Herald Volume LXIII Issue 2

The Yale Herald Volume LXIII, Number 2 New Haven, CT Friday, Feb. 3, 2017

EDITORIAL STAFF Editor-in-Chief: Oriana Tang Managing Editors: Emma Chanen, Anna Sudderth Executive Editors: Tom Cusano, Sophie Haigney, Sarah Holder, Lily Sawyer-Kaplan, David Rossler, Rachel Strodel, Charlotte Weiner Senior Editors: Libbie Katsev, Jake Stein Culture Editors: Luke Chang, Marc Shkurovich Features Editors: Hannah Offer, Eve Sneider Opinion Editors: Emily Ge, Robert Newhouse Reviews Editors: Mariah Kreutter, Nicole Mo Voices Editor: Bix Archer Insert Editor: Eli Lininger Audio Editor: Will Reid Copy Editors: Jazzie Kennedy, Meghana Mysore

From the editors

ONLINE STAFF Bullblog Editors-in-Chief: Jeremy Hoffman, Caleb Moran Bullblog Associate Editors: Lora Kelley, Lea Rice Online Editor: Megan McQueen

Volume LXIII, Number 2 New Haven, Conn.

Friday, Feb. 3, 2017

DESIGN STAFF Graphics Editor: Joseph Valdez Design Editor: Winter Willoughby-Spera Executive Graphics Editor: Haewon Ma

Hi all, When I came home for winter break this year and walked into my younger sister’s room, the first thing I noticed was a new painting hanging on her wall—a woman’s heavily made-up face with the caption, “Not today, Satan.” I asked my sister about it. “Oh, that? It’s a watercolor I did of Bianca Del Rio, my favorite queen from RuPaul’s drag race.” She raised her eyebrows. “Duh.” New Haven’s own drag community gets the spotlight in this week’s front. Tom Cusano, TC ’18, depicts a scene that is at once a place of outrageous performance, fierce competition, self-expression, and family: a scene that has persisted despite changes in New Haven’s gay institutions.

Community and resilience find homes in other pieces within this issue. Nolan Phillips, TC ’18, stands in solidarity on Cross Campus at the candlelight vigil against the Trump’s Muslim Ban. Travis Deshong, BR ’19, roots for the group of Black women teaching NASA a thing or two about math and computer science in his review of Hidden Figures. And Margaret (Migs) Grabar Sage, ES ’19, pounds brews with bros while bravely disrupting an all-male space.

I don’t need to tell you about the terrible things happening that feel out of our control. But many of the pieces this week demonstrate the genuine warmth and power to effect change that come from creating and enjoying the most common word on Yale’s admissions brochure: community.

Yours in solidarity, Anna Sudderth Managing Editor

2 – The Yale Herald

BUSINESS STAFF Publisher: Patrick Reed Advertising Team: Alex Gerszten, Garrett Gile, Tyler Morley, Bedel Saget, Jr., Harrison Tracy The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office.

If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please send a check payable to The Yale Herald to the address below. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 2016 - 2017 academic year for 65 dollars.

Please address correspondence to: The Yale Herald P.O. Box 201653 Yale Station New Haven, CT 06520-1653 oriana.tang@yale.edu www.yaleherald.com The Yale Herald is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Yale Herald, Inc. or Yale University. Copyright 2017 The Yale Herald.

Cover by Joseph Valdez YH Staff

THIS WEEK’S ISSUE 12 COVER

Incoming

“Fucking puttin’ on a dress is the best thing I do.” Tom Cusano, TC ’18, talks to New Haven drag queens about performance, community, and Internet make-up tutorials.

Dave and Busters Pop icons Selena Gomez and The Weeknd spent their first date at the adult version of Chuck E. Cheese, reminding us that video games and cheap pizza can be fun even after one turns 13.

6 VOICES Dreading the semester ahead, Catherine Yang, TC ’19, pens a prose poem.

Arya Sundaram, DC ’20, illustrates twelve moments from the Women’s March.

Outgoing Filibusters Senate Republicans consider scrapping important legislative tool in order to confirm SCOTUS nominee who founded a “Fascism Forever Club” in high school.

8 OPINION Join Rachel Chew, ES ’20, in the crowd as she revisits last Sunday’s candlelight vigil from the perspective of an international student.

Haley Hegefeld, JE ’20, wrestles with Yale’s lack of openly conservative discourse.

SCHEDULE Friday

Just Add Water presents: We’re Back 9:30 p.m.

Calhoun Cabaret

Saturday

Mixed Company presents: Snow Job 7:00 p.m.

SSS 114

Sunday

10th Annual Run for Refugees 5K 10:00 a.m.

Wilbur Cross High School

Tuesday

Apartheid Divestment Panel 6:00p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

LC 101

10 FEATURES 16

Rush SigEp with Margaret Grabar Sage, ES ’19.

Those quirky signs around campus? Sonia Ruiz, CC ’19, speaks to Gabriel, the man behind them.

18 CULTURE Stephen Schwarzman and Solange make an unlikely couple: Jordan Coley, SY ’17, explores the dissonance at “Blackstar Rising & The Purple Reign.”

Nolan Phillips, TC ’18, finds solidarity at the Cross Campus vigil, while Joe Kuperschmidt, CC ’17, believes the show must go on at the Oscars.

20 REVIEWS Travis Deshong, BR ’19, finds unexpected complexity in the family-friendly Hidden Figures.

For Sahaj Sankaran, SM ’20, The Man In The High Castle can’t live up to its source material; 20th Century Women takes Madeleine Hutchins, BR ’19, on a roller coaster of disappointment; and Lina Goelzer, DC ’19, hails Natalie Portman’s virtuoso performance in Jackie.

Feb. 3, 2017 – 3

CREDIT / D / FAIL – EMAILS THE NUMBERS

Emails from your grandma Dear Vicki, I am so glad that we had an interesting discussion at dinner, as you really brought me up to date, especially on mixed marriages. BIG article in the STYLE section on the subject. ALways good to keep your Grandparents au courant as I do want to know WhATs Happening in This World today and not stay only in the past.

Hope your studies are going well and that you can relax a tiny bit. And then you can come home and explain more.

Love you so so much! ;) :/ (This is a whole new game for me. Who invented these Emoticons and who draws them.

Looks like a whole new career for someone. Most impressive) Again tons of love and Hugs Gma

Emails from your mom Explain this; where does it say you tested negative for mono when this yale doctor told you it is mono? Is there another mono test that I missed. I don’t trust doctors on our plan thanks obama. And yes, Epstein’s Bar! maybe not mono tho. Dr. goldberg said it is mono. Was there a second mono test that is negative? I think mono. If so then you can tell me.! MONO. Swollen glands? and I want u to rest. Hope’s granddaughter has mono so.

Ps Small world; just ran into a man i knew--his grandson Brady yale do you know?. He never was a rocket scientist. Father a dentist. Jewish. Didn’t go to dazzling school but just ok. Always was charming and personable and very pleasant and jewish. Good looking. When mono is done. I know you say MOM! but ok, That is my job to be scolded by my daughters

Index Vladimir Putin’s week 29 – missed calls from Comrade Steve Bannon 3 – photoshoots of Putin bareback riding the same thoroughbred stallion

2 – handles of vodka confiscated from

Putin’s carry-on bag at gate of Hungarian Airlines flight to Budapest.

84 – Tweets sent in 24-hour period by Putin’s second Twitter account @realdonaldtrump.

1 – Siberian tiger brought to the Russian president as goodwill gesture from Ukrainian consulate.

1 – visit, by Putin, to Moscow State Hospital immediately following encounter with tiger Sources: 29 - Russian hacking team accidentally leaks Putin’s voicemail inbox 3 - TMZ.com 2 - Closed-circuit airport footage showing an embarrassed Putin meekly confessing sins to airline staff 84 - Twitter.com log lists Tweet location imprint as Kremlin’s IP address 1 - Photo of Putin attempting to bareback ride tiger shows the tiger’s visible displeasure 1 - Hospital inpatient record lists Putin as “irate but in stable condition” – Tim Rawlinson and Eli Lininger YH Staff

Top 5 worst things you did on Groundhog Day that you’ll now have to repeat for the rest of your life

Emails from your ex Hey [Insert vaguely sentimental and unnecessary nickname], Thought of you when I was watching [piece of internet content carefully selected to pepper your subconscious with generically crappy musings about every romantic decision you ever made]. [Insert really not subtle way of saying that he misses you and also your family dog Chester who he met once and is now dead like your relationship]. I’m really [expression of condolences that are really meant to highlight his own ability to empathize with others].

If you’re ever around [insert invitation to do some activity he would probably enjoy like getting coffee or worshipping Satan].

Don’t worry, I’m [purposeful confession that he is dating the poor freshman girl you saw on his ‘Recently Added’ friend list from a facebook stalking binge session last month]. I’m really [expression of smug happiness meant to make you feel worse about yourself] and hope you are too.

[Ironic sign off involving warmth] [Generic Jewish male name your relatives keep asking about]

5 – Googling “good internships.”

4 – Buying all the Big League Chew in New Haven in order to blow the biggest bubble ever and then doing that and getting caught in that bubble and now everyone called you Pink Boy.

3 – Missing the $5 student burrito at Tomatillo by five minutes.

2 – Putting some toast in the toaster on 3, and

then it not being toasted enough and putting it back down again and moving it up to 4 and then it gets really burnt and you try and scrape off the burnt with a knife but it’s like burnt all the way through and now your sink is just covered in ash.

1 – Facebook-messaging your elementary school crush and saying, “Thanks for the memories.”

– Vicki Beizer 4 – The Yale Herald

– Gian-Paul Bergeron YH Staff

sarah.holder@yale.edu oriana.tang@yale.edu

oriana.tang@yale.edu

VOICES

In fear of spring semester

by Catherine Yang I am unprepared. Weeks of malaise have shriveled my sails and rooted me into the springs of my mattress. My legs have forgotten the weight of my body, and my mind kicks half-heartedly against the walls of my skull. Meals pass in languid blurs; minutes slither past with the scroll of my two fingers down the trackpad; midnight meets me on my aimless trudge. Midnight grips my wrists tight as I reach for some semblance of productivity. My midnight mind has something to say, but the murmurs sink deep beneath the pond in my backyard and I am loathe to follow into the murky chill. Indolence without interruption, inclination without interaction, indulgence without industry—my mind wilts and meanders down well-paved paths that go in circles.

Graphic by Natalie Schultz-Henry YH Staff 6 _ The Yale Herald

Vignettes from the Women’s March

by Arya Sundaram

1. A hill of 58 port-a-potties were lined up in neat parallel rows. In the middle, a Bikers for Trump insignia jutted fifteen feet in the air, accompanied by a stage. A man in a suit posed for a picture in front while holding a sign. “Grab him by dick,” it said.

