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Baby Photos

By Comics, Featured Comics

Baby Photos
By: Nasa Espinoza

Panel 1: Narration reads: “before traveling back to Chicago,”
The image accompanying it showcases a person holding a suitcase, while facing the viewer.
There are suitcases behind them.
The color palette is a limited purple palette, consisting in blues, purples and pinks. It has yellow
accents in the speech bubbles as well as in some objects.

Panel 2: Narration reads: “I collected trinkets that remind me of home”
The image accompanying it showcases various trinkets, such as a stuffed animal, cd and a pen.

Panel 3: Narration reads: “one of them being baby photos”
The image accompanying has photos stacked onto each other, with the top photo having a little
girl sitting in front of a couch.

Panel 5: Narration reads: “it’s a reminder of little nasa, shy and sassy… always bubbling with
laughter”
It has two images accompanying it. The image to the left has a little girl sat in a chair, looking off
to the left. The image to the right has a little girl who’s holding a basket and facing the viewer.

Panel 6: Narration reads: “I carry her with me, she’s not much different than who I am now”
“ i’ll take care of her, i promise”

The image accompanying this has a young adult holding a tote bag with one hand and holding a
little girl’s hand with the other. They are looking down onto the little girl, who is laughing. Light
speech bubbles accompany them, each saying “ha ha!”

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Just Hard Feelings: Part Four

By Comics, Featured Comics

PAGE SEVEN
CAPTION: 2020
Mae and Sid talk in the bath. Sid looks remorseful. His “gimme a fix” scars are visible
MAE: I don’t think anyone has ever listened to me like you.
SID: Yeah. . . that’s really sad.
Sid crosses his arms.
SID: I felt the same way, all of my life.
Face to face, Mae listens to Sid intently.
SID: I don’t want you to go through it alone like I did.
Laying down, Sid kisses Mae. Mae is distantly sad.
SID: As long as we have eachother–
MAE: –we’ll never have to.
PAGE EIGHT
CAPTION: 2023
Mae sits alone on their bed, crossed-legged.
CAPTION: What are you going to do now that he’s finally left you alone?
Mae sits.
MAE: Um. . .I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just sit here a little while and catch my breath.
Over Mae’s shoulder, Sid’s skeleton is sprawled across their floor, reaching out to them. There are three swords punctured through his back.
CAPTION: I think that’s a really good idea.

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The Ghostly Strength of ‘Studies in Blue’

By Arts & Culture, Entertainment

The Joffrey Ballet’s “Studies in Blue” (2024)

I am not a connoisseur of ballet. Previous to “Studies in Blue,” the Joffrey Ballet’s most recent offering to the public, my experience consisted of seeing a subpar showing of “The Nutcracker” when I was 15 and then Joffery’s “Frankenstein” a few months ago. 

“Studies in Blue” is a modern ballet that explores the complexities of human emotions, relationships, and the dimensions of the color blue. It is composed of three acts. Each is an entirely unique show encapsulating different ideas, concepts, and emotions. 

However, when the first act “Yonder Blue” ended, I felt disappointed. Maybe disappointed is the wrong word; I felt lackluster. Apathetic. Meh.

If the show had ended there and my student rush ticket was $10 instead of $20, I would have been happy, but not wildly moved. The ballet was lovely. The dancers were together, the lifts were pretty, the music was dramatic, and the costumes were fine. It met expectations. 

But the show didn’t end there. 

The truly enthralling part was the second act. Wedged between the stories of Acts I and III, it’s called “Hungry Ghosts.” It spoke of drug addiction, an epidemic, and the trials of human connection through this struggle. Choreographed by Stina Quagebeur, an associate choreographer with the English National Ballet, the dance follows a couple as one of them is slowly consumed by a drug addiction. 

Completely without words, “Hungry Ghosts” depicted the soul-destroying way loved ones can be taken by something intangible. “Hungry Ghosts” took everything that “Yonder Blue” had and stepped it up. It evoked emotion that the other two acts are incapable of capturing. 

Like the first act, the third act, “Hummingbird,” was similarly mid. The most noteworthy moment was when the audience gasped as dancers slid onto the stage from an upstage slope. The top of the slope was hidden from view with a curtain. While dramatic and fitting the previous movement onstage, it felt like a party trick meant to offset the lack of focus and specific story.

All three acts had a focus on pairs. They were built around duets between two dancers creating a dialogue of movement held between the couples. The show used these duets as a focal point for the meaning in the dance.

Throughout the show, group dancing complemented duets. There were suddenly moments when the stage was filled with dancers moving in perfect unison. One became captivated by the synchronization and the power behind the grouped dancers.

What “Hungry Ghosts” had that the other two acts didn’t was a story of struggle. Anais Bueno and Hyuma Kiyosawa, the dancers of the “Hungry Ghosts” duet, struggled to stay together as a couple. Bueno was continually sucked into the dark group of dancers that symbolized addiction while Kiyosawa tried, again and again, to bring her back. 

The emotion created by the movement in this struggle was what made this act compelling. The duet between Kiyosawa and Bueno showed what Bueno was struggling for and why she was struggling in the first place. The power of the group shows us why this is difficult, and ultimately why she fails.

In the other two acts, the duet dancers just dance. The lifts and twirling were lovely but lacked the depth that Kiyosawa and Bueno captured.

There was emotion as Bueno danced with Kiyosawa as they twirled across the stage, delighting in each other’s presence and their connection. There was emotion as Kiyosawa brought Bueno back every time she was taken by addiction. 

There’s emotion when the group of dancers descend on Bueno from backstage, surrounding her. Emotion as she climbs their limbs like a staircase to stand on someone’s shoulders. Emotion as she falls to the ground, mirrored by two other dancers falling into smaller groups flanking the big one. Emotion as she catches, and compounding emotion when the action is then repeated. There’s emotion as the group fades into the background, slowly swaying in silhouette, Bueno swaying with them as Kiyosawa desperately tries to bring her back.

Nowhere in the entire show was there more emotion than when Kiyosawa embraced Bueno. Bueno, a slow swaying form, mirroring the countless silhouettes of the group separated from the rest of the stage by sheer curtain, goes rigid and unresponsive against Kiyosawa. Kiyosawa embraced her, then turned to leave. 

Bueno grabs his hand as he turns. She’s stiff, but no longer swaying. As Kiyosawa watched, she stepped back. Again. Kiyosawa raised his hand to keep hold of hers, but she let go. She began to sway again, always moving backward, toward the curtains, toward the group, away from Kiyosawa. 

As he watched, she faded into the curtain, becoming one of the uncountable silhouettes. Leaving Kiyosawa forever.

All three acts are meant to play on emotions. The show “Studies in Blue” is about evoking a visceral response to motion and connection between people and bodies. Yet against “Hungry Ghosts,” “Yonder Blue” and “Hummingbird” fail.

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Slut Saga: Lust Out Loud

By Entertainment, Featured

Illustration by Aditi Singh

With a microphone in her hand and a beam of light shining on her, Natalie Wall tells a crowd the story of how she lost her virginity. Minutes later, Karolena Theresa takes the stage, and with a giggle, shares with the audience that she once peed on a guy during sex. 

This is the comedy show “Awkward Sex and the City.” The show has been running for over 10 years now, and over that time, has evolved into a podcast, regular shows in New York City, and a nationwide tour with three other rotating comedians.

