Mercer Street

MERCER STREET
Essays from the Expository Writing Program
2018-2019
MERCER
2018 - 2019
street
Program Director
Dara Rossman Regaignon
Editor
Stephen Donatelli
Senior Production Editor

Richard Larson
Managing Editor
Tara Parmiter
Advisory Editor
William M. Morgan
Production Editor
Christopher Cappelluti
Development Editors
Helena Keown
Clare Kernie
Lydia Mason
Program Manager
Christine Jensch
Mercer Street Committee

Stephen Donatelli, Chair
Grant Ginder
Matthew Nicholas
Jacqueline Reitzes
Madeleine Stein
EXPOSITORY WRITING PROGRAM

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCE
II
MERCER
street
To the Class of 2022:
Welcome to New York University!

An NYU education begins, in part, with writing. This practice
reflects the University’s longstanding commitment to the centrality of
written inquiry to undergraduate education.
It’s a bit of a cliché to say that reading and writing are connected,
but in 2018 it seems important to say it nonetheless. As information
circulates more and more quickly—moving ever farther from its ori-
gin—we have to read critically and for context: Who was the author?
What were they trying to achieve? What is their evidence? This is all the
more urgent when we take up what we read, re-posting it or relying
on it for insight or opinions of our own.
Over the course of the next four years, you have a wide range of
courses open to you; alphabetically, they range from accounting to
history to mechanical engineering to woodwind studies. No matter
what field you choose, during your time here you will find yourself
using writing to think, analyze, investigate, and create. And no matter
what path or career you choose after you graduate (that of a scholar,
educator, health practitioner, entrepreneur, artist, performer, lawyer,
engineer, or activist), you will find yourself using writing for those
purposes and others: to propose, to investigate, to analyze, and to rep-
resent yourself and your work. Recent research shows that work in the
twenty-first century involves more writing than ever before, regardless
of the specific occupation. This writing ranges across genres (email,
proposals, essays, reports, and more), and encompasses prose that is
creative, technical, reflective, and persuasive. It’s writing that seeks to
make an impact on its readers, that seeks not only to make audiences
see the questions and challenges that face us today in new ways but
also to help them imagine new possibilities and perspectives.
III
The essays collected in this volume represent some of the best

work written for Expository Writing Program courses over the course
of 2017-18; most were written by first-year students. These essays are
smart, moving, funny, analytic, imaginative, and—like us all, and like
all written work—incomplete. They open up questions, problems,
and puzzles that are not entirely solvable. The faculty of EWP hope
that you will both enjoy and learn from them.
Take heart! College is a time to challenge yourself and to nurture
your mind both in and out of the classroom. Your most surprising
encounters—your most creative or insightful moments—may happen
when you least expect them. Be interested. That is always the best way
to begin.
With all best wishes,
Dara Rossman Regaignon

Director of the Expository Writing Program
Associate Professor of English
IV
Editor’s Note
Each year, the appearance of a new Mercer Street allows us to say

“the collection of essays you now hold in your hands . . .” But now we
can say this only figuratively, since the present edition is coming to
you entirely digitally. We hope that the new format will make for eas-
ier navigation and more expeditious connection-making through the
links you will find throughout the book.
For example, in several independently written essays, we find top-
ics and themes of contemporary relevance. The digital Mercer Street
makes it easier to locate them. Cases in point are several essays that
investigate the explosive issue of sexual misconduct during the past
year. In the arts, other students have questioned the status of “the
real” in media that thrive on illusion or deception. In his fine essay,
“In Thinking of Evil,” about the moral responsibilities of the citizen,
Jesse Schanzer invites his readers to look to the multigenerational
depth of their own experience. It encourages us to articulate our per-
sonal history in unlikely, non-literal places. It shows us how to con-
nect and coordinate these findings.
It all adds up to being able to write confidently and nimbly with
a variety of sources: the facts, the evidence. The book you’re not actu-
ally holding in your hands is a gift that last year’s class has left to you.
As you move ahead with your own writing, you will feel a deepening
respect for the masterful work your predecessors have given you.
Stephen Donatelli
Editor
Director of Writing in the Disciplines
V
Acknowledgements
The Expository Writing Program is grateful to Gene Andrew

Jarrett, Dean of the College of Arts and Science, for his support of
this publication. The Mercer Street Committee—Grant Ginder,
Matthew Nicholas, Jacqueline Reitzes, Madeleine Stein, and Richard
Larson—and editorial staff are also grateful to EWP Director Dara
Rossman Regaignon for her ongoing commitment to student writers’
success and achievement.
Denice Martone, EWP Associate Director, and EWP’s other
Directors—William M. Morgan and Benjamin Stewart—contributed
shaping and guidance to this project. The Mercer Street editors are
very grateful to them, as well as to Assistant Directors Olivia Birdsall,
Nicole Callihan, David Cregar, Beth Machlan, Jono Mischkot, and
Elizabeth Mikesell, and to the many Writing Program faculty mem-
bers who read submissions.
Richard Larson’s technical wizardry with the manuscript is in evi-
dence everywhere. We also thank Christine Jensch for the speed and
professionalism she has devoted to making Mercer Street possible,
year after year. And Managing Editor Tara Parmiter ensured the
seamlessness of our operation. Her editorial expertise and decisive
management style taught us what production should be like.
Three talented and resourceful undergraduate student editors—
Helena Keown, Clare Kernie, and Lydia Mason—brought intense
editorial care to the essays published here. And thank you,
Christopher Cappelluti, for special editorial assistance.
VI
MERCER
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CONTENTS
Writing the Essay
Broken Rules, Broken Silences:

Audre Lorde and the Power of Language 1
Carolyn Ford
The Descent of Woman: Joining the Academic Conversation 9

Adelia Gaffney
Juliana Moreira: An Ideal to Strive For 17

Isak Jones
Don’t Get Too Comfortable 24

Olivia LeVan
The Empty Mask 33

Paul Mapara
A Lesson in Horror 39
Dylan Palmer
The Empathy Lessons 45

Akiva Thalheim
The Carbon Chains That Bind Us 54

Kristen Weatherley
VII
Keep On Prowling 59
Emily Yan
Hero Complex: The Oversimplification of Tank Man 67

Wendy Yang
Language and the Self:

Colonial Exile and Postcolonial Recovery 74
Jen Khai Yew
Writing the Essay: Residential College at Goddard
Different, Not Backwards 80

Isabela Acenas
Writing the Essay: Art and the World
The Forgiving Blue 89

Lynn Fong
International Writing Workshop I
Photojournalism: What’s True, What’s Beautiful 97

Haorui Guo
International Writing Workshop II
How To Live With It 101

Soyoung Yun
International Writing Workshop II: Tandon School of Engineering
The Good Guys with Guns 108

Cheongho Cho
VIII
The Advanced College Essay: Education and the Professions
Gender Hysteria 116

Jennifer Agmon
Signs of the Times 124

Paige Smyth
The Advanced College Essay: Tandon School of Engineering
The Truth Behind Photoshop 133

Tracy Ma
The Advanced College Essay: The World Through Art
We’re Not Just Window Dressing:

Asian Representation in Film and Television 143
Jessica Ji
A Cinema of Confusion 155

Erik Oliver
A Spectrum of Essays
In Thinking of Evil 163

Jesse Schanzer
Writing in Community
Have It Your Way, But At What Cost? 172

Shivali Devjani
The Case of Aziz Ansari: Bridging the Culture Gap 183

Christina Wang
IX
Contributors 194
Noteworthy Essays 202

BROKEN RULES, BROKEN SILENCES:
AUDRE LORDE AND THE
POWER OF LANGUAGE
Carolyn Ford
A
udre Lorde refuses to be invisible. She knows she lives “in
the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon”—American
society—that wants nothing more than to swallow her
whole, that her very existence, to some, is an unwanted
blemish on the pale face of America (“Man Child” 74). She knows
that her Blackness, her queerness, and her womanhood push her aside
to make room for the white male elite, and that her safest option is to
keep quiet and stay out of the way. Yet, above all, Lorde knows that
she is powerful. Despite efforts to render her voiceless, Lorde finds
her strength through taking ownership of the very facets of herself
that make her vulnerable. By owning her Black, queer, and female
self, and reclaiming her identities as means for empowerment rather
than as tools for oppression, Lorde redefines what it means to be
powerful. She outright refuses to be silenced by external conceptions
of the characteristics that define her. Sister Outsider, a collection of
her essays and speeches, is a call to—or, more appropriately, a demand
for—action against the white heteropatriarchy that claims its success
from the destruction of the different. Lorde identifies herself as an
“outsider,” yet reclaims this identity as the very source of her power
against her oppressors. Her essays become physical forces for change
through the very language she uses to define herself.
Lorde’s quest for empowerment begins with language itself—
specifically, the language of identity. While she admits that existing
in a passive state, silenced by her oppressors, is the least dangerous
way to live, Lorde also admits that eventually “the weight of that
silence will choke [her]” (“Transformation” 44). As she recollects her
life-threatening surgery to remove a benign tumor, Lorde confesses
that her silences, or times when she failed to make herself known out
of both powerlessness and fear, haunted her (“Transformation” 40-
41). Confronting her own mortality allows Lorde to realize that her
fear is ultimately meaningless. Whether she speaks or remains silent,
2 Mercer Street
“the machine will try to grind [her] into dust anyway”

(“Transformation” 42). It is only through speech that the machine of
white heteropatriarchy, a machine programmed to weaken Lorde and
others like her, may be confronted. The imposed silence that Lorde
seeks to escape is a type of invisibility, in which her true self is hidden
behind what the white heteropatriarchy expects a queer Black woman
to be.
In response, Lorde establishes the necessity of using the language
of identity to break that silence despite the visibility that such lan-
guage brings. Lorde asserts, “that visibility . . . makes us most vulner-
able” and “is the source of our greatest strength” (“Transformation”
42). Lorde’s Blackness, a central element of her selfhood, brings her
both pride and fear. Her capitalization of the term—and her de-cap-
italization of both “white” and “american”—visually brings attention
to the word in her essays, demanding recognition from the reader.
She insists that her readers recognize her conception of Blackness, a
conception filled with pride and community, rather than the concep-
tion of blackness that is used to demean her. The choice of Black over
black is an overt manifestation of her desire to be visible, forcing her
Blackness to be visible. Such visibility is empowering, but the same
language that Lorde embraces pushes her further into the margins of
society. Despite the fear and danger associated with self-identifica-
tion, Lorde insists that we must “[reclaim] . . . that language” of our
own identities so that they may be transformed from degrading into
empowering (“Transformation” 43). This tension within the language
of identity is at the heart of Lorde’s work.
A powerful speechwriter and public speaker, Lorde finds empow-
erment through her ability to demand recognition with her voice,
breaking the silence so often imposed upon her. The language that
Lorde seeks to reclaim is not simply oppressive—language also has
the ability to empower. While Lorde searches for the power her own
identity may bring, writer Lester Olson asserts the necessity of lan-
guage through which identity, and thus power, may be assumed. In
“Liabilities of Language: Audre Lorde Reclaiming Difference,” Olson
discusses the importance of language in the quest for reclaiming iden-
tity. The English language, rooted in histories of colonialism and
conquest, is unappreciated as a tool of oppression, especially in the
Broken Rules, Broken Silences 3
United States. Certain words and connotations of words are “embed-

ded in the nature of the English language itself” and inherently con-
nected to racism, sexism, and homophobia (Olson 465). Due to these
connotations, Lorde’s outsiders “have been socialized to respect fear
more than [their] own needs for language and definition,” instead
complying with the imposed norms of the white heteropatriarchy
(“Transformation” 44). Further, Olson contends that “language con-
tributes to a homogenization of experiences,” thus minimizing the
existences of the most vulnerable of people (466). In other words, lan-
guage can erase experiences that transcend the narratives perpetuated
by the white heteropatriarchy. At the same time, however, language
can be a catalyst for reclaiming identities. The reclamation of lan-
guage “enacts a process of self-definition” during which people can
“[situate] [themselves] within the norms to dismantle them” (Olson
465-466). Lorde reclaims the very language that isolates her from her
oppressors. By taking Black, queer, and female as her own, Lorde
accepts and embraces herself as the very identities that invalidate her,
transforming her marginalization and undermining any attempts to
use such language against her. In a society defined by its own elite,
Lorde finds her strength through the dismantling of the linguistic
structure that oppresses her.
By defining her own identity, Lorde also shifts the existing pat-
terns of language use around her, devaluing the means through which
language can oppress. In a reflection on her son Jonathan’s impending
adolescence, Lorde demonstrates the universality of self-identity by
destructing norms. She recognizes that Jonathan, the son of lesbian
parents, must “make [his] own definitions of self as [man],” which is
“both power and vulnerability” (“Man Child” 73). Jonathan isolates
himself by defining man as something other than the hyper-mascu-
line, aggressive traits that are imposed on him and other men, but he
also finds strength in establishing the definition of man as sensitive,
quiet, and reflective of his own traits. Such vulnerability, Lorde frets,
is dangerous in the face of a patriarchy that retaliates in response to
men like Jonathan, but knowledge of that vulnerability “is necessary as
the first step in the reassessment of power as something other than
might, age, privilege, or the lack of fear” (“Man Child” 76). Lorde’s
account of her “man child” is representative of the way she, and all of
4 Mercer Street
us, can reclaim and redefine our identities to take power through lan-
guage. By challenging established definitions of manhood, Jonathan
both establishes control over his identity and performs what social
work professor M. Alex Wagaman might call an act of resistance.
Wagaman writes that self-definition outside of conventional social
labels resists categories that “[serve] to uphold the status quo” and
allow the perpetuation of oppression (217). In Jonathan’s case, his
claim to a pacifistic manhood “[contests] the confines of society as it
currently exists,” depreciating the societal value placed on destructive
masculinity and redefining the entire concept of what it means to be
masculine (Wagaman 207). Jonathan’s experience echoes Lorde’s own
pursuit for self-definition. Instead of rejecting the labels of Black,
queer, or woman for their prejudiced connotations, Lorde redefines
these labels and celebrates them.
In her reclamation of her own identities, Lorde works toward the
larger goal of redefining power. By establishing herself as authorita-
tive, while also embracing the parts of herself deemed weak and inept,
Lorde aims to shift the paradigm of how power is conceptualized.
Power, Lorde declares, does not belong to those who were conferred
it due to race, gender, or class; it belongs to those who take it. And
Lorde certainly takes power, especially through her language. The
most defining feature of Lorde’s work, the heartbeats and pulses of
her essays, are her verbs. In her writing, things are always doing other
things. Ideas are “birthed” (“Man Child 36), identities are “carved
from the rock experiences of our daily lives” (“Man Child” 37), silence
“immobilizes” and “choke[s]” (“Transformation” 44). Through such
active language, Lorde conveys the brutal reality of living an invisible
existence, and the exhausting but necessary acquisition of visibility.
Abstract concepts jump from the page into tangible reality. The read-
er does not simply observe, but feels and experiences racism, sexism,
and homophobia. Lorde does not describe her experiences of oppres-
sion; she makes the reader feel what it’s like to be oppressed. In
drawn-out syntax that exhausts the reader with her own endurance
through that oppression, that silence, that invisibility, Lorde leaves
reminders—short, bullet-like sentences of four to five words—that
compel her readers and herself to keep going. That is not to say Lorde
dismisses the systematic oppression rooted in American society—
there are, she admits, battles that words cannot win. Nevertheless, she
redefines power as something sourced from within rather than given
based on immutable prerequisites. By “[bearing] the intimacy” of vis-
ibility through reclaimed identities and “[flourishing] within it,”
Lorde demands that her readers “use the products of that scrutiny for
power within our living,” equating resistance to societal expectation as
a form of power (“Poetry” 36).
While reclamation of identity is a source of individual power over
societal presumptions, Lorde cites unification of those oppressed by
the white heteropatriarchy as the most necessary element in disman-
tling the system of oppression. The shedding of imposed identity and
the adoption of self-definition forges the connection required to unify
the marginalized. For Lorde, this manifests in the overwhelming
whiteness of feminism and the distinct dividing line between women
of color and white women. Lorde calls upon self-definition as the uni-
fying force that must transcend the fear of difference instilled and
maintained by the white heteropatriarchy. She insists that her fellow
feminists “not hide behind the mockeries of separations that have
been imposed upon us and which so often we accept as our own”
(“Transformation” 43). Instead, Lorde validates all women as part of
the collective feminist identity rather than wallowing in the divisions
established by the society that seek to undermine her success. In this
way, the recognition of heterogeneity is a source of power:
Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of

necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a
dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency
become unthreatening. Only within that interdependency of dif-
ferent strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek
new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage
and sustenance to act where there are no charters. (“Master’s
Tools” 111)
By acknowledging the validity of all women and rejecting the fear and
silence expected of her as a Black queer woman, Lorde unearths the
power hidden behind the segregation of the feminist movement and
her own silence.
6 Mercer Street
In the larger context of the American political climate, the

abstract concepts of identity and power become physically evident,
manifesting in violence across the country over race and gender power
dynamics. Lorde’s desire to dismantle these dynamics through recla-
mation of language is echoed in political sentiments over a decade
after her death, but the goal has changed with time. It is within this
context that power must be acknowledged as something more than an
abstract concept, and it is nothing without its exhibition and materi-
alization. In the past few years, with the resurgence of white nation-
alist movements and the birth of the “Alt-Right” ideology in the
United States, the question of what it means to be an American has
emerged as a pressing political, and often moral, dilemma. Power
manifests in violent white supremacist rallies, accusing tweets, and the
forceful silencing of the opposition through intimidation and abuse.
While violent patrons of the white nationalist movement are afforded
media coverage and outlets for their ideology, marked by divisive lan-
guage, women and minorities are increasingly threatened by the influ-
ence that such movements have on their ability to exist freely in the
United States. Playwright Antoinette Nwandu writes in her article
“Reading Audre Lorde’s ‘Sister Outsider’ After Charlottesville” that
Lorde’s work can and should be used as a tool to validate the identities
of marginalized Americans, shifting narrow conceptions of what it
means to be an American. Nwandu’s essay, written in response to a
violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, repurposes
Lorde’s work by suggesting that “outsiders” within the United States,
or those threatened under white supremacist ideology, “must take full
possession of [their] demographic specificity” and reclaim their own
identities in order to redefine the collective American identity by val-
idating those silenced by the white heteropatriarchy (Nwandu).
Nwandu’s ambition, while perhaps idealistic, is not without its
precedents. Under Nwandu’s framework of American political condi-
tions, Lorde champions the reclamation of identity and its accompa-
nying language in order to elevate and validate differences as part of
the American existence, placing power within those differences.
Lorde reimagines the power that identities hold, giving strength to
the silenced outsider. This idea seems almost unimaginable today,
where hostility is often the common political denominator. But the
validation and celebration of differences in the the United States is

best accomplished through language. The simultaneously destructive
and empowering abilities of language that Lorde so deeply engages
with are alarmingly relevant in a country where 280 characters can
mean war or peace. Language, Lorde warns us, is violent and active,
and it is through this dynamic force that change takes place. Words,
when pushed into the world, have the power to destroy careers, to
unseat politicians, to permanently change and dismantle entire
empires.
Time magazine’s 2017 Person of the Year award embodies just
that—the ability of language to fight back against silence and oppres-
sion. Aptly named the “Silence Breakers,” the women chosen for
Time’s prestigious award represent themselves as well as all of the
other women and men involved in the disclosure of systemic sexual
abuse within several industries. Their words, propagated through arti-
cles, exposés, interviews, tweets, and open letters, devastated the
careers of once-powerful men, creating what is now known as the
#MeToo movement and forever breaking the silence previously
endured by sexual abuse victims. The single catalyst for that change,
the impetus for setting it in motion, is language. By adopting the label
of ‘victim’ while embodying the strength and power rarely associated
with victimhood, the women and men at the heart of the accusations
reclaim the power exhibited by the abusers, using language to topple
the abusive, patriarchal tower as it stands. They, like Audre Lorde,
refuse to be silenced, refuse to be invisible. The abuse and oppression
of the white heteropatriarchy perpetuate a system of isolation, but
through language, “divide and conquer must become define and
empower” (“Master’s Tools” 112). With the power to reclaim, to
redefine, to destroy, to shift the confines of society as they currently
exist, the choice to use language is our own. This power, though
seemingly so, is not limitless. The reclamation of Black will not erase
centuries of systematic oppression, and no number of exposés will heal
the scars of sexual abuse. As Lorde suggests, language alone may not
be enough to dismantle the oppressive societal structures upon which
white heteropatriarchy proudly rests, but the visibility that such lan-
guage provides is, in itself, a victory.
8 Mercer Street
WORKS CITED
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press,

1984.
—. “Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist’s Response.” Pp. 72-80.
—. “Poetry Is Not a Luxury.” Pp. 36-39.
—. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s
House.” Pp. 110-113.
—. “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.” Pp.
40-44.
Nwandu, Antoinette. “Reading Audre Lorde’s ‘Sister Outsider’
After Charlottesville.” Los Angeles Review of Books, 30 Oct.
2017, www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/reading-audre-lordes-
sister-outsider-after-charlottesville/#!.
Olson, Lester C. “Liabilities of Language: Audre Lorde Reclaiming
Difference.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 84, no. 4, 1 Nov.
1998, pp. 448–470.
Wagaman, M. Alex. “Self-Definition as Resistance: Understanding
Identities among LGBTQ Emerging Adults.” Journal of LGBT
Youth, vol. 13, no. 3, Feb. 2016, pp. 207–230.
THE DESCENT OF WOMAN: JOINING
THE ACADEMIC CONVERSATION
Adelia Gaffney
F
or centuries, women have been denied the right to formal
learning, sentenced to watch their brothers venture off to
university to obtain an education unavailable to women and
girls. Many of these women have fought for the right to join
the academic conversation. In developed countries, numbers of us
have won that right, but we sometimes forget just how important our
contributions to this conversation are. In “Claiming an Education,”
Adrienne Rich delivers a commencement speech to the young women
of Douglass College, a women’s college within Rutgers University. In
this speech from 1977, Rich stresses the importance of being active in
one’s role as a woman in higher education, arguing that passivity will
not only slow our progress towards equal opportunity, but also rein-
force the labels that society has historically placed on women: that we
are “self-denying,” noncommittal beings who should be “acted-upon”
rather than taking actions ourselves (299, 297).
Rich posits that to reject these labels and to “claim,” as opposed
to “receive,” our education “as the rightful owner[s]” thereof, we must
assume “responsibility toward [our]selves” (297, 298). But this ‘me
first’ mentality is in stark contrast to the roles that women have tradi-
tionally played: the mother, the wife, and the lover, for example. In
essence, their labor here may be perceived as a quest to become more
like men in order to achieve the same rights, respect, and opportuni-
ties that men have been given by the cultures that they have, generally,
constructed. However, it is important to note that Rich is not sug-
gesting that we, as women, must become men, but rather that we
must push to assume the roles that men have assigned to themselves
through the construction of our patriarchal society. Men are not bet-
ter suited to succeed in the academic world; rather, they have designed
the system as one that primarily aligns with their values. Therefore,
Rich states that setting ourselves up to excel in a man-made system
may require the assumption of certain stereotypically ‘masculine’
10 Mercer Street
traits, such as placing oneself first and valuing work at the same level
as personal relationships. But did we not gain anything of value dur-
ing our time in those traditional, assigned roles that we should carry
with us in our progress? If we reject or suppress what might be called
our ‘feminine instincts,’ however they may be defined, what will pre-
vent women from becoming just like the men by whom we have been
oppressed?
Virginia Woolf ponders this question in Three Guineas through
a hypothetical letter to an honorary treasurer who has asked for
money in support of a “society for helping the daughters of educated
men to obtain employment in the professions” (113). Woolf says that
she will only donate to this cause if the treasurer can promise her that
the women to be helped will “practice those professions in such a way
as to prevent war” (113). This admittedly vague statement is prefaced
by the first part of the essay, wherein Woolf argues that the instinct
to fight is quintessentially male, not held or enacted by women.
Essentially, what such a demand truly stipulates is that any hypothet-
ical society must ensure that the professional women it produces do
not turn out just like professional men, who, according to Woolf, have
lost their sense of humanity. It is the duty of these soon-to-be profes-
sional women to ask themselves very important questions about where
their futures are taking them and what sacrifices they are willing to
make on the pathway to those futures. Like Rich, Woolf sees the edu-
cation and employment of women as essential to the quest for equal
rights, an effort that comes with immense responsibility and sacrifice.
However, whereas Rich pushes for movement away from the societal
expectations of women, Woolf stresses the importance of holding on
to what the task of being a woman has taught us. She urges us to listen
to our “unpaid-for education,” the lessons that our mothers, grand-
mothers, and the women before them learned first, and what these
educations have enabled us to see (123). Woolf argues that this edu-
cation, taught by “the four great teachers . . . poverty, chastity, deri-
sion, and freedom from unreal loyalties,” will enable women to enter
professions while remaining “uncontaminated by them” (124).
Though Rich does not directly praise ‘feminine’ traits, as Woolf
does, she never suggests that we ought to deny our identities as
women. On the contrary, Rich repeatedly emphasizes that the educa-
Descent of Woman 11
tion of the female mind has the potential to be even more enriching
than that of the male, as there is so much untapped potential, so much
to add to the conversation. In fact, she asserts that “there is no more
exhilarating and intellectually fertile place in the academic world
today than a women’s college—if both students and teachers in large
enough numbers are trying to fulfill this contract” (301). This “if”
illustrates just how much responsibility is placed upon those who seek
(and provide) higher education. According to Rich, the potential of
women’s education arises from our ability to remedy a “devastating
weakness of university learning, . . . its almost total erasure of women’s
experience and thought from the curriculum” (297). Ever since men
decided that they were the intellectually superior sex, they have been
the primary authors of academic texts, many of which we still study
today. However, due to the prevalent sexist biases when these texts
were written and published, women are often inaccurately written
about or left out of the discussion altogether. Therefore, as women
first entered into the world of higher education, they were presented
with curricula that described only “what men, above all white men, in
their male subjectivity, have decided is important” (298). The new
role of women is to fill in the gap that has been left in academia
because of the outdated view that our thoughts are not valid.
However, in order to fill in this gap, we must always be cognizant of
its existence, rather than merely grateful that we have been granted
the opportunity to learn. And that requires actively engaging with
everything that we consume during our academic careers, whether by
thinking critically about books that fail to mention women, though
they claim “to describe a ‘human’ reality,” or by refusing to be “eroti-
cized” by our male professors (298, 300). This action of “think[ing]
actively” is, in itself, an objection to the outdated expectation that
women should be passive (300).
Rich presents the opportunity for formal education as a chance to
break away from the societal expectations that have held women back
for so long. She speaks of assembling as the “courage to be ‘different’;
not to be continuously available to others when we need time for our-
selves and our work” (299). The demands associated with pursuing
our education in this way might, according to Rich, elicit an urge to
take the “easy” way out—to take easy courses, marry young, and get
12 Mercer Street
pregnant (299). But, Rich insists, we must push forward. We must

