Spring 2015 Issue 6 by Tufts Observer

TUFTS OBSERVER

APRIL 13, 2015

VOLUME CXXX, ISSUE 6

GAMERGATE AND SILENCING WOMEN (PAGE 2)

OUR OBSESSION WITH PLANE CRASHES (PAGE 10)

WHAT IS A “REAL” AMERICAN PRESIDENT? (PAGE 12)

#OBsessions

Staff editor-in-chief Ben Kurland managing editor Katharine Pong creative director Bernita Ling news Eve Feldberg Sahar Roodehchi

April 13, 2015 Tufts Observer, since 1895

Volume CXXX, Issue 6 Tufts’ Student Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

opinion Liana Abbott Sarah Perlman arts & culture Anastasia Antonova Claire Selvin campus Carly Olson Ben Kesslen tech & innovation Olivia Meyer-Jennette Nate Williams poetry & prose Liza Leonard MT Snyder publicity director Lenéa Sims photography director Misako Ono photography editor Lily Herzan art director Eva Strauss lead artists Rachel Cunningham Tess Dennison lead copy editors Chris Amicucci Nader Salass copy editors Aishvarya Arora Susan Kaufman Gabby Bonfiglio design assistants Zoe Baghdoyan Yuchun Bian Chase Conley Francesca Kamio Flora Liu Katherine Mimmack publicity assistants Yumi Casagrande Ashley Miller

FEATURE Critical Hit

by Sahar Roodehchi

PROSE Dear Only Other Brown Person in the Room by Kumar Ramanathan

NINA HOFKOSH-HULBERT

NEWS Iranian Diplomacy + Domestic Disagreement by Miles Edelstein

OPINION Off the Radar and Onto the Front Page by Luis Del Rosario

web managing editor Gracie McKenzie web developer Thomas Wang web editors Greta Jochem Dana Guth

OPINION Side Eye from the Sidelines

multimedia directors Aaron Langerman Flo Wen

film director Jay Radochia

ARTS & CULTURE TV: A Seasonal Obsession

staff writers Allison Aaronson Oly Huzenis Kumar Ramanathan Miranda Willson

by Brenda Lee and Katharine Pong

EVA STRAUSS

NEWS Questioning American Identity by Lily Hartzell

by Sarah Nechamkin

editor emeritus Aaron Langerman

ARTS & CULTURE Unusually Local Flavor by Jamie Moore

PROSE Silly Anxious Beings

What drives our obsessions? What divides a personal interest from a national craze? In this issue, we question our current obsession with TV series, plane crashes, and the “Americanness” of our Presidents. We look at the power and the danger of obsessions, and where they can lead us.

MISAKO ONO

TECH & INNOVATION Planned Obsolescence by Sarah Nechamkin @CSKWOKY

Adriana Guardans-Godo, Nina Hofkosh-Hulbert, Katherine Marchand, Ana-Maria MurphyTeixidor

Theme

by Sam Schieren

PHOTO INSET #obserganized

Contributors

The Tufts Observer has been Tufts’ student publication of record since 1895. Our dedication to in-depth reporting, journalistic innovation, and honest dialogue has remained intact for over a century. Today, we offer insightful news analysis, cogent and diverse opinion pieces, creative writing, and lively reviews of current arts, entertainment, and culture. Through poignant writing and artistic elegance, we aim to entertain, inform, and above all challenge the Tufts community to effect positive change.

@tuftsobserver

www.tuftsobserver.org COVER ART BY BEAU COLLINS

FEATURE

CRITICAL HIT WHAT GAMERGATE REVEALS ABOUT SEXISM IN THE WORLD OF GAMING By Sahar Roodehchi

Trigger warning: This article contains references to suicide, sexual assault, and gender based violence. They are a group who believe they have been persecuted, targeted, and oppressed by society. They assert that they value â&#x20AC;&#x153;artistic freedom and equal opportunities.â&#x20AC;? They believe they have found an ethical problem in their community and are lashing out against it any way they can. They are the Gamergaters, and they have created more problems than they have solved. Gamergate began on August 16, 2014 when Eron Gjoni published a blog entry about his then ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn, accusing her of emotionally abusing him as well as cheating on him. Quinn, a popular figure in the feminist gaming community, had already been

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FEATURE

L under scrutiny online as a result of her publication of the game “Depression Quest,” a game that some video gamers found boring and unnecessary. Gjoni accused Quinn of cheating on him with five other men, including her boss, another game developer, and a gaming journalist. After the blog was posted to the website 4chan, there was immediate backlash against Quinn for her actions. Some claimed that she had engaged in sexual activity in an effort to improve her own position in the gaming community. Suddenly, Quinn became a major target for harassment as well as threats of violent sexual assault and death, all anonymously made online. Her harassers published statements like “@TheQuinnspiracy could kill yourself [sic]. We don’t need cunts like you in this world. Trash is more worth than you” and “She’s a cunt. Pure and simple. This has been going on for ages. Her “game” is a piece of shit too. I jokingly remember saying ‘I wonder who’s [sic] dick she sucked to get this green lit?’” By the end of the month, she had been “doxed,” meaning that her private information (address, phone number, bank information, and social security number) had been released. As the threats intensified, she was forced out of her home and into hiding. A “boring” game and a failed relationship do not seem like adequate explanations for what happened to Quinn. Gamers claimed that what Quinn did was indicative of a larger problem in the community. They believed that she had slept with Nathan Grayson, the gaming journalist from the website Kotaku, so that he might promote “Depression Quest” in his writing. They felt this was a threat to journalistic integrity. However, there is no evidence to support this specula-

tion. In fact, Grayson never wrote about Depression Quest except for two articles that briefly mentioned the game, neither of which was published in the time in which they were allegedly involved. Gamergate, whose name originated with a reference to the Watergate scandal, is a hashtag that came out of the Quinn incident. Gamers used the scandal to discuss an ethical problem in game journalism. Gamergaters argue that, whether the affair was confirmed or not, the problem lies in the fact that Grayson never disclosed that he had any kind of relationship whatsoever with Quinn. They claim that game journalists were getting too friendly with game developers and thus developing conflicts of interest. According to Gamergaters, the modern gaming community is fraught with these kinds of ethical dilemmas. They hope to rid gaming of these problems so that it can be a fairer community for all. In the group’s main subreddit (a forum used over reddit.com) r/KotakuInAction, their mission statement reads, “We believe gaming is an inclusive place, and wish to welcome all who want to take part in an amazing hobby.” The movement generally seems to have good intentions. Corruption in journalistic standards and practices is a major problem and would require major change in order to be fixed. Unfortunately, another dilemma has come about, raising the question, what does “all” really mean? Though gamers claim that their attacks on Zoe Quinn were rooted in ethos, a different general trend seems more prominent: an attack on women in the gaming community. It must be clarified that not all gamers are the kind of Gamergaters that I refer to in this article. Many of those who believe in the Gamergate movement align

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FEATURE

themselves with its ethical roots, but do not support the practices of doxing and harassment. Most gamers are largely unaware of the negative consequences the movement has caused. The angry Gamergaters are only a small, yet abrasively vocal minority of those who play video games, and they perpetuate the problem at hand. Women have been the primary targets of the attacks rooted in the Gamergate movement. Take, for example, Anita Sarkeesian, another prominent figure in the feminist gaming community. Through her Kickstarter-funded video series, Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games, Sarkeesian targets misogyny in video games, pointing out how they misrepresent and disempower women. In the comments section of the video promoting her Kickstarter, she was subject to brutal harassment. Comments include, “I hate ovaries with a brain big enough to post videos,” and “Back to the kitchen, bitch.” Comments on her videos have since been disabled. Another woman who has come under attack due to Gamergate is Boston-based game developer, Brianna Wu. After posting a series of tweets pointed at Gamergaters, she became their newest target. Wu has faced frequent harassment and even death threats online. In fact, she became the target of a man wearing a skeleton mask, who made a YouTube video detailing his plans to kill her. She has learned the names of some of her attackers and attempted to file restraining orders, though the harassment has not ceased and Wu blames the system in place both online and offline. In an op-ed written for Bustle, Wu wrote, “Women’s needs are not heard, our truth is never spoken. These systems are the next frontier of human evolution, and they’re increasingly dangerous for us.” Recently, Massachusetts congresswoman Katherine Clark has taken up Wu’s call to action, encouraging the FBI and DOJ to take online harassment seriously, as nothing has really been done so far. In her