2. A shirtless man with a long beard danced around a group of religious protesters who shouted through megaphones and waved signs warning about hell. After amassing a crowd, the shirtless man confronted the religious group’s leader, extending his middle finger as he poured a bottle of jack onto his bare chest.

3. A child drinking from a sippy cup sat atop the shoulders of his father. Two pink pussy hats: one large, one small.

4. On top of a white U.S. Park Police vehicle, a dozen protesters chanted “IUDs will outlast Trump.” At one point, the car’s antenna snapped. Later on, a woman sat down on the hood to smoke a joint. A man with a Canon shot the picture: the wind blowing her blue-tipped hair, the plume drifting off to the side, her eyes looking out at the thousands of protesters below.

5. A 12-year-old girl climbed on top of the vehicle next to a woman wearing a backwards-turned baseball cap and bandana. The woman asked the girl to suggest a chant, but she wouldn’t speak. Thirty minutes later, the crowd began yelling “women’s rights are human rights.” The girl searched in the crowd and shouted at a woman five feet away, “Mom, mom I started that!”

6. After a group yelled “Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go,” a college student yelled, “Hey hey, art hoe, doc mar-tens have got to go.” He was wearing aviators.

On another, a man with a flat cap wrapped his legs around the pole. On the last, two men sat on top, one with a camera dangling from his neck and the other just above a no parking sign. Below, the crosswalk sign flashed a red, blinking hand.

8. As the protesters began to march, thousands filed between two twenty-foot-tall black gates positioned on the edges of Jefferson Drive. The cardboard sign “Mourning in America” remained untouched, leaning against the wall as the bottom touched the asphalt below.

9. A boy sat in between the branches of a tree sucking on a ring pop while the protesters marched. “You’re orange, you’re gross, you lost the popular vote,” he shouted, and hundreds below him echoed his words.

10. Near the periphery, the signs included “The End Is Near When Corporate And Foreign Powers Take Over,” “1 Person, 1 Vote,” and “Grab Back,” among others. In the middle of the crowd, a chubby adolescent boy held a sign of his own, repeating the phrase aloud. “Coachella Sucks,” he shouted.

“Really, the lineup is terrible this year.”

11. An elderly woman sat on a bench with a walker, facing towards the marchers as they went onward. An elderly man next to her, presumably her partner, sat in a lawn chair. They both held a single sign that read “Hear Our Voice.”

12. Blocks away from the protest and crowds, someone placed the sign “We Shall Overcomb” on the outer body of the trashcan, carefully tucked between the metal bars so it wouldn’t fly away. The inside was filled with posters that had been shoved towards the bottom, with some overflowing from the top. The recycling bin was empty.

7. In a sea of pink hats and white posters, a few traffic lights protruded from the masses. One held a young boy and girl.

Graphic by Joseph Valdez YH Staff Feb. 3, 2017 – 7

OPINION

OPINION

Comfort at a cost

*

by Haley Hegefeld

A

s a senior in high school, I envisioned myself attending a college with a discernible liberal climate because I thought that it would ease my transition. I decided on Yale in large part because it was a school that promised to be a safe haven for all kinds of diversity. “We want every kind of student represented here,” the brochure assures. And if having a token openly conservative student in each residential college counts as ideological diversity, then I guess you could say that Yale keeps its promise. How many externally conservative professors have I, or any of my friends, had since I’ve been here? Zero. A recent New York Times article noted “four studies found that the proportion of professors in the humanities who are Republicans ranges between six and 11 percent, and in the social sciences between seven and nine percent.” Despite the convenience born of a mostly ideologically homogeneous campus, both liberal and conservative students suffer from the lack of right-leaning voices in the faculty. Liberal students are left unprepared for conversations with people with different ideas, and conservative students are unfairly silenced.

In a way, this tendency benefits Yale. Because it is understood that there are generally very few large ideological disconnects between faculty and students, each can go to class knowing they have common ground with one another, and can, therefore, assume certain truths when commenting in class. This relationship allows for both students and professors to validate each other’s opinions while establishing trust. Though it might seem as though this level of comfort enriches classroom discussion, beneath this assumed comfort lurk some potential areas of concern.

I had never considered the downsides of this kind of relationship until I got a random call from my mom, who was distressed by an article she read. The author had surveyed students at Yale and found that of the students who identified as conservative, 95 percent said their views were not welcomed on campus. While at first I imagined it would be easy to tell them to suck it up, I began to wonder how I would feel if subjected to the same kind of self-censorship. Of course, as a liberal on a mostly liberal campus, I’m used to having my opinions validated. And so when I consider the alternative, I realize how scared I would be to voice my opinion if I knew that everyone in class, including my professor, thought my beliefs were wrong.

After this conversation with my mother, I began to understand that although having a politically homogeneous campus discourse provides a kind of comfort to those who subscribe to the accepted ideology, this comfort comes at a cost. One such cost is that when liberal students eschew the opportunity to debate people of an opposing view, they rob themselves of the valuable chance to sharpen their understanding of their own opinions. Ideological diversity is such an important facet of a college because it allows for students to challenge their own opinions by comparing them to different ones. By excluding conservatives from this dialogue, students’ preconceived notions about politics are never challenged by the other side of the political spectrum. Beyond opening students’ eyes to opposing viewpoints, a goal of discussion should be to convince the other side why a certain view is better than its own, regardless of whether this view is conservative or liberal.

The recent election season put this issue into even starker contrast.

During the campaigns, a great deal of my family supported Trump on Facebook. I’m not one to comment on posts unprovoked, but there were times when I could hardly contain my desire to speak out. Yet upon attempting to type my thoughts, I realized I didn’t know how to respond. I couldn’t defend my own position because I didn’t comprehend theirs. Although this may seem like an event of little consequence, if all students approached dialogues with this lack of concrete knowledge, our conversations would be ineffective.

By not including right-slanted voices in the faculty, we have created a campus culture in which it is nearly impossible for conservative students to feel that their opinions are valuable. When conservatives don’t speak up, we, liberals, can neither learn from their opinions, nor practice identifying their weaknesses. How can we fix this? Affirmative action for conservative professors seems far-fetched and alienating, especially if a professor knows they were hired only because of their different political views. Instead, we need to start by decriminalizing conservative ideology—if not because we might find it unacceptable at times, then because we all lose by not even attempting to understand it. We need to cultivate a campus culture that does more than simply claim it encourages diversity of thought. Until this starts happening, we will be left to continue debating without compromise, echoing those with whom we agree while failing to effect change.

Graphic by Joseph Valdez YH Staff 8 – The Yale Herald

* I

am not American, and neither is my roommate. Connected by our shared name, Rachel, we are two international students from Singapore and Lebanon. The night of the vigil outside Sterling, we started at the fringe but wiggled our way through gaps in the crowd, finally finding a spot in the Berkeley courtyard. As we listened to the speakers, I found myself feeling more alone than usual in a crowd supposedly gathered to show support for the people these orders directly threaten. I cannot reproduce verbatim the speeches that I heard and will not try. However, I do recall the assertion that the order’s discrimination based on citizenship, race, and a fundamental rejection of refugees was not American, was not who “we are.”

Because the vigil was advertised as a rebuke of the decision of a President whose campaign slogan was, “Make America Great Again,” the absence of an acknowledgement of American history was jarring. Did no one remember the Chinese Exclusion Act that existed as American law from 1882 until 1943? Or Angel Island and its immigrant detention center in the early 20th century? Or the family detention centers that still line this country’s southern border? Are these all not America? I felt like I had no place standing in the crowd. The vigil was titled “Candlelight Vigil in Support of Immigrant and Refugee Communities,” yet the night’s speeches spoke more to Americans than to the international communities directly affected. Instead of joining in support of the immigrants and refugees whose lives were endangered

by Trump’s order, it seemed the gathering was actually meant to salvage an ideal of America.

Throughout the night, we heard assertions of American excellence from numerous speakers describing an America that was kind, compassionate, and welcoming—a nation hardly recognizable today. We heard a man proudly share the story of a Muslim family of refugees finding refuge in an American synagogue. I heard cheers. But I could not cheer along.

As the speeches ended, I noticed that I had missed two calls from my roommate’s mother. Rachel and I had been working together for the entirety of that Sunday. She had not checked her phone. Worried and unable to contact her, Rachel’s mother had called our FroCo as well. On any other Sunday, there would have been no reason for her anxiety.

When we later talked about the ban, Rachel told me about her anxiety being from an Arab country that is often perceived by Americans in a similar light as the countries targeted by the ban. In a Facebook group for Lebanese students in America, an advisor told members that they should not leave America until they received their degrees. Now, Rachel is reconsidering a spring break trip to Panama with the Medical Brigades because she is worried that she may have trouble re-entering the country. Yet she is quick to tell me that she is still lucky. Lebanon is not on the list of countries affected by the ban. She is here—in America, at Yale—by choice. If she had to leave, she would have an entire life waiting for her back in Lebanon.

As an international student from Singapore, I cannot claim to understand what it feels like to be directly affected by the ban. But to me, the vigil was alienating. It felt less like a gathering for immigrants and refu-

gees and more like one for liberal Americans mourning a particular vision of their country.

But this is not a critique of those who gathered and spoke at the vigil. It is heartening that so many would take the time to stand in solidarity. I am scared to share this opinion on a public platform, and I imagine that it must have taken much courage for every speaker to share their stories on that day, too. Their voices and opinions are important—their visions for what America could someday stand for make me grateful to remain in this country. But this ban poses a threat beyond just the question of what America represents.

To all who spoke and who were present, I thank you for the reminder that people want to make a difference. But I believe that we all can do better. We all need to recognize this country’s past transgressions, and we need to admit to ourselves that sometimes the actions of this country are nothing but shameful. We may prefer to let ourselves believe that this is not America, but it is.

Considering solidarity

by Rachel Chew

Graphic by Joseph Valdez YH Staff Feb. 3, 2017 – 9

FEATURE

Rushing to co-educate See what it’s like to rush a fraternity as a non-male.

by Margaret (Migs) Grabar Sage

A

t a recent fraternity rush event, a brother and I were commiserating about the awkwardness of the rush experience.

The smaller parties, like this one, were fun and sociable, but the huge events—with close to sixty rushes and members in a single room—were overwhelming. It was uncomfortable, he told me, to try to get to know people in such a loud, crowded, intense environment. His sympathy was promising: surely, he would understand how this was especially uncomfortable

10 – The Yale Herald

*

for me. “For sure, and I mean, it’s also a little different for me—” I began, thinking hard about how to phrase it–the difference is, I’m a woman.

“Well, of course,” he interrupted. “I mean, you have a ton of friends here, so I’m sure it’s pretty easy for you.” I found myself unable to disagree with him; the conversation dwindled and I haven’t spoken to him since. Perhaps this is a ridiculous thing to complain about—why didn’t I speak up? What did he even do wrong?

He was right that I had friends in the fraternity,

so why was all this so uncomfortable anyway?

