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Adora Adeyemi, Francesca Theofilou Sofia Kemeny, Connor Martin, Nicholas Riccio, Franziska Wild
Meriam Ahmad, Elyza Bruce, Romita Chattaraj, Leon Cheung, Pia Cruz, Yihan Deng, Julia Kelly, Madeline Jones, Ashley Kulberg, Amelia Myre, Aashna Nadarajah, Nicholas Romero, Carlos Rueda, Ryan Samway, Michelle Serban, Isabelle Stratta, Kami Steffenauer, Amelia Wanamaker, Fallon Wolfley, Brandon Wu, Nadine Zakheim
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→ THE VOICE 'S PROD NIGHT PLAYLIST
1. “Stronger Than Me,” Amy Winehouse
2. “Ghost in a Flower (Hana ni Bourei),” Yorushika
3. “Last Train At 25 O'clock,” Lamp
4. “More of the Same,” Caroline Rose
5. “Koi,” Kalifa
6. “impossible,” Wasia Project
7. “Aicha,” Khaled
8. “April,” Beach Bunny
9. “Ginger Root,” Juban District
10. “pRETTy,” Lil Yachty
11. “Come Back From San Francisco,” The Magnetic Fields
An eclectic collection of jokes, puns, doodles, playlists, and news clips from the collective mind of the Voice staff.
→ REPAIRING OLDS: FROM THE ARCHIVES
Welcome to “Repairing Olds”, where the breaking news of our past comes back to haunt us. I’m Lou, the Voice’s first archivist, and today I will share with you the story of Jack the Bulldog in 1971!
→ GOSSIP RAT
cavorting through the bowels of your townhouses as I often do, I noticed an odd bulge. Get your mind out of the gutter, I mean in the pipes. While a sharp huff from the ol’ nozzle didn’t reveal anything, I’ve romped around in more than a few sewers and get a little twitch in my tail when something isn’t right. I knew right away what that tantalizing tingle was telling me—lead. Sometimes you humans are so pathetic. Me? I’m 37 percent spite and 100 percent sexual prowess. A lil’ lead can’t hurt me—I’m built different. But your puny stock can be taken down with just a dash of chemical seasoning in your water. Embarrassing. If you see me—or lead—in your pipes, you should call someone. Really. I would hate for my enemy to be taken down by something so trivial.
XOXO, Gossip Rat
In 1971, Jack the Bulldog overate his allotted food budget by $9.21 which is equivalent to $69.99 today.
Listen to this week’s Post Pitch for more information about H*yas for Choice’s partnership with Capital Women’s Care.
→ PIA'S VIVACIOUS CROQUE MADAME
→ THE VOICE 'S LIL' LEAVES
Georgetown must break its silence on Israel’s violent occupation of Palestine
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Content warning: This article references systemic violence, Islamophobia, and antisemitism.
The editorial board recognizes the escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine has been grievous for Jewish and Palestinian communities. We extend compassion to those in pain. In times of devastation, we must center humanity. Any civilian death—regardless of race, religion, or nationality—is a tragedy.
We condemn Hamas’s attack against Israeli civilians and stand with the Jewish community in their grief. We also condemn Israel’s indiscriminate use of violence—that amounts to collective punishment—against Palestinian civilians. Nevertheless, we must confront our political reality: while the Jewish community’s grief has been weaponized to justify an American-sponsored bombardment of Gaza, the Palestinian community’s grief has been too often stifled and distorted as “sympathizing with terrorism.”
Emboldened by Western support and media complicity, Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians has only intensified. Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes, cut off all food, water, electricity, and humanitarian aid to Gaza, and airburst white phosphorus projectiles that inflict excruciating burns. On Oct. 13, Israel ordered the immediate—and impossible— evacuation of 1.1 million Gazans, in what the World Health Organization has deemed a death sentence. On Oct. 17, a hospital was bombed, killing at least 500 Palestinians and burying hundreds more under the rubble. Investigations are still ongoing, but Palestinian health officials blame an Israeli airstrike, while Israel has rejected responsibility for the bombing.
Georgetown’s Palestinian community has faced both an absence of support from the administration and hostility from fellow students. President John DeGioia’s Oct. 8 university-wide email was egregiously one-sided in its selective moral outrage, failing to acknowledge that Palestinian lives are as valuable as Israeli lives. While rightfully mourning the 1,400 Israeli deaths from Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, not once did DeGioia mention the Palestinian deaths at Israel’s hands. With more than 3,478 Palestinians massacred in Gaza as of Oct. 18, Georgetown still hasn’t expressed a word mourning their loss.
When Georgetown students gathered at a vigil to mourn the murder of their loved ones
in Palestine, other students heckled, jeered at, and recorded them. Students for Justice in Palestine flyers in Red Square, a designated free speech zone, were torn down and shredded after mere hours. Since Hamas’s attack, we have seen a national spike in Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bigotry.
Highlighting Israel’s oppression of Palestinians shouldn’t be conflated with a justification of Hamas’s attack or antisemitism. In advocating for the Palestinian community, which has faced systematic and institutional erasure, the suffering of the Jewish community shouldn’t be minimized.
We call on Georgetown to break its silence on Israel’s violent occupation of Palestine. Because of Georgetown’s negligence, the onus has fallen on students to educate others on the truth of the issue.
DeGioia’s statement fails to make two critical distinctions: first, it doesn’t properly attribute the “unprecedented terrorist attack” to Hamas, and second, it implies these attacks emerged from a vacuum. To the first point, by not clearly distinguishing between Hamas and Palestinians, DeGioia’s statement reinforces Islamophobic stereotypes that Palestinians, who are majority Muslim, are terrorists, legitimizing hate toward the Palestinian community and its allies.
Furthermore, this “conflict” didn’t begin when Hamas attacked Israel. Early Zionist leaders, who openly called Zionism a “colonization adventure,” encouraged Jewish settlement in the area now known as Israel and Palestine. Under the British mandate from 1920 to 1948, British leaders imposed a colonial crackdown on indigenous Palestinians in order to establish settlements for European Jews. The 1947 United Nations (UN) Partition Resolution codified Zionism by enforcing a two-state solution that disproportionately allocated land to Jewish settlers. Simultaneously, Zionists forcibly displaced over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. In 1967, the state of Israel expanded its borders into UN-recognized Palestinian territory, displacing an additional 300,000 Palestinians.
Today, Israel continues to violate international law. Israel’s current siege on Gaza is a protraction of an indefinite air and sea blockade on Gaza that started in 2007. Israel has routinely subjected Palestinians to unlawful killings, unjust detentions, and severe restrictions on basic freedoms. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli human rights
organization B’Tselem classify Israel as an apartheid regime. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with half of its population being children, making this especially heinous.
In addition to being morally reprehensible, Georgetown’s silence on Israel’s oppression of Palestinians is symptomatic of its unfulfilled commitment to a “global perspective.” After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Georgetown mobilized in solidarity with Ukraine through statements, town halls, and engagement events. In stark contrast, administrators have never once addressed its Palestinian community, leaving Palestinian students, faculty, and staff to navigate personal losses without institutional support. On Oct. 16, SFS Dean Joel Hellman sent out an email with academic resources about the Israel-Hamas conflict, but there has been no official condemnation of Israel’s war crimes.
Georgetown’s Jewish chaplaincy also sent out an email in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel. The statement used broad rhetoric about Israel’s “right to defend itself” that has historically been offered as justification for punitive military action against Palestinians. Moreover, it specifically attributed continual Palestinian suffering to “cycles of extremism” and “terror funded by Iran,” echoing right-wing talking points designed to ignore the impact of Israel’s long-standing policy of promoting Hamas to divide Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. At a time when many Jews are protesting in solidarity with Palestinians, the Jewish chaplaincy should likewise advocate against the atrocities of Israel’s government.
