The Reveille 7-24-23

“I still have PTSD”

How the shooting of Milton Scott impacted those involved

Read on page 2

LASTING IMPACT

50 years after fatal shooting: Milton Scott’s family, FBI agents speak

BY MYRACLE LEWIS, AMELIA GABOR & BIRDIE O’CONNELL | LSU MANSHIP SCHOOL NEWS SERVICE

Second of two stories. BATON ROUGE--Beverly

Shabazz did not have a job and was seven months pregnant with her second child when her husband, Milton X Scott, was shot and killed outside their home in 1973 by FBI agents attempting to arrest him.

“I was thinking I have these two kids to raise,” she said. “I don’t have any help from their father, and it was a while before I could adjust to the situation.”

Shabazz depended on Social Security benefits for their children and then went back to school so she could work as both a cosmetologist and an elementary school teacher. As they grew up, the children hardly saw her, and they missed the emotional support and stability that their father could have provided.

It was a loss compounded by the fact that the shooting arose from a case of mistaken identity. The FBI agents had thought Scott was an Army deserter, and the fatal battle outside his door would not have happened if they had known he had never been in the Army.

“The toughest day of my life happened before I was even born,” his son, Milton Scott Jr., said recently.

When he was little, Scott said, none of the other children believed him when he said that his father was killed by the FBI before he was born. The mockery so traumatized him that he kept quiet about it until George Floyd was murdered in police custody in 2020, intensifying concerns about Black men killed by law-enforcement officers and the impact on their families.

“I didn’t get to grow up with either parent because my mom always had two jobs, and she was in college,” Shabazz’s daughter, Andrea Grant, said.

Grant, now 52 and a college admissions coordinator, said she and her brother, a businessman in Atlanta, were largely raised by their grandparents.

“I regret that my father never got to meet his grandkids,” Grant said, and “the fact that he will never be able to see all that Milton and I have accomplished.”

Floyd’s death, along with the deaths of others like Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Alton Sterling and Daunte Wright, show how in the years since Scott’s death, officer-involved shootings have continued to haunt Black communities and rupture families.

While some of these cases resulted in discipline or convictions for officers, others–like Scott’s–ended in the officers’ ac-

tions being deemed justifiable. Experts say that regardless of the legal outcome, families have to deal with the agony of losing a loved one and often a loss of income, which can compound the pain.

According to Russell Jones, an emeritus professor at Southern University Law Center, these incidents also escalate a distrust of law enforcement and induce resentment.

“The common thread within all of these incidents is that we don’t have that same right that the white society has to protect our homes,” Jones said.

Former FBI agents Delbert Hahn and William Wood also struggled with the aftermath of Scott’s death.

They had been sent to arrest Scott, a Black Muslim, who charged the officers after they kicked in the front door of his home. During the struggle, Hahn shot Scott twice when he thought Scott had taken Wood’s gun only to learn afterward that Scott had picked up Hahn’s blackjack.

Wood recently said that Scott’s shooting caused him to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Twenty years after the shooting, Wood taught a PTSD class at the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia, and invited Hahn, believing he would benefit from it.

“It became personal for me,” Hahn said in an interview with the LSU Cold Case Project. He said the FBI “stuck me in a position where something awful happened, and they didn’t have to do that.”

Hahn said the workshop helped him because he and Wood had never had an indepth conversation with each other about the incident.

Multiple investigations

Hours after the shooting, the FBI realized that Scott’s identity had been stolen and found the thief, Calvin Wallace, in prison in California. Wallace had juggled at least five stolen aliases in committing various misdemeanors and felonies.

Wallace told the FBI that he had met Scott when Scott was on a trip to California in the early 1970s. Wallace pried into Scott’s background and learned his date of birth, the name of his parents and his Social Security number. Wallace was able to recite the number to agents, missing only one digit.

Wallace lived a transient life. When a childhood acquaintance, Robert King, saw him more than 20 years ago in San Diego, he said Wallace showed signs of heroin addiction. Wallace, then 82, died last October in a San Diego nursing home.