F Newsmagazine had the privilege of interviewing Wall and Theresa on their experience as female comedians who talk about sex. Here is what we learned: 

 

How did “Awkward Sex and the City” begin?

It all started during the slut-shaming culture of the early 2000s. Natalie Wall, the creator of “Awkward Sex and the City,” describes herself as a “super late bloomer when it came to sex.” The topic of sex was so taboo back then that it felt like no one dared share information about it — much less laugh at it. Wall sought to create a safe space for people who, like her, wanted to talk about this mysterious topic, and, thus, “Awkward Sex and the City” was born. 

Theresa, meanwhile, went to a performing art high school in New York and was classically trained in theater. She didn’t know she was a comedian until she played Nick Bottom in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” She started her career with a few sketches in college, trained in “improv” at Second City, and then slowly transitioned into stand-up. Now, she’s a consistent part of “Awkward Sex and the City,” performing with them regularly. She’s always had a natural inclination to talk about sex and its subsequent themes of femininity and family. 

 

Why talk about sex? 

“Sex is such a universal topic,” Wall said during the interview. It is a topic that most people, of most ages, can relate to, and its appeal is evident in the show’s audience. The two women said they usually have a wide range of spectators, from ages 18 to 70, in attendance. 

According to them, it’s easy to connect with people when talking about sex. It’s a topic that people are curious about, fantasize about, and have fun talking about. Most people have an opinion on sex — or a story to tell — so it’s universal. Nevertheless, despite society’s new openness towards sex, they can tell that some people still tense up at the mention of certain topics such as polyamory. 

But connecting with other people, and entertaining them, is only a fraction of what Wall and Theresa are doing. The biggest reason these women want to talk about sex is to create awareness and representation.

 “This widespread lack of information about sex is a dangerous trend,” Wall said, going on to say, for example, only 18 states in the United States require sex education to be medically accurate and include information about birth control.

“It is a privilege that I was able to open my perspective,” continued Wall. She began the show as a straight girl, and talking about sex on stage opened her eyes to a lot of information about queerness and sexuality that she did not know about.

“There are a lot of different types of horny and sexual people in the world. It’s okay not to know and to do research on sex,” said Theresa.  

At this comment, Wall laughed. She said the television show “Sex and the City” inspires her comedy, as every woman in the show is supposed to be a stereotype of a different type of woman. Nevertheless, she tries to take it a step further in her comedy and explore how people have multitudes — how we can all simultaneously be Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte.   

“People want different types of sex on different days,” Wall said.  

Back to the topic of representation, Theresa said she was proud to talk about her personal experience as a way to shine light on her intersectional identity. Her family comes from Trinidad, Guatemala, and New York. When she talks about her husband, a Muslim man who grew up in a traditional family, she is also creating representation for him. 

Representation also touches on the personal aspects of sex comedy and how much of a comedian’s story on stage is true versus invented. 

 “Where do you exaggerate? Where do you omit? Stories sometimes have to be changed to be funnier. It’s important to be as truthful as possible within the stories you tell. It’s important to be honest because it connects to representation and real empowerment. You should never punch down at the other person: laugh at a situation, not a person. Stay truthful but respectful.” Wall said, weighing in on her thoughts about how to tell a good story on stage. 

Theresa shared similar thoughts, saying she can only represent herself, but that her story needs to be heard.
“Being truthful keeps you grounded and funnier. It allows other people to interpret what you said…and learn from it…and make it theirs. The relatability is the funniest part,” said Theresa. 

 

Are there any downsides to talking about sex in comedy?

Wall and Theresa said that so far no one has ever been heckled at the show, despite it being a major safety concern. The reason for their success is transparency: the people who go to “Awkward Sex and the City” know that the show is going to be about sex. One of the limitations of the topic is that it can’t be sprung on people without their consent, so the effect of advertising a sex-focused comedy show is a compact, but interested, self-selected audience.

In their personal lives, both Wall and Theresa have partners who are supportive of their sex comedy. Wall said that only once did her partner say they did not want a personal joke told, and only once did Theresa’s husband not want to be in the room during a bit.

 

What is the future of sex in comedy? 

Theresa thinks comedy is ever-changing. It was already at a tipping point when she started her career in the early 2000s. Back then, female comedians couldn’t present too feminine because they had to fit in with the guys to prove they were funny. It was the collective effort of the queer community and of people of color who made space for unique, authentic, and alternate forms of comedy through creating their own shows. 

“[These communities] were funny while dressing however they wanted, and it forced the comedy world to change,” Theresa said. “People will judge you based on appearances, but after you go on stage and prove you’re funny, they can’t judge anymore.” Marginalized communities still have to fight to be recognized in comedy, but Theresa believes there is a bright future ahead. 

Wall believes sex in comedy has potential because there is only space to grow. She says people are now more open about the topic than ever before. Talk about sex is booming because of its newfound permissibility, and that will lead to a new generation of sex comedians (with a, hopefully, greater understanding of inclusivity, consent, and the dangers of misogyny). 

 

What is your advice for sex comedians? 

“The more you’re able to embody yourself, the bigger the depth you have to convey a story and connect with the audience. People are craving authenticity. There are days in which you don’t know who you are, and that is okay. It takes time, and it is a journey, and your style and persona will change, but the best persona is a heightened version of who you are,” Natalie Wall said with a smile. 

Karolena Theresa nodded along, adding that “If someone wants to do comedy, do not forget to be kind and empathic with others. Do not copy others. Be here to party and have a good time — consume the comedy that tickles you. And have sex! Have a lot of sex, and don’t be concerned that there’s a right number of how many times you’re doing it. Sex is like comedy: if you want to do comedy, do it. It will open up your world. But do it when you’re ready. The same with sex. Trust your gut.” 

 

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An Alien

By Featured, Literature

Illustration by Meghan Sim

 

You are 15.

You are sent to the United States by your mother. You land in an unfamiliar country by yourself.

You wait for the assigned driver by the terminal in the airport alone.

By the line for customs, you see different languages saying, “Hello.”

“你好!” in your mother language is included, 

but some of the other languages you have never seen.

You are delivered to the homestay by the driver.

The first interactions outside of the airport you have with the country are: the car crossing through a tunnel under the water, driving onto the highway, and passing traffic lights.

The traffic lights are the same as they are in China.

Some of the signs have green backgrounds and white words, but the words are in English —

which are different from the Chinese characters you’ve seen in your home country.

 

You are living with someone who has no blood relationship to you.

You pay for your residence with “homestay parents” at what is called a “homestay” because you are not an adult and need a guardian for your high school in a foreign country. 

Your homestay parents are an old couple in their 60s, but they still go to work in the early morning on weekdays.

You know that in China, men retire at 60, and women retire at 55, so this fact amazes you.

Your homestay parents never ask about how you feel, what you are doing in school, or your dreams.

 

They don’t care because you are not their relative; they don’t pay attention because they are busy.

They even walk into your room without your permission while you are at school and tell you they must ensure you don’t destroy anything in their house.

You treasure the time you talk on the phone with your parents in China, but there is a 13-hour time difference, and they are also busy at work.

You look at your classmates at school, who always have their parents or relatives to pick them up after class.

Because you must walk to the T station, it takes you one hour to commute home — 

to the home where nobody speaks your mother language.

 

You are a teenager.

In China, your parents made you a hot meal every day before and after work: noodles, meat buns, rice, seafood, and vegetables,

everything your Chinese stomach would love to have.

