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(10/03/12 10:36pm)
A fair question that’s been lobbied at me by various individuals who have read my column has been whether we even need to worry about feminism, especially on a campus as progressive as Middlebury. This is often followed by the assertion that women are perfectly fine in today’s society, so feminism isn’t relevant anymore. Well, I have two responses: The first is that I don’t think Middlebury is a particularly progressive campus, and I think many points in last year’s op-eds by Rhiya Trivedi prove that. I wouldn’t attempt to say we have an especially or extraordinarily hostile campus towards women, but we certainly aren’t the most progressive when it comes to feminism on this campus. Feminism is certainly not a goal of the College.
Which brings me to the second part of my answer — that increasing feminist action and awareness should be a major goal of the campus. Why? Because this campus has some issues, people. Engaged feminism has rarely been more pertinent to me, and to this campus, than this past week. In light of the recent alcohol survey results — none of which were particularly surprising — I think it’s time for a little introspection. Obviously I’m going to take the feminist lens on this.
Full disclosure: it would be naive of me to say that anything highlighted by these stats is at all shocking. It would also be blithe of me to ignore the largely race and class-based differentials that were spotlighted by these surveys — not to mention the fact that these statistics are only representative of those who actually chose to respond.
The fact that male athletes are the most likely group to have unprotected sex, and that first-years are most likely to have unwanted sexual experiences is genuinely troubling. We have had some excellent programming that highlights the issue of consent, such as last week’s Sex Signals and the student-run event “It Happens Here” last year. But I have to wonder if that’s enough. How do we go about changing the culture so that there isn’t a category of people who are more likely to engage in questionable behavior in which women are often those that are most compromised. While some may argue that Middlebury is better than our peer institutions, I don’t think that’s good enough. We shouldn’t be satisfied with the fact that our campus may be better than other schools when it comes to the possibility of unsafe sex or unwanted sexual encounters. Instead, our goal should be to have a sex culture that promotes positive and safe encounters for those who express both consent and desire. Only when this positive culture is realized will these statistics become unnecessary.
Feminism can play a major role in creating a more positive and safe campus culture. The numbers show that we still have a long way to go in female empowerment on this campus, particularly for first-years. This is not a judgment on hook-up culture; in fact, I don’t think female empowerment and our hook-up culture have to be mutually exclusive. Nor is it necessarily a judgment meant to single out or stigmatize our athletes, as that would be both unfair and malicious.
Alcohol clearly comes into this conversation, as it impairs judgment, but I think it would be a cop-out to solely focus on that aspect of this problem — that would be the easy answer. Drinking is not an excuse for behavior, nor is it a legal or moral exoneration. In addition, I don’t see our drinking culture drastically reducing or changing anytime soon.
Instead, I believe it is necessary to move the conversation from sporadic events to a larger campus-wide venue. Truthfully, I’m not sure how we should go about doing this. But I do know that if there are pockets of the community that are more likely to engage in “risky” or potentially harmful behaviors, they must be part of this conversation. I think a big part of it is removing the stigma of female empowerment and making sure that we understand that feminism can have a positive impact on more than 50 percent of our campus.
It affects our campus’s culture of sex, our social culture and the general health of our college. Why wouldn’t we want our campus to be a safe environment where newer students are able to feel completely comfortable? I think that sounds like a more fun Friday night out, don’t you?
Listen to Sam Kaufman discuss her column with the Campus' Will Henriques.
(09/27/12 2:27am)
A mixture of improv comedy and serious discussion defined the performance of Sex Signals in the McCullough Social Space on Wednesday night. The show touched on issues of dating, sex and — most importantly — the notion of consent. Since its 2000 debut, Sex Signals has been performed over 4,000 times at over 900 college and military institutions. In addition to utilizing humor and improv, the show is largely an interactive experience with the audience.
Wednesday’s show featured the two main actors from Sex Signals, Annie Rix and Eric “Pogi” Sumangil, who performed a few skits highlighting common or stereotypical scenarios involving dating or consent, and frequently looked to the audience for “answers” to these situations in their skits. The skits varied in their seriousness, from an awkward first encounter to a college student raping his study partner after a few beers. At the end of the performance, Rix and Sumangil fielded a discussion with the audience about their views of consent and courses of action to take to help prevent rape.
Rix and Sumangil have been members of the Sex Signals company since 2009. Prior to performing in the show, every cast member is required to undergo training to become qualified to educate and perform these sensitive topics.
“We are all professionally trained as advocates to be able to talk about this type of subject,” said Rix. “We go through extensive training.”
Since Sex Signals is so dependent on audience participation and is performed across the country in many different locations — including liberal, conservative and military institutions — the actors must make variations in the performance to suit the needs of individual crowds.
“I think sometimes it’s just a shift in language to make the message more palatable based on what the audience is bringing to the room,” said Sumangil. “As much as it is a comedy-based show, it’s also an improvisational-based show, so the audience takes on its own energy and its own character, and people in the audience contribute to that.”
Rix noted that for military performances, the performers need to use certain terms or jargon so that the audience can relate. Sumangil explained that this builds credibility with the audience — it shows that the performers are knowledgeable about that particular group.
“We couldn’t just stand on a stage and do the show,” said Rix. “We have to have the audience there … the way this show is shaped is based off of how the audience is responding. We use the audience to look at stereotypes of men and women … the whole end of the show is a [dialogue] with the audience, and that can go a lot of different ways depending on what they ask and what they want to talk about.”
The actors explained that the ideal audience for Sex Signals is around 40 to 50 people. Sumangil noted that if there are only a few people in the audience, they might not feel comfortable talking about their views on rape or consent. He also noted that in a much larger crowd, people might not want to share their views in front of so many people, particularly in a college setting or during a first year orientation performance.
“Students don’t want to be singled out,” said Rix.
Similarly, Sex Signals does not want to single out any instance or context of rape. For example, many people imagine rape occurring in a dark alley with a stranger, and while this may be the case in some instances, a large majority of rape occurs in a personal dwelling with someone who is an acquaintance or loved one. The show also primarily addresses male-female rape, since it is statistically the most common instance of rape. Both Rix and Sumangil, however, made it clear that they do not want to speak strictly in these contexts.
“A lot of it is based off of statistical evidence … [research suggests] the vast majority of rape or sexual assault that is committed is usually with a male attacker and female survivor,” said Sumangil. “We don’t want to seem to come off as though … [sexual assault] doesn’t happen in certain other contexts. Of course it does, and we want to be respectful of the potential audience members, because you just never know. We do address male survivors and that’s probably more apparent in the military where it’s a very male-heavy population.”
They also made it clear that the performance is not intended to normalize or make fun of any form of rape or issue of consent. The survivor is never the butt of any jokes in the performance. Rather, they use current cultural references and caricatures of stereotypes to create humor and connect to the audience.
“The humor itself is strategic in that … we make fun of our own assumptions in society based on gender [and those interactions],” said Sumangil. “We’ll pose a question and five people will come up with the answer at the same time and they’ll all laugh because … they all said [the same word] at the same time. That points to the fact that, see, we are all ingrained … and taught that these stereotypes are apparent in our lives.”
Sumangil hopes that in drawing attention to stereotypes, people can change attitudes about gender expectations or at least be more mindful about them when interacting with other people.
One notable aspect of the show was a segment where Sumangil played a man with stereotypical “masculine” characteristics provided by the audience, such as being macho and sex-obsessed. The scene depicted Sumangil’s character hitting on Rix’s “stereotypical female” caricature, a submissive woman who ate only salad, was “always a virgin” and even made sandwiches. For this scene, each audience member was given a piece of paper with the word “stop” on it, and was told to hold up the sign whenever they felt the scene should end or whenever a moment signified trouble. Sumangil entered the scene with two imaginary glasses of water, one of which was spiked with a drug. Immediately, some audience members held up their “stop” signs, but the scene continued, with Sumangil putting his arm around Rix, who was clearly uncomfortable. As the scene escalated and Rix became more uncomfortable, more “stop” signs rose up.
Moments like these helped give Sex Signals the audience connection the actors strive to create, particularly in raising awareness of preventing sexual assault before it happens. For instance, after the scene, Rix noted that people had supported her character by holding up the “stop” signs, but Sumangil countered that no one actually said “stop.” This sentiment was carried over into the discussion segment at the end of the performance, where Rix and Sumangil hammered home the point that it’s not enough to just think something is wrong — taking action is vital to prevent someone from being harmed or raped. The performers also noted that, while it might be a scary or embarrassing thing to do, taking action against a possible rapist is necessary to prevent sexual assault, and if someone looks uncomfortable in a situation, there are subtle ways to remove them without direct confrontation — for instance, asking them to accompany you to the bathroom.
Sumangil wanted audiences to come away from Sex Signals with some sort of message, even if they aren’t immediately on board with the ideas presented in the performance. Often, it takes a while for the message to sink in, but the hope is that if an audience member encounters a similar situation, say, at a party, he or she might know how to better handle it because of Sex Signals. Rix also emphasized the importance of learning to “check in” with a partner and how important it is for audiences to understand the significance of consent.
If the student participation during the performance was any indication, Sex Signals succeeded in its goal. The interactive nature of the show brought the audience together in discussion — by presenting such an important issue as a humorous performance rather than a discussion panel where it might be uncomfortable to state views, students were better able, and more willing, to connect and participate. And, as Sumangil said, even if students came away with only a mere liking of the show, the message still might hit home with them weeks or years later when a Sex Signals situation arises.