challenge ourselves and prove that we are more than what the past
says we must be, and we must not become “the intelligent woman
who denies her intelligence in order to seem more ‘feminine’” (299).
However, is it not just as detrimental to our identities to deny our
femininity in order to seem more intelligent? Suppressing our basic
instincts to care and nurture for a life of what Rich views as “mean-
ingful work” may indirectly devalue the lives of all the women before
us (299)—women who, as Woolf says, have always “thought while
they stirred the pot, while they rocked the cradle” (115). Maybe the
real opportunity in the right to formal education is the power to
choose which ‘feminine’ traits we want to reject and, possibly of even
more importance, which ones we want to take with us as we embark
on this journey. Though a fresh start may seem enticing, we must
never fully let go of what makes us women: our unique understanding
of human nature that has arisen from our roles as caregivers and our
biological instinct to nurture. It is the qualities derived from our
“unpaid-for educations” in conjunction with the insight that comes
from centuries of being silenced that will allow women to contribute
something new to the academic conversation.
Camille Paglia discusses the various ways women—both stereo-
typically ‘feminine’ and less so—and the discipline of feminism can
and should be included in academia in “Academic Feminists Must
Begin to Fulfill Their Noble, Animating Ideal.” In this essay, written
in 1997, Paglia calls for the restructuring of gender studies (previously
known as women’s studies) in American universities. Arguing against
the curriculum of primarily theoretical feminism, which credits “gen-
der differences entirely to social conditioning,” Paglia illustrates the
failure of academic feminism to “keep pace with changes in the real
world” (111, 113). She emphasizes the importance of “represent[ing]
all sides of the debate” through the discussion of contrasting view-
points on feminism and the inclusion of science as a basis for investi-
gating differences between men and women (117). In her opinion, the
failure to do so is “indoctrination, not education” (117). Though
Paglia writes mainly about the subject of gender studies itself, her
warning of the dangers of a static, one-sided education in feminism is
equally important for women in other disciplines. If women are to
Descent of Woman 13
make informed decisions about which feminine traits they value and
identify with, they must take the time to explore the roots of their
woman-ness, to see how biology, social psychology, and history have
interwoven to create the ever-evolving modern woman—whether
they are directly studying women or not.
Furthermore, women within academia, whether students or fac-
ulty, must remember that the ‘modern woman’ is never any one thing.
We begin to see just how limiting feminist theory can be as Paglia
outlines the various “strains” of feminism adopted by the academic
community over time, from the “elitist” French theory of the 1970s to
the 1980s conversion to the “dated” ideas of “MacKinnonism,” which
purported the “scenario of male oppressors and frail female victims”
(111). For Paglia, these theoretical attempts to explain the complex
role of women in society have failed, as they were “ill-prepared” to
deal with the “controversial issues” facing women in the current world
(113, 112). This is likely due to the fact that no one theory or view-
point could ever possibly be representative of all women in this diverse
and ever-changing world. Furthermore, to assume that all women
should hold the same views about their femininity is to deny women
the freedom to think critically and make their own decisions, essen-
tially replacing the old set of societal expectations for women with a
new one. In doing so, we run the risk of suppressing the active think-
ing necessary to make valuable contributions to our fields. In order to
fill the aforementioned academic gap, differing, dynamic viewpoints
are necessary. Such viewpoints can be achieved through the inclusion
of a diverse group of women in the conversation.
Rich and Paglia agree on the point that active, critical thinking is
necessary for an effective education. But whereas Rich urges us to be
analytical about the “antiwoman” messages of a male-dominated uni-
versity (300), Paglia reminds us of the importance of being critical of
ideas and texts that claim to be pro-woman. These, too, can be mis-
leading. Paglia directly addresses women like Rich, criticizing the
feminist ideas that were largely embraced when “Claiming an
Education” was written. Though Rich herself may not have agreed
with all of these ideas, she fails to mention that there may be reasons
aside from social conditioning that contribute to gender differences.
Most importantly, she makes no reference to any type of science,
14 Mercer Street
though subjects such as genetics and social psychology are key to a full
understanding of the female mind. Rich tells us to reject what society
has told us we should be, but she insufficiently remarks on the diffi-
culties that may be involved in denying our feminine qualities.
Rebecca Solnit complicates this idea by asking us to reject this
entire line of questioning, asserting that feminine success takes many
forms. Solnit, a contemporary American writer who, like Rich, finds
empowerment in her academic career, begins her 2015 essay, “The
Mother of All Questions,” by recalling a question-and-answer session
following a talk she gave about Virginia Woolf. Instead of focusing on
the “magnificent questions” posed by Woolf’s work, much of the dis-
cussion seemed to revolve around the question of “whether Woolf
should have had children” (762). Though Solnit found this discussion
to be a “pointless detour” from Woolf’s work, she notes that many
women, including herself, are accustomed to this “line of questioning”
(762). She refers to such questions as “closed,” or “questions to which
there is only one right answer, at least as far as the interrogator is con-
cerned” (763). These types of questions are not limited to those who
choose not to have children; Solnit also notes the experiences of
mothers who are reduced to “bovine non-intellects” and professional
women who are “told that they cannot be taken seriously . . . because
they will go off and reproduce” (763). Later in the piece, Solnit
explores the ineffective and constraining nature of “one-size-fits-all
recipes” for happy lives, and the futility of using happiness as a meas-
ure for a fulfilled life (764). Women are repeatedly told that there is
one specific vocation to which they should devote their lives, a “key to
feminine identity,” but in reality, “There is no good answer to being a
woman; the art may instead lie in how we refuse the question” (765,
763).
Even so, Solnit’s ideas open up the possibilities for a life of fulfill-
ment, departing from the somewhat one-dimensional viewpoint of
“meaningful work” held by Rich. Rich praises the women who are
able to immerse themselves fully in their work, while criticizing the
ones who may follow their instinct to nurture—those who, according
to Rich, are “evad[ing] . . . already existing problems” (299).
Furthermore, she makes these lifestyles seem incompatible. Perhaps
this is because she believes that a mother could not afford enough
Descent of Woman 15
time to take on a life of meaningful work, or because she views the

desire to succeed academically and the desire to raise a family as
mutually exclusive. Solnit does not deny that a life completely devoted
to academic work and the perfection of one’s craft is meaningful; in
fact, this is the lifestyle that best suits her. However, unlike Rich, she
does not portray this lifestyle as more difficult or morally superior to
a life of marriage and children. Moreover, she reminds us of “how
spacious our lives can be,” suggesting that our love and attention “can
be directed at so many different things” (Solnit 767).
Rich’s ‘one-or-the-other’ attitude may encourage some women to
work harder, yes. But it also runs the risk of pressuring young women
to abandon traits they value because they feel it is the only way to suc-
ceed in their field. Having been directed down a path not entirely of
their own volition, such women may emerge from their educations
unsatisfied. Perhaps, then, the power lies in our ability to choose
freely what kinds of women we want to be. By fighting against social
pressures, whether those that have been in place for centuries or those
imposed by ‘feminist’ ideals, women will finally be able to allocate
their talent, intellect, and passion towards the vocations that they
deem most important in their lives. In doing so, we will end up with
the best of the best: scientists doing groundbreaking research, writers
calling attention to the serious problems of our time, and mothers
raising the next generation of great politicians and artists. Those who
truly care about their work, those who are unafraid to redefine their
unique identities as women, are the most successful, for they are the
women who will close the academic gap, and their daughters will be
the ones who will keep it shut forever.
WORKS CITED
Paglia, Camille. “Academic Feminists Must Begin To Fulfill Their

Noble, Animating Ideal.” Free Women Free Men, Pantheon
Books, 2017, pp. 109-117.
Rich, Adrienne. “Claiming an Education.” The Broadview
Anthology of Expository Prose, edited by Laura Buzzard et al.,
3rd ed., Broadview Press, 2016, pp. 297-301.
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Solnit, Rebecca. “The Mother of All Questions.” The Broadview

Woolf, Virginia. “from Three Guineas.” The Broadview Anthology
of Expository Prose, edited by Laura Buzzard et al., 3rd ed.,
Broadview Press, 2016, pp. 103-124.
JULIANA MOREIRA:
AN IDEAL TO STRIVE FOR
Isak Jones
T
he music momentarily fades, giving way to the rumbling
of tribal drums as the host and the participants turn their
gaze to the tropical-themed balcony. After a second of
anticipation, a woman bursts through the curtain’s hang-
ing beads, accompanied by ecstatic music, and dances under the flash-
ing lights, sensually swaying her waist from left to right, swirling her
busty physique, barely covered by her tight bikini. As the cheers rise,
she walks over and lasciviously slides down the pole to the stage, land-
ing on her high heels, never letting go of the camera with her wanton
eyes and her tempting smile.
What I am describing is not an elaborate strip club act, or even a
risqué Broadway play, but the opening of Cultura Moderna, an Italian
trivia show from just a decade ago. Cultura Moderna aired on one of
the most popular Italian TV channels and was aimed at an audience
of adults and kids alike. I watched it more than a couple of times as a
child, and once again when, for a job, I had to research sexist
moments in Italian television. While this intro scene was appalling
enough, making me realize instantly why my parents did not want me
to watch it, I could hardly call it the show’s worst moment.
Throughout its broadcast, Juliana Moreira, the ‘dancer’ previously
described, stands still and smiles at the camera in complacent silence,
opening her mouth only to give host Teo Mammucari a chance to
mock her Brazilian accent or tell her to shut up. As part of a gag the
writers evidently found funny, she occasionally tries to seduce the
host, who readily dismisses such attempts, his superiority presumably
given by his half-buttoned shirt, or his gel-filled curls. In the show,
Juliana is reduced to what Adrienne Rich might have called an
“[object] of sexual appetite devoid of emotional context, without indi-
vidual meaning or personality—essentially . . . a sexual commodity to
be consumed by males” (Rich 309). Rich’s ideas allow us to decon-
struct the role and influence of Moreira’s image.
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In her essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian

Existence,” Adrienne Rich bravely explores how women like Juliana
are forced into displaying and accepting heterosexual desire.
According to Rich, even in more traditional work environments, a
woman’s “job depends on her pretending to be not merely heterosex-
ual, but a heterosexual woman in terms of dressing and playing the
feminine . . . role required of ‘real’ women” (310). This requirement
to perform allows men to enforce “male power” and control in order
to maintain “sexual inequality” (306). Rich’s call for action against
such performances is as aggressive as it is urgent, thoroughly detailing
the subtle and unjust ways in which the patriarchy traps women who
merely want to fit into so-called “compulsory heterosexuality” (302).
To Rich, this insistence on “playing” the heterosexual woman is
especially problematic because it prevents women from freely express-
ing their lesbian dispositions. Rich refers not only to homosexual
female love, but also to “a range . . . of woman-identified experience,”
including “the sharing of a rich inner life” and “the bonding against
male tyranny” (313), as shared by “all women” (314). This range of
experiences, which she calls the “lesbian continuum,” “allows
[women] to connect” with each other (314, 315). While this concept
initially may seem strange, Rich establishes it for a specific purpose,
allowing for the possibility of a society where women do not have to
rely on men, either to be productive in the workplace, or, more sim-
ply, to be content.
A representation of such “femmes seules” in a community of
women-connected existence can be found throughout history in
unexpected places (Rich 303). I found one in Les Demoiselles
d’Avignon, even though Pablo Picasso—a womanizer whose works
are hardly ever seen as progressive—painted it. The canvas depicts five
women, all in various degrees of nakedness, as seen through a distort-
ed kaleidoscopic lens that is typical for Picasso. As in many of his
other works, the illusion of depth that many paintings strive for is
shattered through the fragmentation of the women’s bodies into
faded, distorted flesh. The torso of the second woman from the left,
for example, could easily be that of a lower, side perspective, but it is
connected to a waist, an arm, and a face as seen from the front. The
subversion of perspective in the painting deconstructs the physique of
Juliana Moreira 19
the female body, but it does not go so far as to make it unrecognizable.

Sensuality, for example, is not eliminated, and the shards of female
bodies do not hide the rosy color of their skin or their voluptuous
curves and breasts. The canvas represents actual women, since it
depicts every part of the women’s bodies, including their sensuality; it
just does so in an unconventional manner. Gathered among them-
selves, the women share their sensuality with each other, seemingly
independently of any male participant or observer, whose arousal is
offset by the painting’s perspectival distortions. Moreover, the women
looking at the viewer do not smile or feign any type of heterosexual
attraction to any hypothetical male viewer; they almost challenge the
male gaze of the artist painting them. In stark contrast to Juliana’s
wide, seductive smile, the two women at the center stare numbly
while showcasing their full breasts, their lips listless, almost as if to
ask: So what? Images like these, representing a more complex and rich
reality of female sexuality, make me realize the sheer absurdity of
images such as that of Juliana.
This earnest realization of mine is a testament to people’s accept-
ance of compulsory heterosexuality, and a hint that Juliana amounts
to far more than a mere representation. Its dominance is less surpris-
ing if, as Rich suggests, heterosexuality is “recognized and studied as
a political institution,” rooted in the maintenance of male power and
control (Rich 305). From this political perspective, the effect of het-
erosexuality may be compared to that of an institution like colonial-
ism. In Decolonizing the Mind, Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
describes how, after physical subjugation, colonizers in Kenya affected
the culture of the colonized through language (346). In particular,
Ngũgĩ designates the written language in schools as the British colo-
nialists’ most powerful instrument of control because it caused “disso-
ciation, divorce, or alienation from the immediate environment”
(347). For Ngũgĩ, the “immediate environment” refers to the indige-
nous Kenyan reality, which was maintained at home through the
indigenous language, but deliberately undervalued at school, where
European culture was enforced (347). Ngũgĩ argues that the coloniz-
er’s physical subjugation was not sufficient for complete economic and
political control—instead, it was key to dominate “the mental uni-
20 Mercer Street
verse of the colonized,” their thoughts, in order to dominate their

actions, their identities, and their roles in society (346).
This use of language to dominate a people’s culture resonates pro-
foundly with Adrienne Rich, who characterizes visual media, such as
hardcore and softcore pornography and advertisements, as an “influ-
ence on consciousness” that conditions the mental state of the viewers
(309). While pornography and advertisements are not written texts,
they communicate through a system of visual signs and symbols to a
widespread audience. Moreover, as influencers of consciousness, they
affect the way we perceive women, making one consider a “woman
who . . . resists sexual overtures in the workplace” as “‘dried up’ and
sexless, or lesbian” (Rich 310). This dissociation extends further,
however, and inward, until it is felt in relation to oneself. Rich writes
that “indoctrination in male credibility and status can still create
synapses in thought, denials of feeling, wishful thinking, a profound
sexual and intellectual confusion” (312). In this way, women become
confused about their own sexual role in society. Ngũgĩ agrees that
such indoctrination can lead to confusions about identity, asserting,
“To control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition
in relationship to others” (346). Much as the colonizer’s written word
alienates Kenyan children from their own culture and surroundings,
the saturation of sexualized heterosexual women in visual media alien-
ates women from their own sexuality. This active process of control
and alienation suggests that Juliana represents women who are subject
to male power just as much as she enforces such power.
However, women are not purely defined by their sexuality. In
fact, understanding the issue at hand requires subverting an even more
fundamental notion: that of gender. Writer and theorist Paul B.
Preciado challenges traditional ideas of gender and sex in his provoca-
tive essay, “Technogender.” Following notions of consciousness and
self-definition, Preciado explains how gender enables “the production
of inner knowledge about oneself, with a sense of sexual self that
appears to be an emotional reality evident to consciousness” by mod-
ern technology (117). But Preciado notes that this “inner knowledge”
can be threatened by modern technologies, which often conflate gen-
der and sex. This idea arises from the way in which intersex babies in
the mid-twentieth century received surgeries to physically resemble
Juliana Moreira 21
female babies, through procedures such as vaginoplasty and hormone

substitution therapy (100). According to Preciado, such treatments
were not only supposed to physically modify the subjects, but also led
them to construct their own subjectivity and identification as female
(100). While this is certainly the most striking example of modern
technology striving to affect a person’s gender, it is not the only one,
and is only part of a range of “technologies of gender” (108). Most of
these technologies, such as treatment for hirsutism or the contracep-
tive pill, are biological modifiers (115). Importantly, Preciado consid-
ers visual media and entertainment to be similarly harmful to one’s
sexuality (118). The role of media makes sense if one remembers that
the purpose of such technologies “is not hormonal, but political, nor-
malization” (114). Preciado’s concern not only echoes Rich’s previous
claim of visual media as influencers of consciousness, it also radicalizes
it, extending the influence from sexual identity to gender identity.
According to this new view, visual media, in tandem with the most
advanced biological technologies, aim to enforce a certain image of
what it is to be a woman, forcing individuals into accepted socio-
political categories.
In light of this view of gender, it is important to recognize
Preciado’s radical differences from Adrienne Rich. In her essay, Rich
writes that in overcoming compulsory heterosexuality, “The work that
lies ahead, of unearthing and describing what I call here ‘lesbian exis-
tence,’ is potentially liberating for all women” (318). This claim of
universal liberation falls apart in the face of Preciado’s argument, who
states that “feminism functions, or can function, as an instrument of
normalization and political control when it reduces its subject to
‘women’” (Preciado 107). The danger is that Rich might be perpetu-
ating the same political “normalization” and “control” that she is sup-
posed to be fighting. While Rich challenges compulsory heterosexu-
ality, she is also entrapping individuals into the category of “woman,”
which might be more of a social construct than an ontological truth.
However, this potential normalization should not take away from
the common ground between the two thinkers, and how they can help
us understand the images of which Juliana is but an example. On the
basis of these texts, Juliana could be seen as enforcing for the viewing
population not only a certain ideal of sexuality, but of gender as well.
22 Mercer Street
I have never met a woman who naturally acted and dressed exactly like
Juliana, yet, for some odd reason, I can’t imagine being too surprised
if I did. She is a fiction that has generated real expectations. French
philosopher Jean Baudrillard defined the simulacrum as the hollow
image that precedes the real entity it refers to—in my eyes, Juliana
Moreira is the exemplary female heterosexual simulacrum.
Moreira was not the only woman on Italian television to perform
this role. Indeed, she was far from alone, a mere copy of an image that
had long been normalized. The medium was flooded with smiling
half-naked women in shows that had absolutely nothing to do with
them, used as a marketing ploy to lure in a wider audience, including
fathers who could enjoy the softcore-pornographic appeal while pro-
viding fun for the whole family. Inevitably, these images instilled in
children of Italian families ideas about what it means to be a woman,
influencing expectations for boys and girls alike. The consequences of
this normalization have affected everyone I know who grew up in
Italy during that time. This includes an old coworker, Benedetta, an
accomplished Italian journalist who regularly tours in the Middle East
to film documentaries on some of the bloodiest ongoing wars. “At
least we got rid of her, the bitch,” she told me when I mentioned that
Juliana had left the newest edition of the show. As I watched
Benedetta’s tired eyes flip through hundreds of Italian television clips,
all featuring audiences cheering to tightly-clad bombshells and racy
jokes, I could not help but wonder about her own hardship, about
growing up in a country where seductive, sexualized women were
offered as an ideal to strive for.
WORKS CITED
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila

Faria Glaser, University of Michigan Press, 1994.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. “from Decolonizing the Mind.” The Broadview
Picasso, Pablo. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. 1907, oil on canvas,
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Juliana Moreira 23
Preciado, Paul B. “Technogender.” Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and

Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era, Feminist Press,
2013, pp. 99-129.
Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian
Existence.” The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose,
edited by Laura Buzzard et al., 3rd ed., Broadview Press, 2016,
pp. 301-319.
Ricci, Antonio, creator. Cultura Moderna. Canale 5, 2006.
DON’T GET TOO COMFORTABLE
Olivia LeVan
O
n October 5, 2017, the New York Times published the
article, “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment
Accusers for Decades,” launching the Hollywood
mogul’s sexual misconduct into the public eye. Since
then, “more than sixty accusations of varying degrees of harassment
. . . and twenty-seven accusations of sexual assault” against Weinstein
have surfaced, spanning over three decades (Thulin). Writers Jodi
Kantor and Megan Twohey opened a floodgate to an issue that has
plagued the entertainment industry for years—and it has yet to close.
This dramatic influx of accusations may seem like a recent develop-
ment, but sexual misconduct has been part of Hollywood for so long
that the act of influential men using their power to take advantage of
young women has its own name: the casting couch. Sexual miscon-
duct is not a new issue; it is an old one that, as outsiders of the indus-
try, we have consciously ignored, reducing it to a euphemism.
The danger of the casting couch euphemism is that by giving this
misconduct an inoffensive name, we can pretend to be unaware of the
severity of these crimes. In her article “The ‘Casting Couch’
Euphemism Lets Us Pretend Hollywood’s All Right,” Claire Fallon
looks at the way the phrase is used to disregard sexual harassment. As
she points out, “the very phrase seems designed to prevent us from
thinking too hard about what it means. Casting couch. It describes
the setting instead of the act, the furniture instead of the sexual extor-
tion and violence” (Fallon). The euphemism allows the public to both
acknowledge and disregard the acts of these men, the horrors of their
crimes hidden behind a seemingly innocuous name. “Casting couch”
evokes images of the seamy side of early Hollywood; one can imagine
“a cigar-chomping producer coaxing an ingenue onto a couch in his
private office, offering a role in exchange for a blowjob” (Fallon).
These images, however, create a barrier between Hollywood now and
then. One wants to believe the corruption of the entertainment indus-
try has declined with time, yet with more than thirty-four men
accused of various degrees of sexual misconduct since the allegations
25 Mercer Street
against Harvey Weinstein surfaced, it is impossible to ignore the issue

(Almukhtar).
Accusations of sexual misconduct within the entertainment
industry are as old as Hollywood itself. The phrase “casting couch”
can be dated back to the early 1900s, when it initially referred to the
actual couch castings were held on and on which sexual acts were per-
formed in exchange for roles. According to Ben Zimmer, who pro-
vides a history of this problematic symbol in his article “‘Casting
Couch’: The Origins of a Pernicious Hollywood Cliché,” “The cast-
ing-couch tradition originated in theatrical productions on Broadway
well before the Hollywood film industry became the new locus of the
entertainment world” (Zimmer). Until the late nineteenth century,
actresses, who often emphasized their attractiveness and sexuality
during performances, were viewed with the same disdain as sex work-
ers. This comparison carried into the early twentieth century along
with the idea that “filmmakers must try out the goods in order to cast
an actress who can make America (that is, straight American men) fall
in love” (Fallon; Adams).
Women weren’t the only victims of the casting couch, though, as
Thelma Adams points out in her article, “Casting-Couch Tactics
Plagued Hollywood Long Before Harvey Weinstein.” Henry Wilson,
a notorious casting couch agent of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, had
a habit of convincing young men he could help them become stars
(Adams). For them, there was an added risk of blackmail and expo-
sure, for “yielding to sex with men in order to gain access” gave them
“even more incentive to keep quiet about sexually exploitative business
practices” (Adams). The casting couch goes beyond men wanting sex
and writing it off as “[try]ing out the goods”; it is truly about power
and using whatever means necessary to maintain it. As the movie
industry expanded, so did the practice and usage of the term “casting
couch.” By the 1960s, the phrase began to shed its literal meaning,
becoming “emblematic of the way that sexual aggression has been
normalized in an industry dominated by powerful men” (Zimmer).
The couches might have been thrown away, but “the environment
they bred would linger” (Zimmer).
Powerful men maintain their dominance by preying on young,
vulnerable women beyond the confines of Hollywood. According to
an ABC/Washington Post poll, more than half of women in the

United States have been subjected to inappropriate advances at work,
and “of those, [eighty] percent said the encounter approached the
level of sexual harassment. One-third said it amounted to sexual
abuse” (Swan). “‘This translates to approximately 33 million
American women being sexually harassed, and 14 million sexually
abused, in work-related incidents,’ the pollsters write,” as quoted by
Noelle Swan in her article “‘Casting Couch’ Or ‘Crime Scene’? How
Language Promotes Culture of Sexual Harassment.” Swan examines
the role language has in the discussion of sexual harassment within
American society, as this issue does not just lie in the hills of
Hollywood. In fact, it has plagued our society long before La La Land
was even established. While we can understand, to a certain extent,
how and why we have missed this blatant corruption within the enter-
tainment industry, it is harder to explain how we missed something
that has occurred right in front of us for centuries. The answer lies in
language.
Qi Pan, in the scholarly journal “A Tentative Study on the
Functions and Applications of English Euphemism,” looks at euphe-
mism as a social and linguistic phenomenon and considers many of its
functions. She provides multiple definitions of euphemism, but the
general consensus among dictionaries defines it as a “mild” or pleasant
expression that is used in lieu of a more “direct” and “harsh” one
(Pan). Pan argues that words themselves are meaningless; it is the
associations they have developed over time that define them (Pan).
This is how the casting couch came to encompass the corrupt sexual
politics that dominate Hollywood. The initial association of actresses
performing sexual acts on couches found in producers’ and casting
agents’ offices evolved into a symbol of the normalization of sexual
harassment within the entertainment industry.
Isn’t it concerning, though, that sexual harassment is so common-
place in Hollywood that a special title is attributed to what would oth-
erwise be called ‘workplace harassment?’ With more than thirty-four
men accused of sexual misconduct and over sixty women coming for-
ward with their experiences with harassment from a single man, it is
impossible to believe Hollywood has been pristine prior to this
moment. Yet, with its own special term, exchanging sexual favors for
27 Mercer Street
roles seems to be the norm in this supposedly glamorous industry.

Tales of this nature about Hollywood have led to the creation of a
standard trope that minimizes the weight of abusers’ actions as well as
the impact it has on victims. This normalization creates a scenario in
which powerful men feel they are authorized to take advantage of
women, and women feel they are forced to succumb to these
advances, fulfilling the roles in a story that has been written over and
over again throughout history (Simpkin). In this industry, where get-
ting noticed by the right person can lead to a lifetime of fame and suc-
cess, trading sex for roles is apparently just a part of the job.
However, within the entertainment industry, the lines between
the intimate and professional are often blurred, making it difficult for
the victim to distinguish between an awkward encounter and inappro-
priate advance. Lupita Nyong’o, an award-winning actress, joined the
other sixty women who have spoken up about Weinstein’s sexual
advances and shared her experience with the casting couch. Her piece
highlights the difference in position between powerful men like
Weinstein and aspiring actresses like Nyong’o at the time, and how
easy it is for those men to manipulate young women. She knew she
“was entering into a business where the intimate is often professional
and so the lines are blurred” and used this idea to excuse Weinstein’s
unwarranted sexual advances (Nyong’o). At the time, she was aware
that Weinstein’s advances were wrong, and she vowed never to work
with him or men like him again. But, it was when other women began
speaking out against Weinstein that Nyong’o was also able to. She
explains, “[Weinstein] was one of the first people I met in the indus-
try, and he told me, ‘This is the way it is.’ And wherever I looked,
everyone seemed to be bracing themselves and dealing with him,
unchallenged” (Nyong’o). For years, sexual harassment in Hollywood
was considered inherent to the industry. It was known to happen, as
victims like Nyong’o tried to share their experiences, yet their accusa-
tions were dismissed because of the belief that intimate interaction,
warranted or not, came with the job. By holding this belief, we, as
bystanders to the industry, are complicit in the perpetuation of sexual
harassment and assault in Hollywood.
As spectators to the entertainment industry, we hold fantasies
that taint our view of Hollywood. The entertainment industry is laced
with mystique and glamour, so it is fitting that it utilizes a more daz-

zling name for what would otherwise be called workplace harassment.
As Fallon demonstrates, “Sure, groping would seem inappropriate
during an interview for a sales management position, but Hollywood,
we understand, must operate by its own rules to allow for creative
genius to work” (Fallon). By viewing it as a unique, untouchable
realm, we place a partition between ourselves and Hollywood, creat-
ing a divide between these two seemingly different worlds—not
because they are so different, but because “most of us want the film
world to be different from the workplace mundanity we experience”
(Fallon). Yet this divide is made of glass; despite wanting to section
off these two worlds, we still want to know what is happening in the
other. As viewers, we want a certain level of intimacy with celebrities
and, with recent developments in social media, which allow for more
immediate and direct contact, we even expect it. Despite wanting this
intimacy, we also want to maintain our fragile fantasies of Hollywood,
creating an environment in which we are aware of the existence of
sexual harassment, but continue to ignore it, acting as if it is as fake as
the roles these actresses take on.
Due to the way sexual assault and harassment are discussed, both
in Hollywood and in general, the victim is blamed rather than the
perpetrator. This victim blaming dismisses and perpetuates sexual
harassment and assault. As Swan says, “the words society chooses to
use to describe sexual harassment and assault—and the tone we cast
them with—can tint the lens the public uses to assign judgment,
belief, or blame.” By using an indirect phrase, “casting couch,” to refer
to sexual harassment in Hollywood, we are not only disguising the
ugly reality that lies beneath, but giving protection to perpetrators.
Pan explains, “When a word is attached with psychologically unpleas-
ant elements, people try to find a colored word to avert an unpleasant
fact. Therefore, it is natural for euphemisms to come into being and
be used to soften an offensive or unpleasant expression.” However, the
casting couch doesn’t protect those who need it the most: victims.
Instead, it hides the conduct of perpetrators and the reality of the
problem from complicit bystanders. When discussing sexual assault,
language has an immense impact; it can help empower victims, but it
can also silence them. After the initial allegations against Harvey
29 Mercer Street
Weinstein, many women within his sphere were thankful for the dis-
crete warnings they were given to steer clear of the mogul. While hav-
ing a conversation is encouraging, discussing sexual assault in “hushed
tones and veiled words of caution . . . fosters a culture where unwant-
ed advances—even overt coercion—are seen as a normal part of
female life” (Swan). This phenomenon, combined with the all too
common attacks on women’s character when attempting to discern
the truth behind sexual assault allegations, make women believe it is
their job to prevent such events by behaving a certain way.
To this extent, the largest issue with the casting couch, besides
the acts that it encompasses, is the phrase itself. It conceals the horri-
ble actions of those powerful, manipulative men behind a seemingly
innocuous phrase. As Fallon demonstrates, “‘casting couch’ sounds
gentle; ‘he extorted sex from vulnerable women’ does not” (Fallon).
The reliance on euphemisms and vague language diminishes the harm
that results from sexual assault, blurring the lines between appropriate
and inappropriate. In 2015, during the case of Brock Turner, a college
athlete who was convicted on three counts of felony sexual assault, the
media and those defending Turner questioned whether he should be
sentenced to life in prison for “twenty minutes of misguided action”
(Swan). Theresa Simpkin, a professor who studies the connections
between language and bias, says, “If we change that language to his
being penalized for ‘20 minutes of sexual, premeditated assault on a
defenseless, unconscious victim’ it changes the way we actually see
that behavior” (qtd. in Swan). As Pan states, “by using euphemism,
ambiguity can be produced and truth can be hidden. As a conse-
quence, some profiteers and politicians are likely to use euphemism to
make it a language of deceit.” This same idea can be applied to the
casting couch: if we begin calling the actions hiding behind this
euphemism for what they actually are—sexual harassment, sexual
assault, unwanted advances, coercion, rape—then maybe the men
who commit these crimes will actually be held accountable for their
actions.
The truth is, these perpetrators are protected by a host of
euphemistic phrases that disguise their true intentions and actions.
While victims’ characters are viciously attacked during sexual harass-
ment and assault trials, perpetrators get off the hook simply because
they were ‘only joking,’ and sadly, we often believe them. Donald
Trump, the current US President, has used a similar phrase as a
defense against allegations that surfaced during his campaign. His
“lewd remarks” on Access Hollywood “about being able to do ‘any-
thing’ to women” was chalked up to “locker room talk”; however, the
context suggested otherwise (Swan). His words didn’t seem like
harmless banter, but rather like something he had actually done in the
past. The phrase “locker room talk,” like the casting couch, is a refer-
ence to the setting instead of the action. The locker room, like
Hollywood, seems to be an exclusive place where standard rules don’t
apply. It is in this room that ‘boys can be boys,’ where their words are
deemed insignificant—after all, they were ‘just joking.’ “Locker room
talk” is another harmful phrase found in the daily lexicon that dimin-
ishes the gravity of sexual harassment by promoting the innocence of
its perpetrators, making them seem like a group of schoolboys goofing
off after gym class. Because language attempts to excuse these harmful
behaviors, we must work to change not only the words that are used
to discuss sexual harassment but the manner in which they are spoken
as well.
When explaining why victims of sexual assault do not come for-
ward with their stories sooner, Nyong’o offers this thought: “That’s
why we don’t speak up—for fear of suffering twice, and for fear of
being labeled and characterized by our moment of powerlessness.”
Not only do the perpetrators defile their victims, they also rob them
of the one thing they never thought they could lose: their voices.
Hollywood and the entertainment industry are seen as untouchable
realms. As a result, many men feel they are able to get away with their
actions. Hollywood, however, does not have a monopoly on sexual
harassment; the only difference between sexual harassment in
Hollywood and sexual harassment in the rest of society is that it is
hidden better in plain sight, cozily tucked away behind the casting
couch euphemism. We must change the way we speak about sexual
harassment to stop harmful practices like the casting couch. To assign
blame to the perpetrators and give victims their voices back, we need
to change the way we speak about sexual harassment. Maybe then we
can finally kick this ratty old couch to the curb.
31 Mercer Street
WORKS CITED
Adams, Thelma. “Casting-Couch Tactics Plagued Hollywood Long