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own op-ed written for The Hill, Clark wrote, “While Gamergate has garnered headlines, the truth is that every day is a dangerous day for women online. Journalists, academics, and other professionals who dare to express an opinion—especially a feminist one—are routinely attacked. Young women are deciding not to pursue jobs in technology to avoid the crosshairs of men who don’t think they belong.” Getting caught in these crosshairs comes at the cost of heavy harassment. Twitter user @Adensma tweeted at Sarkeesian, “kill yourself feminists are a waste of air also more games should have girl characters half naked such as ‘Tomb Raider’ etc.” An account called “Death to Brianna” tweeted to Wu, “I hope you enjoy your last moments alive on this earth. You did nothing worthwhile with your life” and “If you have any kids, they’re going to die too. I don’t give a ***. They’ll grow up to be feminists anyway.” It becomes apparent that the Gamergaters’ battle is about their belief that people, most often women, are getting involved where they don’t belong. As a result of these events, many women previously involved in the video game industry have resigned. Tufts sociology professor Sarah Sobieraj is currently doing research for a book on online gender-based attacks on women and said that the entire phenomenon raises the question, “Culturally, what does it mean if women’s participation in public discourse is so uncomfortable that they begin to retreat or self-censor?” The events of Gamergate have drawn attention to the need for gender equality. Contrarily, some Gamergaters have taken an opposing view. They see all of the negative articles written about gamers as oppression of their own community, claiming that the “gamer” archetype has always been ridiculed and persecuted, without any attention being called to it. So, they are lashing out now. Calling out their misogynistic comments and calling them white males, they say, is another form of racism and sexism. They believe that de-

FEATURE

leting their comments is a form of censorship targeted at gamers. They view people like Sarkeesian and Wu as “SJWs” or “social justice warriors” who have spoiled their community. According to reddit user “getintheVandell,” “Social justice is pushing the ideologue of destructive equality (‘take away the rights of cis white people more’) and/or muting censorship (‘this is offensive to me/someone and should be taken down immediately’).” They see game developers’ acquiescence to the demands for inclusivity as turning “art” into “propaganda.” Essentially, they believe that Gamergate is simply causing oppression of the male gamer. On the subreddit r/KotakuInAction, popular comments look something like this: “What [Sarkeesian] and her co fail to realize is that this is why men have “better” written characters—it’s because there isn’t a quota or checklist of approval necessary to abide by. Men’s characters are limitless because of freedom.” “I never understand why we need to make women programmers feel ‘welcome’ … You want the

fucking job you go take the fucking job. Stop asking for golden invitations and safe spaces.” “Real racists and misogynists would laugh in their faces from the first sentence. But groups like ours don’t like to laugh at people. We genuinely want to be inclusive and are very tolerant... This is why they attack us. They see an avenue they can use to dominate us. This is about power and control.” Gamergaters shirk all culpability in misogynistic or racist roles, though they are engaging in misogyny and racism. So, why does such disconnect occur? How is it that Gamergaters make statements yet claim to be seeking inclusivity and tolerance? Looking through r/ KotakuInAction, there are many discussions regarding exactly that. For example, in a thread called “I don’t get it… why do they think we’re bigots?,” reddit user Zero132132 writes, “SJWs consistently conflate not believing an environment is hostile to women/minorities as being misogynistic/racist. How does that make sense? Can anyone, pro or anti, explain it, even in their

Though gamers claim that their attacks on Zoe Quinn were rooted in ethos, a different general trend seems more prominent: an attack on women in the gaming community.

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FEATURE

terms and their conception of how the world works?” Gamergaters claim that there is no problem in video gaming regarding equality, SJWs adamantly respond that this view reflects the misogynistic and racist nature of the community, and therein lies the problem. There is a wide disconnect between the two “sides” on this issue (the Gamergaters and the SJWs), largely the result of the obsessions within the video game industry. Gamergaters have become absorbed in the culture they created. In that culture, they cannot and often do not want to see the problems that SJWs point out. A game is art and only remains so as long as developers can create whatever they want regardless of its implications. The Gamergater sees changing content because it may offend somebody as a form of censorship. Thus, we can see where the problem truly lies. Gamergaters do not want to relinquish control of their content to other people’s demands, especially when they were happy with it exactly the way it was. However, when 59 percent of Americans play video games and 48 percent of them are women, changes must be made to the industry so that it is no longer the maledominated space that it has been. Thus step in the “SJWs” advocating for inclusivity. The Gamergaters, though, see SJWs as breaches of their dominance. So, they fight back in any means possible: harassment masked by anonymity is the least they can do to hold onto their place in the gaming community. Even while writing this article, there was a moment in which I realized that I could 6

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become a target for harassment for the mere reason of pointing out the Gamergate problem. I realize that, because I am a woman of color criticizing Gamergate, I too would be seen as an “SJW.” If Gamergaters were to read this article, I would consequently be harassed as gamers see fit. This is the culture that Gamergate has created: one in which any kind of criticism is seen as censorship, calling forth backlash and creating fear. This phenomenon does not only apply to Quinn, Sarkeesian, and Wu, and their cases are not the only ones that matter. According to Sobieraj, “I don’t think it has to be at the point of a woman needing to leave their home for the online backlash to be upsetting, distracting or even terrifying. We tend to focus on these dramatic cases, and they are certainly important, but the myriad of women who experience lower-level gender-based hostility is something we need to take very seriously.” Gamergate extends beyond these three women to all women, and men, who have been affected by this atmosphere of hostility and culture of hatred. This is not a problem specific to the video game industry. As women gain more opportunities for stronger roles in society, they are faced with pushback. This has taken place in business, politics, education, and countless other fields. Video games are only the newest frontier. As long as Gamergate remains unknown and the actions of Gamergaters ignored, the problem will continue to grow.

PROSE

DEAR ONLY OTHER BROWN PERSON IN THE ROOM, By Kumar Ramanathan I wonder, have you noticed yet? Have you noticed your skin-color-bearing compatriot out of the corner of your eye? Because I have. I am, in fact, indisputably and acutely aware of your presence at the other end of the room. Your presence: it’s this huge, thundering, elephant in the version of this room that’s inside my head. It’s been a good fifteen minutes since this event started, and that good ol’ elephant has been nagging at me all the while. There are folks in this room that I know and there are folks in this room that I don’t know. There are folks I like and folks I don’t like. But one thing I do know (and don’t like): all these folks are white folks. Except you. Except you, stranger at the other end of the room. You are not white, and for that reason I am writing to you. I want to come up to you at the end of this event, come up and ask, “Hey, how’s it going?” casually as if we know each other. I want to come up and have a conversation, about the intellectual weight of what we’ve just listened to or about its vapidity (which is it? I haven’t been paying attention), about the décor in here, about that weird headline this morning, about the weather or about sports. About something, anything, I’m going to be honest and tell you that I couldn’t give a fuck what we talk about really, as long as we talk and laugh, casual as can be. We’d talk about all sorts of things. Except about how I came up to you only because you’re the only person here who doesn’t reek of whiteness. We’ll leave that aside, thinking it, but not speaking it, not acknowledging it, merely accepting it quietly and letting it sit over there in the other corner of the room. Or maybe, just maybe, if things are going well, halfway into our brief and friendly conversation, I’ll

ART BY MISTER PIXEL

drop a joke, a Never would have done that as kids if we’d had white folks for parents! or a Can you believe all the plaid in here right now? White people, amirite? Hahaha and we’ll giggle a bit and move on. And we’ll carry a tiny sense of relief, a tiny awareness that, yes, someone else has noticed how fucking white this room is. I’ll be honest with you, Other Brown Person: I’m a little terrified of how this goes. I don’t even know you! You might be an asshole, or you might be having a bad day, or you might also be that brown person who’s always in a room full of white people except you’re not so fucking nervous about it all the time. You might not give a crap what I think about this. But, real talk, that’s not even what I’m most worried about. I’m worried that the only reason I want to talk to you is because you’re not white, because I know I’m not white but seeing that makes me nervous and I’d very much like someone to confirm that for me at this moment. Real talk, Other Brown Person, this is why I need you right now and I hate myself a little bit for that. This is a funny place, this room. This shiny, warm, cheery, welcoming room full of white folks. I’ve been here a few times, and I’ve sat in all different parts of the room, but whenever you’re here, Other Brown Person(s), I see you. I see you immediately. And I have to wonder: do you think like this, Only Other Brown Person In The Room? Sometimes, I suspect you do. And I have to wonder: do white folks ever think like this? Most times, I suspect they don’t. And I keep wondering: are you also wondering? And so I wonder. I wonder, because I don’t know how to ask. Sincerely and anxiously yours, The Other Brown Person In The Room

