Category: Archive

My first ever piece for the DP! Original: https://www.thedp.com/article/2022/10/the-queens-death-and-upenn

When the news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death broke I, along with Brits everywhere and seemingly half of the rest of the world, was rendered suddenly and surprisingly silent. The pre-planned obituaries and messages rolled out, sure, but in the moment most of us were left stumped as we considered for the last time what our Queen really meant to us. The truth is, she represented so much more than a face on a throne. Present on everyone’s TVs in her annual Christmas day speech all the way down to the few pound coins I still carry around in my pocket (just in case I’ll need them — you never know), she was an untouchable leader and global icon.

But while the Queen is someone that I was proud to have representing me, her death has once again led me to reconsider my feelings on the royals as a whole. Unfortunately, while they’re the cultural and diplomatic faces of the country, our ruling family is ultimately a deeply problematic institution that continues to represent the UK’s past of abuse of power both domestically and abroad. There are, of course, the scandals, which are far too pervasive to ignore: There’s Prince Philip (the Queen’s late husband)’s well-documented racist and sexist remarks, or Prince Andrew (her son)’s all-but-admitted grooming of seventeen-year-old girls (did I mention one of his best friends being a certain Jeffery Epstein?), and of course Princess Diana, a woman who was manipulated into falling in love with the whole family before being tossed aside with no remark on her convenient death once she’d produced an heir – even after she had become more adored than the rest of them put together.

But while what they do can be a serious issue, it’s more what they represent that’s the problem. They were, after all, once called the “Imperial Family” — their continued rule over much of the Commonwealth serves less as a signal of friendship and more as a reminder of who used to be the colonisers versus the colonised. The worldwide power and renown they’ve gained is far from a product of Elizabeth’s good grace and manners; rather, it is a legacy of an empire which brutally oppressed millions over hundreds of years (many Irish and fellow Scots would argue that that continues to this day, but I digress). That past is something that we have to atone for, but that the Windsors’ dominion only serves to perpetuate. The protests surrounding Will and Kate’s recent visit to Jamaica showed that their so-called “subjects” are growing less and less patient with their presence. With Elizabeth’s death bringing her less-than-popular son Charles to the throne, I think that it’s time our country had a serious reckoning with who we want to be and how we want to present ourselves to the world. 

These reflections aren’t unique to the UK, however; I knew I’d be encountering a similar sense of a problematic institutional past long before I actually got to Penn. A few months after I got my place here, a good friend of mine sent me an Instagram page called @segregation_by_design (which you should absolutely check out if you’re interested). They were doing a series on the forced upheaval of Black Bottom, the thriving 78% Black neighbourhood which Penn worked with the authorities to label as a “slum” and clear out to make space for University City — our campus stands on the ruins of that 10,000-strong community. 

The legacy of this societal damage sadly continues today with the UC townhomes, one of the last remnants of Black Bottom, as residents are once again being forced out of their homes with little notice and nowhere else to go. The University, meanwhile, which has billions of dollars in wealth and continues to benefit from that community’s dismantling, is silently sitting and watching. Penn has been given the chance to come to terms with and begin to fix the historic wrongs on which it was established by stepping in and saving the townhomes, stopping the past from repeating itself; unlike my Royal Family, who I know full well to be incapable of such fundamental change, I hope the choice that our university makes is the right one.

Just as the UK owes atonement to the rest of the Commonwealth, Penn owes the UC townhomes to its community in West Philadelphia. We both have an opportunity to choose the type of institutions we want to be: ones that ignore and in so doing perpetuate the sins of our past, or ones that work with those we’ve wronged to build a better future. Though I loved Elizabeth in many ways, I doubt the latter is what she would have wanted, but I know that it is what Diana would have. I’m sure you can guess who the Queen of my heart truly was.