In regard to communications, we previously suggested that the administration should consult with students, faculty, and staff to agree upon transparent guidelines before issuing statements. Georgetown’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter’s statement shows that it is entirely possible to condemn Hamas’s attack while still emphasizing the violent reality for Palestinians that many experts have described as ethnic cleansing. With this model in mind, we call on DeGioia to release a revised statement that apologizes for his first statement and acknowledges the humanity of Palestinians.
In Hellman’s words, “these are the moments for which our school was created.” It is past time for Georgetown to end its silence on Israel’s mass killings and apartheid, and to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian community. G
At Georgetown, diversity should be more than clickbait
BY AMINAH MALIK
The day I graduated high school, I opened Instagram to find a picture of myself, donning cap and gown, on the school system’s story. I was elated to have my five seconds of fame, and it wouldn’t be the last time something like this happened. Throughout my time at Georgetown so far, I have found my picture in newsletters for clubs and campus events on several occasions—even for clubs I am not a member of and events I only popped in to for a few minutes. But as fun as it is to have my time in the spotlight, I can’t help but have a more serious thought tug at my mind in instances like this: why me? Among a plethora of students, how do cameras always find my face?
To me, the most obvious answer is that it is because I am a hijabi (or that I am a woman of color—take your pick). I’m a visual representation of communities who aren’t always imagined when one thinks about who occupies the spaces on this campus, or even this country. But my feelings around becoming the “face” of the communities I come from are complicated. On one hand, feeling celebrated is always lovely, even more so knowing that my face shows people that our student body is both ethnically and religiously diverse. However, being a “diversity shot” never sits right with me. At the end of the day, I know that a photo of me, a religious and ethnic minority, may have better PR implications at my Jesuit, predominantly white institution (PWI) than a photo of someone else.
This is true not just for me, but anyone who comes from an underrepresented community on our campus. This is apparent from a Georgetown Instagram post commemorating an academic ceremony in August 2022. The photo focuses on a Sikh student, with the surrounding students blurred by the camera. While it is great to celebrate our campus’s diversity, efforts like this feel overly dramatic to the point where they lose authenticity: they feel shallow and performative.
Sure, Georgetown has done some truly meaningful work, at least in my experience. It was the first American university to appoint a full-time Muslim chaplain and establish a mosque complete
with ablution stations and a halal kitchen, and the resources provided by Muslim Life heavily influenced my college decision. But at the end of the day, the attention Georgetown gives to these religious and ethnic minorities on social media is not reflective of the attention it gives them with policy and action. In reality, Georgetown has a tendency to act for these minority communities only in response to student mobilization.
Most prominently, we can look at the example of last year’s GU Protects Racists sit-ins. These demonstrations fought to elicit a university response to the demands of LaHannah Giles (CAS ’23), who survived an on-campus hate crime in April 2022. University administrators only addressed the demands brought by Giles and other student activists after weeks of student protest and advocacy, and even then, its response fell short.
The Georgetown Reconciliation Fund, which provides funding for community-based projects that benefit descendant communities of those once enslaved on the Maryland Jesuit plantations, was only established after a student referendum in 2019. Georgetown’s new South Asian Studies certificate program came only after a large push from the student body, largely through the leadership of Georgetown’s South Asian Society. The construction of Georgetown’s Dharmālaya, a meditation space for adherents of Dharmic spiritual traditions, was only realized after years of student advocacy and alumni efforts.
This final example illustrates the performative nature of Georgetown’s media representation of religious minorities. How much authenticity does a post highlighting a Sikh student have when the university cannot provide for their community on its own accord, relying instead on cues from students to act?
Georgetown’s habit of celebrating student diversity online, while failing to actually invest in this diversity in reality, is emblematic of tokenism. Tokenism refers to the inclusion of individuals from minority backgrounds in an attempt to create an image that everyone within an institution is treated
fairly. When institutions engage in tokenism, they welcome individuals of minority background into their space, but fail to properly meet their unique needs or recognize their potential for unique contributions. By highlighting students with underrepresented identities on social media, Georgetown essentially creates a utopic image of its campus life that is detached from the true experiences of these same communities who lack administrative support and investment.
After looking through Georgetown’s Instagram page, a potential student may envision hundreds of students sharing an ethnic or religious background with them and constant support from university administration. They may happily bring this perception with them upon their arrival to campus, only to find themselves the only person of color in their class and reliant on student initiatives for improved resources for their community. This can result in shocking isolation when students join the campus community and are forcefully thrown into real life at a PWI. The anticipated support for minority communities is met with the harsh reality of students forced to compensate for gaps in university resources. Rather than providing for minority communities on campus proactively, Georgetown tends to let their needs fly under the radar until they are forcefully brought to the forefront by student initiatives. Yet even their retroactive support is often lackluster and disappointing.
It is always important to showcase the rich diversity of Georgetown’s student body, but doing so should be accompanied by equally enthusiastic investment in underrepresented communities––otherwise, we cross the line from representation into tokenism. Real, tangible action that increases resources for these communities will always be more important than an Instagram post. In the same way, the people of these communities—their stories, voices, and opinions—will always be worth more than just a mere photo of them. Their status as Hoyas is worth infinitely more than clickbait—it is an irreplaceable contribution to the Hilltop. G
H yas for Choice partners with local OB/GYN to provide birth control to students
BY KATIE DORAN
H*yas for Choice (HFC) has begun a partnership with Capital Women’s Care, a local OB/GYN office, to provide unprecedented aid in making birth control more affordable and accessible to Georgetown students, regardless of their health insurance plan. The new program, which launched Oct. 11, aims to simplify the process of accessing contraceptive care, lower cost barriers, and expand the options available to students.
The Student Health Center cannot prescribe birth control solely for contraception because Georgetown is a Catholic and Jesuit institution, according to the Student Health website. Student health insurance will only cover hormonal birth control for non-contraceptive medical issues such as intense cramping, heavy periods, polycystic ovary syndrome, or acne.
The HFC collaboration with Capital Women’s Care will expand the offerings to students to include hormonal birth control options like oral medications and hormonal intrauterine devices (IUDs) as well as other options like copper IUDs, Nexplanons, and NuvaRings.
“H*yas for Choice buys condoms and Plan B all the time, which are great, but these are more long-term things that can cover people for their whole time at Georgetown and beyond,” Sydney Hudson (SOH ’26), HFC’s co-director of organizing and advocacy, said.
Students can schedule virtual consultations with trained students, free of charge if not covered by insurance, to get information about birth control options. While the actual birth control itself is not free and depends on insurance coverage, the partnership will offer financial support to cover part of the cost of birth control if a student’s insurance won’t cover it.
“Let’s say a student has Georgetown insurance and wants birth control pills, and this is not covered. We’ll bill them and their insurance, but if insurance doesn’t pay for it, and they can’t afford it, which most students can’t, we can write a certain percentage off as charitable care,” Dr. Julian Safran, a physician at Capital Women’s Care, said.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, several states have proposed new restrictions on accessing birth control. Currently, 12 states allow certain providers to not offer contraceptive services based on religious or moral objections.
Other barriers to access include cost.
According to the National Women’s Health Network, out-of-pocket prices for birth control pills are between $20 to $50 per pack, adding up to $240 to $600 per year. IUDs average more than $1,000.
Capital Women’s Care hopes to reduce price barriers where possible and to provide students with the information they can to ensure that pricing is transparent.