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Tufts Observer

NEWS

IRANIAN DIPLOMACY + DOMESTIC DISAGREEMENT T

hough a preliminary agreement was reached between American and Iranian negotiators on April 2 in Switzerland, the issues surrounding the new nuclear deal are far from over. As the New York Times points out, the presidents of both nations must “[sell] the agreement at home to constituencies deeply suspicious of both the deal and the prospect of signing any accord with an avowed enemy.” While the deal certainly indicates progress, intense political and cultural friction remains between the two states. In the international arena, the United States must balance the tasks of furthering diplomatic relations with Iran as well as appeasing hardline leadership in concerned regional states like Israel and Saudi Arabia. On a domestic level, the nuclear talks have outlined the growing politicization of foreign policy as partisan politics have continued to impede progress. The debate has problematically dominated the headlines, as the story that is told has too often been one of political war instead of productive debate. The deal became a case of domestic politics

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playing out in the context of a foreign policy issue and, on both sides of the issue, things got undeniably ugly. These domestic political tensions were exemplified in the March 9 letter penned by the junior Senator from Arkansas, Tom Cotton. The letter, signed by 47 Republican senators and addressed to “the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” was fuel on the fire of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March 3 speech. On the eve of his pending reelection, Mr. Netanyahu delivered a speech to Congress regarding the Iran talks, having been invited discretely by Speaker John Boehner. As a Vox.com article outlined on the day of the speech, some considered the invitation, and the speech itself, “a major breach, both of diplomatic protocol…and of political protocol for Congressional Republicans to freelance their own foreign policy independent of the White House.” Both Netanyahu’s speech and Cotton’s letter detract from the issue at hand: the talks themselves. Rather than debate the question of whether sanctions should be lifted, or exactly what kind of inspections

By Miles Edelstein

ought to be mandated for the Iranian nuclear program, these partisan skirmishes debilitate the diplomatic process. In fact, the point is underscored perfectly by the Iranians themselves. The situation remains complicated, for both the Iranians and the Americans, by the many political authorities in Iran, where the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei possesses ultimate spiritual and political power and has long espoused anti-American hate. The Ayatollah, however, has more or less aligned with President Rouhani, who campaigned on a promise of ending crippling western sanctions, and the negotiators acting on his behalf. “No one in Iran is against the resolution of the nuclear issue through negotiations,” said Mr. Khamenei as quoted in a New York Times article last month. “What the Iranian nation does not want to agree with is the impositions and bullying of the Americans.” Granted, the Ayatollah’s words may belie a section of faction of Iranian leadership that has historically acted in less than good faith. For much of the previous two decades, Iranian leadership has been at times duplicitous regarding its nuclear

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program, and the difficulty in discerning their nuclear tensions has resulted in the sanction program and very debates over this month’s deal. Nonetheless, it seems negotiators have taken the Iranian position at face value, to a degree (as they were able to reach a deal) and as such, the Ayatollah’s words reflect both his efforts at progress in the talks and his desire for a united Iranian front. To bluntly contrast the actions of Senator Cotton for example, there is Khamenei’s strategist Hamid Reza Taraghi, who was quoted in the same Times article as saying, “We will have no letters or other nonsense that we are witnessing in the United States…Iran speaks with one voice.” In a recent video for the New York Times, reporter David Sanger noted the difficult reality that three deals need to be reached: one between American and Iranian negotiators, one between Mr. Obama and Congress, and one between the Iranian diplomats and their hardline counterparts in both military and religious circles. Although a deal was finally achieved, the politicization of the process in America has not been swept under the rug, lest it threaten the deal’s resolution in the months to its June 30 deadline, or the next issue at hand. Certainly, the letter exemplifies a climate in which the Democrats and Republicans have had trouble reaching across the aisle to work together. It demonstrates the danger of domestic strife spilling publicly into the international arena. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, blasted Senator Cotton’s letter on a number of points. “In our view,” he said, “this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy.” He expressed alarm at the letter’s violation of diplomatic principles, saying, “some political pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an agreement that they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history.” Although Zarif ’s responses may be taken with a grain of salt, given that he stood to gain in the negotiations from criticizing Sena-

tor Cotton’s play, his remarks provide a detailed criticism of this brand of American political disunion. The Republicans’ letter makes two assertions that have especially been called into question both by domestic commentators and Mr. Zarif. Mr. Cotton argues that Congress will view “any agreement regarding [the Iranian] nuclear-weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement,” between Mr. Obama and Mr. Khamenei. Pundits have been quick to point out that the required consensus of the P5+1 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was indeed

The letter exemplifies a climate in which the Democrats and Republicans have had trouble reaching across the aisle to work together reached by a coalition of five states and Iran. Vice President Joe Biden called the letter “beneath the dignity of an institution I revere,” referring to the Senate. Mr. Biden went on to challenge Cotton’s assertion that “the president does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with [the Iranians],” a statement referring to the letter’s claim that Mr. Obama’s successor “could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen.” Mr. Zarif rebutted this claim as well, reflecting the insulting nature of a letter purportedly aiming to teach Iranian officials, many

of who were educated in the United States, about the constitution. Mr. Zarif noted “that if the next administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law.” Parsing the pointed language of the Iranian Foreign Minister, there remains a strong argument for the notion that the letter did more harm than good to the good faith diplomatic progress in reaching a deal. It may also be noted that the letter continues a tradition, amongst a faction of conservatives, of attempts to undermine executive power under the Obama Administration. Certainly, a hallmark of the American process is the system of checks and balances but at times, attempts to regulate the President’s power have fallen outside the realm of appropriate political behavior. In this vein, Senator Cotton’s letter recalls the ghosts of efforts to spur government shutdowns by Republican lawmakers and as far back as the questioning of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate around the time of the 2008 elections. Regardless of lawmakers’ support— or lack thereof—for a deal with Iran, the agreement has been reached and a degree of progress achieved. As members of both parties reassess the conversations they had during the negotiations, the larger international issue of a nuclear deal seems to have outweighed domestic rivalries. While the Republicans may reel from what has been received as a victory for Mr. Obama, domestic sentiment remains concerned over the politicization of a foreign policy issue of this magnitude. When nuclear weapons and the fate of a region like the Middle East are involved to the degree they were in the Iran talks, political grandstanding has threatened vital diplomatic processes. In light of these events, American politicians seem to have forgotten the responsibility implicit in their election, to maintain respect for the constitutional powers of their peers and for the principles of diplomatic prudence. O

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Tufts Observer

OPINION

OFF THE RADAR AND

ONTO THE FRONT PAGE By Luis Del Rosario

or a good part of 2014 and running well into 2015, there has been a seemingly endless barrage of aviation-related accidents throughout the world. The PA-34 that crashed in Kentucky and the Malaysian Airlines flight that disappeared somewhere in the Indian Ocean are two examples. This slew of recent crashes seems to demonstrate a troubling decrease in aviation safety bundled with a radical increase in aviation accidents. These trends, however, are the dangerous and artificially created products

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of an increased frequency of high-scale crashes. In fact, air travel has never been safer. However, since recent accidents have been so extraordinarily tragic, extensive media coverage and general everyday conversation suggest otherwise. Indeed, these unfortunate events and their effects only build on each other, setting the stage for false truths and hazardous consequences. The first big problem is the effect of these crashes and their ensuing media coverage on the objective truth. With new plane crashes occurring soon after the last

one was beginning to die down in the news cycle, it becomes easy to assume that flying is becoming unsafe. However, quite the opposite is true. According to data published by the National Safety Council, any given person is 75 times more likely to die from an automobile accident and 55 times more likely to die from a fall than they are to die from â&#x20AC;&#x153;air and space transport incidents.â&#x20AC;? Additionally, according to the World Bank and the Aviation Safety Network, though the crashes in 2014 were exceptionally deadly,

