CONCERT Kacey Musgraves lights up Capital One Arena with “Star-Crosed” tour. B4
MUSIC Mitski’s latest album “Laurel Hell” emerges as the latest indie-pop jam. B6
FILM Sci-fi drama blockbuster “Moonfall” shoots for the moon and falls far too short. B7
February 18, 2022
Love is in the Air: Valentine’s Day on Campus Georgetown clubs hold events to allow students to meet during this season of love.
Adriana Guzman and Sofia Wills Guide Features Desks
ILLUSTRATION BY: ALAN CHEN/THE HOYA
‘Notting Hill’top: How Valentine’s Day is Celebrated at Georgetown During the first Valentine’s Day on campus since 2020, clubs across the Hilltop hosted events for students to come together and celebrate love. Adriana Guzman and Sofia Wills Guide Features Desks
When Marieteresa Porcher Allen (MSB ’24) saw an influx of new faces on the Georgetown Ballroom Dance Team, she knew a Valentine’s Day Dance would be the perfect way to welcome them to an on-campus community in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I mean, coming out of that whole isolation period, I feel like it’s so important, you know, to
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get those connections back and bond with people and, and just, like, be a part of society again,” Porcher Allen told The Hoya. With a romantic activity like dance, the team recognized the need for in-person connection during Valentine’s Day season and chose the romantic holiday as the perfect setting for their first Zoom-free event of the semester. For the Ballroom Dance Team, the Valentine’s Day Dance marked an occasion for all students, regardless of their dancing experience, to take
COURTESY MARIETERESA PORCHER ALLEN
Clubs across Georgetown’s campus used Valentine’s Day as an excuse to host commuunity-building events. From ballroom dances to charity fundraisers, organizations brought students together to celebrate the holiday.
some time off from studying, meet new people and partake in the holiday festivities. Just one month into the semester, clubs across Georgetown found that Valentine’s Day is the ideal holiday for encouraging students to let loose and enjoy one another’s company. From dance teams to environmental activist organizations to retreat programs, communities on campus used the holiday weekend to create spaces for couples, friends and strangers alike to gather in a stress-free environment and build relationships with their peers.
THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2022
Clubs Playing Matchmaker
Clubs across campus used Valentine’s Day to provide opportunities for students to form romantic and platonic relationships in a time when schedules are getting busier and study days are growing longer. For example, the Ballroom Dance Team opened their Feb. 12 Valentine’s Dance to anyone willing to learn a few moves. The team hoped to give students a Valentine’s Day themed night where they could learn something new while creating new friends — or even something more. The event was intended to show students that the Ballroom Dance Team is here to support them, according to Porcher Allen, treasurer of the Ballroom Dance Team. “We tried to have a nice little activity for people to remind them ‘Hey, we care about you, we love you,’” Porcher Allen said. The night consisted of two segments — half an hour of learning choreography followed by time for social dancing. Meeting people happens naturally during a night of dancing when students have an opportunity to practice moves they just learned, according to Porcher Allen. “With dance, I feel like it is just so easy to do that because you are constantly getting a new partner for the social, dancing with a bunch of people, and just talking to people. It is just so nice to meet students you normally would not have met,” Porcher Allen said. Originally joining the Ballroom Dance Team because of one of their events last semester, Zoe Niazi (SFS ’25) enjoyed the Valentine’s Day event for its role in easing members back into the rhythm of its events. “Going to the Ballroom Valentine’s Dance reminded me how much fun the club is and has made me even more excited for this semester,” she told The Hoya. “I really enjoyed seeing all my ballroom friends again after such a long break.” Similar to the Ballroom Dance Team’s Valentine’s Day themed night, ESCAPE, a program that offers retreats for first-years and transfer students, hosted a “Palentine’s” event in an effort to celebrate all types of relationships, according to Justin Bustamante (NHS ’23), student coordinator for ESCAPE. “For us, we did not want to limit our event to just people who were in a relationship and had someone to call their Valentine. Some of the most fruitful relationships are your pals,” Bustamante said in an interview with The Hoya. A low-commitment event the Wednesday before Valentine’s, ESCAPE’s Palentine’s function allowed students to pop in, make a Palentine card for a friend or significant other and stay to chat with guests. The Valentine’s Day themed event aligned perfectly with ESCAPE’s goal of creating a loving and supportive environment for all firstyears, according to Bustamante. “With ESCAPE being all about love and relationships, we thought Valentine’s Day, the day of love, is the perfect day to emphasize that and try to get as many people in the community as possible together, thinking about
who they love and who they want to show their affection to,” Bustamante said.
