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” is a noisy album, dominated by sounds of Apple and her band slamming into several different percussion instruments at once with intense force. At certain points Apple includes ambient and captured sound, such as the title track, which contains soundbites of her dogs barking. This production gives a raw emotional strength to the songs, as if they’re unspooling fully formed from Apple’s mind. It’s complemented by her husky vocal performance, as the artist nimbly sorts through a hundred different emotions
within the songs while making every single one of them feel deeply authentic. But even though “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” feels like Apple distilling her personal emotions and viewpoints into album form, there’s something very communal about the way that people have been experiencing it, myself included. The day it dropped I found my Twitter timeline filled with memes and Source: Epic Records discussions. It was the first experience I had in a long time where an album release felt like a shared cultural event. It was the first album I managed to convince my dad to listen to that he actually liked. And I think that speaks to how singular an achievement Apple’s work is, and how firmly she has established herself as one of the great living musicians. It also speaks to how vital her music, and her defiance, is in the strange, often soul-crushing atmosphere of 2020. “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” is a jolt of raw, nervy energy. And in a time where it’s easier than ever to sink into depression and defeat, thank God for it. ◊
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Queerer Weirder Screenwriter Sarah Gubbins makes her feature film debut with ‘Shirley’
- by Joshua Irvine
arah Gubbins (Communication ‘97, ‘08) first fell for Shirley J a c k s o n’s twisted sensibilities in a performance studies class her senior year at NU. This year, she premiered her biopic of the horror and mystery author at Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. A successful Chicago playwrightturned-Hollywood screenwriter, Gubbins first brought Chris Kraus’ cult novel “I Love Dick” to television before her feature film debut with “Shirley.” She calls the film “a psychosexual drama about an author who is trying to find a way into her next book.” Gubbins sat down with The Daily to talk about her career after leaving Chicago, writing “Shirley” and working in women-led spaces. This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
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he Daily: How did you find yourself writing for television? Gubbins: A bunch of my playwright friends from Chicago were moving to L.A. and getting work staffing television shows. I did a year in the Twin Cities on a Jerome
Fellowship. It was a time of transition: I could either move back to Chicago or I could see what happened in Los Angeles. So I moved out to L.A., and that’s when I came across Chris Kraus’s book “I Love Dick.” I was working with [“Transparent” producer] Jill Soloway on a feature, so I brought them this idea of making “I Love Dick” into a television show. And they were really receptive and thought it was a great idea, and we brought it to Amazon. And that was the first television show I worked on. The Daily: Breaking into TV with Jill Soloway is pretty impressive. Gubbins: It was an invaluable learning experience, absolutely. Chris Kraus’ book was such a seminal feminist text in the 90s, when it was published. So transferring it into a different medium was very exciting for both of us. It all really just came together. The project made sense, the people who wanted to be working together really all made sense. And then we got together a writer’s room of all women. I’m very proud of the show.