“We accept almost all insurance plans and will provide information so that the students can check before their appointment. To avoid billing surprises, they can call their insurance company and tell them what procedure they’re going to have and what diagnosis they’re using,” Kiran Singh (CAS ’23), Safran’s medical assistant, wrote in an email to the Voice. “We will try to help the students who can’t afford care if, after they check their insurance, [they] feel that they can’t afford the cost.”
The program also aims to streamline the process of getting birth control pills for students whose busy schedules don’t allow them to go to the clinic, especially during the week.
“If someone wants birth control pills, they can get all the information on that in the consultation. They can fill out the forms themselves, and then the doctor will sign off from the office and they can just send the prescription in, so the student wouldn’t even have to go see a doctor,” Hudson said.
Capital Women’s Care is usually closed on the weekends, but they plan to adjust their schedule to accommodate Georgetown students who cannot go to the clinic during the week. One Saturday a month, the clinic will open to allow Georgetown students to access birth control options that require an in-person appointment for insertion, such as IUDs, Hudson said.
Saturday clinic on Oct. 28.
Hudson cited her own experience getting an IUD far from campus as an example of how accessing birth control can be difficult and intimidating for students.
“I got an IUD at Planned Parenthood in southeast D.C., where there were protesters outside. It was just really frightening and it was super far away,” Hudson said. “Another part of [the program] is trying to make the process of getting birth control and reproductive health care more of a safe environment. We want to make it more of a warm and fuzzy way to get necessary healthcare that’s not offered on campus.”
Hudson hopes to expand the program to Catholic University, George Washington University (GWU), University of Maryland, and other local schools in the future.
Capital Women’s Care is also working with students from GWU to research what barriers university students face when it comes to accessing birth control. Safran explained that the research aims to help Capital Women’s Care create services that are better tailored to students’ needs.
“There’s so many problems with healthcare,” Safran said. “What we're trying to do is identify those problems, and figure out what we can do to make the world the way it should be, which is that care is accessible and most importantly, high quality, affordable, and done in a way that is respectful.”
HFC and Capital Women’s Care hope that the new program will further their fight for reproductive justice by creating a simpler, more affordable way to access birth control.
“We can’t make sex a class privilege where only people who can afford birth control and can afford going into clinics can have access to it,” Hudson said.G
An exclusive Q&A with Katie Barnes, ESPN reporter and author of Fair Play
BY JO STEPHENS
On Sept. 19, ESPN reporter Katie Barnes published their first book. Titled Fair Play, it’s the result of years of research and study into the past, present, and future of transgender athletes in sports. Barnes came to Georgetown on Oct. 3 to share their conclusions as a part of the Intersectionality Series, which is comprised of several events throughout the semester put on in conjunction with multiple oncampus organizations. Prior to the event, Barnes sat down with the Voice to discuss some of the main ideas of their book.
Note: This interview has been edited for conciseness and clarity.
JO STEPHENS : [In your book] you touch on how a lot of these debates center around the idea of fairness in sports. But as you point out, fairness isn't really a thing that exists in sports at all. Why do you think it is that people latch on to fairness as, like, the big concept, as opposed to other things?
KATIE BARNES : In many respects, culturally, we view sports as a meritocracy. In many ways, we view our society as a meritocracy—that everybody shows up at the starting line with an equal chance of winning. And, in reality, that's not really the case, either in sports or society. But it is a compelling argument. We want to believe that our sports are fair, that our society is fair. And we want to believe that we succeed and fail based on our own merits, and that those merits are mostly about hard work, and not something that is, you know, as intrinsic as innate athletic talent, or the ability to pay for specialized training, or some physiological quirk. And so, the ability to single out a particular demographic that complicates that narrative a bit, is … a fairly simple argument to make.
JO : At one point in the book, you had a line, and I'm probably not going to quote it exactly right. But … you were saying that, not only does this [new regulation being put in place by USA Swimming] prohibit Lia Thomas from continuing a career, but it also means that there will never be another Lia Thomas. In this specific case of Lia Thomas, and people maybe who look up to her as this inspiration— who they'd like to follow—where do you think the harm is in the way that she was so specifically targeted?
KATIE : I think when you look at an athlete like Lia, or Lia specifically, herself, as somebody who has borne a tremendous burden in the last year and a half, I do think there's a lot of fear within queer and trans communities right now—specifically if you're a transgender young person participating in sports or wanting to participate in sports, or if you are somebody who was like Lia. She competed on the men's team, as she was figuring out the right identity. And that could easily describe an athlete at any competitive level right now, who now is wondering if there is a path forward for them in their sport. And then, of course, we see a number of laws that are restrictive being passed across the country. And so in that sense, I think it's very hard. And I think it's one of the reasons why we don't hear from Lia very often. Yeah, because everything she says is so politicized. And she's a very reserved person, right? It's not attention that she seeks.
JO : What was the biggest obstacle that you faced while writing this book?
KATIE : So I'd signed the contract for the book in August of 2020. Idaho had happened, but Lia Thomas hadn't. The various legislative sessions that were really bad for trans folks had not yet happened. We were at one state with a restrictive law. Now we're at 23 … And so there are just things in the book, they're out of date, because they've changed in the last six months. And so that is a challenge in terms of writing something and trying to future-proof it, and ultimately failing in that.
JO : When people finish this book, if they feel compelled to stand up for these
individuals in the best way that they can … What do you think would be the most helpful based on the research that you've done, and the conversations that you've had?
KATIE : I really wanted this book to help reframe a conversation that I think has jumped the shark a little bit. I would say that the goal has never been to change people's minds, but to encourage people to have the courage to approach this conversation with empathy and compassion and nuance, and to be willing to have a more complete conversation about what sports are for, who sports are for, and perhaps how to be willing to be more creative about what sports could look like for all ages. And so in terms of what I hope people are moved to do after this: I hope they're moved to continue to have those conversations with the people in their lives. This question of transgender athletes has evolved from the grassroots, really. It's been a community-driven conversation for the last five to seven years. And I think that is where change will also occur. Like, yes, of course, this is being debated in the halls of power. That's absolutely happening. But so much of that conversation has been hijacked by our politics. And it doesn't have to be that way. And I think for the majority of people, it really isn't that way. And [I hope] that we can have conversations amongst one another, to really, you know, ask ourselves some of the hard questions, for sure.
JO: Thank you so much. G
What asexual students want you to know this Asexual Awareness Week
BY LOU JACQUIN
Campus brims with queer joy during October, or as the LGBTQ Resource Center has called it for at least the past decade: OUTober. As part of National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, queer students chalked Red Square with affirming messages for their queer peers and danced through a prop “closet door” stationed in the middle of the square to symbolize coming out. They showcased their pride loudly on a campus that once forbade queer activism in campus spaces like Healy Hall. On Oct. 22, many queer students will also congregate in Dahlgren Chapel for the Mass of Belonging, a Catholic service open to Hoyas of all faith backgrounds that will create a space for queer Hoyas to celebrate both faith and LGBTQ+ identity. But the university’s recognition of queer communities of faith is not the only queer moment happening on Oct. 22. It also marks the beginning of the 12th annual Asexual Awareness Week, a week dedicated to raising awareness and education about asexuality.
According to the Voice’s 2022 sex survey, more than three percent of respondents identified as asexual. Despite this, raising awareness about asexuality—a sexuality defined by the Human Rights Campaign as experiencing little to no sexual attraction, often shortened to ace—can be hard on Georgetown’s campus, according to some asexual Hoyas. “There’s not a lot of asexual organizing,” Jack Hoeffler (CAS ’25), an asexual student at Georgetown, said, adding that for him, finding other ace Hoyas is difficult.
Other ace students felt differently, however. “I think there’s a bunch of small ace communities that then get connected later,” Gisell Campos (CAS ’25) said.