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OPINION

2014 also had the least number of crashes since 1942, which follows a trend in which there are increasingly less crashes per number of passengers. With 87,000 flights across the US per day (according to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association) and many more across the world servicing millions of passengers per day, the crashes we see on the news are veritable exceptions to the rule. These statistics, however, are doing very little to assuage fears. For example, a new app called “Am I Going Down? Fear of Flying App” has just hit the App Store. With basic flight info such as departure and arrival airports, aircraft, and airline, the app calculates the odds of that plane crashing and the time it would take for the plane to crash if it were to fly its route continuously. According to DailyMail, for example, “If you’re flying on a Boeing 777 Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, there’s a one in 4,068,434 chance that your flight will go down en route.” As the app boasts over 10 million routes assessed since January, it’s clear that there is a concern for aviation safety amongst the public. This anxiety can be dangerous. As more people mistrust air travel, more will shift toward driving and other alternative forms of transportation. Data from the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) suggest that in the months following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, many people took to the road as an alternative to flying. And, as driving has been proven to be at least 75 times more dangerous than flying, it becomes apparent that this shift can be more harmful than helpful. In an abstract published in Psychological Science, Gerd Gigerenzer of the Planck Institute proposes a “dread hypothesis” in which people avoid “low-probability, high-consequence events” out of fear. Gigerenzer concluded, using data from the USDOT, that due to this dread hypothesis, “the number of Americans who lost their lives on the road by avoiding the risk of

flying was higher than the total number of passengers killed on the four fatal flights.” Fear can be powerful, especially because it can seem so reasonable. As flying is not a daily mode of transportation, its novelty is sustained as a relatively special way to get from point A to point B. Therefore, fears of being in a plane crash are understandable. While automobile accidents are dangerous already, little can be said when compared to a plane crash because while one might be able to walk, crawl, or be carried from a car accident, the same is not true of a plane crash. And, with the controls of the plane so far away from a passenger’s hands, flying requires a massive amount of trust in an airline and its pilot, something the public may be less inclined to grant as more high-fatality accidents occur. And, as more of these high-fatality accidents occur, more fuel is poured into a dangerous positive-feedback loop propagated by the dread hypothesis and the media. Especially in an age when the majority of news sources already rely on revenue from ad sales and subscriptions to stay afloat, many more outlets could possibly fall to choosing revenue-generating content over substantial stories, like California’s declining water supply or even the US-Iran talks intended to curb nuclear proliferation. Since so many already tune in to hear drama unfold of suicidal pilots crashing planes into the French Alps or miracle survival stories, providers are happy to continue diverting coverage with the expectation of turning in a profit. Unfortunately, as these news articles and segments are produced, they only add to the alreadyextant and growing fear of air travel that makes it seem as if there are more and more plane crashes by the day. Whatever the consequences may be, however, fear will always be the root of all problems. As it is almost impossible to reason with fear, it will take some heavy convincing before the public can trust avi-

ation, and the media can resume regular coverage once again. Unfortunately, with the frequency of casualty-heavy airplane crashes during the past two years, data can do very little when compared to actual crash footage from CNN.

It becomes easy to assume that flying is becoming unsafe. However, the opposite is true. So if there is to be any attempt at returning to business as usual, all parties involved must take an active role. (Keep in mind that for time’s sake, these suggestions are over-simplifications of the actual methods required.) Airline companies must perform more extensive background checks on their pilots and must check equipment with a much higher standard in mind. If this is successful, the media will then have very little material to extensively cover, and people will consequently have less to fear, bringing media and airline companies to normal profits once again. Then, and only then, can fears be sufficiently assuaged and people convinced that flying did not become unbelievably mortally dangerous overnight. True, the past two years have seen unusual misfortune, but that shouldn’t lead to forgetting just how incredible flying is—some say sky is the limit, but clearly that’s already been surpassed! Don’t let a random slew of accidents muddle the data: research by organizations like the Aviation Safety Network and the National Safety Council indicates that flying is only becoming safer, and that is much more reliable than some lousy app you found on the App Store. O

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NEWS

QUESTIONING AMERICAN IDENTITY By Lily Hartzell

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ART BY EVA STRAUSS

NEWS

n his speech to announce his presidential candidacy, Senator Ted Cruz told the story of his father moving from Cuba to the US. The main immigration issue in his campaign so far, however, seems to be the fact that Cruz was born in Canada. The Constitution states that presidential candidates must be “natural-born citizens” of the US. There is no further definition of what counts as natural-born in the Constitution. According to a report prepared by the Congressional Research Service, “The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term ‘natural born’ citizen would mean a person… by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship ‘at birth.’” Despite this, it was only a matter of hours before Fox News began questioning Cruz about his eligibility to run. It is unlikely that this fervor will die down anytime soon. President Obama faced many of the same questions during his race, and he has yet to see the last of them. A quick Google search on Obama’s birth certificate comes up with results like “10 Facts that Suggest Obama’s Birth Certificate is Fake” from MrConservative.com and a list of Obama citizenship conspiracy theories from Wikipedia. In an attempt to quiet the uproar about eligibility, the White House keeps a copy of the President’s birth certificate on its official website. There is no precedent to this, as no president has had to make his birth certificate widely available to the public before. The outrage surrounding both Cruz and Obama begs the question, why are people so obsessed with our presidential candidates being “true” Americans? In Obama’s case, many of the people questioning his legality and producing copies of his “real” Kenyan birth certificate were conservatives. In many cases it seems that they were simply unhappy with his liberal policies or the color of his skin and wanted to discredit him as much as possible. The same pattern does not hold true for Cruz, however. Fox News and Donald Trump questioned his eligibility, not just liberals who were unhappy at the prospect of Cruz’s increasing influence over Ameri-

can politics. This bipartisan concern with Cruz’s eligibility reveals just how many people fear the prospect of an “un-American” president. Cruz moved to Texas when he was four and has lived in the US ever since. So, why is it so crucial that he wasn’t born here? Something to consider is what Americans see the president standing for. “We all have stereotypes in our heads about national identity and when somebody’s campaigning to be the literal and symbolic leader of the US, [identity is] going to be part of the discussion” political science professor Deborah Schildkraut said. For many, the president should be the epitome of what it means to be American, and a lot of times that means he or she was born and raised here. Being born in Canada and holding dual citizenship for much of his life makes Cruz less than the “100 percent American” some of his constituents are looking for. The issue is that there is no clear consensus on what it means to be “American.” Is it someone who was born and raised here? Someone who owns property here? What about someone who has lived here their whole life and who speaks Korean at home? A dual citizen? There is a lot of confusion regarding the American narrative. On the one hand, we are a melting pot, a salad bowl. We are proud to welcome people from all around the world. On the other, we are nationalistic and fiercely patriotic. Loyalty to the US is sometimes used as a filter to determine who is “truly” American and who is not. “[Eligibility] is one of these things that can capture the American imagination whether or not it affects the election outcome. We know that in this day and age partisanship drives pretty much everything, most Democrats voted for Obama and most Republicans didn’t,” Schildkraut said. The primaries are a time in which individual characteristics become more important because people can’t fall back on partisanship, a habit Schildkraut calls information shortcuts. “Candidates are so similar and people need something to hold onto. Once par-

tisanship is off the table in the primaries, people start to focus more on if someone is an ‘other,’” she said. It is no wonder that the aftermath of Cruz’s announcement is centered on his eligibility to run when the complexity of what it means to be an American is layered on top of presidential politics. John F. Kennedy’s campaign followed a similar trend. Many Americans were concerned because he was Catholic, his loyalties would be split between the US and the Pope. He carefully made the distinction between being the Democratic candidate for the presidency and being the Catholic candidate for presidency, claiming that his religion was his private affair and would not influence the way he governed. To gain trust, he had to show that he represented America and only America. Cruz and others whose eligibility to run has been questioned face a similar challenge. People expect him to be the embodiment of what it means to be a true American. For many, defining who is eligible to lead our country is one way to determine who can identify as American and who can’t. It is a way people can push those seen as “foreigners” away and pull themselves into a crowd of proud flagwavers. It is a way others can broadcast who the mainstream American narrative says belongs here, without any regard for the multiplicity of the American identity. People like Obama and Cruz will continue to run for president and throw our limited definition of “American” into disarray. The question is, will our definition of American, and our obsession with finding it, change as presidential candidates do? Or will we keep examining birth certificates, unsure of what exactly it is we are afraid of finding? O

Why are people so obsessed with our presidential candidates being “true” Americans? April 13, 2015