For more information on the College’s sexual assault policies, visit go/sexualassault.
(09/27/12 1:53am)
A mixture of improv comedy and serious discussion defined the performance of Sex Signals in the McCullough Social Space on Wednesday night. The show touched on issues of dating, sex and — most importantly — the notion of consent. Since its 2000 debut, Sex Signals has been performed over 4,000 times at over 900 college and military institutions. In addition to utilizing humor and improv, the show is largely an interactive experience with the audience.
Wednesday’s show featured the two main actors from Sex Signals, Annie Rix and Eric “Pogi” Sumangil, who performed a few skits highlighting common or stereotypical scenarios involving dating or consent, and frequently looked to the audience for “answers” to these situations in their skits. The skits varied in their seriousness, from an awkward first encounter to a college student raping his study partner after a few beers. At the end of the performance, Rix and Sumangil fielded a discussion with the audience about their views of consent and courses of action to take to help prevent rape.
Rix and Sumangil have been members of the Sex Signals company since 2009. Prior to performing in the show, every cast member is required to undergo training to become qualified to educate and perform these sensitive topics.
“We are all professionally trained as advocates to be able to talk about this type of subject,” said Rix. “We go through extensive training.”
Since Sex Signals is so dependent on audience participation and is performed across the country in many different locations — including liberal, conservative and military institutions — the actors must make variations in the performance to suit the needs of individual crowds.
“I think sometimes it’s just a shift in language to make the message more palatable based on what the audience is bringing to the room,” said Sumangil. “As much as it is a comedy-based show, it’s also an improvisational-based show, so the audience takes on its own energy and its own character, and people in the audience contribute to that.”
Rix noted that for military performances, the performers need to use certain terms or jargon so that the audience can relate. Sumangil explained that this builds credibility with the audience — it shows that the performers are knowledgeable about that particular group.
“We couldn’t just stand on a stage and do the show,” said Rix. “We have to have the audience there … the way this show is shaped is based off of how the audience is responding. We use the audience to look at stereotypes of men and women … the whole end of the show is a [dialogue] with the audience, and that can go a lot of different ways depending on what they ask and what they want to talk about.”
The actors explained that the ideal audience for Sex Signals is around 40 to 50 people. Sumangil noted that if there are only a few people in the audience, they might not feel comfortable talking about their views on rape or consent. He also noted that in a much larger crowd, people might not want to share their views in front of so many people, particularly in a college setting or during a first year orientation performance.
“Students don’t want to be singled out,” said Rix.
Similarly, Sex Signals does not want to single out any instance or context of rape. For example, many people imagine rape occurring in a dark alley with a stranger, and while this may be the case in some instances, a large majority of rape occurs in a personal dwelling with someone who is an acquaintance or loved one. The show also primarily addresses male-female rape, since it is statistically the most common instance of rape. Both Rix and Sumangil, however, made it clear that they do not want to speak strictly in these contexts.
“A lot of it is based off of statistical evidence … [research suggests] the vast majority of rape or sexual assault that is committed is usually with a male attacker and female survivor,” said Sumangil. “We don’t want to seem to come off as though … [sexual assault] doesn’t happen in certain other contexts. Of course it does, and we want to be respectful of the potential audience members, because you just never know. We do address male survivors and that’s probably more apparent in the military where it’s a very male-heavy population.”
They also made it clear that the performance is not intended to normalize or make fun of any form of rape or issue of consent. The survivor is never the butt of any jokes in the performance. Rather, they use current cultural references and caricatures of stereotypes to create humor and connect to the audience.
“The humor itself is strategic in that … we make fun of our own assumptions in society based on gender [and those interactions],” said Sumangil. “We’ll pose a question and five people will come up with the answer at the same time and they’ll all laugh because … they all said [the same word] at the same time. That points to the fact that, see, we are all ingrained … and taught that these stereotypes are apparent in our lives.”
Sumangil hopes that in drawing attention to stereotypes, people can change attitudes about gender expectations or at least be more mindful about them when interacting with other people.
One notable aspect of the show was a segment where Sumangil played a man with stereotypical “masculine” characteristics provided by the audience, such as being macho and sex-obsessed. The scene depicted Sumangil’s character hitting on Rix’s “stereotypical female” caricature, a submissive woman who ate only salad, was “always a virgin” and even made sandwiches. For this scene, each audience member was given a piece of paper with the word “stop” on it, and was told to hold up the sign whenever they felt the scene should end or whenever a moment signified trouble. Sumangil entered the scene with two imaginary glasses of water, one of which was spiked with a drug. Immediately, some audience members held up their “stop” signs, but the scene continued, with Sumangil putting his arm around Rix, who was clearly uncomfortable. As the scene escalated and Rix became more uncomfortable, more “stop” signs rose up.
Moments like these helped give Sex Signals the audience connection the actors strive to create, particularly in raising awareness of preventing sexual assault before it happens. For instance, after the scene, Rix noted that people had supported her character by holding up the “stop” signs, but Sumangil countered that no one actually said “stop.” This sentiment was carried over into the discussion segment at the end of the performance, where Rix and Sumangil hammered home the point that it’s not enough to just think something is wrong — taking action is vital to prevent someone from being harmed or raped. The performers also noted that, while it might be a scary or embarrassing thing to do, taking action against a possible rapist is necessary to prevent sexual assault, and if someone looks uncomfortable in a situation, there are subtle ways to remove them without direct confrontation — for instance, asking them to accompany you to the bathroom.
Sumangil wanted audiences to come away from Sex Signals with some sort of message, even if they aren’t immediately on board with the ideas presented in the performance. Often, it takes a while for the message to sink in, but the hope is that if an audience member encounters a similar situation, say, at a party, he or she might know how to better handle it because of Sex Signals. Rix also emphasized the importance of learning to “check in” with a partner and how important it is for audiences to understand the significance of consent.
If the student participation during the performance was any indication, Sex Signals succeeded in its goal. The interactive nature of the show brought the audience together in discussion — by presenting such an important issue as a humorous performance rather than a discussion panel where it might be uncomfortable to state views, students were better able, and more willing, to connect and participate. And, as Sumangil said, even if students came away with only a mere liking of the show, the message still might hit home with them weeks or years later when a Sex Signals situation arises.
For more information on the College’s sexual assault policies, visit go/sexualassault.
(09/26/12 11:15pm)
In this course we will examine the history, meanings, and realities of disability in the United States. We will analyze the social, political, economic, environmental and material factors that shape the meanings of "disability," examining changes and continuities over time. Students will draw critical attention to the connections between disability, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status and age in American and transnational contexts. Diverse sources, including films and television shows, music, advertising, fiction, memoirs and material objects, encourage inter and multi-disciplinary approaches to disability. Central themes we consider include language, privilege, community, citizenship, education, medicine and technology and representation.
Professor Perspective
American Studies Professor Susan Burch feels privileged to be teaching American Disabilities, a class that has been previously offered at Middlebury but debuts in its revamped format this semester. “On a big level, my intent is to have students asking tough questions about the world around them,” said Burch. By using disability as a lens through which to examine history and culture, Burch hopes that students will walk away from her class with a new “touchstone for critical thinking.” The course is centered around a museum exhibit project, which Burch said “intentionally engages with a material culture, a culture that shapes our understanding of the body and mind.” Students work in groups throughout the semester to create a final product intended to be shared with the public, adding to the material culture they have studied. The museum exhibit project serves as a teaser for any students interested in the associated winter term internship opportunity with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
Student Perspective
For any prospective American Studies major, American Disabilities is a natural first step. The collaborative nature of the course lends itself to a big class size that offers a hearty welcome to students with any level of interest in the American Studies department. “I feel like this class is unique in that you don’t hear about it being offered at other schools,” said Tyler Wood ’15. Other students recognize the class’s uniqueness not just amongst other schools, but within the College. “[Even though the College is] such an advanced and modern school disabilities studies still only makes up a very small part of a department. There is only one professor that teaches it,” said Priscilla Odinmah ’15. “My love, sex, race and disabilities class made me aware of how disabilities are so overlooked,” said Suraj Patel ’15. Odinmah agrees with Patel and finds that the class offers a new perspective on social issues in America. “We’ve embraced women, we’ve embraced gay. Disabilities is the last frontier,” she said.
(09/19/12 11:38pm)
It was 1987. After a 14-2 regular season, the New York Giants advanced to the Super Bowl. After a hard-fought game, they finally won their first-ever Super Bowl, defeating the Broncos in a 39-20 victory.
After the game, Phil Simms of the Giants coined a phrase that is now common currency in the land of post-victory interviews.
When asked what he was going to do now that he'd won the game, he said, "I'm going to Disney World!" (Disney subsequently paid him $75,000 for doing so.)
In June, after announcing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) decision, Chief Justice John Roberts, whose vote and opinion determined the fate of the law, was asked, in the tradition of victors, if he, too, was going to Disney World.
Alas, he was not. He responded that he was going to Malta, "an impregnable island fortress," over the summer. This trip may have been wise, considering the political brouhaha that followed the decision's announcement.
Chief Justice Roberts held that the ACA could stand, but not based on the commerce clause grounds upon which the administration had primarily defended it. Instead, he upheld it under the taxing power – perplexingly, as he had to simultaneously hold that the Act was not a tax for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, and was a tax for the purposes of determining constitutionality.
Unsurprisingly, he was alone in this logic. Still, four justices – Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor – agreed with the decision, though they upheld the Act under the Commerce Clause.