Despite their differing experiences, Hoeffler’s and Campos’s comments communicate the same principle: there isn’t a unified asexual community on campus, and thus no unified ace advocacy. Instead, ace students who choose to do so often teach others about asexuality independently through
conversations with friends, participation in GU Pride, or writing in student publications.
Though they may share a label, the meaning of the ace identity is often individualized.
“I don’t really want to have sex with anyone is how I would describe it,” Allie Gaudion (CAS ’26) said. “I’ve never felt compelled to engage with myself and with someone else in a sexual manner.”
How Hoeffler views his ace identity, however, differs from Gaudion. “I often don’t feel any sexual attraction until much later into any romantic relationship,” he said.
While Hoeffler has experienced sexual attraction, this does not exclude him from the asexual umbrella. According to the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, asexuality encompasses a myriad of experiences that do not fit into the classic molds of normative allosexuality—the experience of feeling sexual attraction in non-specific circumstances—making it an incredibly diverse identity. As a demisexual
person—someone who only feels sexual attraction after forming a romantic bond with someone— Hoeffler exemplifies the “little” part of the “little to no” definition of asexuality.
Asexual people also differ in their romantic attraction towards others. Romantic and sexual attraction are not the same. Though people often assume that all asexual people are also aromantic— experiencing little to no romantic attraction—this is not the case. In fact, only about 41.5 percent of ace people identify as being on the aromantic spectrum as well, according to the Ace Community Survey. Others identify as heteroromantic, homoromantic, or biromantic (amongst other romantic identities), regardless of their sexuality.
This diversity is reflected in Georgetown’s ace community. “I explain to people that I do feel a very strong romantic attraction,” Hoeffler said.
For Campos, their romantic identity and their asexuality are inextricably linked. “[Asexuality is] a tag to put on yourself in a way that’s different than other labels,” Campos said. Though they came out as lesbian at the age of 12, “I wouldn’t say that I’m not a lesbian, but I also would say that I am ace. I feel like those are things that aren’t necessarily exclusionary of each other.”
Another asexual student, who asked to remain anonymous as they are still exploring their sexuality, however, feels differently. In regards to how they would feel if they got asked out on a date, they said that they would feel “bone-deep nausea, just like chills and like ‘I might puke right now.’”
Though it may then seem too all-encompassing to refer to all these different experiences as “ace,” people under the ace umbrella share their position outside of allonormative expectations within relationships. “One guy told me, ‘Sex is what makes you feel the most alive,’” Gaudion said. “I’m like, ‘Whoa, no.’”
For Hoeffler, his disconnect from allonormativity manifested during the beginnings of his relationship. “[My girlfriend] was insulted at the idea that I wasn’t physically attracted to her when we first started dating,” Hoeffler said. Both Gaudion and Hoeffler were unable to feel the sexual attraction that they felt their partners and society expected them to experience.
The diversity in experience for ace people is what so many want allosexual students on Georgetown campus to know about asexuality.
In interviews with the Voice, ace students repeatedly referenced two distinct spectrums of asexuality embraced by their community. First, the amount of sexual attraction someone has felt throughout their lives (also known as the asexual spectrum); and second, the level they are comfortable with sex, ranging from sex-repulsed to sex-favorable.
“It’s important to recognize that it’s a spectrum and that there are people that are at different places of that spectrum,” Campos said. “It’s not really a static thing.”
Many asexual people see the spectrum of their sexuality as continually evolving. The spectrum theory—that sexuality can ebb
and flow over time—can be applied to all sexualities, not just asexual ones.
“With any sexuality, [there’s] a spectrum and your feelings change,” Gaudion said. “Or maybe not, and that’s okay.”
“I think that people look at labels more as a diagnosis rather than a descriptor. And I think that should change. Because it’s not saying, ‘You can’t do this because you are this.’ It’s saying, ‘I feel this way, and I’m gonna call it this because it makes it easier to describe.’ But it’s not something that you have to stay in,” the anonymous asexual student said.
For Hoeffler, Asexual Awareness Week is important because of the way that asexuality is often misunderstood. “The prejudices we face as asexuals [are] more about understanding and the lack thereof,” Hoeffler said. “I think it’s hard to navigate that as a group because you’re not necessarily pushing against a very open sort of oppression, but more so very subtle perceptions of identity and relationships.”
In interviews with the Voice, many asexual students recounted moments of their identity being directly invalidated. Campos recalls explaining asexuality to their mother. According to Campos, she responded by saying, “I don’t think that’s a thing.”
The anonymous asexual student reported experiencing frequent asexual erasure. “Every single time you bring it up, people are like, ‘Oh, well what if you just haven’t met the right person yet?’ And it’s like, ‘Yeah, what if?’ But here I am,” the student said. “At some point, you can, beyond reasonable doubt, be like, ‘I think this is what’s going on.’”
This experience is not unique to Georgetown’s ace students. According to the 2020 Ace Community Survey, about 45 percent of ace people report experiencing “excessive or inappropriate personal questions about their sexual or romantic orientation,” and roughly 40 percent reported being told that they can be “fixed” or “cured.” When asked about the impact that discrimination may have had on respondents’ mental health, 13 percent said that it “had a major effect.”
Other forms of harm toward asexual individuals, however, are far more explicit. When Gaudion came out as ace in high school, she was being sexually pressured by her partner, despite openly identifying as ace. “My partner at the time was still pressuring me to have sex, and pressuring me if I changed my mind,” Gaudion said. This is not an atypical case. In the 2020 Ace Community Survey, 13 percent of respondents reported experiencing sexual harassment due to their sexuality, both in person and online.
Society’s general emphasis on romantic and sexual relationships can also act as a mechanism of pressuring ace people to conform according to Angela Chen, a journalist who identifies as asexual. In her book “Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex,” she argues that everyone—from media to the medical establishment—emphasizes sex and relationships in a way that causes asexual people to be alienated. This sentiment was echoed by ace students at Georgetown.
“A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on romantic relationships as being the ultimate form of a relationship, right? And then everything else just sort of seems lesser,” Hoeffler said. “I think that for, especially [aromantic asexual] people, [that] puts a lot of unordinary pressure to be understood in that environment. And I think a lot of people struggle with that.”
This societal norm pressures asexuals who are not aromantic as well. Multiple ace students expressed often feeling as though they are expected to engage in sexual activity.
“When I say I’m going on a date, they’ll be like ‘Oh, don’t do anything hinky,’ or insinuate that something sexual will happen in my romantic encounters. And it’s like ‘No, that’s not really my priority in a relationship,’” Gaudion said.
“There’s a lot of pressure on you to follow through on what you promised kind of thing, you know? Like there’s a lot of that kind of, ‘Oh, she’s a tease’ kind of mentality,” the anonymous asexual student said.
According to Hoeffler, however, many ace people believe that non-romantic relationships should take equal precedence for society. “Their friendships and their relationships and their queer platonic relations … are not necessarily lesser,” he said.
To the anonymous asexual student, all people, even allosexual individuals, could benefit from realizing that romantic relationships are not superior.
“A lot of people enter into relationships that are really unhealthy for them or that they don’t necessarily want to be in it because they are afraid of being alone, or they don’t know how to be alone, or they think that they are somehow worth less because they’re not currently in a relationship with somebody,” they said.
“Your romantic relationships shouldn’t necessarily take priority over your friendships,” they added. “I think it would be a healthier state for just all of us.”
Though Asexual Awareness Week was created in 2010 by Sara Beth Brooks to improve ace visibility, its focus has shifted to bringing ace people together to celebrate their identity.
