Oh, the places you won’t go (if you want to pursue education at Georgetown)
KAITLYN DELANEY
halftime sports Even at 4 a.m., Georgetown South Asians find a home in cricket
AMINAH MALIK
11 voices Language lessons from my grandmother
ALISON KARKI
13
halftime leisure
A lion, a sea witch, and their flashy wardrobes: A wicked history of Hollywood’s queercoded villains
"During times of great despair, I saw how loved Aama was, for the hospital room was swimming in an ocean of my family. Having three generations of people in one space was, in fact, a sacred experience."
11
“happy place” TINA SOLKI
AJANI JONES
13 leisure Killers of the Flower Moon exploits Osage suffering for shock value
MAANASI CHINTAMANI
14 features A deep dive into the world of The Exorcist at Georgetown 50 years later
NINABELLA ARLIS
Editor-In-Chief Nora Scully
Managing Editor Graham Krewinghaus
internal resources
Executive Editor for Resources, Diversity, and Inclusion Ajani Jones
Assistant Editor for Resources, Diversity, and Inclusion
Editor for Sexual Violence
Advocacy and Coverage
Lukas Soloman
Katherine Hawes
Service Chair Lizzie Short
Social Chair Archivist Margaret Hartigan, Francesca Theofilou Lou Jacquin
Assistant Social Media Editor Kristy Li Mark Manaois
business
General Manager Rovi Yu
Assistant Manager of Alumni and Outreach Sheryn Livingstone
support
Contributing Editors
Associate Editors
Staff Contributors
Adora Adeyemi, Francesca Theofilou Sofia Kemeny, Connor Martin, Nicholas Riccio, Franziska Wild Meriam Ahmad, Mia Boykin, 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 on the cover
graphic by paul kang; layout by sabrina shaffer
Passing down Pinoy pride on the hardwood
ETHAN JOHANSON
halftime sports
Page 3
ACROSS
1. Familiar of Kiki, Sabrina, or Hermoine
An eclectic collection of jokes, puns, doodles, playlists, and news clips from the collective mind of the Voice
4. What fair is, for the witches of Macbeth? *
8. Words above faux pas on a Canadian sign?
10.Wizarding role for Rupert G.
11. Song section with gradual decrescendo
12. Pointy hat enthusiast *
13. Loosen, as a knot
14. Pokes and _____
15. Boy band that moved from Minn. to Calif.
16. Possibly the youngest ever Latina cartographer
18. Mauna ___
19. What Londoners "mind"
20. First three keys on the home row
23. GERMS-er equivalent in the SoN
24. Word in a tattooed heart
25. Scooby surname
26. Aide to the Dir.
28. Recently closed college in Vienna, West Virginia
29. “It was a graveyard ____”
32. What Eve was in the Old Testament, technically
34. Clarifying homophone of 12 Across *
35. Halle Bailey lead role
36. Second w in www.
37. Pasta perfect, with al
38. What foul is, for the witches of Macbeth? *
39. Major for the girls and the gays™
BRENDAN'S CROSSWORD → TUNE IN TO PODCASTS
DOWN
1. What you can do to Bruno Mars, like 1, 2, 3
2. Cup with a pool of honey, perhaps?
3. Character who thinks we ALL sing
4. El tiempo en diciembre
5. Daily fit check, in shorthand
6. Chapel Hill, Charlotte, and Asheville
7. Three measurements needed to calculate V
8. Repeated word in Shakespearean spell, or hint to the starred clues
9. Adjective used to classify sloths *
12. Vehicle for chicken caesar or falafel
14. They carry Bri'ish babes
17. Modest outburst of surprise
20. Adjective to describe passionate fans
21. Khrushchev and Lenin, in their time
22. Read 8 Down and follow instructions
24. “They did the monster ____”
27. History would say he and Frog are friends*
29. LaBeouf of Transformers fame
30. Mini, ___, maxi
31. Computer monitor brand
33. What pencil marks on a doorframe show you did
34. Org. with a panda bear logo
→ LETTER FROM THE EDITOR → REPAIRING OLDS: FROM THE ARCHIVES
Make sure to tune into this week’s Post Pitch discussing Alison Karki's piece about their grandmother.
We’re back with another fun fact from the Voice Archive!
In 1975, 1724 20th St. N.W. sure was your one stop shop for a good time. Throughout the Fall semester, the Voice advertised for both an “everything but the weed” weed shop and a gay bookstore. Today, 1724 20th St. N.W. can still bring you a good time. It is your go to address for Testosterone Replacement Treatment, social work, and basement remodeling.
Dear my lovely Voice readers,
It is stunning to me how quickly the last several months have flown by. I’m sitting on a wealth of emotions as this last issue comes together: sadness for the end of such a pivotal piece of my life, pride and gratitude for the talented and brave people I’ve worked alongside, and just a teensy bit of relief, for being able to take a step back.
The Voice looks very different from when I first joined on Zoom four years ago, the little boxes of people replaced by lifelong friends. I’ve witnessed this organization survive and recover amid a global pandemic, publish difficult and necessary articles, and create community both within itself and at Georgetown. The countless hours that I have poured into this organization have made me immensely proud of the last four years’ worth of work, but also intimately familiar with the ways it can do better. I have no doubt, however, that the hands I leave the Voice in will continue to navigate these challenges as they always have, gently and compassionately.
With love and care,
Nora Scully Fall ’23 Editor-in-chief
→ GOSSIP RAT
classroom.
The Voice spoke with four students who said they were treated unfairly by the professors because they were Arab, Muslim, or Black. Three of those students filed bias reports against professors Hanaa Kilany, Ghayda Al-Ali, and Huda Al-Mufti with the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action (IDEAA) last academic year. The Voice spoke with three additional students who corroborated their stories, and three others who said they witnessed discriminatory behaviors by these professors aimed at other students.
Fifty-four of the professors’ former students and teaching assistants came forward in the professors’ defense this September, signing a petition to Provost Robert Groves dated Sept. 4. Idun Hauge, a Ph.D. candidate and a former student of Kilany’s who wrote much of the petition, told the Voice that its intention was not to deny the allegations but to say that they themselves had not witnessed any discrimination, and criticize a lack of transparency around the cases.
The university declined to comment on whether the professors are on leave for reasons related to the student complaints. None of the professors responded to the Voice’s requests for comment, and IDEAA mandates confidentiality for investigations.
Students told the Voice they were singled out in class and were harrassed with questions and comments because of their ethnicity, race, religion, and/or appearance. They said they were held to different academic standards than their white and non-Arab peers.
Some of these experiences were first made public in a widely circulated letter from the Muslim Student Association (MSA) in November 2022. “The Arabic Department at Georgetown has systematically discriminated against students of color, both in individual cases of racial targeting and abuse—including the use of racial epithets in Arabic—and in systemic failures of inadequate
have their grades repealed or audited. It also called for consistent and clear standards across the department, reviews of the proficiency exam guidelines, and “bias training specific to teaching Black, Brown, and Muslim students,” among other changes.
On Dec. 5, IDEAA reached out to five students, three of whom said they filed bias reports and two others who said they were involved in collecting student responses of personal and witnessed experiences through a Google Form attached to the MSA letter. In the initial email to the students, IDEAA determined it would “conduct a formal review of issues through the administrative review process.” In a follow-up on Feb. 1, an IDEAA representative said that they had begun that process, according to emails obtained by the Voice IDEAA soon began reaching out to students for interviews as part of the investigation, according to Justin Liu (CAS ’24), who took language classes with Kilany and Al-Mufti and was among the five students initially in contact with IDEAA. “Literally everybody I know in that department had one of those meetings,” he said.
Another of the five students, Mohammad Lotfi (SFS ’23), said he filed a bias report against Al-Ali in November 2022, and is a former student of Kilany’s. He said that the Arabic department’s prestige was a major reason he transferred to Georgetown his sophomore year, but that he ended up dropping out of the department because of his experiences.