But here in this country what you have is: pastas and pizzas with tons of cheese, hamburgers with oily meats and onions inside, and sometimes, 

cold chicken breasts, cooked a day before you have them. 

You liked those foods in China because you seldom had a chance to eat them.

However, you are homesick, and you miss food from your culture. 

You don’t know how to cook.

But you are tired of learning to order a Subway sandwich, so you start reading Chinese food recipes

until you realize you are not allowed to cook in your homestay.

 

You were a person who liked to make friends when you were in China.

After coming here, you wanted to continue to do so. 

But you realize that your proudly spoken English needs to be better for your peers and classmates to understand you.

The question you hear the most is, “What do you mean?” 

You are tired of constantly explaining yourself, and your peers are tired of knowing you only through extra explanations. 

You seem to play well with your classmates in your basketball club, but no one plays with you on their own initiative

unless the coach asks them to do so.

 

You try to make friends with the international students who live in the United States like you do.

They are from South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan, and some are from China.

You confidently speak English in groups of people who speak multiple languages, and more comfortably speak Chinese in groups of people who only speak Chinese —

but there are only a few international students at your high school. 

One day, you argue with one of the Chinese students at your school.

It is just a tiny thing on a simple math question in calculus. 

Even though you apologize, the next day, all the Chinese students in your school refuse to talk to you. 

You make a phone call to your mother to ask for help,

but she asks, “我送你来美国不是让你每天说中文的。” (Translation: Why don’t you make local friends and try to get into the American culture?) 

 

You are confident with your English and your study skills,

but the exams and requirements for college applications are totally different from what you have learned for 15 years in China.

The classes at school are also different.

Though you are confident in your English skills, using English in daily work, life, and study is different than using English as your academic language. 

Immediately doing 40 pages of English reading per week is difficult. 

Meanwhile, you are still curious about why your classmates can use the bathroom during class time without asking permission from teachers.

You see your peers, including those international students, finishing their homework earlier than you and adapting to life better,

but you are afraid to ask, and no one offers to help.

 

The international students in your school start to prepare for college applications when they are juniors in high school.

Most of the national students in your school start to do so once they are almost seniors.

You need to figure out when to start, and schoolwork takes almost all of your time. 

You were a top student in China and confident in your achievements, 

but after coming to this country, you are average and even the worst in your class. 

You realize that you want to become a writer when you are in your application season,

but you don’t know if you can write stories and essays well in English.

 

You start to doubt yourself and for the rest of your high school life you question: your health, your schoolwork, and how to be a better person. 

You end your high school life without any achievements,

but with depression and no friends. 

At least, luckily, with a college offer —

even if it is not your favorite one.

You see your middle school classmates from China, who want to come to the United States for college, planning to attend top schools. 

They are excited to come to this country, and some ask you through social media what they need to do to prepare to come here.

They tell you they are jealous of you for living in this country for many years. After all, you were: living alone, getting away from your parents, having Western food every day, making friends worldwide, and learning in an English environment.

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Unseen in the Scene

By Entertainment, Featured

Illustration by Shina Kang

I spent my teenage years attending concert after concert headlined almost entirely by men. In early 2017 I was a 14-year-old girl who had suddenly decided to make live music my entire personality. Throughout my high school years leading up to the pandemic I attended nearly 50 concerts and around six music festivals. It was nearly two years after my first concert that I saw a band with a woman in it, and I wouldn’t see a musical act with entirely female members until the summer of 2022. That was my high school experience, but is this the experience of high schoolers now?  

In 2016, Huffington Post analyzed the gender breakdown of 10 music festivals and found that 78 percent of the acts only featured performers who were men, 10 percent featured mixed-gender groups, and 12 percent featured women-only groups. In 2018, an article from Pitchfork tracked 19 music festivals and found that the number of female acts increased over the past year, but there was still a large disparity between male and female acts: 74 percent male, 12 percent mixed, and 14 percent female in 2017; changed to 70 percent male, 11 percent mixed, and 19 percent female in 2018. 

Across the board, women are not performing as artists in festivals as often as men are regardless of the genre. However, women almost equally make up the audience of festivals regardless of the genre. In 2016 Eventbrite (a ticketing platform) released an article saying 59 percent of festivalgoers were male and 41 percent were female. A 2023 Statista study found that 61 percent of summer festival attendees were women and 39 percent were men. 

Generally, regardless of genre, music festivals have a fairly even split in the gender demographic of festival attendees — but that breakdown doesn’t exist for musical acts. 

In November 2023, When We Were Young Fest, a newer popular music festival featuring pop-punk, emo, and early-2000s alternative bands, announced their 2024 lineup that contained only two bands with women in them out of the 53-band lineup. The festival eventually added more acts featuring women, but this was after hundreds of complaints, which included numerous complaints that the festival received for the same issue in their lineups over the past two years. 

In some way, this backlash represents a good change in the music scene. People cared about women being left out of the lineup so much that more women were added to the lineup of the festival; however, no major music publications wrote about the lack of female acts or the influx of complaints the festival received.

One of the most discouraging parts of researching the disparity in musical acts by gender is the lack of available information. There are few resources that have information about the demographics of live music events, and the places that do have information specify the type of live music events but are unspecific about what the information is based on. 

For example, most studies I found didn’t say what festivals or music events their studies followed, and many of the resources I found were dedicated to following festivals for only one genre of music, which means the information is available but limited to those specific genres. 

In addition to the lack of available information, there was also no specificity around the terms “women” and “female” when referring to the gender divide in both audience and performers. Both terms are not defined by the studies and are used interchangeably. 

Festivals are not the only places where the audience is not fully represented by the performers, but the data on venues does not get the same attention, even though the acts performed at venues are public information that anyone could collect.

So I conducted my own research on three venues in Chicago that are all around the same size: House of Blues Chicago, Metro, and Subterranean. I tracked the gender demographics of artists that have either played or will play these venues in 2024 as of February. I used the terms “women” and “men” instead of “female” and “male” to look at gender rather than biological sex. The statistics don’t include comedy club nights, non-DJ-based dance nights (i.e., 90s Dance Party or Emo Nite), or any events that didn’t specify the artist playing during the event. I also excluded opening bands and only focused on headliners.  

Gender breakdowns of musicians and performers by Chicago venue. Illustration by Shina Kang

The House of Blues Chicago has 54 criteria-meeting musical acts that have played events or will play events in 2024. Of these musical acts, 72 percent (39) were acts with only men, 17 percent (nine) were acts with only women, and 11 percent (six) were mixed-gender acts — which includes any band that has both men and women or any band with non-binary musicians.

Metro has 49 musical acts that have either played events or are set to play events in 2024. Of those acts 65 percent (32) were acts with only men, 16 percent (eight) were acts with only women, and 19 percent (nine) were mixed-gender acts.

Subterranean has 102 criteria-meeting acts that have either played events, or will play events in 2024. Of these acts, 69 percent (67) were acts with only men, 20 percent (19) were acts with only women, and 11 percent (11) were mixed-gender acts.

The average of all three venues was 69 percent (46) acts with only men, 18 percent (12) acts with only women, and 13 percent (8.67) mixed-gender acts.

But why does it matter? Why do women need to be represented in the live music scene? 

When I was young, I craved community — a sense of belonging. The lack of representation is isolating because it makes it clear that the community isn’t built to include people like me. And alongside my feelings, numbers don’t lie. If the audience for live music is typically around 50/50 in terms of gender, then there is an audience of women that should feel included. How can 50 percent of an audience be represented by 18 percent of the acts they see live? 