Although he displayed ignorance about the difficulties of being one of ten women in a room with 120 men, he didn’t do anything wrong. But this is one example of the dynamics enforced and perpetuated by male-dominated, male-controlled spaces.

OVER THE PAST TWO WEEKS, FRATERNITIES and sororities on campus have opened their doors to eager first-years and sophomores look-

ing to join their social communities. In previous years, these spaces have always defined themselves by being single-gender. Sororities don’t host parties and bill themselves as sisterhoods in a male-dominated world; some have even begun to reject the gender binary in favor of increased inclusivity. Fraternities favor sex-based male membership, and they wield a significant amount of social power because they host most of the large, open parties on campus. But this year, things are starting to change. Non-male students are rushing one of Yale’s fraternities, even though we’ve been told that we won’t receive bids.

The effort to co-educate Greek life at Yale has been spurred in part thanks to the oncampus organization engender. Their mission is to shift the gendered power dynamics of party spaces and social institutions. According to co-founder and co-director Genevieve Esse, CC ’19, the group came into being last year “as an informal GroupMe of friends” interested in the question of binary-based gender segregation on campus, motivated for the most part by their own negative experiences or opinions of fraternities. I became involved this past fall, and am now a co-director. The problematic cultural norms and practices enforced by fraternities are well-documented—for example, the statistic that one in five college women will be sexually assaulted is probably floating around in your head (perhaps in the voice of Barack Obama in a 2015 video segment for the “It’s On Us” campaign).

As Esse and other early members of engender began reading in-depth social science research on the link between those numbers and fraternities, they found confirmation that when men host parties and provide alcohol, “it inherently creates a type of ‘sexual economy’ in which women feel pressure and are sometimes expected to hook up with brothers as a form of payment.” The men at the door of a frat house decide who gets to cross the threshold, admitting students with an eye towards the gender ratio of the party; the bar inside is also operated by men. All this fosters exaggerated sexual dynamics—rather like a real-life Tinder, where people are reduced to potential sexual partners, and men are in charge.

Although engender contacted every allmale fraternity on campus asking if they would allow women and non-binary students to rush, Sigma Phi Epsilon (SigEp) was the only one to say yes and follow through on the

offer. The majority of the fraternities either waited until after their rush process was over to respond, or simply refused. Such minimal response might not seem surprising—what’s the problem with exclusive all-male spaces?

Fraternities are, after all, institutions built and defined by cisgender men. But as Anna McNeil, BR ’20, a co-director of engender, points out, people often use the rhetoric of tradition to justify sexism, “when what they actually mean is oppression.”

YALE’S OFFICE OF UNDERGRADUATE Admissions likes to reassure prospective students that the school’s Greek life thrives for those who want it, but is easily avoidable, socially speaking, for those who would rather steer clear. And yet, every weekend, High Street floods with drunken undergrads attending this or that packed fraternity party.

“In some ways,” McNeil points out, “fraternity culture seems the most accessible to everyone.” The six other first-years I interviewed all echoed this impression, though they expressed varying degrees of skepticism about frats. The only criteria for being able to go to a fraternity party is that you show up at the door—you don’t need to be part of a certain organization, or have friends in one. Unlike suite or apartment parties, people don’t get invited in close conversation or by way of a Facebook event. Students just show up.

However, the events at Leo (formerly Sigma Alpha Epsilon) last year contested this illusion of accessibility. The fraternity garnered national attention for allegedly refusing entrance to women of color at an open party, announcing “white girls only.” McNeil recounted conversations she had had with other first-year women of color, who said they were “very nervous about attending frats, and what that would be like.” While fear and disgust in reaction to overt racism seems to be universal, some of the first-years I spoke with were resistant to gender integration as a solution to such problems. engender itself does not claim that the co-education of fraternities will be the be-all and end-all, but rather a concrete first step towards more inclusivity at every level. Isobel Anthony, SY ’20, agreed that when you have “a diverse group, automatically you are less prone to do things that are offensive to people.”

Last Wednesday night, when I would normally have been reading or hanging out with friends, I ditched my backpack, put the essentials into the pockets of my Wranglers,

and headed to SigEp. Walking into a room packed with roughly 120 men is a daunting idea no matter the gender ratio—that night, there were around ten women. Every non-male rush I’ve spoken to agrees that such events are unavoidably uncomfortable; but SigEp’s brothers, for the most part, were friendly and inclusive. Esse says that “it’s been a blast to rush.” Nika Zarazvand, TD ’20, says that she’s “had really positive experiences at the frats so far,” in particular because she’s found that once she explains “what we’re trying to accomplish and why, most guys agree with the logic even if they have personal views that are more resistant to change.” Experiences have also been less positive, due to the social climate inherent to frats. Haja Kamara, SM ’19, told me about an “off-color comment” that a brother made in conversation at a smaller rush event. “I guess he thought it would have been fine if there were only men, but then he realized I was there after he said it,” she explained; he then apologized somewhat sheepishly.

One universal thread through these accounts seems to be that the root of the problem is less SigEp and its members and more the nature of the institution. Upon explaining engender’s short-term objectives, one of the most common reactions we receive is the classic: “If you don’t like frats, you shouldn’t go to them.” Critics recommend that instead of trying to join fraternities, we create our own co-ed spaces. I’ll be the first to say that this campus certainly needs more of those, but ignoring all-male spaces doesn’t solve the problems they perpetuate. In addition, a significant part of engender’s mission (with the encouragement of recent sanctions on all-male social institutions at Harvard and Princeton) is to eventually affect change on campuses far more problematic than our own.

DURING A RUSH MEAL WITH A SIGEP brother this week, I wondered aloud, “Should I submit a request for a bid?” Maybe it’s uselessly symbolic, considering we’ve already been told we won’t be receiving them. This time next year, we won’t be on the other side of the process—and there’s a lot of ground to gain with every other fraternity on campus— but that won’t stop us from rushing again.

Graphics by Joseph Valdez YH Staff Feb. 3, 2017 – 11

COVER

DRAG HER Get to know New Haven’s community of queens with Tom Cusano, TC ’18.

Graphic by Joseph Valdez YH Staff

12 – The Yale Herald

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n Sat., Jan. 14, the kitchen at 168 York St. Café, a gay bar One thing is for sure: drag has long been a part of New Haven’s gay in the basement of a brownstone, closes early, and the din- life. Joe Goodwin, who has owned 168 York St. Café since 1993, rememing room undergoes a makeover. Tables disappear. Chairs and bers seeing female impersonators there as a patron, back in the late ’70s. benches come together in rows, with an aisle down the center. “That was part of our culture,” he says. “Every bar had a drag queen.” Yet The space looks a little bit like a cabaret and a little bit like a church, even given its deep roots in the Elm City, the drag scene hasn’t always complete with a collection bin: an ambitiously large, hot-pink bucket la- been thriving. Like any community, its vibrancy has wavered over time. beled “TIPS.” The same scene change happens on the second and fourth In the late ’90s, according to Dandy Lions, there wasn’t much drag in Saturdays of every month, but tonight’s show is a special one. Up at the the city, even though gay bars were packed. Dandy remembers Gotham front of the room, in front of a splatter-painted white sheet, hangs a Citi Café as the only venue with a regular full show. In the early 2000s, caricature of the evening’s red-lipped, blond-bobbed hostess: Dirty Dixie she started a monthly revue at York St. Café. Robin Banks—then just Normous, Connecticut’s self-proclaimed Queen of Comedy.

Shawn Bodey—met Dandy when he moved to New Haven in 2006. “I Dixie is a visitor here. Usually this room—or, during the summers, the was just smitten by her,” Shawn said. He acted as a drag hag for a while, patio out back—belongs to Robin Banks, who hosts The #1 Drag Show promoting Dandy’s shows and serving as an announcer. Gradually he in Connecticut (another self-given honor). But Robin flew south for the started playing around with drag, and before too long Robin Banks was winter. While she’s enjoying the sunshine in her hometown of Phoenix born. She made a name for herself, and took over the show at York St. for a couple of months, four local performers have stepped up as guest when Dandy moved temporarily, in 2009, to Washington, D.C. It’s been hosts. Dixie is the first. She’s joined tonight by Ivanna Riggy, all the way hers ever since. from Massachusetts, as well as Connecticut’s own Tiana Maxim Rose and The start of Robin’s show, now a staple, coincided with a larger boom Mia E Z’Lay. in New Haven’s drag scene. These days, on any given weekend, Partners, When I head to York St., it’s snowing hard. Tonight’s a night to stay in, Gotham, and 168 York St. all feature different performers. Sylvia Heart and it seems like people might have done so. The front door opens to a has been doing drag for about nine years, and she has seen significant staircase, with a room on either side: to the right, the theater, currently growth in the number of local queens. “I came up when there wasn’t any empty; to the left, a long narrow bar, where about 10 people have congre- drag scene,” says Sylvia. “There was the core group, maybe like five or gated. Still, it’s only 9:30—a half-hour before show time. Soon comes a six girls that performed.” Now, she says, queens are popping up everysteady trickle of patrons, mostly young men and women in their thirties, where. RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered in 2009, and with its popularity plus a couple of off-duty but in-drag drag queens. came an explosion of how-to makeup videos on YouTube. Historically, Just before 10, DJ Ephraim takes the stage, turns on “Toxic” by Brit- fledgling queens have learned to paint from an established performer, ofney Spears. Guests get drinks and take seats. The place is crowded, if ten referred to as a “drag mother” With tutorials online, girls didn’t need not quite packed, with people here to see Dixie and co. do what they do drag mothers—they were teaching themselves. “Everybody who could best. By the end of the night, the audience will have witnessed lip syncs pick up a makeup brush and do a straight line with eyeliner was all of a and lap dances, stripteases and front splits. Tiana will have hopped on sudden a fucking drag queen,” says Sylvia. a chair in heels. Mia will have crawled around in a homemade two-piece But Sylvia, and others, note a difference between trained performers Rugrats hoodie. And Dixie Normous will have tucked single after single and girls who do drag just to go out, called circuit queens. While many into the belly of a stuffed white tiger—her “sore, wet, hot pussy.” local drag performers are happy to see girls dress up and have fun, they But for now, the queens stay out of sight. They’ve gathered upstairs, also think that those who do choose to perform could go into it with a away from the buzz of the crowd, in a dressing room through which little more humility. “A lot of the kids these days, they think they can countless others have passed. Tonight’s performers represent just a few put on some lip gloss and a wig, and they’re a queen, and their shit don’t of the many queens in New Haven’s drag scene. It’s a community that stink,” says Casey Fitzpatrick, who herself is only 24. “We’ve put in our has grown in recent years and, despite a stagnant number of gay bars, time, our blood, sweat, and tears—we’ve put in the work for it, and they continues to flourish. think it’s just handed to them. It’s not that easy.”