Lotfi took a virtual intensive Arabic language class with Kilany during his sophomore year. He described being repeatedly singled out in class, being asked to read religious passages out loud when no other student was asked to, and being told “That’s not Arab” after saying his family was from Morocco.
Lotfi said that he was also singled out and discriminated against in an Arabic language class taught by Al-Ali during his senior year.
“There were four other kids [in the class] and they were all white, from the United States,”
every time she asked questions because she said she knew he was not going to answer correctly, and that she gave him a zero for participation. He recounted being held after class and told, “‘Mohammad this is embarrassing. Would you please not talk in class?’”
“She told me she would fail me out of the class if I didn’t attend mandatory office hours but not all the other students were required to go,” Lotfi said.
Lotfi said Al-Ali also asked him to read parts of the Qur’an when no other students were asked to. He said that she told him that “with a name like Mohammad, you should know how to read the Qur’an.”
Concerned about his ability to pass the Arabic proficiency exam based on his experiences with Al-Ali and Kilany, he wrote a letter to the Academic Standards Committee. He said he was told by the committee to file a bias report.
“I submitted it and that Monday, I think, we all came back and [Al-Ali] said, ‘Okay there’s a new vocabulary word: accused, itahama.’ She immediately turned to me and said ‘Mohammad, can you say, ‘Ghayda Al-Ali was accused of racism and Islamophobia against Muslim and Arab students’ in Arabic?’” he said.
The Muslim Student Association letter began circulating around the same time, and Lotfi later joined the four other students, including Liu, in communication with IDEAA.
“I don’t want people to think that around the time of the letter, there was some sort of big change of opinion against the department and that students were suddenly experiencing discrimination. It’s something that’s been happening for a long time,” Liu said. “We all bet that maybe no one in the past has organized to this degree before, and that’s the thing that’ll change things.”
The Voice spoke with two other students who filed bias reports, who spoke under the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
One of the students, an Arabic minor, said she filed a report against Al-Mufti. Although she
took classes with Al-Mufti one semester of her sophomore year, she said she only filed a report her senior year because she feared retaliation. The student, who is Black and a heritage speaker, said she was singled out by the professor.
“My experience in that class, the intensity of what was going on, was so obvious because even my classmates would reach out to me during and after class,” the student said. Student messages from her class’s GroupMe chat apologizing for Al-Mufti’s behavior were reviewed by the Voice
After a conversation with a friend, the student said she found out her experience with Al-Mufti was similar to what the friend had experienced with Kilany. After hearing about the MSA letter and similar incidents from multiple friends, some of whom graduated years before, the student joined other students in communicating with IDEAA.
The Voice spoke to the aforementioned friend, an Arabic minor who also said she filed a bias report against Kilany in November 2022.
The student said Kilany constantly commented on her appearance and would call her by the wrong name or mistake her for other Black students in different sections. She also said Kilany would not accept her on-time assignments and marked them down with no explanation, causing the student’s GPA to drop. The student said Kilany continued to harass her throughout the semester, including touching her hair.
When the student mispronounced a reading in class on Nov. 1, 2021, she said Kilany made her stand up and criticized her Arabic in front of her peers, an experience the student described as humiliating. The Voice corroborated the incident by speaking with another student in the class and reviewing messages sent to the student by other classmates.
Ten days later, the student said the class was learning about colors and how to describe people. Describing people’s skin tones is different from describing actual colors in Arabic, according to the student. The professor pointed to the student, the only Black student in the class, and told the class to repeat what her skin color was. The student said the word Kilany used was a racial slur in Arabic.
During the Fall 2022 semester, the student learned that three others said they also experienced discrimination in Kilany’s classes and didn’t feel their complaints to administrators and the department were taken seriously.
The student was contacted by IDEAA in the spring of 2023 for interviews. “I want accountability, and I don’t want any other Black student to face this again,” she said.
Another student, an Arabic minor who spoke with the Voice under the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said she faced similar experiences with Kilany.
She said Kilany told her she couldn’t wear ripped jeans in her class because, “you can’t wear that in the Arab world,” although other students wearing similar clothing were not
singled out. She said that Kilany touched her hair, made comments about her hair in front of the class, and held her to different standards than her peers.
In one instance, the student said she wasn’t allowed to finish a quiz while everyone else got more time, and was not given a reason why. She also said that other students spoke up in her defense at the time of the incident. During a class presentation, she said she was not allowed to use notes because “you speak Arabic, you don’t need notes like everybody else.”
In an encounter with Kilany after a class, she said she asked why she was being treated worse than other students. The professor responded that the way she treated her had nothing to do with her race or ethnicity, she said, which she found odd because she had not ever suggested it was.
The student said she didn’t file a bias report because she didn’t think it would lead anywhere. She said Kilany minimized her grievances when she brought them up. Two classmates corroborated the student’s in-class accounts to the Voice
“What really bothered me was that I felt like I was being judged and then held back almost for being Muslim and Arab in some of these courses because I was Black as well,” she said.
In the petition of support sent to Provost Groves in September, dozens of students and teaching assistants attested to witnessing no discriminatory behavior from any of the professors. Amani Aloufi, Ph.D., a former TA for both Al-Ali and Al-Mufti, wrote that she did not believe they would discriminate against anybody.
“Throughout my time in their classes, I have never encountered any instance that would lead me to believe that they engaged in discriminatory practices based on race or religion. It is my belief that these allegations do not accurately represent the character and values of Professor Al-Ali and of Professor Al-Mufti,” Aloufi wrote. “I understand the importance of addressing any concerns related to discrimination seriously, but I firmly believe that the accusations against them are unfounded.”
Hatice Ozturk, a Ph.D. candidate and a former TA for Al-Ali and Kilany, wrote the same about their character.
“As a Muslim woman who has worked closely with these professors, I can attest to the exemplary treatment I have experienced, as well as witnessed towards other students,” Ozturk wrote.
Students told the Voice that they felt the petition invalidated their experiences, failed to take anti-Blackness into consideration, and dismissed the seriousness and scope of the IDEAA investigation.
“I was interviewed for six months, I mean, our lives were picked apart,” the student who filed a report against Kilany said. “In no way or matter can somebody say this wasn’t a qualified sort of investigation. And to say that is completely dismissive because you don’t know what’s going on.”
Students originally learned the three professors were not teaching this fall when they saw their absence on the registrar and in the course schedule. The professors are also listed as “on leave” on the Arabic department’s website though no announcement has been made by the department or administrators.
“As a student who wants to see justice in the department, I wish there was a universitywide announcement. I wish that the department sent out an email specifically to students in the department. I wish the replacement process was smoother,” Liu said. “If there’s not going to be any announcement or recognition of what happened, then there’s a chance this happens again in the future.” G
Amid a spike in violent crime in D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser released her new public safety legislation, called the Addressing Crime Trends (ACT) Now Act, on Oct. 23. This editorial board is skeptical about her recent slate of policy proposals, which criminal justice activists have described as tough on people but soft on crime. We instead advocate for a more coordinated, better-funded community care approach—an approach grounded in equity and compassion and backed by data and research—that targets crime and violence at its root.
Among other changes, the ACT Now Act plans to reduce crime by curtailing organized retail theft, creating drug-free zones to tamp down drug dealing and loitering, and making wearing a mask while committing a crime an additional offense.
More insidiously, it also rolls back on reforms to police accountability established after George Floyd’s murder, notably lessening restrictions on chokeholds, allowing officers to engage in vehicular pursuits, and keeping confidential the personal information of officers accused of wrongdoing. Far from bolstering public safety, these changes would protect police officers at the expense of transparency and accountability, thus only aggravating broken systems of policing.
Bowser cites that violent crime has risen by roughly 40 percent in 2023: D.C. surpassed 200 homicides in September, the earliest point since 1997. It must be noted, however, that the rise in crime does not impact all equally—the vast majority of violent crime happens in Wards 7 and 8. While it is difficult to pinpoint a specific cause of this disparity, we would be remiss not to acknowledge the distrust of police officers stemming from years of harassment and brutality, the increased police presence in these wards, and the impact of gentrification on these neighborhoods—which are majority-Black, low-income neighborhoods. Despite D.C. being one of the most policed major cities in the nation, communities, especially in Wards 7 and 8, report feeling unsafe—and Bowser’s proposed legislation would only worsen this.