Black leaders demanded investigations into Scott’s death,

which came just eight months after an East Baton Rouge sheriff’s deputy had killed two Black students at Southern University.

Emmett Douglas, then the president of the Louisiana NAACP, questioned how two trained FBI agents could not subdue a man weighing less than 180 pounds without shooting him.

Neither of the agents was suspended as federal and state authorities looked into what happened.

J. Stanley Pottinger, then the assistant U.S. general attorney for civil rights, instructed the FBI to conduct a preliminary civil rights investigation.

FBI documents say that the bureau did not request an interview with Shabazz shortly after the shooting because she had seemed hostile.

“Well, I was upset because of the way they treated him. I wanted to tell my story, but I never got the chance to,” Shabazz said recently.

The FBI chose not to talk to many neighbors since the area, bureau documents said, was frequented by Nation of Islam members. Authorities feared that would worsen racial tensions and lead to more confrontations like one on North Boulevard 19 months earlier that led to the death of two police officers and two Black men.

A city sanitation worker gave the FBI a signed statement saying he saw a Black man pushing two white men off the porch of Scott’s house before a car blocked his vision of the fight. Seconds later he heard two shots fired.

Two other sanitation workers and one of Scott’s neighbors

only noticed what was happening after the shots rang out, and bureau investigators determined that the agents had shot Scott in self-defense.

On Nov. 19, 1973, an East Baton Rouge Parish grand jury also chose not to bring charges against the agents.

One of the jurors, Baton Rouge native George Kilcrease, still believes the agents acted in good faith.

“In hindsight, maybe they could have approached it a little differently,” he said, but “all the facts of the case led the jury to conclude that they acted reasonably. If Mr. Scott would’ve been white or Black, I don’t think that played into the FBI’s actions of that day.”

Shabazz’s legal struggles

Shabazz also sought redress in a civil case.

In May 1974, she hired Baton Rouge attorney Walter Dumas, who filed a $1 million lawsuit against the FBI under the Federal Tort Claims Act, claiming that Scott’s death was a “direct and proximate result of the negligence, carelessness, and unlawful conduct.”

Dumas did not respond to a request for comment. Shabazz also hired other lawyers, but the case was eventually dismissed by U.S. District Judge Gordon West, who noted that her complaints continually gave the impression that the FBI agents shot and killed the wrong man.

“This is not so,” he wrote. “They shot and killed the man they intended to shoot and kill. They did not shoot the man because he was a deserter from the Army but because he physically attacked and attempted to

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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE SCOTT FAMILY

Milton Scott poses at his parents’ home in Baton Rouge, where he was born and reared.

How Louisianians are managing this summer’s record heat

BY JOHN BUZBEE & COLIN FALCON @thebuzzbuz & @nestingnests

Last month was the hottest June on record for many regions of Louisiana and for nurse and resident Tricia O’Neill, this was reflected in an inflated electricity bill caused by an overworked air conditioning unit.

“They need to stop saying it’s 92 degrees and it feels like 100-and-something. It’s a 100-and-something degrees,” O’Neill said, slightly sarcastically.

She’s like many of the state’s residents and visitors vainly trying to stay cool this summer.

Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette have each witnessed heat indexes peaking above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the past week, according to a New York Times tracker.

Professor of geography and hurricane climatologist Jill Trepanier said these high temperatures are caused by high pressure lingering in certain regions that sink toward the ground and a lack of cloud cover causing these regions to bake.

The wildfires in Canada and the creeping effects of climate change have also contributed to recent temperatures’ climb, Trepanier said.

Hannah Lisney, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s New Orleans station, said the worst of the heat has moved to the nation’s Southwest and now hovers over Las Vegas and Phoenix.

But that’s definitely not to

say that the heat Louisiana is experiencing isn’t serious.

“We have had heat advisories out nearly every day.” Lisney said. “It’s definitely dangerous conditions, especially for the more vulnerable.”