IT’S HARD TO TALK ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE NEW HAVEN DRAG community, in part because the city’s drag scene can’t be separated from that of Connecticut. Many of New Haven’s most prominent queens now live, or have always lived, in other parts of the state: Dixie Normous in Milford, Lucia Virginity in Thomaston, Sylvia Heart in Stratford, and so on. These queens perform at bars in neighboring towns, like Trevi Lounge in Fairfield, as often as they do at Gotham, Partners, and York St. They also travel to shows in Massachusetts, New York, or Rhode Island. Mia E Z’Lay recently finished a series of performances in Chicago. Similarly, queens from out of town—like Ivanna Riggy—join New Haven regulars in our own venues.

So drag in New Haven can’t be confined to the city limits, and neither can its past be pinned down in time. One bar’s drag scene might be booming while another’s is slumping. Plus, drag queens are notoriously sketchy about chronology. When I brought up, in a conversation with Robin Banks, a discrepancy about how long she said she had known a queen and how long that queen had told me she’d been doing drag, Robin laughed. “Oh, we all exaggerate. We all say less than we’ve been doing it.” She compared it to lying about your age.

SO HOW DOES A DRAG BABY COME TO TAKE HER PLACE AMONG NEW Haven’s royalty? The day after Dixie’s show at York St., I head east on Chapel to Wooster Square, where Mia E Z’Lay and Kiki Lucia live. The park shines white with last night’s snow. Inside his apartment, Robert Crowley, who performed last night as Mia, is curled up on a sofa in sweatpants watching South Park. With his wig off, he sports a shock of bright blue hair. (“I’m punk rock as fuck,” he declares at one point in our conversation.) Robert moved here at the end of the summer from Springfield, Mass.; he came up in the nearby town of Northampton. When he lived in Springfield, Robert made regular trips to Connecticut to perform, so he arrived having already broken into the scene.

Robert’s case isn’t unique. Tiana Maxim Rose, who came from New York, shared the advantage of a network in Connecticut. But other local queens have made their drag debuts, in all their messy glory, in the Elm City proper. Casey Fitzpatrick flew up to Connecticut from Florida when she was 18 to reconnect with family, and it didn’t take her long to try and make it among New Haven’s queens: “I started going out to Center St. Lounge, and Gotham Citi, and here, and really learned what drag was.

I would come to the club anyways in makeup and heels and like, buzzed

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haircut—crappy ass makeup. And I would come and watch the shows, other’s talents without getting hung up on jealousy. “It’s kind of like like, that’s what I want to do.” apples and oranges,” says Dixie Normous. “I mean, we’re all fruits.”

Many queens remember their early days in drag with sharp embarrassment, the same way some of us think about our middle-school THE ECONOMY OF DRAG IN NEW HAVEN IS WRAPPED UP IN THAT selves. Part of that shame comes from the look, which—even with a of its institutions: gay bars and clubs. In New Haven, queens and their drag mother’s help—rarely starts out refined. Robert remembers his venues have settled into a happy symbiosis. “They promote the bar, first stab at hair and makeup: “It was like Mimi from The Drew Carey they’re the face of the bar,” says Bernard Kleman, who runs Partners Show got into a car accident with a flock of emus, and then someone with co-owner Dave Kleman. At York St., where Robin Banks hosts her set off an acid bomb, and that was the look I was going for. I think I regular show, owner Joe Goodwin speaks of his in-house act with pride: have a picture.” He shows me; it’s bleak.

“Robin is my drag queen.”

Luckily, even the most established queens, like Robin, remember In return for the entertainment they provide, drag queens get a where they’ve come from, and most of them are happy to help begin- commission and a venue with a built-in audience. When the gay bars ners get their start. An aspiring queen will perform her first show for thrive, so does the drag scene. “The more places, the more opportunifree. If the hostess, or another established queen in the audience, likes ties, the better,” says Mia E Z’Lay. In her Massachusetts hometown, all what she sees, the beginner will get hired again, and again, and even- but one of the local gay bars have shut down. For drag queens, that tually they can start charging a performance fee. But even veterans means tighter competition and a less diverse community: “There’s like have to compete for gigs. To be a successful drag queen, you have to two groups, the freak weird queens and then the fishy queens, and it’s stay humble and hungry. Casey Fitzpatrick notes, “There’s queens that really head-butty.” She’s found that New Haven has enough room for I know have been performing for, oh god, 20 years, and they’re still several cliques to coexist. learning new tricks every day.”

After a number of closures over the course of the past few decades, Drag in New Haven works like a free market—a name will only take New Haven is down to three gay-oriented establishments: Partners, you so far. If your performances start to lag, or if you come late to a York St., and Gotham. All of them do well enough to sustain themshow, you’ll selves, but none see the kind of shoulder-to-shoulder business they did fall right in the ’80s—the golden age of the gay bar. “This place was the place back down to be,” says Bernard Kleman. “We’d have a line around the corner to the ladder. try to get in.” Of course, that golden age was also a darker time, when Kiki Lucia gay men went to gay bars because they weren’t welcome elsewhere. appreciates That history is still visible in the design of Partners, founded in 1974. the pressure Small, high windows create a sense of privacy. to stay at the Partners’s vibe lies somewhere between that of the laid-back York top of her St., which opened in its current location in 1972 as The Pub, and game: “I’m Gotham Citi Café. Gotham is a nightclub—and a successful one. In c o m p e t i n g 2007, Out magazine named it one of the 50 greatest gay bars in the with people world. But Gotham’s longevity as a gay bar derives, paradoxically, from like Mia, like the size of its straight clientele. “Gotham is equally known to straights Sylvia, that as it is to gays,” says Robb Bartolomeo, the owner. When he founded are amazing it in 1996, he intended to serve gay patrons seven nights a week, but at their crafts, and so it forces me to try to get to their level and get demand changed that plan. “We cater to the now market,” he says. better than them if I can.”

“We do straight functions, we encourage straight people to come to gay It’s less important to be the best than it is to be unique. “Everyone night. We keep up with the times.” has their little niche,” says Sylvia Heart. She sees herself as the “sexy The times have grown increasingly liberal, which translates to a nerd.” Robin Banks is known for her verbal wit. Dixie Normous is funny diminishing need for exclusively gay spaces. Goodwin, like some of the and dirty and a self-described “business queen.” Dandy Lions hear- queens I spoke to, has mixed feelings about the increased liberalizakens back to cabaret-style camp. Barbra Joan Streetsand specializes in tion. “I think what happened is when a lot of the gay people—they her Babs impression. Tiana Maxim Rose describes herself as a “female want everything that everyone else wants,” says Goodwin. “They want illusionist”—taking “fishy,” or realistically female, to an even higher to feel wanted, they want to go to all these places, and—fine. But there level. Her look stands in sharp contrast to one like Ms. E Z’Lay’s. Mia, was a price to pay for that.” a long way from her emu origins, is identifiable by her high, or exaggerImplicit in his comment is the sense that gay bars, like the one he ated, drag. She describes her style as “a mix between an acid trip and owns, are gradually becoming the stuff of history. I got the feeling that Candy Land, and I don’t even know what else.” running one is as much an act of service to the community as it is of Once you’ve carved out a niche, you have to work to maintain it. business. “We just want to make sure that all the bills get paid for, and There’s always the possibility that some fresh blood could see what you everyone has a safe haven,” says Bernard Kleman. No one today would do and make it new, or better. “The second you have somebody else open a gay bar expecting to make a killing. in your category, it’s easy to replace you,” says Tiana. But that fear of In that way, the gay bar as an institution, once quite lucrative, or at being outdone doesn’t run too deep. However competitive it can get in least potentially so, has come to more closely resemble the economy the Elm City, it’s also cooperative. “We all scratch each other’s back, of drag. Drag queens—with a few exceptions, RuPaul the most famous we all help each other out,” says Casey. For example, Mia E Z’Lay, a among them—have never been rich. Most of them see drag as a hobby, professional costume designer, might sew a fellow queen a dress in and put almost as much money into shoes, dresses, wigs, and makeup exchange for an edited mix. In that way, the drag world works like a as they bring home at the end of the night. At times, it can feel like an specialized economy in its most ideal form. The queens can enjoy each uphill battle. “Drag’s definitely hard,” says Mia E Z’Lay. “And if you’re

“IT’S SO SMALL OUT HERE THAT WE ALL JUST KIND OF LIKE—WE KNOW EACH OTHER, AND WE LOOK OUT FOR EACH OTHER.” Sylvia Heart, drag queen

14 – The Yale Herald

gonna do well, you have to push yourself.” Tiana Maxim Rose echoes the sentiment. “It does get exhausting,” she says. So what keeps the New Haven queens sewing, tucking, dancing, and lip-syncing, late night after late night?

MARK ROHRIG, THE MAN BEHIND THE WOMAN DIXIE NORMOUS, stumbled into drag—literally. His first time out he wore lace-up pompom boots that kept coming undone. Walking the two blocks from his car to O’Neill’s, a bar in New London, he had to stop every couple of steps, stoop down, and fix them. As he tells me this story he acts it out, making his haphazard way around the coffee table in his living room.

Mark is a natural performer. Before he ever put on a dress, he wore a G-string as the Polish Pony, a stripper. Before that, he’d played in the Santa Clara Vanguard, the 1978 world champion drum and bugle corps.

He’s even worked as a monster-truck show announcer, sending his deep voice over the loudspeakers at places like Texas Stadium. Still, in his drag debut, he was full of nerves. “I was shaking like a leaf,” he says.

“I mean like if you put me in a freezer shaking.”

But it only took Mark a couple of nights to get used to going out as Dixie, and before long he felt he had unlocked a part of himself he had never thought to miss. “I feel people only live half their lives until they do something in drag,” he says. “I mean, you don’t really know. I go out all the time now in drag. I’m living my life to the fullest.”

Other drag queens share Mark’s sense of something clicking, a new life opening up. Tiana Maxim Rose grew up in upstate New York, where there was just about no gay scene, and went to an all-boys Catholic school. “Drag definitely eased a little hole that was in me, because I always knew that I didn’t want to just play basketball my whole life,” she says. Tiana also credits drag with introducing her to the trans community. “Although I am not currently transitioning, I do identify more actively as trans than I do even just as a drag queen.”

Casey Fitzpatrick, another trans queen, also used drag as a stepping-stone. “It helped me start my transition, and really figure out who I was.” That said, trans people are definitely in the minority among drag queens, and they don’t always receive the warmest welcome. Some think that once a queen starts identifying as a woman, she doesn’t belong on stage—not as a drag queen, anyway. But Casey doesn’t care. “I show up, I’m professional, I’m on time, I do my shit. And I have a good time. That’s all I could ask for.”

What’s more, she can always count on the support of her drag family: her mother Lucia Virginity, her sister Tiana, and too many aunts, cousins, and nieces to count. “We need like a big giant family tree on the wall,” she says. And it’s true: drag genealogies are difficult to trace around here. It’s more likely than not for two random Connecticut queens to be related somehow. Drag kin act like real kin: sometimes they fight, but usually they have each other’s backs. Tiana mentioned helping her first drag daughter find a job. “Chosen family,” says Lucia Virginity. “That’s what we call it.”