D.C. Council’s Judiciary and Public Safety committee will be holding public hearings on the ACT Now Act later this month. Other public safety bills have been proposed as well, such as Councilmember Brooke Pinto’s Addressing Crime Through Targeted Interventions and Violence Enforcement (ACTIVE) Amendment Act. While we commend certain parts of Pinto’s bill, such as the provisions to create a board to review the deaths of trans and gender-nonconforming individuals, the legislation problematically recruits more police officers, increases surveillance, and, most damningly, expands officers’ power to arbitrarily
position, increase funding for the crime lab, and improve the 911 center’s protocols. White’s legislation, while not perfect, is the only legislation we support.
White’s legislation serves as a model that D.C. should follow, addressing the roots of rising crime in D.C. rather than the symptoms. We acknowledge that D.C.’s past violence prevention and reduction programs have lacked consistent funding, coordination, and prioritization from the council. However, rather than fixing these issues, councilmembers regularly choose to go to the complete extreme, such as their nearly unanimous passage of pretrial detention expansion this past summer.
In addition to calling councilmembers to support White’s bill, we call for the D.C. community to amplify local activist organizations like D.C. Justice Lab, D.C. Peace Team, and Harriet's Wildest Dreams, who have tirelessly advocated for criminal justice reform.
Increasing protections for police officers as Bowser proposes directly places Black and Brown communities at risk. Bowser’s legislation represents a continuation of the failed war on drugs that incarcerated Black Americans at rates nearly four times higher than their white counterparts. More protections for police aren’t the answer; we cannot continue harsh and ineffective policing tactics proven to be harmful.
Given that the District has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation and that 92.9 percent of D.C.’s incarcerated population is Black, the city council shouldn’t be passing legislation likely to incarcerate Black communities at higher rates. However, Pinto’s bill would do exactly that, with ACLU research finding that 86 percent of people experiencing stop-and-frisk searches were Black. Pinto ignores what history is telling us— that increased surveillance and incarceration don’t improve public safety and actively harm Black and brown communities. Nineteen states have successfully enacted policies that reduced both their incarcerated populations and crime rates; D.C. can and should do the same.
Less than two weeks after Pinto introduced her legislation, at-large Councilmember Robert White introduced the Whole Government Response to Crime Act of 2023, which focuses on systemic solutions to public safety. It requires violence reduction programs to report performance data, create a full-time victim services coordinator
The council should establish systems of culturally competent mental health and rehabilitation support. D.C.’s youth are currently placed in a cycle of institutionalization, taking them through psychiatric hospitals and treatment facilities—often outside of D.C. for months at a time—without providing mental health services that are specific to each individual’s background and allowing them to stay within their communities. Rather than one-size-fits-all institutionalization, the council should invest in infrastructure that allows each youth access to resources including medical professionals, family members, and teachers to help them. Moreover, elected officials should increase staffing and resources for its Crisis Response Team, a 24/7 service deploying trained workers to help people experiencing mental health crises.
We also recognize that tackling crime in D.C. is made even more difficult by the lack of statehood. President Joe Biden and Congress already overturned the District’s revised criminal code. No matter how many people support progressive, sustainable solutions to crime and violence, without statehood, the success of legislation is reliant on the support of Congress.
Rather than attempting to implement ineffective, tough-on-crime policies, our elected officials must pursue violence reduction and mental health initiatives that bring communities together rather than empowering police to break them down. G
Oh,
the places
you won't
go
(if you
want to pursue education at Georgetown)
BY KAITLYN DELANEY
St. Ignatius of Loyola found education to be one of the most important ways of promoting “the betterment of souls.” Education is supposedly fundamental to the “Spirit of Georgetown,” which emphasizes educating the whole person and fostering academic excellence.
The values highlighted in the “Spirit of Georgetown” seemed to align perfectly with mine. I transferred to Georgetown my sophomore year after struggling with an unfulfilling academic environment at my previous institution. Then, two months ago, I decided to abandon the pre-law track I had been on for two years to instead pursue a career in early education. I had always been interested in teaching, but I was deterred by the stigma around pursuing a so-called “low-earning” field, especially attending an expensive school like Georgetown.
for low-earning degrees limited, students may be encouraged to pursue a major that the school deems “more valuable” instead.
It seems at odds with Georgetown’s Jesuit values that education as a career is not valued in the same way that other paths are. While students are not explicitly prevented from pursuing this path, the lack of education coursework at Georgetown complicates the process to a point where it is inconvenient or unfeasible for many to pursue.
I knew switching majors as a junior would be complicated, but with such an emphasis on education in Georgetown’s Jesuit values, I was hopeful that Georgetown would have top-tier education courses. Instead, I learned just how limited the options for those pursuing education are at Georgetown.
The SFS has a major for every imaginable sect of government and politics, and the MSB offers courses to cater to each and every aspiring CEO, entrepreneur, and investor. Both the School of Health and the College of Arts and Sciences have options to help pre-med students prepare for medical school.
If, however, you want to pursue a field other than law, healthcare, politics, or business, you’re left with few options; there are few productive majors for a college student, like myself, who is interested in early education.
As I browsed my options for a new major, I started to question why the options were so limited. While the school offers a myriad of options for students pursuing high-earning fields, the same kind of variety doesn’t exist for students pursuing typically low-earning fields.
I’m expecting to make roughly $60,000 a year as a kindergarten teacher, while the average salary of Georgetown graduates ten years after enrolling is $118,900. I wonder if the school intentionally deters students from pursuing lowearning fields in an attempt to maintain its sixfigure post-graduate salary. By keeping the majors
criticizing my choice to come to Georgetown. Those around me made it clear that “you don’t go to Georgetown to become a teacher. If you want to be a teacher, go to community college.” I even occasionally heard that teaching would be a waste of my intelligence, making me cautious to even consider pursuing this path.
Even though Georgetown doesn’t have an education or education-adjacent major, the school does offer the interdisciplinary minor Education, Inquiry, and Justice. The minor focuses on education justice through policy, teaching students about education rather than teaching them to be educators. This minor is my only option to take classes that are remotely aligned with my interests. However, it does little to prepare me for a career in teaching when I graduate.
Many undergraduate teaching programs offer students coursework to hone the skills needed to teach students, such as writing lesson plans or teaching phonemic awareness, a popular method used to teach children how to read and spell. A majority of undergraduate teaching programs also offer ways for aspiring teachers to obtain their teaching certification, which federal law requires for all public school teachers. Georgetown, however, does not offer such opportunities for certification or relevant coursework in undergrad.
Georgetown’s lack of an education major is emblematic of a larger disregard for teachers that is prevalent in the United States. In other countries, teachers have high status in society, including in China, Greece, Turkey, and South Korea. A 2013 study showed that these countries ranked teaching highly amidst other professions, comparing their value to that of nurses and doctors. The U.S., however, did not share this sentiment, ranking in the middle of the 20 other countries surveyed in teacher respect. This viewpoint was also demonstrated through the salaries of teachers in the countries surveyed, with the U.S. once again ranking in the middle.
The societal attitudes towards teaching as a profession are something I’ve witnessed firsthand. When I first started considering a career in education, I was met with comments
To compensate for Georgetown’s lack of curricula, I will need to go to graduate school to get my teaching certification. Some students, however, cannot afford this luxury, thus further exacerbating socioeconomic disparities. Though I believe that college is a valuable opportunity to explore academic and career interests, many students don’t have the privilege or budget to study whatever they want and sharpen their career focus in graduate school. For many, undergrad is their only opportunity to gain the necessary credentials to join the workforce, as they cannot afford the added tuition costs of graduate school.
If education is one of the most important ways of promoting “the betterment of souls,” why are there no options for undergraduate students who want to pursue it?