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The Daily: Tell me about how you started working on“Shirley.” Gubbins: “Shirley” I started well before working on “I Love Dick.” A friend put me in touch with the writer of the novel, and she had a manuscript that was about to go to publication. And I read it and I had a meeting with a producer, Sue Naegle, and we were looking for a project to do together, and we both loved Shirley Jackson. It took a minute to figure out how the adaptation would go, and for me to complete the screenplay, and then we put the project together and brought Elisabeth Moss to play Shirley, and found this phenomenal director Josephine Decker. The Daily: How did you incorporate Jackson’s style into “Shirley?” Gubbins: The screenplay was built almost forensically – I had read all of her work by the time we started working on it. She got these preoccupations with certain things, stuff that comes up over and over. The idea being we were going to meet Jackson at the time she had just written this huge New Yorker story, which was “The Lottery,” and instead of being hailed as a literary genius, the New Yorker got the most cancelled subscriptions ever. It was
Source: Courtesy of Sundance Institute
an insult, it was perplexing, it was deeply offensive to many people. They didn’t understand it, and they found it in poor taste. And so she’s taken to her bed in absolute depression. And her journey is her trying through her writing to rehabilitate herself back in the world. There’s an interiority of the writer’s mind, which is really a deeply unsettling and nightmarish place to be in many moments. And using a lot of what will show up in future works of hers. She was married to what we’d now call a musicology professor, his name is Stanley Hyman. He’s one of her biggest supporters. So it’s really the story of a marriage and the writer’s ability to move past the crippling critique of the outside world. And she ends up writing in the film her novel “Hangsaman,” which is loosely based on the real life disappearance of a Bennington student. And in the film to do that, Stanley invites a young couple to come live with them. There’s a direct homage to “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” with this couple using this young couple to work out the issues in their marriage. The Daily: One review called your film “’Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,’ but queerer and weirder.’ Gubbins: [laughs] High compliment! I’d like to see that on a poster. The Daily: You’ve worked on a lot of womenled productions – do you find yourself drawn
to projects led by women? Gubbins: I don’t think it’s an accident. Collaboration is a hard-won and delicate dance, and I have found myself drawn to collaborators that work in a highly disciplined and very respectful and very open and egoless way. And most of those collaborators are women. The Daily: This was your first time working with Josephine Decker. What was it like working with her? Gubbins: Josephine and I approach work very differently but with the same intensity and vigor. She comes with such an intuitive cinematic sensibility that I really learned a lot from. I think she would say I come from this space where you hold structure, dramaturgical arcs, that can hold the intention of the entire film, that gave her the freedom to give into moments. So there was this marvelous give and take. Plus she’s a marvelous human being, which is always nice. When we were first starting to work together on the film, I called her up and said, “Why don’t I come over and make you soup?” And she would come to my house and I would cook and we’d work on the script for a couple hours. The Daily: What does your writing process look like? Gubbins: Every project is different. I usually
start with a lot of research. If it’s an adaptation, I’ll try get a sense of the author’s work In the actual writing, it’s just terrible [laughs]. I’m under deadline for a feature right now. You always hate writing but you love having written. Someone said that, I’m not sure who, but they were right. 98 percent of the work that I do is revising. There is an initial idea, an initial push to try take what you’re envisioning and try exfiltrate what you’re envisioning. The Daily: How did you write “Shirley?” Gubbins: That was a doozy. I did a bunch of research – I had the book I was adapting, and then I did a bunch of research into the actual Shirley Jackson. Part of that research was I found a treasure trove of letters that Stanley and Shirley had written to each other. So that really gave a voice to the character. She just has this wicked sense of humor, this sharp wit. And after that – I wouldn’t advise this – I wrote a novella of the script that I adapted into the screenplay. The Daily: Did any of your own experiences factor into “Shirley?” Gubbins: The most obvious, I think, would be the crippling insecurity you feel as a writer about your own work, and the dependency you draw upon the people in your life to keep you afloat while you’re in those moments. ◊