These advisories are typical for summertime in the South though, Lisney said. The weather in June was something of an anomaly but that’s more or less passed.

Both Trepanier and Lisney warned of the heat’s sneaky danger.

“People don’t realize they

are experiencing symptoms of heat exhaustion or dehydration until it’s late enough that they land in the hospital, “ Trepanier said. “One of the other major concerns is that it does not cool off enough at night for people to bring body temperatures down.”

Prolonged exposure to high temperatures can cause internal organ damage, she said, especially for those without access to air conditioning.

Trepanier has two children; she said they’re always in the neighborhood pool, playing in the sprinklers or doing inside

activities (she said they’ve recently spent less time in the pool since it feels more like a warm bathtub).

Her husband is a landscaper, therefore someone who’s always working in the heat. To combat it, she said, he uses wet rags and a neck fan to cool off. The goal is to promote evaporation, which Trepanier said was essential for cooling off.

Stuart Tully, an American history professor at Nicholls prefers not to confront the 100-degreedays head on. He listed “only going outside at 8 o’clock at

night” as an effective strategy for beating the heat.

Tully is a Louisiana native, so he doesn’t have to pick his jaw up off the floor when a summer day hits triple digit temperatures. He said a hot summer is to be expected, but this one feels unique in how close to unbearable it’s tiptoeing. Some things that’d usually be a pleasant footnote of his daily itinerary turn into a slog of sweat and exhaustion, he said.

“I usually enjoy walking our dog. Not in the summer,” said Tully.

Native Kentuckian James Million is visiting Louisiana for the first time in a few years. The Louisiana heat wasn’t a surprise, he said, but it certainly is worse than the weather there which usually doesn’t exceed 90 degrees.

He emphasized sunscreen, wearing sunglasses and even sporting an umbrella.

“I actually burnt my head yesterday,” Million said.

Others have come to terms with the heat. Henry O’Neill believes the simplest methods for fighting the brutal weather to be the most effective. Another native Louisianan who works in the state’s tourism, he said he’s lived through high humidity and high temperatures his whole life and has learned to truck through them. His advice to any summer amateur was to not push it, stay in the shade when you can and listen to your body.

“You learn to drink a lot of water. Anybody with common sense would,” he said.

Students, advisers provide advice for getting summer jobs

BY COLIN FALCON @nestingnests

A summer internship can be a valuable tool for college students to gain real-world experience in their desired fields and put summer downtime to good use, but the complications of how and when to apply can seem intimidating.

Blake Winchell, the associate director for student services at the Olinde Career Center, said the process is not nearly as difficult as many students think. Every career field is different in what they expect out of a potential intern and when they expect it, but Winchell said there are some things that are helpful no matter what, such as thinking ahead.

“We want to be aware of what’s going on around us. So a little bit of pre-planning and not just thinking, ‘Hey, school’s over in May; I’ll start looking for a summer job in May, like I’ve done before,’” said Winchell. “Being aware of what the timeline is for your industry in your

field is important.”

Winchell said forethought is more important to securing an internship than other, more mundane summer jobs such as lifeguarding or manning the register at a grocery store. Rather than hiring to fill a vacancy, companies often plan out how many interns they’ll take on in a summer well in advance, he said, meaning they start the hiring process much sooner.

Within that broad-strokes piece of advice, Winchell stressed the amount of variety between different job fields. He said things like engineering, finance and accounting jobs often get arranged in the early fall semester, but students in the humanities typically lock down summer internships in the early spring.

Starting early was also the biggest piece of advice that rising civil engineering junior Jacob Hartley could offer. Hartley began interning for the Forte & Tablata engineering firm after his freshman year of college and is now spending his second

college summer with them. He encouraged any curious freshman to break away from the mindset that internships are only for the back half of a college career.

“With my job, we look for freshmen and sophomores to train. They would prefer you be younger in engineering, because you’ll have like the next four years with them,” he said. Hartley thinks an added benefit of getting on the interning horse early is the ability to see how working a specific job makes you feel. As an incoming freshman, he was unsure if civil engineering was the right career path for him. He said his two summers working with engineers cleared that cloud of confusion and assured him of his choice.