“People get to be proud about being ace just as much as they get to be proud about being trans, or proud about being gay, or proud about being a lesbian. So I think that ace people not only deserve to take up space, they should be taking up space,” Campos said.
There have been only a handful of articles about asexuality published in Georgetown student publications in the past two years. When pieces are published, though, they can be deeply impactful for the ace community. “Reading content that Georgetown students produce about being queer and being ace and being all of these things at once has been incredibly validating,” Gaudion said.
As Ace Awareness Week approaches, Gaudion hopes to promote ideals of ace joy and queer solidarity. “For anyone who reads [this], you’re so valid and you’re slaying and I’m very proud of you.” G
Far, far afield: Hockey team finds new home, hours away
BY GRAHAM KREWINGHAUS
Several times a week, hundreds of Georgetown students put down their textbooks, take off their backpacks, lace up their cleats, and step onto the field as student athletes. Varsity athletics are a huge time commitment, but for many at Georgetown, they’re at least convenient. Practice facilities and the home fields for most sports are right here on campus, just a few minutes from dorms and classrooms.
For the last eight years, field hockey was one of those sports. The team moved home to Cooper Field in 2014 after feeling disappointed by student turnout playing at nearby schools the previous eight years. But at the beginning of this season, field hockey again departed—this time, to the field hockey complex of Towson University, a school north of Baltimore.
Sixty-four miles away, this “home” venue is farther from Georgetown than any other Division I team’s home venue is from their campus, according to an analysis conducted by the Voice of all 362 D1 schools and the team sports they offer.
To complete this analysis, the Voice used NCAA records to determine the primary home venue of more than 3,000 teams across the country. Approximately 90 percent of these teams play on their home campuses, but for those that don’t, the Voice recorded the shortest driving distance, according to Google Maps, between the venue and the campus. Driving from Georgetown to Towson’s field hockey complex takes Interstate 95, the D.C. and Baltimore beltways, and a total of 64.7 miles.
That drive is estimated on Google Maps to take anywhere between one and three hours, depending on the time of day. It’s
also more than double the next greatest distance the Voice identified: Manhattan College and its new baseball field, Clover Diamond, are 29.4 miles apart. Rounding out the top three longest commutes is the UCLA football team, whose Rose Bowl is 26.2 miles from their campus.
The average distance between campus and venue across all D1 teams, according to the Voice’s analysis, is 0.41 miles. All other field hockey teams travel an average of 0.73 miles to their home venues, making the Towson commute more than 80 times longer than the average field hockey team’s.
Field hockey’s one-of-a-kind move from Cooper Field was motivated by a desire to give players and fans “the complete gameday experience,” head coach Christy Longacre wrote to the Voice via an athletics communications representative.
“This year, we made a concerted effort to play at a facility that has a traditional field hockey AstroTurf surface in an effort to provide consistency for our players throughout the season between practice at Kehoe Field, home games and road games,” she wrote.
Traditionally, field hockey is played on a water-based turf, which has shorter, denser grass and does not require rubber chunks as most turf does. It is kept wet to allow the ball to roll more smoothly and not catch against the stick. Georgetown does not have any waterbased turf fields.
According to Melissa Twist, director of field hockey for AstroTurf, a popular turf company, most field hockey programs across D1 use water-based turf. To get the program to meet that standard, Longacre said she and the athletics department looked for nearby colleges with the proper facilities. Unfortunately, Towson was the nearest that was available for this season.
Field hockey, a sport in its 63rd season at Georgetown, is no stranger to changing venues, having played on Kehoe, Shaw, Cooper, and at least three other college campuses over the years. According to a review of field hockey coverage from archived issues of The Hoya, the field hockey team played on campus until the 2000s. Stories from 1965, 1968, 1974, 1976, 1982, 1989,
1993, and 1999 place field hockey home games on Kehoe Field or the neighboring field that is now Shaw Field.
But since the turn of the century, the field hockey team has not always played here at Georgetown. According to records on the athletics website, they played at American University's field hockey complex at least once in 2002 and consistently from 2009 to 2011. In 2007, 2008, 2012, and 2013, they played at the University of Maryland’s field hockey complex.
Both fields are still in use and have waterbased turf. American’s field is 2.7 miles from Georgetown’s campus, and Maryland’s is 13.1.
“We continue to explore future opportunities to play home competitions at those venues,” a university spokesperson wrote.
But even those distances, considerably closer than Towson's 64.7 miles, have severely limited student attendance in the past.
A January 2014 Voice article reported that playing off campus was disheartening for the players, as only a handful of students made it out to the games. That fall, the team moved back to campus, playing on Cooper.
Longacre wrote that now, in Towson, “attendance has been strong this season and looks very similar to when we played at Cooper Field.” However, estimated attendance at home games on Cooper last year was, on average, 285 people; the average estimated attendance at Towson this season, with one home game remaining, has been 165.
As for student attendance, Longacre declined to answer questions about whether there were any fan buses from campus, and an athletics communications representative did not respond to follow-up questions about the resources available to help interested students get to Towson.
Athletics communications declined to make players available for comment on how the change has affected them and/or the fan atmosphere.
Whether or not the move has impacted play, the field hockey team has struggled this season, with a record of 1-13 as of publication and still searching for a conference win. They’ll have two more chances this Friday, Oct. 20, and the next, before they wrap up the season at James Madison on Oct. 29.G
To see the Voice’s full database on all 362 D1 schools and the distance to their home venues, read more online at www.georgetownvoice.com.
The love of the game
BY BRADSHAW CATE AND ANDREW SWANK
Introduction
Some see “America’s pastime” as just that: past its time. But every year, when the World Series rolls around, we still hear the passionate roars from legions of hungry supporters. We believe this support should be year-round and never-ending. So, to wake potential fans from their disillusionment, we have compiled our reasons for loving the game.
Why Bradshaw loves baseball: A magic found nowhere else
Baseball enchanted me the first time I stepped into a stadium. Even the stadiums have a special magic. Some teams have close walls to encourage extra home runs or have uneven designs to hamper left-handed players, such as Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park. In other stadiums, a baseball diamond is superimposed over a football field, like Oakland’s Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. One of the neighborhood fields in Georgetown has a square chain link fence only half the distance from the home plate of a professional stadium and trees in the outfield. I do not envy the kids that play in that park. Each stadium gives teams a unique home-field advantage that is worth the experience of attending.
Bostonians love to tout the size of the Green Monster, an incredibly high wall in the left field of Red Sox stadium, which loves to steal home runs from players. In the Miami Marlins park, any erratic pitch has a chance of hitting a fish tank behind home plate!
Fish tanks are just the start, however. Professional baseball stadiums "sometimes" serve as pseudo-theme parks. At the behest of my little sister, I played a lot of mini-golf at the Royals’ Kauffman Stadium as a kid. The Northwest Arkansas Naturals have a giant playground in their outfield concourse, where I spent many summer nights playing while watching future world champions start their careers. Often, teams will cap off their night games with a fireworks display, adding to the magic of being at the park.
The creativity of baseball isn’t just limited to playing spaces. Hundreds of professional baseball teams exist in this country, leading to some … unique names. From the Grasshoppers to the Space Cowboys to the Biscuits, anything you imagined in elementary school could be the next logo for a team (even the Savannah Bananas).
In baseball, the mascots come into the stands more often than in other sports, which leads to amazing fan interactions. I’ve seen Mr. Met, a man
with a giant baseball for a head, play a trumpet in the middle of a cheering crowd. Big Red let me swing his bat. That’s not to mention the Washington Nationals’ presidential race tradition. Every game, four people in comically large mascot heads enshrined on Mount Rushmore run around the perimeter of the field. Shenanigans known only to baseball ensue, and the fans cheer on their favorite president as they race the way our elections should be held. The race is a part-time job, and yes, I did consider applying. Going to baseball games is one place where I still get a childlike joy, and so I will cherish the sport forever.