Commentators had a field day with the decision. Conservatives felt betrayed. Liberals felt betrayed. Conspiracy theories about Roberts' opinion flowed aplenty.
And, amidst all this turmoil, many congratulated the Chief Justice on saving the Court from politicization.
Whether you think this decision was celebration-worthy or cringe-inducing, it altered the trajectory of the American health care system and, consequently, will affect many Americans' lives, as do many Court decisions.
Though the Court won't reconvene until Oct. 1, it is possible to speculate on what some of the cases will involve this year. A preview of upcoming issues includes:
Race-based affirmative action: The Court has already agreed to hear Fisher v. University of Texas, in which a white student, Abigail Fisher, claims that she was not admitted to UT because of her race. Specifically, the case asks whether race can be considered when admitting and rejecting students to universities. As the law stands, race can be considered so long as it is only used to reach a "critical mass" of diversity in a student body.
Gay rights: The Court has been asked to hear cases on both California's Proposition 8 referendum and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
In the Prop 8 case, petitioners are asking the Court to uphold voters' rights to reject gay marriage via referendum. The state's Supreme Court ruled last year that, though the state's voters rejected gay marriage, the state would still recognize and grant same-sex marriage.
The second case involves DOMA. The Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996 and signed by President Clinton, defines marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife."
There have been many challenges to this Act. One such challenge is that of Edith Windsor, a woman who was forced to pay $360,000 in estate taxes after the death of her partner. She would not have had to pay these taxes had her partner been a man. She is thus asking that the law be struck down based on an equal protection claim.
Religious liberties: The Obama Administration may have won the first round of the ACA battle, but many are in it for the long haul. The ACA requires employers to provide insurance plans that cover contraceptives to employees, regardless of personal conscience, except in narrowly defined exceptions. Exemptions to the law are limited to "religious employers" – those whose business is tied to religious values, and whose business is classified as a nonprofit in the religious sphere. All other employers must provide insurance including contraception or pay a fine. If, for example, a Catholic businesswoman who morally objects to the use of contraceptives owns a shoe store, she is still legally required to provide her employees with insurance plans covering their use.
This year, this column will analyze these cases, should they come before the Court, and others like them. It will also explore more general-interest court news, including lower court proceedings, Supreme Court history and particular justices. Eventually, it will produce reviews of books about and by the Court's members.
The justices still have a few more weeks of vacation before they're back at work, but hopefully both they, and you, have had restful summers. They'll be deciding which cases they'll hear as we're finalizing which classes we'll take; and, with luck, these decisions will produce intellectually stimulating, interesting years for all of us.
(09/19/12 11:21pm)
Why did I seek out the position of sex columnist, you may ask? I didn't. I was offered the position. I'd like to think it is because I remind people of a younger, less horse-like Carrie Bradshaw, but it probably has more to do with the fact that I talk so brazenly about my experiences (fine, sexperiences).
Since it is so challenging to separate sex and alcohol at Middlebury, I'm not even going to try. Wine makes me horny, vodka makes me slutty and tequila makes my clothes fall off. Oh, I forgot beer. Beer just makes me feel fat. I guess it is possible that my synapses are uniquely susceptible to fermented drinks. I know that's not true though. Don't lie to yourself. You're a slutty drunk, too. If I'm wrong here, you probably fall into the "whiney drunk" or "violent drunk" category, both of which, I would argue with bias, are worse than getting naked.
Have you ever woken up in a bed far off campus, next to a guy you vaguely remember having a drunken political debate with the night before and realized that the only way to get back to your room is by waiting for him to stir from his alcohol-induced coma and drive you? No? Me neither. Since we're being honest, I've also never done the walk-of-shame at five on the first Monday of classes in September. Nor have I ever peed my pants at a music festival.
I hope you picked up on my sarcasm in the previous paragraph. Despite having done all those things and way more, I have somehow (as far as I know) avoided the "slut" taboo. How on Earth did I manage that? Well, I take Usher's advice very seriously: "We want a lady in the streets but a freak in the bed." I won't lie and say that it's easy to avoid the offensive and demeaning slurs that go along with being a modern, horny woman. It requires practice. I learned by trial-and-error, mainly during freshman year.
I didn't really drink in high school, so the novel combination of open access to alcohol and empty beds led to behavior that the Parton Health Center dubs "risky." No, I was not having unprotected sex – I'm not an idiot. Nor was I charging people for sexual favors – I'm not a criminal. But I definitely took advantage of my freshman girl appeal.
Luckily, freshmen are granted the leeway to act like imbeciles. Just this past weekend I saw a freshman boy introduce himself to an upperclassman girl as a lacrosse recruit. No name, simply a potential lacrosse player. To the youngster's credit, I saw him walking, hand-in-hand, towards Battel with a nice-looking freshman girl later that night. Apparently you don't even have to be on the team to score.
Now that I've got a few years of college under my belt, my skinny belt (I've been avoiding beer), I am thankful for my "risky" freshman year. I learned that there is a way to have a casual hook-up without being denigrated by peers, to laugh off almost anything and most importantly, that anonymity is not overrated. In fact, the reason I am not using my real name in this column is because I would like to be employed someday. Considering our current job market, that may be optimistic, so at the very least, I'll be confident that my parents, siblings and future children will have no proof that I was anything other than a celibate, doe-eyed prude in college.
(09/19/12 11:12pm)
What's so bad about feminism?
Feminism. Does this word scare you? Is it off-putting to you when others identify as feminists? Let's talk about it. Shouldn't it be a problem that feminism has turned into a dirty word, particularly among our 18-24 year-old age group? Well, I think it's a shame and I'm going to keep talking about feminism. I'm going to keep talking about feminism until people don't cringe at the word, or dismiss it out of hand as irrelevant or passé.
Feminism has moved far in public perception. What started as a movement that many of our mothers took part in has become a phrase often avoided by their daughters. Particularly when women in our generation have benefited so much from the feminist movement, the inclination to distance ourselves from it is baffling to me.
Feminism shouldn't be scary. It also shouldn't be something we shy away from, considering just how far women have come, and how far we could be pulled back. The fact that there is even an extant threat to Roe v. Wade should be a cause for alarm. It should be a kick in the pants to a generation that has enjoyed countless opportunities, such as Title IX funding and maternity leave. It should be a wake-up call – if we abandon the movement, forces in our country may very well quickly dismantle our progress. So then, why do we steer clear of the word today?
I think it's high time that we stop pretending "women's issues" are indeed solely the issues of women. The fight for coverage of contraception and availability of family planning should not be solely in the realm of women. These issues affect all of our society. They should be treated as such.
I think that it's time for us to start talking about why feminism is good for everyone, and why we should stop thinking of it as a radical relic of last century. The biggest misconception, I believe, is that feminism is equivalent to hatred of men, or is somehow anti-sex. I would like to present a more inclusive and complex lobby to you all. Otherwise, we are trapped in a definition that only works to divide a populace and alienate men from an issue that is most certainly of their concern. In terms of relevancy, I would also like to push the idea that we have already conquered all of the mountains of inequality that exist, and shattered every last glass ceiling. Progress is always a moving target and I look forward to hunting for it with you this semester.
(09/18/12 2:40am)
The Queen of Versailles
In light of the recent Republican and Democratic National Conventions in which the American economy was especially emphasized by both presidential candidates, and several years into the recovery from the worst economic troubles the United States have encountered since the Great Depression, The Queen of Versailles is a relevant, and not to mention impeccably done, film. Fitting and well crafted, it is an in-depth look at the messy state of American financial affairs centered around one family's singular story. Produced by the documentarian Lauren Greenfield (who won Best Director at Sundance for the film), The Queen of Versailles was originally intended to be a piece about a family building the largest house in the United States, a Florida mansion inspired by the French royal residence, Versailles. The beginning of the film introduces us to the couple behind the construction, David and Jackie Siegel – the founder and CEO of Westgate Resorts, a timeshare-based real estate empire, and his wife, a much younger former model and mother of eight.
Greenfield captures how, as the lavish plans for building go underway, the same pursuit of cheap money and fast real estate that Westgate made its policy in order to climb to the top of the industry are the company's undoing.
As a result, The Queen of Versailles becomes a very different film. What was to be an exploration of the opulence of the upper crust instead transforms into a study of the effects of the crash.
The film's conflict is multi-faceted and demonstrates the deep impact of the economic crisis of 2008 not just on the upper echelons of American society, but also on other acquaintances of the Siegels' who are not of the same social standing. Two particularly interesting storylines that deal with the Siegels' limousine driver catch the viewers attention. He, too, lives in a comfortable home, but finds himself having to borrow a Bentley from the Siegels in order to drive other clients and keep his business alive – if even just briefly.
Yet perhaps the most fascinating storyline is that of Jackie's childhood friend from small-town upstate New York. Inseparable in high school, the two women ended up pursuing different careers and their lives veered off in very different directions – Jackie graduated from college, her friend did not; Jackie left New York, her friend did not. And, of course, we can't forget the more blaring difference: Jackie married a billionaire, and her friend did not. By the time Jackie goes back home to visit with friends and family, shortly after the crash, she finds her friend in dire financial straits, unable to make payments on a more modest home and facing the threat of foreclosure. Ironically, Jackie faces the loss of her home – or, better said, her palatial estate – as well.
