Volume Five: Cardboard Cobwebs

Volume Five — Cardboard Cobwebs

2017 UTS STUDENT ELECTION

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A Spell for Spite Gather yourself in a quiet place, the darker the better. Write down the name of your least favourite person on a piece of paper, and find a stone the exact colour of their hair. Place these in a jar half-full of vinegar, along with the sharpest objects you can find. Rusty nails, shards of glass, or your shattered hopes and dreams will do just fine.

Seal the jar tight and spin it clockwise on the floor in front of you.

God of darkness hear my voice Guided by this person’s choice To push me to my furthest edge Forcing me to make this pledge Your zip will break Your skin will flake Your phone will die While you’re texting a guy A speeding ticket A parent with rickets A group chat ends All your friends — hate you as much as I do and you finally know what it’s like to be IGNORED DAVE

Photo — Joshua Moll | @jayemol

Welcome to Country

UTS acknowledges and recognises the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation as the traditional owners and holders of knowledge where our UTS campuses now stand.

UTS also pays respect to Elders past, present and future for sharing their knowledge and the significant contribution that Australia’s first peoples make to the academic and cultural life of our university.

– Maree Graham, Coordinator of Indigenous Outreach, Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology, Sydney

Photo — Joshua Moll | @jayemol

Contents 4 5

Editorial Contributors

Arts & Lifestyle 11 60 77 82 88

Stellar Leuna – Louisa Luong My Insecurities and Tommy Wiseau: A Contemplation – Jennifer Worgan Bake Yourself a Cake-Face – Bronte Gossling Baked Rice with Rosemary – Rosemary Burgess Horoscopes – Jenny Cao

Business & Science 21 27

Dark Roots – Mariela PT Who’s Your Data? – Teddy van Leer

Showcase 26 33 40 49 69 72

Socio-Cultural

23 31 63 66

Wise Women on Wise Women (Critical Feminists and Witches) – Rebecca Hall St Agatha – Ella Barrowclough Drinking the Kool Aid: Extreme Cult History – Aaron Pinto K-Pop Cult Fandoms – Navira Trimansyah The Dog Days Aren’t Over – Samuel Fraser The Politics of Existing – Kezia Aria Whitopia – Rebecca Cushway

83 87

Students’ Association Reports Submissions Guideline

7 14 19

Creative Writing 16 62 65

A Fine Night Out – John Corbett Piñata – Andrea Kovacic Motherly Lessons – James Gardiner

Politics 75

79

Emmanual Macron – Europe’s Torch of Freedom or the Dying Embers of a Small Candlestick? – Michael Tangonan Soak it Up: The Cult of Student Politics – James Wilson

Thea Kable & Zoe Crocker Francesca Nwokeocha Kathleen Vanthavong Anita Gallagher Eden Payne Ryley Miller & Ali Chalmers Braithwaite

4 — Editorial

Editorial A Message From the Team

You’re back at uni, ready to rumble, full of fervor, and good to go. Except — you could have sworn you submitted this assessment last week, and everything about that date last night felt like you were being watched. In our ‘cult’ volume, we asked contributors to explore all things weird and wonderful, and a little bit off. The volume of things that go bump in the night, and things that should never have seen the light of day, we’ve embodied assessment anxieties and woven them into something a little more magic.

Editor-in-Chief Louisa Luong

Managing Editor Michael Zacharatos

Our stresses and curiosities are peaking as semester gets into swing, so it’s time to take advantage of all this high-energy hubbub and stew something up. Our coven of 55 castors got together to leave you spellbound. So here’s a little taste of what we’ve conjured up.

Editors Kezia Aria Akshaya Bhutkar Rebecca Cushway Mariela PT Elliot Vella

Creative Director Kim Phan

Sub-editors Davina Jeganathan Lucinda Wedesweiler

Art Director Isabella Brown

Designers Eden Payne Mia Tran

First we follow the legacy of burning women who sparked the start of feminist witchcraft, with Rebecca Hall in her analysis of critical feminists and witches in Wise Women on Wise Women. Then delve into an imagined world of satanic renegades in Vertigo’s chat with Sydney-based illustrator, Stellar Leuna, about her fascination with the occult, horror films, and comics. Stop and sink your teeth into a nightmarish childhood birthday party in Andrea Kovacic’s Piñata. A cautionary tale, don’t believe every shocking statistic you read as Teddy van Leer debunks data hacking in Who’s Your Data? Then satisfy your bloody, cheese cravings with a bite of A Fine Night Out by John Corbett. Lush saturation fills our pages as Francesca Nwokeocha expresses fashion with the depth and richness of cultural identities through styling and photography in Chezzy Rose. Get sucked into a tale of wretched ramen in Anita Gallagher’s comic, and explore the beauty within brutalism in Kathleen Vanthavong’s photography series featuring London’s “ugliest building”.

Wade through the muck, and keep a discerning eye always in your left pocket for luck.

Carefully deconstruct this volume, from start to end, as it was carefully constructed for you. Keep your other eye out for some glossy pages slicking past your fingers, and let yourself melt into whichever seat you happen to be in at the time.

It’s bubbling under your skin, itching to breathe — you need to get out, escape this place.

But maybe that’s a sign that it’s time for you to be still, feel everything, the earth under your feet and the air in your lungs. Allow yourself to be bewitched by your own existence, fumble through these Cardboard Cobwebs and appreciate the haunting beauty of this strange, supernatural life.

Thank Yous

Fuck Yous

Shrugs

SA bar tabs Karaoke Keep Cups

Postal plebiscite Speeding tickets AusGov

Patriotism Birthdays “Winter”

enquiries – editorial@utsvertigo.com.au | submissions – submissions@utsvertigo.com.au

Contributors — 5

Thank You Our Volume Five Contributors

Written

Visual

Lachlan Barker Ella Barrowclough Rosemary Burgess Jenny Cao Luke Chapman John Corbett Norma Jean Cooper Samuel Fraser James Gardiner Bronte Gossling Rebecca Hall Andrea Kovacic Teddy van Leer Aaron Pinto Leya Reid Beatrice Tan Michael Tangonan Navira Trimansyah

James Wilson Jennifer Worgan

Selin Ala Ella Barrowclough Ali Chalmers Braithwaite Joyce Cheng Zoe Crocker Anita Gallagher Thea Kable Romy Lester Wilson Leung Stellar Leuna Ryley Miller Joshua Moll Francesca Nwokeocha Vanessa Papastavros Eden Payne John Scarpias Isabella Spagnolo Georgette Stefoulis

Cover Art

Opening Page

Advertising

Eden Payne

Rebecca Cushway

For all advertising enquiries please contact: Stephanie.King-1@uts.edu.au

Vertigo is published by the UTS Students’ Association (UTSSA), and proudly printed by SOS Printing, Alexandria.

The contents of Vertigo do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editors, printers, or the UTSSA.

Mia Tran Kathleen Vanthavong

Vertigo and its entire contents are protected by copyright. Vertigo will retain the right to republish in any format. Contributors retain all other rights for resale and republication. No material may be reproduced without the prior written consent of the copyright holders.

utsvertigo.com.au | facebook.com/utsvertigo | instagram.com/utsvertigo | twitter.com/vertigomagazine

Socio-Cultural — 7

Wise Women on Wise Women (Critical Feminists and Witches) Rebecca Hall

cw: witchcraft

Once upon a time, western culture imagined the witch as something much less diverse than what it does today.

From the 16th to 18th century, the witch’s form was the hag in the woods. Witches were conceived of as horrific and hidden monster-women who ate small children and men’s penises, performed dark curses, and participated in orgies with The Devil and other witches. In reality, the accused were generally pagan wise women who held old knowledge and refused to conform to the new Christian world order. As a result, these wise women were persecuted. Conservative figures say tens of thousands of women were tortured and killed, but the total may reach up to nine million. By any estimate, it’s an outrageous number of women slaughtered for their spiritual practice and unique knowledge. However, these burning women sparked the start of a feminist witch legacy.

Witchcraft as a Second-wave Response to Patriarchy First-wave feminist Matilda Joslyn Gage’s Woman, Church, State (1893) detailed how Christianity had been detrimental for woman’s position in “the family, the state, religion”, which previously she had “ruled”. At the time, witch trials were recent history, and effectively a contemporary feminist issue. Second-wave feminists reading early feminist texts were introduced to the witch trials as a political issue. However, these accounts of a woman-oriented spiritualism seemed like an attractive alternative to the conservative trends in the Christian-led West in the mid-20th century. A spiritual life centred on goddess worship, matriarchy, and eternal womanhood struck a powerful chord with many second-wave feminists.

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Zsuzsanna Budapest is one of the early proponents of feminist witchcraft. She started a feminist witch coven in San Francisco in the 1970s, and introduced a kind of witch practice operating as self-defence, much like an anti-assault martial arts class. Upon her belief in curse spells, she and her coven cast a spell that assisted police in catching a serial rapist-murderer.

Budapest’s practice overlaps with early radical feminism, and even with some elements of third-wave feminism such as self-love and sex positivity. The ritual of The Great Rite is an all-witch sexual celebration (yes, a witch orgy) practiced in joyful secrecy. This embodied, feminine joy is at the core of Budapest’s witch practice — what she believes to be the greatest weapon against The Patriarchy. For Budapest and likeminded witches, witchcraft is a means to channel emotion and sensuality into feminist action.

Critical Feminism/Spiritual Feminism Sharply distinguishing between critical feminism and spiritual feminism doesn’t quite reflect reality although theoretically, it is helpful for identifying feminist witchcraft as a practice. For as long as feminist witches have been practicing, they have had a deep interest in critical feminism. This is clear from the very origins of their movement, and even from early feminist witch actions. A group called WITCH (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) primarily performed witchcraft for public effect. However, they had influence, and WITCH chapters cropped up around the US throughout the late 1960s. For example, when radical feminist professor Marlene Dixon was fired

Zwissler, L. 2016, ‘Witches’ Tears: Spiritual Feminism, Epistemology, and Witch Hunt Horror Stories’, Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, vol. 18,

no. 2.

Art — Georgette Stefoulis | @georgettestef

8 — Socio-Cultural

by the Sociology Department of the University of Chicago, a local witch group inspired by WITCH hexed the department, sending them hair and nail cuttings.

Feminist witches invested in curses and hexes cast them in order to protect other women, especially feminists.

relationship to Maori women. However, there were still threads of cultural appropriation in their practice.

While this may be unsurprising in a spiritual practice consisting of a majority of white cisgender women, it is nonetheless deeply troubling.

In turn, critical feminists have directed their attention to feminist witches. For critical feminist theory, one of the most intriguing elements of feminist witchcraft is that it is a relatively early example of feminists reclaiming words and concepts originally used against women. Prior to second-wave feminist witchcraft, ‘witch’ had always existed as a weapon against women in the hands of their oppressors. Feminist witches began the legacy of feminists reclaiming oppressive words like ‘bitch,’ and ‘slut’. They embraced the feminine as powerful — no lesser than the masculine, and indeed even stronger.

One thing that Third-wave feminist fascination afforded the feminist witch movement was a positive spin that has bled over into our broader popular culture. The 1990s proliferation of witch-stories produced gems such as cult film The Craft, Willow in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Winona Ryder in the 1999 adaptation of The Crucible, and Charmed — forever changing our imagination of who a witch is; part cool-girl, part social outcast.

Third-wave Concerns and Corrections By the 1990s, second-wave feminist witchcraft had garnered quite a bit of public attention. Christian activists accused feminist witches of being part of an “anti-family movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.” While some of this may be true (and not so bad) the moral panic surrounding such accusations combined with concerns at the time about Satanism, Marilyn Manson, and The Blair Witch Project (1999) pushed witchcraft into the spotlight. Third-wave feminists began to study the phenomenon critically, finding both positive and negative elements.

During her research in the late 1990s, feminist theorist Kathryn Rountree noted that cultural appropriation of Native American and African American groups was rife in US-based feminist witch groups. Conducting her research in New Zealand at the time, she found these tendencies were less represented, and that the groups she was working with were conscious of their social position as white women, and their privilege in

2

What’s a Witch to a Feminist?

The wealth of critical feminist literature addressing modern witchcraft traces some of the most important trends reflected throughout feminist practice. The reclamation of a misogynistic and dangerous word, and its transformation into something that allows the witch themself to assert their power and sensuality in a safe, nurturing environment is incredibly important. The labour that feminist witches and critical feminists alike have done to interrogate our cultural imagination of the witch has allowed this change.

We have these same people to thank for all feminist witches in media, as well as the cult status of women like Stevie Nicks and Lorde. We also have them to thank for the space that feminist witches occupy today, able to practice their craft free of state sanctioned violence or persecution.

Going forward, we would hope that the community expands. Cultural appropriation and a seemingly ciscentric approach in feminist witchcraft can be changed if feminist witches listen to third-wave feminists, and allow their communities to grow and change along with contemporary feminism.

Gibson, M. 2006, ‘Retelling Salem stories: gender politics and witches in American culture’, European Journal of American Culture, vol. 25, no. 2.

Arts & Lifestyle — 11

Stellar Leuna Louisa Luong Stellar Leuna’s black and white illustrations weave bold, dark, and playful narratives featuring women who don’t give a fuck. Drawing inspiration from the occult, horror films, and comics, her art conjures imagined worlds full of satanic renegades. As one of Sydney’s most prominent artists, she’s worked on murals for Vans and The Galeries Victoria, apparel design for Nothing Label, and band merchandise for Endless Heights. Not to mention that you’ve almost definitely admired her work on the walls of The Lord Gladstone Hotel while sipping on a cold beer.

VERTIGO: A lot of your work reveals a fascination with the occult and witchcraft. What is it about the occult that draws you in and inspires you?

quite cinematic. Is storytelling a big part of your process?

Does this stem from the inspiration you draw from your love of horror films?

STELLAR LEUNA: I get asked this question a lot, and it always comes back to my obsession with the film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. It’s been my favourite movie since I was three or four years old, when I would watch it multiple times a day with my sisters. There is a lot of mystery behind occultism, and whether magic is real or has any sort of effect on the universe. I’m always drawn to make-believe and imaginary worlds.

SL: Thank you! Yes, it is stemmed from my love of horror films as well as other genres. It is important to me that I tell a story through my work otherwise I find it a bit dull.

I like all of my drawings to feel like a scene from a movie, so I am glad this is obvious to other people.

V: Is it mainly occult practices in Western culture that you’re inspired by? Are you hoping to explore occult practices outside of Western culture in your artwork anytime soon?