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— by Zoe Malin
Local shops serve customers sweet treats during the pandemic
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s uncertainty and anxiety loom during the coronavirus pandemic, Evanston Coldstone Creamery owner Johnathan Thomas said life’s little luxuries are more valuable than ever. Sweet treats bring people joy every day, but in times of crisis, he said he would even call dessert a “necessity.” “We can be a reminder of normalcy right now,” Thomas said. “It’s the small things that remind people we get through this together.” Like restaurants, bakeries and ice cream shops cannot offer dine-in service in Illinois. But that’s not stopping them from serving customers. In Evanston, local sweets shops are working hard to get their offerings to residents and adapt to changing circumstances. While restrictions put in place due to the coronavirus were issued quickly, Thomas said Cold Stone had already offered items on meal delivery services like Grubhub, which made the transition easier. Cold Stone also implemented curbside pickup and has an influx in cake orders for at-home celebrations. Thomas said he’s lucky that his business is very busy. Not all eateries are in this position, however. FRÍO Gelato relies on in-person exchanges at its storefront on Chicago Avenue. Owner Sebastián Koziura said when Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued the shelter in place order, he weighed his options and felt it was a “no brainer” to temporarily close. He said sales were
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already down due to frigid temperatures and less foot traffic. After about a month, Koziura received messages from customers expressing how much they missed the store’s gelato. He reopened the shop in early April and saw strong sales from customers. FRÍO Gelato is now open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, operating on a reduced schedule. It allows a limited number of people in the store at a time and has customers stay six feet apart. It also added curbside pickup and recently began delivering through Grubhub. “People in Evanston are very supportive of local business, and you really see that during times like these,” Koziura said. “It’s just who we are as a community.” Beyond frozen treats, Bennison’s Bakery is ensuring that customers get their cake, macaron and cookie fix. Owner Jory Downer said not much has changed for the bakery, which is still at full staff and fulfilling daily orders. While customers can come into the storefront, Downer said Grubhub, delivery through the bakery and curbside pickup are “extremely” active. He is not used to seeing the bakery almost empty. “It was strange to walk in the store on Easter Saturday, when it would typically be full of people, and only see about six,” Downer said. “Instead, there was a huge crowd out on the sidewalk. It used to be the other way around.” Eateries are also supporting those who work in the food industry during the pandemic. Soon after the coronavirus outbreak, Andy’s Frozen Custard closed, leaving staff unemployed. Thomas reached out to former Andy’s employees and offered them
positions at Cold Stone so they would still have steady employment during the national emergency. “It just made sense to me,” Thomas said. “I was in a position to help them as much as they could help me at the store.” Dave Schaps, owner of Great Harvest Bread Co., said although his business has been severely impacted by the coronavirus, he is focused on helping other Evanston establishments get through the pandemic. Coffee Lab & Roasters usually buys pastries from Great Harvest, but Schaps said he’s currently providing his products to the shop for free to help it survive. “Evanston is the best community in Chicagoland,” Schaps said. “I want to see all businesses pull through this.” Schaps said his sales are about one-third of what they usually are. Customers still call in orders and get items delivered, but most of that money goes towards paying rent and employees. However, despite the darkness the coronavirus has cast upon the community, Schaps said Evanston will come out of the pandemic “stronger.” “The coronavirus is not leaving anyone untouched,” Schaps said. “We’ve just got to all come together and help as many people as we can.” ◊
Source: Cold Stone Creamery Evanston, FRÍO Gelato, Great Harvest Bread Co., Bennison’s Bakery
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W