The live music scene is, and always will be, an ever-changing landscape, but when it comes to gender diversity,  the scene hasn’t become an equitable space.  There is hope for change: the percentage of performing acts with women is increasing. With enough of a push, eventually, women might be equally seen in the live music scene.

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Tumblr Tumbles On

By Entertainment, Featured

Illustration by Meghan Sim

You’re bored. So, you open your phone to go to your social media dopamine-dispenser of choice. Instagram is for the baddies and the artists and creating a highly manicured perfect image of one’s life. TikTok is the ultimate happy-chemical hit distraction. If you’re really old-school, you’ll open Facebook. But we all know that if you’re queer, dysfunctional, and terminally online, you go to Tumblr.

The general public often thinks Tumblr, the infamous blogging social media platform, is dead, resting in an online graveyard next to MySpace and Vine. But Tumblr’s heartbeat is strong. 

Launched in 2007, Tumblr’s real heyday was in the early 2010s, with a slow decline after 2014 when the site was bought by Yahoo for $1 billion. 

The decline turned into a nosedive with the porn ban of 2018, which alienated a large portion of the site’s user base. The filters brought on to enforce the ban flagged and took down many inoffensive posts, while porn bots continued to thrive. Traffic crashed. Tumblr had always housed a thriving queer community, and that community felt targeted by the 2018 porn ban as “adult content” was banned. Many users didn’t know where else to go. The platform, a safe space for this community, felt less safe. 

Automattic, a software developer, bought the platform from Yahoo for just $3 million in 2019. Automattic had hopes to turn the platform around, restoring it to its former glory and planning to add (now-reviled) features to the platform. 

However, in November 2023, a memo from the desk of Matt Mullengwig, CEO of Automattic, was leaked. The memo spoke of the lack of progress in Tumblr engagement by Automattic: “We are at the point where after 600+ person-years of effort put into the Tumblr acquisition since 2019, we have not gotten the expected results from our effort, which was to have its revenue and usage above its previous peaks,” wrote Mullenwig.

After years of toying with Tumblr, Automattic was admitting defeat. The company planned to pull back staff and try a more user-dynamic approach. 

While the site has been unable to live up to its former glory in more recent years, the user base is thriving. Tumblr is the origin of many internet-renowned memes, including Goncharov, Canon Destiel, Horse Plinko, Blorbo, Dracula Daily, to name a few. This is to say nothing of the thriving shit-post community that continues to churn out content that is reposted to social media sites everywhere.  

On Tumblr, the main way one interacts with other users is reblogs, which are similar to X (formerly Twitter) retweets. On Tumblr, you can stack reblogs and create reblog chains, which makes the site different from algorithm-driven social media. A core part of the ecosystem is digging up old posts to reblog them again, extending old chains, and reviving old jokes.

This model is undeniably unique and interesting, so why has Tumblr been flailing since its sale to Yahoo? Tumblr’s failure stems from a misunderstanding of what users want and how they use the platform. It’s an unintentional tradition for Tumblr’s user base to dismiss any and every update. And while yes, this tradition turns every user into an elderly person shaking their fist at the teenagers on their lawn, the complaining is never entirely without reason.

Take Exhibit A: Tumblr Live. The live-streaming service was introduced in November 2022 in an attempt to foster new ways for users to interact, and parallel features on other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

However, the addition of Tumblr Live represents a core misunderstanding of the Tumblr user base.

This is a group that values anonymity and the written word. Tumblr was founded on blogging; and also on essays and terrible puns, stories and barely-strung-together thoughts. Instagram is about likes, TikTok is about views, and Tumblr is about sharing. 

Tumblr Live was disliked and ignored by users for many reasons, but the really damning feature was users’ inability to turn it off. Tumblr’s app interface was significantly changed by a feature users didn’t want and weren’t going to use. Eventually, Tumblr created a temporary snooze option, where users could silence Tumblr Live for a week, at which point it would be erased from your interface entirely. This wasn’t enough for users, who complained that one should be able to completely disable the feature instead of only temporarily ignoring it. 

Exhibit B: the “twitterification” of the desktop interface,  whose rearranged buttons and menus have been rearranged to mimic other social media sites for no conceivable reason.

The mobile app has also continued to have issues with crashing and bugs, despite its popularity. The desktop site isn’t much better, but most users augment their experience with third-party programs such as XKit, which can’t be applied to mobile apps. 

Exhibit C was by far the most despised. In June 2023, Tumblr drastically changed the way users interacted with reblogs,the very thing that makes the site unique.  

There was widespread outcry. Vitriol was so intense that Tumblr scrambled to revert the change back soon after it was implemented.

Automattic also tried new monetization methods such as implementing an ad-free subscription, the badge shop, and selling real physical Tumblr merch. While these new monetization strategies didn’t fail, they weren’t nearly as productive as Automattic needed them to be.

The changes made in fall 2023 contributed to an angry user base and gate-kept new users from joining, while failing to make Tumblr sufficiently economic.

But with Mullenweg’s leaked memo came new hope for the site. Mullenweg stated in another post that Automattic is going to concentrate on changes that users want and begin to shut down things that don’t work, such as Tumblr Live, which was permanently removed as of January 2023.

This is exactly what the site needs. Since 2014, Tumblr has suffered from a disconnection between the site and its users, the quirky foundation the platform stands on. 

Things are looking up. Tumblr continues to survive, trading owners and changing for better or worse. Through pandemics, political changes, and fandom upheaval, Tumblr continues to be there. And rest assured, when you die, Tumblr will still be there to crab rave on your grave.

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Placemaking at SAIC

By Featured, SAIC

Before coming to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I researched the hell out of art institutions. I found myself asking questions like, “Where can I go to experiment with nontraditional materials?”; “Which school will allow me to blend my focus on Black culture through created objects?”; “Which institution will have me in all my interests, without asking me to squeeze into one category?” 

Again and again, I returned to SAIC’s website. The site was minimal, focused on student work, and featured the following phrase: “Here is where innovation happens.” 

The word “innovation” gets thrown around a lot, but it bears mentioning that SAIC is known worldwide as one of the nation’s top universities. SAIC has had artists who built the Lincoln Memorial, architects who rebuilt the city after the historic Chicago fire; painters, like Georgia O’Keeffe (1905-1906) who changed the world; animators, like Walt Disney, whose visions have defined an industry. 

Juxtaposed against this, though, is the knowledge that “an art school” is a place that reflects the deep divides of the country. Before I came here, many people in my community warned me about what comes with attending a Predominantly White Institution like SAIC — the stress, loneliness, and potential mental health side effects of it. They often questioned if I would simply be a token or a pawn that the university would use to say that they value Black Indigenous People of Color in image, without valuing me, my history, or my ideas in any substantial way. 

Throughout my time here, I have been privy to an institution in the midst of change. 

Well-documented is how this school changed from a Beaux-Arts French style art school to a contemporary art school; however, the lesser known lore of SAIC is that it was never meant to succeed.