Georgetown University is one of five U.S. schools in the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) that does not offer any opportunities to obtain teaching certification for undergraduate students. Of these five, two of them offer five-year accelerated bachelor’s/ master’s programs so students can still study education as undergraduates. All 22 other U.S. schools dedicated to the Jesuit values of the “betterment of the soul” through education hold to these values through the coursework and concentrations they offer.
If Georgetown is dedicated to its Jesuit values, it should follow suit with the majority of schools in the AJCU and adjust its coursework accordingly. Though I’ve accepted that an education major is not something I’ll see at Georgetown before I graduate, future students shouldn’t have to be discouraged from pursuing the field. G
Passing down Pinoy pride on the hardwood
BY ETHAN JOHANSON
Aurea Gingras, sophomore point guard for
Paul VI High School’s women’s basketball team, stood in the corner as the seconds ticked down in the 2018 Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC) championship semifinal. As a facilitator, Gingras hadn’t shot the ball at all in the game. In fact, her coaches encouraged her not to shoot.
Paul VI, trailing McNamara 60-61, placed its final hopes of completing a 13-point comeback in the hands of star guard Ashley Owusu. Owusu drove, collapsed the defense, and kicked the ball out to Gingras. This time, Gingras ignored her coaches’ directives not to shoot.
“Instinct, or the basketball gods, kick in, and take the ball out of my hands,” Gingras recalled. “I shot it from the corner, and it goes in.”
Her teammates stormed the court and the crowd erupted, triggering what Gingras characterizes as an “out-of-body experience.” After the emotions wore off, Gingras was able to process what she had just achieved: a game-winning three to send Paul VI to the WCAC championship game.
Subsequent media coverage discussed the magnitude of Gingras’s shot for Paul VI, a perennial powerhouse of girls’ high school basketball in the DMV. What stayed under the radar in the game’s aftermath, though, was a hidden trend that Gingras’s shot epitomized: the increasing importance of Filipino Americans in the DMV high school basketball scene.
When Gingras was eight years old, she became connected to a wider network of Filipino hoopers in the DMV when she joined the Filipino Youth Basketball Association (FYBA), a nonprofit that offers training and organizes leagues for Filipino youth in the DMV. After joining FYBA and getting serious about training, she became a sought-after middle school recruit, a varsity starter in high school, and eventually a rotation player on George Washington University’s team.
FYBA has helped several other Filipino youth earn college basketball scholarships in recent years and dozens more make their high school varsity teams. Russell Casapao, the director of FYBA, established the nonprofit in 2007 to platform young Filipino hoopers, a group that often gets overlooked in the DMV basketball scene.
Aside from helping young Filipinos play competitively, FYBA has had another effect on Filipino youth in the DMV: fostering their Filipino identity. In the DMV, basketball has emerged as a way for second- and thirdgeneration Filipino Americans, who otherwise might have limited exposure to Filipino culture, to live in community with other Filipinos and absorb cultural knowledge from elders. The role of basketball in facilitating cultural preservation among Filipinos was far from inevitable, though. Their famed love of basketball stems from the United States’s attempts to assimilate Filipinos
into American culture, a goal Filipinos have since subverted.
***
This December marks the 125th anniversary of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American War and transferred colonial control of the Philippines to the United States. For some, this equates to the 125th year of Philippine-American history. For others, this year signifies the 125th anniversary of Philippine independence.
“On June 12, 1898, the Philippines declared independence, and basically the Treaty of Paris ignored that in December of 1898,” Erwin Tiongson, economics professor and author of PhilippineAmerican Heritage in Washington, D.C., said.
After defeating Filipino revolutionaries in the brutal Philippine-American War, which killed up to 200,000 Filipino civilians, according to Tiongson, the United States viewed itself as having a duty to “Americanize” the “primitive” Filipino people and transform the Philippines into a modern state. In the early years of colonization, one tool of Americanization emerged as particularly effective in the Philippines: sports. Basketball, in particular, took hold in the Philippines when YMCA directors helped implement the sport into physical education curricula, Lou Antolihao said. Antolihao wrote Playing with the Big Boys, a book about the United States’s use of basketball as an
school, who at first were bigger fans of the sport than he was.
“When my friends watched basketball, I actually hated it,” Casapao remembered. “Why would you just watch these people run back and forth?”
Eventually, Casapao relented and started playing with his friends. After picking up some skills from his friends and making the school’s varsity team, Casapao fell in love with the game.
Casapao moved to the United States in 1997, when he received an IT job in Houston. He bounced between different states before settling down with his wife, Jingle, in Virginia in 2000. When his sons began playing competitive basketball, Casapao learned about the training opportunities available for children in the United States, opportunities that far exceeded anything available to him in the Philippines. He also noticed that Filipino kids were often overlooked in DMV basketball programs due to perceptions that they are undersized and less athletic. Casapao’s observations, along with his passion for Filipino basketball, convinced him of the need for basketball training catered toward Filipino youth in the DMV, a gap he thought he was equipped to fill.
Since founding FYBA in 2007, Casapao and his team of volunteers have turned FYBA into a household name for Filipino youth involved in the DMV basketball community. On Sundays, Filipino kids aged eight to 16 pack into Lake Braddock Secondary School’s gym for two hours to play in FYBA’s “house league.” On the perimeter of Lake Braddock’s basketball courts, parents, family members, and coaches catch up with one another in what has become a ritualized weekly activity for many. “I look at it kind of like church,” said Mitch Luz, a coach in FYBA’s 12-and-under age division.
Motivated by the goal of breaking down barriers that restrict Filipinos from participating in competitive basketball, Casapao formed the FYBA Select Team, a program that places its players in tournaments with competitive Amateur Athletic Union teams. Members of the FYBA Select Team receive additional training focused on fundamentals. Jaden Ignacio, one of FYBA Select’s earliest players, first garnered the attention of college scouts when Casapao sponsored him to participate in a showcase camp in the Philippines. The camp firmed Ignacio’s trajectory to become a four-year starter at Mary Baldwin University, making him one of many FYBA alumni to play college basketball. ***
Aurea Gingras has played three years of college basketball. She’s played in two high school state championship games. The biggest crowd she’s played in front of wasn’t at either of those venues. Instead, it was at a 2012 Filipino Labor Day tournament in Canada.
As Gingras took center stage in a gym of six basketball courts to compete in the tournament’s championship game, the scent of adobo and pancit wafted from the back of the facility where parents were cooking. Filipino flags blanketed the crowd. Fans in the stands shook noisemakers and empty water bottles filled with coins until Todd Lancaster, Gingras’s coach, couldn’t hear himself talk. The only audible words were those in Tagalog shouted by spectators, constantly attempting to one-up opposing fan bases in volume and energy. “I haven’t seen an event that has more Filipinos than NABA,” said Casapao.
The North American Basketball Association (NABA) hosts tournaments for Filipino teams from Canada and across the United States every Labor Day weekend. FYBA sends teams to represent the DMV area. With Filipinos from two countries packed into one gym, coaches and players experience unparalleled levels of energy. “The crowds are ridiculous compared to AAU tournaments,” Lancaster said. “I mean, it’s just phenomenal.”
In one play of the championship game, Gingras led a fast break and crossed the ball over, and her defender fell. She crossed it over again, and another defender fell. Gingras doesn’t think her moves were that remarkable, but the crowd’s reaction was even louder than when she hit the game-winning three against McNamara in the conference semifinal. “I’ve made some big plays in my career,” Gingras said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a moment that was louder than those people falling.”
Gingras identifies as one-quarter Filipino. She’s never been to the Philippines and her family didn’t talk much about Filipino culture while she was growing up, so Gingras didn’t feel connected to her Filipino heritage, she said. That changed when she got involved with FYBA.
At NABA tournaments, where Filipino dance, language, and food are pervasive, Gingras received her “slice of culture,” she said. “Most of the aunties would come to me speaking Tagalog until I told them I couldn’t,” Gingras said. “For once in my life, I loved the assumption that I spoke Tagalog.”