SL: I’ve always been drawn to any occultism in Asian cultures as well. My mum really likes horror, too, and we would always watch Hong Kong films about vampires and ghosts. She never censored our viewing of anything that had supernatural or mature themes. I am still researching more about the Chinese belief in the afterlife and reincarnation, but it’s also something that is deeply respected in Chinese culture so I am still trying to figure out a way that I can represent my interpretation of these things without it being disrespectful or inaccurate, since my Chinese isn’t very good [laughs]. It is a long process, as I’m trying to re-educate myself about my own culture and heritage at the same time.

V: There’s so much depth and narrative present in all your work; the way you frame and compose your subjects is

V: Your work comes across as quite bold and confident. Have you always felt confident in your own work and ability as an illustrator? What were some of the challenges you faced?

SL: Like all artists there was definitely a huge period in my life before I finished my degree where I didn’t feel confident in my work, as I was still in my experimental phase. Obviously, if you haven’t found a style you love to work in it’s going to be difficult to feel confident or motivated to draw. I think my greatest challenge so far has been to view and critique my work as an outsider, because you often become so wrapped up in your work that you don’t see it for what it is. I still look at my work and wonder how I can improve it. There’s so much to learn as an artist/illustrator, and to just be confident 100% of the time can actually be a bad thing because it means you’re probably not trying anything different.

V: So you studied graphic design at uni for three years and now you’re a freelance illustrator. How was the transition from one to the other?

SL: I studied graphic design foolishly thinking that I

Art — ‘Possession’ by Stellar Leuna | @stellarleuna

12 — Arts & Lifestyle

would learn a lot of skills required to be an illustrator, but when I started the course there was only one subject that taught us how to use Adobe Illustrator, and that was basically it. So everything I learnt about being a commercial illustrator I had to learn from just doing it myself. The process of completing a brief for a client is pretty much exactly the same as a graphic designer’s though, so the transition from one to the other wasn’t a huge leap. I never formally got a job as a graphic designer after I graduated. I just realised towards the end of my degree that it wasn’t something I felt passionate about, so I basically had to start from scratch and build a whole new portfolio of work, which is what I guess I am now known best for.

V: As an artist, what were some of the most formative artistic moments in your life?

SL: One of the periods in my life that made me want to be an artist was probably in eighth or ninth grade when I discovered what low-brow art was, from an album cover of an emo band I really liked. It was from finding these artists that I realised that you could do art for a living and you didn’t have to exhibit at a prestigious gallery to Art — ‘The Stranger’ by Stellar Leuna | @stellarleuna

be considered an ‘artist’. It just made it so much more achievable and real. So it was a gradual evolution of me doing terrible watercolour paintings of sad girls at age 15, to doing black and white ink paintings of sad girls ten years later. I got very into comic book artists in my second year of university, so that’s how I kind of found the style I wanted to draw in. I loved the fact that in the 50s, artists were employed like tradesmen to make comics for the likes of Marvel and DC. Most of these artists weren’t even famous, they were just incredibly talented drawers, so that was what they did for a living and they were very modest about it.

V: All your art is hand drawn and inked. Can you walk us through your work process?

SL: My process is very simple and straightforward. All I do is pencil my ideas down and then ink it with a lightbox onto a separate piece of paper, scan it in, and clean it up on Photoshop. I have recently started working digitally on Clip Studio Paint Pro (previously known as Manga Studio).

My work looks exactly the same whether it’s handdrawn or digitally drawn which is a bonus, as it means

Arts & Lifestyle — 13

commercial work has the same authenticity as if I had drawn it with an actual brush — only it takes half the time because I don’t have to re-ink a whole drawing if I stuff up.

took much notice of until quite recently.

V: You’ve spoken about drawing almost every day. How important is self-discipline and improving on your craft as an artist?

V: A lot of your work is centred around female heroines and for that reason, you’ve garnered a reputation as a feminist artist. Is this something you intended? Do you feel that there comes a certain pressure or onus to represent women because of this? And even more so as a woman of colour?

SL: This is hugely important, and will separate you from everyone else who doesn’t have self-discipline [laughs].

It’s not just being creative, it’s also being organised, and thinking of this as your job and not your hobby. It’s very easy to forget how to do something if you don’t practice enough. Success is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration.

That’s my best piece of advice!

SL: While I identify as a feminist, I never really wanted to be known as a feminist artist in the political sense.

My main objective was to just draw things I loved, so my work just reflects that. In saying that, it is very important to me that I represent women in a way that is honest to my own experiences, and that doesn’t just mean making them appear strong or brave but also vulnerable and soft.

V: How has your style developed since your first works that were heavily influenced by punk and the Riot Grrrl movement?

What do you think has influenced this development?

I try not to put too much focus on my race, or on the race of the people I draw, because it then feels political which is not my intention. I’ve had some people criticise my work before and ask why I “only draw white people”, which was bizarre to me, considering all of my characters are not in colour or have any sort of obvious physical traits that would appear to be of a particular race. I feel like they could be Caucasian as much as they could be Asian or Hispanic, or any other race if you choose to interpret them this way, but I mostly try to make them pretty racially ambiguous.

SL: I think it has evolved into something a lot more mature and dark, but I don’t think it’s strayed too far from the punk influences I had earlier on in my career. I like to think I’m still drawing those same girls, only they’ve now grown up. This development was pretty natural to me; I just became interested in other things and wanted to express that through my work. I also didn’t want to just be known for drawing one particular thing.

V: You’ve recently been exploring Chinese language in your art.

Is this a direction we’ll be seeing more of in your future work?

SL: I’m trying to work this into my art without it being overly cliché and predictable, because I’m aware Chinese characters are very trendy in graphic design at the moment — mostly by people who don’t actually speak the language, which always kind of annoys me. I did a few experiments with phrases I knew in English, which I translated into Chinese, and the meaning was slightly different. In doing this, I actually realised that the way I speak Cantonese is very basic and often inaccurate.

When I speak to my parents they can understand the meaning of what I’m trying to say, but I often phrase sentences incorrectly. This was the biggest challenge in using Chinese in my art, but it also reflected a part of my experience as a Chinese-Australian that I never really

V: So you’ve gotten to this stage where I feel like you’re one of Sydney’s most prominent artists. In the last year or so, you’ve worked with Vans, The Galeries, and Urge Records. How do you balance your commercial work with personal projects? Is there anything you want to work on more for personal projects?

SL: Luckily the commercial projects you mentioned fell very in line with the work I would normally do for myself, so it wasn’t a huge obstacle, and I got the same satisfaction from doing personal projects. In terms of generally balancing work with leisure, it can sometimes be a bit challenging. I guess you just have to plan your week carefully and prioritise. I haven’t done any personal work in a couple of weeks now because of a busy schedule with commissions, but as soon as I am done I would like to continue exploring other mediums.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

14 — Socio-Cultural

St Agatha Ella Barrowclough cw: gore

The narrative of the saint has always held my fascination. Saints were never part of my short-lived religious life as a child, as the Protestant Church spurned the worship of idols. Nevertheless, I grew up reading books about women knights, warrior queens, and priestesses. Even as an atheist now, I am still fascinated by these bloodied and brutal narratives of saints — the epitome of religious passion and gore. I should also add that I’m not really fascinated by saints themselves, but rather female martyrs who later became saints. Specific saints — especially female saints — have always captivated me, being some of the strongest and most resilient women found in historical literature. I remember poring over books on St Joan of Arc, absorbed by the bravery and courage of her actions. However, St

Art — Ella Barrowclough | @ellabarrowclough

Agatha is a newer story to me; she is as an example of femininity in the Church and in Catholic narratives. I am drawn to the pain and anguish of her life, as I myself begin to empathise.

St Agatha is one of the few saints we can historically prove existed. Thought to have lived in the period 231-251 AD, she was a maiden of Catania, Sicily. She refused to give up her virginity to a pagan, Quintianus — because she had dedicated herself to God — causing her to be tortured by Roman authorities in Sicily. Her breasts were removed with pincers, which is why nearly all depictions of Agatha show her holding her excised breasts on a platter. Her steadfastness in the face of such violence committed against her body is a testament to

Socio-Cultural — 15

her bravery and conviction. While she did it in the name of another traditionally male-coded being, her actions and subsequent depictions of them have enthralled me over time; they speak of a suffering in the name of something bigger and more powerful than one person.

While I don’t advocate martyrdom, its connection to the body, and especially to bodily autonomy, is relevant to many modern women’s lived experiences. Others have had similar experiences or understandings of her narrative, for example, Dolan says that “representing martyred women as disembodied may also participate in a Protestant aesthetic which … [glorifies] the suffering female Body.”1 This is interesting to me based on my Protestant upbringing, which may provide an answer as to why I’m so captivated by the myth of St Agatha. This pain, this loss of the body as one’s own, is interesting when looking at one of the many narratives of womanhood and the societal expectations of self-sacrifice. The endurance of pain, often putting our body at risk or on the line, is not unfamiliar. Does this expectation continue now, just in a less physically violent form? Is our narrative of persecuted femininity — this violence perpetrated against women and womenidentifying people — closer to St Agatha’s story than we’d like to believe?

There are other questions that come into play when I think about my personal interaction with religion and especially Catholicism. None of them can be answered by atheism. Atheism is problematic for me; even though I identify as an atheist, I often find myself lost and confused about what to do in difficult situations. While I can logically make decisions about traumatic events, big life choices, and moments of despair, I have no answers in the face of an unanswerable problem. When I was little I used to pray a lot as a coping mechanism.

I was seeking help from something unknown, a force that I had been told would help me. Now that I lack that reassurance, I’m a bit like a rudderless boat. But it begs the question, what do we do in the absence of

1

prayer? Who do we turn to when there is no one else? I still don’t know, and I am confused. So I keep doing it.

It is a constant, silent way of excising grief, hope and other emotions without burdening others or expecting anything in return. Today, I still catch myself praying sometimes — to what, I don’t know. The way I feel about prayer has little to do with St Agatha, but her presence and symbolism resonates in a similar way — I also don’t quite understand it.

The connection of the body to free will and choice, I think is especially important to me when I read about female martyrs. The physical separation of St Agatha’s breasts from her body is a symbolic gesture of women being divorced from their sexuality. While it would seem unfair for me to conflate asexuality with her myth — as asexuality is a state of being rather than something that is traumatically caused — I would argue that there is a resonance in Agatha’s story for LGBTQIAP+ identifying people, especially asexual queer women. Her refusal to have her body used or violated in an unwanted way shows a deep sense of self-knowledge and bravery in the face of a predominantly heterosexual narrative. While this is a projection of my own, I see it as important to my own narrative to identify this. There is a resonance in the account of her life that I find useful to my own, and perhaps useful to other queer women — that there may be a divorce between sexuality and being, and that’s okay (St Peter the Apostle heals St Agatha’s breasts in her story, speaking to a sense of closure).

This is but only a small fraction of how saints, especially female martyrs, are inspirational. There is an air of sexuality, free will, bodily and sexual autonomy, and the multiplicity of female narratives around them that resonates. But here I present the beginnings of something, an indulgence in personal interest and research; hopefully to go somewhere in the future. And I say: Bless you St Agatha, and all the strong women in my life.

Dolan, F.E. 1994, ‘“Gentlemen, I Have One More Thing to Say”: Women on Scaffolds in England, 1563-1680’, Modern Philology, vol. 92, no. 2.

16 — Creative Writing

A Fine Night Out John Corbett

cw: blood, gore, cannibalism

“Cheese, sir?” asked the waiter. The man nodded and smiled warmly.

“Yes, please,” he said, and the waiter nodded.

“Do you have a preference for cheese, sir?” The man was quiet for a few moments as he considered.

“Yes. I’d like cheddar cheese, parmesan doesn’t agree with me at the best of times,” and the man patted his stomach with great care. The waiter nodded and turned, spinning on his heels and briskly heading off in the direction of the kitchen.

Creative Writing — 17

“You know, I’ve never met a man who liked cheddar cheese on his spaghetti before you,” I said. The man shrugged and pulled a handkerchief out of his front pocket. “Although it does explain why you went to the other side of the room when I opened that packet of parmesan the other night.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, sounding somewhat embarrassed.

“I’m awfully sorry for that. Don’t know what came over me then, but it wasn’t the parmesan. Rather, it was the smell of brie.”

The waiter skimmed across the carpet, holding on one hand a steel tray with three blocks of cheddar and a polished silver grater. He laid them down on the table and positioned the grater over the man’s meal, holding the cheese just away from its surface, the pose reminding me of a champion sprinter waiting at the gates.

“When you are ready, sir, I shall begin grating? Simply tell me when you wish me to stop,” he said. The man nodded slowly then, after a few seconds, snapped his fingers and pointed at the bowl.

At this I frowned.

“You may begin,” he breathed. And the waiter started.

“I thought you liked brie.”

“Oh heavens, no,” he said. “Cheddar is the only type I can abide by. It’s the noblest of cheeses, a distilled taste fresh from the lifeblood of infant mammals.

Absolutely perfect. If cheddar were a car, it’d be an Aston Martin, the old DB-5 model. If it were a plane, it would be the American P-51 fighter plane. Absolutely marvellous. Oh! Here we go.”

Two plates of spaghetti bolognese, the sauce a rich red with the aroma of simmered tomato and juices wafting up from the wide plates they sat in. The spaghetti sat atop a mattress of delicate spinach, the uncooked leaves beginning to wilt slightly from the heat of the meal planted upon them. As the plates were set down, the man’s nose quivered as he sniffed at the air delicately, as if he were afraid to disturb its beautiful essence should he do so too deeply.

“Aaaah, my old friend,” he said as he gently lifted a spool of spaghetti with the tip of his fork. “My friends, I should say. How I have missed you. It has been oh so long. Waiter!”

With a series of rapid wrist movements, he slid the cheese down the surface of the grater, digging great troughs into the yellow block’s surface. Despite this, no cheese fell into the bowl; a second movement brought none either, and after the fifth I was growing as impatient as the man was.

“Get on with it, will you!” He snarled, then apologetically looked up at the waiter and said, “Not you, my boy. Heavens no, not you, I referred of course to the grater.”

“I understand, sir,” said the waiter, and on the eighth movement there came a sudden plopping sound and a pile of grated cheese slid through the bottom of the grater and onto the mound of spaghetti and bolognese.

The man shivered and a small moan escaped his lips, which he licked greedily, leaving a trail of saliva behind that glinted in the chandelier light.