To secure his spot at the firm, Hartley said he emailed the human resources representatives of each company he had an eye on with an inquiry about available positions and an attached resume. He said he prefers reaching out directly over

job-finder websites like Handshake or LinkedIn because it shows more initiative.

“It shows you took the time to seek out their hiring process,” Hartley said.

Lailah Williams, a rising junior majoring in political science and international studies, also applied for her internship

MATTHEW PERSCHALL / The Reveille

An ice cream cone melts in the summer heat on July 14 in Baton Rouge, La.

FRANCIS DINH / The Reveille

LSU Olinde Career Center sits Aug. 18 on the first floor of the LSU Student Union.

see INTERNSHIP, page 4

INTERNSHIP, from page 3

directly through a company website. She works for Grassroots Analytics, a political tech company based in Washington D.C. She said she first encountered the company while working as a finance manager for a house representative campaign.

As a mobile fundraising intern, Williams works to create the political texts that are sent out en masse by various campaigns. She said while the job doesn’t line up perfectly with what she wants out of a career, the connections that come from it are more than worth it.

“Working in politics, es -

SCOTT, from page 2

destroy the two FBI agents.”

Justice Department officials spoke with Scott’s family in 2020 after Congress encouraged the department to investigate a wider range of cold cases from the civil rights era. But the case was closed again in September 2021.

With the grand jury’s decision not to indict, the failure of Shabazz’s lawsuits in civil court and the FBI’s decision to close its new investigation, the family finds memories of Scott and the opportunity to tell his story as the best way to honor him

pecially in Washington, is all about who you know, who you’ve come in contact with and who you stay in touch with,” Williams said. “Being able to meet people who have very close connections to folks in Washington as well as outside of Washington, people who are trying to get into the political space has been such a good experience.”

For rising screen printing junior Mason Wulff, personal connections led directly to a summer apprenticeship under master printer Frances Swigart. Wulff said his parents and Swigart have the same accountant, who put the two parties in

today.

Shabazz later remarried and still lives in Baton Rouge. Now 75, she said Scott had made her “proud to be Black” and “proud to be a Black woman. I was proud of my Black husband.”

‘I’m sorry for her and her family’

On the day of Scott’s death, FBI agents Hahn and Wood were treated at the hospital for minor injuries. When Hahn returned home, he did not tell his wife anything.

“I remember I had blood on the suit, mostly mine,” he said. “I took it off and stuffed it under the bed. It was there for a

touch after the Wulff’s told him about their artist son.

As Swigart’s apprentice, Wulff has access to her studio space and knowledge; he said both are invaluable. He said he works in the studio every weekday and expects many of the skills and techniques he’s honing this summer to be beneficial to his college career.

“I’m also a lot more confident with copper and intaglio now. I think in advanced printmaking, which I’m taking next semester, that’s like, the entirety of the course. It’s only etching,” said Wulff. “I feel very prepared.”

Internships don’t always have to be about specializing

year.”

Retired FBI agent Theodore “Ted” Jackson, a Black agent who had investigated the shooting at Southern University months before the Scott shooting, said it is important for law-enforcement officers to talk things out after troubling events, especially a fatal shooting.

They never know what the day will bring, but “they all want to go home to their families” after work, Jackson said.

Hahn, now 89, said he believes the bureau should have performed a thorough background check before assigning

and perfecting a single craft; they can also be a chance to diversify your skillset and branch out. Rising mass communication junior Christin Ransom said the wide variety of responsibilities attached to her marketing internship for the Keogh Cox law firm has kept the job interesting while teaching her lots of new skills.

“And it’s also just kind of showing me that there are a lot of different roles within the internship. Not only am I doing promo gifts for clients, but I also might be planning an event for the firm,” Ransom said. “It’s a lot of responsibilities, but it’s also fun because I get to mul-

the deserter case to him. In fact, the FBI, which had earlier quit checking fingerprints of deserters, quickly returned to that practice after Scott was killed.