Playing basketball with other Filipinos led Gingras on a journey of discovery about Filipino culture. She sought out Filipino restaurants and discovered and befriended other Filipinos in the DMV. Her brother, who also played with FYBA, spent time cooking in a Filipino kitchen. “It wasn’t even a thing until I was a part of FYBA that I knew what being Filipino was,” Gingras said.
Jerry Bautista, who coaches in FYBA’s 10-and-under
age division, agreed with Gingras’s perspective on the capacity of FYBA to strengthen Filipino identity. He said FYBA plays a similar role to Filipino American community centers, which kept him connected with his family’s culture while he was growing up in Florida. While driving his players to practice, Bautista’s ears perked up when he heard his son’s friends profess their love for sinigang, a Filipino vegetable soup. “My son hates vegetables, so I tried to rub it in his face,” Bautista said.
After playing AAU and drawing the attention of scouts, Gingras played two years of high school basketball at Paul VI, which ESPN ranked the top girls’ high school basketball program in the country her freshman year. She rode the bench that year, so Gingras committed herself to a workout plan to earn playing time. On a typical day, she’d lift weights after school, drive home, drive to the basketball gym for skills training, and then drive back home to complete an additional set of exercises, which included a four-minute wall sit.
In hindsight, she realizes her routine and intensity took a toll on her physical and mental health, which initiated a deterioration of her relationship with basketball. Gingras, now a senior at George Washington University, is taking a break from basketball this year, and she intends to use her time off to repair her relationship with basketball and reprioritize her health.
In her freshman year of college, the Philippine women’s national basketball team reached out to Gingras about the possibility of her eventually joining. The request would have seemed odd to a younger Gingras, less aware of her Filipino roots, but after nurturing her Filipino identity with FYBA, the dream of competing on behalf of the Philippines is one of her main motivators to return to the court.
“I’m hoping that as I transition back into playing and transition back into being a part of basketball, that representing the Philippines on the court is something that I can do one day, because I feel like that’s just perfectly full-circle to me,” Gingras said. “I really did get my start with basketball through FYBA and through this Filipino community, and to be on the court again wearing 'Philippines' across my chest would be something incredibly special.” G
Even at 4 a.m., Georgetown South Asians find a home in cricket
BY AMINAH MALIK
The International Cricket Council (ICC)
Men’s Cricket World Cup kicked off this October in India, drawing millions of fans to watch another competition between the world’s cricket powerhouses.
Despite being the world’s second-most-watched sport, cricket has yet to gain popularity in the United States, including at Georgetown. The university cricket community, however, is booming despite the sport’s lack of national popularity. Spurred by World Cup excitement, the sport is fostering community among South Asian Hoyas.
Shobhit Kumar (SFS/MSB ’24), vice president of the Georgetown University Cricket Club (GUCC) and an international student from New Zealand, views cricket as intimately tied to his childhood, but did not expect to find the same passion among others at Georgetown. “Cricket is about as niche as you can get in the world of sports in the U.S.,” he said.
But during his sophomore year, he stumbled upon the Georgetown cricket community. From discussing favorite players to playing the sport together, cricket connects individuals with a common love for the sport. “Moments like that are really helpful to remind me that there is a community here that I am a part of,” Kumar said.
Noteworthy within the community is the prominence of South Asian members. Despite being introduced to South Asian nations through British colonialism, cricket is no longer viewed as a mere colonial legacy and has been reclaimed as a key part of South Asian identity and culture. This year, five of the 10 teams competing in the World Cup are South Asian nations: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
The sport’s greatest rivalry is between two South Asian nations: India and Pakistan. On Oct. 14, the two nations faced off in a match, garnering over 100 million concurrent viewers—and some here at Georgetown, too.
The Georgetown South Asian Society (SAS), South Asian Policy Research Initiative (SAPRI), Asian American Student Association, and GUCC co-sponsored a watch party for the match. Students gathered early Sunday morning to watch the highenergy matchup.
“The HFSC came alive with excitement,” Rai Hasen (SFS ’27), a freshman representative for SAS who helped coordinate the event, wrote to the Voice
Open to all fans of cricket, the watch party illustrates cricket’s ability to create a welcoming space. “It was a fantastic chance for undergrads to mingle,” Hasen added.
The event wasn’t just for long-time fans, either. For Indian American and Pakistani American newcomers to the sport, the event served as an opportunity to dive deeper into their culture.
For older cricket fans, the rivalry is rigid: fans on either side cheer not only for their team’s success but also for their rival’s failure. But for the younger generation, it seems to be less divisive. “I would rather have Pakistan win the World Cup than Australia or England,” Kumar said, despite his Indian heritage. “I feel more of a sense of brotherhood with my friends from Pakistan.”
Oftentimes, a shared heritage on its own is not enough to kickstart a friendship. A mutual passion for cricket deepens relationships, introducing South Asians to a subset of the community with which they have more in common. Kumar recalled several friendships that deepened over early-morning watch parties and playful banter about the IndiaPakistan rivalry.
With most games happening across major time zone differences, the bonding experience is even more intense. “The fact that I had friends to get up with at 4:30 a.m. is just so cool,” Kumar said. Even the struggle to watch the World Cup has fostered friendships. The matches can only be streamed through ESPN+, and for those without a subscription, “anyone watching a match on it automatically becomes a friend—an unspoken rule in the cricket fraternity,” Hasen said.
However, there remains room for growth in the cricket community. Kumar wants to hold more cricket events that focus on South Asian nations beyond just India and Pakistan. While current engagement at Georgetown mostly centers around their rivalry, cricket’s impact extends to many other South Asian countries. Kumar hopes that cricket can be a space for all South Asians, even those from lessrepresented nations of the subcontinent.
“I want other South Asians … to still feel like they can attend cricket events and that it is a place for them,” he said. “Because representation matters.”
The importance of this representation is evident not only in the rapid development of the campus cricket community but also in its impact on current and future Hoyas. High school students often message the GUCC Instagram account asking about cricket life at Georgetown, according to Kumar. For some, the existence of a cricket community is even a factor in their college decision. In the spring of 2022, GUCC went from having casual practices on Copley Lawn to facing off in a match against Georgetown’s Qatar campus in Doha. And the momentum continued to build.
On Oct. 29, GUCC played a match against the Embassy of India—and won by five wickets. The winning run was even scored by a Pakistani player, Arhum Rashedi (MSB ’24), who was also awarded ‘Man of the Match.’
“GUCC’s recent triumph against the Indian Embassy demonstrates that we’re breaking down political barriers and expanding our outreach,” Hasen wrote to the Voice. Despite students’ differing heritages and the historic political and athletic rivalry between Pakistan and India, players were united around a common South Asian identity.
As cricket grows, it offers more spaces for students to engage with something meaningful to them, a feat especially important for South Asian students for whom cricket is an integral part of their culture. “With the T20 Cricket World Cup heading to the USA in 2024, it’s set to gain even more traction and foster cross-cultural connections on campus,” Hasen wrote. The Georgetown cricket community is still young, and its future is bright. In Kumar’s words, “even if it’s not necessarily my home, it’s somewhere where I can be at home.” G
Language lessons from my grandmother
BY ALISON KARKI
My mother—or as I call her, Mamu—gave birth to me in a hospital on the outskirts of Philadelphia. It was the dead of winter, and as she claims, the late-February snowstorm rattled the hospital windows.
“As soon as you came out, the skies cleared up a bit,” Mamu told me. I can never tell if this part of the story is true.
What was true was that the hospital room was swimming in an ocean of my family. Having three generations of people in a confined space seemed trivial, yet looking back, it was a sacred experience. Mamu’s mother—my grandmother—never left Mamu’s bedside: she held Mamu’s hand and, in the same gesture, extended her finger to hold my newborn hand as well.