Tufts Observer

SILLY ANXIOUS BEINGS

FEATURE PROSE

By Sam Schieren

Tufts Observer

April 13, 2015

I stared across the reservoir, shimmering in the moonlight, while Remi stared back into the dark woods. I stepped down the two-foot ridge that bordered the woods onto the small patch of rocky sand lining the water. Remi watched me with imploring eyes powered by the shine of the moon. Her mouth panted quick untimed breaths choked suddenly by the sounds of swallowed saliva. I asked her, how are you doing. And told her, a few drinks did the trick. I put my flask on the ridge and my sandals to its right. I stripped off my clothes and called her name. She leapt down the rocks. “How about it Rem? Let’s go in.” She walked by my side as I waded into the shallow lake. The warm water filled the creases of our toes and inched up to the joints of our knees. She stopped at times to lap up a splash of fresh water. I waded out until the water reached my ribs then dove under and let the fresh water sting my open eyes before I resurfaced. I floated on the lake until Remi pulled back towards the woods. Hesitantly, I obliged. She shook the water from her fur then leapt up the ridge. She was panting from the short swim. A spotted white streak ran between her glowing eyes and the white tip of her tail bobbed about. I struggled to put on my clothes while I juggled Remi. She strained the taut lead, and swung left and right, whining, hoping something would set her free. I held the lead tight. “Easy Rem, what do yah see?” She pulled towards a path cut by the deer. She breathed heavily. I pulled suddenly on the lead so she would stop. She gagged and coughed. Her neck fought the collar. She looked at me with a face I took to mean, don’t you understand? I worked my hands up the leash towards her collar and grabbed hold then wrapped my arm

around her neck and pressed my cheek against hers. I asked her, what are you thinking about? Her warm wet body pressed against mine. The forest floor cut my knees. She looked at me—on and off—and panted shallow breaths. Canines jutted out from her black lips. We looked into the woods together and I tried to see what she saw. I knew I shouldn’t let her off the lead but when she looked at me—standing now—I realized how badly she wanted me to let go. So I did. I really hope you stay, I told her, but I understand there is so much more to see. She stepped forward and the lead rustled the brush on the floor. She took several more steps on her own. I took them too, behind her. We walked along the path for a few moments; her nose surveying the trees and leaves. She wasn’t headed in any direction or searching for some critter, she was just swimming, in and out of the trees, snapping twigs and rustling leaves as she ran. I chased after her, away from my house along the water. The tree branches took swings and jabs at my face and head and arms. Suddenly she stopped and changed direction. As I watched her run my opentoed sandal collided with a rock in the path. I fell hard to the ground and quickly reached for my foot. My toe shined with blood that looked black in the dark. I squeezed as hard as I could. “Fuck!” I yelled. I looked up for the dog. “Remi!” I couldn’t hear her anymore. I sat still in the dark woods. “Remi!” The glow of the moon reflected off the lake, through the trees. “Remi!” The adrenaline from the chase and the fall made the woods seem huge and forced anxious tears to my eyes. “Remi! Come!”

FEATURE PROSE

It was hard to breathe. I dragged my head towards the iridescent plain. My stomach emptied into the vast pool. The force of everything in me pushed once, then twice more. My waste floated at the center of capillary waves. Then the world stopped spinning and I looked back towards the tree in the field, sturdy and still. I stood and looked around in circles, around and around. Fifty yards ahead there was an open field. She might have run that way, I thought. I limped along the path that twisted away from the water. My toe throbbed. I exited from the mouth of the woods into the open field. One tall pine tree reached upward from the center. The tree’s long shadow nearly reached the house above. I went to the water. I slid off my sandal, submerged my foot, and embraced the cool sting on my toe. I washed my hands of the blood. I looked back towards the pine tree and the house. No dog. I lay back and stared up into space and felt the rotation of the earth around me. My body lay there motionless; my head the pins anchoring a globe. I turned my body over and looked down at the earth. *** My parents got home at midnight. I explained that I had been in my room listening to music and something had made me anxious. That Remi wanted to go out. I told them we went for a swim and then she had this certain look. You know the look she gets in storms? I said. I guess I had felt the same way as her. I thought that I would try and let her off the lead. They said they understood and asked me which way she had run. I told them every different way, that’s why I fell and hurt my toe. ***

PHOTO BY ANA-MARIA MURPHY-TEIXIDOR

I sat alone on the edge of my yard, looking into the woods and tried to imagine Remi as she trotted to the gate, in no hurry, a smile on her face. Around 4am I decided to call it a night. I crossed the yard, climbed the stairs to the porch, and slid the glass door open and closed. I went to my room, shut the door behind me, and stripped down to my underwear. I sat in the hard wooden chair beside my desk and nudged the mouse to wake the computer. I opened the Chrome browser then keyed in Pornhub.com. I typed in a name, “young Leila,” scrolled through the results, and clicked “leila orgasmic chills.” I grabbed the lotion from my dresser and the tissues from my nightstand while Leila removed her bra. I clicked the box to fill the screen and listened as the penis talked. You silly anxious thing, he said. Leila smiled and finished stripping. With careless eyes, she fucked the voice and allowed me an empty moment. I wiped the mess from my hand. I threw the used tissues away and returned the lotion to my dresser. I sat on the edge of my bed and stared out the window towards the street. Where had Remi gone? I slid beneath the sheets and tried to fall asleep. *** I awoke to the fluctuating purr of the landscapers’ lawnmowers trimming the grass. I lay across my bed; the sun streamed, unhindered, through the panes of glass. The pound of footsteps came deliberately down the hall. There was a light tapping on the door, hard knuckle against wood. My mother called my name. “Someone is here to see you,” she said and cracked the door. The chime of dog tags accompanied the clicks of a dog’s nails on hard wood.

Remi nosed her way into my room. She hurried to my side and put her chin onto the bed. I rolled over to face her. Her wet black nose felt cool against my own. She smelled my morning breath and grinned. I asked my mother what had happened. Someone called the house around seven, she said, saying Remi was in their yard. I apologized again. My mom said she understood, what really mattered was that Remi was ok. Then Remi ran out of my room to bark at the landscapers from the front hall. I told my mother I wanted to get a bit more sleep. I had been up quite late. She said ok and closed the door. The sun kept me awake; I was hung over or still drunk. Remi barked loudly from the hall as the purr of the motors came to a crescendo. I flipped the sheet off of my body and looked down at my foot. The nail on my right toe was nearly black with dried blood. I heard Remi’s paws scrape at the screen door. Then her bark left the house and crossed the yard. I swung my legs out of bed and went to the window. She had run down to one of the landscapers on a lawnmower. The older man, with dark gray hair and sun stained skin, dismounted the machine. He bent down and Remi sniffed his sweat and beard while he scratched under her chin. I still felt a bit nauseous. I remembered the cool water on my skin while we were swimming, the way Remi looked at me from the ridge. I looked back out the window and, with her tail bobbing jovially behind her, Remi started running back towards the house.

April 13, 2015

Tufts Observer

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OPINION

SIDE EYE FROM THE SIDELINES

By Brenda Lee and Katharine Pong

hen you think of Asian and Asian American celebrities in television and film, who do you think of? Jackie Chan? Bruce Lee? Lucy Liu? This pool is limited in both quantity and scope. There arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t very many famous Asian American actors, and those who exist are consistently relegated to roles that are sidelined, demeaning, and/or stereotype-enforcing. This skewed form of representation is nothing new. Throughout history, Asian Americans have been stereotyped in racialized and gendered ways. Asian American women are either the conniving, manipulative Dragon Lady or the sensual and hypersexualized China Doll

Tufts Observer

April 13, 2015

waiting for the White man to whisk her off to a better life, while Asian American men are emasculated and cast as asexual sidekicks. Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee both became popular because of their martial arts prowess; Lucy Liu often fills the role of the sexy sidekick, but rarely the star. These sorts of roles have barely changed over the years, and most roles available for Asian American actors have relied upon these stereotypes. Furthermore, they represent only specific ethnic groups within Asian America, specifically East Asians. South Asians are frequently excluded from dominant narratives of Asian America and are not represented alongside East Asians in media that supposedly features Asian

Americans. Within this narrow scope of representation, Asian America is misrepresented and distorted. For individuals who grow up Asian American in the US, identity development is easily stunted as the messages from the media contradict their lived experiences. The mediaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s caricatures of Asian Americans thus create more confusion than clarity. This pattern is a problem. In only portraying Asian Americans in certain racialized and gendered roles, Hollywood plays a part in reinforcing stereotypes about Asian Americans. This in turn influences everyday perceptions of Asian Americans among all racial groups, but especially within the ways Asian Americans perceive

