MIR ROR 1.25.2017
Comic relief: Cartoons from the past reflect Dartmouth today | 4-5
Battle of the funnies with Dog Day and Casual Thursday | 3
Finding humor in a sometimes-unfunny world | 7 ISABELLA JACOBY/THE DARTMOUTH
2 //MIRR OR
Editors’ Note
Drunk Shakespeare (despite “budget cuts”) COLUMN
This issue’s theme is humor, so we’ll try to get you warmed up with a few of Lucy’s best jokes: What do you call the grass in front of the President’s house? Phil Han-lawn. What does DDS say when you ask how to contact them? Collis. How do studio art majors turn in their work? They put it on Canvas. How do you know if someone did Hiking 4 for Trips? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. What would you call a KAF workers’ advocacy group? Baker Lobby. What do you call an awkward encounter with a former fling? An ex-hour. Why didn’t the frat need any lamps? Because they had so much Keystone Light. Now that those are over with (thank godness, right?), we’re excited to introduce the rest of the Humor Issue. The next few pages contain everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the world of humor, from Dr. Seuss’ GPA to the concept of “Drunk Shakespeare.” The former is surprisingly low; the latter is as fun as it sounds, according to Clara. For many of us, week four has been hard. The inauguration happened; midterms arrived way too soon; KAF unexpectedly closed early last night. In difficult times, humor can help us get through the day. So if the above jokes somehow didn’t make you laugh enough, read on.
follow @thedmirror 1.25.17 VOL. CLXXIV NO. 15 MIRROR EDITORS MICHAELA LEDOUX ALEXANDRA PATTILLO LUCY TANTUM EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RAY LU
PUBLISHER RACHEL DECHIARA
EXECUTIVE EDITOR ERIN LEE
By Clara Guo
How many of Shakespeare’s works have you read? Definitely “Romeo and Juliet.” Probably “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Twelfth Night.” Maybe you read Shakespeare for fun — because you fell in love with his imagination and made-up words that have now become commonplace. Most likely, you read Shakespeare because you had to read Shakespeare. Maybe you, like me, used SparkNotes to discern the meaning, with Shakespeare’s original words on the left and the modern translations on the right. Or maybe you just read the summaries on SparkNotes until you realized that your teachers inserted direct quotes into exams and asked you who said what. (Yep — that was also me). I’ve never been a huge fan of reading Shakespeare. I’m actually quite terrible at understanding, let alone analyzing, works written before 1990. I much prefer the crime and thriller genre — easy to critique, fun to reread. That being said, recently, I’ve been trying to branch out and read more literary fiction (Fun fact: it took me three months to finish the Man Booker-shortlisted novel “A Little Life,” because it was so heartbreaking that I could only read 50 pages or so before bursting into tears). Anyway, thanks in part to my underdeveloped Shakespearian analytical skills, I’ve only read three or four of his plays. So when I first heard of “Drunk Shakespeare,” I was: (1) excited for an opportunity to expand my quite limited knowledge of Shakespeare, (2) skeptical of the actual drunken level of the actors and (3) curious as to how the creators and writers of the show would pare down the complexity of Shakespeare into a one-hour plot that maintained the integrity of the original work. I quickly concluded that the only way to satisfy my curiosity and answer my questions was to attend what is famously dubbed “Sh*t-faced Shakespeare.” Over junior summer, my roommate and I took an Uber to Laugh Boston in the Seaport District and found ourselves sitting in a corner, stage right. We each ordered a beer — after all, if an actor was going to be drinking, then we should most definitely join in on the fun. The host wore a top hat, a black vest with nothing underneath and black slacks. He handed two audience members a mini gong and a horn, which could be used once anytime in the middle of the show to pause the acting and force the one drunk actor to chug. The play of the night was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which, unsurprisingly, I had not (and still have not) read. There were five characters: Hermia,
Lysander, Helena, Demetrius and Puck (plus an invisible sixth who “unfortunately could not be there because of budget cuts”). That night, Lysander was the inebriated cast member. The play was, simply put, hilarious. Lysander was drunk before the show even began. At one point, he walked onstage with a plastic bag half full of tortilla chips and defended himself, weaponless, against Demetrius wielding a large foam sword. There was yelling and running and even more stumbling. Half of the fight was fought on the ground, littered with crushed chips and spilled beer. Puck was by far my favorite. One hundred percent sober, he skillfully combined fine articulation during familiar monologues with sexual confidence displayed by dry-humping “sleeping” actors as well as willing audience members. His humor stemmed from a dichotomy of trained sophistication and crude absurdity. My roommate and I laughed nonstop until our stomachs hurt and our mouths were permanently glued into smiles. The play ended much too soon. A few weeks later, my sister Emma visited me in Boston. I took her to the same “Sh*t-faced Shakespeare” event with different actors and actresses performing the same play. This time, Demetrius was drunk. I wonder what Shakespeare would have said if someone had told him, “In a few hundred years, your plays are going to be simplified, an actor is going to be ridiculously drunk and your well-crafted subtlety will fly out the window.” I imagine he wouldn’t be terribly offended. The definition of comedy changes depending on context — and it just so happens that Drunk Shakespeare is one manifestation of what current society deems humorous. I wonder, too, if I will ever read more Shakespeare. Perhaps in a few years (or, most likely, a few decades), I’ll find a copy of a famous play online. Maybe I’ll lie down in bed and slowly pick my way through words I don’t know and references I don’t understand. Likely I’ll instead choose a novel categorized as literary fiction. I realize now that my concern about maintaining the integrity of Shakespeare’s original play was misplaced. The goal of Drunk Shakespeare was not to accurately depict “Midsummer Night’s Dream” or instill in its audience an appreciation of the classics; rather, the goal was comedic escape, allowing the actors to press pause on our realities. So, to conclude: (1) I learned nothing new about Shakespearian works; (2) the actor was convincingly hammered; and (3) humor-driven escape trumped historical accuracy.