Before Harvey Weinstein.” Variety,
www.variety.com/2017/film/features/casting-couch-hollywood-
sexual-harassment-harvey-weinstein-1202589895.
Almukhtar, Sarah, et al. “After Weinstein: The Fallout for 34 Men
Accused of Sexual Misconduct, From Lewd Texts to Rape.”
The New York Times, 10 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/inter-
active/2017/11/10/us/men-accused-sexual-misconduct-wein-
stein.html.
Fallon, Claire. “The ‘Casting Couch’ Euphemism Lets Us Pretend
Hollywood’s All Right.” Huffington Post, 18 Oct. 2017,
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-casting-couch-euphemism-
lets-us-pretend-hollywoods-all right_us_
59e51bcbe4b0ca9f483a0fb2.
Kantor, Jodi, and Megan Twohey. “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off
Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades.” The New York
Times, 5 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-
weinstein-harassment-allegations.html.
Nyong’o, Lupita. “Lupita Nyong’o: Speaking Out About Harvey
Weinstein.” The New York Times, 19 Oct. 2017,
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/opinion/lupita-nyongo-harvey-
weinstein.html.
Pan, Qi. “A Tentative Study on the Functions and Applications of
English Euphemism.” Theory and Practice in Language
Studies, vol. 3, no. 11, 2013, pp. 2107-2111, www.academypub-
lication.com/issues/past/tpls/vol03/11/25.pdf.
Simpkin, Theresa. “Euphemisms such as the casting couch must go
– they’ve been used to normalise abuse for too long.” The
Conversation, 13 Oct. 2017,
www.theconversation.com/euphemisms-such-as-the-casting-
couch-must-go-theyve-been-used-to-normalise-abuse-for-too-
long-85699.
Swan, Noelle. “‘Casting Couch’ Or ‘Crime Scene’? How Language
Promotes Culture of Sexual Harassment.” The Christian
Science Monitor, 18 Oct. 2017,
www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2017/1018/Casting-couch-
or-crime-scene-Hollywood-s-culture-of-sexual-harassment.
Thulin, Lila. “A Complete List of Sexual Assault and Harassment
Allegations Against Harvey Weinstein.” Slate, 31 Oct. 2017,
www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/10/10/a_list_of_sexual_as
sault_and_harasment_allegations_against_harvey_wein-
stein.html.
Zimmer, Ben. “‘Casting Couch’: The Origins of a Pernicious
Hollywood Cliché.” The Atlantic, 16 Oct. 2017, www.theat-
lantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/casting-couch-the-
origins-of-a-pernicious-hollywood-cliche/543000.
THE EMPTY MASK
Paul Mapara
B
e yourself.” These words are found either literally or the-
matically in countless pop songs. They are a staple of ele-
mentary classroom posters across the nation and are embla-
zoned upon an endless series of ‘inspirational’ Facebook
posts—usually accompanied by a generic stock photo of mountains or
smiling actors. This platitude has been repeated so many times that it
has become almost entirely devoid of meaning. But it is still common-
ly accepted that at its core, the statement contains some notion of self-
hood—the undeniable and inescapable feeling every person has that
we are each a distinct being, that we each have identities shaped by
both our experiences and our inherent nature. This concept of self-
hood has followed humans since became able to communicate our
most remote and obscured feelings. Because the self, since its genesis,
has been linked with language, as humanity’s forms of communica-
tion change, a change in identities can be expected as well. Nowhere
has this been better exemplified than on the Internet—and particular-
ly Facebook—which has enabled the greatest tectonic shift in human
communication since the popularization of the telegraph.
In “Generation Why,” Zadie Smith analyzes the David Fincher
film The Social Network to discuss the philosophical and sociological
effects Facebook has on the generation raised with it. Smith laments
the inherent inability of software to capture a real human personality,
with all of its intricacies and contradictions, because “information
underrepresents reality” (653). She posits that rather than resulting in
a rejection of such software—the appropriate response, according to
her—this built-in deficiency has caused people to “‘reduce themselves’
in order to make a computer’s description of them appear more accu-
rate” (652). Facebook has, in other words, the potential to transform
its users into shells, nothing more than the images they choose to
project, and Smith believes that this has been borne out in the
“denuded selfhood” of her students (656). Despite her frustration
with the popularity of Facebook, Smith never offers a more direct
explanation for its obscene popularity than that it is “the greatest dis-
34 Mercer Street
traction from work” (652). It is certainly true that millions use

Facebook as a “distraction from work,” and many would agree that the
easy, mindless entertainment it offers forms a substantial part of its
appeal. But this ease cannot begin to explain why, among the infini-
tude of diversions available today, it is Facebook alone that has, with
2.1 billion active users—over a quarter of the human race—conquered
the known world (“Company Info”). How could a platform restricting
identity become such a popular tool for doing exactly that?
Perhaps the only effective way to gain insight into the heroin-like
spell Facebook holds over its users is to examine other, older forms of
distraction. In his essay “The World of Wrestling,” Roland Barthes
makes a semiotic analysis of amateur wrestling to argue that its exag-
gerated gestures and characterizations communicate clear and easily
recognizable themes of Good and “Evil, and . . . a Justice which is at
last intelligible” (210). The appeal of wrestling, Barthes concludes,
comes from the contrasting lack of clarity and comprehensibility in
the real world. Smith likewise discusses a type of incomprehensibility.
However, rather than focusing on the lack of an easily understandable
justice in the world, she turns her attention to the opacity of identity:
both of others and of the self. She believes that the rise of Facebook
comes at the cost of the “private person, a person who is a mystery, to
the world and . . . to herself” (656). Facebook removes any type of
mystery from the “2.0 Person,” as Smith calls this person, not by elu-
cidating the hidden, but by truncating those parts of an identity which
cannot be understood. Barthes’s discussion of wrestling as a symbolic
clarification of indecipherable realities, then, helps explain why
Facebook is so addicting: it satisfies our unquenchable desire to cate-
gorize and polish online personas that mask the “[p]erson as mystery”
(Smith 656). In the same way that wrestling offers viewers a reprieve
from the incoherence of the universe by presenting at least the illusion
of justice and destiny, Facebook allows 2.0 People to enter a space
where their ‘friends,’ rather than being messy, complex creatures, are
easily comprehensible and have been reduced to neat, categorized
questions and answers: “What is your relationship status? (Choose
one. There can be only one answer)” (Smith 656). Facebook further-
more provides the opportunity to curate precisely who these friends
are, allowing a user to create a private world where everything from
Empty Mask 35
people to politics conforms to their understanding of the world.

When viewed in this light, it becomes clear that the profiles portrayed
on Facebook are as much a spectacle as any play or wrestling match.
While wrestling provides a simulated relief from the “constitutive
ambiguity of everyday situations,” Facebook offers a simplification of
the world itself, in which the indecipherable complexities of both the
user’s and everyone else’s identities are swept away (Barthes 210). The
website addresses a yearning to understand others with an illusory
image that seems, if nothing else, to make sense.
If the appeal of Facebook results from a desire to fully understand
other people, then the question naturally follows: Why are humans so
compelled to seek clarity in the identities of those around them? This
is one of the questions Persona, a 1966 film by Ingmar Bergman,
attempts to answer. In the film, the protagonist, a nurse named Alma,
is tasked with caring for Lisabet Vogler, a famous stage actress who
has inexplicably gone mute despite being in perfect mental and phys-
ical health. A large part of the film consists of Alma attempting to,
sometimes desperately, decode who Lisabet is and why she would
choose to cling so stubbornly to silence. Despite her early theories,
which range from the silence being a demonstration of great mental
strength to simply being a result of complete and utter apathy for the
outside world, Alma is thwarted at every attempt to unravel Lisabet’s
mystery. As the film nears its end, rather than becoming more certain
about Lisabet’s nature, Alma begins questioning her own identity. At
the very end of the film, Alma can be seen desperately screaming to
herself, “I’m not Elisabet Vogler!” as if she were scared that, in fact,
they were the same person (Persona). Here, Bergman draws a chilling
conclusion. By delving deeper into the mystery of another person,
rather than unearthing a comprehensible truth, Alma becomes more
aware of the terrifying and utterly unresolvable mystery within herself.
Bergman thus posits that our desire to understand others ultimately
derives from the desperate need to understand ourselves. This insight
clarifies, at the most fundamental level, why we are so attracted to
simplified online profiles: seeing others’ identities reduced to compre-
hensible versions of themselves alleviates our own fear of the mysteries
within. Facebook is a spectacle that offers relief from our own indeci-
pherable identities. This explains why we are drawn not only to read-
36 Mercer Street
ing others’ reduced profiles, but also to chopping away at our own
identities until they fit within the parameters of Facebook’s software.
Smith argues that unlike Person 1.0—a member of the pre-
Facebook generations—Person 2.0 is in danger of having “no interi-
ority” (656). 1.0 People embrace the confusion within themselves, like
the characters in a novel Smith teaches, who seem to say: “What’s
inside of me is none your business” (656). Smith worries that 2.0
People instead cater their identities to others’ expectations because,
for them, “not being liked is as bad as it gets” (656, 654). However, if
the rise of Facebook is truly caused by a flight from uncertainty about
one’s identity, the fear of this uncertainty must be proportional to
Facebook’s popularity. In other words, it must be utterly gigantic. So
it seems odd to suggest, as Smith does, that mystery must have been
the natural and accepted bedrock of identity before Facebook. If iden-
tity anxiety has always been at the core of the human conception of
selfhood, and spectacle, such as that manifested on Facebook, the
remedy for this anxiety, then it naturally follows that spectacle, rather
than emerging with Facebook, has accompanied the self ab initio.
Performance is, and always has been, the most accessible form of
identity.
Furthermore, although Smith argues that Facebook has reduced
selfhood to a spectacle, there are countless examples of identity as per-
formance predating the Facebook era, one of which is the aforemen-
tioned film Persona. Early in the movie, Alma’s boss theorizes that
Lisabet refuses to speak because of “the chasm between what you are
to others and to yourself . . . [e]very tone of voice a lie, every gesture
a falsehood” (Persona). She finally concludes that only by falling silent
can Lisabet avoid lying. Later in the scene, when discussing people’s
exterior actions, she states that “No one asks if it’s real or unreal, if
you’re true or false. It’s only in the theatre the question carries weight.
Hardly even there” (Persona). In other words, the question of truth in
identity, much like in theater, wrestling, or any other spectacle, is a
pointless one because identity, by its nature, is performance. As
Barthes puts it, in spectacle, it doesn’t matter “whether the passion is
genuine or not. What the public wants is the image of passion . . .
what is expected is the . . . emptying out of interiority to the benefit
of its exterior signs” (205). Later in the film, Alma again reinforces
Empty Mask 37
this point: “Is it really important not to lie . . . maybe you become a
little better if you just let yourself be what you are” (Persona). Alma,
by equating the idea of ‘being yourself’ with lies, is pointing out that
performance is the natural, and possibly only, state of the self.
When the characters’ false identities finally begin to break down,
the audience gets a momentary glimpse at what is underneath. After
discovering that Lisabet has been divulging some of Alma’s most inti-
mate secrets through letters to the head nurse, Alma becomes physi-
cally violent, cutting Lisabet with a glass shard, slapping her, and
threatening to douse her with boiling water. While Alma’s perform-
ance of stoic kindness breaks down, Lisabet finally breaks her silence
when she begs for her life with the words “Please, no” (Persona). Both
women have momentarily let go of an obsession with how they are
perceived and, rather than reveal a complex character underneath,
they reveal two simple, animalistic passions: wrath and fear. Lisabet’s
husband also expresses the idea that identities simply mask animalistic
impulses. He describes humans as “filled with good will and the best
intentions . . . but governed by forces we only partially control”
(Persona). Bergman suggests that beneath the performances humans
inhabit, rather than a complex, mysterious core beyond our under-
standing, as Smith would believe, there exists nothing more than a
collection of basic impulses. Persona had already depicted the film
reel itself burning up, long before the women physically attack each
other. Behind the image, there is nothing.
It has crossed my mind more than once that I may be one of
Smith’s 2.0 People, projecting my ‘interiorlessness’ onto the rest of the
world. If I were, I certainly would have no way of knowing. Even if I
am, however, when prompted by “Be yourself” to look within, I think
most people would find an amalgam of personal facts, raw emotions,
and a vast amount of uncertainty, inciting the fear that all this mystery
shrouds a great nothingness. Perhaps this is what drives spectators to
wrestling rings. They want reassurance that there really is justice and
morality in the world. And perhaps it is this fear that compels us to
find an alternative to the mystery and to create an identity that is
clear—even if merely a charade. In this sense, Facebook is not new,
but merely the most recent iteration of a tradition as old as language
itself.
38 Mercer Street
WORKS CITED
Barthes, Roland. “The World of Wrestling.” The Broadview

“Company Info—Stats.” Facebook, 30 June 2017,
newsroom.fb.com/company-info/#statistics.
Persona. Directed by Ingmar Bergman, performances by Liv
Ullmann and Bibi Andersson, United Artists, 1966.
Smith, Zadie. “Generation Why.” The Broadview Anthology of
Expository Prose, edited by Laura Buzzard et al., 3rd ed.,
A LESSON IN HORROR
Dylan Palmer
I
perched on the edge of my seat in the theater, rigid from the
aching distress that plagued my entire body. I couldn’t tear my
eyes away from the film despite each dreadful yet familiar scene
that would ultimately lead to the black protagonist’s anticipated
demise. The movie hardly matches the traditional horror genre arche-
type—even the writer and director, Jordan Peele, tweeted that the
film “is a documentary”—but I was horrified nonetheless
(@JordanPeele). It was a horror far more acute than any other movie
had caused me to experience. I felt the movie, Get Out, so deeply
because it felt real to me, just as Peele intended it. As the film fol-
lowed a black male going to visit his white girlfriend’s family in the
woods, I (a black male) sat almost paralyzed, holding hands with my
white girlfriend just months before attending her family reunion in
rural Oregon. Perhaps what is more scary to black audiences than the
unrealistic scenarios and fantastical psycho-killers of orthodox horror
movies is precisely the opposite: the equally violent and horrific reality
of being black in America.
Writer Zadie Smith frequently examines this intersection
between identity (often racial) and fear in her articles and essays. For
eample, in “Getting In and Out,” she explores the racial dichotomy
that is presented by Peele’s Get Out: what white people fear and what
black people fear. “Get Out is structured around . . . inversions and
reversals, although here ‘funny’ has been replaced . . . with ‘scary,’” she
writes. “Instead of the familiar, terrified white man, robbed at gun-
point by a black man on a city street, we meet a black man walking in
the leafy white suburbs, stalked by a white man in a slow-moving
vehicle” (“Getting In”). When Smith talks about Peele’s “inversions
and reversals,” she implies that the dominant narrative is one of
whiteness. When looking at Hollywood films of any genre, you’d be
hard pressed to find many that focus primarily on the lives of black
characters, specifically in a positive and empowered light, hence the
#OscarsSoWhite controversy of the 2016 Academy Awards.
40 Mercer Street
As Zadie Smith would likely agree, Peele does something new,

exciting, and refreshing by centering the perspective of black
Americans in his horror movie, a feat that remains almost completely
unmatched in the movie industry. Similar to Smith, writer Justin
Phillip Reed, in his essay “Killing Like They Do in the Movies,” ana-
lyzes popular horror movies through the lens of race and the peculiar
role that black bodies specifically seem to play. Reed harkens back to
the atrocities of Michael Myers from the Halloween movies and his
illustrious career of killing: “All the white teenage girls, strangled or
bleeding out, and then Tyra Banks: gutted and hanging by the neck
from a wire” (Reed). Reed parallels this image of a hanged Banks,
who is black, to the lynching of his Uncle Craig that occurred when
he was seven. He similarly parallels the death of Rod in A Nightmare
on Elm Street, who is hanged by a bedsheet to appear like a suicide,
to the death of Sandra Bland in jail just two years ago. “The story
from the Waller County jail has as many holes, cuts, edits, and special
effects as [A Nightmare on Elm Street],” Reed notes. “Black ghosts
dangle in all the corners of my horror flicks lately, even when I am not
looking” (Reed). Even the most gruesome deaths of horror movies are
easily compared to black death in America. Horror movies are not a
distant reality. Horror is an all too present aspect of black experience.
Smith demonstrates some of the nuances of black experience in
this country in a speech called “On Optimism and Despair.” Smith,
who identifies as a black woman, references a new kind of horror
beyond the limitations of the movie genre. She writes that “nearly
seven in ten Republicans prefer America as it was in the 1950s, a nos-
talgia of course entirely unavailable to a person like me, for in that
period I could not vote [or] marry my husband,” who is a white man.
She continues, “Time travel is a discretionary art: a pleasure trip for
some and a horror story for others” (“On Optimism”). Over and over
again we are offered the idea of the real world as a setting of horror
for black Americans. When Smith points out that the majority of
Republicans prefer an America in which black Americans do not fit,
in which she does not fit, she exposes the very real and constant oth-
ering of black Americans. Get Out is significant not only because it
centers the perspective of black Americans, but also because it gives
“white liberals—whom the movie purports to have in its satirical
Lesson in Horror 41
sights— . . . that queer but illuminating feeling of being suddenly

‘othered,’” which is distinctly rare for white people (“Getting In”).
Smith uses the word “illuminating” to suggest that white Americans
would benefit from realizing their own role in perpetuating black hor-
ror, because she knows the consequences of unchecked whiteness.
The concept of being racially “othered” is so distant from the
experience of white people, but it is endlessly common for black peo-
ple and other people of color. Smith’s “Monsters” illustrates this oth-
ering perfectly by examining the response to the attacks on the Twin
Towers on September 11, 2001. Writing from the context of her
home country, England, Smith recalls how “shock waves rippled
across Europe. In North West London, a small but significant
change: the stereotype of the Muslim boy was transformed from
quiet, sexless, studious child sitting in the back of class and destined
for an engineering degree to Public Enemy No. 1” (“Monsters”). As
Smith implies, ever since 9/11, Muslim people and Arab people who
are assumed to be Muslim have become the subject of extreme suspi-
cion. Violence associated with Muslim or Arab people is cause
enough in the political and social realms to conclude that Muslims are
evil—that they are “monsters” with an increased likelihood of becom-
ing violent extremists. And yet, according to the Center for
Investigative Reporting, “Far-right plots and attacks outnumber
Islamist incidents by almost 2 to 1” (Neiwert et al.). Smith reminds us
that non-white identity is constantly othered, even when that identity
has every right or reason to be in that space, just as the aforemen-
tioned Muslim boy sitting in the back of class is villainized simply for
existing.
A teacher once told me that the titles of stories should never be
overlooked. In the title “Monsters,” Smith evokes an image common-
ly associated with horror. Exploration further into the implications of
monsters as a concept reveals to us that her title is right in line with
her other revelations. In his essay “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),”
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, a leading writer in a subfield of English called
monster studies, writes, “The monster is difference made flesh,” a rep-
resentation of something to be othered (459). Cohen shows that he
would likely find Smith’s association between horror and identity
spot-on when he extrapolates that “From the classical period into the
42 Mercer Street
twentieth century, race has been almost as powerful a catalyst to the

creation of monsters as culture, gender, and sexuality” (460). Through
this analysis we can see that monster culture as well as the horror cul-
ture that Smith speaks to are manifestations of humanity’s tendency
to other identities that are different from their own.
Smith recognizes that it is precisely because of this constant oth-
ering that people of color have come to fear white settings, which, in
a country like America that is so dominated by whiteness, are nearly
everywhere. It is because of this othering that the realities of certain
identities become purposeful in horror films. Smith’s observations of
the connection between fear and identity and the disparate effects that
they have on certain minority populations can create a sense of hope-
lessness and defeat. It is inevitable that people will fear what is differ-
ent, or fear situations in which they may be othered. It is natural.
What makes the fear that exists in America, with its movie-like hor-
ror, so unnatural is its deeply ingrained history of violence against
black bodies. Black ghosts dangle in all the corners of America’s past,
just as they do in our horror films.
In “Getting In and Out,” Smith takes a look at the complexities
of the violence and horror black people face by confronting a widely
controversial painting of Emmett Till’s dead body by white artist
Dana Schutz. Many black Americans were upset about the painting,
claiming that because Schutz was white, her depiction of the pain
inflicted on black bodies was a form of theft. It was not her pain to
claim. Not her horror to capture. But Smith challenges this logic,
claiming that race is far too complex an issue to draw lines in the sand
about which races can and which races cannot do something. “The ‘us’
and ‘them’? That’s a cheaper gag. Whether they like it or not,
Americans are one people,” she writes, adding that “the binary of
black and white is only one part of this nation’s infinitely variegated
racial composition” (“Getting In”). We see here that Smith does not
always paint a picture of bleak horror in regards to identity. She sees
in this country the potential for unity through the power of shared
American identity. In her essay “Under the Banner of New York,” she
tells a story of how a city like New York is a shining example of diver-
sity gone right. In the story, a woman’s baby stroller falls apart as she
tries to lift it from street to sidewalk. Smith describes the troupe of
Lesson in Horror 43
people who walk up and try to help as “white, black, Asian, tall, short,
male, female, young, very young, and old,” going on to describe fur-
ther differences in dress, job, and assumed lifestyle (“Under the
Banner”). They were all united in that moment by the common effort
of trying to help a woman with her stroller. There were no monsters.
No one was othered.
Unfortunately, these narratives by Smith cannot go unchallenged.
While New York City is a beautiful example of a functioning multi-
cultural society, there are likely as many instances of fear and othering
of identity as there are blindness to identity. At the same time that a
diverse group of strangers were united in a moment of solidarity, an
Asian American student uptown was being asked by her classmates
where she’s really from, a black man in the Bronx was being pulled
over for ‘matching the description’ by someone with a warrant out for
their arrest. Black people and white people in this country may be
connected by the fact that they are American, but it is not white peo-
ple who are constantly othered by their race. It is not white people
whose differences are represented, as Cohen writes, as “monstrous” in
order to “[justify] [their] displacement or extermination” (460).
Smith should not be convinced that the racial symbiosis of New
York City shows promise of the prospect of equality in this country.
She should not be convinced that the happy ending of Get Out marks
an end to the era of black horror in this country. She’s too smart for
that. Smith knows, as she said in a speech, that “in this world there is
only incremental progress. Only the willfully blind can ignore that the
history of human existence is simultaneously the history of pain: of
brutality, murder, mass extinction, every form of venality and cyclical
horror” (“On Optimism”).
I ended up attending the family reunion with my girlfriend
despite the plethora of reservations I had. I was the only black person
in attendance, and I would have been the only person of color had
there not been a distant cousin of Middle Eastern descent named
Wahlid, who made a point to call me “brother” every time he saw me.
At the end of the day, I made it through the event unscathed, save for
a few expected microaggressions, like the aunt who told me she made
tee shirts for the reunion because she noticed “black people are always
making tee shirts for things,” and she wanted to be more like us. I
44 Mercer Street
laughed it off knowing that her words came not from a place of
hatred, but of ignorance. But in my head I imagined what it would be
like if she actually knew what it was like to be black. She’d probably
scream, just like people do when they watch horror movies.
WORKS CITED
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “from Monster Culture (Seven Theses).”

The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose, edited by Laura
Buzzard et al., 3rd ed., Broadview Press, 2016, pp. 455-66.
@JordanPeele. “‘Get Out’ is a documentary.” Twitter, 15 Nov. 2017,
5:56 a.m.,
www.twitter.com/jordanpeele/status/930796561302540288?lang
=en.
Neiwert, David, et al. “Homegrown Terror.” Reveal, 22 June 2017,
apps.revealnews.org/homegrown-terror.
Reed, Justin Phillip. “Killing Like They Do in the Movies.”
Catapult, 27 Oct. 2016, www.catapult.co/stories/killing-like-
they-do-in-the-movies.
Smith, Zadie. “Getting In and Out.” Harper’s Magazine, July 2017,
www.harpers.org/archive/2017/07/getting-in-and-out.
—. “Monsters.” The New Yorker, 12 September 2011,
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/09/12/monsters-zadie-
smith.
—. “On Optimism and Despair.” The New York Review of Books,
22 Dec. 2016, www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/12/22/on-opti-
mism-and-despair.
—. “Under the Banner of New York.” The New York Review of
Books, 4 Nov. 2017,
www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/11/04/under-the-banner-of-new-
york.
THE EMPATHY LESSONS
Akiva Thalheim
I
n the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland, lies Marian House I, a
building that mimics a palace with ballroom-like concrete stairs
marking its entrance. The House provides rehabilitative and
transitional housing services for women exiting prison, as well as
their children. In the forty years since its founding, it has been the go-
to place for women attempting to regain the skills necessary for their
reentry into society. And, with services including drug and mental
health counseling, employment assistance, financial literacy skills, and
life coaching, it has successfully served over 1,800 women (“History”).
Individual and group academic lessons are one of the key offer-
ings provided at the Marian House, and each year the group holds a
graduation ceremony for women who receive GEDs and other
degrees (“History”). These women learn far more than basic reading
and writing skills: each month, an MFA candidate from Columbia
University’s writing program arrives to teach a creative writing work-
shop (“Home”). Considered both therapeutic and liberating by the
women involved, the program offers them a safe setting to explore
some of the trauma they’ve experienced (Thalheim and Weiner).
Previous prompts have asked participants to write about a mistake
they’ve made, their first kiss, or the craziest thing they’ve ever believed
(“Home,” “Additional Writing Prompts”).
Essayist Leslie Jamison currently leads this workshop in
Baltimore, widening her breadth of writing and teaching experience
(“About”). The first two prompts provided by her workshop are par-
ticularly intriguing:
1. Write about a time when you were a stranger in a strange place.