hen asked why she applied to Northwestern, Nicole Silverberg said it was because her high school self fit the mold of an NU student perfectly. “I was a big theater kid and straight-A student in high school with a very slim social life and very, very low self confidence,” Silverberg said. “Not to stereotype, but seems like a Northwestern special.” Silverberg (Communication ‘13) is a New York-based comedian and writer known for her work on TBS late-night show “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” which she worked on for two years as a writer and writer supervisor. In 2018 and 2019, she was nominated along with the rest of the show’s writing team at the Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. Silverberg describes her style of comedy as “powerfully dumb,” taking heavy political and social issues and looking at them through a warped point of view. A native of Tuscan, Ariz., Silverberg didn’t know where she wanted to go college when her junior year of high school came along. She thought about auditioning for conservatories, but decided against it because she wanted to take normal academic classes. She was also too nervous about going through that audition process (“It wasn’t just that I liked school, I was also weak”). Silverberg ended up attending Northwestern’s High School Institute the summer before her senior year as a theater cherub, and decided to apply there early decision, mostly so she could be done with the college admissions as quickly as possible, she said. In college, Silverberg said she was constantly overworked and busy, acting in several plays and sitting on a StuCo theater board. Although she invested much of her energy into theater, she admits she never loved doing it, and continued with it because she put pressure on herself to do “the right things” in college. “There was always sort of this fear in the back of my mind that I wasn’t doing the right things or that I wasn’t sure what I actually liked doing,” Silverberg said. “I was in hundreds of plays. But I didn’t love doing it. But I was like, ‘Well, but I want to be an actor. So this is what I should be
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doing.’ And it wasn’t until after I left college, I was like, ‘Oh, I actually don’t want to be a stage actor.’” Silverberg grew more interested in comedy at Northwestern, joining the Titanic Players her freshman year. She took writing classes, including advanced playwriting with Communication Prof. Laura Schellhardt, which she said was where she started forming her comedic sensibilities. After graduation, Silverberg moved to New York, where she cast a wide net for opportunities, including auditioning for theater roles and joining writing groups where she wrote short plays. Eventually, she began writing for Reductress, a satirical website that parodies women’s media, and was promoted quickly to an editor position. Silverberg described her time at Reductress as a writing bootcamp for her; as an editor, she worked constantly on spicing up other people’s articles while writing her own material every day, and the fast pace helped her prepare for working in the late night field. Her proudest moment at Reductress was when she and other editors did a takeover of the front page where every article focused on and satirized rape culture. For most of her time at the site, she also hosted a podcast called “Mouth Time,” in which she and her co-host played characters meant to satirize privileged white feminism (or as Silverberg called it, “Dove Soap Feminism”). Silverberg’s work in Reductress was noticed by “Full Frontal” in 2017, and she was asked to submit a package to them. After two rounds of applications, she was brought on as a writer, and would work on the show for two-and-a-half years, getting promoted to writer supervisor during her last year. There, she worked on a number of sketches that skewered politics through the lens of pop culture, such as a parody of “Riverdale” about antivaxxers, or a sketch where Republican senators had to take sex-ed classes. One segment she wrote in 2018, about the Trump’s administration’s legislation against trans rights, won a GLAAD award for Outstanding Talk Show Episode. “Full Frontal” has almost a gender-equal writing staff, with many of the different departments at the show run by women. While working at the show, Silverberg
said she was able to write material that no other show was able to do, because of that environment and the fact that it was hosted by a woman. In addition, she said her bosses at the show were understanding and compassionate about how taxing the job could be. Silverberg said part of the reason she feels she was able to succeed both at Reductress and “Full Frontal” was that they were women-led and women-focused spaces. “When I was at Northwestern, and was doing comedy and thought I wasn’t good at it, a lot of that was because I was just surrounded by a bunch of guys,” Silverberg said. “I was just mimicking what they thought was funny, and some of it was incredibly funny, but it wasn’t what I would have come up with. I think being able to work for women and write for women helped me understand that the things