’19 Guy #1: "This guy from high school wrote his college essay about Perry the Platypus." ’19 Guy #2: "Yeah, but he got in to UChicago, so it must have been pretty good." CS Professor: “Try mango juice and don’t tell me you don’t like it because mango juice is great. You might disagree with me on algorithms but you can’t disagree with me on mango juice.” ’17: “I need to decide — do I value free food or my dignity?”
MIRROR //3
Battle of the funnies with Dog Day Players and Casual Thursday STORY
By Ali Hagan
While you may have seen Dartmouth’s two improv groups, Dog Day Players or Casual Thursday, perform at a fraternity or campus event, you have not seen them like this before. With constant laughs in between, Dog Day members Walker Schneider ’19, Andres Smith ’17 and Brooke Bazarian ’20 sat down with Casual Thursday members Lily Eisner ’18 and Simon Ellis ’20 to discuss the differences between the groups and their shared love of improv. What is the history of your groups? How old are they? WS: Older than you. AS: We were a group called Said and Done for a while and then I think we became Dog Day like the late 90s? WS: I thought ’94. That could be arbitrary. AS: I mean I’m not 100 percent sure but pretty old. LE: I think that Casual Thursday was created in 2001 and it’s called Casual Thursday because that’s the name they all hated the least. As the story goes, so there you go. Why is Dog Day called Dog Day? WS: Because every dog has its day. AS: Is that why? BB: That is the phrase that it’s based on. AS: Well, it’s the Dog Day Players. WS: [interjects] So it turns out everyone in comedy on campus has severe ADD. LE: I don’t think that was a mystery. I think we all knew that — that’s not breaking news. That’s something we talk about in Casual Thursday a lot — what made you funny. AS: Trauma… LE: Like what happened to you in your life that made you funny. Like one friend was really fat as a kid. And no one would think he was cool unless he was funny. How would you describe your group in a few words? LE: Um, white, cis, male. WS: Surprisingly Cuban. LE: Oh we used to be 50 percent Jewish. SE: Realistically, we are short form improv. Why did you decide to join your group and why did you decide to pick that one over the other? WS: I was walking back from lacrosse team tryouts, thinking I wasn’t going to make it. And then I just happened to go on the path to my dorm and it was right past Carson Hall where a ’16 was standing outside of the sign that said “Dog Day Auditions, come inside!” I said, “Hey, am I too late?” — he goes, “No, come on in!” And then I came on in, and the rest is history. AS: So I had never done any kind of performance before and my roommate, whose older brother was in the group as well, convinced me to go to the improv workshop with him. I just had a ton of fun and really hit it off with a lot of the people in both groups. As far as the choosing thing went, I originally had chosen Casual Thursday on my audition sheet, but then I went to both auditions and I did a lot better at the Dog Day one. So the last second I switched it because I had a better chance of getting into that one. LE: I had a similar experience to Andres where I went to the workshop in the beginning and there
was a ’15 named Deby [Guzman-Buchness], literally my idol. She was the president of Casual Thursday my freshman year. She was just like a really strong, smart, cool, talented woman. And that’s a person I really looked up to. And so I think Casual Thursday was an easy choice for me just because I had that person as my role model. I think it’s been a really supportive and good place for me, as a woman I on campus. SE: I saw Lily in a performance last spring term when I came to visit and I was like “Damn her — I need to be better than her.” Okay no actually, my friend wanted to audition for both groups and she ended up doing that this year and not getting into either one. And then one day she was like, “The first one didn’t go well,” when she auditioned for Dog Day, and then she was like, “Well why don’t you come with me to the next one?” and I was like, “Okay!” Then I went and I guess it went well and I was like, “I could see myself doing this.” What is your group’s biggest weakness? SE and LE: Diversity. LE: On a really serious note, I’m basically the only woman this term and everybody else is a white male. Problematic. AS: It’s definitely an issue. It’s very tough too because in the audition pool, it’s, “Who are the kids that did improv in high school?” Like, the white kids from Connecticut. SE: It’s also the general Dartmouth community, being majority white male. Coming to college I can say it feels way more comfortable and I felt easier being funny. When you have week one auditions, and you’re coming here, if you don’t feel represented on campus as a whole, it’s