In spite of myself, while watching The Queen of Versailles I found myself sympathizing with Jackie. She has an easygoing, pleasant presence on screen, and serves as a matter-of-fact narrator for her family's experience. David Siegel is a bit pricklier, proving that his wife may really be his better half. Rounding out the interviews are their children, who display varying degrees of responsibility, accountability and indulgence, and their longtime housekeeper, whose stories of her struggle to maintain contact with her family abroad and weathering out the financial storm with the Siegels' are affecting.
As Americans continue to climb steadily out of a recession so deeply affected by the housing bubble, The Queen of Versailles is not only pertinent, but also expertly done.
To Rome with Love
Woody Allen set the bar quite high with his last film Midnight In Paris, winner of the 2011 Academy Award for Best Screenplay. That being said, To Rome with Love pales in comparison, and what should have been a fully-fledged love letter to the Eternal City seemed more like a trite Hallmark card.
To Allen's credit, To Rome with Love features some of the best talent in Italy – most notably, distinguished actor Roberto Begnini, whom Americans perhaps best know for his starring role in Life is Beautiful (La vita è bella). Begnini plays an ordinary Roman citizen, Leopoldo, who goes to sleep one night in complete anonymity, and wakes up the next day to become a superstar celebrity, followed by paparazzi and under the glare of the media spotlight – even when all he has to show off is a morning shave and the most pertinent questions that he answers from journalists involve his daily routine.
Not only does the film feature the best of Italy's actors, but also its singers, including the renowned tenor Fabio Armiliato, who plays Giancarlo, a funeral parlor owner who can sing incredible opera – but only in the comfort of his own shower. Woody Allen, playing Jerry, a self-proclaimed visionary and retired music representative with a penchant for odd operatic staging – quite honestly, a thinly veiled version of Allen himself (as tends to happen when he writes parts for himself into his own movies) – tries to make something of Giancarlo's talent.
But, in the end, Jerry's whining monologues and incessant ramblings do little to add to the film. Sure, he sets up a truly hilarious situation by bringing Giancarlo onto the Roman stage in a mobile shower to dazzle the audience with his voice – accompanied, of course, by the sound of running water in addition to the orchestra. Yet, on his own, Jerry's contributions don't go much further than setting up a subplot. In fact, his whining got to be a detractor before long.
And here seems to be one of the film's weaknesses: the American actors and their plotlines seem lacking in comparison to these well-constructed, farcical and side-splitting Italian roles and plots. Indie sweetheart Allison Pill plays a bland tourist named Hayley, Jerry's daughter who falls in love with Giancarlo's son Michelangelo. Their dialogue was so stilted that it is scoff-worthy. Jesse Eisenberg plays a pathetic dupe of an American college student, Jack, caught in a love triangle between his girlfriend Sally (Greta Gerwig) and the alluring, but pretentious, wholly self-absorbed and sex-obsessed Monica (Page). The quasi-spirit of an American architect, John, played well by Alec Baldwin, seems to play Jiminy Cricket to Jack's Pinocchio. Ultimately, Jack gets his comeuppance and realizes just how good spirit-John's advice was, but all too late. The only redeeming part of this storyline is Baldwin's steady stream of one-liners. The rest is referential, affected speeches delivered unconvincingly by Page and company.
What's too bad about these young, gifted American actors is that their characters is so paper thin, that I wished to return to the subplots involving the Romans. A heretofore unmentioned Penélope Cruz plays a popular prostitute Anna and showed off her Italian language skills in a delightful romantic subplot, a love square around a naïve newlywed couple Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and Milly (Alessandra Mastronardi) and a famous actor Luca Salta (Antonio Albanese) in what could have been its own feature film.
In fact, I feel as though Allen would have done well to stick with the zany, Italian faux-celebrity, shower-singing and partner-swapping plots, and done away with the inconsequential and uninteresting American navel-gazing.
While there are plenty of drawbacks, there are some scenes of pure comic gold. And, besides, an Allen is always an Allen: worthy of a watch for its own sake.
Moonrise Kingdom
A poignant love story, a coming-of-age saga, a tale of adults grappling with maturity, and an ode to scouting: acclaimed filmmaker Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is all of these things and more.
While set in 1965, predating the so-called "Summer of Love" by a few years, Moonrise Kingdom is indeed a summer love story. Co-written by Roman Coppola (older brother to director Sofia) and Anderson, the script details the adventures of two twelve-year-olds, Sam and Suzy (played with candor by Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, respectively), who escape their sleepy New England town on the island of New Penzance, and run away with each other into the wilderness. Suzy, a troubled young girl, and Sam, a boy in and out of foster care who is spending his summer at camp with the Khaki Scouts, find the sort of love and hope in each other that the outside world denies them – and their relationship is subtle and sweet, but never saccharine. It's a candid and earnest portrayal that serves as a reminder to audience members of first experiences with love.
As a hurricane brews off the coast of New Penzance, Suzy's parents – the island's police chief and Sam's scoutmaster – grapple with their own personal problems and attempt to locate Suzy and Sam before the weather takes a turn for the worse. Their urgent search is interspersed with shots of Suzy and Sam on their grand adventure, who muse on life, love and the future.
The cast features some Anderson favorites – including Bill Murray as Walt, Suzy's hapless father – and other celebrated Hollywood actors. Among them are Frances McDormand as Suzy's well-intentioned mother, and Bruce Willis, who plays Captain Sharp, the local policeman spearheading the effort to find the missing children. Edward Norton is notable as well in his role as Scout Master Ward, who teams up with Captain Sharp to relocate his missing camper Sam, and, by extension, Suzy. His sincere and hopelessly goofy performance delivers big laughs. Other players include Jason Schwartzman as another sly scout leader and the commanding Tilda Swinton as a no-nonsense representative from Child Services. This is a knockout cast, and together, they build a beautiful story as tender as it is harsh, fantastical as it is surreal.
Moonrise Kingdom features Anderson's signature cinematographic style, as he makes use of imaginative ways of shooting, mixing pans and zooms that defy film school textbook rules, and in so doing boldly create the world of New Penzance. Anderson and Coppola's writing is endearing, fresh and sharply funny. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone raved about the film's humor and heart.
"[T]the hilarious and heartfelt Moonrise Kingdom is a consistent pleasure. By evoking the joys and terrors of childhood, it reminds us how to be alive," he wrote.
Indeed, the film is a poetic and personal delight that is an absolute must-see.
(09/18/12 2:04am)
During the health and wellness presentation of my freshmen orientation three years ago, 500 other first-year students and I were given two memorable pieces of advice to get us through our first few weeks at Middlebury. First, we were encouraged to aim for a seven on a ten-point scale of appetite. That way, we wouldn't leave the dining hall uncomfortably full or peckish and cranky. Second, we were encouraged to play hard-to-get when looking for love. I left the presentation dismayed and confused about how my appetite and flirting had anything to do with my wellness.
Not surprisingly, the presentation's takeaway messages didn't stick either. When Thanksgiving dinner was served in Proctor, I ate my way to a happy 9.5. When the stars aligned to play hard-to-get, I chose the route of honest and open communication instead. The truth of the matter is that the presentation neither spoke to my particular concerns as a bright-eyed first-year nor caused me to reconsider the way that I approached my own health and well-being.
It's easy to forget that issues of health and wellness exist on this campus. On the whole, we're a good-looking bunch of students. We're intelligent and relatively hard working. We are taught to have a critical eye for the world's most pressing issues. From an outsider's perspective, it seems like we have it figured out. Unfortunately, a stroll around Middlebury's campus on an average weekend night may give a different perspective. Alcohol-related dorm damage peaked two years ago. Last year's "It Happens Here" event attested to the existence of sexual assault on campus. Most of us have traded a cup of coffee for a few hours of sleep, and the number of students that have been tested for sexually transmitted infections doesn't even scratch the surface of the number of students engaged in sex. Why are we so good at so many things and so bad at taking care of ourselves?
After three years of being frustrated with the student body's disregard for their own well-being, I decided that I wanted to do something else – something more concrete – to change the way we talk about health. Plenty of lunchtime conversations about the prohibitive cost of STI testing, late nights spent studying and the Sunday morning post-party debrief led me to become a Student Wellness Leader. Student Wellness Leaders, liaisons to the Office of Health and Wellness, hope to address a few of these concerns. While we're by no means the only group on campus interested in issues of health and wellness, our sole purpose is to organize campus-wide events, host speakers and form dialogue regarding the health of Middlebury students.
Last week, three other Student Wellness Leaders (SWLs) and I hosted a presentation on balanced living for First-Year Orientation. Instead of focusing our efforts on tips and tricks to staying healthy and sane during the transition to college life, we chose to share our own successes and failures in being healthy. We hoped to avoid the pitfalls of a high school health teacher preaching from the pulpit. We decidedly strayed away from discussing the USDA food pyramid and discussions of cardio versus weight training – though we couldn't resist passing out condoms. Hopefully, the presentation didn't go in one ear and out the other, as it had during my orientation, but rather encouraged new students to reflect on their own health and wellness.
This column is an effort to diversify the way we think about and talk about our well-being on campus. Throughout the coming year, SWLs will have the chance to write candidly about the issues they find interesting. Some of us want to talk about sexual health. Some of us want to talk about body image, alcohol, stress or sleep. All of us want to talk about what matters here at Middlebury. This is as much about your questions as it is our contributions – so get to know us because we want to get to know you.