Loving the Community
From performing live at UNICEF’s 2019 StudeWhile some organizations spread the love throughout Georgetown, others looked beyond campus when celebrating the holiday — the Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network (GREEN) spent the weekend fundraising for the Capital Area Food Bank. Leading up to Valentine’s Day, students could purchase candy grams from GREEN and send them to a friend. The funds raised from the project were then sent to the Capital Area Food Bank, and, in total, the team raised upwards of $200, according to Grace Jensen (COL ’24). Camille Vandeveer (COL ’25), co-leader of GREEN’s environmental justice team with Jensen, made sure that GREEN’s Valentine’s Day project remained true to the club’s main tenets. “We’re sending Valentine’s Day candy grams across campus with silly environmental pickup lines to go with them,” Vandeveer said. Among the themed pickup lines were, “my love for you is like plastic. It’ll never decompose” and “you’re like last year – the hottest on record.” Using cheeky puns, the club decided, was a great way to not only spread joy on this holiday, but also continue to raise awareness for environmental issues,” Jensen said. The connection to a charitable organization relieved some consumerist guilt from buyers of candy grams, allowing students to participate in a heavily corporatist holiday while making responsible choices, according to Ari Kane (COL ’24), who purchased a candy gram from GREEN. “The money that I spend with GREEN goes to a good cause instead of a huge corporation, so that’s a huge plus,” Kane said. “Plus, I don’t have the time to go out and make them myself, so it’s nice I can send [the candy grams] with just a brief Google Form.” GREEN felt a responsibility to use their resources and the opportunity presented by Valentine’s Day to give back to the community they’re a part of, according to Jensen. “The membership really expressed an interest in fighting food insecurity, because it is an issue associated with environmental justice and we thought the fundraiser would be a great way to get people involved. It’s also a good opportunity for team bonding,” Jensen said. Better yet, club members got an opportunity to bond while coming up with fun, punny pickup lines for the candy grams, Jensen said. “At our general body meeting, we had, like, GREEN members go into breakout rooms and come up with them,” Jensen said. “I think bonding events really strive to build community. So I think bonding activities are really nice way to do that and kind of just like, come together and have some fun while also working towards issues.”
COURTESY CAMILLE VANDEVEER
As part of a charity fundraiser for Capital Food Bank, environmental club GREEN sold Valentine’s Day candy grams that included punny, environmentthemed pick-up lines written by club members.
ciding with the start of midterm season, organizations like ESCAPE took the holiday as an opportunity to help students take a break from the pressures of schoolwork. Students involved in club leadership have the distinctive opportunity to use their own perspectives as students at a rigorous institution and people who can implement fun events, according to Bustamante. “Everyone at Georgetown is busy. That is one of the reasons why we have a lot of trouble,” Bustamante told The Hoya. “A big part of ESCAPE is recruitment. We can’t hold retreats if no one signs up. And people think ‘Oh, you’re going away for two days, or the whole weekend? How can I keep up with my work?’” Bustamante said that Georgetown clubs must understand their important role in community-building on campus. “Well, admin is not going to do it, they’re Take a Candy Break too busy working on administration stuff. And As students themselves, club leaders have we’re the ones, clubs are usually student-led, a unique insight into what life is like attend- most of them if not all are student-led. Mostly ing Georgetown. With Valentine’s Day coin- we are students ourselves and so we know ex-
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2022 | THEHOYA.COM
actly what it’s like, we have to step up to do it for ourselves and for each other,” Bustamante said. GREEN noticed the same problem and was determined to use their Valentine’s Day fundraiser to not only raise money for the Capital Food Bank but ensure that members of the rigorous Georgetown community can take some time for themselves. “So I think if you don’t have structured opportunities for fun it can be easy to get overwhelmed and kind of, I don’t know, you just, you just sort of get engrossed in your work and without the structured time to meet people and build those relationships, I think it can be a little bit isolating,” Vandeveer said. By making an effort to provide scheduled time for joy, Georgetown clubs and programs play an important role in the university’s social scene, according to Vandaveer. “So without clubs taking the time to host or to have opportunities like these for students, I feel like it would be difficult for students to find time to invest this time and build these relationships,” Vandaveer said.