For the next year, my grandmother lived with my family to help raise my sister and me. Her gentle touch and her kind eyes grew familiar, so much so that I would often mistake her for my Mamu. It only made sense that my first word was addressed to her: “Aama,” which in Nepali, means “mother” and not “grandmother.” She wore the title proudly, like a pageant sash.
I’d like to think this was the beginning, that the first word that spilled out of my mouth was in my mother tongue—a phrase dedicated to the woman who meant the most to me, yet I called her the wrong name.
This is a story about words: the ones that were shared, others that were lost in translation, and some that never needed to be spoken aloud.
As I grew older, Aama taught me new Nepali words. Eventually, the words I used to communicate to her grew exponentially—as did my hesitancy in saying them.
At 4, she asked me what I ate for dinner that night, and I replied in Nepali: “I eat … rice and … umm, chicken,” and she laughed because I forgot how to say eat in past tense.
At 12, she asked what I was studying in school, but I did not know what the Nepali word for science was—so after pausing for a few seconds too long, I
let out a defeated sigh and just responded in English. She nodded, but I could tell she did not understand.
At 16, I spent the summer with her in Kathmandu. During my last day when it was time to say my farewells, I paused—not just because I did not want to leave her, but because, in the recesses of my brain, I could not find the right words to tell her how much she meant to me.
My proclamation of love for Aama fell short; I could not even find the Nepali word for goodbye, so instead, I said: “I will see you later,” hoping that she could accept this farewell.
There were regrettable days that I put off FaceTiming her out of sheer anxiety of having to speak in Nepali again: “I’ll call her in a few days,” I told myself out of habit.
“In a few days”—a mantra for those, like me, that leave things to the last minute. It took me too long to realize that my grandmother, a 72-year-old with three failing organs, could not afford that luxury.
***
The truth is, inarticulately speaking a mother tongue felt so familiar yet simultaneously so incomplete and distant. At times, trying to find the right words felt like scraping each corner of my mind for imperfect puzzle pieces; trying to formulate a cohesive sentence felt like an insurmountable task. Each forgotten word felt like a letdown to Aama.
Yet, she never understood my disappointment. She continued teaching me the Nepali alphabet and correcting my grammar whenever I misspoke. She viewed every new word and every clear sentence with pride—and treated every hesitation and every nonsensical phrase with lightheartedness.
Despite our language barriers, we understood the love we carried for each other. With every sarcastic one-liner from her, there was a joy in the laughs we shared. During every card game, there was a tenderness in the time we spent together. With every warm embrace, there was a nonverbal consensus of devotion.
Eventually, Aama got sicker. Despite being unable to accept it, I knew rationally that her
congestive heart failure could not be cured. She was dying. But even when her movements became slower and words became fewer, she spread her unconditional love like seeds—and every room she entered blossomed with her presence.
The last time I saw her was in early August—two weeks before she died—bedridden at the critical care unit: an image imprinted in my mind. As much as I was laced with regret at the moments I chose not to speak Nepali to her, I was simultaneously in awe of her resilience—and her community. During times of great despair, I saw how loved Aama was, for the hospital room was swimming in an ocean of my family. Having three generations of people in one space was, in fact, a sacred experience.
I learned, then, that love and hope are somehow intertwined with grief and anger.
Anger and guilt bubble up within me still because I am angry that she was taken from us so soon. I feel guilty for not having spoken Nepali to her every chance I had.
Yet, I am also struck with gratitude for all of the small moments we shared and the choppy sentences I said to her. Some day, my children will meet a version of Aama because her legacy lives on in me. Amid the cacophony of our language barrier, the cup of love she poured for me is overflowing. ***
The Saturday before the fall semester started was the last time Aama and I spoke. At this point, she was on powerful opioids to help with her pain—hallucinating and mostly nonverbal—and I was trying so hard to hold back my sobs that I could not find the courage to tell her, “I love you.”
Between the heavy breaths and teary eyes, I realized I had still not learned the word for goodbye. So, I said nothing. As I was about to leave, I heard a familiar voice: “I will see you later,” Aama managed to say in her drug-induced state.
At that moment, I felt content not knowing the word for goodbye because, yes, I will see her later. And yes, I am so lucky to be Aama’s grandchild— this feeling even stronger after she is gone. G
A lion, a sea witch, and their flashy wardrobes: A wicked history of Hollywood’s queercoded villains
BY AJANI JONES
In every tale of virtue, valor, and triumph, there’s a formidable adversary for our hero to overcome. Across the media spectrum, the most iconic villains have always been huge personalities in their own right, rivaling even the main protagonist’s charisma. From Maleficent to Dr. Facilier, these beloved adversaries exude extravagance and spectacle while maintaining their threatening presence, balancing their imposing nature with an undeniable charm that refines their wicked antics into a holistically enjoyable performance.
Often at these characters’ cores, however, is a curious trait: so many seem a little bit fruity.
At first, it seems preposterous. With such little on-screen queer representation in general, surely there aren’t enough queer antagonists for this to be a noticeable trend? But many antagonists, rather
than being explicitly labeled as “queer,” are coded with queer characteristics and mannerisms. Through their appearances, movements, and voices, these characters consistently flout norms of behavior and embrace abnormality, defying the gender binary. They perform gendered extremes and in-betweens in the most exaggerated and captivating ways possible—think Ursula’s smoky eye and devious body language, HIM and his campy wickedness, Frank-N-Furter’s, well, everything, and so on.
Are these characters deliciously devious? Of course. But behind their maniacal machinations are genuine appeal and theatrical extravagance to the queerest degree. They are more than merely evil— they are extraordinary.
That extraordinariness has resonated with many queer youth. Despite this, problems underlie the ubiquity of these queer-coded villains. Hollywood’s use of queerness almost exclusively in its villains— as deviations from the norm—has become a lazy and problematic cop-out. This habitual reliance on stereotypically queer traits to portray antagonism correlates queerness with the monstrous and villainous “other.”
This pattern is the devilish child of a much more sinister villain: the Hays Code. From the ’30s to ’60s, the code regulated Hollywood’s content.
Most notably, it forbade the explicit portrayal of any form of sexual “perversion” on screen and severely limited the capacity for queer representation.
Consequently, filmmakers and television producers resorted to implementing more subtle references to queerness in their characters. However, to avoid seeming like they condoned sexual deviancy, many limited these implicit portrayals to characters that were otherwise morally depraved, often saving heteronormative characterizations for the hero. Thus, the delectably fruity, queer-coded villain was officially born.
Disney, being the media juggernaut that it is, is responsible for many of these beloved villains: Scar (Lion King [1994]), Hades (Hercules [1997]) and Captain Hook (Peter Pan [1953]) just to name a few. While villains like Ursula are very clearly based on real-life queer icons like the late drag queen, Divine, others like Hades and Scar embody queerness through their flamboyance and theatrical flair. Even more sympathetic antagonists, such as Frozen’s (2013) Elsa, whose journey of self-acceptance resonated with many queer viewers, are not free from these subliminal codes.
These iconic villains captivate the audience in ways their protagonist counterparts do not. However, the reliance on stereotypes to build recognizably queer features into otherwise uncoded personalities has dire consequences. The consistent correlation between queerness and evil, whether intentional or not, results in the subconscious assumption that queerness is inherently evil.
This isn’t to say that queer people should never be the villains of a story (because evidently, we are unquestionably spectacular at it), but it becomes a problem when we are only the villain and nothing else. Not only does this narrative accomplish the sinister goal of the (now-defunct) Hays Code, but it also forms the foundation for the self-doubt and self-loathing that many queer people experience; if you only ever see yourself as the villain, over time you may begin to internalize it.
Luckily, great progress has been made in the last several decades to deviate from this practice. Studios like Disney have begun to diversify their portrayals of villainy to better reflect the world we live in, moving instead towards more conceptual “villains” (like family trauma) and morally complex antagonists. As such, modern-day Disney villains
like Eternals’s (2021) Ikaris and Raya and the Last Dragon’s (2021) Druun have dropped the kitschy outfits and flamboyant accents in favor of more generic aberrant characteristics.