(05/05/11 4:01am)
If our lives are stories we unfold, then leaving is punctuation — the friends we make, the lovers we fall for, often leave our lives in unexpected, often painful ways. Sometimes it is with an exclamation point, a final blow-up argument. Sometimes it is a long, drawn-out ellipses, a slow drifting away. Sometimes it is a question mark — there are people for whom you will never know why, exactly, they don’t speak to you anymore. There are bracketed leavings, em-dash farewells, ampersand retirements and vanishings with footnotes. And then there are periods.
It seems appropriate to talk about this, both for this final sex column and for those who will be leaving come graduation day. How does one, exactly, say goodbye, even for the length of a summer, to the people you love? For me, when this current crop of seniors graduates, I will lose friends — good people, whom I love deeply and hope to see again. But from a realistic standpoint, it is unlikely I will ever see many of them again — the currents of their stories will send them around the world, to different cities and professions and ways of life. And while the irony of living in an increasingly electronic, interconnected world is that no one is much more than a few clicks away, it is still painful to think that I may never get to hug some of my friends again.
So since it is the physical presence of people that is lost, be attentive, when leaving, to the body too. We often physically tense, grasp outwards and panic when we sense leaving — it is hardwired into us as children. Breathe and loosen — it makes it easier, for one, to deal with pain.
So how do you say goodbye? For acquaintances, one-time hookups, a casual meeting will often do. “Hey, thanks for that one night. You were fabulous,” is almost never the wrong thing to say. For people for whom there are still conversations to be had, unresolved issues, damage on one or both sides, often a meal is a good way to do it, provided both parties are willing to spend the time to make something right again. (I am personally a fan of meals — for one, any awkward silences can be filled by fiddling with your food, and for another, food will often provide comfort when little else can.) If both parties do not agree, of course — too painful, too fresh, or simply no interest in ever seeing the other person again — then you simply have to find peace, as best you can. It is by no means an easy thing.
For ex-flames, this same process of punctuating the story can often work, though it is, naturally, tricky sometimes to navigate the reefs of old affection. Hand-delivered letters also can give resolution, as well as minimize the somatic reaction to the sight and scent of someone you used to love.
And for current loves, ongoing relationships where the water still runs deep? Enjoy the time left. See clearly the future’s possibility — the worst feelings in a long-distance relationship can come from trying to hold on too tightly to a thing that’s already gone. It’s the hardest call to make, especially when the future is uncertain — but whether a relationship can take the strain of distance is often not characteristic of the distance, but of the relationship itself.
For all these, really, enjoy the time left. Think of it less as “too much” or “too little” time, and more as just enough time to make things right. The days can sometimes seem merciless, marching sunrises inexorably towards the moment you leave — but it is easier to live and thrive and smile when it is not that you have 17 days left with your friends before you never see them again, but that it is you simply have 17 days.
(05/05/11 3:59am)
The 17th century meets the world of the contemporary in Howard Barker’s Victory: Choices in Reaction. This past weekend, the College’s theatre department put on a fantastic rendition of this play, set in England around 1660, after the restoration of the English monarchy and eradication of the Republican rule of the Puritans. The plot follows a beheaded John Bradshaw’s wife (Lucy Van Atta ’12) as she searches for the stolen remains of her late husband, all the while undergoing a journey of self-discovery and a search for a future, fighting against her limited opportunities.
As I sat in the audience of Seeler Studio Theater, the chamber-like, almost oppressive feel of the stage set the tone for the rest of the play. The first act opens with a greatly distressed Scrope (Noah Berman ’13), begging both the audience and himself for mercy as the peons of the recently reinstated Charles II dig up the body of his old master, John Bradshaw. Though set in the 17th century, Barker’s play deals with quite contemporary themes and uses an archaic political setting as an allegory for the modern world. The art direction in the performance flawlessly encompassed both a historical narrative and modern feel. The scene transitions were chaotic and vibrant, highlighted by music from The Sex Pistols and Nine Inch Nails, and they established an energy that ran throughout the entire production.
There existed no epochal standard for the costumes in Victory. Of course, many characters were garmented in dress typical of the 17th century monarchy (though with a bit of a modern twist), but some came on stage with a much more modern feel and others still had the feel of neither contemporary nor monarchal dress; the king’s soldiers seemed more like they had come from a World War II battlefield than from King Charles’ royal guard. This confusion only added to the timeless feel of the performance, reminding us that the emotions and struggles of the characters were reflections of tribulations that unite people of all generations. The set was beautifully designed — minimal yet forceful. The simple ground design was highly dynamic, warping during the scene transitions to reflect the individual emotion and force of each scene. The ceilings were lined with large mirrors that, as the characters turned their eyes to God, reflected the flaws and struggles of humanity.
As the first act progressed, an impressively strong dynamic was established between King Charles (Matt Ball ’14) and Devonshire (Lilli Stein ’11). King Charles was, in many ways, twisted and without morals; he defiled Devonshire in the midst of a royal party. And yet, Ball’s portrayal of the King helped evoke a sense of pity towards his character, even leading the audience to “love the bone and blood of Charlie.” There existed in Victory no truly good or virtuous characters. Even the play’s protagonist, a woman who is mourning the loss of her husband and with him, her sense of remorse, is a character with whom I found myself struggling to sympathize. The entire cast had phenomenal performances but another personal accolade must go out to Christo Grabowski ’12. Grabowski captivated his audience as the comically perverse Ball with both wit and charisma and he managed to pull off the vulgarity of his character without coming off as tacky or forced.
The second act was a bit slower and shorter than the first, yet it felt much more dragged out. In no way did this take away from the overall strength of the piece. The ending scene brought the play full circle, with Bradshaw returning home. The scene was quiet in appearance, but carried the weight of the entire play and proved to be a powerful close to the piece.
In the director’s notes, it says that the production was intended to be “energetic, youthful, brash, impulsive and rude.” These goals were achieved with immense success. The energy was palpable even in the play’s quietest moments and each character acted as a strong part of an even stronger force that exploded on stage with both vulgarity and beauty.
(04/28/11 4:20am)
When I started this column at the beginning of my fourth semester, I had just come out of a series of non-relationships and random hook-ups. I possessed a bright-eyed determination to show this campus the evils of not committing, the perils of casually hooking up without emotional investment.
For someone who has very few prejudices about how/with whom/where/when people decide to sex it up, I was surprisingly convinced our generation was going down a dangerous route. I thought the strongest tethers we wanted to form to each other were late-night sexts and maybe the occasional morning-after spoon. We were sloppily making out in McCullough and having drunken sex without talking about it. We were playing all sorts of games when it came to expressing our feelings: you can’t ask him to come over every night because then he might suspect you actually like him, etc. I heard the same stories over and over in the dining hall and from my friends about potential love interests that culminated in a couple weeks of sleeping together, nothing more.
I grew despondent. Where were all of the feelings?! Where were the dates and the romance, the secret love notes and less secret dining hall serenades? I browsed the Proctor crushes thread on Middlebury Confessional with hope, but I left frustrated — is it really that hard to say “I like you” in person?
I wanted people first to have deep feelings, then to share them and then to put them on the line every chance they got. Essentially, I wanted everyone to do things the way I do them. And then I realized that everyone would be a crazy (albeit cuddly) emotional train wreck half the time, and around here people have to get sh*t done. There just isn’t enough time and people don’t have enough energy to go around constantly pouring our hearts out. As reluctant (and terrible at it) as I was to compartmentalize my feelings occasionally to do my work, I think there comes a time when every MiddKid has to sacrifice a little bit of our essentiality in the pursuit of productivity. It’s something I still don’t like about the Middlebury experience, but I can recognize that I knew what I was signing up for. I can also recognize that, in little bursts, we get our essentiality back, and just because we sometimes sacrifice it doesn’t mean we’re not consciously trying to reclaim it.
I think casual sex is one of those sacrifices. We need to take shortcuts sometimes, and a lot of important interactions — romantic or otherwise — can feel like distractions when we have seven nights’ worth of work ahead of us. I used to look around and see only those shortcuts. I thought efforts to understand each other were missing; I thought we weren’t really connecting if we were just boning. But in the two years of increasing responsibilities and workload since I started this column, I’ve begun to see how our shortcuts might actually mean we do understand each other. We’re making space for each other’s productive selves by dropping a lot of the rituals and formalities around sex and dating; it’s easier to be close to someone if you take the casual route. In all my clamoring for compassion and recognition of each other’s humanity around sex, I missed the attempts at exactly those things.
People don’t necessarily go out to the bar or the Bunker thinking, “I am going to make as real a connection with someone as I can.” I don’t think we always actively appreciate that we’re interacting on a level that fits our abilities, and I definitely don’t think that everyone consciously wants a “meaningful connection” — on the surface, we want sexy time and simple relief from our everyday stresses. But my grand point is that where I used to think we were missing something as a generation, I now see that, like most generations, we just approach things differently. We have to reframe tradition to fit our needs and goals, and we are.
And if the shortcut gets us there, I still hold out hope for the scenic route taking us back.
(04/28/11 4:06am)
April 7 marked the second anniversary of the passing of the Marriage Equity Act that legalized same-sex marriage in Vermont. The group that spearheaded the movement, Vermont Freedom to Marry, continues to fight for universal equality today. Madeleine Winterfalcon, assistant in academic administration, has worked for the organization for several years and after the legislation was passed, she sought to preserve the stories and voices of the movement. She recorded the stories of local people, each of whom were connected to Vermont Freedom to Marry’s mission. These tales are now available to the public, as Winterfalcon has partnered with the Vermont Folklife Center, located on Main Street, to craft her project, “Voices of the Vermont Freedom to Marry Movement.”