hard to go into a place like that and be like, “Oh, I need to be representative of who I am as a person, and be funny.” AS: And, imagine walking into that audition too and seeing like, “Oh look, the whole group is here…” BB: Everyone’s white. LE: So I was good friends with a ’16 who is Asian and she told me that she decided her freshman year not to try out for any improv groups because she thought improv was a particularly white form of comedy. Which is honestly a sad way to feel about it, but given the way our groups look, it’s not that far from the truth. That’s definitely something that the next few months and next year I hope to work to overcome. It is a problem; it’s a problem I see in a lot of places. WS: Switching tracks a little bit, I think comedically speaking, our greatest weakness as a group is probably the fact that we don’t remain grounded all the time. The best comedy comes from real life situations that tend to be somewhat relatable or at least start on a very normal note and then progress outwards. And our group will sometimes start a scene with like “Oh look, I have spoons for hands!” and that’s funny, but it’s not the highest quality of comedy. SE: We’re also trying to go back to the basics of improv because we can get really bad in escalation, where scenes just like have to be stopped because there’s just no point. LE: Just to tie the first thing we were talking about, diversity, and comedy together, as a weakness that I think we struggle with particularly is like when so many people are of the same demographic, their comedy tends to be very similar. A lot of people
are coming from the same point of view, you’re getting a lot of the same kinds of jokes all the time. If your group had a Tinder page, what would the bio be? AS: Something obnoxious. BB: Yeah, something regrettable. WS: We’re more of a Bumble type of group. AS: Like imagine a bumper sticker that a mom who thought she was really hip would have, and that would be like the joke in our profile. LE: We’re catfishing people. What do you think is the funniest thing about Dartmouth? WS: The lacrosse team. BB: I think I found that, since I’m fresh off the college process, Dartmouth is a funnier school than other schools. I just think that it has a sense of humor. SE: There’s just so many things that happen here that couldn’t happen anywhere else. I feel like it’s such a work hard, play hard kind of place that people feel the need to be funny and do these outrageous or absurd things because it’s such a stressful environment. Why do you love what you do in your group? BB: I love it because I’m obsessed with it ... I really almost treat it like a fourth class in a way and I’m interested in it enough that it keeps it fresh for me. I like doing my own research on it and watching other people do improv so much that I try to keep it from being lackluster, or keep it from just being another activity that I have to go to. Improv is very difficult to do when it just feels like a chore, so it’s really fun when I try to think of it in that way. WS: Up until like six hours ago, I was an athlete as well, and I’ve been an athlete since literally the seventh grade. I always was really sports and academics focused and I always wanted to pursue this creative side, and I never had the opportunity to really do so until coming to Dartmouth. It’s really allowed me to flush out a side of myself that I just hadn’t had the opportunity to beforehand. I’ve loved exploring this new side of myself and I’ve really enjoyed it. AS: I come from a family where it’s kind of a classic family of immigrants thing, you have to work hard always and performance is weird and dumb. I had never ever done any performance and I always secretly really wanted to do it. It became a form of therapy for me that I never had outside of like actual therapy. SE: We performed the night before the election in a frat and it was super solemn when we first walked in. Just to be able to take people away for a second from the situation they’re in and try to make them laugh is one of the reasons I still do it. LE: I think that what makes improv, speaking from my experience, worth it for me, is I’m a freak show, I’m a crazy person. But coming to Dartmouth and finding a group of people that just want to be weird, is so awesome. People that just love that I’m weird, and are weird right back, like that’s cool. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length. Smith is a former member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff.
#TRENDING
SNOW SLIDING OFF ROOFTOPS
It’s a miracle that we’ve lived to see another day.
WINTER RUSH Brace yourselves, cover photo changes and 5-hour-long parties are coming.
FOCO CURRY SAMOSAS “I had twelve.” - ‘19
SICKNESS
Our immune systems never fail us ... except for during midterms.