ICON BY ASHLEY VAN DYCK VIA THE NOUN PROJECT

OPINION

themselves. What does it mean when there is such a limited group of Asian Americans in media and, furthermore, that they are constantly playing the same types of roles? One of the authors of this article remembers how the cafeteria workers at her elementary school chose to ignore her name displayed on the cash register each day and instead called her Lucy Liu. At the time, it seemed to be an honor to be equated to Lucy Liu, the beautiful and underrated character in Charlie’s Angels. This same author, inspired by Mulan—the only Disney character whose physical characteristics resembled her own—decided to cut her own hair (mirroring the scene in the movie) in the hopes that she would become as brave and respected as Mulan. She ended up with a disgruntled mother and a yearlong bowl cut. However, shared physical features and surface-level associations did nothing to elucidate or guide the construction of Asian American identity. With so few examples, the author idolized these characters, heralding them as what she should strive to be. The subsequent years spent trying to live up to and “earn” the superficial greatness attached to these names were detrimental in creating only a shell of a perceived identity, whose foundation for its characterizations was built upon stereotypes. Though she did grow up to become less dependent on media representations of Asian Americans for her own identity development, the impact and influence of Hollywood was undeniable. Even now, as people are raising their voices about this issue more often, and media representation is slowly changing, we (the authors of this article) as Asian Americans often feel disconnected from or not represented in media that supposedly portrays our race or our culture. Disney recently announced that it will be releasing a live action remake of Mulan. This announcement has garnered excitement among fans of the movie and speculation about who will play each role. A recent Buzzfeed article titled “Here’s Our Dream Cast for Disney’s Live Action Mulan” is currently a top post, boasting over 820,000 views and the “FAVE” and “YASSS” stickers. The article enumerates who the author thinks should play each role, ranging from

Constance Wu as Mulan to Tzi Ma as the Emperor. But the article’s tone and rationale for its choices are troubling. Authors Sam Stryker and Matt Ortile, both White men, justify their choices with descriptors such as “bae,” “homegirl,” and “everyone’s fav.” The subsequent tone seems to reduce these actors to puppets with personality, closing the article with, “Did we nail it? Or do we deserve all the dishonor in the world?” Though the article may have been meant to be fun, it turns the roles into a farce and comes off as condescending. This feels tokenizing and exploitative. Why do we feel so uncomfortable with this “dream casting”? It feels like these choices of actors are not our own. And this feeling is not just because they are celebrities who don’t inhabit our world; it is also

We as Asian Americans often feel disconnected from media that supposedly portrays our race or our culture. racialized. It seems unlikely that Stryker and Ortile would call Nicole Kidman or other respected white actors “bae” or “homegirl,” so the fact that they choose to address Asian American actors this way is unsettling. This discomfort comes on top of the fact that Mulan as a movie puts forth problematic representations of Chinese people and culture. The dragon Mushu constantly references Chinese food (really, Americanized Chinese food) as part of his schtick, while the Emperor plays the role of the wise man spouting Chinese proverbs. The aesthetic is filled with lanterns and exaggerated Chinese dancing. What message is Disney trying to portray? Are these few elements sufficient to represent an entire Chinese history and culture to the outside viewer population?

But maybe we should just be excited (or thankful?) that there is going to be a live action Mulan remake. It represents opportunities for a lot of Asian actors to be featured in a film—not just as an exoticized, Orientalist backdrop for a story about a white character, such as the recent Netflix series Marco Polo, but a story centered on Chinese characters. Considering the frequency with which Asian people are cast as sidekicks and supporting roles, this remake has potential. Similarly, the new ABC show Fresh off the Boat is heralded by some as finally being a true representation of Asian American experiences on mainstream television, but criticized by others for its reliance on tropes and stereotypes. In thinking about this show, we would like to think about its intended audience. Although this show is a representation of one family’s Asian American experience, does it find its success and an accompanying audience in white viewers at the expense of other Asian Americans? Or is it meant to be relatable to Asian Americans? These are questions we don’t have answers for, but make us feel uncertain about what the role of this media should be in relating back to our own lives. Writing this article was difficult at times because we weren’t sure how to be critical of media that supposedly features people who look like us. We weren’t sure if we were even allowed to be critical. That we still felt conflicted about whether we should critique the existing Asian American representation in media, that there isn’t necessarily an expectation for something better—something more genuine and accurate—reflects a lot about the impact of this oppressive pattern in media. Critical examination of how often Asian American stories are silenced in favor of more familiar and more “comfortable” or “palatable” stereotypical narratives reveals a dangerous pattern of downplaying the lived experiences of an entire group of people, sometimes to the point of invisibility. Starting the conversation about the evident disparity in Asian American portrayal in media is a first step, but we deserve more than just being grateful to see ourselves on the screen; we deserve to be heard. O

April 13, 2015

Tufts Observer

ARTS & CULTURE

A SEASONAL OBSESSION By Sarah Nechamkin

hen I walk up the stairs to the third floor of the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, I fall into a Mad Men lover’s paradise. I am instantly teleported into a world of mid-day cocktails, gravity-defying hair, and suburban housewife disillusionment. This stimulation is enough to send me into a fan coma: Don Draper’s mid-century modern office, Joan’s signature pen necklace, and Megan’s groovy thigh-baring frocks! Not only do the original props, costumes, and sets tickle my fancy, but also do

Tufts Observer

April 13, 2015

the dozens of scripts, character beats, interviews, and miscellaneous notes on display that offer a window into the mind of show runner Matthew Weiner, who curated the exhibit in anticipation of the second half of Mad Men’s final season. The national hysteria over shows like Mad Men, with its tightly-wound plotting, technical finesse, and complex characterization, makes it easy to forget that until recently, television was dismissed as the poor man’s cinema— a wasteland for works deemed too trashy for the silver screen.

While this obsession was once reserved for movie franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and James Bond, high-quality television series have since seized audiences’ attention. It’s not about whether you’re hooked on TV, but which show you’re hooked on right now. We are living in an era critics refer to as the “Golden Age of Television,” which came about with the 1999 premiere of The Sopranos, inspiring a slew of anti-hero driven series, including Breaking Bad, The Wire, Six Feet Un-

ART BY ADRIANA GUARDANS-GODO

ARTS & CULTURE

der, Deadwood, Dexter, True Blood, and of course, Mad Men. “The ambition and achievement of these shows went beyond the simple notion of ‘television getting good,’” Brett Martin wrote in Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution. “The openended, twelve or thirteen-episode serialized drama was maturing into its own, distinct art form. What’s more, it had become the signature American art form of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the equivalent of what the films of Scorsese, Altman, Coppola, and others had been to the 1970s or the novels of Updike, Roth, and Mailer had been to the 1960s.” The unparalleled writing, acting, and cinematography of these shows gave new credibility to a medium defined by both the insipid feel-good comedy of domestic sitcoms (The Brady Bunch, Everybody Loves Raymond) and the brain-cell-dissolving, stereotype-inducing junk that is reality television (Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives, etc.) It’s no longer just the ABCs, CBSs, and NBCs of the cable-verse that are dominating viewing habits. With Mad Men, AMC, once a destination for classic movies, has established itself as the leading network for premium dramas like The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, and its spinoff Better Call Saul. This trend, like most of the modern era, is going digital. Netflix’s success with its original programming (House of Cards, Orange is the New Black) brought its number of subscribers up to 54.5 million from 2013 to 2014, a 31.5 percent jump, according to Kitara Media. The company continues to capitalize on its success with an original children’s series, All Hail King Julien, and Tina Fey’s comedy, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Amazon is joining the ranks, following the critical acclaim for its new show, Transparent. The show received the Golden Globe award for best new TV series, musical or comedy, recruiting Woody Allen to write and direct an original series. Now, the label, “TV addict” doesn’t associate you with the Cat Ladies of yore, eyes glued to The Bachelor as you dig into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and down a bottle of white wine. Rather, being an active television watcher indicates cultural savvy