Yet at the same time, many fans have decried modern Disney films’ lack of a compelling antagonistic force. This controversy begs an interesting question: why have villains lost their luster now that they’ve also (largely) lost their queer and extravagant flair?
A big part of the issue is that a lot of modern villains are simply boring, resigned to fill the role of tedious time-fillers rather than meaningful obstacles for the protagonists. Where even the name of characters like Hades meant something, modern villains like Captain Marvel’s (2019) Yon-Rogg are forgettable at best and laughably inconsequential at worst.
Even more morally complex antagonists like Raya’s Namaari lack the followthrough to draw in audiences, leaving what could be a very compelling antagonist on paper feeling like a waste of time.
So, what’s the solution? Returning to villains that rely on queer stereotypes and prejudices is not the answer. Neither is simply replacing queer extravagance with moral complexity. Rather, antagonists should be afforded complexity not in spite of extravagance, but because of it. A balance certainly exists between flavorful villainy and harmful caricature; studios, like Disney, just have yet to find it. But doing so could mean a world of difference, keeping our favorite antagonists fun and entertaining to watch while creating space for queerness to be represented on-screen outside of the traditional and stereotype-filled villainous role.
Queerness includes a vast spectrum of experiences and beliefs, and our characters should reflect this. Queer people should not be locked into one-dimensional tropes that paint a skewed picture of what it means to be queer— explicitly or otherwise. We contain multitudes. We laugh, we cry, and we get angry too. We can be the best friend or the wise elder. We can also be the hero, the role model, and even the damsel in distress. And sometimes, as a treat, we can be silly and evil too. G
Killers of the Flower Moon exploits Osage suffering for shock value
BY MAANASI CHINTAMANI
I n 1912, sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder made a statue of a Sioux man, wrapped in a blanket, gazing inscrutably into the distance. The work, titled “An American Stoic,” was emblematic of prevailing depictions of Native Americans— the centuries-old trope of the silently suffering “noble savage” was personified in the subject’s solemn posture and blank expression. By painting Native Americans as passive victims, such portrayals contributed to the stripping of Indigenous agency, a troubling artistic tradition that persists in the nuance-lacking, excessively violent tone of Martin Scorsese’s latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).
For the majority of Killers, a tragedy based on a true story, actor Lily Gladstone operates in much the same mode as Calder’s muse. She plays Mollie Kyle, an Osage woman, in the years following “An American Stoic,” with a seemingly serene affect—even as her community is methodically decimated. As the film progresses, it’s only thanks to Gladstone’s stellar acting that we begin to see cracks in an otherwise unmoved, emotionless facade.
While certainly the film’s most interesting character, Mollie unfortunately isn’t the protagonist of Killers—rather, that title belongs to her husband, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio). Ernest is a trusting, tactless, and sickeningly opportunistic veteran who, under the guidance of his equally opportunistic—but much savvier—uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro), defrauds and murders Osage Natives in a cruel get-rich-quick scheme in rural Oklahoma.
By following the story’s villains, Scorsese ostensibly seeks to subvert conventional storytelling techniques and explore unexpected perspectives; however, centering white men in a story about Native Americans is actually the most unoriginal choice. This approach doesn’t pay off, and instead, Killers lands as an unnecessarily graphic caricature of Indigenous suffering.
The film opens with a windfall (and death knell) for the Osage. As community elders perform a burial for a ceremonial pipe, velvety black oil spurts out of the ground; quickly, the narrator explains, the Osage become the richest people in the world. Sensing an opportunity, grifters like William and Ernest plot to access this wealth by covertly amassing headrights, which enrich Osage shareholders.
But in its disjointed narration of the mechanisms of this racket, Killers sacrifices narrative cogency and respect for the Osage victims. For the first few hours, the movie focuses on the web of lies and atrocities in which Ernest envelops Mollie. At his uncle’s urging, he courts and marries her, but slowly, Mollie’s relatives begin
mysteriously dying—only after Ernest arranges their headrights to pass to Mollie, and eventually to him, upon their deaths—and Ernest’s role in the murders becomes increasingly clear. As the walls close in on Mollie, Killers feels like an unrelenting barrage of the Osage being manipulated, mutilated, and plunged into immeasurable grief.
As the film nears the end of its astounding three-and-a-half-hour runtime, however, it can’t quite choose an identity, flitting indecisively between cinematic styles. Once the case enters the courts, Killers shapeshifts into a procedural drama about the legal system, especially as it traces the emergence of the FBI as a sophisticated crime-fighting institution. And then suddenly, in the film’s waning minutes, Scorsese introduces a metanarrative in which the whole story is recounted in an old-school true crime radio show. If Killers had chosen just one of these lenses and introduced it early on, perhaps through flashbacks (à la Oppenheimer [2023]), it would have provided much-needed framing to an engrossing but unstructured film.
Killers’s one deviation from its strictly chronological structure is perhaps its most egregiously misused narrative element. During the courtroom testimony of a hitman responsible for one of the murders, we hear, in gruesome detail, how exactly it was carried out. Audiences had already been subjected to a graphic shot of the autopsy, sensationalized as a public spectacle for the townspeople, and the logistics of the killing itself hadn’t seemed relevant to the plot. But then, just as the testimony begins to feel excessively comprehensive, Killers cuts to its only flashback, where we then have to watch the same murder we’ve already heard far too much about. As if the atrocity of the death wasn’t enough on its own, the film rehashes it three times.
During the rare moments when the film focuses on the Osage victims’ experience, its overemphasis on physical brutality feels like a disrespectful use of violence. Killers reduces their suffering to shock-value-garnering gore, echoing a long history—from 19th-century vaudeville shows to Hollywood Westerns—of exploiting violence against Indigenous bodies for white viewers’ entertainment.
For what it’s worth, Scorsese gleans superb performances from his cast. Gladstone captures every inflection in a role written as a onedimensional vessel of ceaseless suffering (like all of Killers’s Osage characters). Teasing out the nuances in Mollie’s stone-faced endurance of physical and emotional pain, she also brings
explosive, heart-wrenching feelings to the few scenes where Mollie vocalizes her rightful rage and grief. By contrast, the script works fervently to humanize Ernest, highlighting his own victimhood at the hands of William’s abuse and his ongoing moral dilemma as he weighs his supposed love for his wife against his desire to gain money and appease his uncle. The role is perfect for DiCaprio, who has effectively built a career of playing bad guys with complex motives, and he pulls it off once again.
It’d be misguided to expect Scorsese to shy away from the inherent violence of the subject matter, but one would hope for a more sensitive, tactful approach, especially with the power dynamics at play whenever white filmmakers tell Indigenous stories, from the lack of opportunities for Native American filmmakers to the persistence of stereotypes and cultural inaccuracies. Given Hollywood’s longstanding disinclination toward Native American protagonists, centering Killers around Mollie could have afforded the film both a new perspective and much-needed direction. While Killers showed snippets of Mollie’s efforts to fend off the murders, for instance, only a film with her as its focus could have done her story justice.
Killers illuminates an overlooked history, and notably, Scorsese consulted with Osage leaders—a step in the right direction. But ultimately, the film still sees a white director prioritizing the perspective of a white perpetrator, a reality that N. Bird Runningwater, director of the Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program, characterized as “encroachment.” Hollywood should heed the advice of a white doctor in Killers who, when trying to shirk the FBI’s interrogation, ironically, said it best: “This is Indian country—go talk to the Indian.” G
graphic by rachel zhang; layout by graham krewinghaus
A deep dive into the world of The Exorcist at Georgetown 50 years later
BY NINABELLA ARLIS
Content warning: this article mentions sexual violence.
When Georgetown students gather on the front lawn each Halloween to watch a screening of The Exorcist (1973), it is more than just a seasonally appropriate celebration. Whether they know it or not, it is an ongoing celebration of a film created by and with Hoyas on campus five decades ago.