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Country-pop artist Kacey Musgraves performed in Washington, D.C., as part of her “Star-Crossed” tour. Her dazzling showmanship and enchanting lyrics made for an enthralling evening.
CONCERT
Kacey Musgraves Proves You Can Have Fun After Heartbreak Maggie Riendeau Hoya Staff Writer
If you’re sick of cheesy Instagram posts, Valentine’s Day gift boxes and dreamy, picturesque romances, then Kacey Musgraves is ready to light your soul on fire. Country-pop artist Kacey Musgraves played at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3, marking the halfway point of her “starcrossed” tour. Her D.C. performance brought high attendance, making for a particularly large and excited audience. Fans made a point to prove to the Texas native that maybe everything is actually bigger in our nation’s capital, as concertgoers were adorned in large, light-up cowboy hats, sparkly boots and neon outfits that matched her set. The Capital One stage crew was busy handing out LED wristbands that glowed
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to match the color of lights on stage during each song, an accessory provided at each of her venues along the tour. Written after Musgraves’ 2020 divorce, the “star-crossed” album takes inspiration from this tumultuous time in her life and relationships. Musgraves opened the show literally on fire, singing the titular “star-crossed” in front of a flaming heart, setting the tone for a show about heartbreak, passion and independence. Musgraves then followed this powerful opener with “cherry blossom,” a song about holding on to the people you love. The song references Tokyo, where cherry blossoms are the official flower, but D.C. natives felt right at home when a spray of the iconic pink petals began to fall from the ceiling. The show was visually stunning, as dreamy graphics displayed on the screen behind the artist and colorful lights washed over the
crowd. The theme of the show seemed to revolve around vintage photos and Valentine’s Day motifs, with videos of flowers, hearts and Musgraves’ face with fun filters appearing on the screen behind her. Musgraves’ own vintage Vivienne Westwood top added to the evening’s romantic mood, depicting a Renaissance-era painting of a couple lovingly looking into each other’s eyes. Later in the set, Musgraves began to incorporate songs from her previous album, “Golden Hour.” Fan favorites “Space Cowboy,” “High Horse” and “Butterflies” all made their way into her performance, which provided an upbeat and nostalgic juxtaposition to the generally slower tone of “star-crossed.” About halfway through the show, Musgraves removed her stilettos to perform the remainder of her set barefoot. She sat down on the stage to perform “camera roll,” preparing
herself to be even more vulnerable than she had been up until that point. Performing the song “camera roll,” Musgraves’ lyrics discuss the pain of looking at photographs and reminiscing about the past — a symbolic moment that revealed what it must have been like for her to write the album right after her divorce. Musgraves finished the show with an encore of two songs from “Golden Hour”: “Slow Burn” and “Rainbow,” which were accompanied by a dazzling real rainbow made with projected lights that stretched from the stage to the far end of the stadium. This end of Musgraves’ show was as symbolic, dramatic and beautiful as the show’s beginning. With her evocative lyrics and enchanting concert displays, it’s clear that Kacey Musgraves is a born performer, and she knows how to keep her audience’s hearts on fire long after the curtains have closed.
THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2022
HOYA HORROR
A Deep Dive Into the Desolate Folk Horror Subgenre Lucia Pieto Columnist
Isolation, nature and murder: welcome to folk horror. Haunting natural landscapes and the cultish terror of folk horror have been a mainstay of the horror genre for decades, but the subgenre has experienced a resurgence in the past decade with Robert Eggers’ “The Witch” in 2015 and Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” in 2019. With films like “Lamb” and “The Feast,” both released in 2021, this trend does not seem to have tapered out. Having noticed this recent revival of folk horror, I was eager to look into the subgenre to explore where it came from and why it has reemerged into today’s mainstream horror scene. One of the earliest folk horror films was the 1922 Swedish silent film, “Häxan,” which blended
a documentary style narrative with dramatic storytelling that profiled the practice of witchcraft from the middle ages into the early 20th century. Other films like “Onibaba,” released in Japan in 1964, had an important influence on the subgenre by using folklore in modern horror. However, the start of Folk horror as it exists in films today mainly began in late 1960s and early 1970s British film. Three films in particular are credited with solidifying the start of the subgenre: the 1968 film “Witchfinder General,” the 1971 film “The Blood on Satan’s Claw” and the 1973 film “The Wickerman.” Though all similar in tone, these three films have very little in common in terms of story. Rather, they are bound together by their emphasis on rural landscapes and isolated groups of people — out of which comes violence and horror. The recent comeback of this subgenre begs the question: why have we seen a folk horror revival in the mid-2010s and early 2020s? While modern folk horror has a lot in common with folk horror from the 60s and 70s, I would argue contemporary folk horror focuses on different
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elements of the genre to scare, like isolation, alienation and a lack of belonging. The prominence of rural isolation also began to become a defining characteristic of the subgenre during early folk horror titles. Aside from the obvious blending of folklore with horror to scare audiences, folk horror movies are usually set amongst desolate farmland with a lot of the cinematography showcasing this landscape. The point of these shots is not just to showcase the grandness of the natural world, but also to show how the same features can simultaneously trap the characters from escape. Additionally, while modern folk horror shares a lot of traits with early folk horror, it seems to focus on exploiting the audience’s fear of isolation and sense of belonging to a much greater extent. Take the ending of “Midsommar” as an example, in which the main character, Dani, finds peace after witnessing the death of her family by joining a murderous cult. Her bizarre
happiness in joining the murderous cult may be attributed to relief at being cut off from the increasing solidarity and technology-dependent nature of daily life, something that has been at an all-time high due to the pandemic. Contemporary folk horror seems to confront an audience with a terrifying sense of entrapment, unfamiliar folk imagery as well as large natural landscapes that work to remind the audience of their own insignificance. Our current, more isolated social situations then seem to have made the revival of folk horror much more impactful. Considering that a defining feature of folk horror is its emphasis on seclusion, the current state of the world these past two years has allowed folk horror to provide a completely new layer of anxiety that does not appear to be escaping us any time soon. Lucia Pieto is a junior in the College. Hoya Horror appears in print and online every other week.
By Nikhil Nelson
PUSHA T ‘DIET COKE’
‘GOOD MORNING GORGEOUS’
The lead single from Pusha T’s upcoming album “It’s Not Dry Yet,” “Diet Coke” flexes the Virginia native’s lyricism and musicianship. The track is reminiscent of the boom-bap beats of early hip-hop and features sampled vocals from rapper Fat Joe and a 1974 Jerry Butler beat. Pusha T famously worked with Kanye West on the track.
After 30 years in the hip-hop industry, the iconic singer-songwriter has produced yet another musical triumph. Releasing her powerful album just in time for the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show, Mary J. Blige seamlessly blends her classic lyrical prowess with the fresh talents of up-and-coming stars like Fivio Foreign and Anderson .Paak.
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MARY J. BLIGE
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KAT COIRO
‘OZARK’: SEASON 4
‘MARRY ME’
A sure to be classic, Valentine’s Day rom-com, “Marry Me,” starring Jennifer Lopez as pop star Kat Valdez, follows the meandering relationship of an unlikely couple. While performing at a concert, Kat learns that her celebrity fiancé cheated on her, so she immediately marries an unsuspecting audience member and school teacher played by Owen Wilson. The movie notably maintains many similarities to Lopez’s real life.
“Ozark” is back! The highly anticipated “Season 4, Part 1” contains seven episodes released exclusively on Netflix. In this installment, starring Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, the Byrde family continues to wriggle its way out of trouble with dangerous drug cartels in a thrilling and suspenseful addition to the critically acclaimed series.
@MARRYMEMOVIE/TWITTER
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2022 | THEHOYA.COM
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Mitski’s latest album “Laurel Hell” vividly depicts her experience with personal loss. She compresses her complex emotions into her newest project with a fresh indie-pop flair.