WINTRY MIX
A fun title for a Spotify playlist; not such a fun weather pattern.
4// MIRROR
COMIC
Cartoons from the past r STORY
Theodor Seuss Geisel ’25
By Ja
For many, newspaper comics may conjure childho The appeal of comics, however, extends to audience comics can offer relatable snapshots of campus life. English professor Michael Chaney specializes in v comics ias the key to their power and relatability. “[Comics critic] Scott McCloud argues that our v our internal visual understanding of ourselves is nece Chaney describes the power of using comic strip c about larger, more serious issues, but in an approach “For McCloud, it is the kind of simplicity that rem so we are tricked by the simplicity of the form into said. Chaney is a big proponent of student-produced com to create their own. “I’ve only ever been impressed with the work tha Chaney said. “It’s a new medium, it presents new w think Dartmouth students are just so clever and so in little bit, they just will master the form. It’s really kin and over again.” In The Dartmouth, student creations have run alo “Doonesbury” and “The Far Side.” Others in the Co on their own. While these publications do not always cartoonists include some notable names. Below are co found in the publications’ archives held in Rauner Sp
Geisel drew comics for The Jack-O-Lantern during his time at Dartmouth. Geisel also served as the humor magazine’s editor-in-chief. It was in the Jack-O-Lantern that Geisel debuted his pen name, “Seuss.” Geisel used the name to continue to contribute to the publication when he was removed from his position as editor after being caught sharing a pint of gin with friends at a dorm party in the Prohibition era. Geisel’s cartoons for The Jack-O-Lantern are accompanied by humorous captions rather than the charming rhymes he would later be known for but are an enlightening look at the early days of the famed children’s book author’s art.
Steve Kelley ’81 In his time at Dartmouth, Kelley created political cartoons for both The Dartmouth and The Dartmouth Review. Kelley is the co-creator of the syndicated comic strip “Dustin.” His political cartoons have appeared in numerous publications including Time, Newsweek, Forbes, Playboy, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. Kelley’s work has won him numerous awards, including the National Headliner Award, the Los Angeles Press Club Award and six first-place California Newspaper Publishers Association awards. He was designated as one of Dartmouth’s Montgomery Fellows in 2008.
MIRROR //5
RELIEF
reflect Dartmouth today
aden Young
ood memories of Sunday mornings with the funnies. es of all ages. For Dartmouth students, student-made
visual culture studies and asserts that the simplicity of
visual understanding of other objects is very clear, but cessarily vague,” Chaney said. characters, like Charlie Brown, to enable conversation hable format. minds us of our own internal self-conceptualization, greater leaps of identification with others,” Chaney
mics and tries to give students in his classes opportunities
at students created when asked to make their own,” ways for seeing and engaging with the world, and I nclined that if you show them how the form works a nd of amazing to witness, and I get to witness it over
ongside syndicated comics like “Calvin and Hobbes,” ollege humor magazine, The Jack-O-Lantern, stand s have active student cartoonists, their lists of former omics from The Dartmouth and The Jack-O-Lantern pecial Collections Library.
Jake Tapper ’91
Mindy Kaling ’01 Kaling created “Badly Drawn Girl” for The Dartmouth. Developed before Kaling shortened her name, the strip began running during the creator’s junior year. The strip followed the life of Badly Drawn Girl and her friends, including her love interest, Poorly Rendered Boy; Claire, bubbly rush chair of her sorority; Moira, the cynical goth; Pauly, the crunchy-granola Dartmouth Outing Club devotee; and George, business manager of his a capella group and wanna-be Casanova. Kaling covered everything from frat dogs to foreign study programs, and the biting wit of her early 2000s strip remains relevant to Dartmouth today. The actress, comedian and writer majored in theater, despite initially planning on a classics major. During her time at Dartmouth, Kaling was a member of improv troupe Dog Day Players and a capella group the Rockapellas, as well as a writer for The Jack-O-Lantern.
CNN anchor Tapper’s “Static Cling” addressed campus controversies like when a Mein Kampf quote replaced The Dartmouth Review’s header and sparked widespread student protests, as well as national political stories. The strip also took an often cynical look at campus life through the eyes of a handful of characters. Tapper earned his Bachelor of Arts in history, modified with visual studies from Dartmouth. He later drew and wrote Roll Call’s political comic strip, “Capitol Hell,” from 1994 to 2003. Today, Tapper continues his cartooning in “State of the Cartoonion” segments on his show, “State of the Union with Jake Tapper.”