2. Write about a time when you were a stranger in a familiar
place.
While some may consider these not too different from other ques-
tions, such as “What is the story of your name?” and “Coffee or tea?,”
46 Mercer Street
they take on a deeper meaning when considered in relation to

Jamison’s essays, particularly those in The Empathy Exams
(“Additional Writing Prompts”). Jamison is directing the women at
the Marian House to write from viewpoints she is all too familiar
with: the relatable “stranger in a strange place” and the paradoxical
“stranger in a familiar place”—two lenses that encapsulate Jamison’s
works as a whole.
Jamison is no stranger to these prompts, nor to the desire to con-
verse with both the formerly and currently imprisoned.1 Her first
major assignment as a journalist was a magazine profile on a man
named Charlie, who was imprisoned in the Beckley Federal
Correctional Institute in West Virginia for mortgage fraud. Charlie
was an ultramarathon runner—he once ran the Sahara Desert coast to
coast—and Jamison’s profile would contemplate what it was like for a
man who lived in motion to be locked up in a six-by-six cell
(“Authors”). Charlie, a young man from Tennessee, a “father of two,
professional repairer of hail damage, TV producer, motivational
speaker, documentary film star,” is the focal character of “Fog Count”
(133). The essay is an exploration of what it means to be imprisoned,
both physically and mentally, bound by the rules and regulations of a
higher authority.2
Jamison describes at length how she, too, felt imprisoned when
she visited Charlie, from before she arrived until after she left. She
recounts in an interview relying on her memory of the six-hour con-
versation they had, for the prison forbade bringing along a recorder or
even a notebook and pen (Green and Jamison). Throughout the expe-
rience, Jamison is a stranger in a strange place: she doesn’t know
where to go (the lower security “Satellite Camp,” not the main build-
ing), what to wear (nothing khaki, and definitely not a skirt), what she
may bring (just quarters for the vending machines), what to talk about
(she lets Charlie lead the conversation), if she can hug him (yes), if she
can sit next to him (no), if she even belongs there (unanswered) (“Fog
1 “Authors of Injustice” provides the stories of two more inmates with whom Jamison has con-
versed over the years. Much of The Recovering, as well, includes the stories of inmates, such
as in “Reckoning.”
2 Though Jamison once acknowledged that “Fog Count” is “unbearingly depressing” (Green
and Jamison), it has moments of inspiration. Charlie, for example, discusses his sense of
“inner mobility”—while his body was imprisoned, his mind was not (“Fog Count” 147).
Empathy Lessons 47
Count”).
This isn’t the first—or the last—time that Jamison is a stranger in
a strange place. In “Devil’s Bait,” she devotes an entire essay to those
afflicted with Morgellons disease, a controversial and unproven illness
with supposed symptoms including fibers crawling out of one’s skin.
She narrates her visit to a conference in Austin where those stricken
with Morgellons gathered to discuss the latest research and treat-
ments available. Though Jamison herself does not suffer from
Morgellons, she hopes to use this visit to question her understanding
of empathy: “How do I inhabit someone’s pain without inhabiting
their particular understanding of that pain?” (“Devil’s Bait” 39-40).3
Visiting those in pain appears to be a common theme in Jamison’s
works. In “Short Term Feelings,” her critical and emotional response
to the movie Short Term 12, Jamison asks herself what it means to
leave the pained characters “locked in the fictive suffering of their fic-
tive world, while I returned fairly easily to mine.” On leaving Charlie
in prison, Jamison writes, “three o’clock is when one of us goes, the
other one stays” (“Fog Count” 148). And on departing from the
Morgellons conference: “I spend a day in their kingdom and then
leave when I please” (“Devil’s Bait” 46). However, Jamison’s con-
tention that she is merely a visitor to others’ pain begins to fall
through, for she inhabits her own world of pain.
In both The Empathy Exams and her newest collection of essays,
The Recovering, Jamison describes the pain she has experienced. She
writes about her father’s absence during her childhood, flying around
the world and cheating on his wife (“Blame” 77). Her parents
divorced when Jamison was eleven, and she continued to live under
the intellectual shadow of her equally absent older brothers (“Blame”
78). There’s the eating disorder she’s struggled with throughout her
life (“Abandon” 39), in addition to intermittent self-cutting (“Female
Pain” 191). She’s had extensive surgeries on her heart and one on her
jaw after falling twenty feet from a vine (“Empathy Exams” 7,
3 As Jamison does not clearly define “empathy” (“Jamison offers no all-purpose definition of
empathy,” Suzanne Koven writes in the Los Angeles Review of Books), this essay will not
either. However, she does allude to various definitions throughout The Empathy Exams,
especially in her first, titular essay: “Empathy means realizing no trauma has discrete edges”
(5) and “Empathy is a kind of care but it’s not the only kind of care” (17). “Inhabit[ing] some-
one’s pain” is just one of her many denotations.
48 Mercer Street
“Female Pain” 208). She’s been hit by a car (“Midwest, Redux”). She’s
aborted a pregnancy (“Female Pain” 217), she may or may not have
been date-raped (“Wonder” 8), and she’s been punched in the face
and mugged (“Morphology” 72). She’s been pained by multiple ex-
lovers. Most significantly, she writes about her genetic predisposition
to mental illness and alcoholism. Jamison suffered from both of these
afflictions during most of her twenties, blacking out nearly every night
(“Shame” 156).4
Jamison is a pained woman—this is something she has often
acknowledged5—and she’s even questioned her own tendency to
dwell extensively on this pain; she once asked, in a letter to a friend,
“Why the fuck am I talking about this so much?” (“Female Pain”
187). A different question she raises, though, may actually provide her
with an answer. Commenting on the Morgellons conference, she
wonders, “Does giving people a space to talk about their disease—
probe it, gaze at it, share it—help them move through it,” or, more
unfortunately, “deepen its hold?” (“Devil’s Bait” 54). Though she
leaves this thought unanswered, one critic wonders the same: “Does
giving people a space to talk about their pain—to probe it, to write
books about it—help them move on from it, or simply deepen its
hold?” (Barrett).
An ex-boyfriend likely believes the latter, calling Jamison a
“wound-dweller” (“Female Pain” 186). One writer, in her essay
“Blood, Ink, and Pain: An Excavation,” instead considers Jamison a
“wound-hunter” and contends, “she does not passively ‘dwell’ on past
wounds; she seeks them out and interrogates them” (Patton 35).
Another writer agrees, stating that “Jamison sometimes seeks out
pain,” and “it seeks her out as well” (Garner). It’s true that many of
Jamison’s essays cross the border between mere observation of others’
pain into actually soliciting it; she’s repeatedly thought of doing so as
an “excavat[ion]” (“The Book”).6 But given Jamison’s background in
4 Laura Miller from Slate reminds readers of other aspects on Jamison’s life: “a cool, accom-
plished, loving mom,” “Harvard undergrad,” “Iowa Writers’ Workshop at age 21,” “summer
in Italy,” “Ph.D. from Yale,” “published first novel at age 27,” “New York Times best-seller
at age 31,” and “director of the nonfiction program at Columbia University’s School of the
Arts” (Jamison qtd. in Miller).
5 Many critics consider this to be a hallmark of The Empathy Exams. The Kansas City Star,
for example, writes that her “self-awareness may be the collection’s greatest strength” (qtd. in
“Empathy Exams,” Graywolf Press).
Empathy Lessons 49
journalism, her tendency to take on an investigative role is under-

standable. Critics unfortunately fail to consider her curiosity when
determining her “excavations” to be encroaching on voyeurism7 (Tsai;
Laing) or engaging in “poverty tourism”8 (McAlpin).
Critics who call The Empathy Exams an extended exercise in
wallow and self-pity are missing the point entirely. The Empathy
Exams is not just a book about empathy—it is an exploration of what
it means to live a life in pain, whether it is your own or someone else’s.
At its core, The Empathy Exams is a how-to book on empathizing
with strangers in our lives, from imprisoned people like Charlie to
those afflicted with Morgellons. It is true that Jamison is a wound-
seeker, for she seeks out the wounds of those whom society would
rather ignore: the wrongly convicted (“Lost Boys”), the addicts
(“Immortal Horizon”), the wounded (“Devil’s Bait”), the poor (“Pain
Tours”), the innocent (“Fog Count”), the immigrants (“La Frontera”),
the incarcerated (“Authors of Injustice”).
But those who view Jamison as simply a wound-seeker fail to
understand her message. She is actually a stranger in a familiar place.
Though she may not have experienced the exact pain someone else is
going through, she is all too familiar with pain. Jamison writes that
just as no one believed she had a (potential) parasite in her ankle
(“Devil’s Bait” 34), doctors do not believe Morgellons is a real condi-
tion (“Devil’s Bait” 29). Therefore, she was readily able to empathize
with the “strangers” who believed they were infected (“Devil’s Bait”
54). And though she’s never been physically imprisoned like Charlie
(“Fog Count”), she feels the pain of being locked up mentally,
enslaved by alcohol: “my father told me drinking wasn’t wrong, but it
was dangerous. It wasn’t dangerous for everyone, but it was dangerous
for us” (“Blame” 76). Jamison demonstrates that familiarity with pain
leads to familiarity with empathy—even empathy for strangers.9
6 Jamison once wrote that Joan Didion “excavates a truth at once uncomfortable and crystalline”;
The Washington Post uses these same words to compliment Jamison (“Empathy Exams,”
Graywolf Press).
7 Ed Vulliamy, author of Amexica: War along the Borderline, writes that Jamison “picks her
way through a society that has lost its way, a voyeur of voyeurism” (“Empathy Exams,”
Graywolf Press).
8 Little Village offers another take on Jamison’s “tourism”: “The thrill of following Jamison the
tourist is that her mind is an extraordinary analytical machine capable of producing sublimity”
(“Empathy Exams,” Graywolf Press).
50 Mercer Street
Paul Bloom, a leading psychologist at Yale, is famous for his “case

against empathy” and for his theory that empathy does more harm
than good. His argument hinges on the belief that we don’t apply
empathy to strangers. He declares that “the key to engaging empathy
is what has been called the ‘identifiable victim effect,’” our ability to
identify with the victim at hand—an ability that is obviously not
applicable to a stranger (Bloom). Jamison’s review of Short Term 12
was written before The Empathy Exams and references Bloom’s the-
ory (“Short Term Feelings”). While Bloom seemingly takes aim
against empathy, Jamison presents an even more compelling argu-
ment for empathy. Jamison is able to deconstruct Bloom’s argument
by introducing a method of identifying with the victim, as someone
familiar with pain, rather than a stranger to it.
Jamison deepens her approach, providing a framework by which
one can identify with the so-called stranger. In the titular and first
essay of The Empathy Exams, which can be considered both prereq-
uisite reading and a summation of the following ten essays, she estab-
lishes three interconnected methods for identifying with a stranger.
Exploring the etymology of the word “empathy”—“from the Greek
empatheia,” which translates to “into feeling”—Jamison presents the
first method: “enter another person’s pain . . . by way of query” (6).
This query leads to the second method: “voic[ing] empathy”10 (3).
And lastly, a study that found participants “imagining the pain of oth-
ers activates the same three areas (prefrontal cortex, anterior insula,
anterior cingulate cortex) activated in the experience of pain itself”
suggests that one need only imagine pain to be empathetic (22).11
The Empathy Exams as a whole can be thought of as Jamison’s
9 The Recovering provides another example of exploring the pain of the familiar and the
stranger: Jamison includes stories of famous writers who were addicts, in addition to strangers
she has encountered throughout her life, such as in “Chorus.” An earlier title of The
Recovering was Archive Lush, in reference to the years Jamison spent examining the archives
of famous authors for her dissertation at Yale (Aylor).
10 Jamison does acknowledge, though, the importance of listening: “often the way to feel better
isn’t talking about your own problems but rather listening to someone else’s” (Sparks and
Jamison).
11 Referencing her elder brother who is facially paralyzed, Jamison writes at length her own
experience waking up one morning and trying to imagine what it would be like to not be able
to move her facial muscles (“Empathy Exams” 22). Additionally, Charles D’Ambrosio writes
that The Empathy Exams is “an exploration of . . . the poverty of our imaginations”
(“Empathy Exams,” Graywolf Press).
Empathy Lessons 51
examination of her own lifetime of pain and her empathic sensibili-

ties. A more impactful reading, however, would interpret The
Empathy Exams as Jamison’s lesson on how to be empathetic: recog-
nize the pain in your own life and you will be able to empathize with
others. If after reading The Empathy Exams, anyone can go out into
the world with a greater awareness for empathy—whether directed
towards a loved one or a “stranger” such as a woman at the Marian
House or an individual suffering from Morgellons—Jamison will have
accomplished something important.
Jamison’s contention that “empathy isn’t just something that hap-
pens to us—a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain—it’s
also a choice we make” is particularly poignant (“Empathy Exams”
23). She leaves it in the reader’s hands to put this increased under-
standing of empathy into action. Choosing to identify one’s own pain,
and thereby enhancing one’s ability to be empathetic towards
strangers, can lead to profound change. Bravely identifying pain
allows one to be more compassionate and understanding, lifting the
spirits of the stranger, who may in turn seek to act in an empathetic
manner as well. This recognition of and response to pain has the
potential to increase connection and unity in the world at large,
breaking down the barriers we have placed on ourselves and each
other.
WORKS CITED
Aylor, Emma. “Leslie Jamison Receives Two-Book Deal from

Little, Brown.” Melville House Books, 16 June 2014,
www.mhpbooks.com/leslie-jamison-receives-two-book-deal-
from-little-brown.
Barrett, Ruth Shalit. “Where’s the Train Wreck?” Vulture, 19 Mar.
2018, www.vulture.com/2018/03/leslie-jamison-the-recovering-
addiction-memoir.html.
Bloom, Paul. “The Baby in the Well.” The New Yorker, 20 May
2013, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/20/the-baby-in-
the-well.
52 Mercer Street
“The Empathy Exams.” Graywolf Press,

www.graywolfpress.org/books/empathy-exams.
Garner, Dwight. “Contemplating Other People’s Pain.” The New
York Times, 27 Mar. 2014,
www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/books/the-empathy-exams-
essays-by-leslie-jamison.html.
Green, Elon and Leslie Jamison. “Annotation Tuesday! Leslie
Jamison and the Imprisoned Ultradistance Runner.” Nieman
Storyboard, 2 July 2013,
www.niemanstoryboard.org/stories/annotation-tuesday-leslie-
jamison-and-the-imprisoned-ultradistance-runner.
“History.” Marian House, www.marianhouse.org/about/history.
Jamison, Leslie. “Authors of Injustice.” The Times Literary
Supplement, 4 Oct. 2017, www.the-
tls.co.uk/articles/public/guilty-innocent-incarcerated.
—. The Empathy Exams: Essays. Graywolf Press, 2014.
“Devil’s Bait.” Pp. 27–56.
“The Empathy Exams.” Pp. 1–26.
“Fog Count.” Pp. 133–149.
“Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain.” Pp. 185–218.
“La Frontera.” Pp. 57–68.
“Morphology of the Hit.” Pp. 69–77.
“Pain Tours.” Pp. 79–90.
—. “The Immortal Horizon.” The Believer, May 2011, www.believ-
ermag.com/issues/201105/?read=article_jamison.
—. “Midwest, Redux.” The Nervous Breakdown, 8 May 2011,
www.thenervousbreakdown.com/ljamison/2011/05/midwest-
redux/#more-63519.
—. The Recovering: Intoxication and its Aftermath. Little, Brown
and Company, 2018.
“Abandon.” Pp. 37–58.
“Blame.” Pp. 59–104.
“Chorus.” Pp. 317–339.
“Reckoning.” Pp. 391–431.
“Shame.” Pp. 129–188.
“Thirst.” Pp. 229–246.
“Wonder.” Pp. 3–35.
Empathy Lessons 53
—. “The Relapse.” The L Magazine, 21 July 2010,

www.thelmagazine.com/2010/07/the-relapse.
—. “Short Term Feelings: What Hurts About ‘Short Term 12.’”
Los Angeles Review of Books, 3 Jan. 2014, www.lareviewof-
books.org/article/short-term-feelings-hurts-short-term-12.
Koven, Suzanne. “Empathy, Examined.” Los Angeles Review of
Books, 6 Apr. 2014, www.lareviewofbooks.org/article/empathy-
examined.
Laing, Olivia. “Never Hurts to Ask.” The New York Times, 4 Apr.
2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/books/review/the-empa-
thy-exams-by-leslie-jamison.html.
Leslie Jamison, www.lesliejamison.com.
“The Book.”
“Leslie Jamison.”
Marian House Blog, columbiamarianhouse.wordpress.com.
—. “About.”
—. “Additional Writing Prompts.”
McAlpin, Heller. “‘Empathy Exams’ is a Virtuosic Manifesto of
Human Pain.” NPR, 3 Apr. 2014,
www.npr.org/2014/04/03/297823566/empathy-exams-is-a-vir-
tuosic-manifesto-of-human-pain.
Miller, Laura. “Ginned Up.” Slate Magazine, 3 Apr. 2018,
slate.com/culture/2018/04/leslie-jamisons-the-recovering-
reviewed.html.
Patton, Emma. “Blood, Ink, and Pain: An Excavation.” Mercer
Street, edited by Stephen Donatelli, New York University
Expository Writing Program, 2017-2018, pp. 29–37.
Sparks, Stephen and Leslie Jamison. “The Faltering Defense of Self:
An Interview with Leslie Jamison.” TinHouse, 21 Apr. 2014,
www.tinhouse.com/34467-2.
Thalheim, Akiva and Gina Weaver. “Interviewing The Marian
House.” 30 Apr. 2018.
Tsai, Meg. “Writers at Rutgers: Leslie Jamison.” Writers at Rutgers,
13 Apr. 2016, mxgtsai.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/writers-at-
rutgers-leslie-jamison.
THE CARBON CHAINS THAT BIND US
Kristen Weatherley
B
eatriz Preciado sits alone in a room at night, trapped in an
anxious state of distrust.1 S/he opens and shuts a box quick-
ly, carefully taking out only one sachet of gel and smooth-
ing it over his/her shoulders. After the act, s/he writes for
hours, his/her body plugged into the energy of distant planets. S/he
tells no one. Writing is the only thing that won’t betray him/her for
what s/he has just done, for this “secret addiction”: using testosterone
“as if it were a hard drug” (Preciado 56). As s/he asserts in the philo-
sophical memoir Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the
Pharmacopornographic Era, Preciado is a “gender hacker” (55): s/he
uses hormones as “free and open biocodes” in an effort to achieve a
“molecular becoming” (55; 143). To Preciado, “masculinity and fem-
ininity are pharmacopornographic fictions retroactively defined in
relation to the molecule with which they are treated” (60). In other
words, Preciado argues that testosterone and the characteristics it pro-
duces are not inherently masculine but are treated as such because
they have thus far primarily belonged to the cisgender male. When
used by someone other than a man, testosterone is no longer seen as
a natural hormone, but as a hard drug.
No matter how difficult it is to define masculinity, “in order to
legally obtain a dose of synthetic testosterone, it is necessary to stop
defining yourself as a woman” (60). The instructions on the brand of
testosterone Preciado uses, Testogel, assume that the user is either
biologically or legally male and imply that “for women, whether
they’re athletic or not, taking testosterone is a form of doping” (65).
Preciado writes that s/he is not “taking hormones as part of a protocol
to change sex,” but belongs to a group of transgender people who “are
fooling with [hormones], self-medicating without trying to change
1 When Testo Junkie was first published in 2008, the author was using the name
Beatriz Preciado and s/he and him/her pronouns. The text has since been repub-
lished under the name Paul B. Preciado, and the author now uses he/him pronouns.
For the sake of clarity, we will use the author’s name and pronouns in use at the
time of publication throughout this essay.
55 Mercer Street
their gender legally or going through any psychiatric follow-up” (55).

Through such “fooling,” Preciado is transgressing legal, pharmaceuti-
cal, and social boundaries of gender.
Preciado considers this experimentation with testosterone to be a
protest against the limiting definitions of gender imposed by the legal
and pharmaceutical systems; however, s/he also acknowledges the
ambiguous nature of this protest as potentially helpful or harmful to
society. Using testosterone “outside the aegis of a medical protocol”
could be counterproductive as it may “[give] bad press to testosterone
at the very moment when the law is beginning to integrate transexuals
into society” (56). Such gender-hacking could threaten the rights of
transgender people to access hormones. While ideally testosterone
would just be “a molecular door, a becoming between multiplicities,”
the political gravity imposed on Preciado’s use means that “what
[s/he’s] actually giving [him/herself] is a chain of political signifiers”
(143; 139). Preciado knows that this experimentation would not be
significant if not for the set legal and pharmaceutical boundaries of
gender. While the experiment is inherently personal, its implications
extend into everyone’s lives, for disregarding the gender binary dis-
rupts the social order. As Preciado states, “All of us are united by the
same carbon chains, by the same invisible gel; without them, none of
this would have any meaning” (61). Preciado’s emphasis on our lack
of differences places stress on the systems that rely on those differ-
ences in order to function.
The pharmaceutical and legal systems’ policing of gender can be
seen as a symptom of a larger cultural trend: rejecting that which
doesn’t lend itself to easy categorization, and making it monstrous in
order to preserve systemic coherence. In “Monster Culture (Seven
Theses),” Jeffrey Jerome Cohen posits that monsters embody the
“fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy” of a culture (456). In systems rely-
ing on the opposition of binary categories, the monster, “a form sus-
pended between forms,” “threatens to destroy . . . the very cultural
apparatus through which individuality is constituted and allowed”
(458; 462). Monsters’ existence exposes the fragility of the system, as
the differences that society capitalizes on to maintain hierarchy are
“arbitrary and potentially free-floating” (462). However, monsters
also preserve societal order by acting as an outlet for deviant desire.
Carbon Chains That Bind 56
Cohen states that “the monster is continually linked to forbidden

practices” in order to set clear boundaries for normal behavior (464).
We can relate to and even enjoy the monster’s violence in contained
settings like the cinema, because we know such practices are prohib-
ited in real life. The abjection of difference—wherein we reject an
unthinkable threat emanating from far outside or deep inside and dis-
tance it from ourselves by embodying it in a monster—allows for the
formation of personal and cultural identity. However, monsters are
born from our culture; we can’t deny our connection to them. Their
existence begs us to ask ourselves why we reject them.
Preciado’s experimentation with testosterone outside of legal
boundaries is an example of the kind of “forbidden practice” that cul-
tural monsters warn against. However, Preciado’s practices are even
more threatening than those of monsters, because s/he is not “con-
tained by geographic, generic, or epistemic marginalization”;
Preciado’s existence as a real, living example of the “crisis of cate-
gories” threatens, in Cohen’s terms, to “deconstruct the thin walls of
category and culture” (Cohen 464-465). While we can use the mon-
ster as an alter ego to escape these arbitrary categories in controlled
settings, we shun the monster in everyday life to maintain order and
identity. Preciado, however, is undeniably real. His/her existence
denies the separation of the fear and fantasy associated with a “mixed
category” (Cohen 458). By identifying as a “Testo Junkie,” s/he chal-
lenges the established binary and calls for the acceptance of “a nonbi-
nary polymorphism at the ‘base’ of human nature”—that is, for us to
acknowledge that binary categories are arbitrary and all of us exist
outside of social boundaries in some respects (Cohen 459). S/he also
shows us the possibility for liberation from categories and embodies
our desire for it, while still acknowledging the danger of dissolving
existing cultural boundaries. Preciado is aware of this conflict, even
referring to testosterone as “the devil in a colorless gel” (140). S/he
feels the pressure of the forbidden and adopts the secretive nature and
shame of a hard-drug user. S/he toes the line between a becoming and
an addiction, showing that it could go either way.
The existence of cultural monsters, as well as Preciado’s complex
identity, make us confront “how we perceive the world, and how we
have misrepresented what we have attempted to place” (Cohen 466).
57 Mercer Street
Without the monsterization of human difference, without imposed

societal borders, the use of testosterone outside of a protocol to
change sex wouldn’t be anything more than a “molecular becoming,”
a gateway to traits once unattainable for half of the population. Cohen
describes a similar transcendence as “the threshold . . . of becoming,”
marking what we could be if we could accept monsters and the differ-
ence they represent (Cohen 466). Preciado’s experimentation embod-
ies both the monstrous call for liberation and the human fear that we
will fall apart without borders. S/he shows us what could be the beau-
ty of freedom if our society could survive the restructuring and force
us to try to reconcile that beauty with our fear of the dissolution of
cultural and personal identity as we know it.
Nearly a decade after the publication of Testo Junkie, society is
still trying to reconcile changes in gender identity and expression with
the need for easy categorization. One social solution encompassing
difference has been the recognition of in-between categories such as
non-binary or genderfluid. Many of these people shift between gen-
der identities, believing that gender is not in fact static, but something
that evolves over time. One genderfluid person, Payton Quinn, states,
“The only reason why I feel I should put a label on it is just to make
it easier for other people” (Marsh). This is an acknowledgement of
what Preciado calls the “political fiction” of gender. These people live
and identify in the realm of the “mixed category” of gender; their exis-
tence would prove, though through personal rather than pharmaceu-
tical means, the fiction of our binary system. So, in order to preserve
some semblance of boundaries, they try to institute the spectrum of
gender as another category. They preserve order by creating another
fiction; however, this solution has not been readily accepted. People
from older generations are often confused by these identities, feeling
that there is leeway in the current binary system. A masculine woman
is still a woman, a feminine man still a man, and so the categories are
preserved while not completely dictating our actions.
A similar attitude has been taken up broadly in popular culture.
For example, experimentation in fashion with non-gendered clothing
has been featured on runways and promoted by celebrities like Gigi
Hadid, Zayn Malik, and Jaden Smith (Singer). However, these cele-
brated figures are separated from the common lives of the public, as
Carbon Chains That Bind 58
fashion is elevated as art and meant to be experimental. These

instances still dwell in the realm of fantasy and ultimately do not seek
to abolish the fictions of gender; they instead aim to redefine their
implications. They ultimately do not abolish the binary system but
rather extend its scope. Despite the younger generation’s movement
towards acknowledging and embracing abject difference within them-
selves, they and others still try to fit their identity into a categorical
system, either by expanding the traits associated with currently recog-
nized genders or by acknowledging other ones. They are not free to
transcend boundaries and explore new versions of themselves as
Preciado envisioned, but they are starting to be able to accept that the
differences between them are more or less arbitrary. We have not
destroyed the system to reach a “molecular becoming,” but at least we
have begun to dissect it.
WORKS CITED
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” The

Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose, edited by Laura
Marsh, Sarah. “The Gender-Fluid Generation: Young People on
Being Male, Female or Non-Binary.” The Guardian, 23 Mar.
2016, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/23/gen-
der-fluid-generation-young-people-male-female-trans.
Preciado, Paul B. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the
Pharmacopornographic Era. Translated by Bruce Benderson,
Feminist Press, 2013.
Singer, Maya. “Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik Are Part of a New
Generation Who Don’t See Fashion as Gendered.” Vogue, 15
July 2017, www.vogue.com/article/gigi-hadid-zayn-malik-
august-2017-vogue-cover-breaking-gender-codes.
KEEP ON PROWLING
Emily Yan
I
n his photo series Subway, Bruce Davidson captures city
dwellers in a quintessential New York City setting during the
1980s, when the deteriorating subway system seemed to have
reached its lowest point. Shot in color, Subway is a major depar-
ture from Davidson’s earlier black-and-white film, yet the series
reflects Davidson’s trademark commitment to capturing life as it is
seen. In fact, the bright colors in Subway highlight the individuality
of the photographs’ subjects and clarify our view of them. They render
details incapable of being hidden, leading to the view of the subway
as a vulnerable place. The colors in the photos seem to say, ‘This is
reality. There is no hiding from it.’ Furthermore, Davidson photo-
graphs his subjects up close and at eye level, capturing humans in their
most natural element. As a result, we get a glimpse into the rawest,
and often most intimate, parts of the human experience. In many
ways, Davidson’s work is about humanizing an otherwise lifeless
backdrop. After all, New York City without its people is merely an
assemblage of concrete slabs and metallic framework. By photograph-
ing his subjects in the context of their environment, Davidson not
only gives vitality and personality to the dark, decaying depths of the
New York subway system, but also allows us to acknowledge that our
physical place in the world influences all aspects of life—most of all
our opportunities and limitations.
The 1980s was a turbulent time in New York’s history. The sex
trade and drug market thrived in Times Square, while a flourishing
crack epidemic and the lingering effects of the 1975 financial crisis
further contributed to the atmosphere of disorder that permeated
New York City (Chakraborty; Sterbenz). With an expensive camera
hanging around his neck, even Davidson fell victim to attacks and
muggings (“Train of Thought”). Amidst the violence of the 1980s,
people were largely forced to give up personal control of their safety.
In photo 12 (out of twenty-three photos from Subway), a man holds
a gun to another man’s head. Their bodies are partially cut out of the
frame rather than wholly contained within it, evoking a sense that
60 Mercer Street
whatever is happening between these two men is not just contained

between themselves. We, along with the other subway riders, become
caught in the midst of two strangers’ affairs, emotionally connected by
our collective fear. This photo suggests that the interactions happen-
ing around us—specifically in this type of space—influence our emo-
tions. We are forced to give up our personal boundaries, as well as
control of our emotions and our destinies, to those around us.
The view of the city as a patchwork of shared spaces like subways,
where individuals must sacrifice privacy, agency, and ownership, is
echoed in James P. Zappen’s essay, “New York City as Dwelling
Place,” an examination of what constitutes the American dream in the
present day. Zappen observes that the city—in its crowdedness—
forces people to relinquish their “personal space” and, by extension,
their “personal life” (157). In photo 1, a close-up shot of a shirtless
man wearing a cross necklace, shadows hide the man’s eyes as well as
the details of the subway car that he is standing in, creating a feeling
of uncertainty and intimidation. The anxiety that the image arouses
suggests that our reliance on the city forces us to hand over our fates
to the unknown. Sunny Stalter-Pace, author of Underground
Movements, calls it “a submission to unseen forces . . . ; passengers
cannot see where they are going, yet they trust that they will arrive at
their intended stop” (43). We tend to think of city dwellers as partic-
ularly independent and self-driven. Yet according to Stalter-Pace, by
riding public transit, individuals give up a fraction of their independ-
ence by trusting in the city and its infrastructure, although this does
not fully deny New Yorkers their autonomy (33).
However, if we look deeper into Davidson’s work, it seems that
Stalter-Pace’s analysis of the subway-riding New Yorker’s loss of
independence may be understated. The individuals in Davidson’s
Subway photos, as well as many other riders he did not photograph,
relinquish complete control of their journey when they descend into
the station. These individuals thus become trapped within the con-
fines of the metropolitan area, unable to attain dreams beyond what is
familiar or immediately accessible to them—a theme that Davidson
explores through the contrast of inside versus outside. For example,
photo 22 was taken from outside the subway car looking in. A girl
stares at the camera from behind a woman’s extended arm and from
Keep On Prowling 61
behind the car’s closed doors. As viewers on the outside, we feel a

sense of freedom that the subjects in the photos don’t. The girl’s eyes
seem to beg, ‘Get me out of here,’ yet the subway’s closed doors deny
the opportunity for such liberation, trapping her and the other pas-
sengers within its cold, mechanical body.
With its energy and movement, the subway is a microcosm of the
metropolis above, yet this vitality seems to suggest a double-sided per-
sonality: the city is a place of false hope. Its fast pace belies its sup-
pressive nature; once you make the city your home, you can’t escape.
To most outsiders, New York City is the ultimate symbol of success,
but for locals, the city locks you in and blinds you to the rest of the
world. After all, when you can get from home to work to school and
back just by hopping on the subway, why would you ever want to
leave? The expansive skies peeking through the windows and the
advertisements on the wall in some of Davidson’s photos appear to
mock the subway riders’ unfortunate entrapment. In photo 2, a
woman with large, fearful eyes stands in front of an advertisement
beckoning, “Come home to Carolina,” which suggests that while it is
worldly and diverse, New York City fails to provide the comforts of
home. On the other side of the window, subway tracks converge
toward a point in the distant horizon, revealing that there is a whole
world outside of the metropolitan area into which few have ventured.
These elements illustrate an escape that was unattainable for
many people at the time, and is, to this day, very difficult to attain. In
photo 20, a young man wears a souvenir-style t-shirt bearing the icon-
ic New York skyline, yet the real skyline appears distant in the back-
ground, suggesting a vision of the city as a place where dreams are
unattainable and delusional—a concept propagated by tourists and
souvenir shirt designers who have no idea what city life is really like.
In photo 7, three children stare with their backs to the camera at a
sprawling cityscape complete with a Ferris wheel and an American
flag, a token of liberty. The flag, which appears far away and out of
focus, seems but a shadow of the American dream. Still, the children
in the photo seem to long for a freer place, one that is more welcom-
ing than the one they’re trapped inside of. The word “fuck” embla-
zoned on the window right above their heads is yet another reminder
of how harsh and merciless the city can be. By photographing from
62 Mercer Street
inside the subway, Davidson brings us along on his journey and allows
us to experience the entrapment that these subway riders feel. As out-
siders, we have difficulty empathizing with the locals. But this is pre-
cisely what drives Davidson’s work—he wants to expose outsiders to
what is unknown. Samuel Merrill in “New York’s Subterranean
Paradoxes,” his review of Subway, comments that we, as viewers of
the subjects in the photos, long to be in their place (4). This is cer-
tainly true for outsiders. To them, the city is vibrant, colorful, and
dynamic, but most outsiders don’t see the side marked by confine-
ment, monotony, and despair.
Zappen explains that the “voyeur” views the city as a place, “an
orderly disposition and distribution of elements, each in its proper and
distinct location,” while the “walker” views it as a space, “a place to
live, to dwell” (155). To view the city as a space is to retain the idea
that the city itself offers mobility and opportunities for personal
progress. Yet Davidson’s portrayal of the city as a stifling, confining
place leads me to believe otherwise. In fact, it seems to be outsiders,
or “voyeurs,” who hold the more optimistic view of the city as a vehi-
cle for success. Regardless, the American dream as we know it today
is no longer a heroic quest for success measured by economic and
social status. Zappen argues that it has been replaced by a desire for
something much simpler: the opportunity “to live and to work in
peace and freedom” (163). But when our safety is put in the hands of
a gunman and our children’s innocence is prematurely destroyed by
profanities scribbled on subway windows, it becomes difficult to find
peace or freedom. Yet perhaps there are other forms of escape or of
attaining ownership, which historically has been an integral part of
the American dream and which is still critical to our ability to live
(and move) freely. Zappen’s discussion of personal space leads me to
wonder whether the subway riders’ tendency to lose themselves in
reveries and newspapers is not a product of antisocial behaviors or
even a manifestation of New Yorkers’ apathy, but rather an attempt to
“carve out personal spaces within the complex configurations and
codes and constraints that constitute the totality of a city” (154). In
other words, perhaps they are attempts to reclaim ownership and
agency in a setting that tends to strip these things away.
Keep On Prowling 63
In the crowdedness of the underground, we often find ourselves

lost and prone to getting swept up in the current around us, unable to
forge our own paths or claim a unique identity. Davidson aims to
restore humanity to the individuals for whom the subway has become
a critical part of daily life, focusing on the human subjects and their
relationships with their environment rather than solely on the infra-
structure itself. The resulting effect, according to Merrill, is that the
individuals in Davidson’s work “blend [] seamlessly with their sur-
roundings” (2). Merrill’s view offers a new perspective of New York
subway riders; rather than rely on their environment, as Stalter-Pace
claims, the individuals who ride the subway actually make up the
landscape. In other words, the people aren’t dependent on the city.
Rather, the city is dependent on its people. In an era racked with mur-
ders, drug deals, and theft, this recognition would allow individuals to
claim ownership and control of a shared space that otherwise discour-
ages personal agency. Perhaps the graffiti painted all over the subway
walls are simply indications of individuals wanting to leave their per-
sonal mark on the city. As Zappen reminds us, the books that subway
riders bury themselves in are means of creating personal spaces within
a larger, public one. Taken into context, Davidson’s work is a way of
restoring individuality and agency to a space that encourages con-
formity and dependency. His close examinations of individuals’ lives
and their unique stories remind us that the city was created and is
defined by the people who inhabit it, and that we are the owners of
the spaces we live in. By including distant horizons and dark, encasing
shadows in his works, Davidson acknowledges that yes, there are end-
less opportunities beyond the reach of many urban inhabitants, but
instead of fixating on what is out of reach, we ought to refocus our
attention on what is right in front of us. Davidson shows us that the
old American dream of travelling to far-away places and pursuing ide-
alistic dreams is being corroded. A new dream of finding “peace and
freedom”—creating opportunities within our limitations—is slowly
taking its place.
Davidson’s approach to photographing the subway is indicative of
his desire to capture a world that is constantly moving and changing
(Cotton 97, 105). Amidst all this change, it’s easy to imagine that
Davidson’s work will no longer be relatable. In some ways this loss of
64 Mercer Street
familiarity is possible—contemporary and future artists could choose

to portray the subway completely differently than Davidson. Even
Davidson’s underground experience differed immensely from that of
his predecessor, Walker Evans, who descended into the subway in
1938 (Lesy). With a camera hidden under his coat, Evans managed to
capture mostly candid images of people immersed in conversation,
reading the news, or lost in thought. Many of Evans’s photos are tilt-
ed, and the people in them appear off-center—a consequence of let-
ting chance and the rocking of the subway dictate his photography. In
giving up creative control over his own photography, Evans produced
portraits that he himself described as “anonymous and documentary
and a straightforward picture of mankind” (Rosenheim 198). But
rather than stay seated and thus forced to rely on his camera and his
environment as Evans did, Davidson prowled the subway cars, active-
ly searching for riders to photograph (“Train of Thought”). As a
result, the people in Davidson’s photos seem to take command of the
camera. They look directly into the lens, and their bodies dominate
each frame—a stark contrast to the anonymity of the faces in Evans’s
photos. The respective works of Evans and Davidson tell us a lot
about how people move through space and shape the world around
them. For Evans, who stayed seated and relinquished a good deal of
creative control, the people around him were passive and anonymous.
Just as Evans hid his camera and tried to blend in, his subjects made
no attempt to distinguish themselves from the crowd. For Davidson,
who approached each one of his subjects, the people around him were
assertive and their personalities were palpable through the photo-
graph.
The subway looks completely different today than it did when
Davidson photographed it. Most of the graffiti, as well as the crime
associated with it, have been cleared up. But as the graffiti subculture
dwindles, the MTA has found new ways to showcase the diversity and
individuality of New York City’s inhabitants by installing commis-
sioned artworks in stations and rail cars. It seems that even though our
surroundings constantly evolve, we are always searching for novel
ways to leave our mark and make the city our own. Although the city
has become safer and tamer—some may even say blander—in the past
three decades, Davidson’s world is nevertheless a colorful, dynamic,
Keep On Prowling 65
and chaotic one. It’s a city of bright red and orange, at once energizing
and overwhelming, as much defined by its vivacity as it is by its chaos.
In a way, the dark, gritty, degrading quality of the subway is the city
showing its true colors. After all, for most people, urban life is as the
subway looks: disordered, unruly, and unsympathetic. Although
Davidson’s subway looks different than ours, he still manages to cap-
ture the unchanging emotions inherent in all of us: fear, longing, and
an irrepressible desire to keep searching for ways to leave our mark
and to find spaces to call our own. Ultimately, whether our world is
bland or vibrant is up to us; we can accept that where we are is where
we always will be, or we can keep on prowling.
WORKS CITED
Chakraborty, Deblina. “When Times Square Was Sleazy.” CNN, 18

Apr. 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/04/18/us/80s-times-square-
then-and-now/index.html.
Cotton, Charlotte. “Bruce Davidson.” Aperture, no. 220, Fall 2015,
pp. 94-107. EBSCOhost, eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail
?vid=0&sid=98303da3-fdf7-45d0-83bf-06d8308113a0%40ses-
sionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=1
09073038&db=asu.
Davidson, Bruce. Subway. Magnum Photos, New York City, 9 Apr.
2017, www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-cul-
ture/bruce-davidson-subway.
—. “Train of Thought: On the ‘Subway’ Photographs.” The New
York Review of Books, 1 Dec. 2011,
www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/12/01/train-thought-subway-
photographs.
Lesy, Michael. “Faces in the Crowd; To Capture the Vastness of the
City, Walker Evans and Bruce Davidson Went Underground.”
Boston Globe, 9 Jan. 2005, pp. 2-3. ProQuest Central,
proxy.library.nyu.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/doc
view/404943801?accountid=12768.
66 Mercer Street
Merrill, Samuel. “New York’s Subterranean Paradoxes: A Review of

Subway.” Opticon1826, no. 16, 2014, pp. 1-4. DiVA, doi:
dx.doi.org/10.5334/opt.bp.
Rosenheim, Jeff L. Afterword. Many Are Called, by Walker Evans,
Yale University Press, 2004.
Stalter-Pace, Sunny. Underground Movements: Modern Culture on
the New York City Subway. University of Massachusetts Press,
2012. Project Muse, muse.jhu.edu/books/9781613762875.
Sterbenz, Christina. “New York City Used To Be A Terrifying
Place.” Business Insider, 12 July 2013,
www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-used-to-be-a-terrify-
ing-place-photos-2013-7.
Zappen, James P. “New York City as Dwelling Place: Reinventing
the American Dream in Steven Millhauser’s Martin Dressler,
Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, and Atticus Lish’s Preparation for
the Next Life.” The Journal of American Culture, vol. 39, no. 2,
2016, pp. 151-164. ProQuest Central, p2048-
ezproxy.library.nyu.edu.proxy.library.nyu.edu/login?url=https://s
earch-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/docview/
1852705193?accountid=12768.
HERO COMPLEX:
THE OVERSIMPLIFICATION
OF TANK MAN
Wendy Yang
T
he morning after the Chinese government ruthlessly sup-
pressed pro-democracy protests at what would be known
as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, a mysterious civilian,
later affectionately dubbed “Tank Man” by his adoring
Western audience, blocked the path of government tanks that had not
hesitated to crush protests of the tyranny of China’s communist
regime. The 1989 photographs of “Tank Man” exemplify the great
potential of the ordinary individual. In what little viewers see of that
man, every aspect seems inspiring, scintillating, and superheroic, from
his nickname to his confidence in the face of intimidation to his plas-
tic grocery bags held casually by his side like battle axes. He is shown
facing the same giant military behemoths that had squashed an upris-
ing hours prior but which now hesitate to touch this mysteriously
godlike figure.
Even though it took a great amount of daring for one man to face
weapons of mass destruction in a symbolic protest, and even though
it is undeniable that Tank Man was strong, the true power of Tank
Man’s actions lay in the shutter of the camera that captured and pub-
licized his defiance. As Susan Sontag puts it, “to photograph is to
appropriate the thing photographed . . . putting oneself into a certain
relation to the world that feels like knowledge—and, therefore, like
power” (2). Tank Man’s predominantly Western audience relates
itself to a simple interpretation of the conflict, feeling exhilaration
upon gleaning a triumph of staunch pro-democracy and the all-
American archetype of the little man against the big man.
Unbeknownst to this audience, behind Tank Man’s flaming resistance
and quiet courage, his homeland still languishes in censorship such
that his significance is largely forgotten in a time when he is needed
most.
68 Mercer Street
First stripped of his original meaning and context by the viewers

of his image, Tank Man remains an example of the erosion of an
event down to a motif. He is objectified as a receptacle for others’ pity
in a similar way that the camera objectifies the nude female body, as
photographs “have been lined up for the pleasure and judgement of a
. . . proprietor” (Milne 209). Both the objectifying point of view of the
“male gaze” in artistic renderings of nude women, which exclude the
voice of the subject, and the “Western gaze” in photojournalism take
the narrative away from the subject and oversimplify their personality
and history. Thus, the only way to allow for the truth behind the
images to shine is through “the increased accessibility of art,” where
“it is often ordinary people . . . the ‘subjects’ who hold the power and
drive the creative direction of such work” (Milne 209). According to
writer Pico Iyer, the photographs of Tank Man, while outrageous,
had no noticeable impact on China’s totalitarian grip on its citizens.
They were a passing fancy reminiscent of ‘inspiration porn.’ The pho-
tos portrayed a person in troubled circumstances as inspirational,
while prioritizing the emotional needs of the objectifier, because they
were primarily consumed by a Western audience to evoke self-satis-
faction with their own relative freedom. The photos are virtually
unknown to Chinese people today (Iyer). Objectification preserves
the status quo. Rather than serving as a symbol of resistance for
Chinese revolutionaries, Tank Man’s image has only succeeded in
keeping foreigners complacent in self-approbation.
This objectification, however one-sided, is fundamental to touch-
ing an audience and transforming public opinion, since the audience
must sympathize with the clemency and appeal of heroic defiance it
puts forth (Skidmore). A sense of martyrdom emotionally exploits the
audience and manipulates the action as the audience internalizes the
emotional trauma. Photographs like Tank Man idealize a difficult
process of enacting change for less-privileged people, as Western
viewers may perceive those living in the aftermath of the massacre.
The composition of an individual or an underdog against the
world is seen time and time again in photographs that contrast man
and tank, girl and soldier, protester and armed police. It evokes sym-
pathy and puts “the underdog” on a pedestal, all while giving them a
moral high ground to compensate for a physical disadvantage (Iqbal).
Hero Complex 69
For example, the likeable, outnumbered heroes are seen stonily star-
ing down awkwardly uniformed racists in a Swedish Nazi demonstra-
tion, or spreading peace for the anti-war cause of the 1960s by hand-
ing out flowers to a line of men with bayonets, as if childishly inquis-
itive rather than endangered by weapons (Iqbal). Journalist Patrick
Witty points out that in some shots of “Tank Man,” the photographer
gives a view encompassing the entire line of tanks in front of Tank
Man, while the best-known photographs magnify the man himself,
leaving out the desolation of the surroundings and the enormity of the
tanks (Witty). Such images romanticize the struggle for freedom; they
“capture us, the viewers, because, yes, they expose and ridicule author-
ity . . . [and they] reflect our optimism as an audience,” the aforemen-
tioned optimism being a product of fantasy (Iqbal). The oppressor
appears innocuous because of the weak hero’s nonchalance. This
calmness causes the audience to believe the hero has a secret weapon
or army waiting for the right moment to strike back (Iqbal). When
single motifs are deemed by media consumers to be the figurehead of
movements, the movements and their actions are perceived and
responded to superficially. They stagnate social and administrative
change because the fight, at least in the picture, is already in the
process of being won. While the photographer controls the composi-
tion and content of the image, viewers have a say in assigning mean-
ing and reacting to the image. The audience, with this power, labels
the weak and vastly outnumbered as courageous and thus advantaged.
Since Tank Man has had little impact on matters in China, view-
ers look elsewhere to find his significance. His appeal was so universal
that “even the billions who cannot read [or] have never heard of Mao
Zedong could follow what the ‘tank man’ did” (Iyer). One conse-
quence of Tank Man’s pervasiveness and universal appeal was that his
audience made him disposable.
Due to its ease of interpretation, Tank Man’s likeness was even-
tually reduced to memes for the purposes of analogizing other con-
flicts (Watts). This is especially so in online spaces in China, where
Tank Man’s image is only legally exposed through lighthearted car-
toons depicting entirely unrelated events. A survey conducted on
Tank Man’s historical impact states that only fifteen out of one-hun-
dred modern-day Chinese university students can somewhat identify
70 Mercer Street
a photograph of Tank Man as derivative of Chinese authoritarianism,

suggesting that nothing important was done in the wake of the Tank
Man hysteria to improve the circumstances of people like him
(Fisher). The same exact composition is recklessly applied to other
conflicts, like in the memes Watts discusses, stripping the Tiananmen
Square conflict down to something without its own unique historical
context. The co-opting of Tank Man’s message as a universal symbol
can answer for his widespread popularity. The events of Tiananmen
Square take a back seat to what the media deemed most important in
making sense of and milking outrage from Tank Man.
The canonized image and utter dwarfing of Tank Man by his
nemeses obscure the moral violations of Tiananmen Square.
Historian Daniel Boorstin argues that in the past, “when a great man
appeared . . . people looked for God’s purpose in him”; but due to the
cult of personality encouraged by Tank Man’s monopolization of the
story of Chinese authoritarianism, in this case, “we look for his press
agent,” the message his photographer espouses (qtd. in Iyer). In an
attempt to make the conflict easier to digest, the media took to por-
traying Tank Man as a vastly outnumbered hero of democracy calmly
protecting his dignity as if he were a forgiving saint, blessed with pro-
tection from higher forces in his battle with the big, bad, military.
This portrayal diminished the horrors of the massacre that occurred
beforehand in Tiananmen Square and the subsequent legacy of sup-
pression and fear, which would have deemed Tank Man truly incon-
sequential in comparison if not for society’s worship of celebrity
(Witty).
Despite his superhero persona, Tank Man lies by omission; he
does not open his mouth and tell of the makeshift hideouts students
and scholars built to stay vigilant of threats to their safety, livelihoods,
and cause. He does not mention the desperate months-long hunger
strikes, the foreign journalists who were slaughtered when caught
with damning information on the government, nor the endless sur-
veillance of civilians in the days and decades following (Witty). It is
impossible to convey through this one image of man and tank that
many government generals supported the pro-democracy rebellion
while some protesters resorted to violent means to get their way
(Iyer). As a weary critic of Tank Man’s reception states, the driver of
Hero Complex 71
the leading tank, another victim of government force, was as much a

participant in this rebellion as Tank Man himself was, though not as
sympathetic given the fact that he was hidden beneath a lethal metal
beast (Iyer). Man and machine were united under the banner of rebel-
lion; the tanks and their operators were Tank Man’s comrades rather
than his enemies. There were likely just two sides in the Tiananmen
Square conflict as the image of Tank Man suggests, but the photo-
graphs that captured and epitomized Tank Man as the face of the stu-
dent demonstrations only put on display that which was agreeable
rather than the uncomfortable, complex, or distressing aspects of
Tiananmen Square. It is clear from the photographic watering down
of Tiananmen Square that those who documented Tank Man valued
the eventual viewers of the photographs, not the event’s downtrodden
protestors. Tank Man’s gutsy defiance was powerless compared to the
domineering camera lens. He would become one addition to the uni-
versal narrative of the metaphorical mouse and the lion: a juxtaposi-
tion that drew viewer sympathy and outrage while obscuring the line
between oppressors and oppressed, as well as overwhelming the defeat
and destruction that pro-democracy protesters had faced at
Tiananmen Square.
While “a photograph is only equal to its creator’s understanding
of its potential impact,” out-of-context photography meant to elicit a
response is best enjoyed by viewers with a knowledge of an image’s
background; without context, the image becomes a sole representa-
tion of a conflict in the collective eye (Skidmore). Journalism has an
obligation to its audience to tell a complete story and to give a voice
to the downtrodden. At its least ethical, however, it demonizes and
detaches some groups while diminishing the need for change in other
circumstances—using an image.
To further prevent other ‘Tank Men’ from having their stories co-
opted, the audience shoulders the burden of interpreting the subject
matter as flawed, vulnerable, and in dire need of support rather than
glamorizing the events depicted. The public has a responsibility to
educate itself beyond a simple, sentimental understanding, and the
press has an obligation to capture and clarify a photograph using voic-
es beyond its own voyeuristic lens. Due to the prying eye of the cam-
era and its simplification of Tank Man’s struggle, telling the story of
72 Mercer Street
Tiananmen Square was only accessible in one way: as a tool to convey

a message which would be understood by almost anyone at the
expense of wholeness. The art form by which Tank Man was publi-
cized—journalism—is closed off to many oppressed populations who
could have told their stories but have instead been exploited for bring-
ing out feelings of grandiose self-congratulations in a privileged view-
er base. The advent of social media, its 280-character captions, and
the ubiquitous ‘share’ button expanded this same appropriation to
more recent protests like those of the Black Lives Matter movement
against police brutality and the environmentalist and land-related
protests at the Dakota Access Pipeline. However, those Tank Men
can finally fully articulate and voice their stories and their need for
change. They are now in control of the camera lens themselves and
have discovered a medium for self-expression beyond the flatness of
an appropriated visual icon.
WORKS CITED
Fisher, Max. “25 Years after Tiananmen, Most Chinese Students

Have Never Heard of It.” Vox, 3 June 2014,
www.vox.com/2014/6/3/5775918/25-years-after-tiananmen-
most-chinese-univeristy-students-have-never.
Iqbal, Nosheen. “Protest Photos: The Power of One Woman
against the World.” The Guardian, 11 Apr. 2017, www.the-
guardian.com/world/2017/apr/11/protest-photos-the-power-of-
one-woman-against-the-world.
Iyer, Pico. “The Unknown Rebel.” Time, 13 Apr. 1998,
content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988169,0
0.html.
Milne, Amelia. “No Longer a Passive Subject: The Revolutionary
Potential of a Nude Selfie.” Mercer Street, edited by Stephen
Donatelli, New York University Expository Writing Program,
2017-2018, pp. 209-217.
Skidmore, Maisie. “On Protest Photography.” Magnum Photos, 01
Feb. 2017, www.magnumphotos.com/theory-and-practice/mag-
num-photographers-on-protest-photography.
Hero Complex 73
Sontag, Susan. “In Plato’s Cave.” On Photography, Rosetta Books,