In October and November of 1972, the movie—the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars—was filmed on and around Georgetown’s campus. Among scenes of evil spirits, possessed children, and heroic priests lie iconic campus locations well-known to undergraduates today, including Dahlgren Chapel, Healy Hall, Kehoe Field, and the nowinfamous “Exorcist Steps.”
William Blatty (COL ’50), The Exorcist’s producer, transformed his 1971 novel The Exorcist into the Academy Award-winning screenplay two years later. His son, Michael Blatty (COL ’74), was a junior during the filming.
“[My dad] loved the atmosphere, he loved the people, the professors, and so I think he was just emotionally really attached to the university,” Michael Blatty said. “Maybe he just wanted an excuse to go back and
The Exorcist originated when his father was at Georgetown. “My dad’s told this story a thousand times, but when he was, I think, a junior at Georgetown, he was going through a little bit of a crisis of faith … and he read this story about the boy who was supposedly possessed out in Maryland,” he said. The idea lay dormant for years
and didn’t come to fruition until William Blatty struggled to find work in comedy writing and returned to the idea. “For a long time, he had in mind that one day he’d like to write a nonfiction account of the boy who was supposedly possessed,” Michael Blatty said. His father ultimately published The Exorcist as a fictional retelling, occasionally writing and editing during stays at Georgetown’s Alumni House.
Professor Emeritus Clifford Chieffo was the chair of the Fine Arts department during filming and acted as Georgetown University’s liaison agent—their “contact man”—when the university was approached by Warner Bros. and William Blatty for permission to shoot on campus.
“The president immediately called me because it involved art film. And he said I am going to be responsible for anything that happens on campus, and Warner Bros. cannot step foot on campus without my permission and without me being there,” Chieffo said.
Warner Bros. paid the university over $1,000 a day for filming on their property and enlisted Georgetown community members to be involved in the production. Chieffo recruited more than a dozen of his art students to be among the 550 student extras for filming. The role paid students between $35 to $128 per day to act as background characters, tennis players, and protestors.
“We were famous! No, really, I lucked out,” said Cheryl Amelia Walker (COL ’76), who was a freshman when filming came to campus. “To get there and to come right into this exciting scene just made Georgetown more appealing. And then to be a part of it, you’re like a celebrity. It was a wonderful experience.”
“My dad wanted me to be in the film,” Michael Blatty said. “He gave me a part as an extra in the crowd and he put me up close to where Ellen Burstyn would be with a megaphone so that I could be on camera, even though it was just for about three seconds,” he said.
The first time Michael Blatty met Burstyn, he was in his father’s room at the Marriott Hotel, which hosted much of the cast and crew during
it was 50 years ago. People didn’t talk about that kind of stuff. It was just kind of brushed under the carpet,” Michael Blatty said. “So my dad looked into it and fired the guy.”
Chieffo separately stated that he noticed some crew members acting inappropriately around students; he changed the recruitment location to his office. “I went into total Italian parental mode. These are all my sons and daughters,” he said. One of the extras was Chieffo’s actual daughter then-toddler, Toby Chieffo-Reidway (COL ’93), the youngest extra in the film. She would go on to earn a minor in theater at Georgetown, citing her experience on set in her application essay.
The production also hired some students for logistical jobs. Members of the Collegiate Club, a now-defunct service club, were hired to redirect traffic away from film sites during shots. “One night they didn’t want headlights in the background, so they wanted somebody to stand a block and a half away from where they were shooting,” said Patrick Early (COL ’74).
The production team also planned for a few Georgetown priests to be in the film. “They went to the Jesuits and most of them said, ‘We don’t want any part of this business,’” Chieffo said. “[But] they got Father [Joseph] Durkin. He blessed the set every day. Blatty wanted him to bless the set.”
“Making the film, I think he sincerely believed that there was a devil, and that the devil might cause trouble on the set, and that it couldn’t hurt to have the set blessed,” Michael Blatty said.
As William Blatty got older, his son said, he became more conservative. The elder Blatty began to feel that Georgetown was straying from its Catholic roots, even starting a petition asking
the Vatican to remove the university’s Catholic and Jesuit labels. Michael Blatty said that he thought his father regretted this course of action in the last few years of his life, as Georgetown remained a special place to him even then.
Micheal Blatty also explained how his father’s Catholic background influenced his novel and later screenplay. “He thought that if there were a real case of possession by devils then, by extension, if there were devils then there must be angels. If there were angels, there must be a God. And if there was a God, there’s an afterlife,” he said. “He really wanted to believe that there were authentic cases of possession because, in a way, to him that fortified his belief in God and afterlife.”
Though Director William Friedkin didn’t share the religious motivation that Blatty had, he was still deeply dedicated to the movie. Friedkin was very particular about the film and would reshoot scenes multiple times until they matched his vision.
“He was thinking of this as his masterpiece,” Early said. “On his director’s chair, he had [his Emmy] painted on the back of the chair because he really wanted a second one for The Exorcist .”
Warner Bros. also wanted faculty members to be part of the cast, which Chieffo arranged, but according to Chieffo, “They didn’t like any real faculty members.” Instead, they largely hired Hollywood actors that fit their vision of how the faculty members should have looked for the roles. He estimated that several staff members from the President’s office, along with his office secretary and many more staff members from the second floor of Healy, were in the production.
Despite his reluctance to hire Georgetown faculty, Friedkin, whom Chieffo called a “basketball freak,” hosted a basketball game between the faculty and the crew. However, the director got nervous once he realized that the faculty team had some younger players.
Demons,” at McDonough Arena to raise money for scholarships for minority students.
“A Jesuit did all the timing for the Georgetown teams. And we won by—ready for it?—one point. So Friedkin says that the Jesuit cheated!” Chieffo said. “For a week after he refused to talk to me on the set, so a crew member had to intercede.”
Even with crew and faculty working and playing basketball during downtime on set together, the filming of the movie didn’t occur without a fair share of hiccups—so many that cast and crew members said that the set was haunted.
In what is most likely the movie’s most famous scene, the character Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) falls down 75 steps onto M Street, N.W. Making that scene happen required a long process of acquiring the house at the top of the steps, building a fake extension upon the house, and when the extension wasn’t close enough to the stairs, adding an additional fake window overlooking the steps.
Even then, stuntman Chuck Waters faced several difficulties while doing the difficult fall. Production first had to replace the sugarglass window after the original was too thick and couldn’t be broken. After breaking through the window, “all he had to fall on is a bunch of mattress boxes, cardboard. That’s it,” Chieffo said. “Friedkin said, ‘Alright, you’re done. Now go over and jump down the steps.’ And they changed all the cameras. They did that like three times.” He explained that each step was lined with a half-inch of rubber.
“So the stunt man runs up the ramp, flailing … and misses the steps and lands on the platform,” he said. “So the poor guy gets up and they gave him a glass of water, and Friedkin says, ‘Get over there. Do it again. This time, hit the steps.’”
To film another perspective of the fall, the producers took another calculated risk.
“Friedkin takes this $50,000 camera, right? Packs it in styrofoam … turns it on and throws it down the steps. Bouncing, tumbling, doing all the way down,” Chieffo said.
In 2015, Friedkin returned to M Street, N.W. for the dedication of the steps as a D.C. landmark and official tourist attraction by Mayor Muriel Bowser. President John DeGioia attended the ceremony, but because he was not on campus during the filming, Chieffo wrote his speech. When DeGioia mentioned the infamous basketball match, Friedkin stood up, pointed to Chieffe in the audience, and yelled: “You! One point!”
Some alumni credit the film with adding to Georgetown’s prestige and notoriety. “Georgetown has always been a good school, but certain things like that, definitely put it on the map,” Walker said.
“When the movie came out, it refocused a bunch of attention on Georgetown,” Early said. “It brought attention to the university and got more people applying and made it a whole lot more selective.”
For the Blatty family, however, the movie has more significance than just the fame it brought to Georgetown. “I’m glad that, in some people’s minds, when they read that book, they connect my dad with Georgetown, because Georgetown was so central to who he was and to his life,” Michael Blaty said. “Even in his