“Good heavens, that is marvellous,” he said, unbuttoning the topmost button of his shirt and dabbing at his collar with the handkerchief.

Art — Isabella Spagnolo | isabella-spagnolo.tumblr.com

18 — Creative Writing

“More, sir?” asked the waiter, who was halfway through the block. By now the cheese had fallen with a regular and consistent rhythm into the bowl and a healthy dusting of shreds now coated the bolognese; the spaghetti exposed around the rim was less covered. The man nodded, wiping at the sweat on his brow, his breathing heavy.

“Oh yes. Do not stop, not until I say so.”

The waiter continued to grate until the first block of cheese had been exhausted. Deftly picking up the second block he began the process anew, sending flakes of cheese into the bowl where it was beginning to form a veritable mound. Shreds would periodically tumble down the sides and pile up around the base of where the bolognese was; though it was now so well covered it was all but impossible for an outsider to tell there had once been such a meal there in the first place. The man, sweat trickling down his cheeks and neck, took off his tie and continued to dab at the sweat occasionally. He watched the grating with an intensity, ferocious and unblinking, I had seldom seen before.

The second block was exhausted and the waiter moved onto the third. Now he focused on covering the spaghetti, which had been left forlorn and forgotten for the past five minutes; with every circular pass that he made with the grater, the spaghetti disappeared further and further under a suffocating layer of dairy, the countryside now coated like the landscape of Mount St Helens. The man had now undone his second-topmost button and had taken off his jacket.

Periodically, he made small moans, clenching his jaw as he watched.

The waiter finished the final block of cheese and balled his hand into a fist before pressing it to the grater and continuing the movements. Nothing fell into the bowl for at least a minute or two, not until there was blood pouring from the grater and spattering over the

cheese, staining it a fine dark red that reminded me of red wine or rust. Then, just as it had earlier with the first block of cheese, a ball of shreds and flakes of skin tumbled out of the grater and landed atop the cheese mound with a wet slap. The man, who by now was panting hard, let out a low moan and clenched his fist onto the tablecloth, shifting everything over two to three inches in his direction. He slumped back into his chair, breathing heavily, eyes glazed.

“Good heavens above, that was breathtaking,” the man said. The waiter nodded, satisfied, and put down the grater before reaching for a tall glass on the man’s side of the table. He squeezed the opposite hand above the glass until it had been filled halfway, and offered it to the man who then snatched it. He poured the glass into his mouth and when it was drained, took a bite out of the top rim, chewing lazily.

A dribble of red went out of the corner of his mouth as he swallowed, throat bulging briefly before he relaxed and wiped it with the back of his hand.

The waiter now turned to me. “Would you like some cheese too?”

I smiled politely. “No, thank you. But I would like some water.”

Socio-Cultural — 19

Drinking the Kool Aid: Extreme Cult History Aaron Pinto

cw: cult extremism, mass suicide, child abuse, brainwashing, murder, violence, gas warfare, poisoning, racism, kidnapping, non-consensual drug use, terrorism

Kool Aid, the Beatles, and Jesus; all things that centre around devotion, collectivism, and an intense drive towards a shared goal. Cults, along with everything else, come with their own form of extremism.

Our investigation begins with the cult that originated the popular phrase, “don’t drink the Kool Aid”. The People’s Temple Agricultural Project, more commonly known as Jonestown, is one of the most extreme cults and boasts the largest mass suicide in modern history.

Jonestown, named after its founder Jim Jones, was established to realise his vision of an autonomous, socialist colony separate from the American mainland where adherents would live according to their own code. The People’s Temple’s beliefs centred on biblical teachings and Christian revival movements, and followed a practice they termed ‘apostolic socialism’. Yes, it is as dodgy as it sounds.

At its peak, Jonestown’s peculiar kingdom was populated by just under 1,000 people, including a considerable number of women and children. By Jones’ own admission, his eight-to-eight work and study time split was modelled after that of North Korea, and eventually the Temple began to incorporate mind control and behavioural modification techniques from Mao’s China.

‘White Nights’ were regularly held to ‘rehearse’ what would happen in the event of colony being invaded, and votes would be taken to determine the fate of the colony.

These White Nights came to a head in mid-November of 1978, with 907 members of Jonestown drinking a fatal cocktail of cyanide, Valium, Phenergan, and chloral hydrate — all flavoured with sweet, sweet Kool Aid. Although definitively extreme, The People’s Temple’s fanaticism was insular and only really impacted its members. To get an idea of the differences in extremism

between cults, we look to one based in Japan. Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) gained notoriety as one the most violent and extreme cults in Japanese history and was formally dubbed a terrorist organisation by both the US and Russia. Supreme Truth was founded in 1984 as a doomsday cult by Shoko Asahara, a man who believed himself to be the “Lamb of God”. A hybrid of Asahara’s interpretations of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, Supreme Truth rapidly gained a large following among university-aged students.

Before long, it started to exhibit signs of extremism.

Having initiated members through the use of hallucinogens and extreme ascetic practices, Supreme Truth had a predilection for violence. They began to attract controversy in the late 80s with accusations of deception, false imprisonment, and finally murder in 1989. As cult members became indoctrinated, they began to act as a single organism, eliminating threats to the survival of the cult. Supreme Truth is known to have murdered figures who publicly denounced them, and also conspired to work through an extensive assassination list.

The true extremism of Supreme Truth came to light when they unleashed their own chemical weapons on the Matsumoto subway. Having developed in Western Australia strains of sarin and VX (deadly nerve agents), Supreme Truth released these for the first time in June 1994. The experiment was repeated in 1995 in a Tokyo subway. Strangely for a doomsday cult, the reasoning behind these attacks was not to herald the apocalypse, but to distract authorities from raiding their warehouses. It’s no Kool Aid, but sarin gas gets a tick for cult extremism.

Returning to mainland America and one of the most

20 — Socio-Cultural

notorious cults of the 60s, we investigate the Manson Family. Led by ex-con Charles Manson (no relation to Marilyn), the Manson Family capitalised on the radical attraction to the Free Love movement of the late 60s in their recruitment. Like Asahara of Supreme Truth, Manson thought himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus, and fittingly his preaching echoed biblical teachings with incorporated elements of Scientology.

The Manson Family attracted a large number of members — primarily white and female — who then became indoctrinated.

The Manson Family was responsible for a number of murders and attempted murders including the attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford in their

group formed on the outskirts of Melbourne in the mid 1960s. Founded by Anne Hamilton who — surprise, surprise — believed she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, The Family practiced an eclectic mix of Christianity, Hinduism, and other Eastern and Western religions; they were truly staunch believers in the universality of a spiritual truth. They were also staunch believers in their family unit, and went to great pains to indoctrinate Family members from the local community.

By ‘great pains’, we mean dosing susceptible psychiatric patients in the local hospital with LSD and recruiting those of value. Hamilton was effectively operating a hazing syndicate to extort large sums of money from her victims, and her winnings were estimated at $50 million. However, this was only the tip of the iceberg.

“HAVING INITIATED MEMBERS THROUGH THE USE OF HALLUCINOGENS AND EXTREME ASCETIC PRACTICES, SUPREME TRUTH HAD A PREDILECTION FOR VIOLENCE. THEY BEGAN TO ATTRACT CONTROVERSY IN THE LATE 80S WITH ACCUSATIONS OF DECEPTION, FALSE IMPRISONMENT, AND FINALLY MURDER IN 1989.” waning years, however it was a dangerous obsession with the Beatles that secures the Manson Family a spot on our list. The ‘poison’ in this instance was an album being created by the Manson Family (in their yellow house, the Yellow Submarine) to begin an apocalyptic war. Named Helter Skelter, after the Beatles’ song, the apocalypse envisioned by the Mansons was one of brutal eradication of whiteness by Black rage. Supposedly, Black people would murder whites to extinction in retribution for centuries of maltreatment, allowing the Mansons to return from their underground city in Death Valley to rule over the remaining Black population. Needless to say, this never eventuated, and investigations into the Manson Family’s graphic murders eventually put the leadership of the cult behind bars.

The final leg of our investigation brings us home to Australia, and yet another bastardisation of a sacred family. Our final featured cult is The Family, a New Age

The Family also owned and operated a rural property at Kai Lama where they obtained 14 children. Taken from members of The Family, kidnapped from local hospitals, or illegally adopted, these children were seen as the ‘chosen ones’ by the adult circle who believed they were tasked with saving children from the apocalypse following the ‘imminent’ World War III. All were dressed identically, and their hair was bleached blonde and cut into identical bobs to dupe them into thinking they were biologically related. The children were often subjected to severe beatings and starvation, and were regularly drugged with a variety of psychedelics to ‘draw out’ their spirituality.

Cults have been a central aspect of human history since its beginning, and are no doubt here for the long haul.

Luckily for us, they don’t get much more extreme than this. So remember, stick to Cottee’s, folks!

Business & Science — 21

Dark Roots Mariela PT cw: graphic imagery, Nazism, racism

So you’ve heard of organic agriculture, pesticide-free crops, maybe even permaculture and sustainable farming; but you probably haven’t heard of biodynamic agriculture.

And if you have, I doubt you have good feelings about it.

course in 1925, Steiner prescribed nine preparations to aid fertilisation — practices that injected terrestrial and cosmic forces into the farm’s soil.

This is where things start to get a bit weird.

Biodynamic agriculture — now a worldwide movement — was an initiative that began in the early 1920s with its roots in the spiritual influences and physical practices of Dr Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian writer, educator, and social activist. The core tenet of the biodynamic practice requires farmers to implement management practices that restore, maintain, and enhance ecological harmony.

Steiner and the biodynamic movement see the crops, livestock, land, and farmer as one holistic entity.

This all seems harmless enough, right?

Well, on face value, sure. It’s when you look beneath this healthy, holistic, wholesome practice of agriculture that things start to get a bit ugly. In an agricultural

Preparation 500 calls for a cow horn filled with cow manure that is buried in autumn, 40-60 cm below the surface. During winter, it is left to decompose and is dug up for use the following spring. Preparation 501 requires almost the inverse — a cow horn buried in spring and removed in autumn, but this horn must be filled with crushed and powdered quartz. These two substances are then added, in minute quantities, to 250 litres of reverse osmosis (filtered) water. To aid the composting process, Steiner recommends an additional seven preparations — 502 through to 508 — that make use of a variety of herbs used in medicinal remedies.

Yarrow blossoms stuffed into the bladders of red deer, chamomile blossoms stuffed into the small intestines of Art — Wilson Leung | @_whydesign

22 — Business & Science

cattle, oak bark placed inside the skull of a previouslydomesticated animal. These are just a few of the odd directions coined by Steiner and practiced religiously by followers of the biodynamic agricultural practice.

The final element of biodynamic agriculture is the planting calendar that considers the lunar and astrological influences on the growth and development of soil and plants. Essentially, this means that the choice of planting, cultivating, or harvesting various crops is based on both the phase of the moon and the zodiacal constellation the moon is currently passing through. Since Steiner’s development of biodynamics, fervent adherents to biodynamic principles, known as ‘adepts’, continue to follow his recommendations — to an almost cult-like degree. They seek to capture astral and terrestrial energies in attempt to ensure the cohesiveness of farmer, land, and crop. An owner of a biodynamic farm and vineyard in Tuscany, Italy said of the practice, in 2015, “the biggest misconception [of biodynamic agriculture] is that this is witchcraft. It is not witchcraft… well, maybe a little.”

‘Practical’ adepts are intent on following Steiner’s preparations to harvest the best, most sustainable results possible — practicing what they call ‘ethical agriculture’.

The somewhat strange behaviours of these followers fall darker when it comes to the genuine believers of his anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is a doctrine created

by Steiner that is concerned with more than simply practicing a more sustainable and holistic style of agriculture, but also the ideal modelling of humanity.

Historians have cast Steiner as one of the many occultists and Satanists that flocked into the arms of a leader who was also dedicated to the ‘betterment’ of humanity — Adolf Hitler. Scholars have made convincing links between Steiner’s anthroposophy and Nazism.

In his extensive work and papers on anthroposophy, Steiner meanders into stories about the rare treat it is to encounter Satan, and how the world came to be populated by human beings who were incarnations of cosmic spirits from the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, or Jupiter. Perhaps most importantly and more bizarrely,

he describes the strict differences between these ‘races’.

Some contained the seeds of future development, and some did not, and these less-developed races would be bound in eternal service to Satan. These anthroposophical ideas of racialised development and superiority echo the core elements of Nazism, and so it came as no surprise that some of Steiner’s seminal pieces of work were found, after WWII, in Hitler’s own private library. A haunting illustration of this link can be found in the Lagerkommandant (chief commanders) of Nazi concentration camps, who were fuelled by the astral and terrestrial powers of vegetables harvested by these ‘inferior’ races, the inhabitants of these concentration camps, and the victims of Nazi brutality.

Steiner’s anthroposophy is an inherently racist ideology based on an arbitrary and oppressive hierarchy of races informed, apparently, by spirituality. Steiner insisted that this racial hierarchy was simply “universal law”: “The forces which determine racial character follow [a] cosmic pattern. The [Native Americans] died out, not because of European persecutions, but because they were destined to succumb to those forces which hastened their extinction.”

A dangerously racist and arcane philosophy, what Steiner and ardent believers of anthroposophy maintain is that certain people are not inferior because of their race, but that they are a part of said race because they are inferior. These individuals can therefore be reincarnated to superior races by following certain spiritual practices that are as arbitrary and obscure as Steiner’s agricultural practices.

Scientists, anthropologists, and other academics have debunked both Steiner’s agricultural and spiritual doctrines. They’ve been classed as misleading and baseless pseudoscience. The cult status of biodynamic agriculture circles and believers of anthroposophy cannot be denied. At its most harmless, it’s a bunch of whacky, hippie farmers trying to be more ethical in their livelihoods; but at its most dangerous, it’s an insidious, racist, and downright disturbing ideology.

Socio-Cultural — 23

K-Pop Cult Fandoms Navira Trimansyah

My mother has always been an avid fan of Westlife.

It was therefore inevitable that I, too, would have an extreme obsession with boy bands. I can match certain periods of my life to an array of boy bands; from the Jonas Brothers to Big Time Rush, and even Blue.

Eventually I joined a K-Pop fandom.