Winterfalcon has worked at the College since 2007. She enjoys oral history and believes that recording first-hand stories is priceless.
“It’s so important that the stories are preserved,” she said. “Who we are, where we’re from and where we’re going are all in those stories.”
When she moved to Vermont and got involved in the Freedom to Marry Movement, she knew that “all the stories and voices shouldn’t be lost.”
“They were amazing, exciting and needed to be recorded,” she said.
Winterfalcon began recording these stories in July 2009 and completed her interviews by the end of the summer. It took another full year to edit the work.
“You just don’t know how these things are going to affect your environment,” she said. “It’s not limited and I don’t feel total ownership of the project.”
Although the project was her idea, she feels it does not belong to her. She recorded the stories so other people could listen to them and appreciate their rich histories.
“The widest possible dispersal of this project is great,” she said. “So often people say, ‘I don’t know anybody gay,’ but once you hear someone’s story in their own voice it breaks all that down.”
She hopes people will begin to relate on a personal level to the people she interviewed.
“Theory is one thing, but practice makes it break down,” she said.
Judy Olinick, the Russian/German department coordinator, was one of the individuals to speak with Winterfalcon, and she is included in the project. She and her husband, Michael, participated in the interview because they have been involved in the Freedom to Marry Movement since it began. Olinick, who has lived in the town since 1970, was excited to help Winterfalcon.
“I think documenting the stories orally is very important so that in the future not only the details of what happened will be clear, but also the thinking, motivation and hopes of everyone involved in the equality effort,” said Olinick.
Winterfalcon was careful to get stories from a wide range of people, including “the couples themselves, their families and straight allies.”
“It’s important to realize that there are many different perspectives on the topic of marriage equality,” said Olinick.
For her, the passage of the Marriage Equality Act defined a movement towards equality and she believes the legislation “set the process in motion in a direction that cannot be stopped.”
Winterfalcon’s project is available online, thanks to the help of the Folklife Center. Winterfalcon contacted Andy Kolovos, the archivist at the center, and they organized a plan to best execute her project. Her five-minute interview clips have been edited and starting on April 7 and running until July 7, each Thursday, one of her 15 clips is posted on the center’s tumblr.com account for the public to access. The audio segments were compiled from 17 interviews.
“It seemed like an important thing not to just have on the server, but to get it out somehow,” said Kolovos.
Greg Sharrow, the director of education at the center, is also invested in both Winterfalcon’s project and the movement.
“I’m wildly enthusiastic about her project. The legislation is important but it’s also incredibly important to have context, to hear from people of how it plays out in their lives and how it has meaning and significance for people,” he said.
This project also fits the center’s general mission.
“People tend to associate us with history,” said Sharrow. “We’re a cultural research organization. We’re interested in helping communities achieve cultural goals and increase public awareness and understanding.”
Winterfalcon’s work will be archived at the center.
“We are now framing our work around a new concept: cultural sustainability. It’s a developing idea,” said Kolovos.
Caroline Grego ’11 is a geography major who works with both Kolovos and Sharrow. She studies Franco-American and Quebecois songbooks, but is passionate about what the folklife center does for the state.
“Student on campus aren’t aware enough of all the resources available on Vermont history,” she said. “The folklife center has real interviews, primary source first-hand accounts.”
Although the center documents many recordings, like Winterfalcon’s, it feels honored to have Winterfalcon’s work in particular.
“She is offering us the opportunity to know this experience,” said Sharrow.
The hope is that through its easy access online, many people will come to know and study her work.
Sheryl Rapée-Adams of Rutland, Vt. is currently a volunteer for the Vermont Freedom to Marry Movement, where she began working in 2007.
“My husband and I read some articles in the newspaper about the fact that gay and lesbian couples who were committed to each other did not have the same rights to protect their families,” she said.
This inspired Rapée-Adams to write a letter to the editor, which then prompted the Freedom to Marry organization to offer her a position as a volunteer. She was the deputy field director when the 2009 legislation was passed.
Rapée-Adams knows Winterfalcon, as they have worked together in the past.
“I am very proud of Madeleine’s work,” she said. “She was a fantastic Vermont Freedom to Marry volunteer. She was part of us, and I’m very glad Madeleine is bringing her expertise in oral history to continue Vermont’s journey to marriage equality.”
Currently, the Freedom to Marry Movement works at a federal level, but it also provides advice to individual couples.
“The most frequent phone calls and emails I get are couples and individuals who want to know what they need to do to get married and other legal pieces around marriage and family,” said Rapée-Adams.
The Freedom to Marry Movement knows it still has a lot of work ahead.
“There is always something to work out,” said Winterfalcon. “I don’t see everything being solved in my lifetime.”
Winterfalcon said that there is still a ways to go until there is universal equality, but she and others involved in the movement are hopeful that equality will catch on.
“It would be terrific if we could get young kids listening and learning from it,” said Winterfalcon. “Being open helps, and small steps help a lot.”
She believes the best way to understand is to listen.
“If you have friends, parents, grandparents; everyone has stories,” she said, “Get those stories down. Real people’s lives are the true history of our culture.”
(04/21/11 3:59am)
Low Level Panic ran in the Hepburn Zoo from Apr. 14-16. The senior 700 work of Ele Woods ’11, Jess Spar ’11 and Lindsey Messmore ’11, the piece was written by Clare McIntyre during the decline of the feminist movement in 1987 Britain, and explored the tenuous dynamic between women, sex and objectification. Panic was both a simplistic and hugely complex performance: though the play was set in a small bathroom populated with sparse props and featured only three actresses, the messages carried within the piece stood out against the minimalist backdrop and resonated deeply within the audience through the powerful acting and starkness of the stage. The Hepburn Zoo, with its intimate seating arrangements, was the perfect venue for the performance; it was almost as if the audience was sitting in the bathroom with the performers.
Panic tells the stories of three women — Jo, Mary and Celia — who are housemates relegated to sharing a single bathroom in London’s East End. It is in this room where they can express themselves honestly, share their most intimate dreams and fears, and ultimately, try to discover what it means to be a beautiful woman. Like the bathroom in which it takes place, Panic is oftentimes bright and warm, and at other times wet and messy as it explores female fears of both sexual fantasy and assault, and the idea of the “perfectly beautiful woman.”
Woods played Jo, a woman who outwardly expresses her sexuality through clothing and fantasies, and who constantly urges Mary to cut loose as well. Her character begins the play lounging nude in a bathtub, ranting about yet another romantic fantasy concerning her “perfect man.” Jo appears at first to be the loudmouth of the play — the confident counterpart to the demure Mary. Yet underneath her confidence and bravado, Jo is overwhelmingly insecure about both her body and her sexuality. She is constantly checking herself in the mirror and has dark sexual fantasies about being “watched” by other men, or having sex with multiple partners in rapid succession. One particularly striking scene finds Jo standing in front of the bathroom mirror, haunted by the weight of these fantasies and her desperation. The audience hears a voice-over of Jo imagining a particularly vivid and grotesque fantasy, and as her thoughts escalate to scenes of sexual violence and degradation, she jolts back from the mirror, halting the voiceover. Disgusted with herself, she flees the bathroom. The audience learns that her bawdy personality is just a façade for her deepest fears — she often wonders if she will ever find a partner, or if she is simply doomed to a life of crawling around parties in glittery outfits looking for a perfect man. Woods’ proficiency at both comedy and drama shone through in this role; it seemed natural for her to play the spunky Jo, with her outrageous dreams and snarky commentary. But as the play continued and Jo’s duality began to emerge, so too did Woods’ dramatic acting, and she slowly drew out the fears buried deep within her character’s psyche.
Spar’s portrayal of Mary serves as a jolting foil to Jo’s bawdy character. Mary is logical and inquisitive, and uncomfortable with dressing up to impress men at parties. The audience is introduced to her character as she reads a pornographic magazine to Jo, mocking the nude models and the crude sexual language used in the publication. Though she attempts to act logical, there is something dark lurking behind her façade, much like in Jo’s character: she seems to be always on the verge of a breakdown, especially when she gets riled up about her gender and identity. A flashback halfway through the play alerts us to the reason behind this —Mary was sexually assaulted coming home from work one night. In a jarring solo scene highlighting Spar’s command over her character, Mary converses with two male voiceovers that see her unlocking her bike and ask in perverse tones to “go for a ride”. When Mary refuses their advances, she is assaulted and enacts the brutal crime using her own hands; when the men “leave” the scene, the horrific spectacle ends with Mary’s guttural scream of shame and rage. Since she was wearing a skirt that night and perhaps looked “more attractive” than usual, Mary tries to rationalize what happened by saying, “Maybe if I was wearing trousers, it wouldn’t have happened.” The incident haunts her throughout the play, and it influences her to become the speaker of truths among the three protagonists. For instance, when the girls are preparing for a party, Mary refuses to wear a revealing dress Jo bought for her, and in a fit of determination and fury, decides to dye the dress in the middle of the night to make it less attractive and “more to her style,” declaring that it is unnecessary to dress up if you are uncomfortable and cannot be yourself.
Celia, played by Sara Lusche ’13, does not get as much stage-time as Mary and Jo. Not much is known about her character; she begins as a poised and confident woman, though we learn later that she is actually very quick-tempered and is angry about sharing the bathroom, so she releases her anger and frustration on Jo. Conversely, Jo is jealous of the fact that Celia always seems to find men to take home.