COURTESY OF RAUNER SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY, LUCY TANTUM/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
6// MIRROR
The Real Dr. Seuss STORY
By Nelly Mendoza-Mendoza
Who was “Dr. Seuss” at Dartmouth? An athlete? A scholar? A trickster? The Dartmouth Mirror sat down with English professor and the Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor Donald Pease to find out. He is the author of “Theodor Geisel,” a biography about the Dartmouth ’25 and popular children’s book author known as Dr. Seuss. To further understand the enigmatic Dr. Seuss, I consulted materials from Rauner Special Collections Library, which holds countless articles about Dr. Seuss, some of his original advertisement work and his articles for Dartmouth’s The Jack-OLantern. Geisel was born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts and was inspired to attend Dartmouth by one of his English high school teachers, Red Smith, who graduated from Dartmouth in 1917. At Dartmouth, Geisel’s inspiration to write came from professor W. Benfield Pressey who taught creative writing and poetry at the College. Geisel’s family owned a brewery but lost their business during Prohibition. Again, at the start of World War II, they suffered reputation damage because they were German. As a result, Geisel came to Dartmouth looking for family. “Dartmouth was his family in the deepest sense,” Pease said. Geisel wrote for The Jack-O-Lantern, a successful Dartmouth-student-produced satire magazine that was sold in newspaper stands in cities such as New York City, New York and Chicago, Illinois. After becoming the editor at the end of his junior year, the magazine was one of his main commitments. He was a self-described “workhorse” when it came to his involvement with The JackO-Lantern, according to a 1976 article in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. Geisel took a few economics and psychology classes, but majored in English and focused on creative writing. He graduated with a 2.4 GPA. In one of his letters of recommendation
for a fellowship, Pressey, one of Geisel’s favorite professors, wrote, “I have great admiration for his cleverness, the quickness and shrewdness of his mind … while he could not be described as scholarly, he is nevertheless interested in and responsive to the things of the mind.” Geisel adopted his pen name after an infraction his senior year at Dartmouth. The Dean of the College at the time, Craven Laylock, was known for strictly enforcing Prohibition. However, Geisel and other friends from The Jack-O-Lantern were caught with alcohol at a party. Laycock called Geisel’s father and asked him what would be an appropriate punishment. “[Geisel’s] father said, ‘Take away his editorship [because] it means a lot to him and he’ll learn his lesson,’” Pease said. Laycock ordered Geisel to end his involvement with the magazine, which devastated him. However, after a few weeks, he started using the pen name, Seuss — his middle name — which Laycock was not aware of. Geisel was then able to get away with continuing to publish his work. Geisel also discovered that this pseudonym gave him some kind of power. “[Geisel] intuited that the name had put him in touch with a whole mother lode, literally, of creativity that he wouldn’t learn fully how to harness until he decided to became a children’s book writer,” Pease said. After graduating Dartmouth in 1925, Geisel attended University of Oxford, where he planned to pursue a doctorate in English. However, he only attended for a semester. There, he met his first wife, Helen Palmer, who was sitting behind him and noticed him drawing little cartoons. Pease said Palmer told him that Seuss didn’t want to be a professor, but rather a cartoonist. Geisel’s pen name included the title of “Doctor” because his father had always wished he had earned a doctorate. “As he explained in his autobiography, he learned even more as the editor of The Jack-O-Lantern magazine,” Pease said.
COURTESY OF RAUNER SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY
Theodor Seuss Geisel ’25 meets with children on the College’s green in 1962.
COURTESY OF RAUNER SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY
This drawing is an example of the type of propaganda drawings Dr. Seuss created during World War II.
“[H]e had to turn what he learned in class and said, ‘You know, I think I might have about creative writing into the practice of helped the war effort, but at the expense of turning out a magazine every week in which maintaining an aggressive mentality that I his skills as an artist were on full display.” don’t think is good for me or for my readers,’” After Oxford, Geisel was a ver y Pease said. “‘So I think I am going to devote successful cartoonist the rest of my life in New York, where to create children’s he had a reputation “I have great admiration books for the baby for making g reat for his cleverness, the boom generation.’” advertisements. his books, quickness and shrewdness G e iWith “He was sel not only considered a wizard of his mind … while he spread joy among of salesmanship,” could not be described as children, but also Pease said. ignited a love of Pease said that one scholarly, he is nevertheless reading within them. of his favorite things interested in and responsive In 1999, The Times about Geisel was of London wrote to the things of the mind” “[h]is willingness to that the “The Cat take chances with in the Hat” wasn’t his career.” Geisel just any other book, -W. BENFIELD PRESSEY, decided to follow his but one specifically passion even though PROFESSOR OF CREATIVE commissioned he could have gone because of the to Hollywood or WRITING declining literacy continue to do of children in the advertising work, U.S. in the 1950s. Pease said. Geisel is renowned for his eccentric Geisel did propaganda work for the war writing style that appeals to children in a effort in the years before the U.S. joined genuine way. World War II. After the nation joined the “He said that children like nonsense, war, he began work with the U.S. Army. but they don’t like nonsense that feels “President [Franklin] Roosevelt said condescending,” Pease said. “They like that if it hadn’t been for Dr. Seuss, prior nonsense that has its own logic that only to Pearl Harbor we wouldn’t have had the children can understand.” collective sentiment to get into the war that Geisel died on Sept. 25, 1991, from oral Pearl Harbor finally triggered,” Pease said. cancer. “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!,” published Pease added that Geisel started writing in 1990, was the last book that Geisel wrote, children’s books after the end of World War and it fittingly explores the journey of life and II. He did this for the children of the men the challenges along the way. and women that went to war, Pease said. “[That] was his ‘letting-go’ book,” Pease “After the war, he turned to his agent said.