SAIC began just after the Civil War ended in 1866; but the building burned down in 1871 – in the middle of the Reconstruction era. SAIC built its reputation in a type of art practice that was divorced from critiquing the structures that would define it a hundred years later – often excluding women and people of color.  By 1970 when the university needed revitalization to accommodate contemporary art practices that didn’t simply focus on artmaking but on the social aspect of art, SAIC began working with the Black artists who revitalized the institution through social practice. An article by Rebecca Zorach titled, “Art and Soul: An Experimental Friendship Between the Street and A Museum,” in the book Institutions and Imaginaries, details how Black artists and community members, who comprised the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (shortened to AFRICOBRA) pushed SAIC to become involved with the Black community in Chicago to offer storefront museum exhibitions off-campus. Today, SAIC still operates out of non-campus places, like Homan Square at Nichols Tower. That same year, the SAIC Flaxman Library was started.

The 280 Building was built in 1973 by the architecture firm SOM, and the AIC thought that they would be able to utilize the extra space for their collection, but that never happened. Instead, SAIC expanded its campus into the Sharp Building in 1989. 

That was the same year SAIC began a discussion of  “Time-Based Arts” as an accessible way to do art. This sprung digital and internet-based applications. After that, the school floated along relatively stably.

But in 2020, a tense racial climate forced SAIC to rethink itself as an institution. This was the Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiative that would spawn the Cultural Oasis and several other structural changes.

In all of this, my question is, how does the place and the space of this institution facilitate collaboration for students?

Collaboration is a pedagogical practice, and the laws and policies regarding group art limit the effectiveness of individuals in doing collective art on a large scale. Maybe the question of collaboration is an institutional question.

The redesigned website, the remodeled library, and the Cultural Oasis are new spaces that can tell the story about place at SAIC. All three have humble beginnings, are designed for the entire SAIC community with a direct aim to help the community learn, and have been through recent renovations within the past three years.

Illustration by Shina Kang

The Website: Accessibility 20 Years In The Making

In 2003, when the SAIC website was launched, it was designed the way all early internet pages were: the type was small with competing fonts, the page was unclear in its audience, and only those who were a part of the school community had insight into what was being communicated. 

In 2008, the site got its first bit of branding when the SAIC box logo appeared against a black background for the first time.In 2013, the design of the website primarily reflected the white cube aesthetic popularized by De Stijl and Bauhaus groups. Using this go to aesthetic of modern art institutions, SAIC finally had large, clear, static photos of staff, posed in front of artwork. Finally, the website had a sense of its audience and presented a menu for “prospective students, current students, and alumni.” 

The site redesign in 2018 had the photographs updated frequently to give a sense of time. The subject matter of the images changed to action shots of students working in the studio, guests at the AIC practicing drawing or writing, or visiting speakers addressing a crowd. These images worked best on a laptop or desktop. 

In 2023, accessibility became the focus. The words are larger and the school’s colors  — black, pink, and teal blue — are featured through block-building aesthetics. There are more video elements rather than scrolling pictures. The landing page greets you with an action-packed looped video that cuts every two seconds from one dynamic scene to the next. The images have metadata with descriptions.

The website today is more for the outsider looking in, exhibiting students’ work and explaining the different elements, buildings, programs, and workshop spaces that make up this campus. It has the feeling of a fish bowl, with students and buildings on display for anyone interested in seeing them. 

But some current students have complaints.

Zeynep Karahasam (BFA 2026) said that the website presents an ideal, but doesn’t provide details that current students need. For instance, the undergraduate pathways are generic. If you need more detailed information you have to ask professors and advisors to help find the information. 

“A road map for undergraduate pathways exists but it’s buried and you have to find it,” Karahasam said.

The Rowdy Library

In 1971, the “library” was a reading room in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at AIC. Photos from school archives show that student use of the space necessitated its growth. With the 1976 completion of the 280 Building, formerly called “the Columbus Drive facility” the library relocated. 

After 13 years in what was affectionately called “the magic basement” (as detailed in a book by the same title written by alumnus Cassidy Marie (MA in Art Education 1997) the library was relocated again in 1989. When the Alice R. Sharp building (formerly known as “the Champlain Building”) was remodeled, the sixth floor was dedicated as the John M. Flaxman Library. This was made possible by the contribution of Flaxman’s family, in honor of their late son who graduated from SAIC in 1988. The Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, the only library special collection for many years, had a small room on the sixth floor.

The library was small and cramped, according to Holly Dankert, Head of Research and Access Services at the Flaxman. She recalls using the space. Students had to sit in the library instruction room airplane style — two to a row on each side of the room with a narrow gap in between. By 2006, library staff offices and the library special collections, featuring the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, had expanded to the 5th floor.

In 2013, the library saw another transformation when the teal blue wall behind the reference desk was widened and repainted, and other color changes were made.  Apple computers sat on high desks close to the stacks, crowded with students. 

In the most recent change — a big one, which was completed in 2023 — the elevator wall is white and the display cases have been removed, cleaving the last homey piece of furniture from the area. The exhibition case was blasted open to connect the fifth and sixth floor, making the two halves of the library — Special Collections / Joan Flasch and Main collections / John Flaxman — one cohesive whole. The floors are connected by a metal staircase that sings when you pass between the two.

Students are quiet and the space is bigger. The carpets are white. In the library, the story of John Flaxman and Joan Flasch and the sheer amount of time the space has been a part of SAIC helps define the place. 

When asked what the purpose of the space is, Ethan Allen (BFA 2024), a senior library assistant, said that the library exists to help the community with research needs.

Jude Kharchou (FVNMA 2025), also a senior library assistant, said that the “vibe of the library leads many people to ‘shush’ each other without prompting, even though this isn’t a shush library. When people are in the library they look like they know what they are doing and it leads people to feel very intimidated by the space.” 

The Intentions of the Cultural Oasis

The Cultural Oasis is located on the 14th floor of the Sullivan Center — by far, one of the more isolated spaces on campus. The design of the space is defined by its use value. 

The impetus for the Cultural Oasis was talks about anti-racism in 2020. During that time, it was made clear by student affinity groups and student leadership that the school needed a space where students who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color could find community. 

Statistics show that the overall student demographic at SAIC has largely skewed international, white, and Asian; while Hispanic, Black, and Native American have the lowest enrollment by proportion. At the onset of the Cultural Oasis, students were involved in every aspect of the design process.

“We engaged the students in the design first as opposed to after the construction. In this process listening is valued,” said sculpture student Laura Bustamante (MFA 2023), who was a graduate student during the time the space was being developed.

One of the largest pieces of student artwork featured on the wall  “Layering Our Feelings,” by Fernanda Carvalho is an interactive piece where students can write statements to share their thoughts. Some of the thoughts written on the piece are questions like,”Where does a third culture kid find belonging?”; “They told me I wasn’t dark enough or white enough, so what am I?”;  “I love being Black!”; and “I am from the Middle East. Hala Wallah Poggers.” 

An ash-colored tree sits in the far corner of the space filled with cards written by the founding community members indicating their wishes for the Cultural Oasis. 

“My wish for this space is for students of color to meet and collaborate. I hope it inspires growth and big changes in the structure of SAIC. I hope the administration prioritizes the needs and frustration of these students more too,” reads one message. 

“This space has only existed for a year, and I hope one day it will be as large as the library,” said Bustamante, the current coordinator for the Cultural Oasis

Features include a rainbow ceiling made out of dyed industrial felt, a polished concrete floor, a stainless steel refrigerator that is often restocked with leftovers from school events, a meditation closet with adjustable mood lighting and soft bean bags, movable wooden furniture and lounge chairs with high backs, a series of long desks with wheels, an abundance of living plants, and a large TV monitor mounted on the wall connected to Apple desktop computers set off to the side. 