2005.
Watts, Jake Maxwell. “Tiananmen Square: How Chinese Bloggers
Play Cat and Mouse with Censors.” The Atlantic, 04 June
2013, www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/06/tiananmen-
square-how-chinese-bloggers-play-cat-and-mouse-with-cen-
sors/276523.
Widener, Jeff. Tank Man. 5 June 1989, photograph, Associated
Press.
Witty, Patrick. “Behind the Scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen.” The
New York Times, 03 June 2009,
lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/behind-the-scenes-tank-
man-of-tiananmen.
LANGUAGE AND THE SELF:
COLONIAL EXILE AND
POSTCOLONIAL RECOVERY
Jen Khai Yew
T
here was a time when my mind would render a chair lin-
guistically as “kau-ié,” a word that my family has used for
generations and generations to refer to sitting imple-
ments. But now a chair is “chair.” In my adolescence,
English supplanted Penang Hokkien as the language of my thoughts,
and now my mind instinctively settles on the English “chair,” occupy-
ing the boxy curtness of the English word rather than the rounded,
sing-song syllables of “kau-ié.” Now, I love, grieve, and dream in
English. In the grand historical perspective, my linguistic migration
can perhaps be seen as an instance of a much larger movement—the
inevitable vestiges of British colonialism, or the consequences of a
pragmatic educational policy that is eager to keep up with the lingua
franca of the world. That is to say, my adoption of English as the lan-
guage of my consciousness was perhaps inevitable. Yet, I often feel as
though I am not at home in English, as though I am trespassing in
some hallowed cathedral, a visitor overstaying his welcome. English
feels like something borrowed, a language that is incidental rather
than essential to my being. There are no more “kau-ié”s except in the
hazy memory of my childhood. Meanwhile I sit uneasily on the edge
of the “chair,” never really reclining into its affricated embrace.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, in his collection of essays Decolonizing the
Mind, identifies this feeling of linguistic estrangement as part of a
broader phenomenon which he calls “colonial alienation” (347).
Ngũgĩ’s context is, unlike my upbringing in post-colonial Malaysia
and Singapore, a decidedly colonial one. His school, ruled by
colonists, expressly forbade the use of Ngũgĩ’s native Gĩkũyũ, meting
out harsh and humiliating punishments to whomever was caught
speaking it (342). Meanwhile, English was exalted and enshrined—
any achievement in English was rewarded with “prizes, prestige,
applause” (342). This system of strong incentives, as one might
75 Mercer Street
expect, reinforces the primacy of English in the schoolchildren’s

minds. For Ngũgĩ, this is an act of linguistic violence—it causes in the
child a “dissociation, divorce, or alienation from the immediate envi-
ronment,” a dissonance between the language that they speak and the
reality that they inhabit (347). Certainly, and thankfully, most post-
colonial children do not experience this explicit and inhumane system
of carrots-and-sticks. However, there is still a subtler scheme of
incentives at work today. In postcolonial countries the distinction is
still drawn between languages with currency (most commonly,
English) and languages without, and the valuation is reflected in the
pressures placed on schoolchildren to master the language that leads
to economic success. For most people in Malaysia and Singapore, the
fine-tuning of the language of business still takes precedence over the
appreciation of native literature. The asymmetry of languages still
exists and so do the attendant consequences.
Colonial alienation, Ngũgĩ contends, is rooted in linguistic
oppression—“the domination of a people’s language by the languages
of the colonizing nations was crucial to the domination of the mental
universe of the colonized” (346). Language for Ngũgĩ has two crucial
aspects—it is both “a means of communication and a carrier of cul-
ture” (343). The former, language as communication, encompasses
both the basic, spoken, mediatory function of language and its written
manifestations. For the colonial subject, the “broad harmony”
between these two facets of language is broken (344). There is no cor-
respondence between the English of education and the Gĩkũyũ or
Hokkien of daily life. “Harmony” is a telling word—this internal cor-
respondence of language has a je ne sais quoi about it, a musicality
that allows our stream of consciousness to proceed with unburdened
vim. Ngũgĩ cites the example of the word “missile,” which “used to
hold an alien far-away sound” for him until he learnt the Gĩkũyũ
equivalent of “ngurukuhī” (346). Linguistic imposition impinges on
one’s capacity to emotionally engage with concepts. The condition of
the colonized is that of persistent estrangement from this musicality
of the mind.
The second aspect of language, language as culture, provides fur-
ther troubling consequences. Ngũgĩ argues that the language of the
colonizers reflects and elevates the culture of the colonizers, while
Language and the Self 76
undermining the culture of the colonized (346). This imposition of

culture is exacerbated by representations of the colonized person’s cul-
ture. Ngũgĩ cites Hegel’s writing, which characterizes African culture
as a place where there is “nothing harmonious with humanity” (348).
Indeed, the sense of permanence and authority that emanates from
written texts, especially ones considered canonical, seems to further
reinforce notions of inferiority in the mind of the colonized.
Binyavanga Wainaina satirizes these oppressive representations in his
essay “How to Write about Africa,” a tongue-in-cheek litany of
instructions for Western writers. His sardonic manual calls for gross
oversimplifications and exoticization. Wainaina’s essay illustrates a
subtler dimension of the cultural destruction that Ngũgĩ describes—
the insidious form of cultural denigration exacerbated by the nuances
of language. Wainaina provides many examples which operate on a
more subconscious level in their oppression. Even simple words like
‘darkness’ and ‘bygone’ and ‘timeless,’ when employed under the care-
less, patronizing gaze of those in power, can reduce the complexities
of entire cultures (543). The earthly and primordial representations of
the colonized are on the surface innocuous and perhaps even empow-
ering, but in reality they lock the colonized culture in stasis. The
romanticization of the other is as alluring as it is flattening. Wainaina
illustrates that the absence of nuance in these “[b]road brushstrokes”
is harder to detect than other incongruities (545). These one-dimen-
sional images accumulate and ossify and, as Ngũgĩ writes, one begins
“seeing oneself from outside oneself as if one was another self” (347).
The dominance of the colonizer’s culture exerts both overt and
implied forms of oppression, resulting in disharmony between the
colonized people and their culture.
Ngũgĩ suggests that the colonial subject’s mental life is full of
both linguistic and cultural dissonance. What recourse does the colo-
nized subject have? The pragmatist in me, like Chinua Achebe
(whom Ngũgĩ cites), wants to reconcile with the given circumstances,
carve out a niche in the colonial language for myself. But Ngũgĩ seems
to think that such a solution is neither possible nor desirable. Indeed,
he stopped writing in English after Decolonizing the Mind, returning
to his native language, Gĩkũyũ. This seemingly radical departure res-
onates with the rage and indignance that Jamaica Kincaid expresses in
77 Mercer Street
her essay “On Seeing England for the First Time.” She vividly
describes her mental colonization, sketching out her colonial educa-
tion, which had “an iron vise at the back of [her] neck” that forced her
to imbibe images of veneration as an outsider looking into England
and Englishness (423). As an adult, she finally visits England, but
instead of exultation she feels disgust and the violent desire to “take
[England] into [her] hands and tear it into little pieces and then
crumble it up as if it were clay, child’s clay” (425). This disillusion-
ment stems from the disparity between the romantic visions of
England that suffused her upbringing and the reality of “the real
England, not a picture, not a painting, not through a story in a book,
but England” (425). Kincaid’s journey to the country that ruled over
her native Antigua and her youthful self’s imagination provide a phys-
ical, literalized displacement analogous to Ngũgĩ’s mental one. It is
hard for the colonized to realize that the exaltation of the colonizer’s
culture is as disproportionate as the undermining of their own; it is as
integral to the fabric of colonial existence as water is to fish. Colonial
alienation is thus twofold: the colonized are simultaneously separated
from their own culture and barred from their colonizer’s culture,
stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Can home be found in that middle ground? Perhaps. Salman
Rushdie, in his lecture “Is Nothing Sacred?,” suggests that language
in the form of literature is the arena for transcendence. The novel is
for him “the stage upon which the great debates of society can be con-
ducted” (364). He recognizes that the reader is not a vessel that blind-
ly imbibes whatever ideas are presented on the page. Instead, litera-
ture, being a place where “we can hear voices talking about everything
in every possible way,” allows for the reader to be an active participant
in discourse (371). Language may thus be both the captor and the
emancipator for the colonized. Indeed, the very activity of postcolo-
nialism is concentrated in discourse. The conversations we have
regarding Ngũgĩ’s essays and Rushdie’s and Kincaid’s novels aid us in
recovering from the exile of the self from the self. Thus, Ngũgĩ’s deci-
sion to write exclusively in Gĩkũyũ is perhaps, in an increasingly glob-
alized world, overly reclusive. It closes an avenue for discourse, and as
Rushdie writes, “wherever in the world the little room of literature has
Language and the Self 78
been closed, sooner or later the walls have come tumbling down”
(371).
Ngũgĩ’s absolutist, us-versus-them outlook is no doubt a product
of his context. It is a testament to the harrowing and divisive psycho-
logical trials of colonization. In the postcolonial world, however, it
may no longer be beneficial, or indeed possible, to conceive of our
identities in such a static manner. To do so would be to submit entire-
ly to the arbitrary conditions of the birth lottery and fail to acknowl-
edge our increasingly fluid cultural identities. I, for example, am a
fourth-generation Chinese immigrant to Malaysia who myself immi-
grated to Singapore, grew up assimilating to Anglo-American culture
and ideals, and has now come to the United States. Globalized iden-
tities defy easy categorization.
Moreover, the static delineation of cultural identity removes
choice from the individual. Jhumpa Lahiri, in a memoir entitled
“Teach Yourself Italian,” recounts the process of attempting to inter-
nalize Italian, a language “that has nothing to do with [her] life,” at
least initially (Lahiri). Her reflections on Bengali, her “mother
tongue,” echo Ngũgĩ’s alienation: “When you live in a country where
your own language is considered foreign, you can feel a continuous
sense of estrangement. You speak a secret, unknown language, lacking
any correspondence to the environment. An absence that creates a
distance within you” (Lahiri). But unlike Ngũgĩ, Lahiri does not con-
sider any language as home, instead suggesting that she may be “a
writer who doesn’t belong completely to any language.” The reasons
for her insistence on her “odd linguistic journey” at first elude Lahiri,
until a friend writes to her: “a new language is almost a new life, gram-
mar and syntax recast you, you slip into another logic and another
sensibility.” Lahiri came to realize that her desire to learn another lan-
guage was a desire to subject herself to “metamorphosis.” She recounts
the moment in the Metamorphoses of Ovid “when the nymph
Daphne is transformed into a laurel tree,” and reflects that the “beauty
of this scene is that it portrays the fusion of two elements, of both
beings” (Lahiri). Yet she recognizes that a total linguistic metamor-
phosis is not possible—“the part of [her] conditioned to write in
English endures” (Lahiri).
79 Mercer Street
What this vision suggests to postcolonial societies is the possibil-

ity to occupy an identity that straddles both our pre-colonial origins
and postcolonial predicaments. Lahiri writes: “It’s not possible to
become another writer, but it might be possible to become two.”
Chair is “kau-ié” is “chair,” not either/or, but both. In chairs, as in all
things, I now locate a superimposition of two linguistic worlds, the
world of my childhood and the world of my present. Ngũgĩ’s pre-
colonial idyll cannot be restored, for like any nostalgia it is a yearning
for a past that no longer exists. Rather, it is a past that can no longer
exist solely, but instead one that must coexist with now, with other
temporalities. What we need then is not a harmony within the self,
but a harmony between our multiple selves. Fragmentation is a pre-
requisite for iridescence, and alienation is but eternal sojourning. It is
time to move on.
WORKS CITED
Kincaid, Jamaica. “On Seeing England for the First Time.” The
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Teach Yourself Italian.” The New Yorker, 7 Dec.
2015. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/teach-your-
self-italian.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. “From Decolonizing the Mind.” The
Rushdie, Salman. “Is Nothing Sacred?” The Broadview Anthology
of Expository Prose, edited by Laura Buzzard et al., 3rd ed.,
Wainaina, Binyavanga. “How to Write about Africa.” The
DIFFERENT, NOT BACKWARDS
Isabela Acenas
U
pon seeing the woven basket, you witness a historically-
rooted technique applied to strips of northern Philippine
bamboo. The minute strands of fiber on each bamboo
strip are visible, yet subtle, with hundreds of strips making
up just one of these woven masterpieces. No wonder just one basket
takes an entire day to make. Your first instinct is to hold it and touch
the grooves formed by the intertwining strips. The interlaced strips
are smooth to the touch, but as you attempt to separate them, the bas-
ket stays intact. It smells strongly of the fresh bamboo plant that
makes up the strands, and when you run your nails down the woven
texture, it sounds crisp and seemingly breakable. What surprises many
is that for such a light material, the baskets are strong enough to hold
the many pounds of unhusked rice, called palay, farmed by the indige-
nous community. The only variety besides size is color: light brown or
dark brown. The ones I bore in the northern Philippines were light
brown.
Baskets are a preferred technology in Igorot culture; they are light
and don’t need fuel, yet can hold a substantial amount of weight. This
technology doesn’t need improving. The farmers are physically capa-
ble, the baskets are economically feasible, and their use creates an
interdependency between the Igorot economies of basket weaving and
agriculture. The woven innovation is perfect in the eyes of Igorots.
Hundreds of years of baskets used for farming is proof. Other farming
practices have also been passed down for generations, preserving a
culture that has struggled to withstand homogenization by the
Philippine government in the city of Manila. As the nation attempts
to modernize in the same fashion as ‘first world’ countries, the thirty
ethnic groups that make up the Philippines are being grouped togeth-
er in the attempt to create a uniform nation out of a seven-thousand-
island archipelago. Despite these efforts to homogenize, Igorots con-
tinue to use woven baskets to carry the palay they harvest.
Manila, like San Francisco where I grew up, is known for seeing
technology as a constantly advancing field. What scientists, engineers,
81 Mercer Street
and mathematicians create in Silicon Valley or Manila is never the

final version and cannot be sustained for as long as the Igorot’s bas-
kets. Our cultures of advancement push us to start improving tech-
nologies the moment we’ve produced the final version. Even in agri-
culture, scientists are always advancing, even when it is not necessary.
Golden Rice, a genetically modified rice strain with more vitamin A,
was introduced to Filipino farmers in 2013 by the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) (Heyes). However, IRRI didn’t consider
that farmers weren’t asking for fortified rice: it was a solution to a
problem that didn’t even exist. IRRI did not collaborate with the
farmers whom they had hoped to benefit, delegitimizing what farmers
were already doing. Chito Medina, head of MASIPAG (a farmer-led
network of NGOs and scientists) and one of the farmers in opposi-
tion, deemed IRRI’s actions a “crime against humanity” (Heyes).
These farmers argued that “they were already growing enough foods
rich in vitamin A, making the GMO Golden Rice unnecessary”
(Heyes). Four hundred farmers displayed their dissatisfaction and
destroyed Golden Rice’s trial fields. The pushback influenced the per-
ception of genetically engineered rice as “agricultural imperialism.”
What IRRI didn’t recognize is that indigenous Filipino methods of
food production are rooted in a gradual accommodation to nature.
This method clashes with the modernity that the scientific communi-
ty, with its research institutes like IRRI, thinks tribal populations
want. Indigenous peoples, as a result, are not regarded as valid voices
when it comes to innovations such as Golden Rice. To many, the
farmers’ ‘backward’ lifestyle is less credible than a PhD’s.
Genetic engineering and machine technology have been proven
to further productivity and crop potential in agriculture. However,
these innovations are at odds with traditional practices such as the use
of native seeds and basket weaving. The traditional bamboo strips, so
familiar to the calloused hands of the Igorot people, cannot be found
in the new metal machinery. The genetically modified seeds are unfa-
miliar to the farmers who have used native seeds for generations. We
in ‘modern’ communities, on the other hand, continue to advance
technology, furthering our ability to make daily functions easier. But
this focus on advancement comes at the cost of our connection to
nature and, in turn, leaves us unable to recognize how our actions
affect the natural world. The United States, which greatly values our
growing market, is okay with the trade-off because we see technolog-
ical development as integral to a better economy. However, to support
indigenous communities like the Igorots’, we must acknowledge their
practice of a gradual accommodation to nature. After going back to
the Phillipines and reinscribing the contrasting environments that
make up my heritage, I question why urban communities like ours do
not prioritize this gradual approach when trying to support indige-
nous groups, instead labeling their generations of expertise as an
invalid source of scientific knowledge.
Thomas Graham, a writer for Business Mirror, witnessed these
different approaches while on assignment in Manila to write about
the constantly advancing city. He was “welcomed into high-rise
buildings, exclusive lounges and fancy dinners” and “met influential
businessmen and politicians” (Graham). He juxtaposes this luxurious
description with his perception of the rural regions up north where he
observed the Aeta tribe, not too far from the Igorots and their basket
weaving. Gawad Kalinga (GK), an NGO dedicated to elevating rural
communities including the Igorots and the Aetas, introduced
Graham to the indigenous approach to problem-solving. After the
eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, which destroyed the land, the
Aetas were taught “about forestry and agriculture” with support from
GK, inspiring the Aetas to “not give up on their land” (Graham).
Whereas Manila approaches land use with high-rises, the northern
Philippines adjusts their practices to continue thriving off of the envi-
ronment as they have for hundreds of years. Graham ends his article
by encouraging the audience, likely from cities like Manila, to under-
stand the land values of indigenous Filipino peoples. GK supports and
adopts the indigenous problem-solving method of gradual accommo-
dation. Instead of imposing new technology, GK incorporates the
Aetas’ current practices to enable the continuation of traditional agri-
culture, the core of tribal Filipinos. Graham agrees with this
approach, arguing that we have “plenty to learn from the countryside,”
because here, “the indigenous people still live closely to nature,” such
that “the heart of the Philippines really shines through” (Graham).
Encompassed by his heartfelt tone, he comes to the same understand-
83 Mercer Street
ing of indigenous communities that I had on my own trip to the

Philippine Islands.
Between 2015 and 2016, I spent four months in both rural and
urban regions of the Phillipines, allowing me to identify differences in
how indigenous communities and ‘modern’ urban Filipinos innovate
solutions to problems. These innovations differ in that tribal popula-
tions have developed their solutions over generations, whereas the
more ‘modern’ solutions quickly become obsolete as they are contin-
uously improved upon. For example, the Green Revolution of the
mid-twentieth century emphasized rapid technological innovation in
food production, introducing machines, genetically engineered seeds,
and fertilizers. Filipino tribes, on the other hand, were also improving
their agricultural technique, but in a slower manner; for this reason,
traditional Philippine farming still requires native seeds, basket weav-
ing, and other skills developed over generations.
Damasa Magcale-Macandog and Lovereal Ocampo, researchers
at University of the Philippines at Los Banos, conducted research to
affirm the value of these gradually-developed traditions. They found
that the local Bayyo peoples’ “ancestors manually built terraces along
the mountainsides to be able to plant irrigated rice and vegetables”
(136). Today, after the “harvest of rice, farmers build raised beds . . .
for sweet potato planting,” a technique of intercropping that exhibits
efficient use of the land developed over years of practice (136). The
authors successfully accentuate the cultural values that are tied to agri-
culture and stress the northern Filipino peoples’ gradual accommoda-
tion to the changing land. Magcale-Macandog and Ocampo publish
in-depth descriptions of yields, cropping seasons, and each agriculture
technique, along with their original names in the Filipino language.
By doing so, Magcale-Macandog and Ocampo bring the Bayyos to
the forefront of their research, acknowledging indigenous populations
as valid contributors to scientific innovation.
Many question why indigenous peoples like the Bayyos, Aetas,
and Igorots value the land so highly, but asking “why” may be proof
that communities like ours are so distant from nature that we cannot
even attempt to understand this connection. American essayist
Marilynne Robinson points out the danger of this lost connection in
her essay, “Surrendering Wilderness.” Robinson stresses the impor-
tance of defining the wilderness as a condition rather than a location,

arguing that it is not just a geographic region with boundaries drawn
by the government, but more a place “where things can be done that
would be intolerable in a populous landscape” with “aquifers so vast”
and “wind so pervading” (61). Essentially, the “wilderness is not a sin-
gle region, but a condition of being of the natural world” (61).
Robinson denounces what we in ‘modern’ communities have done to
reduce the prevalence of wilderness, considering that “we have all
behaved as if there were a place where actions would not have conse-
quences” (61). For instance, she exposes the US government’s use of
an unpopulated landscape in Utah as a bomb testing location. The
government’s denial of harm, she writes, was “sufficient for most of
the public for a very long time” (62). Such denials are ubiquitous in
our history of constant technological innovation. Our disregard for
the environmental harm we cause allows us to consider only our own
problem-solving approach. Robinson urges the public to fight against
“the debilitating pleasures of imagining that our own impulses are
reliably good” (64). If we can overcome this obstacle, it may become
easier to adopt an indigenous Filipino approach that prioritizes the
minimization of environmental impact.
As a city girl with indigenous roots, I wonder why ‘modern’ com-
munities like mine are so resistent to indigenous technological inno-
vations. Michelle Sit, an undergraduate student at the University of
California at Santa Cruz, would argue that it is the result of long-
standing American discrimination against indigenous Filipinos. In
1899, following the Spanish-American war, President McKinley
sought to convince Americans that it was right to annex the
Phillipines (Office). Initially, some Americans were convinced by the
argument that the Philippines would be economically beneficial to the
United States as a stepping stone to Asia, but many remained skepti-
cal (Office). McKinley aimed to convince the rest by claiming that
Filipinos were “unfit for self-government” and that “they would soon
have anarchy and misrule” if the United States didn’t step in to “edu-
cate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them”
(McKinley). Portraying the Filipinos as an inferior population
prompted the public to believe that annexation would be beneficial for
not just us, but even more so for the Filipinos. Michelle Sit credits the
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long-lasting perception of inferiority of Filipinos to this institutional-

ized racism, which put the Philippines ‘behind’ in the race to a ‘mod-
ern’ world.
In her paper, Sit examines the St. Louis World Fair of 1904,
which served as a platform for perpetuating the enduring prejudice
towards Filipinos. In the federally-funded fair, the government sup-
ported the ‘scientifically-based’ gradient of races. Sit argues that the
“simplicity of the indigenous Filipinos’ structures made it easy to
instinctively classify them as entertaining, subaltern people” (2). The
main attraction was the “ethnographic display of the dog-eating per-
formed by members of the Igorot tribe” (3). The world fair was struc-
tured to juxtapose the Philippines with the United States through a
scientific lens, pushing the American public to view the island peoples
as inferior. Sit closes her analysis with a remark on the “representa-
tions of [her] ancestors” (4). As a Filipina herself, Sit resents how the
fair organizers used this “racist ideology” as “evidence of the transcen-
dence of ‘Caucasian’ races over their ‘colored’ counterparts” (2). A
century after the fair, the prejudice against Filipinos still persists, as
exhibited through Filipino migrant workers’ struggle to be paid min-
imum wage in the United States. Little has changed in the way ‘mod-
ern’ communities perceive the agricultural lifestyles of indigenous
Filipinos.
Before I read Michelle Sit’s paper, I had been introduced to the
perception of indigenous peoples as backwards through Pocahontas, a
classic childhood Disney movie. Native American Pocahontas criti-
cizes this negative attitude of English settler John Smith, singing,
“You think the only people who are people / Are the people who look
and think like you” (Pocahontas). Native Americans and Native
Filipinos are similar in the sense that they prefer a gradual progression
in technology as their approach to problem-solving, looking to the
land for solutions before turning to their own creations. We become
more aware of this cultural difference as writers around the world are
recognizing that rural indigenous communities—both in and outside
of the Philippines—are capable of not only maintaining land values
within agricultural development, but also solving the food insecurity
faced by technologically-advancing communities.
Vanda Altarelli, a specialist in tribal cultures, brings indigenous

ingenuity to light, arguing that native populations can monitor cli-
mate changes by “observing the abundance of flowers, changes in skin
colors of wild animals, and the flight direction of birds”
(“Campaigners”). Indigenous groups then use this data to determine
any necessary changes in where they grow crops and prepare the soil.
Over time, tribes maintain traditional practices, study intergenera-
tional patterns in farming, and even create predictions based on very
slow changes in nature. The United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization has observed the indigenous peoples’ intricate under-
standing of the land since the early 2000s and now aims to learn from
them about how technologically-advancing nations may feed their
growing populations (“Campaigners”). At this point, we have
advanced so much that we, ironically, observe “old” tribal practices as
new innovations.
Despite the initiative by the UN, institutions like IRRI still do
not consider indigenous peoples as valid voices in innovations like
genetic engineering. Whether because of a sense of technological
superiority or a long-standing prejudice against indigenous ways, they
do not consider mapping nature’s patterns to be an ‘advanced’
approach to problem-solving. However, in the eyes of the Igorots, the
Earth is not a physical object that they are trying to maintain, but
rather, it is a state of being that is meant to enable all species in our
ecosystem to thrive. This is what native Filipinos attempt to do across
generations: understand the land, not change it. The conditions of
nature do not change overnight; therefore, it does not make sense for
humans to favor such abrupt changes. If we continuously advance, we
may lose our connection to the land and treat it as disposable.
To generate long-lasting solutions instead of using our usual
quick fixes, we must attempt to see nature’s patterns through the
indigenous lens. For indigenous communities like the Igorots, Aetas,
and Bayyos, development depends on prioritizing their relationships
with the natural world. Indigenous populations are not ‘backwards’
merely because they take generations to accommodate to nature’s
changing conditions, and conversely, our communities are not
‘advanced’ because we constantly change. We can continue to sustain
ourselves through the constant technological advancements that we
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make. However, we are not likely to find long-standing solutions

through those means alone. If the scientific community takes the time
to listen to indigenous people’s expertise, weaving their knowledge
into the scientific discussion, we might find ourselves learning from
the long-standing agricultural practices of Filipino tribes. We may
have contrasting approaches to problem-solving, but that only means
that indigenous practices are different, not backwards.
WORKS CITED
“Campaigners: ‘Backward’ Indigenous Peoples May Hold Solutions

to World Hunger.” Voice of America: Science and Health, 26
Sept. 2016, www.voanews.com/a/reu-campaigners-backward-
indigenous-peoples-may-hold-solutions-to-world-
hunger/3526572.html.
Graham, Thomas. “Sowing seeds to save culture, the countryside.”
Business Mirror, 4 Nov. 2017,
www.businessmirror.com.ph/sowing-seeds-to-save-culture-the-
countryside.
Heyes, J.D. “Filipino farmers flatly reject GMOs being forced on
them by agricultural imperialism.” Natural News, 2 Apr. 2015,
www.naturalnews.com/049217_golden_rice_Filipino_farmers_G
MO_crops.html.
Magcale-Macandog, Damasa and Lovereal Joy M. Ocampo.
“Indigenous Strategies of Sustainable Farming Systems in the
Highlands of Northern Philippines.” Journal of Sustainable
Agriculture, vol. 26, no. 2, October 2008, pp. 117-138,
www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1300/J064v26n02_09.
McKinley, William. “Interview with President William McKinley.”
The Christian Advocate, 22 January 1903. Reprinted in The
Philippines Reader, edited by Daniel Schirmer and Stephen
Rosskamm Shalom, South End Press, 1987, pp. 22–23.
Office of the Historian. “The Philippine-American War, 1899-
1902.” U.S. Department of State,
history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/war.
Pocahontas. Directed by Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, perform-

ance by Irene Bedard, Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 1995.
Robinson, Marilynne. “Surrendering Wilderness.” Wilson
Quarterly, Autumn 1998, pp. 60-64.
Sit, Michelle. “The Filipino ‘exhibit’ at the 1904 St. Louis World’s
Fair, Missouri.” Santa Cruz Report, 2008, pp. 1-5,
review.mai.ac.nz/MR/article/viewFile/131/131-657-1-PB.pdf.
THE FORGIVING BLUE
Lynn Fong
I
nterspersed in the gentle lapping of ocean waves, a few tense
notes of a violin crescendo as Chiron, the protagonist of Barry
Jenkins’s film Moonlight, learns to swim. The water is a soft
turquoise. The camera bobs along with it, pulled up and down
and sometimes partially obscured by the waves. We, the audience, are
right there with little Chiron as he experiences the waters of Miami
for the first time. Juan, Chiron’s newfound, unlikely mentor, is hold-
ing up Chiron’s small head while he teaches him to float. “You’re in
the middle of the world,” Juan tells Chiron. The two are framed only
by the turquoise water and a light blue sky. Juan demonstrates arm
movements: “Go like this,” he instructs, “more athletic.” Chiron
mimics him as he learns to paddle. Finally, Juan releases Chiron so he
can swim on his own. “Go,” Juan says, and Chiron begins paddling by
himself. Then, Chiron is alone. The music slows and fades away. He
is indeed in the middle of the world as he swims, unaccompanied,
unafraid, and free.
Moonlight, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in
2017, is a coming-of-age story. More specifically, it documents three
stages in the life of Chiron, a young, gay black man growing up in an
impoverished area of Miami. Even more specifically, the film offers
an empathetic lens into the most intimate, defining moments of
Chiron’s life: learning how to swim, putting a blanket on his drugged-
out mother, reuniting with someone he’s loved after years of estrange-
ment. The movie is split into three parts, each titled a name that
Chiron has been called, showing Chiron as he grows up. The first, “i.
Little,” shows Chiron as a boy. He isn’t popular, but befriends one
boy named Kevin, who, like Chiron’s other peers, calls him “Little.”
We see Chiron cross paths with Juan, a drug dealer, as he is chased by
bullies into a drug den. Juan becomes a sort of mentor and caretaker
for Chiron, allowing him to stay with him and his girlfriend Teresa at
his house whenever Chiron needs an escape from his turbulent home
life with his crack-addicted mother, Paula.
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In the second part of the film, “ii. Chiron,” we see Chiron as a

teenager. He continues to be a scrawny, quiet kid, constantly targeted
by bullies. He also continues to be friends with Kevin, who now calls
him “Black” and seems cooler and more popular than Chiron. Chiron
and Kevin kiss on a beach, but later, when Chiron’s bullies tell Kevin
to punch him, Kevin complies. We see Chiron get arrested for retal-
iating the next day. Finally, “iii. Black” shows us Chiron as a man. He
looks tough, and has begun selling drugs. Yet after he receives a phone
call from Kevin, whom he hasn’t spoken to in years, he begins to make
amends. He visits his mother and accepts her apology. He then drives
to see Kevin.
Chiron’s story is left untold after he and Kevin reunite. In the last
we see of Chiron, he is sitting in Kevin’s embrace, accepting Kevin’s
comfort. That is not the last shot of the film. The final shot of
Moonlight brings us back to Juan teaching Chiron to swim. We see
Chiron once again as a boy, standing before the ocean at night. He
stands with his back facing the camera for a while, and we hear the
soft lapping of waves that we have been hearing throughout the
movie. Then, he turns his head toward us, staring at something we
cannot see. We are overwhelmed by the color blue. Moonlight uses
this blue to explore the complicated process of forgiveness.
Moonlight is a film of paradoxes. It portrays Chiron’s impover-
ished neighborhood and unstable home life brightly and colorfully. It
demonstrates how someone can both love you and cause you pain.
One of the most striking moments of the film—though the entire
film is made up of striking moments—is when Chiron’s mother yells
at him from a blue-green corridor. We see it all from little Chiron’s
perspective. There is no speech in the scene; all we hear is that same
crescendo of string instruments. Although we don’t hear her yell, her
contorted, angry face says enough. She is bathed in a hot pink light
coming from her room. As she enters her room, into the pink light,
she looks almost ethereal. She stares coldly into the camera and shuts
the door, cutting off the warmth and transforming the brilliantly pink
and purple scene into a deep blue. In any other film, this story would
be told in grays—ugly and chaotic. This scene, however, is haunting
because it is confusingly beautiful. The unexpected beauty and color
in these painful scenes is surprising, but ultimately not out of place.
Even though Chiron’s mother abuses him, he still loves her and sees
her as beautiful. It is what makes their relationship so difficult to
watch at times. Chiron’s home has never been the stable, loving place
he deserved to have, but he cannot help but be loyal to it. The colorful
palette forces the viewer to view Moonlight’s setting and characters in
a multidimensional light.
The beauty of Moonlight subverts expectations because it refuses
to conform to the commonly held stereotypes of its subjects. A.O.
Scott’s review of Moonlight demonstrates how the film disrupts the
“clichés of African-American masculinity.” Though it may be too
limiting to describe Moonlight as simply a film about black manhood,
black manhood is indeed a fundamental aspect of the film’s narrative.
A large part of what makes Moonlight so impactful, however, is the
way it subverts the clichés that stories about black manhood often uti-
lize. As an audience, we are used to the gritty, dark, hyper-masculine
narratives which portray black men as tough, mean, and violent.
Movies and television regularly exploit black men through stereotyp-
ical characters. One such character is played by Samuel L. Jackson in
Quentin Tarantino’s popular film, Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction is a
crime movie about two hitmen, Vincent and Jules, filled with plenty
of exciting action and violence. Jackson’s character, Jules, is seen as a
“badass” with an extremely threatening persona. He is intimidating,
dangerous, and does not hesitate to pull out a gun. In the third and
final chapter of Moonlight, Chiron—now called “Black”—evokes this
cliché: as a muscular drug dealer, he appears tough and intimidating.
But we know him. We have seen him grow up, and we understand
him to be gentle, innocent, even fragile. In this way, Moonlight sets
up stereotypes in order to unravel them; in this way, it is groundbreak-
ing.
Much of the beauty and realism of Moonlight stems from the
filmmaker’s personal intimacy with the story. Rebecca Keegan’s arti-
cle on Moonlight in the Los Angeles Times describes how both Barry
Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney, the two writers of Moonlight,
“grew up in Miami’s Liberty Square neighborhood at the same time,
and both had mothers who grappled with drug addiction. Jenkins’
mother survived, McCraney’s did not” (Keegan). The film is not
stereotypical because it is based in real life, and in real life our stories
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are anything but one-dimensional. Moonlight’s deeply personal basis