That’s not to say all drag queens identify with family culture. Some fly solo, or hop from clique to clique. But even the most independent queens feel some degree of kinship with their peers. “There’s a sense of camaraderie amongst the girls,” says Dandy Lions. Sylvia Heart agrees: “It’s so small out here that we all just kind of like—we know each other, and we look out for each other.”

Casey, whose life in New Haven has been a life of drag, has tried to take what the community has given her and pay it forward. She’s looking out for the next generation—drag queens or not. “I’m only 24, but a lot of the kids look up to us,” she says. “And especially with Gotham, which is 18 and over. A lot of the kids that go, they don’t even have $1.50 to get on the bus to go downtown. But they come and they make

it there,” she says. “They live. It gives them an outlet to be free, and be happy, and to just breathe for a minute.”

Maybe the most significant way queens give back the community is through charity shows. Drag boasts a long history of philanthropy: in the ’80s and ’90s, profits from drag shows helped fund funerals for AIDS victims. Many queens today count themselves members of the Imperial Sovereign Court of All Connecticut, the local chapter of an international fundraising group. The Court contributes to all kinds of causes: the Alzheimer’s Association, the New Haven Pride Center, AIDS Project New Haven, and others. Dandy Lions served as Empress in 2015. Under her stewardship—and that of her Emperor, drag king Dustin D. Cobwebs— the Court raised the most money it has since its inception: $40,000.

And yet, you don’t have to be a man in a dress to raise money. Ultimately, all drag queens stay with their art because it offers them an outlet they can’t find another way.

Toward the end of my conversation with Mark Rohrig, I ask him what he loves about drag. “I love everything about it, man.” He jokes about being an attention whore, and describes the joy he gets from “making people smile and laugh, and blowing their minds.” It seems like he might leave it there. But just before I leave, he returns to the question.

“Life generally,” he says, “you know, other than drag—the world is not such a great place these days. I mean, you’ve been here a couple of hours, and we’ve been talking about drag, but pretty much everything else that we talked about sucks.” He laughs and runs down the list: chronic pain, PTSD, depression, divorce, and Donald Trump, whose inauguration was looming. “And so, you know, fucking puttin’ on a dress is the best thing I do,” he says. “The world goes on.”

SO DOES THE SHOW. ON FRIDAY, JAN. 27, IT’S HAPPENING upstairs, on the second floor of Partners. There, Kiki Lucia is hosting the debut of a monthly series called Let’s Have a Kiki. The inaugural theme? “Back to School Special.” She’s playing the principal, Sylvia Heart the head cheerleader, Lucia Virginity the gym teacher, Hazel-Berry Rose the foreign exchange student, and Mia E Z’Lay the class clown.

I run into Mia outside. She’s fresh off a few shows in Chicago, and the exhaustion has yet to let up. But this week brought some good news that’s kept her going. For a while she’s been deliberating on whether to take a job that would have required a hiatus from drag. But on Monday she interviewed for, and was offered, a position at a costume shop. She can keep on performing.

Upstairs, the show starts at midnight. Kiki Lucia does her best to cajole the increasingly drunk crowd into leaving the bar and joining the audience, gathered in a semi-circle around the stage. She gets a mixed response. But those who do come bring their whole selves. They sing along. They clap and cheer at splits and pole spins. And as always, they reach out with dollar bills.

Among the outstretched arms is one that belongs to Mark Rohrig, who has come here tonight as Mark, in jeans and a shirt, rather than as Dixie Normous. It takes a moment for the queen onstage to notice him.

He holds himself still. Finally the performer sees him and struts over, her lips still moving along to a song. Their hands meet in the air as the dollar passes from one to the other. It’s a quick exchange, easy to miss.

In a moment, the queen returns to center stage, and Mark, lowering his arm, fades back into the crowd.

Feb. 3, 2017 – 15

FEATURE

Xìn rèn A closer look at the man behind some of the peculiar signs on Yale’s bulletin boards.

* “I live with my grandmother on my right shoulder, my grandfather on my left, my parents on my head, and God in my heart. I act as if they are watching and holding me accountable.”

W

hen I first meet Gabriel, he is laying a bouquet of yellow lilies by the Nathan Hale statue on Old Campus, wearing an eccentric hat and carrying an empty cardboard pizza box. I am running to class. I stop, ask him if he likes the statue. He says Nathan Hale deserves to be remembered for trusting in his country. Inspired, he scrawls down the Chinese word for trust on the corner of the box. He explains the elements of the characters: the student holding the pen and tablet with text; the teacher sharing knowledge. That trust, he says, is more important than anything else because it allows us to learn. When I ask him for an interview, he agrees. “Trust,” he says. “Xìn rèn.” He rips off the corner and hands it to me, xìn rèn, a gift.

Perhaps to establish that trust, he advises me to contact him from a new email account under a different name and encourages me to bring a friend to the interview if it makes me feel more comfortable.

During our interview a week later, he writes xìn rèn again on a scrap of paper and points to it when I ask if I can record our conversation with my phone. His blue eyes bore into mine with unexpected clarity.

“I trust you to not manipulate my words into something different. I trust you to do what you will with this conversation. See? Our conversation started with trust.” “’John 1:1 — In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God.’ That word is divinity.”

GABRIEL COMES FROM A DIVERSE HERITAGE: HIS great-grandmother was born in Ahmednagar, India, to Christian missionaries; he calls himself an eleventh-generation Native American. His mother took him and his siblings to churches and synagogues and temples to experience different forms of worship. As he speaks about his family, five birds

10 – The Yale Herald

fly over and hop about the grass beside us. “Two sisters, two brothers, and one overseas,” Gabriel says, watching them. “This is the language of sparrows.”

Like his ancestors, Gabriel believes in God, but anchors himself to other things, too. “I believe in miracles, mystery, life. We all come from miracles.

We all come from mystery. We all come from life, and we all go to life.” The physical form decays, but the spiritual form is never extinguished.

When a friend’s husband died, Gabriel wrote a poem, “This Gift of Missing You,” for the funeral.

At the exact same moment he recited it—9 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2003—the Columbia space shuttle exploded, killing the seven astronauts inside. That same year, three people died in a West Virginia mine shaft explosion and 100 people perished in the Great White concert fire. The poem, he says, has become a poem for anyone, anywhere, who has lost a loved one. It is a hope for comfort, from that divine force, in those divine words he believes in, preserving the spirit.

He performs the poem for me. There is no other word for it: he performs. His voice rises and falls with the cadence of the stanzas. He flings his arms out; he speaks to the oak trees, to the squirrels, to the sky. In his wildly decorated hat, unkempt graying beard, and shabby clothes he draws questioning looks from passersby, some of them classmates I know. But the poåem is raw and powerful. He emails it to me later that day, as promised.

“Genesis 1:27 — ‘God created mankind in his own image.’ All life is created in the image of God.” GABRIEL REMEMBERS THE FULL NAMES OF ALL the people he speaks of: first, middle, last. He fills his emails with ellipses and exclamation points (“I love languages, reading, learning... My newest, favorite saying is ‘FOR PETE’S SAKE, and for Heaven’s sake, BE ASTONISHING!’ We are ALL radiant Beings of Wonder......from MIRACLES!”); his poetry is dynamic and sincere, open and heartfelt. He answers questions in a roundabout way, with anecdotes, with Bible verses, with figurative truths that

by Sonia Ruiz

fit together when I think about them later. When I ask him where he is from, he replies, “I’m from God. I’m from miracles. I’m from mystery. You could also say I was born overseas. There are many ways of answering a question.” Frustrated, I try again: what would Gabriel consider home? But I simply was not listening. Is a definite answer the point?

Home, to him, is not a house. He lives everywhere.

Home is the universe.

“Homeless is what people call people not living in four square walls. I think homeless is a lie, because it causes people living a nontraditional life to feel inferior, as if they’re missing something they should have. It is false. I haven’t paid rent since the 1980s. It’s a lifestyle I chose. My cousin raised his kids in a teepee. My family has built igloos. I have lived through winter in a nylon tent in 40 below zero-degree weather.”

We are distracted by the arrival of three sparrows. Gabriel seems transfixed by the animals. He had been the proud owner of a quartet of dogs, his loved ones: Ari, Lute-e, and Gen-127 (named for Genesis 1:27), all siblings, and Dak (named after the Vietnam War’s Battle of Dak To). Gabriel gave up Ari and Lute-e, the brothers, to the care of a seemingly trustworthy no-kill shelter one fall. When he learned in the spring that Ari and Lute-e had been put to sleep, he says he held Dak in his arms and cried in the shelter of a cedar grove. As he wept, a chickadee landed on his knee, then flew away. A moment later, another landed on his head, pecked at his tears, then flew away. “That’s why I believe that all life is connected. God could comfort me in this horrifically sad time by having two angels come. I was reminded that I am still connected to my dogs.” The three sparrows remind him again of Gen, Ari, and Lute-e; the spiritual form is never extinguished.

Gabriel finds meaning in everything. Anything can be a symbol if you look hard enough, and he looks. That is precisely why the statue of Nathan Hale means so much to him: it is a symbol, preserving Hale’s spiritual form in our memories.

To Gabriel, monuments can be statues or buildings but also songs, poems, art—anything that

celebrates what is good. He considers the tattoo on his left shoulder a monument to the Vietnam War: the tattoo has four stars, the number 64, the word Vietnam, and the POW flag. POW stands for Prisoner of War, but to him it also stands for all of us—even those who are mentally incapacitated, handicapped, or sick: People of Wonder, People of Wisdom. The number 64 refers to the poem he wrote after visiting the Vietnam Memorial Wall, “64: The Unbroken Circle.” The moment he says 64, an acorn drops from the oak tree behind us onto my notes. Two more drop together in front of us. “There they are again,” he says, smiling faintly. “Gen, Ari, and Lute-e.” His hat, pinned with a diverse array of objects, is a monument, too: a reused nametag proclaims in serif lettering that he is “Gabriel, Professor of Radiance.”

An iron nut acknowledges his eccentricity: “That is a nut. I am not a nut. People see someone who is different and call them a nut.” The “210 calories” on an On-the-go Trail Mix wrapper reminds him of Luke 2:10: “The angel came to the shepherds and said, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy for all the people.’” Perhaps that is what Gabriel is trying to do: bring great joy to all the people. As he finishes reciting the scripture, another acorn drops behind us and two sparrows fly by. “‘Isaiah 55:12—The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands.’ The voice of God, mystery, or miracle speaks in anything and everything.”