Cover Image by Samuel Regan-Asante

Op-ed from the Daily Pennsylvanian. Original: https://www.thedp.com/article/2022/10/penns-accountability-deficit-needs-addressing

In January this year, M. Liz Magill was unanimously selected to be the President of Penn by the board of trustees. In her acceptance message, she talked about building on a legacy of “making a difference” through “pragmatism, creativity, and humanity” and expressed her desire to work with the whole Penn community to achieve that. The issue is, though, that that community isn’t who she answers to — instead, the only ones with any power over her are the board themselves, a detached group of alumni and bureaucrats who most of us will never get to see or meet.

The President functions much like a politician: She makes decisions about what goes on in the University and represents us to the outside world. The key thing about (democratic) politicians, though, is that we can hold them accountable — when they let us down, we don’t vote for them, and they lose their jobs. The issue with the Penn administration is that they don’t grant us that mechanism. Sure, there’s the Undergraduate Assembly, which does some great work to improve our campus, but even that can only make recommendations to the administration. They have no reason to take those recommendations on board and no reason to engage with any other student bodies. So, they don’t. 

For instance, they’ve been threatening and intimidating the Fossil Free Penn encampment on College Green since its inception but have yet to be reported as meeting with them about their demands. So much for working with “faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members” as Magill pledged to do when she got the job.

I’m sure that you can see what I’m getting at — there is a serious accountability deficit here. On one hand, it makes sense — it’s not like we can realistically threaten Penn with dropping out en masse if they ignore our demands. But when the University repeatedly avoids talking to student advocacy groups and takes eight months to respond to issues such as the UC Townhomes sale (which also has widespread faculty support), they’re demonstrating a blatant and deliberate disregard for anything the Penn community cares about that might be inconvenient for them. 

And while we can’t threaten any staff’s positions directly, I find their cavalier attitude to be unwise: For an institution that relies on alumni donations, they’re doing an awfully bad job at making current students want to give back. Regardless of what the reality is, we’re meant to be members of a community, not customers of a business — we deserve a legitimate voice.

Now, Penn’s administration doesn’t have to enact every last desire of its students, no matter how socially prescient — if it did, I doubt an endowment even as big as the one it has would last very long. While I absolutely believe that the University should divest from fossil fuels (a move made by most other Ivies thus far), help the townhomes, and make its vast wealth work to benefit the West Philadelphia community which it has so damaged, I don’t believe that I should be able to force it to. 

What we should expect, though, is for our opinions to at least be respected — students shouldn’t have to interrupt convocation, stage protests, or occupy the field outside Magill’s office in order to open any sort of dialogue with her (in terms of pragmatism and creativity, at least, they’re definitely winning). 

But they’re left without much choice. When they try through official means, they get sidelined and palmed off. Can you really blame the activists for taking over College Green? Our President may try to avoid it, but she can hear their voice loud and clear — what she doesn’t seem to understand is that the more that she ignores it, the louder it will get. If she wants to represent this community in the way that she claims she does, she should listen to it. We are Penn — the students, the faculty, the staff, and the West Philadelphia community, too. The board of trustees is not.

We choose to attend institutions like Penn, I hope, because we believe that we will be well represented by the values that they stand for, both in our time here and in our future lives. But it’s equally important that those values grow and change to represent us, too. It’s time that those who claim to lead the Penn community respect the fact that they answer to more than a board of invisible bureaucrats. They can’t ignore us forever; in the meantime, I’m sure, our friends over on College Green won’t be going anywhere.

Cover Image By Teutonia25 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58286684

My first film review for 34th Street. Original: https://www.34st.com/article/2022/10/avatar-way-of-water-oscar-cgi-navi-jake-plot-james-cameron-pandora

Avatar is, by most accounts, a modern classic: a technological masterpiece and the arguable founder of Hollywood’s current CGI era, all while consistently defending its spot as the highest–grossing film of all time. And yet, before last week, I had never seen it. Remaining an Avatar virgin, so to speak, wasn’t a deliberate move; I just happened to miss it when it came out and never felt very compelled to catch up on it. There isn’t exactly a lack of graphics–heavy Disney content these days after all, and there is much more media touting that the movie’s plot is mostly forgettable than singing its praises.