and intellect—someone up-to-date with the zeitgeist. Today’s media obsession is undoubtedly a product of the times. For a generation coming into adulthood with the unparalleled resources and expediency offered in the digital age, it seems only fitting that we control our own television experiences, setting our own schedules to watch the shows we enjoy. For millennial viewers, the binge lifestyle feeds our need for instant gratification at our utmost convenience. With viewers now able to remember plotlines that may get lost in someone’s week-to-week attention span, there is a sense of growing with the characters, being brought along on their tumultuous journeys and unable to get off the ride. For anti-hero driven television like Breaking Bad, this works especially well, as tantalizing moral corruption becomes too intimate to reject. But because of this shift to cinematic TV, is there something lost in the great American tradition of television-viewing? Like all technological advancements, the convenience of the Netflix model means the sacrifice of the communal experience of TV—that warm fuzzy feeling you get when huddled around a television set with your family, bickering over the latest love triangle of your favorite drama. While film has tended to resonate more long-term with Rotten Tomatoes contributors and film majors than with audiences after they leave the theatres, TV has always been a favorite topic of dinner table discussion. The anticipation until next week was sometimes too much to bear, but good company helped keep us satisfied. After watching the latest episode, that interim period between episodes is a time to dissect the last episode with a community of fellow fans. With message boards, think pieces, and countless TV recaps, that community is not hard to find. While once national obsessions coincided with mass appeal—140 million people watched the miniseries Roots and 35 million tuned into Twin Peaks—today’s cultural touchstones are more fragmented, yet are designated a disproportionate amount of relevance by the digital media. While HBO’s Girls drew fewer than 1 million viewers in its

first season, The New York Times has published over 300 articles mentioning Lena Dunham since the show was released, from think pieces on Girls’ perpetuation of white privilege to the Fashion & Style section’s profiles of Dunham’s veganite Bushwick set, according to the American Prospect. TV commentary is better than ever, easily accessible for the hungriest fans to devour. But why waste time reading recaps that you could be spending on watching the next episode in your queue? The average fan is too busy glued to his or her laptop screen to bother adding two cents to the blogosphere. While television entertainment was once an opportunity to kick back and tune out, we now treat shows as marathons, demanding endurance and intense focus. Just as we seek the most efficient route from point A to point B in nearly all aspects of life, we race through the most buzzed-about shows to achieve the “most relevant” title. Each season of House of Cards, which takes about a year to fully produce and involved over 320 people per episode in the third season, only takes a weekend to finish for the determined viewer. In fact, 670,000 people, or a whole two percent of Netflix subscribers, watched the second season of House of Cards in the first weekend it was released, according to a report by Procera Networks. It seems as though the pressure to check the latest show off the list overshadows the cinematic quality of these shows—that the subtleties of a great script, tinged with Shakespearian character arcs and symbolism, fly over the heads of mindless bingers in their quests to keep up with the latest and greatest. There is no time to pause, let alone rewind and ruminate. As I look around at the Mad Men exhibit, seeing parents with their children marveling at Pete Campbell’s tennis outfits and the original packaging of Bugles, I feel I have traveled back in time—when fans came together to watch, discuss, and anticipate shows, back before mass media became an individual experience. O

April 13, 2015

Tufts Observer

ARTS & CULTURE

UNUSUALLY LOCAL FLAVOR American Fresh Brewhouse By Jamie Moore

he American Fresh Brewhouse at Assembly Row, owned and operated by Somerville Brewing Company—a small craft brewer responsible for the “Slumbrew” brand of beer you might see in a local liquor store—is anything but your standard mall bar and grill. Technically, it’s not even a bar. Brewery co-owner Caitlin Jewell describes it as a beer garden, claiming it’s the only drinking establishment of the type in Boston. It’s structurally wonky, too, composed of four repurposed shipping containers grouped around a central patio with chairs and tables: one container serves food and drink, two others are

Tufts Observer

April 13, 2015

quasi-gift shops carrying Slumbrew paraphernalia (like Somerville Soap Works’ Happy Hefeweizen soap), and the last is the restroom. When the Tufts Observer photographer Katherine Marchand and I visited in midMarch, the bar was covered by a giant tent and packed with after-work drinkers, as well as participants in some sort of charity function—“we host these kinds of things all the time,” noted the manager who showed us around. The beer garden doesn’t fit in with the rest of Assembly Row, an agglomeration of fashion outlets—J. Crew and Saks Off Fifth, among others—and higher-end chain restau-

rants. The next closest thing to “local food” is a Legal Seafoods outpost. To hear Jewell tell it, SBC’s close connection with Somerville life was a major part of why the Assembly Row management asked them to inhabit those shipping crates. There’s a sort of symbiosis in that relationship: SBC needs a space—they’re still in the process of building a new headquarters in Somerville and, until they built the beer garden, didn’t have any physical locations—and the Assembly Row management needs local flavor and legitimacy, something to connect the mall to the city other than the most basic criteria of physical location.

PHOTO BY KATHERINE MARCHAND

ARTS & CULTURE

Out of that seemingly mismatched partnership comes an establishment that appears put together with the express goal of bucking the stereotypical bar image. It seems like everything in there serves this purpose—and comes with an enthusiastic description by Jewell. There’s only one TV, a relative oddity for a bar. Jewell explains that she didn’t even want to have the lone TV, but was under pressure by the Assembly Row management. Underneath the TV is a pile of board games: Battleship, Connect 4, Clue, Monopoly, and others. Jewell excitedly notes that they’ve recently added “Board Game Wednesdays” to their weekly rotation of themed nights. In a corner near the entrance is a collection of kid’s toys—Jewell says that she wants the place to be as kid-friendly as a beer garden can get and happily observes that their midday crowd during the week includes “a lot of mommies pushing strollers.” The food is pretty far removed from typical bar fare, too. Jewell notes that they tried to make a menu that includes satisfying comfort food with more sophisticated twists, pointing out their almond butter and sparkle jam (read: jam with diced ginger) sandwich as an example. Alongside classics like mac and cheese (boldly cheddary and rich, and gone in a flash) and the fluffernutter (a local delicacy) are more experimental dishes like the cheddar ale soup with pretzel bites (dense for a soup, with a distinct beer flavor that helps cut the cheesiness, and moist, salty pretzel chunks acting almost like croutons). They’ve also become known for signature charcuterie boards, which feature local or regional meats and cheeses and seem to embody the spirit of the place in their mix of sophisticated and

casual items. On our plate, a block of orange Vermont cheddar accompanied an artisanal brie from New York. Their most popular dish—“we sell a crapload of these,” says a manager—is a Belgian waffle topped with whipped cream and strawberries, which was a perfect dessert, cooked to the ideal waffle consistency and reduced to the proper amount of soggy strawberry-and-whipped-cream-waffle mess by the final bites. The strawberries, of course, are cooked in Slumbrew’s Happy Sol beer, and are delicious. Everything is recyclable, including the plates, which resemble bamboo and are made by pressing and drying fallen palm leaves. All the chocolate they use, in their food or in their beer, comes from Taza Chocolates, another Somerville company. The pretzels are made by Wicked Twisted Pretzels, headquartered in North Grafton, and the “gift shop” section is stocked with local goods like the aforementioned Taza chocolate and Fluff. They’re even building their new location themselves. Jewell acknowledges that it can be difficult for a growing business to stay so connected to the community, but feels it’s worth it: “Somerville is such a unique place and we really try to represent that.” She points out that their Happy Sol beer, made with blood oranges sourced from a single organic grower in California, is actually so expensive to produce that they don’t make a profit on it. Instead, they continue to produce it because they feel it was the beer that got them started as a business, and owe it to people to keep it on store shelves. It’s exceedingly hard to feel guilty eating or drinking there, given the amount of care infused in everything.