MUSIC
Mitski Embraces Darkness on Latest Indie-Pop Album ‘Laurel Hell’ Nina Jennings Hoya Staff Writer
After nearly three years in the dark, Mitski lives to tell the tale. Hot off an indefinite hiatus, alternative singer Mitski Miyawaki’s latest album, “Laurel Hell,” continues her candid lyricism based on years of personal loss. Since the 31-year-old artist’s debut album “Lush” in 2012, Mitski has proven to be the indie-rock darling of the decade. Mitski continually compresses the complex emotions and experiences of adulthood, identity, fraught relationships and making sense of life into
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sincere and savory three-minute numbers. On “Laurel Hell,” she continues to attempt making peace with her inner struggles, youth and the world around her — all with a fresh indie-pop flair informed by her tumultuous relationship with her own artistry. We are first invited into her melancholy reverie with the album’s opening line in “Valentine, Texas.” Mitski sings “Let’s step carefully into the dark / Once we’re in, I’ll remember my way around,” hinting at her familiarity with woeful emotions. This track features blistering and intense vocals, a quintessential Mitski motif, and a burst of energy as a sudden synth drop overpow-
ers the gloominess of her lyrics. This album opener sets a promising tone for the rest of the project — and suggests that maybe melancholy can still be danceable, and darkness is just an old friend. “Laurel Hell” marks a noticeable shift from Mistski’s earlier, grungier indie rock. The juxtaposition between poppy energy and moody lyrics carries through to pseudo-disco bangers on the album, such as “Love Me More,” in which Mitski’s raw plea for affection and emotional fulfillment are drenched in ritzy synthesizer tones. The balance between dark libretto and bright musical tones is less graceful for the
poppy “Should’ve Been Me,” where eloquent and intense lyrics like “I thought ‘Must be lonely loving someone’ / Tryna find their way out of a maze,” are drowned out by misplaced and unbefitting cheerful synth overtones. The album’s exploration of dark themes seems an exasperated love letter to her own celebrity, in itself an act of self-destruction. The most emotional moments on the record, like “Stay Soft,” spotlight the inevitable toughening one experiences with age. Mitski’s sound is weary — almost defeated — speaking truth to a hard-won battle with age, or, at the very least, an envoi to the invasive public life of a 30-something superstar. “Laurel Hell” closes out magnificently with “That’s Our Lamp,” a vignette of a tumultuous relationship with a bright orchestral flair. The album fades away as “That’s where you loved me” is repeated in the background, an optimistic lament of an empty room once filled with adoration. The final song is a poignant portrayal of lost love and the way it lingers, an embrace of the fact that some things are better left behind. Her pointed lyricism constructs a narrative imbued with a wide range of interpretation. The stunning disco-themed last hurrah is a commemoration of endings, however they may arise. The album feels uniquely mature and sophisticated in its self-aware lament over Mitski’s career as an artist. She centers her latest work in her apprehension to perform for the masses, her reckoning with her sense of purpose, creating art under capitalism, and the disconcerting wisdom of growing up. For Mitski, “Laurel Hell” is a farewell from it all: her relationships, her career and her youth. Her acute self-reflection allows all these meanings to be true at once, using her album to pay homage to the epilogue, and whatever uncertainty lies thereafter. It is an ode to darkness, a hesitant finale and most of all a reconciliation with Mitski’s own humanity. The dark is present and real, and as Mitski shows us, it is nothing to be afraid of.
THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2022
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“Moonfall” had the potential to be a huge success with its all-star cast and astronomically sized budget. However, the movie tried too hard to be insightful and failed to impress.