Being a part of this fandom has been an expensive journey, in terms of both money and time. The dedication it takes to be fully committed to my favourite idols is intense. As a naive 12-year-old, I was ready and willing to embrace everything the online K-Pop fandom had to offer; and in a way, being a part of the K-Pop fandom is like submitting to a system synonymous to a cult.

The Term ‘Idol’ K-Pop groups and members are commonly referred to as ‘idols’. This term already connotes ideas of worship and dedication, evident through the fans’ behaviour.

K-Pop fans tend to invest heavily in their idols in order to feel like they have an exclusive relationship with them. This exclusivity is a notion created by the entertainment agencies from the very beginning. When a group is newly debuted, there are certain aspects of the fandom that need to be addressed; for the group and their fanbase to be established. This include the official fan colours, the fandom’s name, and fanchants.

The colours are used to represent the group through official merchandise such as light-sticks and balloons.

Art — John Scarpias | @bjorksdaddy

24 — Socio-Cultural

For example, Infinite’s official colour is ‘metal gold pearl’ and Seventeen’s is ‘serenity and rose quartz’. The fandom name is also crucial, as it allows the idols to address their fans with a sense of personal connection. Finally, the fanchant — something unique to K-Pop — is when the idols sing their song on stage, and the fans yell either certain sections of the song, or list the idols’ names to the beat. It’s difficult to explain, but if you search “K-Pop fanchants” you’ll find an array of fascinating examples.

One Belief The need to obsess over one group and one group only is another requirement of idol-worshipping. If a fan admits to being a fan of another group, it’s seen as a betrayal to their own fanbase and idols. There have been instances of severe cyberbullying because of this, with many ‘loyal’ fans feeling a sense of duty and responsibility towards their idols and taking the matter personally. There have also been numerous scenarios in which fandoms fight with one another, and choose to take out their anger on the opposing idols themselves.

One interesting way of doing this is by taking part in ‘the black ocean’ — when fans boycott a particular group at multi-artist concerts by turning their light-sticks off and sitting silently, making the artist perform to what seems like an empty audience. The most famous incident was when Girls’ Generation were performing at Dream Concert, and members of every other fandom boycotted their performance. Why? Because Girls’ Generation fans had been fighting with other fandoms prior to the concert. Being ignored like this is humiliating for idols, as they experience the hate physically, and on a larger scale, rather than the virtual hate they are used to.

Hierarchy There is a clear hierarchy in the entertainment industry.

Like that of a cult, the primary goal for an entertainment company is to make as much money as possible. CEOs are charismatic leaders with complete control over who gets to debut and the image needed to market these groups to obsessive fans. The company board members and investors create strategies to make idols more

appealing, while idols are the faces of the company, existing to bring in money. This is not to say that idols are completely restricted creatively, but any endeavours generally require the approval of board members and CEOs — whose primary goal is to earn as much revenue as possible. Idols are made responsible for ensuring their fans have been influenced and charmed enough to invest their trust, loyalty, and money.

Expensive Investment Being a K-Pop fan is expensive. Being obsessed and dedicated means going broke for the rest of your life.

Entertainment companies are ruthlessly willing and able to find so many ways to exploit fans and dig money out them, especially the younger ones. There are the usual official merchandise — t-shirts and caps, but more ridiculous items like umbrellas, card holders, thermos cups, face masks, and even those flimsy plastic shopping bags you get at the supermarket. The only difference: the official colour and name of the K-pop group is marked and printed on. And, just like that, they can easily sell for over 10 times the usual price. There are also ‘official fanclubs’, where fans pay around $100 a year to be certified as an ‘official member’ of the fandom.

They can gain exclusive gifts, merchandise, and even access to their idols. These memberships tend to also be limited every year, creating a competitive urge to join them. While I’ve never really taken part in buying these things, I am guilty of buying one thing: albums.

K-Pop albums are ridiculously expensive because their packaging is always top quality. They come in all shapes and sizes with an extensive, high-quality photobook that contains both photos of the group and ‘photocards’.

These ‘photocards’ are like baseball cards, where cards can be traded between fans or sold for a large sum of money, depending on the rarity. The most annoying thing about K-Pop albums is that they also sell more than one version of the same album. I try to avoid buying all the different versions, but often I do anyway because they all have different ‘concepts’. These constitute only one-tenth of everything else fans buy to show their love for their idols. I’ve read stories in which younger fans have threatened to run away from home, or not attend

Socio-Cultural — 25

school simply because their parents wouldn’t let them buy merchandise or attend a concert. It’s an obsession that threatens both their well-being and wallets.

Image and Illusion Entertainment companies always work hard to create and maintain the illusion that idols are the ‘perfect’ boyfriend/girlfriend to their fans, and thus perfection must be upheld. Idols almost always attribute their fans

common and severe, to the extent that entertainment companies sometimes locate these trolls and sue them for online harassment and abuse. The internet also allows fans to follow everything their idols do, both online and in real life; the regular places they visit, their daily routines, and their social activities. Their stalker-like behaviour is frowned upon, but it also does not come as a surprise. Fans tend to closely monitor their idol’s activity on social media, to the detriment of idols and fans alike, as whatever is posted online

“DIFFERENT MEMBERS OFTEN HAVE ‘ROLES’ TO FILL, SO THEIR GROUP AS A WHOLE WILL APPEAL TO THE LARGEST POSSIBLE DEMOGRAPHIC. THESE ROLES INCLUDE: THE CHARISMATIC LEADER, THE NAIVE ONE, THE SMART ONE, THE PRETTY ONE, THE CUTE ONE, THE MYSTERIOUS ONE...” as the only reason they continue to put in the hard work and pursue their love of music; completely hyperbolising their dependability on their fans. Different members often have ‘roles’ to fill, so their group as a whole will appeal to the largest possible demographic. These roles include: the charismatic leader, the naive one, the smart one, the pretty one, the cute one, the mysterious one, etc. Again, this is a successful marketing strategy that furthers their success and makes fans feel as though they have a special relationship with their idols. However, this need to keep up an illusion is damaging for the idols themselves, and entertainment agencies often ban them from dating, or force them to keep relationships secret, in case it shatters the fans’ boyfriend/girlfriend illusion. If idols are discovered to be dating, it is highly likely their fans would disapprove, and even leave the fandom — making entertainment companies lose a lot of potential investors.

What One Says is Always Right As the K-Pop fandom is largely based online, whatever their idols say or do is closely monitored by internet citizens — ‘netizens’. Online hate comments are so

is misconstrued as truth. One example is an Instagram post by GOT7’s Jackson, who uploaded an image of himself donning dreadlocks for a Pepsi ad. International fans were quick to criticise his offensive cultural appropriation and tried to educate him. In response, he uploaded another post unapologetically defending his actions, and called those who accused him of cultural appropriation “haters”. This brought more backlash and further outrage from international fans, to which he then uploaded a final post to apologise, saying that he was simply “too in love with the culture”. From this, Korean fans started turning against international fans, defending what Jackson did and saying people were just “overreacting haters doing everything they could to bring GOT7 down”. As someone who grew up in the US and can thus better identify with international fans, Jackson should have known more about cultural appropriation outside of monocultural South Korea.

His actions are only one of many that contribute to the normalisation of racist content such as blackface in mainstream South Korean media and, more recently, the appropriation of Islamic culture in the K-Drama, Man Who Dies to Live.

26 — Showcase

Socio-Cultural — 31

The Dog Days Aren’t Over Samuel Fraser

cw: homophobia, bestiality

furry: someone who has an interest in anthropomorphic animal culture; someone who is captivated by animals engaging in human-like behaviour. furry fandom: the community of artists, writers, roleplayers, and fans of furry literature, art, and entertainment. fursona: a furry persona; one’s alter ego or avatar as an anthropomorphic animal.

I recently sat down with Bradley, a distinguished member of the furry fandom from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to discuss identity, sexuality, and misconceptions surrounding the furry community.

His cutesy fox-feline hybrid fursona, Pyxe, gives new meaning to the saying “every man and his dog”. With more than 22,000 Twitter followers, Pyxe is an admired ‘popfur’, and a prominent figure in the furry fandom.

For Bradley, Pyxe is both the animalistic representation and the idealistic projection of his human identity.

The colours Pyxe sports — vibrant red and violet fur — convey his warm and engaging personality.

His character has evolved from predominantly feline with large, flowing wings to a more reserved, wingless hybrid of a fox and feline — to cater to Bradley’s envisioned future self. His fursona is an alter ego, a source of self-assurance, and a favoured form of escapism from everyday reality.

Born into an incredibly religious, conservative, “dysfunctional” family in Pittsburgh, Bradley was always seeking an outlet for self-expression. As a gay man in a household where his sexual orientation was forbidden, he had two options upon coming out: to be kicked out, or sent to conversion camp. But having surrounded himself with supportive friends, Bradley’s confidence improved, and he came out to his family at 16. This new-found confidence was partly due to his coming out to his friends as a furry a year earlier, after spending

time navigating the largest furry database, FurAffinity.

Although there were some who initially thought it weird, coming out as a furry was a “major confidence boost” for Bradley — further empowering him as a gay man. And yet, while his high school peers accepted his furry identity, the online gaming community was extremely hateful toward the furry community.

For Bradley, the furry fandom is an open-minded safe haven filled with LGBTQIAP+ members from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality. It’s a safety network that “opens an avenue for finding one’s self that closeminded parents and communities cannot do”. According to him, it’s this openness and sense of belonging that motivates the steady growth of the community.

Within the fandom, furry roleplay is a longstanding practice that sees furries assume the role of their fursona and perform animalistic gestures. When in their fursuits, “some furs will pet, hug, and brush noses”, and while I myself find my serenity in a nice glass of four-dollar wine, many furries consider roleplay “very soothing and fun”. The majority of the interaction between furries is online — through Telegram, Colloquy, and Kik, as well as on furry-oriented websites such as InkBunny, FurAffinity, and SoFurry. Although group chats are accessible by anyone wishing to discuss anything furry-related, these spaces are not solely dominated by furry discourse.

Rather, these forums are used to develop community and discuss shared interests.

32 — Socio-Cultural

The biggest problem the furry fandom faces is the misconception about it that dominates mainstream society. Anti-furry discourse paints them as a closed, kink community of animal abusers. However, the community is a tolerant and open group of cute ‘anthros’, and a melting pot of sexual identities.

Though they are often labelled as odd, the furry community is made up of everyday people. They have members like Spawts, a Dalmatian working on their psychology doctorate, and Uncle Kage, a cockroach who has a PhD in chemistry.

Bradley believes it is important to recognise that furries are not literal animals, but “animals with human characteristics… [They] are animal-like, but

Bradley also addresses the most significant problem faced by the community: the notion that furries are in support of, or even affiliated with, bestiality.

Bestiality involves feral animals that have no control, whereas anthropomorphic pornography gives human characteristics to animals to make them more human than animal, and, most importantly, consists of consenting adults.

When discussing the existence of any contentious issues within the furry community, Bradley is quick to note the existence of furries that are considered “too illicit”. This group is made up of those with “extreme fetishes” and taboo kinks, who are pressured to either conceal their sexual fantasies or share them with like-

“THOUGH THEY ARE OFTEN LABELLED AS ODD, THE FURRY COMMUNITY IS MADE UP OF EVERYDAY PEOPLE. THEY HAVE MEMBERS LIKE SPAWTS, A DALMATIAN WORKING ON THEIR PSYCHOLOGY DOCTORATE, AND UNCLE KAGE, A COCKROACH WHO HAS A PHD IN CHEMISTRY.” very human”. And, like most humans, furries have sexual desires. Shedding light on the taboos within the fandom, Bradley details the kinky side to the community. For those enticed by the image of their fursona in erotic circumstances, they can purchase ‘murrsuits’ — fursuits specifically designed for sex.

There are actually very few manufacturers that create these adult suits, as it is taboo within the fandom itself.

Contrary to popular belief, the furry fetish is only a subcategory of the community.

Although the furry fandom does have a substantial amount of adult content, it is more than just a kink group. Being an open community, topics such as pornography and adult art are normalised. For some furries, visualising their fursona in a sexual situation is intriguing and can offer an outlet for that appeal.

minded people in private group chats. If these taboos are discussed in public or online forums, the furry community — albeit open-minded and tolerant — would implement bans, punishments, and expulsions.

Although the fandom is a “somewhat safe space” for furries with extreme fetishes, they are still disapproved and in no way represent the majority.

Bradley’s perspective and insight is a breath of fresh air; a new look into the realities of the furry community.

Although furry porn and NSFW images of Simba may forever be etched into my mind, I have newfound respect for this fandom. They’re putting a middle finger up — or in this case, paw — at the status quo. “[They] are weird, yes, but weird is subjective”.

Showcase — 33

Chezzy Rose iam-chezzyrose.com

Akshaya Bhutkar

Meet Chezzy Rose: a platform that was born from a need to express fashion with more depth and richness. Visual Communications student Francesca Nwokeocha talks about her experimentation with styling, fashion, and photography after struggling with the lack of representation and authenticity in the industry. Approaching fashion as a medium that meaningfully expresses one’s identity, Francesca’s platform, Chezzy Rose, focuses on styling that reflects identities and cultures.

Photo — Rachel Tse for ‘I AM Francesca Ogech QingQing Nwokeocha’ | racheltse.com

“I’M HALF-CHINESE AND HALF-NIGERIAN, SO THERE’S A LOT OF CULTURE IN MY LIFE. I STUDY VISUAL COMMUNICATION AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, AFTER MOVING FROM A BUSINESS DEGREE LAST YEAR.”

When I was 16, I started fashion blogging — back when it was first beginning — and there was a lot of hype around it. When I started, my blog was very ‘on trend’, with a monochrome aesthetic and light colours. Fashion, for me at the time, was a way to forget about stress; I could dress up, take photos, and use it as a creative outlet.

I went on to do an internship at a fashion PR firm, which turned out to be a huge eye-opener. We would get all of these expensive designer garments and stylists would come and go. It was outrageous to see all these pieces

stacked up like they were nothing, treated as though there was no value in the clothing. That was when I realised what I found appealing: the whole art of putting clothes together, rather than brand names and price tags.

In terms of blogging in the fashion industry, it’s very superficial. If you have a certain bag or clothing item, you’re automatically considered fashionable — but it’s so much more than that. It should be about the art of putting everything together and making it look like it has value. There’s so much more to fashion.

Photography — Francesca Nwokeocha | @iam_chezzyrose | Assistance — Serene Heka | Model — Shema Mow

When I stopped blogging, I realised I needed another form of creative outlet. I kept thinking, and then it hit me: Why don’t I continue with fashion but do something on a deeper level? I come from such rich cultural backgrounds; there was so much I could do with it.