MIRR OR //7
Finding humor in a Making it in the entertainment industry sometimes-unfunny world STORY
By Cristian Cano
Amelia Acosta ’14 currently works for NBC News in Manhattan, New York. As part of the on-air talent department, her work includes finding, training and developing on-air talent. Since applying to the NBC Page program her senior year of college, she has held a variety of positions, including working on “Saturday Night Live.” Acosta has found working for NBC exciting, especially in the time leading up to the 2016 presidential election. The Dartmouth sat down with Acosta to learn more about her experience within the fields of comedy and entertainment. What inspired you to work in the television industry? AA: It was something that I’d always been interested in. I knew that I wanted to work in TV, but I didn’t necessarily know what that meant. I absolutely loved Dartmouth and I loved the education I got there, but it was definitely a liberal arts education. I didn’t know a ton about what opportunities there were in TV. I sort of thought you could be a director, you could be a writer or you could be an actor. In a news organization like NBC, there’s just so much going on. So the NBC Page program was a really great program for me to be able to find out what I was good at and to find out, beyond the generalized nature of television, what would be a good fit for me. I always loved the creative side of things and I’ve always loved news. So with all these very broad interests that people tend to have when they graduate from college, I was able to go into the Page program, adapt and find out what was the best fit for me. Did your experience at Dartmouth, in any way, affect your decision to apply to the Page program and get into the television business? AA: Being a reporter in 2012 when we had the Republican presidential debate on campus to working for The Dartmouth’s Mirror and being the Mirror editor and sort of feeling like I had ownership over something like that was so important to me and to my career interest helped — just knowing that I was interested in news and journalism. It was important for me to find a creative outlet for that, which I think the Mirror always provided for me. I was a government major with a creative writing minor, and I think both of those focuses really informed my interests after college. And then, less academically, I heard about the Page program from someone who was in my improv comedy group, and I talked to them at length while I was preparing for my interview for the application process. Everyone always talked about it, but that alumni network, that alumni connection was so, so absolutely essential to me in the actual Page application process. Dartmouth was definitely sort of the big formative factor in me going into the career that I have now. Once you started, did you find that the Page program was what you had expected? Did you even have an idea of what to expect? AA: I think it’s one of those things that you just have no idea what to expect until you’re actually there. In the Page program, your default responsibilities are that you’re sort of “an ambassador of 30 Rock[efeller Plaza].” That basically means that you’re giving tours of the building and also
STORY guiding the audiences for our shows that are live in 30 Rock. That’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” at the time “The Meredith Vieira Show,” which was a daytime program, and “Saturday Night Live.” In addition to that, throughout your time at the Page program, you’re always applying for specific assignments within the company. Those assignments tend to run three months — some are a little shorter, some are a little longer, but most are about three months. So while I was a Page, I did three different assignments. I did one with USA Network, which is part of our cable group, in their publicity department. I had one assignment with “Morning Joe,” which is a cable program on MSNBC. At the same time, I worked on “Saturday Night Live.” I think they all sort of informed the work that I do now. That’s one of the great things about the Page program — even if things sort of seem different than your most immediate interests, you’re still learning skills and learning about NBC as a company in a way that’s definitely useful down the road. Did you ever get the opportunity to meet someone famous? AA: So my assignment for “Saturday Night Live” was as a talent escort. Basically, I would start my day working in seating, and we would be assigned to seat VIPs. So in the course of that, we did run into a lot of famous people. I seated Jonah Hill and Jon Hamm. Aaron Sorkin was a big highlight for me personally because I’m a huge “The West Wing” fan. It’s not the most high profile job, but it was so much fun and so exciting to be part of that world. Now that I work at the news group, the celebrities that I run into are sort of more in the news world, but they’re some people with such a broad variety of expertise that I feel so lucky to be able to encounter them on a semi-regular basis. One last question. Do you have any advice to current Dartmouth students that you wish you knew when you were a student? AA: My first big thing is don’t be afraid to reach out to people within the Dartmouth network that are potentially sources of information for you, such as someone who has a job you’re interested in or is in a program that you’re interested in. People will be very happy to share their experiences with you and be helpful as much as they can. For me, when I was applying to the Page program, talking to someone I never was at school with but who had done the Page program and who had gone to Dartmouth — he was a ’10 and I was a ’14 — was just an invaluable resource for me, and I’m really glad that I did reach out to him. I’d also say — this is something that’s been helpful for me professionally — keep a list of every hard skill or tangible experience that you have and be able to have those specifics on hand. If you’re interning somewhere and you work on projects X, Y and Z, keep those in a list and be ready to be able to put those in a cover letter, to have those for an interview, to have those on your resume to really have that color and specificity of your past experience. I think specificity is just the name of the game, and it really helps you stand out as a candidate. Acosta is a former member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff.