However, with the 13–year–wait for the sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, almost over and the original film back in cinemas in a remastered, 4K version, I decided to pop my Avatar cherry to see how the film, which was the CGI movie of 2009, holds up in today’s oversaturated climate. 

First and foremost, Avatar simply has to be seen in a cinema—this movie was intended to be viewed in 3D on the big screen, and its graphics absolutely deliver. Before our protagonist even starts talking, the stunning visuals come in: sweeping space vistas as his spaceship comes in to land on the harsh, concrete human military base, surrounded by the rich and vibrant Pandoran jungle and the breath–taking cliffs of the Hallelujah mountains. The Na’vi also look far better than most MCU computer animation released today (look no further than She–Hulk). The initially awkward lankiness of the Na’vi, too, is quickly forgotten as their beautifully animated features blend into the spectacular landscapes. Even though Avatar came out in 2009, it doesn’t look dated at all. In fact, it looks a lot more polished than some movies this year; although to be fair, this version is remastered from the original. Between the stunning visuals and the rich lore of this alien moon (which avoids too many obtuse exposition dumps), the world of Pandora is incredibly immersive. Unlike the relentless business model of the average Disney franchise, this truly feels like a passion project 50 years in the making. It makes complete sense why Avatar so enamored audiences 13 years ago; however, even though she was lovely, the woman who turned up to my screening in a full Na’vi costume may have been a bit over the top.

While the visuals are stunning, the reasons why nobody seems to remember the plot are obvious. In particular, the character development is severely lacking. Our protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a disabled ex–marine who takes the six–year flight to Pandora after his brother, the scientist intended to go on the trip, unexplainedly dies. This concept of a stoic yet uneducated everyman heading into a complex alien world occupied by scientists makes for a compelling audience surrogate. But the execution lacks any emotional resonance, as his brother’s tragic death isn’t touched on or even mentioned after about 30 minutes in, and Sully himself has about as much personality as a wet blanket. Sully has little to no agency throughout the film, essentially being dragged around and told what to do by other characters up until the finale. While his transition from order–following corporal to heroic rebel leader by the end is again good on paper, he didn’t grow much at all during the film. Zoe Saldana is fine as Neytiri, Sully’s Na’vi teacher and eventual lover (which is quite predictable), but their romance overall lacked chemistry. Their relationship seemed to exist more because the plot needed it than due to a real connection. 

The supporting cast also consists of mostly one–dimensional caricatures. Avatar’s main villains, Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribsi) and Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), feel like cheap space copies of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) from The Wolf of Wall Street and Nathan Jessop (Jack Nicholson) from A Few Good Men. Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) almost has an interesting betrayal arc after his years of preparation for the Avatar program are quickly overshadowed by Jake’s Mary–Sue natural ability; however, he quickly joins our heroes again and proceeds to contribute next to nothing to the rest of the story. 

Michelle Rodriguez’s badass helicopter pilot is well–acted, but her characters lack any originality and could’ve come from literally any action flick; meanwhile most of the Na’vi, the truly unique part of this movie, barely get any screen time. Of all the characters, Sigourney Weaver’s Dr. Grace Augustine stole the show: her frustration over her scientific research being repeatedly disregarded by greedy corporatists hellbent on destroying the beautiful world of Pandora was deeply compelling.

This leads into what is Avatar’s greatest triumph, aside from its visuals: its thematic cohesiveness. The concept of colonization is far from new in the science–fiction genre, but Avatar really nails the narrative here: the perfectly happy native people continually being called “savages” in need of “development,” the forced removal justified by talks of “humaneness,” and the general destruction of nature and culture as the unfair negotiation fails. The story serves as a really effective recontextualization and reminder of the sins of the world’s own history with colonization. Despite all the issues with the characters, the plot absolutely delivers when taking revenge against being colonized: fewer deaths are more satisfying as when Quaritch (who simply refuses to die) finally bites the dust.