touched many people, including Naomie Harris, who revealed in an
interview that she planned on rejecting the role initially (Keegan).
Harris, at first wary that Paula represented black women in a negative
light, took the role after learning that Paula’s character was not a
stereotype but a representation of Barry Jenkins’s own mother
(Keegan). The knowledge that Paula reflects the real mothers of
Moonlight’s writers intensifies our understanding of the emotional
depth of her relationship with Chiron.
When Chiron is a teenager, we see a scene in which his mother,
looking disheveled in a blue tank top, screams at him, begging him for
money to buy drugs. The scene is brightly lit, and Chiron’s mother is
bathed in cold white light as she stands facing him. It is a heartbreak-
ing moment, reminiscent of the one from “i. Little,” when Paula first
displays open aggression towards Chiron. Yet this is somehow much
worse, solidifying the viewer’s suspicion that Paula’s drug addiction
has escalated over the years. As Chiron gives up the money and tries
to go to his room, Paula yells at him to go to school. Her attempt to
parent him is in great contrast to when she extorted him for drug
money just moments earlier. Though Chiron barely betrays any emo-
tion, the scene is absolutely heart-wrenching. We understand how
confusing this relationship must be for Chiron, who, in his teens, has
become his mother’s caretaker. He must bring her money and check
up on her when it should be the other way around. Paula nonetheless
asserts her role as a mother over and over, and Chiron wants her love
and care even though she continues to mistreat him. It is an extremely
realistic depiction of an abusive parent-child relationship: painful and
complicated, just as such relations often are in real life. Paula is not
evil, and although she repeatedly hurts Chiron, their love for each
other conveys the humanity of her character.
Moonlight complicates our understandings of character in signif-
icant ways. Not only does the film resist relying on overused movie
tropes, but it also defies the narratives we often see perpetuated in real
life. Moonlight begins in the 1980s, in the midst of the War on
Drugs. As described by Julilly Kohler-Hausmann in her article, “The
Attila the Hun Law,” one of the major pushes in the War on Drugs
was to speak about “addicts” as “outsiders,” as criminal wrongdoers
rather than people (73, 80). This attitude continues to permeate

today’s public consciousness, resulting in brutal drug-related sentenc-
ing and incarceration. The War on Drugs targets black communities
specifically, and it has torn apart these communities and families with
disproportionate imprisonment of nonviolent criminals (Kohler-
Hausmann). Today, the War on Drugs is not as rampant as it was in
the 1980s, but public perception of hard drugs and addiction has not
majorly shifted. Though there is undeniable evidence that treatment
is much more effective than imprisonment in curbing drug issues,
many people continue to believe the fantasy of punishing evil
“addicts” for their disease (Kohler-Hausmann 74). Moonlight
destroys this notion by portraying multi-dimensional characters who
use, sell, and are addicted to drugs. We feel for these characters, and
we want to understand their struggles. Thus, the movie encourages us
to empathize with people we have been taught to demonize.
Yet Moonlight does not merely subvert convention for subver-
sion’s sake. In his review, Scott emphasizes that “Jenkins is far too dis-
ciplined a filmmaker to turn his characters into symbols.” The film
does defy cinema’s expectations for what black men’s stories can be,
but that is not all it does. Reactions to and reviews of Moonlight often
focus on how important, “timely,” and socially conscious the film is
(Lawson). Moonlight is indeed all those things. But its beauty, its
intimacy, and its emotional mastery are also critical merits which
stand largely unrelated to its societal impact, and they should not be
brushed aside.
One of the most apparent ways Moonlight demonstrates its
breathtaking craftsmanship is through the use of color—especially the
color blue, which remains a significant motif throughout the film.
Blue reminds us of the ocean, the sky, and the early scene of Chiron
learning to swim, in which he experiences a cathartic kind of freedom
unseen in most other moments in his life. Throughout the film, the
color blue is also associated with people and places in which Chiron
finds comfort or love. For example, the first shot of Juan shows him
pulling up in a blue car. Juan quickly becomes Chiron’s friend and
protector, and we see that Juan’s house, into which Chiron often
escapes, is also filled with blue objects. Sometimes, however, this visu-
al cue is in direct contrast with the actual scene. Chiron’s mother is
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dressed in blue when she screams at him for refusing her drug money.
Kevin wears blue as he punches Chiron on the orders of Chiron’s
bully. Later, both Kevin and Paula also wear blue when they reconcile
with Chiron in “iii. Black.” Blue thus represents the complicated
emotions present in Chiron’s difficult relationships. He loves his
mother, and she genuinely loves him, yet she seems to prioritize her
crack addiction over his well-being. Chiron loves Juan, who shows
him great kindness in his childhood, yet he understands that Juan is
the drug dealer feeding his mother’s addiction. He loves Kevin, who
has been his only friend, yet Kevin punches Chiron to preserve his
own social status. Chiron and the film reach an emotional catharsis
when he finally reconnects with Kevin and Paula in order to make
amends. Despite the pain the two have caused him, he cannot stop
loving them, which is why he chooses to forgive them at the end.
After leaving behind the forces that have guided his childhood life,
Chiron learns to also let go of the emotional turmoil which has fol-
lowed him, unresolved, into adulthood.
In “Teaching ‘Smoke Signals’: Fatherhood, Forgiveness, and
‘Freedom,’” Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval argues that forgiveness
allows us to let go of our emotional turmoil and begin anew. There is
no doubt that Chiron has been a victim of his mother’s abuse and
neglect. But we also see how his mother deserves Chiron’s forgive-
ness: she is deeply remorseful, and they have both suffered tremen-
dously. Their painful and confusing relationship has burdened Chiron
throughout his life, but as time passes and Chiron leaves behind and
reflects on his relationships, he is able to forgive. Armbruster-
Sandoval writes about the film Smoke Signals, in which a Native
American man grapples with forgiving his father after his father’s
death forces him to consider the complexity of his father as a person
(124). Armbruster-Sandoval uses the film to teach his students about
punitive and restorative justice in the United States, suggesting that
the protagonist’s struggle with forgiving his father parallels the coun-
try’s obsession with punitive rather than restorative justice (126). In a
world devastated by the ‘corrective’ War on Drugs, the restorative act
of forgiveness is an important, even radical one. Armbruster-Sandoval
maintains that forgiveness, on both a personal and a national level, is
important to create new beginnings. Moonlight subscribes to this
belief about forgiveness, and the end of the film, in which Chiron’s
forgiveness brings him back to the purifying act of swimming,
demonstrates that forgiveness is the only way he can finally set himself
free.
There are no heroes or villains in Moonlight. Rather, the story is
centered around Chiron’s complicated relationships. While society
creates a backdrop of an unflinching institutionalized racism, the
characters within Moonlight are not totally good or bad. By traversing
the multifaceted relationships that Chiron struggles with from child-
hood to adulthood, the film shows us how love acts as a guiding force,
even when it is confusing and painful. Ultimately, when we forgive
those we love—even if they have hurt us—we find resolution and
freedom. As a country, we likewise must recognize the complex
nature of individuals and seek justice that restores rather than punish-
es. The film, beyond breaking many stereotypes, creates an incredibly
compelling argument: we only truly grow up when we learn to forgive,
make peace, and let go.
WORKS CITED
Armbruster-Sandoval, Ralph. “Teaching ‘Smoke Signals’:

Fatherhood, Forgiveness, and ‘Freedom.’” Wicazo Sa Review,
vol. 23, no. 1, 2008, pp. 123-146. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/sta-
ble/30131249.
Keegan, Rebecca. “To give birth to ‘Moonlight,’ writer-director
Barry Jenkins dug deep into his past.” Los Angeles Times, 21
Oct. 2016, www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-
moonlight-barry-jenkins-feature-20161006-snap-story.html.
Kohler-Hausmann, Julilly. “‘The Attila the Hun Law’: New York’s
Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Making of a Punitive State.”
Journal of Social History, vol. 44, no. 1, 2010, pp. 71-95.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40802109.
Lawson, Richard. “Moonlight Is a Heartbreaking Portrait of Often
Overlooked Lives.” Vanity Fair, 3 Sep. 2016,
www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/09/moonlight-review-
barry-jenkins.
96 Mercer Street
Moonlight. Directed by Barry Jenkins, A24, PASTEL, Plan B

Productions, 2016.
Pulp Fiction. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, Miramax, 1994.
Scott, A. O. “‘Moonlight’: Is This the Year’s Best Movie?” The New
York Times, 20 Oct. 2016,
www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/movies/moonlight-review.html
PHOTOJOURNALISM:
WHAT’S TRUE, WHAT’S BEAUTIFUL
Haorui Guo
W
earing a ripped red headscarf and standing before a
vague green background, the Afghan girl from Steve
McCurry’s 1984 photograph sears your heart with
her big, penetrating eyes. Her vigilant green eyes,
both breathtakingly beautiful and breathtakingly haunting, tell stories
of a refugee child suffering from constant war and conflict. McCurry,
who was astonished at the horrible conditions in Afghanistan,
expressed strong emotions in this photograph—when you first look at
it, you too feel uncertainty and fear.
Since it was published as a cover of National Geographic, the
photo has had an incredible humanitarian impact: people have been
inspired to volunteer at refugee camps, and National Geographic cre-
ated the Afghan Children’s Fund (Simons). The photo is so success-
ful that any criticism of it may seem malicious. However, in an inter-
view, McCurry himself admitted that at first the girl put her hands
over her face because she wasn’t willing to be captured, and her
teacher had to get her to put her hands down (Hajek). In essence,
McCurry was so sympathetic to the suffering of Afghans that he
staged his subject to make her look more “Afghan.” His goals were
humane, but he also violated the central principle of photojournal-
ism—authenticity. Some of McCurry’s defenders would argue that
the image wouldn’t be as touching if McCurry had not shot it this
way, and since the mission of photojournalism is to raise awareness,
staging a photo to achieve a stronger aesthetic and emotional appeal
would not hurt. The problem is that photojournalism is a distinct
form of photography where we worship fidelity to fact, not readers’
indulgence. The Achilles’ heel of McCurry’s photograph is that it sets
a dangerous precedent: that sacrificing authenticity to achieve a
stronger visual appeal is justified, or even favorable.
Teju Cole, a columnist for the New York Times, reflects on
authenticity in his essay “A Too-Perfect Picture.” “You know a Steve
98 Mercer Street
McCurry picture when you see one,” says Cole (971). Upon reviewing
McCurry’s most recent volume, “India,” Cole points out that
McCurry carefully selects subjects who evoke an earlier time in Indian
history. Readers with nostalgia for images of British colonialism will
quickly enter McCurry’s world of fantasy: “Here’s an old-timer with a
dyed beard. Here’s a doe-eyed child in a headscarf” (Cole 971).
McCurry did well playing with his subjects, but according to Cole, he
is likely to be charged with “appropriation,” as he captures only peo-
ple, not facts (974). In comparison, Raghubir Singh, an Indian pho-
tographer, strives for authenticity. Cole points out a picture Singh
took in Mumbai, which captures the lively modernity of the city with
a breathtaking compositional coherence: a middle-aged lady in red
blouse and dark floral skirt, pedestrians walking on a dusty street,
showcases displaying handbags (973). These seemingly unrelated sub-
jects blend perfectly into the frame through Singh’s vertical division
of the photograph and unique angle of shooting. As Cole points out,
Singh gives us photographs charged with life: not only beautiful expe-
riences or painful scenes but also those “in-between moments of drift
that make up most of our days” (972). He shows us that you don’t
have to compromise authenticity, the main metric for the value of a
photojournalistic image, in exchange for aesthetics.
One would probably agree about the value of the in-between after
close examination of Edmund Clark’s photo series Guantanamo: If
the Light Goes Out. Clark took the photos in the American military
prison where the U.S. has detained suspected terrorists since the
September 11 attacks. Guantanamo Bay is accused of dehumanizing
its detainees, and Clark’s photos serve as a glimpse into that life. In a
picture Clark shot outside a cell, he focused his lens on the window of
the cell door, trying to capture what was inside: a man in an ordinary
white T-shirt and olive-colored chinos lying on the floor. His face is
blocked by the door, and the reflection in the window shows a man in
camouflage—probably the guard. By omitting the prisoner’s face,
Clark subverts the demonization of the detainee and gives audiences
the chance to explore his human complexity. He may be a killer
responsible for hundreds of deaths, but at the same time he may be a
battered prisoner suffering from exhaustion, malnutrition, or abuse.
Clark’s camera angle creates a unique visual: the separation of differ-
Photojournalism 99
ent layers, mild contrasts, lights and shadows. Meanwhile, it is an

authentic representation that leaves room for viewers to imagine.
One might ask: “Isn’t omitting the prisoner’s face and shooting
from outside the cell window a way of ‘playing with’ the subjects and
violating the law of authenticity, just as McCurry did with “Afghan
Girl” and India?” The answer depends on how we see authenticity.
With the “Afghan Girl,” McCurry picked out a subject from reality
and placed her in a different context, while Clark sticks to the reality
of the detainee but chooses a novel way to depict it. Simply put,
McCurry changes the story, whereas Clark finds a new way to tell the
story. This difference pushes us to a greater and deeper understanding
of photojournalism. In essence, photojournalism is a lens through
which we understand reality, but we should acknowledge that a photo
is not reality itself. In the three-dimensional world, reality is very
complex. The interaction between our sensory organs and what’s ‘out
there’ isn’t the whole picture, nor is the interaction between the out-
side world and the photographs. Admittedly, photojournalism can
never achieve a bijection between image and reality, a direct pairing of
what happened and what the camera captured in its frame, but the
glory of photojournalism is that it strives for better representation, a
better lens for reality. And since photojournalists are not restricted in
their representation of reality, they can craft an authentic representa-
tion that leaves room to create aesthetic values. Aesthetics are not a
by-product of authenticity, but if authenticity is a must-have in pho-
tojournalism, then aesthetics are a complement that strengthen the
photograph and make it a fantastic one.
WORKS CITED
Clark, Edmund. Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out. 2010, pho-

tography, ICP Museum, New York.
Cole, Teju. “A Too-Perfect Picture.” The Broadview Anthology of
Expository Prose, edited by Laura Buzzard et al., 3rd ed.,
Hajek, Daniel. “How One Photographer Captured A Piercing Gaze
That Shook The World.” National Public Radio, 26 Jul. 2015,
100 Mercer Street
www.npr.org/2015/07/26/425659961/how-one-photographer-
captured-a-piercing-gaze-that-shook-the-world.
McCurry, Steve. The Afghan Girl. 1984, photograph.
Simons, Jake. “The story behind the world’s most famous photo-
graph.” CNN, 2 Dec. 2016, www.cnn.com/style/article/steve-
mccurry-afghan-girl-photo/index.html.
HOW TO LIVE WITH IT
Soyoung Yun
L
ast year, when philosopher and gender theorist Judith
Butler went to Brazil to organize a conference, she faced a
violent protest. Butler was “called a witch and accused of
trying to destroy people's gender identities and trying to
undercut the values of the country”—but Butler is all too familiar with
such fierce controversy caused by her groundbreaking theories
(Jaschik). In her seminal essays, Butler argues that humans perform
their social identities to conform to social stereotypes that have been
sustained and reproduced by previous performances. Most notably,
she calls gender identity itself performative: “because gender is not a
fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without
those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a con-
struction that regularly conceals its genesis” and such construction
creates a “social fiction of its own psychological interiority”
(“Performative” 522, 528). Since Butler denies the existence of a def-
inite and original form to refer to while rethinking social identities in
performativity, she interprets human society as a perilous continuum
built within repetitive acts without concrete foundations.
Revealing the fabricated nature of social identities, Butler makes
us confront the performances by which we repeatedly identify our-
selves—the “social fiction” of norms. It is somewhat understandable
that the protesters in Brazil were unnerved by Butler’s ideas, which
destabilize the solidity of identities entirely. Rather than protest this
destabilization, however, I would ask Butler: How do we live with this
untruthfulness? Are we doomed to remain in the oppressive show in
which we are unknowing, seemingly origin-less performers? Even if
Butler provides us with dreadful insights that force us to question our
own identities, she does not leave us to wander in dread; she instead
shows us how to live transformatively and intersubjectively.
Butler recognizes the political advantages of living in a show that
forces humans to perform within a set of norms. Throughout her
works, Butler repeatedly claims that oppressive norms—stereotypes—
serve as a political precondition of resistance and reformation. As a
102 Mercer Street
lesbian, Butler contemplates how homosexual identity stems from

heteronormativity: “It is important . . . to affirm that gay and lesbian
identities are . . . structured in part by dominant heterosexual frames”
(“Imitation” 23). She then adds that gay and lesbian identities create
an important resistance toward the heteronormative frame by under-
scoring that “[Gay and lesbian] identities are running commentaries
on those naturalized positions” (“Imitation” 23). Butler suggests that
the “naturalized positions” of social norms help give rise to the unnat-
uralized positions of subjects who queer the heteronormative frame.
Furthermore, Butler admits that lesbian, gay, and female identities
help form “political solidarity” that work against the external threat of
oppression or erasure (“Performative” 523). Butler recognizes the
benefits of the political categorization that gives visibility to margin-
alized identities.
Nevertheless, she claims that identification as lesbian, gay, or
female can “provide[] a false ontological promise of . . . solidarity” by
“rendering visible a category which may not be representative of the
concrete lives of” identified groups (“Performative” 523). Butler rec-
ognizes a tension between the political benefit of visible identities and
the faults of the “ontological promise” that such visibility creates. For
example, when one identifies as a member of the LGBTQ communi-
ty and gains political visibility, one might partially lose their ontolog-
ical singularity since the community requires a consolidated form of
identity. Under the united identity of the community, one can fall
into a conceptual category that does not necessarily fully address one’s
identity. Butler’s ontological skepticism, raised in the context of polit-
ical identification, becomes completely ambiguous throughout her
works. Considering how “I” and “the Other” are interdependent,
Butler boldly shakes the premise of the separateness of identity that
one has towards the Others: “one’s own separateness is a function of
one’s dependency on the Other . . . the difference between the Other
and myself is, from the start, equivocal” (“Sexual” 160). Butler hereby
deepens her question of ontological faults in political identity into the
dilemma of one’s existence, which cannot be clearly separated from
the outside of oneself. This ontological ambiguity places humans in
confusing and disturbing liminal states. According to her, we do not
clearly stand either inside or outside of the border of I and the Other.
How to Live With It 103
However, Butler cherishes this dilemma of uncertainty and praises

possibility.
In “Ronell as Gay Scientist,” Butler explores Avital Ronell’s sci-
entific approach as a route to possible answers rather than a goal-ori-
ented or result-seeking process. Inspired by Ronell, who writes, “the
test is structurally staked . . . Its performance . . . extends the terms of
fulfillment to the future, which cannot, strictly speaking, be logically
assured” (qtd. in “Ronell” 24), Butler claims that “The point is . . . to
undergo an invariable and ironic dislocation of aim by virtue of the
structure of testing” (29). Embracing Ronell’s idea of experimenta-
tion, Butler rejects—or denaturalizes—the static locating of oneself
and thereby normalizes—or naturalizes—the dislocating of oneself
from one place to another. For instance, even when one identifies as
bisexual, one should not be thought of as permanently located in
bisexuality but one who can “experiment” and dislocate oneself to
potentially find another location of sexuality. Butler welcomes an
unknown future by advocating for the experimental dislocations one
makes in navigating life. Humans “ironic[ally]” but “invariab[ly]”
experience uncertainty, for every life is a continuum of undirected dis-
locations (“Ronell” 30). Butler’s idea of ontological ambiguity, which
may initially cause an existential fear of losing a solid form of oneself,
swerves to a promising direction of deferring conclusions, uncertainty,
and provisionality.
In “Gender as Social Temporality: Butler (and Marx),” Cinzia
Arruzza helps us understand the optimistic value of uncertainty. By
paralleling “Butler’s analysis of the temporality of gender reification
and Marx’s understanding of the temporality of capital,” Arruzza
focuses on Butler’s idea of unclear and non-static identity from a
Marxist viewpoint (36). Butler notes that Marx’s material capital is “a
site of temporal transformation” (qtd. in Arruzza 37). This definition
coincides with Butler’s examination of gender as a performative repe-
tition of acts and practices (“Performative”). If capital is a mutable
entity that does not have a static form or pattern, economic value is
thus able to emerge, vanish, and change into different forms.
Thereby, in a Marxist view, capital incessantly transforms as time pro-
gresses (Arruzza 39). Arruzza reads Butler’s theory in this Marxist
logic of temporal transformability. Since Butler claims that all identi-
104 Mercer Street
ties are performative and there is no original static identity, humans

can explore different identities in different times, and thereby become
transformative (Arruzza 40). According to Arruzza, Butler equates
the performative identity with temporal transformability, suggesting
that the unstable nature of identity allows us to freely transform our
identities over time.
As Arruzza claims, Butler connects the instability of identity with
a transformative possibility: “unstable and asystematic operation of
[identity] categories must have a transformative effect on the norm
itself, such that gender and race never get to be same again”
(“Appearances” 62). Butler liquefies gender to suggest how transfor-
mative identities can be. In “Performative Acts and Gender
Constitution,” Butler asserts, “the possibilities of gender transforma-
tion are to be found in the arbitrary relation between such acts, in the
possibility of a different sort of repeating, in the breaking or subver-
sive repetition” (520). Butler mentions drag as an example of such
subversive repetition: “[drag’s] subversive possibilities ought to be
played and replayed to make the ‘sex’ of gender into a site of insistent
political play” (“Imitation” 29). As drag appropriates “gender [norms]
proper to one sex rather than another” to prove there is “no ‘proper’
gender,” Butler argues that drag creates a possibility of gender trans-
formation derived from an arbitrariness of gender identities
(“Imitation” 21). Butler further argues that socially normalized iden-
tities do not stay as a reification of social oppression but rather display
the “performative variations” that “locate strategies of subversive rep-
etition . . . and, therefore, present the immanent possibility of contest-
ing them” (Arruzza, Butler qtd. in Arruzza 46).
As Butler finds value in mutability beyond performativity, she
introduces the new value of intersubjectivity beyond ontological
ambiguity and the interdependence of I and the Other. Butler sees the
living intersubjectivity while contemplating the concept of love. In
“To Sense What is Living in the Other,” Butler interprets Hegel’s
idea of love as a “living union” (95). She suggests that love is only
understood through a gathering of “various shifts” of different subjec-
tive perspectives (“To Sense” 102). Since love is an interactive rela-
tionship between different people with different subjectivities, Butler
claims that love is, in nature, not a single subjective experience. Butler
calls these “various shifts” a type of “displacement,” or a “disposses-

sion” of subjectivity (“To Sense” 94, 100). She thus reaches an under-
standing of the “operation of life”: “love involves a displacement of the
purely subjective point of view—some dispossession of the self takes
place in love. . . . love is an operation of life that exceeds and disorients
the perspective of the individual” (“To Sense” 100). Love, according
to Butler, requires us to undo our idea of oneness and to open our-
selves to the life that works beyond individual subjectivity.
Suggesting the expansion of selfhood from oneness to intersub-
jectivity, Butler reaches the idea of sensing “livingness” in others
through intersubjective exchanges within love: “love is not an absolute
overcoming of difference. . . . The couple does not dissolve into life
itself without dying, since each would have to relinquish its determi-
nate living form. And yet as separate and persisting forms, each is
understood to sense what is living in the other” (Undoing 12, “To
Sense” 101). Without defining “what is living in the other,” Butler
concludes that love is a sense of aliveness in each other. As we love
others, we become intersubjective beings who subjectively interact
with others and who are subjectively understood by others. Even if we
do not sense our livingness by ourselves and remain ontologically
ambiguous, the intersubjective nature of love enables each one of us to
feel livingness in each other and become living within others’ under-
standings of us. In her interpretation of Hegel’s idea of living love,
Butler reminds us that humans become living beings through inter-
subjectivity—mutual recognition and sensing. Butler, who once left
us in a disturbing ontological ambiguity, saves us with the idea that
each of us is recognized and sensed through intersubjective human
connections.
Butler’s theory of performativity not only destabilizes our under-
standing of identities and society but also makes us acknowledge our
transformative possibility, coming from the destabilized nature of
ourselves. Butler’s idea of ontological ambiguity disturbs our under-
standing of the self and leads us to realize our intersubjective living-
ness that others sense through us. Once disturbingly destabilizing,
Butler’s ideas become optimistically and fruitfully destabilizing. But
not all critics see this optimistic fruitfulness. Noela Davis, in her cri-
tique of Butler’s idea of performativity, reads Butler’s description of
106 Mercer Street
social identities—sufficing and reproducing the oppressive norms—as

“a compulsion, an appropriation of guilt, and a reprimand [that] car-
ries the implication of an external power forcibly acting on the sub-
ject-to-be” (Davis 889). Interpreting Butler’s idea as a “grim” and
“overly pessimistic picture of humanity,” Davis criticizes Butler for
leading us to permanent subjugation (Mills qtd. in Davis 889).
However, what Butler tries to prove—and what Davis overlooks—is
how unstable one’s existence and identification are and how that
instability contributes to the numerous possibilities for transforma-
tion. Butler’s interpretation of identity may sound like subjugation,
but her interpretation of transformative identities aims at liberation.
Butler argues: “The desire for change and the desire to be are not pre-
cisely oppositional but locked in a complicated, if sometimes nasty,
embrace” (“Ronell” 27). The desire to recognize one’s own existence
and the desire for transformation run together. Being means con-
stantly changing and dislocating oneself, and being means existing
intersubjectively. By dissolving the absoluteness and definiteness of
society, Butler opens a transformative and intersubjective possibility
to each one of us.
Butler certainly never bargains. She does not hesitate to make us
think that we are always a part of a show whose director is unknown
to us. She brings up an existential dilemma that we cannot even sep-
arate ourselves from others. She ruthlessly destabilizes our under-
standing of society and drags us to the realm of ontological emptiness
where we cannot say that ‘I am me, not you.’ Nevertheless, Butler
hints at how to live with, or even embrace, this destabilized view of
the world and frightening existential revelation. With this hint, we
can find a way out: as we do not have an absolute form to imitate, we
can always transform; as we do not clearly stand by ourselves, our
intersubjective understandings of one another make us truly living
beings. The indignation of the protesters in Brazil and others who
denounce Butler comes from their ignorance of the important insights
that she offers us. When we read Butler in depth, we can learn to live
with the instability, the ambiguity, the desire to be, and the desire to
change. Surely, we can discover how to live with it.
WORKS CITED
Arruzza, Cinzia. “Gender as Social Temporality: Butler (and