By Andrew Sosanya
Harambe. The 2016 election. El Chapo. Brexit. The list goes on. A look back at 2016 tells us that humor is the most prevalent when there is a pervading sense of discomfort about current events. Memes filled Twitter feeds, and late-night comedy shows never ran out of material. While some may not admit it, comedy has the power to make us laugh during the hard times. Film and media studies professor Joanna Rapf, a visiting professor teaching Film and Media Studies 7.15: “Women and Comedy in Film,” said that comedy makes bad news easier to digest. Rapf ’s research is in silent film comedy, and she’s a fan of political comedians like Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee because they put current events in perspective in a way that makes audiences laugh and question society simultaneously. She said that the comedic angle gives them a space to think analytically. “It allows comments to be subversive and critical without alienating the subject,” Rapf said. After a long day of classes, Sam Kocen ’19 often turns to comedy shows to destress after a study break. He loves to watch cheesy sitcoms such as “Fresh Off the Boat” and “New Girl.” When he watches TV, he would rather not get too involved, saying that he likes to just take some time to laugh. “A lot of people take themselves and society too seriously,” Kocen said. “With that constant negativity, humor and comedy’s role is to fight back against it.” Sophie Palmer ’20 works three jobs, rows on the varsity crew team and studies engineering. She grinds day and night to get her daily tasks done, but there are times when she just needs a good laugh. After one calculus session, she recalls feeling the need to watch a new episode of “New Girl.” “I need time to do brainless activities,” she said about watching her favorite show, “Parks and Recreation.” English professor Christian Haines loves
watching classic stand-up and is a fan of comedians such as Richard Pryor and George Carlin. But he takes a special comfort in comedic sitcoms, where the plot is resolved by the end of each show. This past summer, Haines taught English 54.02: “Arts of Laughter: Comedy and Criticism,” which discussed contemporary and antique comedy and its role in society. Haines’ discussions would sometimes prompt students to relate the subject material to aspects of their experiences at Dartmouth such as racism and sexism. “Comedy allows us to acknowledge that some things around us are actually broken,” Haines said. During times of self-doubt and angst, comedy can be remedial and self-reflective. “We use it to reassure ourselves, to laugh things off,” Haines said. “Comedy allows us to interrogate our values.” The results of the 2016 presidential election spurred a flurry of Facebook rants and protests. Jokes were so prevalent that it sometimes seemed like President Donald Trump had little chance at winning the election. Gabe Jenkinson ’20 felt that the election was trivialized too much. “A lot of these jokes, especially memes, made issues seem more inconsequential than they were,” Jenkinson said. A sense of humor is a desirable trait for a candidate, but Jenkinson felt that the humor exchanged between the two presidential candidates themselves was not well-received. “Both candidates’ use of humor was not very tasteful, as it revolved around bigotry and attacking one another,” Jenkinson said. Although moods were often more somber after the election, it didn’t stop comedy-powerhouse shows like “Saturday Night Live” from cracking jokes. Zohra Aslami ’18 says that jokes should be directed elsewhere. “[Jokes] were quite hilarious before,” Aslami said. “After the election, I think the humor is a bit misplaced.”
COURTESY OF AMELIA ACOSTA
Amelia Acosta ’14 is taking on the world of entertainment at NBC. She has worked on several shows, including “Saturday Night Live.”