Hahn said that the force used on Scott was justified. But he does wish there had been more time for negotiation.

In a recent interview, Wood, Hahn’s partner that day, said: “I still have PTSD from a number of incidents. This is one of the main ones.”

Hahn still lives in Baton Rouge. But he said he is not interested in a sit-down or attempt at reconciliation with the Scott family since it would not

titask, and every day is different.”

Ransom said she learned about the internship through an ad on her sorority’s Facebook page and sent an application directly to the firm shortly after. She said she initially applied to be a document manager for the firm but was offered a marketing position after she told her interviewer that she was in school for communications. Ransom said being able to switch gears and go a different route is a skill she’ll value throughout the rest of her career.

“What you’re going to end up doing probably isn’t what you expect,” Ransom said.

change what happened. He also doubts that it would bring Shabazz peace.

“I wasn’t happy that Milton Leon Scott was dead,” Hahn said. “I’m sorry for her and her family. I understand they probably don’t like me. That doesn’t bother me; I don’t expect them to. I’d feel the same way if somebody shot my husband or my father.”

This story was written by Myracle Lewis and reported by Lewis, Amelia Gabor, Birdie O’Connell, McKinley Cobb, Brooke Couvillon, Hannah Rehm and MacKenzie Wallace.

SPORTS & OPINION

Column: Jayden Daniels’ 2022 season was one of LSU’s best

BY WILL NICKEL @WilNickel

Jayden Daniels is one of the most hyped players in the country heading into the 2023 season. He has the second-best odds to win the Heisman, behind only USC’s Caleb Williams, and is at the top of many SEC quarterback rankings.

Whether or not the Heisman hype is deserved remains to be seen, but he might have already established himself as the best LSU quarterback not named Joe Burrow with his 2022 season.

LSU is not known for having great quarterback play. For a large chunk of the team’s history, simply not throwing interceptions and handing the ball off to your star running back while completing a handful of passes each game would put you in the conversation as LSU’s best quarterback in years.

Then, of course, Burrow’s 2019 season happened and the standard for an LSU quarterback was changed forever. The LSU record book for passing is just a list of Burrow’s stats and accomplishments.

Daniels is likely a long way away from passing any of those records and expecting a Burrowtype leap from year one to year two is ridiculous, but he doesn’t need one to be one of LSU’s best quarterbacks ever.

Daniels’ 2,913 passing yards is the fifth most in a single season in school history. If you factor in his rushing yards, Daniels accounted for the second most yardage in

LSU’s history. His 3,798 yards are over 400 more than the second closest season (Rohan Davey’s 2001 season saw him accumulate 3,351 yards).

He currently has the LSU career record for completion percentage. Daniels completed 68.6% of his passes, the third best single season mark in school history. If you look at career completion percentage numbers instead of single season, Daniels edges out Burrow’s career record of 68.5%. Of course, Burrow had two seasons compared to Daniels’ one.

Daniels had 28 total touchdowns last season. That’s good for the fourth most in LSU history and only one behind the non-Burrow record of 29 set by Matt Mauck in 2003. Daniels is also the only LSU player not named Burrow to have six touchdowns in one game (Burrow has five games with over six touchdowns, including the CFP semifinal and National championship games. Every Burrow stat is absurd).

That game came against one of LSU’s biggest rivals, Florida. Daniels is also one of only 10 play-

ers in school history to have a five-touchdown game. Those five touchdowns came in LSU’s upset of No. 7 Ole Miss.

Daniels put up that production all while throwing just three interceptions the entire season. Daniels was also LSU’s leading rusher during the 2022 season and set the single season record for most rushing yards by an LSU quarterback.

He also led LSU to an SEC West title, ten wins and a bowl victory. There aren’t many single seasons by quarterbacks in LSU’s history

that can match up with Daniels’ 2022 season.