FILM
‘Moonfall’ Moonfails Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson
Logan Castellanos Hoya Staff Writer
If “Don’t Look Up” and “Interstellar” had an estranged child, “Moonfall” would struggle to even pass as its rip-off sibling. Starring Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson, “Moonfall” aimed to break the box office with big names and the allure of science fiction drama, but it utterly failed. With a budget of over 140 million dollars, audiences expected the next big intergalactic cult classic, yet the end product could not have been more disappointing. The opening scenes of the movie are generic and predictable, with a likable yet brooding male astronaut named Brian Harper (Wilson), flirting with his obviously attractive (and married) partner Jo (Berry), all while floating above a horribly digitized Earth. Almost instantly, the believability of the plot is thrown into question when an alien life form with
the appearance of a cloud attacks the ship, leaving the astronauts to abort their mission and return home. In typical space drama movie fashion, our favorite moody astronaut hero tries to get the American people to believe his story about the attack, and big shocker … NASA covers it up! Fast forward ten years, a fact the audience must infer as there is no indication of time passage, this sentient cloud begins causing problems in space. The first person to notice these problems is none other than a basement-dwelling conspiracy theorist archetype named K.C. Houseman (John Bradley). Houseman takes it upon himself to share this information with the has-been astronaut Brian, who now is a deadbeat divorced father struggling to raise his son. The first sign of the film’s poor writing appears when it reveals that all of the astronauts from the original mission had left their families upon returning to Earth. This odd story choice
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2022 | THEHOYA.COM
left room for many strange plot holes and awkward lines, including multiple instances where countless young children ask their parents questions like, “Was daddy losing his job?” or “Why did we lose the house?” simply to add emotional appeal to the plot. Moving away from the unnaturally written script, the plot has major issues regarding timing. Once viewers learn that the sentient cloud force is causing the moon to veer off orbit, not even ten minutes later, we see a landscape complete with a massive moon about to touch Earth’s surface. The three-week deadline given until this catastrophic event is compressed into about three days. Giant tidal waves start to destroy the continental United States, but obviously disasters can only affect California and New York, so expect to see an abundance of shots depicting dilapidated parts of the Chrysler building in random locations. In order to save the world, Brian and Jo team up with the conspiracy theorist to go to the moon and “kill” their mysterious cloud-esque enemy. They determine that this being is actually the result of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology going AWOL at the start of humanity, and thus they must complete their mission without the help of any technology that could be hacked by the rogue AI. At this point, it
seems as though “Moonfall” had the potential to be a social commentary, but the writers obviously went in a different direction: lunacy. Not only is the moon being attacked by this AI, but the moon itself is also revealed to be a hollow formation constructed by humanity’s apparent ancestral alien species. How this is relevant to the pressing issue of the moon’s collision with Earth is completely glossed over, leaving this movie with yet another plot hole the size of the moon. Though it is unclear whether “Moonfall” was intended to be comedic, the only way to get through all two hours of this film is to treat it as such. Even though watching movies with that one friend who cannot seem to stop talking is usually obnoxious, you would be wise to only watch this movie with someone who can provide such mind-numbing commentary. The space travel genre is already ubiquitous in the modern film scene, and feigning originality can only go so far when your plot is a mishmash of preexisting films. Unfortunately for director Roland Emmerich, the most memorable parts of his film were not the CGI action shots, but the egregiously overt Lexus ad placements throughout the entire movie. Unless your cup of tea is terrible movies trying too hard to be insightful, “Moonfall” is a definite skip.
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BOX OFFICE GLOBAL
“Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” Celebrates Womanhood Despite its humorous title “Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios,” which translates to “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” the 1988 film is a startlingly mindful depiction of the exasperation that women feel because of men’s deceit. The movie gives its female characters a sense of empowerment and agency that was unprecedented in 1980s Spain, making it a worthy case study in boundary-pushing Spanish film. Directed by Pedro Almodóvar, the film is absurdly funny, masterfully written and a beautiful display of Almodóvar’s surrealist style. The film’s protagonist is a whimsical voice actress named Pepa (Carmen Maura) who is suffering in the aftermath of a painful breakup with her charming and 20-yearsolder costar Iván (Fernando Guillén). Almodóvar directed the film during “La Movida Madrileña,” a period of Spanish cultural
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THE 8-BIT BIG BAND
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WHAT TO DO IN DC
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Alongside the cherry blossoms, string music is coming to the Washington, D.C. area March 25. The jazz orchestra group known as The 8-Bit Big Band will be performing a concert featuring tracks from “Super Mario,” “Zelda” and “Final Fantasy.” The band is providing a 15% discount to Georgetown students with code “8BITSTUDENT.” You can learn more at bit.ly/8BBB-concert.