about my life or my experiences that I find funny are funny.” Silverberg left “Full Frontal” this year in January, deciding to take time to focus on personal writing projects which wouldn’t be possible on the schedule of late night. Although she said she valued the experience and loves late night television, she’s interested in other opportunities, even if they’re currently taking a backseat in the current global pandemic (“I’m being an incredibly good sport about it,” she joked). Looking back at her career, Silverberg said the main lesson she learned was the value of patience. Working as a comedian, it took her time to develop her voice, and she found it easy to feel like a failure. But by learning patience, she was able to keep going and find opportunities that fit her. “I think the stereotype is that Northwestern students are overachievers,” Silverberg said. “But what I really think is that Northwestern students are really impatient. They are really used to systems that they can excel within with a set of rules. And that’s just not how the industry works. It’s completely nonlinear. It’s at times unfair. But you just have to believe in your own work enough. And that in itself is a full time job for a few years, just believing that you’re not a total fraud or that you’re never going to get anywhere. So it’s a long process, but there’s a lot out there you can do.” ◊ Photos courtesy of Nicole Silverberg
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by Jennifer Zhan Reality TV
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Why I can’t stop watching unscripted TV shows during this pandemic
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know absolutely nothing about competitive cheerleading. I can’t do the splits, I have little interest in watching any sports and I’ve always been suspicious of people who genuinely enjoy physical exercise. But it only takes a few episodes of Netflix’s “Cheer” before I’m yelling, “Let Jerry on the mat, HE DESERVES IT, COACH!” with tears streaming down my face. Reality shows have captured the attention of hundreds of millions of viewers for over a decade. Watch parties for popular franchises like “The Bachelor” and “Survivor” are common for many friend groups. Yet in a 2018 national survey by Morning Consult and The Hollywood Reporter, respondents rated reality as the least favorable TV genre. The top three words associated with it? Fake, trashy and meaningless. I myself have always thought of so-called unscripted television as a guilty pleasure that demands far too much time and emotional energy. But since the coronavirus pandemic has made going to my backyard feel like taking an exciting vacation, I’ve got plenty of mental real estate for drama. My to-watch list has expanded ambitiously to include new offerings like Netflix’s “Love is Blind” and “The Circle,” as well as seasoned hits like “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Terrace House.” Currently, I’m obsessed with season 2 of “Youth With You,” an iQiyi reality talent competition shot in China’s Guangdong province. Viewers vote to select nine girls who will form a new pop group, out of over 100 trainees. I got invested quickly, following dozens of cast members on social media minutes after the first episode’s credits rolled. Then, a couple weeks ago, the show’s host announced that due to the coronavirus, performances would be held in quiet, closed venues rather than in front of cheering crowds. In a recent episode, trainees got to speak
with their parents over the phone. Most talked about their performances or missing home. However, one girl called her mom, a first responder in Wuhan, and broke down in tears, unable to say anything except, “Make sure not to get sick. Make sure not to get sick.” Initially, I was thrown off — binging was supposed to distract me from the overwhelming outside world. We get to see people behaving in overly vulnerable or
helps me understand myself and my values better. For example, after being appalled by the bitter fights on the eighth season of MTV’s dating competition “Are You The One,”, I felt like a relationship expert, suddenly completely certain about my baseline standards for communication and honesty in a partner. My best friend sometimes discusses “Dance Moms” clips with me because she sees herself in the people who try to stand up to the Lifetime show’s instructor, who reminds her of a past toxic teacher. After declaring my support on social media for trainee Zhao Xiaotang, people I hadn’t talked to in years messaged me to talk about “Youth With You.” Xiaotang was told during her audition to smile and be more expressive, like other girls. Defending her as my top pick felt surprisingly personal, and I also gained a deeper understanding of others when they explained who they identified with or were most moved by. I know I’m lucky that my pandemic experience so far is just staying