8// MIRROR
Getting the joke of white feminism COLUMN
By Elise Wien “When you make someone laugh they are on your side for a second.” —Guerrilla Girls “I have a powerful urge to communicate with you , but I find the distance between us insurmountable.” From “The Christians” by Lucas Hnath
Here are some things I know: 1) This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of women marched in cities across the country and the world to protest Trump’s inauguration. 2) These were not women united in purpose. Some marched for reproductive rights and equal wages, while others marched in concert with black and brown, indigenous and Muslim women. Some marched for transgender and queer rights and refugees and undocumented humans, others did not. I am out here hoping that most women who march do so while centering historically neglected demographics, but I worry this is not the case. 3) I worry because more people showed up to the Dartmouth march the day after Trump won the election than showed up for #BlackLivesMatter events on campus, for the vigil for trans lives and the Armenian Genocide, for the #noDAPL protests and the Divest Dartmouth rally. I’m not saying that people need to show up to every single justice event to show that they care, just that those events with tangible causes and effects (dead black, trans or Armenian folks; ruined sacred indigenous lands; protection of the environment) have significantly lower attendance than protests of nebulous causes. When you march, what do you march for? And if the answer is anything other than yourself, why don’t you put your body on the line for the causes of others? A lack of specificity means a movement grows because the people aren’t out there for each other — they’re out there for themselves. 4) Comedy requires trust. For a moment, the person telling a joke makes herself vulnerable in the hopes that the listener will find her funny. 4a) Unlearning requires trust. The white feminist must trust the experiences of women of color, queer and trans individuals in order to empathize with them. 5) I am interested in the rhetorical potential of the joke. We already know that laughing can heal. But can laughing convince? I think it would be very hard to build an argument using only jokes, but they do hold a coquettish potential to convince. How jarring it is when your enemies make you laugh. 5a) This gets difficult when we talk about divides so big it seems like no joke can bridge the gap. 6) I am a white woman working on intersectional feminism. I say “working on” because white supremacy is so engrained within us, I am likely to center myself in the movement and need to remind myself that this is historically harmful for all non-white demographics. (“Sometimes you say white nonsense.” — Corinne, at some point, probably.) 7) I used to find Amy Schumer funny. I still find a fair amount of Lena Dunham’s “Girls” funny. The joke is sometimes representation — mostly white women with the occasional token friend of color — but sometimes it’s also jokes that rely on stereotypes. A friend of mine once said that a good way to shut down an offensive joke is to say, “I don’t get it. Can you explain it?” Quickly, it’s revealed to be structured on old tropes. Aside from perpetuating harmful images of “othered”
populations, offensive jokes are lazy. It’s not difficult to rely on a convention that’s constructed for you by media, news outlets and hundreds of years of the same joke. Try harder? 8) Pointing out that white women were centered in the march is not a way to divide the movement — it’s a form of survival. Historically, centering white women means that women of color, trans individuals and queer women do not benefit in the same way white women do. Centering the marginalized populations is a safeguard against this. Examples of this: 8a) Building suffrage movements fighting for white women’s right to vote as opposed to total women’s suffrage; suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony building their arguments on the basis of demonizing people of color. (“What will we and our daughters suffer if these degraded black men are allowed to have the rights that would make them even worse than our Saxon fathers?”) 8b) Suffrage marches often had a segregated unit for black women, at the back of the march. 8c) The fact that in these women’s marches, white women were more likely to be fighting for reproductive rights and equal pay (important matters, to be sure), while women of color, trans people and non-binary folks were more likely to have signs against police brutality, Islamaphobia and trans rights. As Brittney Cooper put it in a 2014 article for Salon, “White women’s feminisms still center around equality … Black women’s feminisms demand justice. There is a difference. One kind of feminism focuses on the policies that will help women integrate fully into the existing American system. The other recognizes the fundamental flaws in the system and seeks its complete and total transformation.” 9) A helpful way to unlearn white feminism, and therefore white supremacy, is to laugh at it. We are so blessèd to live in an age when we can build our political awareness through memes. “Wypipo” jokes are amazing. Black twitter is hilarious. Here are some comedians who take on the topic: 9a) Jessica Williams & Phoebe Robinson (“2 Dope Queens”) 9b) Aparna Nancherla (stand-up comedy) 9c) Naomi Ekperigin (stand-up comedy) 9d) Jenny Yang (stand-up comedy) 9e) Sasheer Zamata (stand-up comedy and “Saturday Night Live”) 9f) Alexis Wilkinson (Twitter handle @OhGodItsAlexis) 10) If it isn’t intersectional, it isn’t feminism. And intersectional comedy is better. Laugh with the intersectional feminists. We’ve got jokes. 10a) Caring about intersectional feminism means caring about people affected by these issues. There is obviously an order here: come for the solidarity, stay for the laughs. If you come for the “lols” without adopting the praxis, you’re missing the point.