There’s a bookshelf with interactive board games, cards, and books with titles like “Organize Your Own: The Politics and Poetics of Self-Determination Movements,” “Talking to Action: Art Pedagogy and Activism in the Americas,” “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” “Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides, and Figuring the Plural.”

Listening to the needs of the students means that the space is always in flux. The Cultural Oasis was created to be a gathering space for BIPOC who otherwise would have a hard time finding each other on campus. 

At the conclusion of its first year in 2022, the staff of the Cultural Oasis held a meeting to reflect on how the space was utilized, possible improvement, and concerns. The students who gathered addressed issues such as the name of the space, the programing to non-programing ratio, and the inclusion of spices and other diverse foods in the kitchenette. 

Bustamante addressed concerns about the word “oasis.”  She said that students involved with the establishment of the space said that the space was given the title “oasis” as a way to keep the intention of the space as a place where BIPOC narratives are centered and to help students navigate the institution.

However, much of that intention had not been explicitly stated anywhere in the space. This lack of context left many new students confused, so “a space by and for students of color” was added to the door at the end of Fall 2023.

The relaxed nature of the space is less intimidating for students. Students say they enjoy the fact that the room acts as a respite from the serious and crowded spaces around the SAIC campus. 

Aashina Singh (MFA 2024, Design for Emerging Technologies) said she uses the space on the weekends, outside of normal business hours. That’s when she has the most fun hanging out with friends. 

“What happens with me and my friends? We stay away from electronics, we talk to each other and we play games. For example, the other night my friend was stressed about exhibition installation,” Singh said. “She came and she wanted to hang out in the Cultural Oasis.  We sat and we de-stressed by playing Uno. The Cultural Oasis, I feel, is fantastic; often after 4 p.m. on weekends we laugh like drunk people.” 

 

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Mickey Mouse Met the Public Domain

By Arts & Culture, Entertainment, Featured

Illustration by Uy Pham

You can now — well, you most likely can — sell Mickey Mouse merchandise with the word “Fuck” on it.

Every year on January 1, also known as “Public Domain Day,” new works enter the public domain, and in 2024 after a very long wait Disney’s original copyright on Mickey Mouse officially ran out; as the copyright on the original animated shorts “Plane Crazy” (1928), “Steamboat Willie” (1928), and ”The Gallopin’ Gaucho” (1928) ended. Mickey and his beloved Minnie are now in the public domain. When something is in the public domain it is essentially available for anyone to use. It keeps art from being locked up by one creator or corporation.  The public domain allows artists to build off of existing works without the limitations of fair use. We’d never get Baz Luhrmann’s iconic “Romeo + Juliet” ( 1996) if Shakespeare’s original “Romeo & Juliet” play was not a part of the public domain.  

Only two months into Mickey and Minnie leaving their copyrights behind, there is already an influx of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and even a variety show host is having fun using Mickey. 

However, the Mickey and Minnie now in the public domain are not the Mickey and Minnie some of us grew up watching on the Disney Channel. Only the versions of these characters from the original three shorts are now a part of the public domain.

So how much of the current ethos of Mickey exists in the 1928 version of Mickey?

 

This is Not Your Modern Mouse

“Steamboat Willie” (1928)

Red shorts, high-pitched voice, and much of Mickey’s personality do not exist within “Plane Crazy,”  “The Gallopin’ Gaucho,” or “Steamboat Willie” from 1928. No, the Mickey in these shorts is pretty much a jerk and even actively abuses animals.

Nor is the 1928 version of Minnie the bow-wearing girlboss that little kids love to meet in Disney theme parks. Her main personality swings between being a sexual object for Mickey and being sexually harassed by him. In “The Gallopin’ Gaucho,” she’s a flirtatious damsel who needs to be rescued. But in “Plane Crazy” she is being aggressively pursued by Mickey to the point where she slaps him and jumps out of a plane when he kisses her after she explicitly says no.

 

“Plane Crazy” (1928)

On top of animal abuse and sexual harassment, the original Mickey and Minnie are largely connected to the history of minstrel shows and blackface in early 20th century America — deeply racist performances that were happening globally during this time. This is especially prevalent in the music that accompanies “Steamboat Willie.” 

“Visually, minstrels had blacked-up faces and often wore white gloves. They accentuated their eyes and mouths with makeup to make themselves seem voracious and surprised or fearful. Cartoon minstrels have the same sorts of features, but theirs are drawn on celluloid rather than on flesh,” writes Professor Nicholas S. Sammond in the online companion to his book, “Birth of An Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation.” 


Alongside the anti-black visuals and implicit history, “The Gallopin’ Gaucho” in particular also perpetuates many racist stereotypes about Latin American peoples.

“The Gallopin’ Gaucho” (1928)

To ignore the racist and sexist histories of these early shorts as they enter the public domain would be an injustice because these are the characters that are now in the public domain. That is something very important to remember as you go forward using  Minnie and Mickey in your own projects.

The versions of these characters that exist after 1928, such as from “Fantasia” (1940) or “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” (1983) are still under copyright protection. 

 

Disney’s Copyright Fight

95 years is a long time for a work to stay under copyright, and over time, the length of copyright grew from an initial 14-year term to what we have now. For corporate works, like Mickey, it’s now 95 years from first publication. For individual’s works, it’s the life of the author plus 70 years on top of that. The timeline of American copyright protection crept longer and longer over time. But a key part of the extensions comes from a particularly dramatic battle in the 1990s because of Mickey and Minnie.  

For twenty years, nothing was released into the public domain, creative works were practically frozen, and everyone blamed Mickey Mouse. The term of copyright for older works used to be 75 years. Then, with the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the term was lengthened by 20 years. So, works that were published in 1922 were in the public domain, but those published in 1923 and after wouldn’t start coming into the public domain until 2019.   

There were many reasons for this, one being that Europe also extended their copyright terms, but Mickey became the star of the conversation. The story goes:  Mickey was about to come into the public domain in 2004, but by extending the term they were able to hold back his inclusion in the public domain for an extra 20 years, until 2024. It is colloquially known as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act.”

So, January 1, 2024, was a long-anticipated date that has now arrived. The Mouse is finally free. But how free?

 

What Can’t You Do With Mickey?

To answer this question, there are a few points one needs to understand. 

First, as mentioned before, you cannot legally use any version of Mickey that was published after 1928 (yet). Of course, there are exceptions when it comes to fair use, but every post-1928 version of Mickey and Minnie are still owned by Disney. 

 

 

This Mickey is still under copyright!

 

The red shorts in particular are the topic of a debate about whether they can technically be public domain because a poster from 1928 shows Steamboat Willie wearing red shorts. U.S. Copyright law is messy and weird, and those posters may or may not count as “published” works. This is somewhat similar to the conversation that questions whether Winnie the Pooh’s red shirt also entered the public domain when the first Winnie the Pooh books were no longer under copyright in 2023. 

“We will, of course, continue to protect our rights in the more modern versions of Mickey Mouse and other works that remain subject to copyright,” says Disney’s official statement regarding Mickey in the public domain. 

Secondly, aside from the version of Mickey you can use, the biggest thing you need to know has to do with trademark law which is different from copyright. Trademarks are federally protected systems made to secure a company’s source identifiers. Think logos, brand names, and product packaging.

When you see Mickey Mouse, you think of Disney. That is a trademark. Disney still owns trademarks on Mickey Mouse, as well as a special kind of trademark known as a motion mark that uses the  “Steamboat Willie” animation. Ever notice that modern Disney movies have “Steamboat Willie” as part of their production logos?  