Overall, Avatar definitely holds up today as a cinematic icon, and the spectacle of the visuals and themes far outweigh most of the issues with the plot. As for round two, which comes out this November, there was a post–credit teaser at the end of the screening featuring Jake and Neytiri’s Na’vi family. Anticipations for the release are mixed, though: while the visuals are sure to be stunning, the reintroduction of Quaritch as an antagonist and the more–than–likely return of humans to Pandora invites worries that the major plot themes that were so well explored during the original are simply doomed to be disappointingly rehashed in another shallow Disney cash–grab. But with James Cameron back at the helm with years to work on it, Avatar: The Way of Water is a film I want to believe in. Its opening is sure to be a spectacle: seeing it in theaters come November—in 3D, of course—will be mandatory.

Image from the official Avatar Flickr page.

This was a really fun one to write: the interviews were a real challenge but were super rewarding. Original: https://www.34st.com/article/2022/11/pitch-perfect-a-cappella-penn-singing-riff-off

“I honestly think Pitch Perfect did wonders for college A Cappella,” Victoria Conroy (C ’24), music director of the pop/rock a cappella group Off The Beat, told 34th Street. “I think one of the reasons that it was so successful is that there’s nothing like college A Cappella…and there’s just something about it that draws people into it.”

It’s been ten years since Pitch Perfect hit theaters for the first time, and it has quickly evolved into a sleeper hit. The film follows Beca (Anna Kendrick), a freshman at Barden College in Atlanta and aspiring DJ, who gets caught up in the vibrant, dramatic and high–stakes world of collegiate A Cappella. The romance, drama, and incredible performances introduced all of us to this wild atmosphere for the first time. 

However, there are bound to be some mistakes, misconceptions, and exaggerations about college A Cappella in the film. A decade since the first film and just weeks before a new Pitch Perfect spinoff TV series releases on Peacock, 34th Street asked some of Penn’s A Cappella community about their thoughts on the film itself, its legacy, and how similar the a cappella scene it portrays is to ours here at Penn. 

To address most people’s first question: unfortunately, no, Penn does not have a version of the legendary riff-off scenes from the movies (though interviewees expressed regret over that fact). However, the iconic audition scene, where Barden’s various groups occupy a theater and watch the auditionees perform Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone,” does have some strong resemblance to Penn’s A Cappella audition process.

“All of the A Cappella groups go to Williams Hall all day—11am to 11pm” Conroy explained. “It’s an open call audition—anyone can come in”. Though she de–emphasized the competitive nature of the process, Ethan Soloway (C ’25), a member of the Shabbatones, Penn’s Jewish A Cappella group, as well as Penn Glee Club, mentioned that entering Penn’s performing arts community can feel just as stressful as it’s portrayed in the film.

“I ended up auditioning not just for [The Shabbatones], but for a bunch of a cappella groups. And it’s kind of a cutthroat process—that’s a parallel with the movie,” Soloway said. “They’re sitting in front of you. They’re judging you. They want you to be a social fit as well as a musical fit, and you go through several rounds of auditions.”

Nonetheless, Soloway feels that he eventually found a home in the Shabbatones, just like how the Barden Bellas became a family for Beca in the film. 

“A Cappella for me was not about the cutthroat [mentality]…[Shabbatones is] much more of a family, because we’re a smaller group and a lot closer [to one another]. And I’ve really enjoyed that,” he said. 

Allegra Greenawalt (C ’23), president of Dischord, which focuses on Pop and R&B a cappella, agreed that much like with the diversity of the groups at Barden, everyone at Penn can also find a group where they fit in. 

“Auditions can be competitive…but all of the groups are so different in their niche that everyone gets to be a part of the group that they feel like they most fit into,” Greenawalt explained. “It’s more of a community than a cutthroat environment.”