Their plans for the future, too, lay far outside the ordinary, and some would even strike me as weird at any other bar. Jewell, though, is especially effusive when asked about the future. She leads off by mentioning how happy she is to get the tent off when warm weather finally rolls around, and quickly moves on to much more ambitious ideas like a fashion show—already in the works—or some kind of temporary art installation, including performance artists or contortionists posing atop the crates. She mentions plans to install crate-top gardens and briefly thinks aloud about the possibility of hosting “drunk-gardening Sundays.” Even the most traditional expansion plan SBC is entertaining, the installation of a mini-brewery at the Assembly Row beer garden, comes with a twist: they would offer amateur brewers the opportunity to submit a recipe and make a batch of it with the planned Assembly Row brewing equipment under the supervision of SBC’s brewmaster. It’s an unconventional place, an outlier—but one that is entirely worthwhile, both on its own merits and within the broader context of the Assembly Row development. What’s the point of a development project that’s trying to revitalize a long-decrepit part of Somerville if it lacks meaningful connection to the town itself? Right now, Assembly Row is right off the I-93 freeway, and is filled with out-of-town, generic stores and restaurants. People can drive in from wherever, buy the same clothes they can anywhere else, and eat the same food they’ve always been eating. That is, unless they visit Somerville Brewing Company’s offbeat little beer garden by the parking lot. O

April 13, 2015

Tufts Observer

TECH & INNOVATION

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE Engineering Our Consumer Obsession By Sarah Nechamkin

aster. Lighter. Clearer. Thinner. Better. These are just some of the words random street-goers used in 2012 to describe the new iPhone 5 in comparison to their current Apple smartphones. One caveat: they were actually given the iPhone 4s, a prank pulled by Jimmy Kimmel Live to highlight the American obsession with buying the hottest gadget on the market with little knowledge of what exactly they are purchasing. Yet, as it garnered over 17 million views, the clip’s viral success raised a deeper question: is the speedy cycle of technological consumption fueled by ever-heightening innovation or by strategic corporate engineering designed to make us spend? “It’s almost as if the new iPhone somehow ruins the old iPhone,” Kimmel told a cackling studio audience. “But it doesn’t— it’s all in your head.” However, some argue that this engineering is not all mind games—that companies purposefully design products with a limited lifespan so consumers are almost required to spend more. This practice, called “planned obsolescence,” dates back to the Great Depression, when the economist Bernard London proposed artificial expiration dates on every product—cars, shoes, buildings—as a panacea for the economic slump. From 1924 until 1939, the Phoebus cartel, a group of light bulb companies, standardized the life expectancy of bulbs at 1,000 hours. The cartel then fined manufacturers whose products lasted longer while simultaneously raising prices without competition.

Tufts Observer

April 13, 2015

Today, planned obsolescence is used in a variety of industries, including printer ink cartridges (smart chips prevent further use after a certain threshold, even when there is still unused ink), coffee machines (Keurig’s newest brewer stops users from reloading coffee pods), and even cars, long known as playgrounds for those willing to slide under the hood. In Massachusetts, voters passed a law forcing automakers to share internal service manuals, circuit diagrams, and computer codes with independent repair shop owners in response to locked-door policies by auto giants. However, no one is more often accused of planned obsolescence than the tech industry, popping out gadgets with the speed of an assembly line. The biggest culprit? The corporate machine that sits comfortably at the top of the market: Apple. In an article in the New York Times Magazine called “Cracking the Apple Trap,“ Catherine Rampell expressed frustration with a “sluggish” iPhone 4 that had suspiciously deteriorated as soon as Apple rolled out the iPhone 5s and 5c models. According to the tech analysts she spoke to, the new operating system (iOS 7) caused older models to slow down. As Apple developers spend more time developing new software with enough bells and whistles to satisfy consumer demand, they focus less on updating old versions to fix performance issues. That means older versions of iOS apps crash more often; according to 2013 data by Crittercism, a company that helps manage app performance for major app makers including LinkedIn, Netflix, and Pinterest, crash rates on iOS 6 and iOS 6.0.1 went up

dramatically—by 85 percent and 74 percent, respectively—in the eight months before iOS 7 was revealed. It would seem that Apple is making consumers want the newest, latest product, when it may not be necessary or as desirable as people think. “If you look at the latest iPhones, you can make it a little bit faster and a little bit nicer and you can put gold on the back, but it isn’t actually that different than the generation that came before,” Dan Crow, one of Apple’s chief designers alongside Steve Jobs in the late 1990s, told journalist Jacques Peretti in his BBC docu-series “The Men Who Made Us Spend.” “I think we’re seeing the natural plateauing of the product. It has reached its peak. This is probably about as good as it’s going to get.” With the introduction of the iPhone 5s and 5c, Apple had little to offer aside from new colors. This was especially evident with the gold-backed iPhone 5s, as it was merely a marketing ploy, a symbol of luxury and wealth. Others who accuse Apple of planned obsolescence say Apple makes it difficult to hold onto existing products. This is no more evident with the iPhone’s constantly shortening battery life, which, as users point out, often slows far before the phones are due for an upgrade. Since the batteries are sealed into the phone’s hardware with unique five-pointed star-shaped screws that first appeared in the iPhone 4, they are difficult for DIYers to replace. Instead, consumers are advised to set up an appointment at the “Genius Bar,” where Apple employees suggest a $79 battery replacement. The same goes for broken

ART BY ANA-MARIA MURPHY-TEXIDOR, PHOTOS BY MISAKO ONO

TECH & INNOVATION

hardware, which employees often say can only be fixed through pricey replacements. Frustrated by tech companies’ control over the repair process, some have started enterprises devoted to fixing gadgets. IFixit.org, a free online repair manual, is designed “to teach everyone how to fix the stuff they own—whether it’s laptops, snowboards, toys, or clothes.” The founder, Kyle Wiens, who invented a screwdriver to open the iPhone, describes the organization as “part of a global network of fixers trying to make the stuff we own last forever.” This movement can be traced back to two brothers, Casey and Van Neistat, who made ripples worldwide for their 2003 short film, iPod’s Dirty Secret. Criti-cizing Apple’s lack of a battery replacement for the hottest gadget on the market, the Neistat Brothers made a stencil reading “iPod’s unreplaceable battery lasts only 18 months” and spray-painted it on iPod advertisements throughout New York City. Though some may be sharpening their pitchforks, garnering the evidence that Apple is duping consumers through planned obsolescence, others argue the company deserves a pat on the back for promoting a healthy capitalist economy. “Much so-called planned obsolescence is the working of the competitive and technological forces in a free society— forces that lead to ever-improving goods and services,” Philip Kotler, author of Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control and Social Marketing: Improving the Quality of Life, told The Economist.

It makes economic sense; Apple is in a highly saturated market, and it may not be in the company’s interest for its consumers to hold on long to its products. A research note from JPMorgan Chase & Co. that was released with the arrival of the iPhone 5 argued that the new gadget might add between a quarter- and a half- percentage point to G.D.P. growth in the last quarter of 2012 because, though iPhones are manufactured overseas, most of what you pay for one is added to the US G.D.P. “To believe that more spending will provide an economic boost, you have to believe—as you should—that demand, not supply, is what’s holding the economy back,” Paul Krugman wrote in a 2012 New York Times column titled “The iPhone Stimulus.” “We don’t have high unemployment because Americans don’t want to work, and we don’t have high unemployment because workers lack the right skills. Instead, willing and able workers can’t find jobs because employers can’t sell enough to justify hiring them. And the solution is to find some way to increase overall spending so that the nation can get back to work.” According to Krugman, Apple’s system of cranking out new iPhones represents the type of Keynesian economic recovery plan that we need. Whatever viewpoint one takes, to criticize planned obsolescence is to undermine the basis of our economic system, one that drives our national identity as a country defined by freedom and opportunity. While theorists argue about whether planned obsolescence is actually taking place, consumers commonly experience

the failings of their smartphone devices, with batteries routinely slowing down, hardware falling apart, and screens becoming prone to cracking. But if consumer gripes are the norm, why does there continue to be a national obsession with the newest gadget, spiraling further with every possible upgrade? Our phones, like all products we choose to buy, represent the identity we want to create. More important than the nitty-gritty functions of technology is its ability to project an image we desire. Apple has mastered the tenet of marketing: create fear in the consumer and then introduce the product as the magical solution, the knight in shiny plastic armor for the damsel in distress with a credit card. Apple’s streamlined aesthetic has always appealed to the mass market, its fresh look evoking a sense of creativity and productivity for the modern consumer. In its 1984 Super Bowl commercial, which reenacts the plot of George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel 1984, the company tells viewers “On January 24th, Apple will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” The ingenious ad offers the Macintosh as a solution to an increasingly chaotic world, one riddled by Y2K hysteria and fears of technological overload. Ironically, however, the automatons in the commercial eerily resemble the consumers who stand outside Apple stores, waiting in line as they salivate over the newest features of the next iPhone. 31 years later, it’s quite possible that Apple has created the kind of world it promised to save us from.

April 13, 2015

Tufts Observer

MISAKO ONO

TUFTS OBSERVER SINCE 1895 www.tuftsobserver.org observer@tufts.edu @tuftsobserver

please recycle