Mauk led the 2003 Tigers to a national championship and had one more touchdown, but he had over 1,000 fewer yards and 11 more interceptions. He also had the No. 1 defense in the nation in points per game and a 1,000-yard rusher in his backfield to help him.

Matt Flynn also led LSU to a national championship in 2007, but he had 1,000 fewer yards, three fewer touchdowns, eight more interceptions and a completion percentage that was over 10 points lower.

Jamarcus Russell’s 2006 season saw him have one more touchdown than Daniels and a slightly better completion percentage with a Sugar Bowl victory. Russell had five more interceptions and had over 800 fewer yards than Daniels. He also had the fourth best defense in the country compared to Daniels who had the 34th best defense in country. He also did not make the SEC championship despite leading LSU to the Sugar Bowl.

Finally, Burrow had 496 fewer yards, five fewer touchdowns, a completion percentage over 10 points lower and two more interceptions in his first season at LSU.

Daniels’ 2022 season stands toe-to-toe with any other season in LSU’s modern history. If he improves in his second season, he is almost guaranteed to be LSU’s second-best quarterback ever. LSU fans might not realize it, but Daniels is already an LSU legend.

Opinion: LSU has enough parking already, use the bus instead

BY MATTHEW PERSCHALL @MatthewPerscha1

The title of this piece tells you everything you need to know: LSU has enough parking.

At any one time approximately 40,000 people could potentially be on LSU’s campus. Of those 40,000 around, 37,000 are students, around 2,000 are faculty and staff and that leaves some room for visitors.

No, there are not 40,000 parking spaces on campus. Campus has approximately 23,500 spaces, according to LSU Parking and Transporation’s website.

Not every student and staff member utilizes a car to reach campus. Not everyone needs to be on campus everyday. These facts could shave off thousands from the 40,000 person figure. The 40,000 could be too high for a typical day at LSU anyway.

I think why many complain, though, about the need for more campus parking comes from the fact that you can’t park as close as you’d like to where you need to go. Even Parking and Transportation’s website says exactly that. “The problem is that we are so large that we cannot get [the

parking spaces] as close as everyone wants them to be,” the website reads.

Central campus where many students go to class, study and eat is closed to through traffic during the day and has limited spaces for faculty and staff. Would you even want a constant flow of traffic going around the Quad buildings?

Parking and Transportation’s solution to the problem of parking comes in several forms. A large parking lot sits just across the street from Patrick F. Taylor Hall. Parking at the UREC is also open to all. These parking lots are about a 15 minute walk from many destinations on campus.

The expansive lot near Tiger Park has a Park & Geaux bus stop for the slightly longer walk to central campus. The Park & Geaux permit is also cheaper than a commuter permit at $50 dollars compared to $182 for the full year.

Tiger Trails buses have routes to many of the popular apartment complexes that LSU students live in. Taking the bus reduces the need for parking spaces on campus, and can save you from driving around a parking lot for 10 minutes looking for a space.

Additionally, a number of apartments are within walking distance of campus further reducing the number of people who truly need to drive to campus.

Another solution could be prohibiting freshmen from bringing cars to campus.

These cars often sit in the residential lots for much of the week until students use them to go somewhere on the weekend.

Banning freshmen from having cars on campus would mainly reduce the need for residential parking. Thus, rezoning sections of some parking lots could have a bigger effect as several residential lots are in desirable locations compared to the commuter lots.

LSU Parking and Transportation has a “Parking Availability” page on its website which displays the typical fullness of campus parking lots for each weekday at various times throughout the day. For instance, the South Stadium East lot for commuters is usually 96% full at 11 a.m. However, at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays the Bernie Moore lot is only at 14% capacity. Based on those figures commuters are not fully utilizing the available parking.

On the residential side, the

Canal Hall lot on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. is 93% full. However, the Aster Street West lot is only 19% full at the same time. Additionally, the fifth level of the Nicholson Gateway garage doesn’t exceed 5% full at all on Tuesdays, according to the Parking and Transportation chart.