home with my parents, with plenty of reality stars to virtually keep me company. I can continue watching “Youth With You” and cheer on the girls following their dreams, even as their dancing and singing lessons get moved to video calling platforms. And when the show’s over, I’ll carry the emotions and attachments I’ve made with me, even as I move on to a new group of people. COVID-19 may or may not affect any of the other shows I’ll fall into in the coming days. But either way, I’ll keep watching. Even before this pandemic, reality TV has always made me feel a little more human, a little more sure of where me and my thoughts fit into the world. In a time where isolation and distancing are crucial, there’s nothing trashy or meaningless about that. ◊
Since the pandemic has made going to my backyard feel like taking an exciting vacation, I’ve got plenty of mental real estate for drama. But after reflection, I realized that reality shows represent more than a mindless escape or chance to live vicariously through other people’s conflicts outrageous ways that they probably wouldn’t without the stress of constantly rolling cameras. Carefully-cast participants and exaggerated situations designed to heighten tension and conflict don’t normally feel “real.” But after reflection, I realized that reality shows represent more than a mindless escape or chance to live vicariously through other people’s conflicts. First of all, viewers have the power to “vote.” For “Youth With You,” that means literal ballots, but with any show, following and supporting the people you like can help them receive more screen time in later seasons or create career opportunities. Though I’ll never be stuck on an island trying to avoid elimination or tasked with choosing who to date in an entire house of options, observing both my positive and negative reactions to people in those situations actually
Illustrations by Carly Schulman
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Reel Thoughts Tiger King is your horrible boss (yes, that one)
yo Kim by Yunk
x Courtesy of Netfli
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he only question I have after watching “Tiger King” is — why? The Venn diagram of major “Tiger King” characters and antilockdown protestors is probably just a circle. That’s what I took away from watching the hit Netflix documentary series during a pandemic. I also want to weigh in on some pivotal debates of this era: Did Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat rescue, kill her husband? Yes, but you can give her the benefit of doubt due to the way the documentary was edited. Did Joe Exotic, the self-proclaimed gay, polygamist, gun-toting Southern, big-cat keeper, set fire to his own property? Probably. Will everything be okay? No. Except for my brother, who asked me, “What’s ‘Tiger King?’” everyone seems to have watched the show and went straight to Twitter to fight about it. Soon enough, “Joe Exotic,”“Carole Baskin” and Bhagavan “Doc Antle,” the overlord of big cat zoos, have all become dialects of the “quaran-teen” generation. To be clear, every major figure in this documentary is so horrible that their collections of 600-pound Ligers seem almost tame. The documentary, which depicts power grabs and catfights between wildlife owners in the South, is truly the dumpster fire that 2020 deserved. But at its core, the documentary is about labor — not just the exchange of services for money but the coercion, commodification and
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expropriation of it. While Joe Exotic spends his days shooting lip-synced music videos where he destroys Carole Baskin’s likeness, he pays $150 a week to the workers at his private zoo, who work more than 12 hours per day shoveling feces and feeding gigantic cats (if you do the math, it’s well-under minimum wage). And a lot of them are happy to do so; Exotic points out in the documentary that many of them come voluntarily under desperate circumstances, begging to be hired — and he is more than happy to start recording. Doc Antle’s practice is more openly dystopian. Antle’s employees are literally his “work-wives,” coerced to sleep with Antle to be promoted to higher positions. Some, such as Barbara Fisher, are encouraged to get breast augmentations. These women become the secondary mascots of Antle’s persona, which, in turn, brings profit to his business. The consequences of these practices are grotesque for the laborer. Saff Saffery chooses to amputate his arm to protect Exotic’s reputation after he was mauled by one of the cats. Antle’s wife-girlfriends, Ranjnee, Moksha and China are reduced to neighboring houses on a stretch of the road Antle passes on his Jeep. The tigers too (spoilers aside) are a part of this. Maybe the laborers have personalities and autonomy that the primadonnas of the series don’t recognize, but the documentary does not portray that.