Instead of me being in the picture, it would be so much more meaningful to put my work out there and style other people, helping represent their identities.

Fashion is, in essence, an expression of who you are to the world. It works as a protective barrier between you and the world outside. Your experiences, your culture, and how you have been brought up all affect your perspective on fashion and what you do with it. I used to be really self-conscious, but exploring fashion has helped me deal with that — enhancing my ability to control what others perceive of me through the way I style.

“THE SHEMA MOW SHOOT WAS AMAZING. IT WAS THE HARDEST SHOOT I’VE DONE, GETTING SWEATY AND SUNBURNT, BUT IT WAS SO CAPTIVATING.” Shema also has such a rich cultural background, as a Sudanese Muslim woman born in Egypt. She was bought up in an incredibly modest context, and so she couldn’t experiment as much as she wanted to. That has carried itself into how she dresses now, with Shema trying to find herself with fashion once she moved to Sydney.

I really wanted to focus on her Egyptian heritage with this shoot, which is why I featured a lot of silks and textured materials. I focused on bright, bold colours that I knew would be so vivid against her dark skin.

African culture in general is so bright, which is why I experimented with lots of colours and jewellery.

I seek my models out beforehand, but most of them are my friends. In saying that, I want my shoots to be professional, so I look for very specific aspects when deciding on the subject.

Before shooting someone, I’ll interview them on the phone or in person, and ask them questions about their identity, parents, and events that may have affected the way they approach style. From there, I use Pinterest

to search highlights I’d like to feature, and to get inspiration. I then choose a theme — colour schemes and fashion trends.

With Shema’s, I focused on colour blocking, frills, and silk. When it comes to the styling, I approach the outfits the way that I dress myself: visualising the look beforehand, putting them together in my head.

“FASHION IS A WAY TO CONTROLLING WHAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO PERCEIVE OF YOU.”

I never used to do braids as a child. I would dye my hair blonde and basically try to be someone else, to adhere to an exclusive ideal of beauty. When I put my braids in, I was in disbelief at how well they worked, and how much easier it was for me to do my hair. My hair is very curly and kinky, and I would spend hours straightening it — basically I was trying to be white, and I’m not white!

You dress according to what you want people to think of you — how you want the world to perceive you, and as an expression of who you are. The way you dress can also be a reflection of your feelings and your mood.

Hair and makeup, everyone has a different way of expressing themselves.

I feel like, as with anything else, fashion will progress as society progresses. The fashion world is always reacting to society and what is happening in the world.

There’s definitely more diversity in the fashion industry today, which is good, but it does make you wonder…

You’ll never know if a brand is taking diversity into consideration because they know it’s good branding, or if they actually care about these things.

40 — Section Showcase

BRUTAL BEAUTY Kathleen Vanthavong

Brutal Beauty was shot at the Barbican Centre in London — a building known for its unique structure yet voted as “London’s ugliest building”.

Brutalism is an architectural style that emerged after World War II as a movement rooted in modernism. It became particularly popular in the UK due to the need for affordable housing and the low cost of its characteristic concrete structures. Within this series, I aimed to capture how light and shadow create fragmented forms, to focus on unacknowledged space, to show the beauty within brutalism.

Showcase — 49

story and illustration by Anita Gallagher

Story & Illustration — Anita Gallagher

Business & Science — 57

Who’s Your Data?

Teddy van Leer

Statistics seem like the ultimate trump card. They cut through emotional arguments, appeal to rationality and logic, and are difficult to contradict. How can anyone argue against numbers underpinned by laws as absolute and immutable as those discovered by Pythagoras and Archimedes? The secret is, they’re not. Research and statistical analysis is just as much art as it is science.

The ways researchers collect and analyse data can have profound impacts on their results. Unfortunately, the choices researchers make about collecting and analysing data are influenced by their desire to be published. American psychologist Brian Nosek said it best, “there is no cost to getting things wrong, the cost is not getting them published.”

To understand how research can be manipulated, it’s important to understand that statistics are based on probability. Researchers analyse relationships between variables by testing their ‘p-value’ — the probability that the observed data occurred by chance. The smaller the p-value, the less likely the relationship between the variables is completely random. When the p-value falls below a defined (though arbitrary) threshold, usually 5%, the analysis then reports a ‘significant result’ — a result worthy of attention and publication. Most stories you see published, for example, “inhaling second-hand

smoke causes lung cancer in non-smoking adults”, are only there because the researcher found a significant relationship with a p-value of less than 5%. Biased researchers can employ various methods, known as ‘p-hacking’, to artificially lower the p-value to increase their chances of a significant result.

Vague Hypotheses: The first question we should ask is what relationship the research aimed to test, and how it was tested. Research works best if it’s used to assess a specific hypothesised relationship. Errors can arise when researchers embark on a ‘fishing expedition’ — asking a vague question and collecting data on a large number of variables in the quest for a significant result.

In 2015, science journalist John Bohannon’s research reported a significant link between chocolate and weight loss. But before you skip the gym and go for a chocolate bar instead, you should know that Bohannon intentionally designed the study to achieve a significant result in a plot to reveal the flaws underpinning research. His study didn’t have a specific hypothesis, he simply wanted to prove that chocolate was healthy.

To test this, he measured 18 variables loosely-related to health, including weight loss, cholesterol, and sleep quality. He described each variable as a ‘lottery ticket’, knowing that it was probable that at least one would

Art — Mia Tran

58 — Business & Science

return a significant result. It just so happened that weight loss returned that significant result, so the headline read: ‘Eating Chocolate Can Help You Lose Weight’. Had any other factors been significant, the headline could have just as easily read, ‘Eating Chocolate Lowers Cholesterol,’ or ‘Helps You Sleep Better’.

This is not to say that studies are invalid if they measure more than one variable. It can be perfectly valid to collect many variables to test a conclusion; for example, GDP, employment, and inflation can all be used to measure the strength of an economy. The difference lies in whether the study aims to answer a specific question, or is asking a general question, and collecting data loosely-related to that question to return any significant result.

Small Sample Sizes: When used well, researchers can use samples to create accurate inferences about the population. However, they can be manipulated by researchers to artificially lower the p-value. The first trick is to collect data from a small sample. A small sample size amplifies the effects of uncontrolled factors, and increases the likelihood that a significant result will be achieved by random chance. Say I’m conducting a survey to test my hypothesis that 1 in 5 people believe that Ghost Rider is Nicolas Cage’s best film. If I only survey 50 people, the impact of any one person’s answer is amplified.

Smaller sample sizes also amplify the impact of outliers, and a decision to include or exclude an outlier. Outliers have a huge impact on the ‘average

person’ — if Bill Gates walks into a bar, suddenly the average person is a millionaire.

We should also question how the data itself is collected.

Samples may be polled by randomly generated telephone numbers or online polls. Bias can exist in both methods; landline calls are likely to collect data from an older sample group, while an American Association for Public Opinion Research found that online polling “yields more reports of socially undesirable attitudes and behaviours than oral interviewing”. Remember the study from late last year that reported that “49% of Australians support a ban on Muslims coming to Australia”? That result would be convincing (and appalling) if all 24 million Australians were asked, but since the sample size was only 1,000, and data was collected using an online poll, the result isn’t as credible.

If the analysis doesn’t quite reach a significant p-value, researchers may use their final trick; collecting or even cherry-picking a few more data points in the hopes that this will lead to a significant result. Say my previous analysis reports only 1 in 6 people think Ghost Rider is Nicolas Cage’s best film. To prove my original hypothesis of 1 in 5, I can collect a few more opinions that I’m sure will produce a positive result. For example, the next ten people I survey will be ‘randomly’ chosen from a ‘Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider Appreciation Society’, and as soon as the analysis reports a significant result, I’ll stop collecting data.

How outliers affect the line of best fit (notice the identical data points)

outlier

Graph without outlier

Graph with outlier

Business & Science — 59

Correlation vs. Causation: Data can’t speak for itself; it must be interpreted. Even where research is robustly designed, and validly achieves a significant result, researchers can still fall into the trap of incorrectly inferring causation. The causal factor may be misattributed, or the researcher may conclude that just because two events are correlated, they are also caused by one another. This fallacy can lead researchers to absurd conclusions; say for example, the number of films Nicolas Cage appears in correlates with the number of people who drowned in pools. From this relationship, researchers can infer that people are drowning in pools when their screen exposure to Nicolas is increased.

And while Season of the Witch did score a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s still pretty far-fetched that Nicolas pushed viewers past the edge of their seats and into a body of water. Significance is not a measure of causation, but simply whether the data fits a hypothesis. For that reason, we should always consider whether conclusions naturally flow from the data. If something smells fishy, there’s a decent chance that it is a fish.

Fake News: So why is research manipulated like this?

The fake news is in: headlines sell, and science makes a great headline. Companies know how much faith we put in science, so they manipulate research to use this to their advantage and support the cult of consumerism.

To see how effective this can be, we need look no further than the tobacco industry, which spends over $10 billion on marketing every year. Since the (peer-reviewed, replicated) science came in on the danger of cigarettes in 1952, Big Tobacco has continually funded scientific studies to undermine evidence linking smoking to premature death. Though these studies don’t fool most of us, the minority for whom the data have been obfuscated support the industry’s staggering revenue of $123.5 billion.

Amidst all this corruption and manipulation, it would be tough to say that researchers are to blame for the state of statistics. Unfortunately, research is not independent of the corrupting capitalist reality of the world. Not only are researchers limited by the cost of collecting, cleaning, and analysing large swathes of data, but when funding (often from companies looking to support their own agenda) is contingent upon finding a significant result, accurate reporting could mean an empty bank account.

All of this manipulation might lead you to ask the question: if research is so misleading, why is it afforded so much clout? The answer is that it’s by far the most reliable method we have of knowing. For us, this just means that the best way to approach statistics is with a healthy dose of scepticism.

Art — Mia Tran

60 — Arts & Lifestyle

My Insecurities and Tommy Wiseau: A Contemplation Jennifer Worgan

Tommy Wiseau’s seminal 2003 film The Room has been described as “the Citizen Kane of bad movies”. It tells the story of a wealthy banker who discovers his fiancée is cheating on him, as well as containing subplots involving cancer, drug abuse, and football. After failing upon first release, it slowly gained cult status. Over ten years after its release, it is still regularly played in cinemas.

The film was directed, produced, and written by Wiseau, who also starred in the lead role of Johnny. Wiseau intended the film to be a drama, but has since stated that it was a black comedy. He is an enigmatic figure, and secretive about himself — his age, nationality, and the nature of his career before he went into film have all remained mysterious. He is thought to be in his seventies, but has maintained long and luscious hair, seemingly with ease. He speaks with a European accent and has been rumoured to come from both France and Poland, although he has stated that he was born and raised in Louisiana. Ultimately, he is living like a king in LA, where celebrities including Kristen Bell love him, his film, and his ambiguous Wikipedia page. He has successfully sold underwear off the back of his cinematic success, and is having a film made about him by Seth Rogan and the Franco brothers.

Art — Romy Lester | @romaji_draws

Arts & Lifestyle — 61

As a critic, it is important to remain objective, but I must admit that it has been a difficult experience attempting to write about The Room, as Wiseau’s success has forced me to confront my own intense professional and personal jealousy.

This article will probably win several Pulitzer prizes, so it will be a shock to you that I have in fact written many pieces of dubious quality in the past. I can say with absolute certainty that Wiseau is by no means the only writer who can introduce subplots and then forget about them, or include what is deemed to be an unnecessarily large number of sex scenes in a story. These are characteristics I had always thought of as unique to my work, and although gatekeepers of the creative industries seemed slow to catch on, I thought that it was because I was ahead of my time. After watching The Room, the stark reality set in and I was forced to face up to the fact that James Franco has not yet offered to play me in a film.

I want to be clear: the issue is not that I don’t like men with long hair. In fact, I often subtly try and encourage men to grow their hair longer, in the same way that a Tame Impala song does. However, Wiseau’s hair has reached such a length and maintained such silkiness that I can’t help but feel it is vaguely inappropriate in someone who has also made so much money. He also dyes it jet black, something I did myself in both 2014 and 2016 without creating any cult films, and so it was not viewed as one of the trademarks of my eccentric personality, but rather as a cause for concern by my mother. I have spent many a sleepless night googling Wiseau, overcome with desire to be asked to attend a red carpet event because Paul Rudd ironically enjoys my work.

Instead of simply letting the darkness fade from my hair, I wish I was casually touching up my roots before attending a party hosted by Alec Baldwin in his gated community.

This has been a confronting time for me, and it has led me to a confronting truth.

Not all creativity is rewarded in our time. Some of us are beloved for our low-calibre work, and others are left to live the life of Van Gogh, writing sex scene after sex scene in obscurity. As I watched The Room, weeping, for the seventh time in a row, it struck me that the film itself is about jealousy, and the ugly ways it can manifest. Perhaps, I thought, Wiseau’s hair is not taunting me — perhaps it is a sign that he is like Jesus.

Perhaps he is leading me to acceptance.

This has been a beautiful and meaningful realisation, but it has also made for a long week, and so I will provide it here to save time if any of you are considering going through a similar transformative experience. Some terrible writing is lauded, and some is lost forever, but trying to garner niche cult status is like trying to catch a small and fragile insect in a jar — Hollywood celebrities won’t notice you doing it. The only option for true creative freedom is to write out a thousand unresolved subplots, tear the paper into tiny strips, and then slowly and lovingly eat them. I wish you well.

62 — Creative Writing

Piñata Andrea Kovacic

Flossed cakes swabbed by sticky fingers. Pitchy tunes on the radio sound like incessant whispers. Sucking lips and gurgling throats. Passing trays of gooseberry bakes; ants nibble crumbs on the grass floor. Over in the corner, by the cubby and peach tree, sits their circle neatly made. Eyes to the hanging, fluttering fur, belly swollen with sugar.

Toothy grins hang from their faces. Fairy bread sprinkles pepper their lips.

“GO, GO, GO!” First: grab the base tightly. Check your thumbs are in line. Roll your wrists; let them snap loose. And swing. It seems cranial. A fracture of the frontal lobe. The inside of a cracked shell filled with cardboard cobwebs. And swing. Rainbow papier-mache showers in shredded ribbons. The pieces get caught in their hair like fruit flies. And swing. Capillaries spurting grape bubblegum. The circle clucks their thick tongues.