Others highlighted how the A Cappella community at Penn is much less high–stakes and competitive than that of the movies. Groups here don’t tend to compete in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA), which is the central theme of Pitch Perfect. Equally, the series’ emphasis on single-sex groups is great for generating drama, but isn’t reflected in the prevalence of co-ed organizations at Penn. Instead of competitions, groups focus on performances and recording music. Off the Beat, for example, have released almost 30 albums.

But the links between Penn and the movies go beyond mere similarities. Penn Masala, Penn’s South Asian fusion A Cappella group, was featured in Pitch Perfect 2, representing India in the world ICCA final. The movie was huge in propelling the group to the stardom and fame they currently have, as well as inspiring current members to join the group when the film came out seven years ago.

“The group got reached out to by [Pitch Perfect 2 Director and Penn alum] Elizabeth Banks… and we got invited to come on out and perform a segment of the movie as a guest act,” Sachit Gali (W ’23), Penn Masala’s business manager, recounted. 

Before Gali even knew that Masala was an A Cappella group at Penn, the representation of his culture on the big screen was very important to him. 

“I distinctly remember watching Pitch Perfect 2 and when the segment came on with a South Asian A Cappella group singing, I did not know it was Penn Masala, but it stuck in my mind that [we had] representation [on a] global stage,” Gali said. 

Masala don’t place responsibility for all of their popularity on Pitch Perfect’s help, but the movie was groundbreaking for catapulting them to stardom. Due to the series’ success and their own influence, they’ve been happy to see other groups like them appearing across the country.

“I would say that at almost every school across the country, you can find some sort of South Asian fusion A Cappella group,” Albert Gu C’23, Masala’s music manager, recounted. “You realize that we are the standard bearers for this, and that pushes you to elevate the content you’re making… and to be a better musician generally.”

The franchise’s expansion to other cultures is set to continue next month with the set to November 23rd release of the series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin, which will follow the titular character and former Treblemakers leader Bumper Allen as he moves to Germany in pursuit of fame. The show presents the chance for more A Cappella content in the mainstream, but invites fears that the Pitch Perfect name is being milked for clout, especially given lackluster reviews for the third movie installment.

Greenawalt, for instance, is fully in favor of more a cappella content. However, she hopes that future content focuses less on the competition side of the a cappella scene. 

“I think it’s great that [A Cappella is] getting more attention, especially from someone who does it and is passionate about it,” she said. “The competitiveness and the dramatic parts [make for great TV], but there are great parts to being in A Cappella [aside from competing] that hopefully they’ll highlight in the upcoming TV series.”

Though the film is mostly remembered fondly, Pitch Perfect does have some serious problems which haven’t aged spectacularly. Stereotypes are very prevalent in terms of certain characterizations—Rebel Wilson’s Amy plays the classic “fat friend” role, while Hanna Mae Lee’s Lilly demonstrates a harmful orientalist interpretation of East Asian women as extremely quiet, mysterious, possessing dark secrets.

“I watched Pitch Perfect recently with two of my friends from Off The Beat, and we were like ‘wow—this is a little racist!’,” Conroy concurred. “I think that is a reflection of it being made in 2012… but it’s crazy that that was ten years ago. That’s not that long ago.”

But Saaketh Narayan WE’23, Penn Masala’s president, views the franchise in a more positive light. 

“Maybe it represents some parts of Asia badly. But [Pitch Perfect] was, in some respects, a start for representation, especially for groups like us. And if you look at where mainstream media is going, you have people like Hasan Minhaj and Mindy Kaling really pushing the envelope for the South Asian community,” Narayan said. [Today] there is a more even-handed representation than in Pitch Perfect. So I don’t know if it’s aged badly, but I think it’s one of those things where you can look back and say: look how far we’ve come.”

Photo of Penn counterparts by me.