So, LSU does have enough

parking. Commuters aren’t fully utilizing the available spots and residents typically let their cars just sit on campus. If LSU wants to appease some complaints, it could rezone some areas to allow for a larger number of commuters. The best solution, though, would be to ditch your car, if possible, and walk or take the bus.

REAGAN COTTEN/ The Reveille

LSU football junior quarterback Jayden Daniels (5) strides down the field on Nov. 5 during LSU’s 32-31 victory over Alabama in Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.

MATTHEW PERSCHALL / The Reveille Buses sit in the Park & Geaux lot awaiting passengers on July 17 on Skip Bertman Drive in Baton Rouge, La.

ENTERTAINMENT

Rev Rank: Greta Gerwig brings the classic Mattel doll to life

BY SAM SEDILO @samsedilo

Greta Gerwig brings new life to the classic Mattel doll as the Barbie dreamhouse is finally brought to life on the big screen.

The “perfect” doll that has been an icon to kids growing up finds new obstacles in the real world that bring questions to the always high-spirited doll. The setup of “Barbie” from Margot Robbie coming dressed as the first Barbie to be released to Helen Mirren narrating brings excitement for what’s to come.

Gerwig brings Barbie Land to life in a way that feels so magical. From set designs of the Barbie dream houses to costumes of some past dolls, the world that many children imagined as kids felt brought to real life giving nostalgia to the dolls we all know and love.

The attention to detail that is brought to the whole movie is immaculate. Seeing how Margot Robbie walks out of her heels, with her heels off the ground, just

like the dolls, gives her the classic Barbie look. Gerwig digs into every inner child’s mind coming up with the set design of Barbieland. The oversized hairbrush, stickers to mimic food in the fridge and how Barbie floats into her car because when we play with dolls we just move them wherever so she never walks to her car. It all made me feel like a kid again.

Also, a nod to how they decided to roll the credits with all the actors in Barbie Land credited as Barbie or Ken with “Barbie World” by Nicki Minaj featuring Ice Spice and Aqua playing.

Robbie was a perfect casting of the stereotypical Barbie. Robbie stuns as a real life doll from her beautifully, always puts together blonde locks and outfit to match any occasion.

With every Barbie there is Ken and Ryan Gosling brought all the “Ken-ergy” to the big screen. Gosling puts out all the stops with choreographed dance and singing numbers. Gosling proved to be worthy of bringing Ken to life in the most electric way possible.

An already star-studded lineup of actors and artists bring life to Barbieland, but America Fer-

rera was truly a standout and may or may not have made me a little emotional in the theater.

The powerful statement on the double standards that women are faced with everyday can speak to all women of different ages. It was something that many women can say they have experienced once in their life and seeing this new world come to Barbie hit deeper than I could have imagined.

Ferrera’s character says, “We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they’ve come,” the immense emotion that took over hearing her speak left me speechless. She speaks so much truth that many women are afraid to say and finds words for generations to relate and feel connected to.

Barbie’s navigation in the real world quickly turns to gray as the reality of how women are not in control when it comes to business workers, construction and government seats. Gerwig brings a powerful feminist forward message throughout the movie. A reflective narrative that speaks to women of all ages done beautifully in a way that I think most

audiences did not expect.

This movie is a powerful statement for women to experience. It’s a reflection of what they face in the world. When Barbie and Ken reach the real world, she is immediately met with stares and demeaning comments. Men in the real world seeing her as just an object when she had gone her whole life thinking that they are powerful figures. It really showed how hard life is for women.

Gerwig truly made a one of a kind movie with “Barbie.” The direction she decided to take in the story of Barbie and bringing the world that she has known to the real world problems was eye opening in the most heart-breaking, yet thought provoking way possible.

“Barbie” is not only going to go down as one of the biggest openings for a movie directed by a female, but as one of the biggest movies of the year. The bigger meaning of “Barbie” makes it all the more needed to be talked about and the genius mind that Gerwig put into this movie puts a totally new perspective on Barbie.