Though it carried shades of feminism, Panic was able to relate to both men and women alike by introducing its heavy themes slowly through Jo’s humor and Mary’s rationalism. Though they were hard-hitting and brutally honest, the messages were not didactic or shoved in the audience’s face, and McIntyre’s delicately written dialogue was both sensitive and gripping.
Messmore did not intend to direct a “feminist” piece for her 700 thesis, but she became hooked on McIntyre’s authenticity and edgy writing. As a result of this admiration and dedication to McIntyre’s art, her direction was spot-on to what the playwright intended for the piece. The lighting design was also a noteworthy aspect of the play — the brightness of the bathroom was an indicator of the piece’s current mood, and made it seem as though the bathroom itself were a fourth character complete with moods and a personality. Nighttime scenes bathed the stage in cool blues, setting the stage for the characters’ honest discussions, while a gentle light outside the bathroom’s “window” heralded a beautiful sunny morning. Notably, the flashback to Mary’s sexual assault was a dim, sinister yellow as though the incident occurred underneath a streetlamp.
It has been 24 years since Panic was written, but the themes presented still remain relevant to this day, especially in light of the relationship/hookup dichotomy on college campuses and how college girls view themselves in these situations. At Panic’s end, the question still remained whether or not the three women would overcome their darkness and embrace their beauty. However, through the performance’s superb acting and direction, McIntyre’s message rung out strongly: be yourself, be comfortable in your body and no matter what fears or insecurities you may hold in your heart, life goes on, and there is no need to panic.
(04/21/11 3:57am)
Musically speaking, 2009 was a dying year. But thanks to a team of indie superheroes including Animal Collective, Passion Pit and The Dirty Projectors, humanity was saved from the soul-sucking clutches of Susan Boyle and auto-tune. Although no definitive list of music’s heroes exists, one thing’s for certain: no indie Justice League would be complete without the hot and fuzzy eponymous debut of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
Two years later, the Pains are back with their sophomore effort, Belong. Just as loud and twee as their debut, Belong exhibits the same indebtedness to 90s dream pop and shoegaze that the band has always worn on its sleeve. Of course, this comes as no surprise, especially considering their collaboration with British producers Flood and Alan Moulder (acclaimed for their work with The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and The Smashing Pumpkins). In other words, you can expect this album to be chock-full of ear-splitting guitars, wispy vocals and infectious melodies.
And that’s exactly what you get. After 15 seconds of mock delicacy, the title track explodes into a whir of distortion and breathy intimations of adolescent love. Refusing to settle down, the album races from the rumbling bass and cheesy synths of highlight “Heart in Your Heartbreak” to the groovy swirl and breakneck beat of “The Body.” But halfway through the album, the Pains offer a bit of respite from all the thunder. The jangly guitars and swelling chorus of “Anne With an E” begin the soft descent, while “Even In Dreams,” at once confident and vulnerable, sounds like a hard rock cover of a slow-dance scene from some mid-80s Molly Ringwald movie.
One of the distinguishing features about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is lead singer Kip Berman’s boyish innocence and shrouded delivery. Ever faithful to his shoegaze roots, Berman views his voice as yet another texture in the mix, and although he has unearthed his vocals from the reverb-soaked trenches of their debut, he’s still nearly indecipherable. When you finally figure out what he’s saying, you notice how his childlike croon often belies his dark, melancholic subject matter. Sex, drugs and adolescent fears and desires pervade his lyrics, as heard on “Girl of 1,000 Dreams,” another of Belong’s highlights: “Held my breath, thought of death and things I’d like to do ’til then: See my friends, lose my head, wake up with you in my bed.” Thanks to Berman’s earnest and youthful delivery, these emotionally charged lyrics never cross over into over-sentimental babble.
So how exactly have the Pains progressed over the past two years? And what’s the difference between Belong and their debut, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, anyway? Well, for one, Belong is a more mature album, leaving the band more streamlined and polished without having sold its soul. Their more profound dynamic shifts, for example, allow for subtler verses and more arresting choruses. But for the most part, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are still the same old twee-pop band that saved the day in 2009. Mighty guitar riffs and saccharine hooks still abound, and their albums still deserve to be cranked up to 11. Let’s hope those aspects never change.
(04/14/11 4:11am)
The root of “passion,” etymologically speaking, is pain. Anyone who’s ever been in unrequited love can probably attest to this: love, when done badly, hurts in subtle, unimaginable ways. The corollary, however, does not hold true — loving done well, and with passion, is not always composed of tender, loving caresses. Thus, the subject of this column: the role of biting, scratching, hair-pulling and spanking in the bedroom.
It’s an especially relevant topic now, as spring approaches with the speed and resolve of a bipolar glacier — it’s the time of year where pants turn tentatively into shorts, and dresses start to come out with more frequency. The advent of skin means that some care should be taken not to leave marks in visible places for the next morning (unless, naturally, you’re into that sort of thing). Basic rule-of-thumb: unless otherwise specified, breaking the skin, whether with nails or teeth, is pretty much a no. If things are trending towards HBO, a simple confirmation, like “This might leave a mark. You alright with that?” is just polite.
What is peculiar about biting, hair-pulling, scratching and spanking, though, is that as sexual acts they inhabit this no-man’s-land of sexual acts, somewhere between the comforting familiarity of lovemaking and the scary realms of ball gags and gimp masks. Often, the reactions that people have to them vary incredibly, based on both past experience and present context. Take spanking: for some, a well-placed spank in the heat of the moment is an affirmation of enthusiasm, and blindingly hot in a nerve-kindling way. For others, it just brings up unpleasant memories of one too many trips to the Headmaster’s office. (For a select few, it brings up both.) So, whenever introducing savory ingredients to an otherwise sweet dish, do listen (verbally and non-verbally) extra-well — often, whether or not someone is enjoying a dash of light pain is easily seen.
That said, this isn’t to say that you should have sex like playing hopscotch in a minefield: there is a fine line between being sensitive to your partner’s responses, and being a mood-killing wet blanket. Interrogating your partner like Barney’s Gestapo (“Is this okay? How about this? Do you mind if I do I harder? Are you sure?) is thoroughly unnecessary, and pretty much the opposite of hot. This isn’t SM — prior discussion of acts performed and a “script” need not be established, just a healthy open mind and a solid foundation of respect.
Always remember, people are not porcelain plates: they are neither fragile nor flat. That your partner may find biting to be the hottest thing since True Blood doesn’t mean they’ll also be into scratching. Then again, just because you’re terribly into whomever you happen to be hooking up with doesn’t mean that your bedroom escapades need be as tender and soulful as Oprah — which is to say, never send lovemaking to do a f*cking’s job.
There is a deeper respect in knowing your partner so well that you can succumb to the violence of passion than there is in being afraid of hurting them — it’s understanding and respecting the breadth of their resiliency, while respecting their wishes at the same time.
What is at the heart of this is safety — the more you trust the person you’re with, and the more that they allow themselves to trust you — and the more you can experiment and play. To introduce anything new into the bedroom risks rejection, and the risks only increase the more unusual the suggestion becomes. Ideally in the realm of scratching, biting, pulling hair or spanking, there is a trust being communicated — that whatever you are doing, it is a space that is safe to play in without judgment. For receivers, that’s something to respect. For givers, listening well to the response is essential. Consider passion a kind of drug — while under the influence, please f*ck responsibly.
(03/24/11 3:55am)
Old Chapel announced the upcoming establishment of all-gender restrooms in non-residential buildings on campus in an email to students, faculty and staff sent on March 16.
The conversion will begin this summer and is estimated to be complete by the beginning of the 2011- 2012 academic year.
Administrators explained that the project will be budget-neutral and will not involve any structural renovation; the conversion will take place by changing signage. The cost of new signs will be financed by the existing Facilities Services’ budget designated for maintenance. Because many single-stall restrooms on campus are already all-gender facilities, the cost is estimated to be relatively low.
Jenifer Herrera, special assistant to the dean of the College and senior adviser for diversity initiatives, applauded the project’s commitment to greater institutional diversity.
“This project is about creating options for the diverse needs of our community members — students, faculty, staff and visitors,” wrote Herrera in an email. “[The College is] working towards a more inclusive environment by specifically providing equal access to facilities regardless of gender identification and expression or sexual orientation.”
Special Projects Coordinator for Vice President of the Administration Sarah Franco explained that student input also contributed to the project.
“The students involved in this project provided the administration with advice about how we could best serve the needs of the transgender members of our community with respect to restroom use,” wrote Franco in an email. “We incorporated their ideas into the proposal as appropriate, taking into account that there are others at Middlebury who require or prefer access to single-sex restrooms.”
The implementation of the project will give a voice to both supporters and opponents of the conversion.
“In the fall, we will begin conversations with those who work in buildings without any single-stall restrooms to determine if one multi-stall restroom in their area could be selected for conversion to an all-gender facility,” wrote Franco. “We would like to give everyone ample opportunity to offer input on how a facility in their building may change.”
Franco added that this consideration of opinions could delay the process of conversion.
“It may not be until late 2011 or early 2012 that signs on a few multi-stall restrooms across campus could change,” wrote Franco.
The decision to implement all-gender bathrooms came as a result of a recommendation published in the spring of 2010 by an ad-hoc study group examining student life issues faced by transgender students on campus. Herrera explained that the group made other recommendations such as addressing housing and roommate assignments, developing customized coding in the BannerWeb system to allow for the identification of preferred gender and providing awareness training for student life staff on issues facing transgender students.