Why Andrew loves baseball: Honoring a legend of the game
Oct. 1 was a bittersweet day for me. Miguel Cabrera, the legendary Detroit Tigers slugger, made his final MLB appearance before retirement. Cabrera had a long and storied career that spanned my entire lifetime; his first MLB appearance was on June 20, 2003, six months before I was born. Cabrera played 16 of his 21 seasons for the Tigers, my favorite team. He hit 511 home runs, won two MVP awards, and in 2012 he led the league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs. This won him the Triple Crown—the first since 1967. His career statistics are undeniably incredible, and watching Cabrera’s success when I was younger inspired me to become a baseball fan. I’ve kept following Cabrera and the Tigers since I was little, although the team’s recent struggles (the last time Detroit made the playoffs was in 2014) made it hard to stay interested. However, earlier this year, Cabrera announced that this season would be his last before retiring. The announcement wasn’t a shock given that he is now 40 years old, but it was still sad to hear that such a legendary player was ending his career. I’ve been following along closely for Cabrera’s final season, trying to savor the last moments.
This season has been one big farewell tour for Cabrera. The entire league came together to honor him, and opposing teams even gave him retirement gifts before games; standout gifts include a saddle from the Texas Rangers and a fishing rod and tackle box from the Minnesota Twins. In his final game, a sellout crowd at Comerica Park in Detroit watched a 5-2 win against the Cleveland Guardians, where Cabrera received a standing ovation.
Only in baseball will fans and players across the league come together to honor my favorite player of all time. The sport can be slow sometimes, but that means there’s enough time to slow down and enjoy every minute of the game. It was great to see that the entire league, including rival teams, took the time to appreciate and honor a legend of the game. Cabrera’s playing days are now over, but his legacy will continue to have an impact on me, the Detroit Tigers, and the entire MLB.
Cabrera’s rise to stardom came at the perfect time when I was just starting to become interested in baseball. Nobody else will ever inspire me as much as Cabrera did, and that’s okay. New players will come along, become legends, and write their names in the history books alongside Cabrera’s. An exciting development in modern baseball, thanks to better scouting and player development, is that stars can come from anywhere, like Cabrera came from Venezuela two decades ago; as the World Baseball Classic showed, baseball is becoming an increasingly global game. I don’t have a new favorite player yet, but I’ll keep watching to find one. And there are so many other unique aspects of the sport to keep me entertained until I do. G
This article is dedicated to Annabella Hoge (CAS ’23), our dear former EIC who graduated last spring.
Drake isn't past his prime, but he's certainly acting like it
BY MAANASI CHINTAMANI
Dogs barking. A six-year-old attempting to rap. Egregiously mispronounced Spanglish. No, I’m not describing your local SoundCloud rapper’s borderline unlistenable mixtape. Instead, and unfortunately, these are the sounds of For All The Dogs (2023), the latest album from 36-year-old father and five-time Grammy winner Drake. Disappointingly, on Dogs, Drake abandons the experimental sound, witty lyricism, and undeniable catchiness of his previous releases, instead relying on painfully corny bars, lazy gimmickry, and uncreative production choices.
Dogs is a letdown, but not because of its departure from some idealized “Old Drake”; instead, it’s a subpar release from an artist who clearly hasn’t lost his touch. Her Loss (2022), a joint album with 21 Savage, was playful and dynamic, and earlier in 2022 with Honestly, Nevermind, Drake flexed his dexterity across genres as he dabbled in house music. But each of those albums had a central driving force, some distinguishing factor that necessitated its existence, whether it be an album-long collaboration with another artist or an exploration of Jersey and Baltimore club sounds. On Dogs, however, Drake seems to have nothing of note to say, and no creative way of saying it, begging the question: why does this album exist in the first place?
The nearly hour-and-a-half-long, 23-track album, released in early October after multiple postponements, is a directionless marathon of mediocrity. Nowhere is this more the case than the beginning of the album, a slew of forgettable songs whose most notable quality is the artists they feature. The album opener, “Virginia Beach,” samples “Wiseman,” an unreleased Frank Ocean song, but Drake squanders the unique texture of Ocean’s vocals—pitch shifted eerily high, then reversed—on inane lyrics where he lays out grievances with an ex. (In the same way it’s often said that boring corporate meetings could’ve just been an email, this song could’ve just been a text message to the woman in question.) Frequent Drake collaborator 21 Savage brings some muchneeded energy on “Calling For You,” a song that feels promising until you realize it’s likely just a leftover that didn’t make the cut on Her Loss; the track’s interlude even includes the now-outdated line “sorry for your loss.”
On Her Loss, Drake boasted, “I jump on your song and make you sound like you the feature,” but ironically, on Dogs, most of the featured artists outshine him. In fact, two of the album’s best tracks are collaborations. J. Cole joins Drake on “First Person Shooter” to discuss how the
two of them, along with Kendrick Lamar, are the GOATs of the rap game (a debatable claim that’s certainly not supported by Dogs’s general quality). Cole’s sharp wordplay and signature flow drive the song, bringing movement to an otherwise monotonous tracklist. He also seems to inspire Drake to be better; with about two minutes left in the song, the beat switches up, and Drake drops one of the album’s strongest verses. Bolstered by a high-energy staccato cadence and a sense of urgency severely lacking elsewhere on Dogs, Drake indulges the chip on his shoulder as he wonders, “Will they ever give me flowers? Well, of course not.”
Another standout track is “Rich Baby Daddy,” one of two songs featuring SZA. It also includes up-and-coming rapper Sexyy Red, whose crude directive to “Bend that ass over, let that coochie breathe” makes for an earworm of a refrain. Catchiness isn’t everything, but by the time you reach track 20 on Dogs, a dynamic, danceable song is absolutely welcome. Drake’s verse contributes little besides an inexplicable interpolation of “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine. Put simply, listening to Dogs feels like watching Drake go through a midlife crisis in real time. Why else would he feel compelled to call out old foes like Esperanza Spalding, the unproblematic jazz artist who beat him out for best new artist at the Grammys in, like, 2011? (To be fair, though, “Who give a fuck Michelle Obama put you on her playlist?” is a pretty hilarious diss.) Drake famously never lets minor slights go, but on Dogs, his barbs feel petty and random, with no firepower behind them. On “Fear of Heights,” in a verse peppered with the word “anti” (not-so-coincidentally the name of Rihanna’s 2016 album), he makes an unsubtle jab at his iconic ex, claiming “the sex was average with you.” Drake might think he’s being clever with his wordplay and ruthless with his bars, but he just comes off pathetic and bitter, relitigating a situationship everyone else has moved on from.
These callouts are just one of the many gimmicks Drake employs on Dogs. His son Adonis drew the album’s cover art and tries his hand at rapping on “Daylight”; while it’s tough to criticize a six-year-
old’s flow, I’m skeptical of Drake’s willingness to commercialize what could’ve just been a cute home video. On “Slime You Out (feat. SZA),” Drake nonchalantly drops the abhorrent line “whipped and chained you like American slaves” and expects listeners to be unfazed. (It should go without saying, but equating the horrors and brutalities of slavery to BDSM is short-sighted and absolutely unforgivable.) As he barrels on with complaints about a woman’s behavior cataloged month-by-month, the track begins to feel like a caricature of his own corniness. And “Gently,” a collaboration with Bad Bunny, sees Drake leaning into an exaggerated accent (suspiciously absent in the duo’s 2018 hit “MIA”) as he raps in Spanglish over an upbeat dembow rhythm, one of the few compelling sonic choices on the album.