WE LIVED ON BULLETS AND BOUILLON, AND now that salty brine comes back to us in your tears at The Wall we cry for you.” Gabriel is performing “64: The Unbroken Circle.” Hoping for a concrete answer, I ask if he was a soldier in the war. “I was a soldier, and I am a soldier. Sometimes I fight without fighting. Sometimes the soldier to admire most is not the fiercest but the one who is able to bring peace without killing. There are many types of warriors: women who sing, men who dance.” I ask for Gabriel’s occupation. He points to the name badge on his hat and calls himself a “professor of radiance.” He is here to help people discover their own radiance. He says he

has another Job, too, Job 12:7-12: “Everything was taken from Job, including his family. In the middle of it all he turned to God, and God said to talk to the fish of the sea, the land, the birds. Job expressed faith in radiance, the source of life. He was blessed many times over, but he still suffered in the meantime.” I wonder if that is Gabriel’s life too, but that is the wrong question. I am learning to listen. Three ants crawl up the concrete path: one holding a piece of food, two following close behind. Gabriel points at them: “See? Gen, Ari, and Lute-e.”

From his pocket, he produces odds and ends he has saved: a scene of water, mountains, and sky printed on a small square of paper; a Nestlé “Pure Life” water bottle label, because he is trying to live a pure life; a red Pocky snack wrapper emblazoned with the motto “share happiness” because that’s what he tries to do. He is particularly interested in the phrase “share happiness.” The are in share looks like Ari. Everywhere he looks, he is reminded of the dogs he loved. He looks to the mountains and sky and remembers to share happiness. “Instead of dwelling on the pains of mine, remember the pines of Maine.” He gestures to the “pines” in “happiness.” “Be strong, be ever-green.” All this he gets from a wrapper someone threw in the trash. I wonder what it is like to see the shadow of someone you have lost everywhere and feel joy instead of loss. To trust that they are there with you. To have so much faith.

single scrap of paper, documented the exact moment it was produced and put up. Leaves and colorful beads adorn his corner. Domestic abuse statistics printed on purple dress shapes honor Domestic Violence Awareness Month. He has written “women” and “we-men” instead of “women and men.” On a “Celebrating 314 Years” flyer, he has added “and you” with a smiley face in the O. FOR A LONG TIME, I COULD NOT THROW AWAY things that seemed better suited for the recycling bin. I saved programs and flyers, old scribbled drawings and corks and bottle caps and receipts. I saved boxes of business cards I collected over travels, I kept leaves and pinecones that fell from the tree in my backyard. Everything mattered. Everything meant something. I filled desk drawers with these neatly packaged memories, these symbols, afraid that I would lose them. Gabriel comes from mystery, but in this I think I understand him a little. He holds on to his wrappers and poems and monuments so he won’t lose his family and friends. So he won’t lose himself.

Even then, he spreads his joy through his signs and words. I still have the cardboard piece he gave me, xìn rèn scrawled on it. He radiates optimism; he shares what he has. He is a mystery. He is a miracle.

“Up at 09:24! Wow! Women-of-wonder! Wemen of wisdom! POEMS may Appear For You in this bucket. HELP YOURSELF.” TWO DAYS LATER, AN EXPLOSION OF SIGNS ON the corner of a bulletin board by the street catches my eye. The hand-lettering is unmistakably Gabriel’s; it matches the name badge on his hat. A pink breast cancer awareness pail has been taped to the board, full of poems printed on slices of green paper.

There are numbers everywhere: 17:44 and 17:49 bookend the five minutes it took him to write the poems; a measuring stick is attached to the board with pipe cleaners. He has dated and timed every

Graphics by Joseph Valdez YH Staff Feb. 3, 2017 – 11

CULTURE

by Jordan Coley YH Staff

Does Stephen A. Schwarzman know who Solange is?

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ast week, we reported on “Blackstar Rising & the Purple Reign: Celebrating the Legacies of David Bowie and Prince,” the four-day conference dedicated to the lives and work of David Bowie and Prince held here at Yale. The event featured screenings, panels, “critical deejay sessions,” and a TV on the Radio concert. Among those included in the festivities were pioneering filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, cultural critic Greg Tate, former Prince collaborator Sheila E., and, Solange (!!!). It was a blockbuster event, filling venues all over campus. But the conference’s main venue was the recently renamed Schwarzman Center—the 88,300-square-foot complex comprised of Memorial Hall and Commons Dining Hall that will become a student center in 2020––and its chief financier was the eponymous donor. Last weekend’s conference was the second of three events funded by and partially held at the Center during the 2016 - 2017 academic year. October’s “Food Conversations” brought four world-renowned chefs to campus, and “Jazz: A Celebration of America’s Sound” will be headlined by Wynton Marsalis in March. It’s pretty exciting stuff, the type of stuff that might prompt you to look up from your laptop, turn to your roommate, and say, “Wait, the Schwarzman Center is actually kind of dope,” to which your roommate might reply, “Yeah, but isn’t Stephen Schwarzman a Trump advisor or something?... Also can you Venmo $12 for the gas bill?”

Schwarzman also likes having his name on things. In 2008, he made a $100 million donation to the New York Public Library. In 2011, the library renamed its historic midtown main branch the “Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.” He actually attempted to name Commons after himself in the late 90s, but failed after the university realized that the $17 million he proposed would only be an investment on Yale’s behalf, not a direct donation.

Schwarzman is a conservative Republican. He voted for John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. In December, he was selected to head then-President-elect Donald Trump’s “Strategic and Policy Forum,” a group of sixteen prominent CEO’s—including the heads of Disney, Walmart, and General Motors—that will “provide direct input to the President from many of the best and brightest in the business world.” So yes, he is a “Trump advisor.”

But what exactly does all this mean? What bearing might this have on me, a student sitting in the “Commons at Schwarzman Center,” listening to ?uestlove talk about Purple Rain? By going to an event that he funded in his building, am I somehow complicit in, as Eva Branson, DC ’18, once argued, Yale’s burdening yet another campus edifice with the legacy of a white benefactor of ill repute? Or, did “Blackstar Rising & the Purple Reign” show us a way to employ these “dirty funds” to noble, perhaps radical, ends?

of gender and sexuality sits in rather unseemly juxtaposition with the banner it falls under—Schwarzman, and all he represents, on the one hand, and Brooks’s love of the Purple One and Ziggy Stardust on the other.

This star-filled event was no small undertaking. Though the Schwarzman Center was the most significant donor for the event, ample funding flowed from many other sources as well. There are 17 Yale academic departments and study centers listed as co-sponsors in the program, including: the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Studies Program; the Yale Center for British Art; and the Program in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.

With “Blackstar Rising,” the Schwarzman Center seems to offer an opportunity for members of the Yale community to put on events that spring from their own interests and reflect the rich, kaleidoscopic world that Yale occupies.

But as valiant an endeavor as it was, “Blackstar Rising” did not come without its hiccups. The Tuesday before the conference began, the New Haven Register ran an article in which Trey Moore, a New Haven resident, chastised Yale for the lack of publicity the event received in the Greater New Haven Area. He also lamented his inability to get tickets to Thursday night’s keynote with Solange.

For her part, Brooks said that she was “moved by Trey Moore’s comments,” and that she truly hopes “that Yale will keep its doors open to our neighbors so that our scholarly work can spread and… improve by way of engaging with our local world.” She was also quick to note that “all of us need to stay curious (and ‘woke’) to events other than the ones featuring particular celebrities,” and that there were more than a few events featuring notable, though lower-profile, guests that were wide open to the public and easy to get into.

Brooks closed out the conference’s welcome address by coming back to the example set by NEXT YALE, the “multiracial, multi-ethnic, crossgender coalition of students” who demanded institutional change in the wake of the events of the fall of 2015: “[They are] bold, rigorous and creative thinkers who keep pushing this institution forward toward a more inclusive horizon.” Like Prince, NEXT YALE decided to free themselves of the shackles of a name, christening “The College Formerly Known as Calhoun” last spring. It was a timely reference for a moment when the inner-workings of universities around this country have come under increased scrutiny. It is well-documented that Yale’s labyrinth of institutional funding is essentially an ethical minefield. And the effort to right that ship is ongoing. With “Blackstar Rising & the Purple Reign,” Brooks and the Schwarzman Center have shown that for now, we can take that cash and invest it.

AS OF FEB. 3, STEPHEN A. SCHWARZMAN, DC ’69, HAS THIS WEEKEND WE WELCOME ALL IN ATTENDANCE TO an estimated net worth of $11.5 billion, a figure that likely use the lessons and sonic wisdom of two pathbreaking artplayed a role in his being number 52 on Forbes’s “The ists,” said Daphne Brooks, Professor of African American World’s Most Powerful People” list last year. He is the CEO Studies and Theater Studies and the chief organizer of of Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that special- “Blackstar Rising,” as she addressed a groggy crowd in the izes in buying and selling high-profile public companies auditorium of the Yale University Art Gallery last Fri., Jan. for astronomical sums. Schwarzman founded the company 27. In this welcome address, she referenced Prince and with business partner Peter Peterson in 1985 after leav- Bowie’s ability to empower “the strange,” “the “powering Lehman Brothers. In 2007, Schwarzman’s 23 percent less,” and “the dispossessed.” To Brooks, the weekend’s stake in the business was worth an estimated $7.7 billion. events were meant to come in direct conversation with our Blackstone has come under fire for some of its business current political moment. practices, most notably after a 2014 SEC examination In an email, Brooks explained that she began organizinto its “monitoring-termination fees,” a loophole through ing what became “Blackstar Rising” when Susan Cahan, which the company collected an extra consulting fee when Associate Dean for the Arts, “generously offered [her] selling or taking public companies. In regard to his busi- the opportunity to put together an event under the aegis ness decorum, Schwarzman was quoted in 2007 as saying, of the new Schwarzman Center.” She explained that the “I want war, not a series of skirmishes…. I always think conference was originally meant to be a smaller celebraabout what will kill off the other bidder.” tion of Bowie’s legacy; Brooks and her colleagues had Schwarzman has made a name for himself as a poster- even “thought of Prince as the perfect headliner… [but] boy for Wall Street’s “greed and conspicuous consump- you know how that ends.” Brooks, who often invokes the tion,” as James B. Stewart described it in his 2008 New word “radical” to describe the artists she discusses in her Yorker profile of the billionaire. Schwarzman lives in a $37 lectures, is one of the more visible organizers of high-promillion, thirty-five room triplex on Manhattan’s Upper East file arts events on campus. Since her arrival in 2014, she side—the most expensive apartment in New York’s most has arranged an advanced screening of an award-winning expensive building. Despite his exorbitant wealth, he has Nina Simone documentary, a Gina Prince-Bythewood film shown aversion to the possibility of it diminishing even screening, and a discussion with former White Stripes The majority of the specific information on Schwarzman in slightly. In 2010, while addressing the board members of frontman Jack White. Brooks, however, was unaware of the this article came from Stewart’s 2008 profile; the remaina non-profit organization, Schwarzman famously likened “political affiliations of certain figures associated with the der comes from Forbes and Newsweek.