Trademarks are one of Disney’s ways of continuing to protect these early shorts even though they are now in the public domain. Disney filed an application for the motion mark in 2022, presumably in preparation for the 2024 public domain date. 

You cannot use the 1928 shorts or characters as your own source identifier because that would be infringing on Disney’s trademarks, nor can you use them to imply Disney is endorsing what you are doing.

Additionally, turning back to copyright, every country has its own laws around copyright. Mickey and Minnie being public domain in the U.S. doesn’t mean they’re free for everyone to use internationally. 

Finally, the sound of “Plane Crazy” and “The Galloping Groucho” is in question. “Steamboat Willie” was a huge technological marvel because it used synchronized sound when it was released. The other two shorts were silent versions and versions with audio. While the silent versions are definitely in the public domain, the audio is another question. Some sources say their sound will not enter the public domain until 2025

 

Mickey Mouse, the New Symbol of the Public Domain

Mickey Mouse is many things: a beloved American icon of childhood, a racist caricature, a brand name you can’t escape. But he is now also a symbol and a celebration of works/characters finally coming into the public domain after decades of being frozen. 

Scroll through the Mickey Mouse tag on Tumblr for five minutes and you’ll find countless posts celebrating Mickey being a part of the public domain along with a shocking amount of fanart of Mickey making out with fellow freshly public domain character Jay Gatsby. My own personal favorite genre of these posts has to be the ones where Winnie the Pooh welcomes Mickey into “freedom.” Most of these posts would fall under fair use even if Mickey wasn’t public domain, but it is less about the legality of it and more about the emotions of Mickey no longer being under copyright.

“We’ve decided that he’s one of us now. He’s a hero of the working class, newly liberated from his capitalist oppressors who sought to shackle him to traditional values and conservatism for decades. He’s supportive of leftist causes. He’s trans. He’s married to Jay fucking Gatsby. We’re not celebrating that Mickey Mouse is dead. We’re celebrating that Mickey Mouse is free. And that’s beautiful,” posted Tumblr-user, sixty-silver-wishes.  

Two months in and there have already been projects that wouldn’t legally be possible before Mickey Mouse’s copyright ran out. 

As many expected, due to similar reactions when Winnie the Pooh came into public domain, one place in the public domain where Mickeys are popping up all over is the horror world. Two Mickey-based horror movies have already been announced and a Mickey horror video game (with some very questionable alt-right politics) was released on Jan. 1, 2024. There was also a short analog horror film posted to YouTube with the conceit of the S.S. Willie being a boat that mysteriously disappeared. 

Aside from horror, YouTube has welcomed many different Mickeys. The three original shorts are all up on YouTube, and users have now also posted remixed animations and dub-step audio of “Steamboat Willie,” colorized versions of the shorts, a concept for a “Steamboat Willie” cozy video game, and  3D animations of the shorts.

A trailer for a first-person shooter game by developer Fumi was dropped where the player plays as a jazz-fueled Steamboat Willie gangster.

Eisner-winning comic artist Erica Henderson is now selling “Steamboat Willie” t-shirts that depict the mouse in her art style surrounded by the text, “No Gods No Masters.” 

This is all just the tip of the iceberg, or of the mouse’s tail so to speak. Mickey and Minnie are released into the world. As art students let’s take up the challenge. Let’s use public domain characters in wild and artistic ways. 

Mickey is public domain. Artists, legal scholars, and Mouseketeers everywhere rejoice. He joins Winnie the Pooh, Sherlock Holmes, Mack the Knife, Piglet, and even Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and each year more and more characters will become part of the public domain pantheon. Now it’s the people’s turn to play with them.

The short four-panel comic, “The Undying Love of Mickey Mouse,” by streamer and artist Tanookitalez sums it up best. The comic shows 1928 Mickey and Minnie standing together on a shoreline, holding hands with speech bubbles that read:

“We’re finally free, Minnie,” Mickey says. 

“Oh, Mickey, what are we going to do? We’re free, but only as fragments of ourselves,” Minnie says. 

“With time, our identity, our friends will return to us, piece by piece.” Mickey says, “All we can do is wait.” 

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Anti Racism Committee: Political theater or true commitment to DEI?

By Featured, SAIC

Illustration by Shina Kang

In 2020, SAIC Solidarity and Black Futures wrote letters outlining desired structural changes for SAIC.

That year, police violence became the tipping point in a culmination of events that showed how structural inequality has shaped American life, including how policies in housing, policing, education, and healthcare have shaped the outcomes of Black lives. 

To address the issues raised by the groups an Anti-Racism Committee was formed at SAIC that year which went to work on several key issues that included: hiring a more diverse staff,  renaming of the 280 Building (then the Columbus building), improved financial aid for students of color, the development of an ombudsperson, and an affinity space for Black, Indigenous, and people of color. 

When the demands were first made, the political landscape was one in which organized efforts like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (referred to as DEI) committees were a popular response to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Eager to quell unrest, politicians and institutions alike performed solidarity, with scenes such as Democratic senators in kente cloth stoles kneeling as they announced police reform. This theater is typical in American politics that often offers a good show, but rarely does anything to fix problems in society. 

However, the approach to DEI by the Anti Racism Committee addressed structural issues that were not flashy theater, but slow work. The committee and its numerous subcommittees began working within the departments of SAIC to implement permanent changes to the school that address issues around student labor, student mental health, and financial aid. 

Four years later, the national state of DEI efforts is drastically different. 

There are prominent, DEI-related stressors on higher education across the United States, and it’s showing. At the end of 2023, amid student protests on college campuses regarding the Palestinian genocide, universities like Harvard, MIT, and UPenn fired their presidents in response to congressional inquiries regarding political speech on college campuses. The Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action and race-based admissions decisions in June of 2023. Many DEI initiatives that were popular four years ago have begun to recede. 

At most universities, DEI responses to structural issues are largely shouldered by BIPOC staff, who are often untenured or temporarily employed. SAIC is not immune: 71% of faculty members at SAIC are White, while 7.6% are Black; the remainder is made up of Latino, Asian, and Native American faculty members. 

In a statement, the Art Institute of Chicago Workers United union explained that they are working towards reaching a contract to specifically support faculty and staff who are BIPOC, disabled, and / or LGBTQI+. The statement described the ways that these educators perform un-recognized and unpaid work as mentors for students and beyond.

“We’re fighting for a contract that recognizes and compensates faculty for this work — to retain them, promote them, and enshrine their contributions to our community,” the statement said.

The potential increase in BIPOC staff who have secure employment at SAIC could lead to changes in pedagogy. Many white professors have been trained to approach art from a Western canon. Often, when race is not being completely avoided in the classroom, professors trained in the Western cannon tend to present history by overwhelming their students with facts without interpretation and insight from BIPOC professors trained in different epistemological modes. Educators who are trained in different epistemological modes tend to include not just facts in the form of dates and numbers but also social and emotional experience which is factual. To increase the number of works by BIPOC artists and thinkers in the curriculum, without changing both the pedagogical approach to teaching and the experts in the room leading the discussion is a recipe for alienation.  