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Almodóvar uses her sorrow and old age to invite the audience to sympathize with her. Furthemore, Almodóvar infuses his film with realism as its stars feel respectful and approachable, and never prescribe to unattainable beauty standards. When Pepa is shown without makeup, she is not seen as sick or unhinged; she is simply allowed to be a woman with depth, flaunting misogynistic and unrealistic standards women are often held to. The relatable nature of the characters also allows for exceptional humor that is sometimes loud but frequently subtle, and always Spanish in every sense. There exists an abrupt edge to Spanish humor that cannot be effectively translated into an American context, as traditional Spanish comedy centers around sexual innuendo and fatal danger. For the Spanish viewer, the numerous neardeath situations in this film are comically genius, and in an Americanized rom-com, these scenes would be quite uncomfortable. But the rough humor empowers the female characters because it conveys their deviation from the norm of quiet, submissive femininity of the previous Francoistic social structure. Adding to the rejection of Francoism is Almodóvar’s condensement of male characters into brainless and inconsiderate individuals.
By Marwa Katir
Iván’s son (Antonia Banderas) cheats on his fiance the moment she falls asleep. Candela’s lover owns up to being a terrorist and leaves her, so he can place a bomb in the airport. Iván abandons Pepa for a far younger woman. The exaggerated dishonor of the men throughout the film, who appear to embody Francoism, successfully convey that the film’s female hysteria is indeed justified. Although the title reads like a sexist trope and both the male and female characters still conform to certain misogynistic stereotypes, this film is director Almodóvar adroitly paying homage to the rise of the post-Franco Spanish feminist movement. With women taking charge of the storyline and openly refuting misogynistic sentiments, Almodóvar’s female characters provide a refreshing reprieve from other contemporary depictions of women in film. Above all, it is evident that Almodóvar captures the essence of Spanish filmmaking in “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” This film simply could not be made in Hollywood, have a protagonist played by Jennifer Aniston or be set in any other city besides Madrid. Florence Fernandez is a first-year in the College. Box Office Global appears in print and online every other week.
THIS ISSUE’S QUIZ
SMITHSONIAN’S ARTS AND INDUSTRIES BUILDING
900 Jefferson Drive SW
Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building, which had been closed for nearly two decades, has temporarily reopened until July 6 with the revelatory exhibition “FUTURES.” This exhibition looks into possible future inventions via 150 prototypes, ideas, objects and installations, while also celebrating the Smithsonian’s 175th anniversary.
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TOM SEGURA AT CONSTITUTION HALL
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Florence Fernandez
backlash following the repressive, 36-year dictatorship of Francisco Franco. A rebellion, the aesthetic of “La Movida Madrileña” revolved around vibrant colors, irreverent humor and female empowerment in Spanish society. “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” conveys all of that in a poetic and humorous way. The use of costume is central to Almodóvar’s depiction of “La Movida Madrileña” and the film’s execution of comedy. For instance, Pepa’s unhinged supermodel friend, Candela (María Barranco), falls off the roof of a penthouse and clings to the side of the building in a blue bodycon dress. In another scene, Iván’s ex-wife, Lucía (Julieta Serrano), follows him to the airport with a gun to murder him — and she does so while wearing a prim, powder-pink petticoat, dramatic 1980s eyelashes and a large bouffant hairstyle. Her appearance operates in laughable contrast to her actual deeds, as she shoots to kill off the back of a speeding motorcycle. As crazed as Lucía’s actions may be, Almodóvar frames her and every female character in the film as intelligent and compassionate, while instead pointing a finger at the men who have wronged them. Although Lucía chases her unfaithful ex with a gun, she never attacks the other woman.
1776 18th St. NW
If you are looking for some lighthearted comedy to brighten up a gloomy February day, comedian Tom Segura has two performances at Constitution Hall on February 27th! Segura’s low-key, deadpan explorations into everyday phenomena will be sure to change your perspective on daily life, while simultaneously entertaining you with relatable comedy. Tickets are on sale now!
Discover which romantic Bradley Cooper (COL ’97) movie you are in The Guide’s new quiz this week!
THEHOYA.COM | FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2022