President Obama’s plan to increase taxes on wealthy pri- Center” until she was well into the yearlong process of vate equity firms like his to Nazi Germany, saying it was planning this event. The conference’s mission to recog“like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” nize the cultural legacy of two artists who redrew the lines Graphic by Joseph Valdez YH Staff 18 _ The Yale Herald

Solidarity

by Nolan Phillips YH Staff

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longside nearly 1,000 other students, I attended Sun., Jan. 29’s candlelight vigil. The vigil was held as a show of support for refugees and foreign-born people affected by Trump’s recent executive order. For almost an hour we held our candles in the chilly, blustery weather, listening to impassioned responses to Trump’s Muslim Ban—a shadowy concept he mentioned on the campaign trail, which was initially denounced by most politicians, including Mike Pence.

I supported the vigil’s politics, but was unsure of its polite tactics: how much progress can really be made by standing around with candles on Cross Campus? With this quandary in mind, I recharged my portable electric candle (a Christmas gift from Mom and Dad), and joined the throng. The crowd was dense, with protesters young and old tightly packed along the length of Cross Campus. Vigil organizers handed out electronic candles in case protesters didn’t bring their own. Not just Yale students showed up—local families were in attendance too, some even pushing baby strollers. The centerpiece of the scene was a single word—SOLIDARITY—boldly projected onto the front wall of Sterling Memorial Library. As a procession of speakers rallied the crowd, solidarity became the unifying theme of the event.

Solidarity proved a fitting word to frame Sunday night’s vigil, which fostered a budding support network of protesters and angry citizens. Trinh Truong, SY ’19, who spoke at the march as a political refugee from Vietnam, explained why “solidarity” is so fitting for the occasion: “To me, solidarity means uniting for the betterment of humanity. Solidarity transcends race, class, religion, gender, and any other dividing factor.… All of our struggles are connected. Solidarity is important because it’s the only way things change: humanity doesn’t comprise one individual.” Solidarity is a word that unifies the protester and the afflicted.

That’s why, when we talk about solidarity, it is almost always followed by the word “fellow”—solidarity with our fellow students, with our fellow Americans, with our fellow humans. It’s a word that puts the burden on everyone.

The projection of the word “Solidarity” onto the front wall of Sterling was the idea of Dennis Wang, a first year student at the School of Medicine, who was inspired by a similar image at the JFK protests last weekend. Outside the terminal, one “expression of defiance” stood out the most: the word “RESIST”, emblazoned across the wall of a parking garage. The source of the image was a “taller gentleman who was balancing a rather large projector on his head.” Wang suggested the organizers of Sunday’s vigil do something similar—but “RESIST” wasn’t suitable for our campus demonstration. Individuals directly affected by the executive order believed that “resisting was not… something that all non-citizens could safely do,” and so, “the team settled on ‘SOLIDARITY,’” a more inclusive call to action. According to Sara A. Lulo,

Don’t cancel the Oscars

by Joe Kuperschmidt YH Staff

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n Feb. 26, the brightest stars in Hollywood will flock to the Dolby Theater for the Oscars.

They’ll be covered in couture worth more than what most Americans earn in a month (or year—or lifetime, depending on the size of the diamonds), to reward themselves for another 365 days of work well done. The Academy Awards, as always, will be a lavish, self-congratulatory ode to vanity, an over-thetop affair so inaccessible for most viewers it might as well be on the moon. For that very reason, the Oscars are typically a blast. They’re a fascinating glimpse into “la la land” for the crowd of regular folk who care enough to go see movies like La La Land. But in this unpresidented year, an unprecedented question arises: is a standard Academy Awards ceremony appropriate, or does keeping with tradition deny Hollywood an opportunity to put its humanitarian money where its mouth is?

This past Tues., Jan. 31, Vox.com’s Todd VanDerWerff called on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to cancel the Oscars in response to President Trump’s immigration policy. As a result of Trump’s executive order, Iranian nominee Asghar Farhadi (a previous winner for 2011’s A Separation) and the Syrian subjects of the nominated documentary short The White Helmets have been barred from entering the United States and cannot attend the ceremony. To underline Hollywood’s connection to this political issue, VanDerWerff compares today’s refugees to some from the past, namely the European Jews who decades ago helped build the film industry as we know it. VanDerWerff admits that the Oscars will undoubtedly recognize Trump’s action in some way, but to him, the effect of political jokes and thoughtful

acceptance speeches hardly compares to the sort of forceful statement calling off the ceremony would make..

In its 89 years of existence, the Academy Awards has never been canceled. Through every war, president, and political climate, the show has gone on. Still, would calling off the event even make for an effective protest? It would, as VanDerWerff suggests, serve as an enormous demonstration of solidarity with those affected and of opposition to Trump’s policy, but what power, if any, this statement would have remains unclear. A politically-motivated cancellation of the Oscars could surely cause a media firestorm, but any such hype doesn’t guarantee a lasting impact. More than that, those who already think of Hollywood as an out-of-touch body of “liberal elites” would have plenty of opportunity to sell this move as a temper tantrum. And to the average American, the cost of cancelling the Oscars—financially, as well as sentimentally—may not register as a sacrifice at all. Such an excessive ceremony hasn’t ever been necessary.

On the other hand, calling off the Oscars would cost powerful voices the opportunity to publicly express their contempt for Trump’s immigration policy. To a greater extent than the recent Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, the Academy Awards receives a massive, attentive audience from around the world. (Last year’s ceremony was watched by about 34 million people in the U.S. alone, over three million more than the number that tuned in for Trump’s inauguration.) Words of dissent between the dispensing of awards can still be potent. Look to last year’s ceremony for evidence, where Leonardo DiCaprio dedicated his acceptance speech to the issue of climate change. According to San Diego State University sci-

Assistant Dean of the Law School, who proposed the word, “‘Solidarity’ was meant as a unifying message of strength and community. It was a direct message of support to those endangered and isolated as a result of the executive order. ‘Solidarity’ also serves as a reminder to all that we must each stand up for one another and for human dignity itself.”

Some protesters might have questioned the efficacy of holding a vigil, instead of a more typical protest against an executive order that sparked such widespread outrage. The word “vigil” is commonly associated with community response to tragedy. Truong remarks that, to her, a vigil is an appropriate response to the recent political developments: “After the executive orders were issued, I think the entire country needed to reflect and decide on what we wanted the word ‘American’ to mean…. This political moment is one of tragedy. It symbolizes a divergence from our commitments and the best of our values. Let’s hope––and also work––to make sure this divergence is temporary.”

At Sunday’s vigil, which heralded the beginning of an uncertain new era, we mourned the loss of compassion in our American policy towards refugees. But I was heartened by the spectacle of 1,000 fellow New Haveners ready to act up. This was an event that, as Wang said, was not about “grief, or powerlessness, but about the community coming together.” The vigil served as a powerful reminder that, despite the distress caused by the executive order, so many of us are willing to stand in solidarity with our fellow humans, especially the most vulnerable.

entist John Ayers, DiCaprio’s call to action resulted in “the largest increase in public engagement with climate change ever.” And if the goal is truly to increase public engagement, a YouTube clip from the Oscars is probably more likely to make an impact than a Tweet announcing the ceremony’s cancellation.

Although only tangentially related to the controversy of Trump’s immigration ban, the politics unique to the film industry must also be considered in evaluating the importance of this year’s Oscars. After two years of criticism for filling fields exclusively with white nominees, the Academy has nominated people of color in nearly every major category. This stands as evidence of progress for both the Academy, in its effort to expand its membership, and the entertainment industry, in producing more films that reflect the diversity of the American people.

More than in recent memory, the pool of nominated films signifies the start of progress in cinematic representation. While this progress cannot directly combat regressive federal policies, the importance of celebrating these advancements shouldn’t be underestimated.

The movies themselves—in an ideal sense, windows into the lives of those different from ourselves—give us the strongest argument in favor of forging on with the Oscars this year, and for trying to enjoy them.

As it stands, are the Oscars a perfect fit for February 2017? Almost definitely not. The extravagance and gaiety of the event appear mismatched with the current political moment. (Not to mention how the Academy’s apparent determination to fête La La Land, a movie about Hollywood and a poor example of its progress in representation, doesn’t exactly exemplify the industry’s new outlook.) But through the glamour, the excess, and the artifice, there’s plenty of opportunity for the Oscars to make a statement against Trump and his immigration ban, without calling the whole thing off.

Feb. 3, 2017 _ 19

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Hidden Figures A familiar movie for a new generation

SOURCE: New York Times

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n all honesty, I was in no rush to see Hidden Figures. I had no doubts about the film’s quality or popularity. Most critics gave the film positive reviews, and it has grossed nearly $107 million after a month at the box office. I had my reservations, though, because I assumed I had the film figured out: it was a family-friendly, well-worn, feelgood biopic about individuals triumphing over prejudice. I’ve seen that movie before. I wanted to experience Moonlight’s slow-burning, introspective presentation of grappling with one’s identity in an unforgiving environment. I wanted to be blown away by Fences’ dynamic acting and its multifaceted, tortured characters. I convinced myself that those films’ complexity and more mature subject matter made them more realistic, more aesthetic, more worthy of my limited time.

I’m happy I had a change of heart. Hidden Figures stars Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe as three black, female mathematicians whose contributions to NASA both helped the United States ultimately win the Space Race and paved the way for female American minorities to influence the sciences. Once the credits rolled, I left the theater with a new perspective. Hidden Figures is all the things I wanted to dismiss it as, but it also features a surprising level of complexity that captures the 1960s’ racial and gender relations more accurately than I had predicted. The film still operates within a specific, familiar mold, but given our current political climate, these optimistic stories of striving to overcome tribulations are the types of stories that instill a needed hope in our hearts.

Octavia Spencer shines as Dorothy Vaughan, a mathematician and de facto supervisor for the all black, all female West Area Computers group. Her character exudes a motherly and sagacious grace that anchors the other central characters. While her younger colleagues see better prospects of upward mobility, Vaughan expresses conflicted frustration at being denied an official supervisor title despite her leadership skills, like a mother watching her daughters surpass her. After teaching herself Fortran (an imperative programming language for IBM computers) from a book she took from a segregated library, she teaches it to all the West Area computers so they become indispensable once the new machines are functioning. It’s powerful to watch her control her own destiny and enlighten others, circumventing both racism and technological innovation.

The scene of her heading a procession of trained black women to take charge at Langley Research Center’s main campus captures her character’s essence.

One of the film’s earliest scenes establishes the spunky humor that shapes Janelle Monáe’s portrayal of aspiring engineer Mary Jackson. When a police officer appears after the three women are stuck on the road on the way to work, Jackson speaks to him with an assured defiance compared to the other women’s deference. Once the officer changes his tone, having realized the women’s important occupations, it’s Jackson who seizes the moment and accepts his offer of an official escort. Her jokes create moments that are both infectiously heartwarming and tear-jerking, working especially well when she feeds off her costars.