Even with so few BIPOC faculty at SAIC, the quiet structural changes that began in 2020 have slowly crept into the school environment. According to the SAIC’s website, the school has hired an ombudsperson who is active in their role as of Fall 2023; the BIPOC space, the Cultural Oasis, was established in 2021, has active programming, and is used by BIPOC students; and while the 280 Building was not renamed Three Fires, as suggested by Indigenous students, the racist nomenclature of the building’s past is not actively in use. 

The Anti-Racism Committee has waned since 2020, with one of its leaders, Delinda Collier, becoming the permanent dean of graduate studies. On February 15, SAIC announced the appointment of a new president Jiseon Lee Isbara, from Otis College of Art, whose background holds promise in terms of furthering the DEI changes that began in 2020. 

The increase in a diverse student population must be met with the interconnected struggle of part-time professors and non-tenured professors whose union negotiation is stalled. This struggle is interconnected because upon graduation, BIPOC students will face a hiring landscape that doesn’t value them as professionals as much as they valued them as students. 

Without a diverse teaching faculty whose needs are met, SAIC will repeat failures in educational approaches to DEI that are rampant in American schools and colleges today. When an academic institution integrates BIPOC students without integrating BIPOC faculty, the cycle of harm that has been playing out in American education since desegregation will repeat itself. A diverse BIPOC student body whose instructors do not reflect them, whose pedagogy does not prepare them, and whose epistemologies do not come from their cultures will inevitably experience the harms of assimilation and appropriation characteristic of American life. 

Whether or not SAIC has participated in DEI theater or true structural change that improves the lives of BIPOC students and faculty remains to be seen. Improvement depends on the institution’s long-term commitment to these structural changes. 

Sometimes racist acts are not always blatant. Without secure employment for BIPOC, disabled, and LGBTQI+ professionals— which includes full benefits packages, and opportunities to advance their careers— SAIC is not addressing a key element of the Black Futures demands. SAIC’s inability to address this harm is a reflection of which lives are important and valuable to them. At least for F Newsmagazine, that is racism, plain and simple.

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Global Animation at the Golden Globes

By Climate, Entertainment, Featured

The 2023 Golden Globes have come and gone, but many of the nominees and winners are still worth talking about, considering most are continuing on with Oscar nominations. Among these noteworthy movies are two specific international movies from the Best Animated Film category: “Suzume” (2022) and “The Boy and the Heron” (2023).

“The Boy and the Heron” (2023)

In the history of the Golden Globes, there have been a total of 11 non-American studios nominated for Best Animated Feature Film. It is a category that has existed only since 2007 (the Golden Globes has existed since 1944), and Disney has been nominated at least once every year. 

To have two nominations from non-American studios, specifically non-conglomerate companies like Disney, this year is outstanding. That’s even before we count in the fact that “The Boy and the Heron” won against the likes of “Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Elemental,” and “Wish,” all from powerhouses in the animation scene.

For anime lovers, Makoto Shinkai and Hayao Miyazaki (along with Miyazaki’s studio, Studio Ghibli) are well-known and well-loved directors. They both have outstanding careers; a quick Google search will show both multiple times on the list of highest-grossing Japanese films. It just goes to show how much their reach is growing with their subsequent nominations in the animation category of the Golden Globes, a first for both, and Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” even winning the category.  

“Suzume” (2022)

“Suzume” by Makoto Shinkai is a departure from Shinkai’s usual  romance films such as  “Your Name” (2016) and “Weathering With You” (2019) Yes, it still features romance but “Suzume” is character-driven rather than being pushed forward by the romance. 

It’s a coming-of-age story about the main character Suzume who goes on a journey across Japan chasing a cat in order to turn the man she met, Souta, back into a human and to close magical doors to prevent natural disasters. It’s about love and grief. 

“Suzume” is the third of Shinkai’s disaster movies, the aforementioned movies being the other two, and it focuses on the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, a disaster that caused the Fukushima Nuclear disaster, killed thousands, and displaced many more. This movie serves as a tribute to that day, and it is well deserving of its Golden Globes nomination due to its very human and moving story paired with gorgeous animation and wonderful soundtrack.

“The Boy and the Heron” was a long-awaited movie as it was supposedly Miyazaki’s last (which he has said seven times before) and is a very personal film for him. 

“Miyazaki’s never done a film where he himself is the protagonist, so he felt that he needed to do that while he’s alive,” said co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Toshio Suzuki, when speaking to Deadline. 

“The Boy and the Heron” follows a boy named Mahito and tells the journey of finding meaning in the midst of grief. After he loses his mom during World War II to a fire at the hospital she works at, Mahito’s father moves them to the countryside where his new step-mom, his late mother’s sister, lives, and there Mahito meets a heron. All of that is the setup for Studio Ghibli’s typical fantastical storytelling as Mahito experiences strange phenomena and ends up entering another world as he searches for his missing stepmother. It’s truly a heartwarming story about family, the trauma of war, and how to move on from loss.  

Suzume” and “The Boy and the Heron” bring something fresh to the American animation scene. The art styles of both movies, while reminiscent of previous movies from Shinkai and Miyazaki, are wholly different from American animation, and the stories are brand new, bringing in a mix of personal and non-American perspectives. Audiences are looking elsewhere for animation than the likes of Disney, Pixar, and Illumination, and they are enjoying what they find. 

This trend can be seen in the growing popularity of anime, as well. While anime has always been around, it’s become a massive market for American audiences,  and its growing prominence might mean something good for animation at large and across international borders. 

 Shinkai and Miyazaki are far from small, but with their nominations, it’s clear that the world of animation is finally beginning to reflect a larger scope of the talent that is out there. That’s not to say award shows like the Golden Globes are the end all be all, but it is nice to be recognized for your hard work. 

Film, and especially animation, is an art form and should be highlighting a variety of voices, not just those from the same big (American) names. As award shows start looking at a wider range of animated movies, hopefully, this means that smaller and indie animation studios get recognition and then nominations as well as more international nominations. As the years go on, animation will only continue to grow; we can only hope that award shows do the same. And we’ll have to wait and see if “The Boy and the Heron” can take home the trophy from its Oscar nomination. 

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Just Hard Feelings: Part Three

By Comics, Featured Comics

PAGE FIVE
CAPTION: It’s the people you know that will hurt you the most in this world, not strangers.
Sid looks over his shoulder.
SID: You’re focusing so much on them, spending all your time at the fucking hospital.
CAPTION: 2023
Mae pulls at their hair in distress.
MAE: They almost died, Sid! How selfish could you be?
Tears start to roll down Mae’s cheek.
MAE: I’ve never met someone with so little empathy. The only person I’ve seen you care about is yourself.
Sid, back turned to Mae, also starts to cry.
SID: . . .
MAE: If you really do care about me, at all, please get some help!
Nancy is laying down, with Sid on top of her.
NANCY: I can help you.
SID: No you can’t.
CAPTION: 2022
In a crowd, Mae stands with a “one of those days” shirt. Nancy gives them a dirty look from the side.
Nancy puts her foot out in front of Mae.
Mae falls, with a crack in their leg, as Nancy walks away smirking.
PAGE SIX
Mae reminisces, wistfully.
MAE: But why can’t things be the way they were back then?
CAPTION: Maybe that good feeling was just an illusion.
CAPTION: 2019
Mae walks out of a doorframe wearing a towel. The ghost form of Sid waits for them.
SID: Can I tell you something?
Mae adjusts their hair, giving Sid a side-eye.
MAE: Dude, um, how about later?
Sid watches Mae apply lotion on their leg, drooling over them.
SID: I think you’re damn good-looking.

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