According to Herrera, many of these recommendations have already been addressed by the administration.
In December 2010, the Community Council passed a resolution implementing All-Gender Housing as an option for sophomores, juniors and seniors for the 2011-2012 academic year. Students will be able to select roommates of all genders during the upcoming room draw process.
In addition, Herrera wrote that steps have been taken by Library and Information Services and Public Safety to accommodate transgender students when listing their preferred gender for the College directory, email accounts and ID cards.
In January, Lark Mulligan ’11 and Viveka Ray-Mazumder ’11 along with Dot Brauer, director of LGBTQA services at the University of Vermont, offered a professional development workshop on gender identity and expression to faculty and staff.
Mulligan, Ray-Mazumder and other students have recently formed a Gender Council designed to address gender-related issues on campus.
(03/17/11 4:16am)
In honor of losing an hour to the cruel, cruel design of Daylight Savings Time, let me say this — everyone’s clock runs differently. For some of us, this means that we end up an hour late everywhere we go, awkwardly sidling in, smelling of liquor and shame. (Sorry, Professor.) Others end up sitting in a classroom an hour early, wondering where everyone else is. In sex, this often means that while some people get the urge to merge once or twice a week, others get it every hour of every day. Including class. (Sorry again.)
The intricacies of sex drives have fascinated people for millennia, and with good reason — they are often capricious, mysterious things. The market for aphrodisiacs bustles, rife with everything from the mundane (chocolate) to the peculiar (asparagus? Really?) to the pharmacological (Viagra) to the downright psychotic (Spanish Fly, a.k.a. ground-up bug toxins). The recent release of Provestra, touted as the “female Viagra,” has gotten all sorts of people talking about whether or not modifying a sex drive chemically is “right,” or even necessary. It does raise one question though, and an old one at that: what do you do if your partner’s drive is vastly different than yours?
For men and women both, desire tends to be cyclical. While everybody probably has at least one friend whose heart seems to pump a potent cocktail of tiger blood, Adonis DNA and meth, back amongst we mortals our drives are a little less manic. We are buffeted by stress, hormone cycles, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the current lukewarm Lakers season and our professors yelling at us for being tardy all the damn time.
Ideally, you’d want to sync up cycles. In practice, this is often impossible. Often, someone will want sex more than the other, which makes for an imbalance in the Force and also the relationship. Unchecked, this can lead to unfortunate things —abuse, adultery, alcoholism, prostitutes, getting elected Governor of New York and sometimes even a break up. Feelings of inadequacy arise — am I not sexy enough? Is there something wrong with me? Am I frigid? Am I pressuring my partner too much?
If you’re the partner who wants sex more, that last one is probably a concern. One thing that often helps: masturbation. A partner isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the only way for a gent or a lady to get their rocks off. Satisfying the sexual needs of someone all the time is the job for a concubine, not a lover and certainly not a student with a full course load.
Of course, that’s a little bit like wanting a fancy dinner and instead stopping at McDonald’s — the intimacy and elaborate pleasure of sex is often lost when you’re playing whack-a-mole. Have a cuddle afterwards, if your partner is amenable — for that matter, ask your partner to watch.
And for all you saucy lads and ladies who find their libidos flagging, what are you to do when your sex drive is snared in traffic? Relax, for one thing. It happens to the best of us, these slow dry times. Relax, and experiment. Sometimes all that’s needed is a change. Try going out for a long romantic dinner, where you both get dressed up and make time to just flirt and have fun. Try exploring a previously uncharted fantasy. Try oysters, handcuffs, morning/afternoon sex, porn, chocolate, anal, Charlie Sheen, public sex, a different position. Try playing around in bed on a Sunday. Try laughter, something giggly and fun and seriously unserious — remember (and this can be easy to forget, especially when sex is so rare that it becomes a production) that sex is also just wonderful fun.
And if all else fails? Yeah, try the asparagus, too.
(03/17/11 4:14am)
Dearest Blueberry,
You don’t know a lot about me, and I don’t know a lot about you, but we are in love. Here is the story of how I met you.
Doing homework is one of the loneliest parts of my day. I came to this realization this past weekend, when I spent every waking hour of my actual birthday writing an eight-page research paper. I have to do homework alone, because I am easily distracted, and the process was miserable. I would complain aloud about how I didn’t know anything about anthropology, how gross it is to see the word “heretofore” in an academic article, and, oh, that I was doing a paper on my birthday. All the while, I would struggle with accepting the sad, inevitable truth: I was a newly 22-year-old crazy person talking to his homework all alone.
In an attempt to quell both the loneliness and any thoughts that I should be institutionalized I turned to my old pal, Facebook. The long-time champion of infinite procrastination possibilities, Facebook has helped me (or not) through many a rough assignment. But Mark Zuckerberg’s creation just makes my loneliness problem worse; all it does is show me pictures of the people from which my work is keeping me. I decided I needed a new way to procrastinate, and at that moment an angel descended from the heavens and brought me to Middlebury Confessional.
Go/middfesh is awesome! I have finally found the place to pour my unwanted minutes and hours in between/while/instead of doing assignments. It is a mystical land of anonymity, where anything is possible and every awkward topic is discussed. Can you imagine walking up to a random person in line for lunch and yelling, “LOOK! If we’re going to debate abortion, let’s just do it here instead of somewhere else, OK?” It’d be hilarious, but would also spell certain social death. Yet that exact thread exists on Middfesh with 100 comments. From sex tips for guys and girls, to senior crushes, to gingers others would hook up with, people anonymously ask all sorts of questions that, if their identity were known, would make them a weirdo or the subject of a future Awkward BJ.
This is, of course, a top liberal arts college, and some overly academic folk decide to discuss the “heteronormativity” of their peers’ posts. These posts are occasionally interesting, but more than anything they make me want to declare that I am, indeed, a dinosaur.
But the best part of Middfesh is that it led me to you. One thread with minimal responses plugged for another site, Like a Little, found at go/lal. What an interesting idea for a website! It is a Twitter-like feed where people describe their crushes or other people they “like a little” but didn’t have the confidence to approach, and hope for a reply. Its way of maintaining anonymity is also clever: every user is assigned a random fruit or vegetable upon visiting the site and makes posts under that name. As I was reading Melon’s adorable shout out to his/her Battell crush, however, the loneliness hit me again. And then…behold the chat function! Blueberry.
It was you. It is you. It has always been you. We didn’t talk long, but it was enough. In the midst of my homework, when my soul was at its loneliest, you were there to fill the void. I love that your professor crush is Dwest, and I would totally show you how to get to the treehouse. It is the least I can do for someone who was there for me when I needed most. We both make tasty, wonderful pies, and when served together, we make the perfect dessert.
Forever and eternally yours,
Pumpkin
P.S. — In my dreams, you are a beautiful woman. I remember in our conversation that we never really exchanged genders. If you are a guy: my bad. The treehouse is by the mods.
(03/17/11 3:59am)
Warning: don’t start reading this book if you have homework to do, because you won’t get anything done until you finish. Room, the latest book by Irish-born Canadian author Emma Donoghue, is an intense, fast moving story about a five-year-old boy named Jack and his relationship with his mother.
To Jack, it appears as if he has a normal life, but it is far from ordinary — he lives in a twelve-by-twelve-foot shed with his mother, who is kept as a sex slave by Old Nick (Jack came up with this name because Old Nick reminds him of Old Saint Nick, since he is an old man who sneaks in at night). Jack’s mother, Ma, has done her very best to raise Jack in such a constrained environment — he loves to read, play games and watch Dora the Explorer on TV — yet when Old Nick loses his job, it becomes clear to Ma that their safety is more compromised than usual. Ma devises a risky escape plan that relies entirely on Jack, who has just learned that there is a world beyond the four walls that confine him.
Room would be interesting if told from a more traditional point of view, but having Jack’s innocent perspective and language makes it all the more riveting. Imagine having grown up believing that all you see on TV — children, the ocean, grass — was fake, that you, your mother and a strange man were the only real people and that the whole world was your room. Donoghue does an excellent job of illustrating Jack’s world in his believable voice without taking it over the top. Reading Room is like being in the head of a five-year-old — the thoughts, world choices and perspective give the reader a very strong sense of how Jack is seeing the world for the very first time.
The book is broken up into five different parts that begin describing their room — Jack and Ma’s everyday lives, how they pass the time — and then continues as Ma tries to teach Jack about the world in preparation for their escape. She tells Jack about her family and what it is like going to the beach, which makes Jack angry because he doesn’t want her to tell lies.
The rest of the book deals with Jack’s entry and Ma’s re-entry into the “real” world — which is scary to Jack compared to the womb-like quality of his room, which he wants desperately to go back to. The struggles that he faces learning about how to interact with people are astounding and make the reader wonder about how strange our society is. The reader also gets a heart-wrenching look at how difficult Ma’s re-entry into the world is through Jack’s sympathetic yet confused perspective.
Although stories like the one told in Room could make a reader worry about all the bad that there is in the world, Jack’s story makes its readers realize how powerful the ability to heal is. Rather than closing the book and feeling depressed, I found it cathartic and slightly uplifting — like a good cry — because it is a testament to human strength, survival and compassion. It is a work of fiction yet there is so much truth in Jack’s innocent way of looking at the world that I will continue to think about him and his struggle for weeks to come.