Taraji P. Henson is this film’s center as Katherine Goble, and she does not disappoint. Goble is at times witty, reserved, and determined, whether cleverly navigating her racist coworkers’ attempts to redact information or navigating byzantine mathematical equations with such a confidence that I had no doubts about the character’s aptitude.

She tenderly manages her three daughters and cultivates chemistry with Jim Johnson

20 _ The Yale Herald

by Travis Deshong (Mahershala Ali). Goble’s most visceral, resonant moment comes when Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), the director of the Space Task Group, confronts her about her daily absences from the work floor. She explodes when she explains the absurdity of the fact that she must run half a mile in heels just to find a colored restroom, and unleashes a moving tirade calling out her coworkers’ dismissal of her humanity. To watch Ms. Henson’s face contort with such passion, and then have the camera pan to sheepish, white faces not fully comprehending her agony, is wholly dismaying and enraging. It is at that moment you are pulled in. You want Katherine Goble to not just succeed, but to flourish, so you can reaffirm your belief in the inevitable triumph of good over passive evil.

Moments like that, however, are key ingredients of the formula Hidden Figures and movies like it follow. Once such a film secures the emotional investment, it pays dividends at the end with that clean, happy, Hollywood finale. At various moments, I was too aware that I was watching one of those films. When Johnson expresses skepticism in women’s mathematical capabilities at their initial meeting, Goble summarily shuts him down. She closes her mini speech by saying NASA hired women “not because [they] wear skirts [but] because [they] wear glasses,” complete with an on-cue adjustment of her own glasses. Mary Jackson has a scene where she says, “Every time we have a chance to get ahead, they move the finish line,” in response to supervisor Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst) telling her of the updated requirements to become an engineer. Both are instances of great writing, but I was cognizant that these were lines from a script and not things people would realistically say in conversation. Furthermore, lines like these spoon-feed the underlying themes to the audience, creating a polished product that does not require as much reflection as a film that challenges you to analyze.

Nonetheless, Hidden Figures presents a nuanced look at social relations. Both Jim Johnson and Mary Jackson’s husband, Levi Jackson (Aldis Hodge), initially have conservative philosophies regarding women’s role in society and social justice movements, but become more open-minded with help from the main characters. Both these men assume the traditional domestic role while the women hold prominent positions. The movie also undermines the whitewashed belief that individual achievements during the Civil Rights Era shifted racial attitudes. Though Goble’s coworkers warm up to her, none of them befriend her. Even as Vaughn’s relationship with Mitchell develops, it only reaches the level of professional respect. And although Hidden Figures champions black self-determination, both Goble and Jackson must appeal to white, male organs of power to progress.

At its heart, Hidden Figures is a biopic for all ages, and I realized that this gives it a certain power instead of undercutting its potential quality as I’d assumed. A new wave of progressive activism is necessary to fight back against the deterioration of civil rights we’re witnessing in our present moment. We need constant faith that this fight is worth enduring, which is why movies like Hidden Figures are so valuable. They’re open to everyone, delivering lessons to young people so they can learn about other people’s cultural histories and become aware of their current challenges. These sorts of films remind us that we can overcome obstacles larger than ourselves, that moral values win out at the end of the day, and that our struggles do have significance for future generations. Hidden Figures is irresistibly uplifting, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s a fun ride from takeoff to landing.

Jackie

E

ven before Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, a sense of nostalgia was forming around the Obama family.

Regardless of politics, the American people fell in love with Barack, Michelle, Sasha, Malia, Bo, and their embodiment of American family ideals; Mrs. Obama has emerged as one of the most popular public figures in recent memory. The last time we saw this level of admiration for first lady and first family was perhaps when John F. Kennedy held office. In other words, Jackie, Pablo Larrain’s masterfully directed biopic of Jackie Kennedy, could not have come at a more politically relevant time. A poignant look into how Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman) works to shape the narrative surrounding her husband’s persona and time in office in the wake of his assassination, this film is a must-see.

Jackie doesn’t feel like your standard historical biopic.

It sets itself apart with nuanced character development and striking insight into the act of grieving in the public eye. More specifically, it focuses on unveiling the differ-

20th Century Women

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would like to begin my review of 20th Century Women at its high point: the end credits. They came as a relief, not only because they signaled the end of my being held hostage by this mediocre film, but also because they revealed the name of the writer and director, Mike Mills, and Mike Mills—as I suspected—was a man.

After about ten minutes, I was sure that 20th Century Women couldn’t have been written by an actual woman. The film is described on IMDb as, “[t]he story of three women who explore love and freedom in Southern California in the late 1970s,” but, other than the era and location, the movie does not live up to this description. The foremost qualification of fulfilling this would be having genuine female characters, and here, it already misses the mark. While the two main men, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) and William (Billy Crudup), were fairly realistic, the three female characters, Dorothea (Annette Bening), Julie (Elle Fanning), and Abbie (Greta Gerwig), had their character arcs replaced with character scatterplots. They jumped from playing one stereotype

ence between Jackie Kennedy’s public and private personas, looking beyond her fashionable and poised exterior to reveal someone clever and calculating, yet vulnerable. In a particularly telling and iconic scene, Larrain recreates the filming of the 1962 network television special, A Tour of the White House With Mrs. John F. Kennedy, bringing to light the care that Mrs. Kennedy put into curating her family’s national image.

Adding to the exploration of her role in writing history, the film is chronologically structured around Jackie’s interview with a journalist (Billy Crudup) at the Kennedy compound in Massachusetts a week after her husband was killed. From here the entire story comes to us through Jackie’s eyes in the form of flashbacks, focusing on the few days surrounding the assassination and the funeral. We catch glimpses of the first lady’s psychological struggles as well as her keen maneuverings to shape the narrative of her husband’s life and death.

Jackie, like any film that focuses so heavily on character development, ultimately must be carried by its superb acting. Peter Sarsgaard brings life and complexity to the character of Bobby Kennedy, while Greta Gerwig brings compas-

to another so often and so abruptly that it was difficult to see them as characters with a life story to tell. There was Abbie as the shrewish feminazi who discusses menstruation at the dinner table; Julie as the too-good-for-feminism skeptic; and then suddenly Abbie again, chastising Julie for emasculating Jamie by not having sex with him, with no explanation for her change of perspective. The failure of male writers/directors to create lifelike female characters is certainly not a new phenomenon, but, given the title, one might expect better.

This complete lack of coherent female characters was in keeping with what seemed to be the M.O. of the movie: let’s not tell a story. At times there were scenes, like one in which Dorothea and William come to understand the power of the music that Jamie loves, that reignited my hope that there would finally be something meaningful presented—but none of it ever built into a coherent arc.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this movie was that it could have been so much more. I expected it to be a movie about women in a turbulent era, their lives and their stories, but instead it presented female caricatures and was far more a coming-of-age story about Jamie than it was about the three women. While it tried to piece

The Man in the High Castle

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hen I first heard that Phillip K. Dick’s masterful novel was to be adapted into a T.V. show, I was both ecstatic and worried; I feared that the crisp beauty of a cornerstone of science fiction would be lost on T.V., and I despaired of finding an everyday, desultory show. The Man in the High Castle exceeded my expectations in many areas, yet disappointed them in many more.

The show’s bold, compelling visual style is apparent from the first minutes of the pilot, with One Times Square lit up by a giant neon swastika. Everything from popular T.V. shows to government bureaucracy to posters in the background is smoothly replaced with Nazi equivalents, transporting the viewer to a nightmarish alternate world where the Third Reich dropped an atomic bomb on Washington, and America is partitioned between German and Japanese occupation zones. Even the thought of old America existing only as ‘Americana’, curios to be

bought by tourists, helps create the impression of a defeated, destroyed nation. The effect is mesmerizing.

The cast impressively portrays realistic characters in an unreal universe, especially Alexa Davalos, as the aikidopracticing, conflicted Juliana Crain, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Japanese bureaucrat Nobusuke Tagomi. Yet, despite the stunning visuals and strong acting, I felt let down. PKD’s genius was in infusing the entire book with the feel of his alternate universe. In the book, the speech patterns of the character Robert Childan change to mimic Japanese formalisms, and the search for meaning by many of his characters reflects the need for a harmonious balance in the mystical I Ching. The language issue is absent from the show, while the spirituality of balance is touched upon only briefly, spoken by Japanese characters all too reminiscent of the Hollywood senseis of banal action movies. No novel-based show can claim to be fully faithful to its book, but I cannot help but feel this one didn’t try particularly hard.

There is one inspired deviation from the book, though—the creation of the character of Obergruppenführer

sion to her role as White House Social Secretary Nancy Tuckerman. However, it goes without saying that Portman’s performance as the first lady steals the show. From her mastery of Jackie’s unique voice, accent, and mannerisms to her guarded vulnerability and ability to shift between personas, Portman brings a combination of rawness and refined skill to this extremely difficult role. Her talent and range are especially prominent in the scene when Jackie has to tell her children the news about their father’s death, one of the most painful moments in the film.

Despite its well-trod source material, Jackie is undoubtedly a cinematic success, raising the bar for the biopic genre. As we move into a new and uncertain presidential administration, the film is a fitting reminder of the humanity behind the politics.

by Lina Goelzer YH Staff

feminism into the process, and chose excellent, pertinent, powerful excerpts from feminist essays that were spoken over the action in sections, it did not extend into the action of the movie or seem to make very much of an impact on the lives of any of the characters, and presumably had little influence on Mike Mills’ writing process.

If you’re looking for some redeeming aspect, the acting (despite the writing) was wonderful, the movie was aesthetically pleasing enough to (almost) warrant a viewing, and there were beautiful moments that seemed like they might lead to something profound. They didn’t, but hey, if you can deal with that rollercoaster ride of disappointment, give it a shot.

by Madeleine Hutchins

John Smith, played brilliantly by Rufus Sewell. The precise brutality of Smith, juxtaposed with his everyday suburban home life, is a powerful comment on the banality of violence in dictatorships, and adds a chilling thread to the narrative.

The Man in the High Castle is a riveting watch as a science fiction thriller, but lacks the depth of Dick’s work, and will likely disappoint his aficionados. Watch it if you want a great alternate history show, but don’t hope for the complexity of a novel; perhaps unavoidably, some of the book’s nuance is missing.

The Man in the High Castle can be found online at Amazon Video, where the first two seasons have been released.

by Sahaj Sankaran Feb. 3, 2017 _ 21

BULLBLOG BLACKLIST when you have something on your neck that looks like a hickey

but it’s just a zit

WHAT WE HATE THIS WEEK

having to wash your socks

just wear flipflops!

you’ll never find them alll

stray pastry flakes hate them all the time

sub-prime mortgages personal problems

ebbing the worst kind to have

and flowing tbh

I went to Elm City Social once and he was the emcee

groundhogs

Martin Short prairie dogs are far superior

Feb. 3, 2017 _ 23