And swing. Jelly beans and candied hearts burst from the caved kidneys. It spills out into their claws, mashed in their teeth into sugary paste. And swing, swing, swing.

“GO, GO, GO!” The frayed cable swings limply above. Snouts are to the dirt, snorting up gummy worms. Sucking on the loosed eyeballs. Crack upon bones in jaws to reveal fruity skittles of cherry and lime. Tugging on rope braided veins staining their tongues blue.

The circle breaks into a squealing mass. Frolics round the sacrifice. Stalking artificial sweetmeat. Their animal chorus curdles the nearby pigeons into flight. Dark chocolate eggs smear cheeks black. Cats lick the gooey centres of red sour drops. Melting red.

“GO, GO, GO!” But retching begins. The circle is puking up acidic sherbet, a frothing pink flood.

Oozing sugar clutches the arteries. No air. Their bursting stomachs heave like writhing sacks. No air. Adults pulling them inside the house, by their joints. Need some ginger and potions.

And left for the ants and cats and beaks, the paper corpse rots below the tree house.

Slain.

Socio-Cultural — 63

The Politics of Existing Kezia Aria

cw: Islamophobia

Post-9/11 saw a flood of sensationalised, fearmongering Islamophobic rhetoric in news media that has continued its onslaught years after. The Muslim existence in wider Western society had permanently shifted. Muslims were silenced by everyone, including members of our own communities and our own families — we hid ourselves and practiced our faith more quietly. All in fear of being shunned and shamed, all in fear of being Muslim.

Time passed, and counter-hegemonic news outlets became popular among those who saw through the hate-fuelled messages of mass commercial media.

With that confidence — and repressed emotion built up over the years — more Muslim women were speaking up and out for themselves. Aided by social media, Muslim women made use of a democratised platform that gave anyone and everyone the potential to gain traction. The equalising force of social media is that not everyone using these platforms is an academic, or has the educational background to analyse and articulate themselves and their experiences. This is especially true when one’s existence, despite everything, is political.

And so, without academic jargon and references, the ‘simple’ act of posting on social media — taking selfies and starting trending topics that advocate for representation — is a powerful statement, a political act in itself.

This convoluted and watered-down concept might seem superficial and gratuitous, but, socially and politically, it is a reflection of culture and society. It’s us shouting, “We exist! We are here, and we can speak for ourselves!”

In a world where Muslim women are collectively seen as oppressed and silenced by our patriarchal counterparts, we are showing our autonomy. We are all individuals, who just happen to be of the same faith.

Some of us wear head coverings, face coverings, or

nothing at all. In saying that, there are Muslim women who are experiencing oppression, but that comes from patriarchal ideologies, institutions, and figures that weaponise the religion for sexist purposes; just as Zionists utilise Judaism, religion and political agendas are not one and the same.

So, after countless calls by young people for diversity and representation, for our voices to be heard and our stories told, Hollywood and big corporations got the message. Although, yes, much of it was a marketing ploy to target our wallets, it was also heart-warming and encouraging. Seeing our communities and people like us cast in roles other than terrorists and criminals, or the token ‘diverse’ character who suffers from a dismal lack of character development, was really nice.

Except this was a very superficial gesture that stopped at the bare minimum before it started to improve. By labelling a character ‘Muslim’ — obviously meant to add social commentary — but then not explore them being Muslim, Hollywood was proving they loved — or maybe just tolerated — a very particular ‘type’ of Muslim.

Secular Muslims. Those who eat bacon because “it’s very tasty” (Looking at you Aziz Ansari. I mean, you do you, but we get it.) or reject their strict parents’ ways of life out of spite (generally only because they had difficult relationships with their parents who were usually overprotective migrants), and assimilate into white, Western, ‘progressive’ culture. This ‘representation’ still reeks of propaganda: dog-whistle politics, where only people of the community can decode the connotations of certain messages (so don’t blame yourself if you don’t notice it).

A recent issue arising out of Hollywood is the representation of Muslims of the LGBTQIAP+ community. This was especially controversial within the

64 — Socio-Cultural

discourse surrounding The Bold Type and their diverse cast of main characters, including a black woman and her love interest, a Muslim woman. While happily welcomed by many Muslims and non-Muslims, white people and people of colour alike, there was a significant number of adolescent to middle-aged Muslim ‘Twitter sheikhs’ who hated this “normalisation of LGBTQIAP+ Muslims”. Their tweets, calling out the show and this character, were circulated with thousands of likes and retweets — their sentiments clearly resonating with other Muslims. From criticising the way the character observes hijab to the very fact that she was a lesbian, the backlash was full of internalised misogyny and

preachers some form of fanatics, and the ‘moderates’, well, nothing. The fact that they are Christian is more of an additional fact than a distinct identity marker, and Muslim people should be held in the same regard. Most Muslims are just like followers of any other religion, prioritising aspects of the belief that personally resonate with them, or Islam as a whole; they pray five times a day or they don’t; they keep their diets and activities exclusively halal or they don’t; they observe Ramadan and celebrate both Eids, just one, or none at all. This obsession with a ‘modern’ and ‘secular’ Islam is harmful, and the policing of Muslim people — especially by other Muslims — is toxic.

“BY LABELLING A CHARACTER ‘MUSLIM’ — OBVIOUSLY MEANT TO ADD SOCIAL COMMENTARY — BUT THEN NOT EXPLORE THEM BEING MUSLIM, HOLLYWOOD WAS PROVING THEY LOVED — OR MAYBE JUST TOLERATED — A VERY PARTICULAR ‘TYPE’ OF MUSLIM. SECULAR MUSLIMS” homophobia. Even with the fear of criticising Islam and its followers (in case it fuels Islamophobes) it is necessary for Muslims of the LGBTQIAP+ community and its Muslim allies to call out our own community.

This phenomenon illuminates the binary presented in mainstream media — between the archaic idea of Islam and its cultural traditions, and ‘progressive’, left-wing politics. Why not both? They aren’t polar opposites.

They also aren’t even in the same ideological category; one is a religion, and the other a political opinion. It’s an entirely inaccurate assumption to make for all 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, almost 25% of the Earth’s population.

But what exactly is this ‘modern’ and ‘moderate’ Islam the West loves? Islam is a moderate religion, whatever that means. You don’t label Christians who choose against constantly preaching to strangers on the street a “moderate Christian” — you label those street-

Religion, separate from political ideology, is such a personal journey. Growing up and becoming who I am now, I have developed from a child with no doubt of the existence of God to an atheist with scientific theories to back me up, to an agnostic with a belief that there must be a higher power somewhere out there, and to here, now. I can’t lie, this process was in part caused by sociopolitics and a desire to retaliate against fearmongering backlash; I had grown to fear for the safety of my grandmother who wears hijab and my Muslim relatives and friends. But that was also what pushed me to where I position myself now in relation to Islam. I don’t let it entirely dictate my decisions — that’s entirely on me — but I love what it has provided me with. I just want to make clear: religion is personal, and you have no right to judge others or call them out as ‘bad’ Muslims.

Creative Writing — 65

Motherly Lessons James Gardiner

Hide yourself.

Keep it locked.

Or you’ll find yourself in a sticky mess.

They’re impressionable.

Coming from you, who cultured me in molasses like a fern or a vine kept from light.

Facts are controversial in your mind when they’re lined up in the wrong direction.

You who willed me with all your prayers and tears into the corner of the room — repenting, wailing, full of the rising spirit.

Who are you to warn me.

To wave your finger.

To teach me the things that I learned alone.

I braved the words imprinted on my tongue and reclaimed a voice that’s mine.

Art — Isabella Brown | @bissy

66 — Socio-Cultural

Whitopia Rebecca Cushway

cw: racism, whitewashing, genocide, Nazis, torture

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

– George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Fiction has always been a way to reflect the current state of the world back onto itself in a nice, digestible package. No genre does this more aggressively, or more politically, than the dystopia. Dystopian fiction lends itself particularly well to criticising the current world order because it acts as an exaggerated version of already existing ideas. Think: science-fiction with a socio-cultural agenda. Because of this, the very best dystopian fiction has stolen its horrific ideas from real

world tragedies. Usually this means taking the trauma and history of people of colour, the subject of most of the atrocities perpetrated by the West, and repackaging them in a nice, squeaky clean, white protagonist. Having a look back at the history of dystopic fiction is like looking at a bulging, warped reflection of the history of the world. Writers create dystopias to shock people into realising what it could be like, if they continue down the slippery slope of the prevalent oppression happening

Socio-Cultural — 67

at the time. The dystopia is what the world would look like if it was falling apart, and the powers that be kept peddling it to us as a ‘utopia’.

Utopia by Thomas More (1516) is the first recorded use of the word ‘utopia’ — a combination of the Greek ou- and topos, meaning ‘no-place’. This, like the incredibly long and epic novel based in a time when churches ruled the world, is meant to be satirical. This perfect world does not, and cannot exist. After this, the word was instead interpreted to come from eu- and topos, meaning ‘good place’. From here came the exponential growth of farout dystopian texts. Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift, 1726) was a critique of extreme rationality and science, portraying it as a waste of manpower and the world’s natural resources. There’s also a particularly racist encounter with a ‘primitive’, ‘savage’ people that are a thinly-veiled mirror of the real-world native cultures undergoing rapid colonisation by England at the time.

Then comes Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, 1932) the seminal dystopian work. Brave New World operates in a world where cultural and financial stability is key, and commercial cheeriness and sexual promiscuity are rampant. People are given free recreational drugs and kept complacent. Written by a Briton in response to the Great Depression, it was a critique of the lavish American antics Huxley saw when he visited. Again, after a racist visit to a village eerily reminiscent of Native American peoples, the protagonist learns a life lesson and returns safely back to his ‘civilised’ world.

Around the time of World War II, unsurprisingly, there was a big influx of dystopian works. Nineteen EightyFour (George Orwell, 1949) is probably the most famous, and most influential of these. It centres itself on a rebel against a totalitarian state, where propaganda and thought-control reign supreme. The torture devices used in the book are taken from tactics used in Soviet Russia at the time, and the Big Brother character, a leader whose unseen power subdues the masses, is very obviously based on Adolf Hitler. The real-world Nazi propaganda minister said, “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” This is almost identical to the mantra of

the book. This propaganda-based communist fear is repeated again in Farenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury, 1953).

Skipping forward a little closer to home, Tomorrow, When the War Began (John Marsden, 1993) and its subsequent series looks at a near-future Australia, which is invaded suddenly and overtaken by an unknown people who proceed to mindlessly destroy towns and cultures. The unknown invaders are never given a specific identity or language, and granted there is one person of colour in a main role, but the similarities to the colonisation of Australia and the erasure of our indigenous population are too much to overlook. Especially considering there are no Indigenous characters in the book.

Next up, the environmentalists. The Lorax (Dr. Seuss, 1971) is a children’s book, and not your usual candidate for a revolutionist agenda. The Lorax came after the ‘hippie’ wave hit America in the 60s and harshly critiqued the ever-expanding consumerist culture, at the cost of destroying the natural environment.

Then come the feminists. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) was the first dystopian novel to be considered a feminist work. It is based in a world where women are breeding stock, where only the rich, the powerful, and the white, had the ability to breed. It is brutal, and harshly critical of oppressive patriarchal structures, as well as extremism in religion. The punishments are taken from the Spanish inquisition, Nazi Germany, and imagery from the Salem witch trials. As a teen, I loved this book. I had found a smart, critical way of thinking about the world as it was, but by virtue of being young, naive, and white, it never occurred to me that there wasn’t a single person of colour in the entire book.

The Handmaid’s Tale has been recently remade into a television series by Hulu, to much critical acclaim.

However, the writers of the show (including Atwood), made a major change to the script that hasn’t gone unnoticed. They included people of colour, namely in major roles. They explained this decision was in response to a changing world, and that it would have

68 — Socio-Cultural

been jarring to see a world with only white people. In a world where fertility was the priority, it wouldn’t make sense to ‘waste’ fertile women of colour. So hooray!

Representation! By including people of colour, we’ve managed to make this show less racially insensitive and we can move on with our feminist revolution. Right?

Well, no. Our main character is still white, and despite all her progressiveness, her Black lesbian best friend, and her Black husband and child, she is still white. We are seeing this oppressive world through the eyes of a white woman, and for the most part only being encouraged to empathise with this one white woman. This woman undergoes public lynching, is banned from reading, writing, or congregating, is raped and whipped, and for

blind’ casting. Refusing to acknowledge the racial tensions of the current world, it is ‘post-racial’. The idea of post-racial texts is that we don’t need to address race, because we’ve already solved racism! Wahoo! This not only belittles the oppression and experiences of people of colour, but also implies that we don’t need to work harder at solving systemic racial issues, because they’ve already been solved.

Dystopian texts are revolutionary texts. They are usually written with an agenda, and that agenda is usually to challenge the current status quo. But in order to write and publish a revolutionary text, you need to have enough power to be publishing anything in the first place. So, these texts are almost exclusively written

“AS A TEEN, I LOVED THIS BOOK. I HAD FOUND A SMART, CRITICAL WAY OF THINKING ABOUT THE WORLD AS IT WAS, BUT BY VIRTUE OF BEING YOUNG, NAIVE, AND WHITE, IT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME THAT THERE WASN’T A SINGLE PERSON OF COLOUR IN THE ENTIRE BOOK.” all intents and purposes, is a slave to her household.

These are presented as horrors, as they should be, and we are encouraged to feel disgusted and angry on her behalf, at this extreme near-future. But you see, these were things that actually happened in slave-era America.

These were things that happened to millions of Black people, the ramifications of which are still being felt today. Black women underwent this trauma where lives and cultures were destroyed and now we get to see and understand this trauma through the eyes of a white woman, without any of the racial context.

This whitewashing of the trauma felt by people of colour, packaged up for the general public’s entertainment, is extremely problematic. The simple replacement of white characters with Black, without any change to the television script, is almost as problematic.

The television series casts Black and Latinx people in what were previously white roles, in an almost ‘colour-

by white people. And up until the 1970s, exclusively written by men. They are an incredible way of reflecting the world back onto itself and serving as a cautionary tale to the horrors of the current world trajectory. But by appropriating the trauma of marginalised ethnic groups, we are expecting the world to only care if the face is ‘inoffensive’, ‘relatable’, and most importantly, white. People of colour have experienced the history, so let them experience the revolution. If you’re going to address the horrors of the current world, address all of them. If you’re going to read these books, read critically.