Rev Rank: ‘Oppenheimer’ is the best movie of the year

BY WILL NICKEL @wilnickel

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is the best movie of the year and maybe the best of his career.

“Oppenheimer” tells the story of “the father of the atomic bomb,” played by an intense Cillian Murphy, over the course of three hours. Despite the enormous run-time, as well as the enormous weight of the subject matter, the film moves along at a break-neck pace.

The long runtime might turn some people off, but it’s not a slow crawl like some might expect. It’s a whirlwind of events and characters that are all densely packed together, and Nolan throws the audience directly into the fire.

The film features black and white scenes as well as scenes in color, and different timelines.

Those in the past (yes, I know the entire film is technically in the past) and those in the present are all intertwined. But un-

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like most movies, the black and white doesn’t represent the different times the movie takes place, but the different perspectives of the film.

Black and white scenes are told from the perspective of Lewis Strauss, played by an almost unrecognizable Robert Downey Jr., the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, as he tries to be appointed to a position in the president’s cabinet.

Scenes shot in color are from the perspective of Oppenheimer, with Nolan reportedly going as far as to write the screenplay in first person when he wrote Oppenheimer’s scenes. Oppenheimer’s scenes hop between him in a hearing, a witch hunt orchestrated by Strauss meant to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance and political influence, and his life leading up to and during the Trinity test.

Oppenheimer’s story starts with him as a young physicist in Europe haunted by visions of “another world.” After getting his Ph. D. in physics, he

heads back to the United States in hopes of bringing theoretical physics to America.

At Berkley, he meets Ernest Lawrence, played by Josh Hartnett, who teaches him the importance of practical applications to his theoretical science.

He also meets Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh, a communist party member who he has an off and on relationship with. He also meets his future wife, Katherine Puening, played by Emily Blunt.

His ties to the communist party are a common theme throughout the movie though he never actually joins. His brother, friends and romantic partners are all either members or former members.

At Berkley he is approached by General Leslie Groves, played by a fantastic Matt Damon, who recruits him as the head of the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer assembles his team of scientists and builds a town in Los Alamos, New Mexico for them to do their research at.

The film carries an intense weight throughout, and you

can’t help but feel a pit in your stomach as the group of scientists progresses towards their goal. Early on during the project, the scientists discuss the possibility of the bomb triggering a chain reaction that ignites the earth’s atmosphere and ends the world. While this doesn’t literally come to fruition, with Oppenheimer reassuring Groves that the odds of it are “near zero,” the idea that nuclear war will eventually destroy the world just might, and it haunts Oppenheimer.

The celebration after the bomb is eventually built and successfully tested is haunting, for the audience and Oppenheimer. The film doesn’t show footage of the bombs being used on Japan, or even touch on what their impact is too much, but it doesn’t have to. Oppenheimer knows he has ended the world, at least the pre-nuclear world.

Oppenheimer spends the next few years fighting the development of a hydrogen bomb and further nuclear development, perhaps hypocritically.

He is accused of egotism and making the bomb about him. It makes sense for him to be haunted by the impacts of his creation, but that doesn’t mean he should garner any pity.

It echoes a point earlier in the film, after he learns that the woman he was having an affair with, Tatlock, dies. His wife finds him crying in the woods, but she doesn’t coddle him. She chastises him for thinking he can earn sympathy for his sins, simply because he is mourning. His pain doesn’t minimize what he has done to others.

Nolan expertly crafts a story of egotism, hubris and humanity and interweaves it with a story of the end of the world. Despite its long runtime, “Oppenheimer” flies forward at a horribly quick pace. It drags a little at the end, and Nolan perhaps indulges in Oppenheimer’s hubris a little too much (the film is called “Oppenheimer” after all), but it’s as entertaining and heartbreaking as they come. You can’t help but feel the enormity of the movie throughout, but it more than justifies its scale.

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“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Julius Robert Oppenheimer American

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