Following the album’s release, Drake announced he would be taking a break from music for health reasons, and one can only hope that this time off will be creatively reinvigorating, too. Making three albums in two years is no small feat— but it’s also one that no one asked for. Drake is one of this century’s most successful artists, so there’s absolutely no reason for him to put out music just for the sake of it, especially if it isn’t good. I’ll be excited to see a concise, innovative album from him a few years from now. Until then, though, Drake is most certainly in the doghouse. G
VOICE’S CHOICES: “First Person Shooter,” “8am in Charlotte,” “Rich Baby Daddy”
With its cobblestone pathways, rainbow townhouses, and stunning gothic architecture, Georgetown is nothing short of cinematic. While many spots have garnered filmmakers’ attention over the years, the precipitous stone steps connecting M and Prospect Streets NW are by far the most iconic movie site in the neighborhood. Known as “The Exorcist Steps,” this ominous staircase nestled in the crook of Car Barn’s shoulder has become a fixture of local culture as well as a popular tourist attraction. That notoriety is largely due to the success of its namesake film, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
Based on William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel of the same name, director William Friedkin’s 1973 film adaptation of The Exorcist follows Regan (Linda Blair), a 12-year-old girl who becomes possessed by an evil spirit after her mother (Ellen Burstyn) moves their family to Georgetown. Securing 10 Oscar nominations—including one for Best Picture, a first for the horror genre—and two wins in 1974, the film brought critical recognition to horror as a whole. It also spawned several spinoffs including two sequels, two prequels, and a reboot film released just this month: The Exorcist: Believer. Needless to say, the film boasts quite the legacy.
Like Regan, I too felt overtaken by a spirit while watching this film—school spirit, that is. As a current student at Georgetown University, when the first shot of Key Bridge against the skyward-stretching Healy spires rolled, a sense of delight washed over me. Watching the movie-within-a-movie filming scene with Hoyas sardined on the steps of Healy Hall and criss-crossing on the lawn’s lattice paths, it’s hard not to imagine the similarities and divergences between their Georgetown experiences and mine. After all, for every recognizable shot of campus’s more static fixtures like Gaston Hall, Dahlgren Chapel, and the Lau stairs, there is a scene of students playing on tennis courts where Village A stands today or a shot of Harbin Hall with a wildly different surrounding landscape. For anyone who has ever called Georgetown’s campus home, watching The Exorcist feels like opening a precious time capsule, making for a viewing experience that simultaneously warms the heart and sends shivers up the spine.
Though it might be perplexing that such a bleak tale became so beloved, the film’s masterful execution of its simple premise catapulted it to legendary status. By maintaining a tight narrative scope and crafting a bone-chilling atmosphere free of trite gimmicks, Friedkin’s film is truly something spectacular.
The Exorcist
BY HAILEY WHARRAM
After playing with a Ouija board, Regan begins demonstrating erratic, violent behavior that doctors are unable to explain. Eventually, her mother Chris realizes Regan needs more than a doctor—she needs a priest. Her mysterious condition is thanks to “Captain Howdy,” the demon Pazuzu (Mercedes McCambridge) who seizes control of Regan’s body. Chris enlists the help of Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) to rid Regan of the evil inside her.
Much of the film’s enduring brilliance stems from its methodical pace. Many modern horror films clutter their runtimes with cheap jumpscares which use obnoxiously loud sounds to coax the viewers’ fear like a flashing “APPLAUSE” sign. In contrast, The Exorcist is a delectable slow burn that authentically earns the audience’s anxiety by letting its disquieting premise speak for itself. The slow yet steady escalation of Regan’s possession is genuinely unnerving—not a jump-out-of-your-seat fright, but a compelling, sustainable scare. Whenever Pazuzu has a flare-up, rather than startling the viewer straight into the action, Friedkin methodically builds up to the fit’s most terrifying elements, nurturing our attention rather than desperately grasping for it.
Bolstering the horror of these moments are the impressive special effects that have withstood the test of time remarkably well considering filmmaking technology’s drastic evolution over the past halfcentury. The unsettling flashes of Pazuzu’s agonized face and Karras’s deceased mother staring holloweyed into the camera are truly bloodcurdling. When an invisible force scratches “help me” from underneath the skin of Regan’s stomach, the visual’s authenticity allows you to focus on the dread of the moment: an innocent girl is trapped inside her own body. Regan’s makeup also convincingly communicates her anguish— from her flaky, cracked lips (“Let’s get this poor girl some Chapstick, please!”) to her scarred, pale face and striking green contacts, her physical transformation is sickening. Her iconic levitation scene is equally stupefying—a true feat for its time. As many older movies look increasingly outdated, the visuals of The Exorcist remain a source of pride rather than an anachronism to be excused away.
Superb acting performances reinforce the film’s immersive nature; Burstyn, Blair, and Miller all received Academy Award nominations for their work, and for good reason. Miller imbues Karras with a noble softness, balancing out
Burstyn’s palpable rage. Blair, however, is easily the film’s strongest link, as evidenced by her win for Best Supporting Actress at the 1974 Golden Globes. Considering her young age and the centrality of her character, her performance was essential to the film’s immediate and perennial success. Despite the mature, vulgar material the role forced her to grapple with, Blair embodies Regan’s possession with tact far beyond her years, masterfully cycling between moments of despondency, terror, and aggression.
The Exorcist received similar praise for its sound design, with Robert Knudson and Christopher Newman winning the Oscar for Best Sound. With a piano trill, twinkling bells, and a slinking bassline, the main theme underscoring Chris’s walk around the Georgetown neighborhood creates a sublimely spooky mood. When juxtaposed with eerie, suspenseful quietness, these sparse musical interludes capture your full attention.
While the landscape of both Georgetown and the horror genre have changed drastically since The Exorcist’s debut, the film defiantly stands the test of time. It doesn’t simply hold up—this film continues to be a stand-out within the horror genre, setting a high bar for successors, which few have been able to reach, much less surpass. Even removed from the horror category, this film earns its genre-defying classic status by telling a straightforward story to the very best of its abilities, ensuring this tale will continue to haunt our screens for many more years to come. G
On her latest EP, Jensen McRae solidifies her artistry through live visuals and vocal prowess
BY FRANCESCA THEOFILOU
“What did I do to deserve to be alive at the same time as Jensen McRae?!”
This is just one of the many glowing reviews that appears in the comments section of Jensen McRae’s live EP, It Wasn’t Supposed To Be Like This… (2023), and it certainly rings true for anyone who has been lucky enough to discover this gifted artist’s discography.
McRae is a 26-year-old singer-songwriter from Santa Monica who describes her style of music as “folk alternative pop.” On her 2022 debut album, Are You Happy Now?, she emerged as a once-ina-generation artist with an abundance of talents. Her voice is timeless—as deep and haunting as it is raw and vulnerable—while her songwriting deftly explores her struggles with identity, selfworth, and desirability, garnering critical acclaim from NPR, Rolling Stone, and Pitchfork
Her latest release, a five-song live visual EP released exclusively on YouTube in late September, shows a new level of artistic maturity. McRae has always been incredibly talented, but on this project her voice reaches new heights as she belts with more power and emotion than ever before. Her vocals have always been her strongest instrument, and so by stripping this EP down to an electric guitar and raw emotion, McRae allows her voice to be in the spotlight.
McRae is an immensely intentional artist crafting each piece of her projects with careful consideration for the listener’s auditory journey. In this collection of songs, its specific order embodies that purposefulness. With each track, McRae holds the audience’s hand as she muscles through multiple forms of heartbreak and betrayal, ultimately coming out alive on the other side, head held high.