Showcase — 69

70 — Showcase

Showcase — 71

72 — Showcase

74 — Showcase

Politics — 75

Emmanuel Macron – Europe’s Torch of Freedom or the Dying Embers of a Small Candlestick?

Michael Tangonan

Previously heralded as the darling of the liberal, free market world during the second round of the French presidential elections, Emmanuel Macron has proven to be the most obvious option for the French constituency.

Emerging from the election from what seemed to be a monolithic mandate — he gained majorities in all but two departments — Macron seemed to be the man of the moment, the plug to the increasing flow of rightwing political activity in Europe, the solution to the

problem. In the weeks after his ascension, he earned accolades such as being referred to as “the great mover and shaker in Europe”, “the youngest President of France since Napoleon Bonaparte himself”, and a new candidate whom the mantle of “Leader of the Free World” can be passed to.

Macron has now been the President of France over three months. During his election campaign, Macron

Art — Selin Ala | @selinala

76 — Politics

was reported by Challenges to have compared himself to Jupiter, the Roman equivalent of Zeus king of the gods, and that France needed a Jupiterian head of state.

In saying so he had distinguished himself from his predecessor, François Hollande, who had campaigned on the line that he was a normal person, a normal president, and that he would be the people’s president.

Even before the French elections and while still a minister under the Hollande government, Macron in an interview with Hebdo described the absence of a king after the French Revolution as an “emotional, imaginary, collective void”, a void expected by the people to be filled by the president — Napoleon (as First Consul and later Emperor of the French) and de Gaulle were examples of such democratic leaders filling in this void.

With Macron moving to consolidate his position as the president, commentators have been apt and quite vocal about the president’s actions as saturated and dripping in symbolism. His meeting with Putin in May was at Versailles — a symbol of the absolute monarchy under Louis XIV. The July conference with Trump comprised of dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower, a visit to Napoleon’s Tomb, and a military parade on the Champs-Elysées.

Even his victory speech at the close of election was at the Cour Napoléon with the Louvre Pyramid in the background — a significant location considering the site was where the former Palais de Tuileries stood, the home of the French Bourbon monarchy.

However, as July and August seeped in and the European mainland prepared to welcome the autumn, as the leaves fell from their branches, so did Macron’s approval rating. Macron sat on a bolstered 62% approval rating when his presidency commenced in May, it shot up by two percent to 64% in June only to drop back down to 54% in July — one of the fastest drops in French political history. For comparison, at this time during his presidency, Hollande was on 56%.

Perhaps it would be fair to say that Macron seemed only as Europe’s Golden Boy when placed next to the darkness of Le Pen’s far right — a small candle next to darkness is a golden light nonetheless.

Ushering in his political party, En Marche, from political infancy and obscurity into the 2017 French legislative elections as one of the main power players, Macron’s star is one which now seems to fade. Macron has been to be the first president in the history of the Fifth French Republic to force the Chief of the Defence Staff to resign. Macron and the Chief of Defence Staff, General Pierre de Villiers had disagreed on austerity measure category cuts to defence spending ($1.2 billion AUD) with Le Monde reporting that de Villiers approached the Defence Committee of the National Assembly, stating that he “will not get fucked over like this”. There has also been large backlash against cuts in public spending which would see a loss of 120,000 public sector jobs (this is much lower than Republican candidate François Fillon’s proposed reduction of 500,000 public sector jobs) and reducing the corporate tax from 33% to 25%. In his pursuit to cut public spending by around €60 billion (around $90 billion AUD), Macron also seeks to amend the retirement age which is currently at 60, reducing the power of unions in terms of labour laws, and permit employers to negotiate around the statutory 35 hour working week, if not repeal it.

The French people were faced with two evils during the 2017 presidential elections: do they choose the far-right wing leader who threatened to usher a dark age of xenophobia and isolation; or do they invite yet another member of the current liberal world order — promising nothing but austerity, budget surpluses, and free trade deals. Though the French are able to say that at least they did not elect a Donald Trump into power, they have elected someone who undermines decades of French political tradition and might through disappointment invite a greater right-wing threat to pitch for the next time constituents go to the polls.

Arts & Lifestyle — 77

Bake Yourself a Cake-Face Bronte Gossling

In 2017, the term ‘baking’ isn’t only associated with delicious cakes, breads, and biscuits. Instead, it has become synonymous with a technique used heavily by make-up artists and internet beauty gurus. Growing at an exponential rate, the rise of the beauty empire has bolted up with the path to glam now accessible at a fingertip, and the viral popularity of makeup trends and beauty bloggers.

Though the average 2017 woman owns 40 makeup products, experimentation with makeup isn’t something that’s only just grown as a trend in recent years. The use of cosmetics has been present in nearly every society for the last 6,000 years, with the form of expression being used in cultural traditions and was indicative of civilisations’ practical concerns, such as conventions of beauty and class.

Cut creases and contouring are words that are now being learnt as part of the expert makeup skills that are coming at a younger age, with the new generation experimenting with their appearance and makeup looks from ages as young as 12. Gone are the days of blue eye shadow, roll on glitter and your favourite bubble-gum gloss; tweens and teens of the 21st century are learning how to arch and feather their eyebrows, and plump their lips before they can even drive.

In 3000 BC, red clay and water were used as rouge to colour lips and cheeks in India and Pakistan, while henna was used to dye nails, skin and hair. In China specifically, gum, beeswax, and eggwhites were used to stain fingernails – the colours of which became symbols of social class in the Chou dynasty. Royals wore gold, silver, red, and black; whilst lower classes were forbidden from wearing bright colours on their nails all together. The Japanese Geishas wore lipstick made of crushed safflower

Art — Joyce Cheng | @_joycecheng_

78 — Arts & Lifestyle

petals; and sticks of bintsuke wax, a softer version of the sumo wrestlers’ hair wax, were used as a make-up base.

On the other end of the spectrum, cosmetically altering your face during the Western Middle Ages was seen as sinful. It wasn’t until the 20th century that makeup’s power as a status symbol came to fruition, spurred by Queen Elizabeth I’s 400-year-old ‘Mask of Youth’. Only the rich and cabaret performers had the means and social prowess to adorn their faces with pale arsenicfilled powder — a trademark of having the luxury of not having to work under the exposure of the sun — while rebels with a cause over-lined their eyes and painted their lips blood-red.

What once was considered highbrow has now become a worldwide industry; projected to make $265 billion USD in 2017 alone, a historic 6,000-year evolution that can

The top article when googling ‘is make up turning us all into clones’ has celebrity makeup artist Pati Dubroff declaring that social media is the “worst thing that’s ever happened” to the beauty industry. Whilst makeup brands such as Colourpop (who have built a cult-like following on these platforms, and consequently, recordbreaking sales), might disagree, Dubroff is commenting on a larger issue. The rise of a singular, clone-like look known as “Instagram makeup” — and the identity crisis that’s rising along with it.

Big lips, feathered and dramatic brows, glowing cheeks; looks with these staples are recreated by thousands of people and posted about thousands of times a day.

In a world that is thriving on encouraging confidence and experimentation, it seems incongruous that only a singular standard is celebrated with hundreds of

“IN 3000 BC, RED CLAY AND WATER WERE USED AS ROUGE TO COLOUR LIPS AND CHEEKS IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN, WHILE HENNA WAS USED TO DYE NAILS, SKIN AND HAIR. IN CHINA SPECIFICALLY, GUM, BEESWAX, AND EGGWHITES WERE USED TO STAIN FINGERNAILS...” be attributed to the rise of hashtags like #wokeuplikethis and the tech-powerhouses that facilitate them — such as Instagram, YouTube and to a lesser extent, Pinterest.

This industry and its social implications are too bright, glittery and heavily-lined to ignore. Make-up is no longer kept for traditions or status symbols — it’s now a form of experimentation and expression. It’s powerful; with the a face able to be baked, contoured and highlighted — altered to your preferred Instagram perfection.

Makeup may be leading a new realm of expression, yet are growing trends of how your face should look making us all look the same?

thousands of likes, followers, and comments — while those that stray are overlooked.

With hundreds of new products being launched every week, makeup lovers are too busy serving new looks to care about any potential problems ahead. Makeup is more than a form of empty vanity but instead is an art form that has opened up a whole new realm of expression. Giving so many individuals the sense of empowerment and confidence that comes with being comfortable with one’s image, the rise of the growing beauty empire shouldn’t be dismissed.

Politics — 79

Soak it Up: The Cult of Student Politics James Wilson

In 2005, close to 500 activists converged on a hill in the middle of the South Australian desert to protest the Howard Government’s refugee policies. Down that hill lay Baxter Detention Centre, where the government locked away asylum seekers before they realised they could — quite literally — export their problem elsewhere. These activists protested over the course of the week, going toe-to-toe with riot police to make their voices heard.

While the week was considered a success, one incident stood out as a sign of the stark difference between student politicians and student activists. When confronted by 20 mounted police charging up the hill toward the front line of the protest, the politicians sat down in the middle of the road and argued with each other on the best way forward. There is a time and place for it, but engaging in a circle jerk while cops are threatening you with sub-machine guns is not it. On that day, politics won out over activism.

Student politics is often derided as a haven for sociallyawkward attention-seekers with both a persecution complex and delusions of grandeur. I should know, I’ve been one on-and-off since 2002, and can assure you it’s like being at Hillsong; where everyone is fearing God and singing His praises, except that for each of them the God they worship is themselves, and everyone else in the room is Judas. It’s an uneasy, unholy alliance that operates in the same way a diehard NSYNC reunion fan group does. They are brought together through their shared pain, their united purpose, and the knowledge that any one of them could be won over by Justin Timberlake’s solo career at any moment.

You see them briefly during the spring trimester, shoving an iPad in your face or a bit of paper in your hands and pushing you over the line to vote. They scream, they shout; it’s like a Will.I.Am song minus the catchy hook.

They complain and moan about how terrible everything is and mount full-on campaigns to get themselves elected so that once in power they can change everything.

Art — Kim Phan

80 — Politics

And then they do nothing. It’s as though they’ve been hit with sudden amnesia on how they got themselves elected, and now cannot do anything except prevaricate, obfuscate, and castigate. The Federal Government might announce an increase in university fees and their response is to stick up a poster or two and tell you to walk to Sydney Uni to hear a couple of speeches from someone you’ve never heard of. It’s inspirational.

It’s tempting to get angry at their inaction; unfortunately they can’t help it. They don’t see that they’re doing anything wrong — far from it, they are repeating what they’ve been taught by those who came before them, and from those over in the land of ‘real politics’.

Despite what the media often tells us, the vast majority of voters under 30 are not Greens voters. Based on figures from Newspoll from April-June 2016, most voters would vote Labor at 38%, followed by the Coalition at 33%, and Greens at 16%. This is nowhere more evident than in the realm of student politics, where Labor factions dominate.

Their combined totals have nudged over 80% of all delegates at National Union of Student conferences for the past 10 years.

Labor indirectly controls student politics and the way in which it operates. New recruits learn from student politicians who are leaving university on how to prosecute a political argument — not to convince, but to win; the theory behind it having long since dissipated into the ether. They learn how to triumph in elections not to change conditions but to obtain power. If you dare disagree with them you are attacked over something trivial, usually in the form of identity policing, which has driven many people away from engaging. The same tactics they have been taught have led to countless workers resigning Union memberships over the past 50 years, and Labor’s national primary vote dropping by 10 points permanently over that same period. They profess to speak for workers and students but have lost the means by which to effect change for those workers and students. They wouldn’t know where to start even if they tried. Other political groupings have long since left — the Greens have all but abandoned

any plans of engaging in student politics in NSW, and the Liberals engage in small numbers, if only to create a little bit more havoc.

Nowhere was this more evident than at the recent July Education Conference where 150 Labor-affiliated marionettes from across Australia came to argue their respective factional positions at each other with no purpose or outcome, except to shout at the 50-something Socialists that coincidentally came to yell at them — as cultish circle-jerks go, it was a rousing success.

At this stage you’re probably wondering why any of it matters. In short, it doesn’t. Not directly and to the average student, anyway. It matters to the people involved because it’s training wheels for the real thing. Tanya Plibersek was once the UTS Students Associations’ Women’s Officer, NSW Minister for Planning Anthony Roberts used to be the President of the UTS Union (now ActivateUTS). Many of the people I met and in some cases, remain friends with, from student politics are now in State and Federal politics, including former ‘Freedom Commissioner’ and now MP Tim Wilson, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrotet, and Summer Hill MP Jo Haylen. Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull both got their starts in student politics and all these years later they don’t stand for anything or believe in anything, except winning.

In ten years’ time those socially-awkward, attentionseeking cultists in your classes could be your local MP; in twenty-five years, Prime Minister. Best not to get off-side with them.

James Wilson is an Independent Councillor on the 2017 UTS Students Association SRC. He has previously been a member of the Greens and Australian Labor Party.

82 — Arts & Lifestyle

Baked Rice with Rosemary Serves 4 | Preparation time – 1 hour Rosemary Burgess is the mum of our VertigoTV producer, Elliot Vella. Rosemary’s love for cooking is only surpassed by her love for her family and Kevin McCloud’s hit television series, Grand Designs.

Ingredients: ---------------

1 medium onion — finely chopped 500g long grain rice 8 cloves garlic — finely chopped 1 egg — beaten 2 tins tinned tomatoes 150g grated parmesan or pecorino 4 tablespoons passata 1,250ml cold water 500g pork and veal mince 3 Italian sausages 6 rashers pancetta 8 tablespoons olive oil 2 bay leaves 1 tbsp sugar

How To: ---

-----

--

-Art — Vanessa Papastavros | vanscribbles.tumblr.com

Saute onion and garlic in the olive oil; add the pancetta and saute for a further few minutes.

Add the mince and cook until just brown. Take the sausages from the casings and add to the pan, crumbling as you add so it’s an even consistency and not lumpy.

When the mixture is combined, add the tomatoes, passata, bay leaf, and sugar.

Stir all of this to combine and cook over a low heat for one hour.

Grease a medium-size ovenproof dish with butter and rinse with cold water.

Put the uncooked rice, water, meat sauce, egg, and cheese into the dish and mix well. Bake in a preheated 180°C oven for 30 minutes.

Take out of the oven, stir well, and bake for a further 30 minutes — all the water should have been absorbed.

Serve with extra cheese.