The narratives of the workers as a whole are skimmed, utilized and discarded. Even though the portrayal of these exploitative labor practices may be the point of “Tiger King,” these stories are ultimately overshadowed by the melodrama. Ultimately, “Tiger King” is a reflection of our society’s treatment of labor, just in faster cuts and a more colorful filter. We deserve to see “Tiger King” in 2020 because many of us have become desensitized to the silent labor around us — we’re also probably doing that labor ourselves. Take Baskin’s Big Cat Sanctuary, for example. Many of its volunteers receive no actual compensation, somewhat akin to glorified free labor such as summer internships or canvassing for a political candidate who will betray campaign promises. For college students with uncertain futures, “Tiger King” may actually hit very close to home. The creative heads of the show certainly don’t seem to recognize these themes of labor exploitation. Eric Goode, the filmmaker and conservationist who co-directed “Tiger King,” recently laid-off employees from his luxury hospitality businesses, leaving the staff unable to pay their bills. But maybe it’s fitting that the director seems so oblivious to the themes in his own work. In America, the idea that laborers should be grateful for their labor is so ingrained within us that you can make a show about the abuse of workers without realizing it at all. ◊
&A
Q
- by Isabelle Sarraf
FISHER STEVENS
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hen filmmaker Fisher Stevens was asked to help with a documentary about world wildlife trade, he didn’t know he was getting sucked into a world of animal exploitation that would dominate the cultural zeitgeist for weeks. Netflix’s “Tiger King,” which premiered on March 20, is a true-crime documentary series following the life and murder-for-hire plot of zookeeper Joe Exotic and his feud with big cat conservationist Carole Baskin. The Chicagoan and former Evanstonian sat down with The Daily to chat about working on the documentary that graced televisions in over 64 million households. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Daily: How did you first get involved with this documentary? Stevens: My background is making more environmental films about how we need to preserve the natural world, whether it’s animals, trees or stopping carbon from being pumped into the air. And this was an extension of that because I think it was important for the world to know that there are more tigers living in captivity in the United States than there are in the wild. I had just made another film on Discovery called “Tigerland,” which was about two people who risk their lives to save tigers in the wild. It was ironic that the next thing I got involved in was about people who bred these tigers in captivity and exploited them. We all thought it was important to show the world what was going on and the true nature of what these people are doing to these animals. The Daily: What was the process like collaborating with Netflix? Stevens: I had a pretty great relationship with the network. I called a friend of mine, Chris Smith, who had just done the Fyre Festival documentary for Netflix, and I thought he would be perfect to help put this thing over the finish line. (Directors) Eric (Goode) and Rebecca (Chaiklin) had shot all this amazing footage, but it still needed to be broken out into episodes. So Chris and I brought the project to Netflix at Sundance 2019. The Daily: What has your reaction been to the overnight success and Internet fame of this documentary? Stevens: It’s exciting. I mean, it gave people something else to talk about other than, like, (coronavirus). I didn’t think it was going to be this popular, though. I think many, many more people are watching (shows) on subscription services because nobody’s going out. The Daily: Are there any plans to film new episodes in the future? Stevens: I can’t say definitely, but we’re hoping to make a few more episodes with the same group. The Daily: How was the filming of the documentary affected by Joe Exotic’s murder-for-hire plot and imprisonment? Stevens: Well, I think that’s what made it much more exciting. When we started filming, he wasn’t in prison. We were basing the
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documentary on his anger and hatred for Carole, and Carole trying to close him down, but that’s the beauty of documentaries: you just don’t know where it’s going. We were just lucky — or unlucky, for Joe — but it was great drama that he got busted. He had a great relationship with the filmmakers, and they continued to call Joe while he was in jail. You can hear those voiceovers in the show. I think the beauty of what Rebecca and Eric did while filming is they didn’t judge any of these people, they just let them be who they are. I think that’s the key to great documentary filmmaking. I think they presented everybody in a very honest way. The Daily: What was Joe Exotic’s reaction to the documentary’s success? Stevens: He’s thrilled. He’s got people trying to get him out of jail now. He may still serve 22 years, but now there may be a shot he can get out early. You should look at the clip (of Donald Trump) online, it was ridiculous. He was in a press conference where they were talking about coronavirus and someone brought up Joe Exotic. The Daily: How has Carole Baskin reacted to the documentary?
“we all thought it was important to show the world what was going on and the true nature of what these people are doing to these animals.” Stevens: She’s not happy with the documentary, so no one’s spoken to her. The Daily: What else are you focusing on post-“Tiger King”? Stevens: I’ve been very politically active for many years, mostly about environmental issues. I think it’s really important that people vote this clown out of office. We have to start reconfiguring and recalibrating how we’re going to treat each other in this country and how we’re going to behave because this (administration) is just unacceptable and it’s so sad that we’re in this place. And that we still don’t have testing. This is what’s on my mind right now, is how I can help in any way to change the way things are in this country. I’ve been acting on the TV series “Succession,” but we don’t even know when we’re starting that up again, so it’s all in the air. ◊
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