The EP’s opener, “Fever Dream,” is an impassioned ballad describing a painful breakup which McRae hopes to move past. Leaning on McRae’s pop expertise (she has a bachelor’s degree in popular music performance from USC Thornton), this track’s bouncier beat and relatable narrative make lines like “At least you won’t hear this ’cause you never listened to my songs” perfect for screaming out loud with friends in the car. McRae’s voice complements the story, with raspier belts that exude pure female rage
accompanying the chorus contrasted by a beautiful falsetto during the bridge where she admits, “I’m bigger now, I just forgot.”
“Sing For My Supper,” a commentary on the hardships of rising talent in LA and the culture among those who achieve stardom, is a lyrical standout on the EP. McRae compares herself to the idea of what a successful singersongwriter looks like—“Heroin chic / lips as real as the words in her mouth”—and reflects on whether she herself must adopt the deceptive appearances and dishonest attitudes ever-present in the music industry. She uses carefully crafted language to draw a stark contrast between herself and the image she simultaneously aspires to and despises. While this “other” is represented in allusions to the ’80s and ’90s era of rock—“Models with guitars / sex and drugs and violence”—McRae sees herself as something much older and more grounded, “the oracle, genuine article” who “beg[s] for chances to sing for [her] supper.” This comparison exemplifies the quality of her lyricism, implicitly relaying that McRae feels like an outsider forced to conform.
McRae has described “God Has a Hitman” as “one of the best songs [she’s] ever written,” and she could not be more right. Throughout the track, she effortlessly dances through impressive and complex riffs while simultaneously strumming her soft waltz backing guitar. The song utilizes rich, folk-style storytelling to detail McRae’s experiences losing a lover and feeling like God is out to get her with this “hitman with fine golden hair.” Although appearing at a surface level to comment on the hitman, the lyrics actually reveal much more about McRae’s relationship with herself and her appearance. McRae, a Black Jewish woman, often writes about her experiences of feeling undesired compared to the white women around her and her tendency to compare herself to them when faced with discrimination. Previous songs like “White Boy” and “Headlock” detailed these feelings before, but this track breaks new ground with the aspiration that closes out this track: “one day, I won’t even care.”
On “Colma, CA,” McRae strays from her typical confessionals with a story about the real but unusual town of Colma, a necropolis where the dead outnumber the living 1,000 to one. In an Instagram post promoting the track, McRae explained that she found the inspiration for this song while browsing Wikipedia for unusual articles during a period of writer’s block. McRae writes of finding comfort among the silent dead, belting over and over, “It’s great to be alive in Colma, / It’s great to be alive.”
Despite its fictional premise—McRae has never herself set foot in the town— the song is the perfect metaphor for her reluctance to let new people into her life. She instead resolves to reside among the lackluster but familiar rather than the exciting and new things that have burned her many times before.
Prior to the EP’s closer, “I Don’t Miss You,” the soft yellow lights in the studio dim as a voicemail recording plays and Jensen selects a different guitar. String lights are replaced with candles and sunlight pours in through twhe windows, spotlighting her face and reflecting off her guitar. These visuals signify a tonal shift for the EP as McRae expresses her commitment to moving on and reminds her muse that she does not miss him but does miss their relationship. With a more upbeat chord progression and vocals dripping in honey rather than hurt, she plays out this stripped-down coming-of-age concluding song with the ghost of a smile on her face.
McRae closes with a peaceful finality, satisfied in the sense that she has grown an immeasurable amount in the last nineteen minutes of music—and she has. Her head held higher than ever before, her confidence and charisma seep through the screen as the audience watches the most formative years of a rising superstar. G
TNATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS to reopen after two years, continue mission of gender equity
BY ALEX DERAMO
he National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), the first in the world solely dedicated to elevating women’s art and creativity, is set to reopen Oct. 21 after two years and $70 million in renovations. The museum, just three blocks from the White House, will resume its mission of disrupting the male-dominated art industry, heralding its reopening with six new exhibitions and state-of-the-art programming spaces.
“Here at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, we are called to a dual purpose. To exhibit works by women artists and to advocate in the larger field. I like to say we are both a museum and a megaphone,” NMWA Susan Fisher Sterling said in her opening remarks at an Oct. 17 press preview of the museum.
The museum was founded in 1987 by art enthusiast Wilhelmina Holladay in response to a lack of representation of women artists in museums and history books. Since its inception, its goal has been elevating diverse perspectives in women’s art, according to Sterling.
“[In 1987], we were at that point also thinking about what it meant to be left out of the picture, to be oppressed, to be not taken seriously, to be marginalized,” she said in an interview with the Voice
In a 2018 study, researchers found 87 percent of collections at 18 major U.S. art museums were by men.
“Despite lip service that everything is changing, gender inequity in the arts continues, making our advocacy more relevant than ever,” Winton Holladay, chair of the NMWA board, said at the press preview.
To accompany its reopening, NMWA will debut its inaugural exhibition “The Sky’s the Limit,” which illustrates how women can create bold and powerful art, according to Sterling. The collection features a series of hanging installations, including a glass sculpture by Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes weighing a shocking 450 pounds.
Other new exhibitions include “In Focus: Artists at Work,” which includes a series of short documentary-style films looking at different artists’ methods and perspectives, and Hung Liu: Making History, a series of paintings and prints by Hung Liu that pays homage to those often forgotten by history—primarily women and children from her native China.
The renovations to the historic building focused on expanding the museum’s offerings to the public and were spearheaded by Sandra Parsons Vicchio, the principal architect on the project. Upon reopening, it will boast changes such as a renovated Performance Hall and a new Learning Commons (which includes the new Library and Research Center and the Susan Swartz Studio). The studio will begin offering hands-on workshops hosted by both local and visiting artists in early December.
Sterling expressed her excitement at finally welcoming visitors.
“What I always hope is that they’ll feel welcome, and that they’ll feel like they’ve been invited into a place that respects them, and that they’ll be able to see themselves or understand their experience through something they see in the museum,” she said in an interview with the Voice
The museum’s presentation of art pairs historical work with contemporary art in each exhibit. In breaking the art timeline, Sterling said the museum aims to bring new and more diverse voices to the forefront of their galleries, since art history typically constrains female and diverse creators to the modern day.
“Chronology has always short-shrifted women and persons of color. So by breaking chronology, you break that tradition of 2,000 years of history that is told by men,” Sterling said. “If you come to NMWA, you’ll have a different experience that’s not old art history.”
Instead of chronologically, the museum groups art by themes, including the new themes titled “Shrinking Violet,” “Seeing Red,” and “Heavyweight,” which features large sculptures
to combat the idea that women create small works. To Sterling, each grouping—based on the idea of “busting myths about women”— takes traditionally negative connotations about women and instead reclaims the monikers through artistic expression.
Senior curator Ginny Treanor highlighted the new technologies implemented during the renovation. These include kiosks with touch screens for visitors to explore the galleries and learn more about the art.
“I am really excited about the technology that we’ve incorporated into the galleries and it’s all very thoughtful. We didn’t want to have tech just to have tech,” Treanor said.
The museum will welcome visitors with an opening day of festivities including flash tattoos by D.C. artist Bibi Abelle, button-making, free sketchbooks, and a performance from AfroBrazilian all-female percussion band Batalá Washington. The first weekend of its opening, the museum is offering free admission; an adult ticket usually costs $16.
Sterling reiterated her excitement to welcome visitors to the revitalized building and galleries, just in time to celebrate the founder’s birthday.
“Mrs. Holladay would have been 101 this month, and I think she’d be really happy.” G