Students’ Association Reports — 83

Students’ Association Reports

President’s Report — Beatrice Tan cw: sexual assault It’s been quite a busy time for the Association since I last reported back, it’s impossible to cover everything. Quite a few things have happened, some key events include the release of the Australian Human Right Commission (AHRC) survey into Sexual Assault in University and semester two Clubs Day. AHRC Sexual Assault Survey: On 1 August the AHRC released the national results of the Sexual Assault in University survey. On the same day, UTS released their institution specific results. At midday, UTS held a panel event to address these results. During this event, the Association statement was delivered by our treasurer, Lachlan Barker, as I was too emotionally distressed to deliver it myself.

This was a day of mixed emotions. As an association, we stand in solidarity with those who have experienced sexual assault and harassment. The survey results told us what we already knew, something this association has campaigned on for over two decades. While the current action makes me hopeful, it was disappointing that it has taken so long for the institution to act.

During the panel, we were given assurance by the Provost that the core working group would be expanded to include representatives from the Women’s Collective as well as Activate. This was affirmed during his presentation to the Academic Board. I am hopeful that they will carry through with this promise.

To anyone reading this who has been affected, or if you know someone who has been affected, please don’t hesitate to ask for help via the 1800RESPECT number by calling 1800 737 732, the UTS Sexual Assault Support

Line 1800 531 626, UTS counselling 9514 1177. UTS has also since then launched a section to help individuals seek help through the university and independent of the university, available at: uts.edu.au/current-students/support/when-thingsgo-wrong/sexual-assault-indecent-assault-sexualharassment/help Clubs Day: We had a range of stalls during the ActivateUTS Clubs Day on 3 August. I am quite proud to say that the bulk of the preparation did not fall to myself, Norma Cooper, the EVP, and Chrissy Saunders, a general councillor.

I would like to thank everyone who helped in preparation for Clubs Day and everyone who was able to help during the day. I would like to give my thanks to Norma, who ordered in the jelly beans, and Lachlan, who was responsible for the bottles. This also would not have been possible without the staff. Thank you to our executive officer, Mariah, who dealt with all the invoices, and our Marketing Director, Stephanie, who was responsible for ordering in the bags, power packs, Keep Cups, and USBs. We managed to pack 1,050 bags with Keep Cups, power packs, bottles, and jelly beans. All the bags were given away quite early into the day. They flew off the tables, sometimes almost literally.

Most of the collectives had stalls, and for the first time in a while, our services also had their own stalls. The UTS Student Legal Service and our Casework and Advocacy service could directly interact with students. president@utsstudentsassociation.org

84 — Students’ Association Reports

Treasurer’s Report — Lachlan Barker

Secretary’s Report — Luke Chapman

O’Day kicked us off with what’s best described as a success! Extrapolating, Autumn Session’s Clubs Day had about $40,513 go into it, not including the handbooks. While Spring Session’s student turnout was, as expected, a little lower, our bags were no less popular. With branded bottles and phone chargers, bags, jellybeans, and safe-sex kits — and the last of our Keep Cups and handbooks — this Clubs Day came in at $35,393. The lack of a photobooth, no additional design costs, and a change in bag inventory explains the difference here but bags again ran out by midday.

Handbooks, powerpacks, and dedicated exec members tided us over. The staff deserve thanks for their work leading up to and across the day. Next year the team should consider a higher allocation for Clubs Day as we are now in the second year of stock running out before the day is done.

I hope you had a good O’Day and start to the semester.

This semester you will have the opportunity to have your say in some important elections. To make things easy for you here is a run down:

In light of the AHRC Report release, I want to thank the Women’s Collective and Queer Collective for their perseverance and work over the past few weeks, and also Women’s Officer Leya Reid, Women’s Convenor Chloe Malmoux-Setz, Queer Officer Louie Duloy and AQSN POC Officer Aadarsh Prasad. Leya and Chloe in particular have persisted despite consistent obstacles from uni management in contributing to the working groups. I want to congratulate and thank women’s officers from across the state for organising such a fantastic protest against sexual violence on campus. It was empowering, encouraging, and rallying.

UTS Students’ Association Election: The opportunity to represent UTS students and advocate for our rights has been a core part of my university experience. Every year a new Student Representative Council is elected by and from UTS students. If you want to fight for student rights and improve our time at university, I would strongly encourage you to nominate and vote. For more information visit the UTSSA office or contact the Returning Officer at ckibble@bigpond.net.au

Contact: treasurer@utsstudentsassociation.org

Same-sex Marriage Postal Poll: Our elected representatives have failed to pass legislation granting same-sex couples the same marriage rights as heterosexuals, so our Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull has decided to spend $122 million on a nationwide voluntary opinion poll. This poll is almost as problematic as the institution of government regulated marriage itself, however, if it does proceed, we as supporters of equality will need to ensure that every young person is enrolled to vote and registered correctly. Please enrol and update your details at aec.gov.au today and help your friends do the same.

End Rape on Campus: Lastly, The Australian Human Rights Commission released their national report on sexual assault and harassment at Australian universities.

The findings confirmed the endemic scale of an issue that university management have been happy to ignore for too long. To survivors, I would like to say that whether you took part in the survey or not, the UTSSA believes you and will continue to fight alongside you for justice and a campus free of sexual assault and harassment.

Contact: secretary@utsstudentsassociation.org

Students’ Association Reports — 85

Assistant Secretary’s Report — James Wilson Spring has sprung, and in a segue worthy of A Current Affair, so to has the myriad of assignments you are likely working furiously on at the last minute. As we get closer to the end of the year, and for some, the end of their university experience, it’s good to remember that people will probably be pretty stressed out, so try not to step on anyone’s toes unnecessarily.

the while… are you cutting funding from me?

SRC elections are also coming up, and I encourage you all to vote.

Something don’t taste right, cause it ain’t right Like when people elect a Liberal Government and they turn out to be shite I know your secret, and now I regret ever thinking you were a moderate Is this what I deserve? I took you at your word You know I’m not too upset for my resolve to be deterred What’s worse? The jobs or the growth bit?

The jobs or the growth bit?

Finally, unless the Federal Government has collapsed in the time since I wrote this, the same-sex marriage postal-vote-not-plebiscite is upon us. Please vote, and please consider voting ‘Yes’ — if not for equality, or love, then just because everyone is sick to death of hearing about it, and a ‘No’ vote is not going to stop people from campaigning about it. You’ve been warned.

Enjoy the rest of your sanity while you still have it!

Contact: assistantsecretary@utsstudentsassociation.org

Education Vice President’s Report — Norma Jean Cooper *Vertigo recommends listening to the tune of ‘LEMONADE Parody’ by Titus Andromedon I’m not overreacting, I’m doing what any reasonable EVP would do in this situation.

I’m lemonading. *** I tried to change. To be… sweeter. A lobbyist. Less… trotty.

I slept on a couch next to an Activist Space shaped like a board room wearing my glasses and plugged my Facebook feed with pages from the ALP Spicy Meme Stash. But all

*** Hell no, I ain’t playing with you, Malcolm Uh-uh, I’m not fooling with you, Malcolm Back up! I ain’t playing with you, Liberals Malcolm, I’m not playing with you, Liberals

*** Sometimes EVP reports don’t really rhyme This will sound fine to your mind Keeping promises is harder and is more work than winning elections You lose what you have and then pray Newspoll comes back to you better Then run from the press cause hell no there are factions in the Liberal Party “Government is great Government is the best Government is growing Government is great Government is the best” Turnbull is learning about…

Governing, whoa-oah, doing the numbers is exhausting For a plebiscite, whoa-oah, denying true love…

So let this painful year go by And if you don’t get rolled and just scrape by I’ll find you with the hard right that you exemplify Bye, Malcolm

86 — Students’ Association Reports

Women’s Officer Report — Leya Reid In what seemed like less of a mid-year break and more of an extended exam period, the Women’s Collective busily finalised the editing process of the student publication, I’m Not Sorry. We are extremely proud of the unspoken beauty of the final magazine and its ability to discuss and challenge ideas on gender and gender-related issues whilst also showcasing the works and voices of women and non-binary students.

Having attended the Network of Women’s Students Australia (NOWSA) conference at ANU, we refined our approach towards engaging and including the student community in new and exciting ways. Throughout the conference, collective members engaged with current feminist discourse and shared ideas and knowledge on how to make the feminist movement and Women’s Spaces more inclusive to the various identities within the women and non-binary community. We returned to Sydney with workshop ideas on topics such as racial micro-aggressions, the power of language, and practicing self-love through art. The conference enabled universities to develop a national cross-campus response to the release of the AHRC survey results, culminating in a hugely successful protest on the lawns of Parliament House.

The UTSSA Women’s Collective contributed to the organisation of a NSW specific demonstration that protested sexual violence at universities. Held on 2 August, we marched from Sydney University along Broadway and finished up outside the Tower Building of UTS. Our diverse range of speakers and supporters called out in solidarity against toxic rape culture and reporting mismanagement of sexual violence. Our colourful posters, flares, and unified chants attracted plenty of media attention but most importantly it contributed to a much-needed sense of solidarity and support for all students and survivors.

O’Day was a massive hit as students flocked to grab the

free sanitary supplies, freebies, and our freshly printed magazine. With just under 200 new signups, we are excited by the number of promising new members.

Our first meeting, too, was off to a great start with a number of important and exciting topics to discuss.

We are constantly looking to hear the opinions of our community as we can share this with UTS on how to improve your experiences. A few campaigns running this semester are: sex and consent week, our diversity week stall, and the ‘Humans of UTS’ social media campaign. So be sure to check out our Facebook page, join our Facebook group (UTSSA Women’s Collective), follow us on Instagram (@UTSwomenscollective) and read our membership emails to keep up to date!

Contact: Chloe — utswomenscollective@gmail.com Leya — womens@utsstudentsassociation.org

Submissions Guideline — 87

Submit to Vertigo

Summon your wits and tell us what’s been bubbling up under your skin, clawing to get out.

Vertigo is always on the lookout for pitches and submissions of creative fiction and nonfiction writing, visual art, feature articles, news and reviews in the following sections: – Arts & Lifestyle – Business & Science – Creative Writing

Written Pitches — Have an idea for written content that isn’t complete? Let it take off by sending us a pitch that specifically outlines: Content — what you want to write about.

Scaffold — narrative, structure, style.

Classification — factual, creative, reflective.

Approximate word count.

To help us get a sense of your voice, attach some examples of previous work. (Any work — even essays will do!)

– Politics – Socio-Cultural – Visual Arts

submissions@utsvertigo.com.au with a brief summary of content and themes.

As a general rule of thumb; themed work is good, wellwritten work is better, and well-written themed work is the best.

Format Guidelines — Please send written work in a Word document with 12pt font and 1.5 paragraph spacing. Please send visual work in PDF format.

Nominations — Know someone at UTS who might be shy but whose work would be perfect for Vertigo?

Visual Pitches — Tell us whether you’d like to be involved as either: Design contributor: Artists who are keen to work closely with the Vertigo design team to create art to accompany written articles.

Visual showcase: Artists who have work they want to be featured as standalone art in the magazine e.g. illustrations, comics, and photo essays Please be as specific as possible, and tell us about your proposed medium, concept, style, and tone. Don’t forget to attach examples of previous work.

Cold Submissions — Already have a completed piece you want to submit? Send your work straight to

Please let us know their full name, the kind of work they do, and why you think their work is suitable for Vertigo.

You can attach a link to their website/portfolio/ Instagram, and we’ll take it from there.

How to Contact Us — Email all your pitches and submissions to submissions@utsvertigo.com.au and a friendly editor will get in touch with you shortly.

Check out our Facebook page for the most recent callout for themed contributions at facebook.com/utsvertigo, or just send us a message to say hello. We can’t wait to talk to you. We love talking to you so much.

88 — Horoscopes

Horoscopes Jenny Cao

Aries — It’s time to take saving money a step

Libra — Milk, 2x pasta packets, canned soup,

further if you want that summer holiday. Next

bananas, and pick up some chips if they’re on

time you’re at the self check-out at Coles, peel

sale. You Libras are so forgetful I thought I’d

the skin off the fruit before you purchase it.

include your grocery list. Oh, and remember

It’s cost efficient and time-saving.

you have that assessment due in Week 8!

Taurus — Okay, I just checked with the

Scorpio — Why are you always waiting

universe. You’ve got nothing going for you this

for the right moment to do something? Be

month. Sorry dude. I don’t make the rules.

spontaneous for once in your life. Drop

Check back in the next volume.

everything and relocate to the tropics! It’ll be a huge shock for everyone including the girl

Gemini — Your friends are always bagging you

you’ve started seeing — but you gotta do it!

out for being late. Explain to them that you’re actually from the future so really, you’re super

Sagittarius — Please take this as an official

early to everything — relatively.

apology from me — I’ve been informed by an editor that there have been complaints about

Cancer — With the new moon well on its way,

the amount of people annoying their loved

a whole new you is emerging! Suppress it for

ones on Facebook after following my advice.

as long as possible because people will start

Sorry. I’m not your dad though, don’t listen to

to freak out if you suddenly start liking olives

everything I say.

out of nowhere.

Capricorn — Despite what everyone says, Leo —So apparently, Leo season is over.

you’re worried your feelings of anxiety aren’t

People say I can’t prolong my birthday any

‘all in your head’. You’re feeling especially

longer. Birthday week is acceptable, birthday

worried because you remember you had that

month is fine with everyone, but the minute

beef kebab two weeks ago that seemed a little

I want to celebrate my birthday for the whole

undercooked. Maybe you do have tapeworms

semester — people start getting annoyed? Just

in your brain. Get that checked out.

a PSA: the world revolves around me — A LEO! People are so sensitive.

Aquarius — Keeping your professional life and your personal life separate is hard especially

Virgo — Your love life is hanging by a thread so

when you see work colleagues outside of work.

you need to show your significant other you’re

If you make eye contact with them, look away

in it for the long haul. You need to show your

slowly, and find your exit strategy. I always find

commitment, let them know you’re ready to be

walking down pretend stairs is a good way to go

with them forever, and that this really might

and it also helps you practice your miming skills.

be it. Let them know your throat is closing and… you… can’t… breathe… Leave before it’s

Pisces — It’s nearing graduation and you’re

too late.

starting to seriously plan your future. If you really want to know what the weather forecast is, look it up online instead of relying on the horoscopes printed in your student-run university publication (although I hear the horoscopes writer is really cute).

Art — Ryley Miller | alifeofryley.tumblr.com

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