Marx).” Historical Materialism, vol. 23, no. 1, 2015, pp. 28-52.
Butler, Judith. “Appearances Aside.” California Law Review, vol.
88, no. 1, 2000, pp. 55-63.
—. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” Inside/Out: Lesbian
Theories, Gay Theories, edited by Diana Fuss, Taylor and
Francis, 2013, pp. 13-31.
—. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in
Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal, vol. 40,
no. 4, 1988, pp. 519–531. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/3207893.
—. “Ronell as Gay Scientist.” Reading Ronell, edited by Diane
Davis, University of Illinois Press, 2008, pp. 21-30.
—. “To Sense What Is Living in the Other: Hegel's Early Love.”
Senses of the Subject, Fordham University Press, 2015, pp. 90-
111.
—. Undoing Gender. Routledge, 2004.
Davis, Noela. “Subjected Subject? On Judith Butler's Paradox of
Interpellation.” Hypatia, vol. 27, no. 4, 2012, pp. 881-897.
JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23352300.
Jaschik, Scott. “Judith Butler on Being Attacked in Brazil.” Inside
Higher Ed, 13 Nov. 2017,
www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/13/judith-butler-dis-
cusses-being-burned-effigy-and-protested-brazil.
THE GOOD GUYS WITH GUNS
Cheongho Cho
A
fter almost a year of living in New York, my impression
of the United States has been ambivalent. I learned that
on Valentine’s Day 2018, in Parkland, Florida, a nine-
teen-year-old high school dropout named Nikolas Cruz
went back to his school and slaughtered seventeen students and fac-
ulty members. At the time of writing this, there has been an average
of one school shooting per week in 2018 (Ahmed). With their
increasing frequency and publicity, these incidents of gun violence,
particularly in schools, are no longer mere statistics, but instead lucid,
horrible realities in the daily lives of students and teachers. As a for-
eigner unaccustomed to American politics, it seems obvious to me
that people would unanimously agree on gun control after such inci-
dents. After all, is it not universally agreed that children must be pro-
tected?
Interestingly, there are opposing voices, like that of NRA Vice
President Wayne LaPierre, who said in 2012 that “the only way to
stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun” (LaPierre
qtd. in “NRA”). The phrase “good guy with a gun” and the ideology
it symbolizes are now so deeply ingrained in the conservative
American life that there is even a children’s book series of the same
name—Good Guys With Guns At Home. Written by Susan Swift,
“an actor, lawyer, and mother of seven children” who “loves the U.S.
Constitution and reveres the regular everyday heroes,” this picture
book for preschool children portrays people in uniforms and guns
with friendly cartoonish illustrations (Swift 14).
I know what LaPierre means by the “good guys”—in fact, that
concept is the very first thing I learned about America. My first con-
scious contact with American media, I recall, was through a superhero
cartoon. It was probably the 1994 Spider-Man, or a variation of the
old Batman TV series, unofficially sold in Korea during a time when
people believed subliminal exposure to American media would lead to
naturally bilingual children. As a kid watching cartoons in a language
I had yet to understand, I remember facing a deeply troubling ques-
109 Mercer Street
tion: is the protagonist a good guy or a bad guy? I recall seeing some-
thing absurd: the heroes were being chased by people with guns, not
the other way around.
Being from a nation defined by and born from war, I should be
no stranger to violence. Violence is the bedrock of Korean society.
Approximately half its population is composed of either soldiers or
veterans. Despite such an upbringing, I am a stranger to guns. The
only guns I saw until recently were owned by the well-groomed, gen-
tle neighborhood police officers who visited the classroom to teach us
how to avoid bad people, just as Susan Swift taught in her picture
books. All guns shown to civilians in Korea carried a silent, federal,
authoritative message: with guns, justice is strong and evil is weak.
However, the American superheroes from my childhood cartoons
were chased by bullets all the time. They were not police officers or
gun owners. It was a stark change of perspective—all this time the
only ‘good’ side I had seen was the side that shoots, with heavy regu-
lations and control, but then I learned the side of the story that gets
fired at nonchalantly from sub-machine guns. Every moment I imi-
tated pulling the trigger of my toy airsoft guns as a kid, I wondered if
pulling a real gun trigger would not be very different from pulling the
plastic copy I was playing with. It felt that simple, and in retrospect,
it probably was.
Returning to the world of March 2018, I am now in America. So
far, I have learned to accept the fact that the friendly neighborhood
police officers in New York wear semi-automatic Glock 17s, and that
in the most recent school shooting, which happened in a high school
in Lexington Park, Maryland, the killer, a seventeen year old named
Austin Wyatt Rollins, was “stopped” by a school resource officer with
a 9mm after two other students were killed (Levenson). I think of
what has become of the job of a school officer in United States high
schools and feel uncomfortable. In America, are the good guys those
who blast holes in the heads of children, even if those children were
killing others with a gun? Does being skilled at neutralizing or elimi-
nating the target make one a good guy? The answers vary by person,
but we can presumably agree that this is not how we envisioned heroes
to be. Such proximity to an extreme, fatal power immediately creates
a discontinuity, a fault suddenly opened through the mantle, in the
Good Guys With Guns 110
bedrock of our morality. But guns are only the modality in which the
debate is presented; the true debate is about power. And the presence
of such power naturally comes with an uncomfortable, unforgettable
feeling of wrongness.
This discomfort is understood by George Orwell as the inevitable
byproduct of being able to kill a person from a hundred-yard distance.
In his essay “A Hanging,” Orwell sees a prisoner on his way to the
gallows step aside to avoid a puddle and discovers that “till that
moment [he] had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy,
conscious man” (12). His epiphany comes from discovering that the
prisoner “was alive just as we were alive . . . his brain still remembered,
foresaw, reasoned—reasoned even about puddles” (13). The body of
the prisoner, every organ, cell, and tissue regenerating and pumping
with life, builds up to only end with a sudden snap at the gallows.
After watching the hanging, Orwell wonders whether any of us are
justified in stopping another sentient being’s existence, reducing their
life to oblivion. The essay is his confession, written decades after his
service in Burma. Although he had the power to find out, he did not
know of any justification for the hanging, for the “mystery, [the]
unspeakable wrongness” of the execution (13). The act of killing must
not be this easy, Orwell insists. The world should not be the same
after such a wrongful, disastrous violence. But in the prison where
Orwell works, the morning routine of the wardens handing out break-
fast happens just as usual—even after this abrupt ending of a life. “It
seemed quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging,” he writes, as if
he were the only person in the prison who had noticed the absurdity
of the situation. Power, according to Orwell, defies our common
sense of morality and cause and effect, whether the power be that of
the colonial Burmese Imperial Police or of a school officer with a
9mm Glock pistol. The very power to kill—the ease of killing com-
pared to what it can end—is simply a great wrong beyond reason.
But it seems to many Americans that such power has been prom-
ised to them from birth. Robert Leonard, a local news director in
Knoxville, Iowa, points out that gun culture in rural America is rooted
far deeper than guns themselves, and even more deeply than the
Second Amendment (Leonard). Quoting former congressman J. C.
Watts, Leonard claims that the controversy around gun culture in
111 Mercer Street
America boils down to the millennium-old debate of intrinsic good or

evil:
Democrats think people were born basically good, so when good

people did bad things, something in society (in this case, guns)
needed to be controlled. Republicans think the fault lies with the
person—the perpetrator of the evil. Bad choices result in bad
things being done, in part because the perpetrator lacks the moral
guidance the Christian faith provides. (Watts qtd. in Leonard)
Leonard suggests that this difference of belief is the true reason why
there is such a discrepancy in attitudes towards gun violence. While
horrific incidents like the Florida shooting are tragic to everyone,
Leonard emphasizes that Republicans’ belief in evil-doers keeps the
virtuous from agreeing to gun control. The American belief in justice
is as strong as any other belief. It is not a problem of their inability to
sympathize, as many ‘liberals’ incorrectly assume, but a problem of
disagreement on whom to hold accountable, whether it be society or
the individual shooter. The gun debate is ultimately a debate on the
ancient question of liability. It is not about the just, educated left ver-
sus the corrupt, uneducated right. A society that approves free access
to guns is a society that oversees power over the loosely controlled
humans who wield them. A society that regulates access to guns is a
society that regulates freedom of power, and regulated freedom is not
freedom in the first place. These beliefs are moral parallels, and while
they can sympathize with each other, they can never agree as long as
their identities remain intact. There is a deep ravine between these
two worlds of morality, and no bridge has yet been built.
The human condition is at risk within this debate over power.
Superheroes question their humanity after being gifted with sudden
power. A surprising commonality among superheroes is that none of
them have asked for their superpowers, the very reason why these are
not just powers, but “super”—unexplainable, inherently random, and
utterly reasonless. Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider, the
Hulk was exposed to radiation, Captain America was a subject of a lab
experiment, and Superman, the archetype of all superheroes, is not
even from Earth. Superman, in the TV show Justice League
Unlimited, addresses being not of this Earth by describing the world

he lives in as “a world made of cardboard” where he has to relentlessly
control himself with a stoic will to not destroy the world around him
(“Destroyer”). His proximity to power makes it incredibly easy for
him to kill and destroy; while he identifies as a “man,” he is in a
relentless battle with himself to control his power and maintain his
humanity, lest he become evil. While superhero comics and cartoons
often borrow themes that have already been explored in older litera-
ture, this existential questioning of superpowers is specific to super-
heroes and is thus specifically American. The American obsession
with power gave birth to Superman—Superman’s dilemma is in many
ways a twisted, magnified reflection of the American dilemma. The
everyday American is not made of steel. Their guns provide them a
totalizing power beyond their human means, but they are not also
provided with a superhuman self-control as Superman was. Thus, it is
a life of incessant fear and self-control that the gun-wielding
American conservatives live in—they are fully aware of the risks, yet
they bear their guns anyway, since that right was given to them, just
as their race, their name, and other things were given in life beyond
one’s choices. Perhaps this is why advocates adamantly insist that gun
control cannot work—guns, to them, were never controlled in the
first place. Like Superman, they can only control themselves.
In “The Concept of Dread,” Søren Kierkegaard discusses “the
dizziness of freedom,” where he describes a man looking “down into
the yawning abyss” (54). The man feels dizziness, or dread, because
his spirit “gazes down into its own possibility, grasping at its own
finiteness to sustain itself” (54). The man’s power to access his free
will and drop himself into the abyss exists, and he is being sustained
purely by his free will. The man is even more terrified because of the
mere existence of a possibility to do such a terrifying thing. So is the
person with a gun in his pocket, a life and death immediately avail-
able. Just as in Superman’s speech, even staying put without killing
anyone is a result of one’s choice and an exercise of free will. Every day
that passes without Superman destroying the entire city is a day saved
by Superman. Similarly, every day that passes without a shootout in a
society filled with guns is a day saved by nothing other than “the good
guys with guns.” I do not question the gun owners’ self-restraint nor
113 Mercer Street
their goodness, for those are exactly the reasons why I have yet to be
shot. I instead question the meaning of “good.”
If good means merely sustaining life, and often fails miserably as
it did in Parkland and Columbine, I must ask: is “good” all we need?
Can a constantly dreading human being doomed to a constant trial of
will, whether good or evil, comply with the human condition in the
first place? Can I, as a living being, compensate the very security of
my life with a freedom that only gives me anxiety? My answers, as well
as yours, do not mean much. What matters is understanding the
philosophical implications of the American society behind these ques-
tions. America is the very opposite of what Hannah Arendt, author of
Eichmann in Jerusalem, feared; while she dreaded a society of
unthinking, indecisive, and normalized humans, America is a society
of perpetually agonized, constantly deciding humans whose humanity
is challenged at every moment. The fault in the bedrock I felt from
the moral dilemma over shooting a person is not considered an anom-
aly, nor is it challenging for the gun-owning American. It is like the
air they breathe, a belief they were originally born and raised in, upon
which their culture and religions were built. It boils down to the
human condition that raised the pioneers of the Wild West—a thou-
sand miles from home, their hereditary origin an ocean away, depend-
ing on the pistols on their belts because their lives depended on them.
Perhaps for some it still does. Young Clark Kent, who had just dis-
covered his superpowers on the farmlands of Smallville, Kansas, was
only a subconscious self-reflection of Americans as a whole: young,
lonely, and yearning for an identity in the face of a vast, foreign con-
tinent. If guns are the only things they can hold onto, then gun own-
ers will do everything in their power to keep them.
Regardless, I am constantly afraid. I come from a society that
would never rescind the right to live in exchange for the right to be
free. I still believe guns and heroism are overly romanticized in
America. Yet we cannot blame a single group—not the NRA nor
Republican politicians—for creating such a society. They only pander
to the existing society. There is no one to blame because before mod-
ern Americans could give an answer as to whether they would be bet-
ter off without power, that power had already been given to them by
their forefathers. Guns and violence exist within American society as
much as any of us do. The “good guys with guns”—agonized, fright-

ened, and absolutely “heroic”—are no better than our fellow humans
who just happened to be born near the edge of a metaphorical cliff. If
romanticizing guns and heroism is their coping mechanism, then let
them be, because none of us are any different. Understanding that we
are all the same, that there are no especially good or bad guys, only a
huddled mass born on a cliff, we can see the world for what it is. We
have been on this cliff since the moment the first rock was thrown; we
have been on this cliff since we realized that there is “me,” that “I”
control myself. This cliff is the first anger, the first torch, the first
shard of flint that fell off from a volcanic boulder, the first arquebus,
the ever-silent missile silos of the Cold War, and all the tools of vio-
lence that have ever been and will ever be.
WORKS CITED
Ahmed, Saeed. “There Has Been, on Average, 1 School Shooting

Every Week This Year.” CNN, 25 May 2018,
www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/us/school-shootings-2018-list-
trnd/index.html.
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem. Viking Press, 1964.
Belluz, Julia. “Guns Are Killing High School Kids Across America
at Alarming Rates.” Vox, 23 Feb. 2018, www.vox.com/science-
and-health/2018/2/23/17044810/guns-killing-high-school-kids-
alarming-rates.
“Destroyer.” Justice League Unlimited, written by Dwayne
McDuffie, season 3, episode 13, Cartoon Network, 2006.
“High School Facts at a Glance.” U.S. Department of Education, 18
June 2014,
www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/hs/hsfacts.html?exp=1.
Leonard, Robert. “Why Gun Culture Is So Strong in Rural
America.” The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2018,
www.nytimes.com/2018/03/16/opinion/guns-gun-control-amer-
ica.html.
Levenson, Eric, et al. “Maryland School Officer Stops Armed
Student Who Shot 2 Others.” CNN, 20 Mar. 2018,
115 Mercer Street
www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/us/great-mills-high-school-shoot-
ing/index.html.
Kierkegaard, Søren. The Concept of Dread. Translated by Walter
Lowrie, Princeton University Press, 1957.
“NRA: ‘Only Way To Stop A Bad Guy With A Gun Is With A
Good Guy With A Gun.’” CBS DC, 21 Dec. 2012, washing-
ton.cbslocal.com/2012/12/21/nra-only-way-to-stop-a-bad-guy-
with-a-gun-is-with-a-good-guy-with-a-gun.
Orwell, George. “A Hanging.” Shooting an Elephant and Other
Essays, 1st American ed., Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1950.
Swift, Susan. Good Guys With Guns At Home: A Book for Young
Children about Everyday Heroes Who Use Guns to Protect
Americans at Home. Edited by Joseph Musso, 1st ed.,
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.
GENDER HYSTERIA
Jennifer Agmon
I
n September 2017, Florida teacher Chloe Bressack was removed
from their fifth grade class at Canopy Oaks Elementary after a
letter they sent home had instilled fear in some parents.
Washington Post writer Lori Rosza explains that Bressack’s let-
ter enthusiastically welcomed the students and included a short para-
graph regarding titles and pronouns. Chloe Bressack uses the non-
gendered honorific ‘Mx.’ and the pronouns ‘they,’ ‘them,’ and ‘their.’
Some parents appreciated the letter and respected the requests of Mx.
Bressack, but others were appalled, believing this identification was
unnatural and would only cause confusion among their impression-
able young children (Rozsa). Bressack recalls to Washington Times
writer Tom Quimby that horrendous, demeaning messages from par-
ents flowed into the school’s main office saying that teachers’ “gender,
[their] existence, is inappropriate” (qtd. in Quimby). Former
Arkansas governor and pastor Mike Huckabee, who now lives in
Florida, commented that he would “yank [his] kid out of a classroom”
that had a teacher who uses non-gendered pronouns. He would not
let his child “be influenced by someone who is so devoid of common
sense that they don’t understand that there are men and women, boys
and girls” (qtd. in Quimby).
Though the case of Mx. Bressack possesses a sense of modernity,
as pronouns and transgender issues are commonplace in the news
today, the controversy surrounding gender pronouns is not a recent
phenomenon. Pronouns have been a topic of debate for decades, if not
centuries, especially with regard to written language. In his 1989 New
York Times article, “E Has a Modest Proposal on Ungendered
Personal Pronouns,” Victor J. Stone of the University of Illinois
College of Law suggests creating a system of non-gendered pronouns
to replace the universal male pronoun and the binary personal pro-
nouns. His idea of using ‘e’ and ‘e’s’ as gender-neutral pronouns allows
authors to easily refer to people whose genders are unknown (Stone).
Although numerous non-gendered pronouns have been proposed,
most have failed to gain validity in the English language.
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Jennifer Finney Boylan, a current writer for the New York Times,
emphasizes in her 2018 article, “That’s What Ze Said,” that “the
absence of a gender nonspecific singular pronoun in English really
does present a problem.” Aside from addressing the concerns of writ-
ers and grammar aficionados who strive to write grammatically cor-
rect phrases that mention people of unspecified genders, a gender-
neutral pronoun is also of immense importance in verbal communica-
tion and gender identity. Kelsey, an agender person who uses the pro-
nouns ‘they,’ ‘them,’ and ‘their,’ tells Washington Post writer Monica
Hesse, “I just want to be a person who is recognized as a person” (qtd.
in Hesse). Transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, and agender peo-
ple alike yearn for others to refer to them with the correct pronouns,
whether or not they follow traditional notions of the gender binary.
The call for non-gendered language has precedence in the rise of
the honorific Ms., which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as an alter-
native to Miss, which emphasizes age, and Mrs., which emphasizes
marital status. As communications professor Wendy Atkins-Sayre
explains, Ms. was a “liberatory title,” shifting focus away from a
woman’s marital status and promoting women’s equality (8). But
despite such evidence of previous linguistic evolution, some continue
to argue that language and the gender binary are fixed traditions that
must remain forever unchanged. Linguistics and English professor
Dennis Baron writes that “[g]etting English speakers to use a pro-
noun that doesn’t reflect a sex, or that inflects it beyond masculine and
feminine, isn’t easy; [m]ore than 80 gender-neutral pronouns have
been coined since 1850,” but their usage is often confronted with a
strong resistance. Deviation from what is thought to be the conven-
tional use of language and pronouns is frequently met with hostility,
suggesting a rejection of all those who use non-gendered pronouns.
Grant Strobl, a junior at the University of Michigan, is among several
students who use prefixes to mock and protest the school’s policy of
accepting all names and pronouns. Referring to the students who are
respectful of the “absurdity” of his claimed title—“His Majesty”—
Strobl comments that “it really does illustrate the ridiculousness of the
policy in ignoring the English language” (qtd. in Bever). “His
Majesty” considers policies that give students the right to be recog-
Gender Hysteria 118
nized by any name or pronoun to be giving students an excessive free-

dom to change language.
While those such as Huckabee and Strobl are firm in their oppo-
sition of non-gendered pronouns and the changing nature of lan-
guage, others believe such changes can be tolerable if reformed in a
controlled, systematic way. In response to the Boylan piece, New
York politics and culture writer Jesse Larner agrees that English may
be flexible and adaptable enough to include a single non-gendered
pronoun, but strongly disagrees that individuals should be able to
adopt any pronoun of their choosing. He asserts that allowing the use
of unstandardized, self-proclaimed pronouns “is to invite chaos” and
“normalizes something more dangerous: the deployment of extreme
individualism in the service of political power over institutional and
linguistic conventions” (Larner).
Despite Larner’s supposed acceptance of a gender-neutral pro-
noun, this emphasis on the problematic nature of “extreme individu-
alism” overlooks the idea that pronouns and gender are typically
bestowed upon people by parental figures before or immediately after
their birth. Gender is often incorrectly dictated by the bows and
dresses or caps and pants that parents dress their babies in before they
even have an understanding of themselves. In her Slate article, “Are
You a Boy or a Girl?” writer and mom Jessica Winter emphasizes that
“gender-reveal parties” are the ultimate exemplification of implicit
transphobia. Expecting parents go overboard with extravagant parties
exploding with pink or blue decorations, an all-knowing cake or con-
fetti gun that reveals the child’s gender (though it is really sex), and
the exciting transfer of gender norms and a cisnormative mentality to
their unborn fetuses.
The unnerving uncertainty about newborns’ personalities often
leads parents to relieve their fears of the unknown by gender-policing
their babies with stereotypically gendered toys and wardrobes.
However, “gender isn’t really there for the grabbing” (Winter). It is
understandable that parents want to control what little they can when
expecting a newborn, but predetermining a child’s gender before they
are able to speak can create tension between a child’s developing view
of self and the ways in which others perceive them. These parties fur-
ther the notion that boys and girls can easily be divided by color and
119 Mercer Street
activity preference, and that gender is limited to male and female.

This cisnormative tradition contributes to the erasure of those who
identify outside of the gender binary and do not use gendered pro-
nouns. When an older child or adult uses gender-neutral pronouns,
they are not making up a creative way to display their individuality, as
Jesse Larner and Grant Strobl would suggest, but rather are reclaim-
ing identities that have been forcibly suppressed by the gendered
American society into which they were born.
Not only do gender-reveal parties reinforce gender expectations,
but they also expose an insufficient understanding of the distinction
between gender and sex. Professors Rose McDermott and Peter K.
Hatemi assert in their paper, “Distinguishing Sex and Gender,” that
sex and gender are not interchangeable terms and that there is a sig-
nificant difference between “choice” and “natural disposition” (90).
While sex is biological, gender is a socially-constructed categorization
of people based on masculine and feminine traits, maintained through
gender roles and norms. The distinction between sex and gender is
noteworthy because “treating [them] as though they represent identi-
cal phenomena provides a limited understanding of the myriad ways
in which any kind of identity informs behavior” (91). Neither sex nor
gender is a choice, but gender expression—the outward depiction of
an individual’s preferences and conception of self—is dependent upon
choice.
When a person’s gender identity or gender expression is threat-
ened by the speech of another, anti-discrimination laws may emerge
to provide protections. The New York City Human Rights Law, or
NYCHRL, requires that “employers and covered entities . . . use an
individual’s preferred name, pronoun and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs.)
regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender,
medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individual’s
identification” (“Gender Identity”). Any figure of authority who dis-
misses and refuses to use a person’s correct pronouns is subject to a
monetary fine equaling between $125,000 and $250,000 (“Gender
Identity”). South Texas College of Law constitutional law professor
Josh Blackman is unsure of the permissibility of these rules, as “there
is a subtle but critical line between promoting tolerance and control-
ling thought.” While laws such as NYCHRL are in place to promote
Gender Hysteria 120
tolerance and reduce discrimination, Blackman suggests that this law

“[r]equir[es] people to voice beliefs that they do not hold, or even
understand” and is a “flagrant and unacceptable violation of the free-
dom of speech.” Freedom of speech is a constitutional right that
should be protected, but Blackman overlooks that the deliberate,
malicious misgendering of people is not just an expression of beliefs;
it is an extreme attack on their being. The scale of this critical line
shows the severity of the problem—too many people are unwilling to
acknowledge the validity of others’ identities. Using a person’s correct
pronouns is a “matter of respect,” and the inability to adhere to this
notion can severely hurt those whose pronouns are not being used
(Boylan).
Some argue that respect can be difficult when a person does not
conform to normative views of gender identity, because this lack of
conformity can provoke feelings of discomfort, confusion, and disre-
spect (Hesse). Nancy Beckham, Kelsey’s mother, notes that “[w]hen
people don’t know what gender you are, it’s confusing,” creating an
unsustainable environment for communication (qtd. in Hesse). In
Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud explains that we, as
humans, do everything possible to separate ourselves from discomfort
and discontent, as these feelings hinder our attainment of happiness
(28-29). It is reasonable that people do not want to submit themselves
to situations in which they are uncomfortable, but the constant desire
to escape discomfort is also individualistic and egocentric. It wrongly
suggests that a person’s own comfort is more important than respect-
ing and understanding another person’s identity. Confusion is an
inevitable occurrence in life, but we must also consider the transpho-
bia, fear of difference, and intolerance which underlie the discomfort
and resistance to gender-neutral pronouns.
Time magazine writer Katy Steinmetz notes that according to a
survey conducted by GLAAD, an organization focused on LGBTQ+
acceptance, “20% of millennials say they are something other tha[n]
strictly straight and cisgender.” Facebook has over “60 options for
users’ gender,” and more options continue to be added (Steinmetz).
These numbers call for the elimination of the gender binary, the
recognition of all gender identities and pronouns, and the redefinition
of gender.
121 Mercer Street
Mx. Bressack left their school because some parents decided that
adhering to a traditional honorific is more important than their child’s
education from a well-qualified teacher. There are evident double
standards in schools that foster the marginalization of transgender
and gender-nonconforming teachers, and these problems need eradi-
cation. An anonymous New York teacher, who is transgender, says
that schools are receptive to the changing of names except when a
teacher defies gender norms (Rozsa). No one questions teachers who
“want to be called Mr., or Ms., or Mrs.,” or change their names to
match their spouse’s, but when a teacher wants to be called Mx., a
mass hysteria begins (qtd. in Rozsa). Parents should be able to make
decisions about what their children are exposed to and what belief sys-
tems they internalize, but there is a difference between passing on a
set of values and promoting the negation of another person’s exis-
tence. Bressack was not teaching students about gender or telling
them how to identify. They were simply asking students to refer to
them with their correct name and pronouns.
Language is not a finite system, and it should not be given more
power or respect than the very humans who give it meaning.
Arguments against non-gendered pronouns and prefixes frequently
cite the infeasibility of altering grammatical conventions, or the nec-
essary preservation of language, but language has never been static.
Language will continue to mirror the ideas and attitudes of the times,
but people need to adapt simultaneously to foster this change. Too
many people question the validity of others’ gender identities, forcing
young people such as Kelsey to ask to be seen as a person. Rather than
rejecting another person’s identity, it is essential that people consider
the oppressive construction of gender in American culture, the impor-
tance of respect, and how detrimental it is to not have non-gendered
pronouns.
WORKS CITED
Atkins-Sayre, Wendy. “Naming Women: The Emergence of ‘Ms.’

as a Liberatory Title.” Women and Language, vol. 28, no. 1, 1
Mar. 2005, pp. 8-16, doi:10.13140/2.1.4767.2966.
Gender Hysteria 122
Baron, Dennis. “Changing Gender in Language Isn’t Easy.” The

New York Times, 19 Oct. 2014, www.nytimes.com/roomforde-
bate/2014/10/19/is-checking-the-sex-box-necessary/changing-
gender-in-language-isnt-easy.
Bever, Lindsey. “Students Were Told to Select Gender Pronouns.
One Chose ‘His Majesty’ to Protest ‘Absurdity.’” The
Washington Post, 7 Oct. 2016,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/10/07/a-
university-told-students-to-select-their-gender-pronouns-one-
chose-his-majesty/?utm_term=.f7211a0b660c.
Blackman, Josh. “The Government Can’t Make You Use ‘Zhir’ or
‘Ze’ in Place of ‘She’ and ‘He.’” The Washington Post, 16 Jun.
2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-
theory/wp/2016/06/16/the-government-cant-make-you-use-
zhir-or-ze-in-place-of-she-and-he/?utm_term=.88da16563fe7.
Boylan, Jennifer Finney. “That’s What Ze Said.” The New York
Times, 9 Jan. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/opinion/ze-
xem-gender-pronouns.html.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. Translated by
James Strachey, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2010.
“Gender Identity/Gender Expression: Legal Enforcement
Guidance.” NYC Human Rights, 2018,
www1.nyc.gov/site/cchr/law/legal-guidances-gender-identity-
expression.page.
Hatemi, Peter K., and Rose McDermott. “Distinguishing Sex and
Gender.” Political Science and Politics, vol. 44, no.1, 2011, pp.
89-92, doi: 10.1017/S1049096510001939.
Hesse, Monica. “When No Gender Fits: A Quest to be Seen as Just
a Person.” The Washington Post, 20 Sept. 2014, www.washing-
tonpost.com/national/when-no-gender-fits-a-quest-to-be-seen-
as-just-a-person/2014/09/20/1ab21e6e-2c7b-11e4-994d-
202962a9150c_story.html?utm_term=.d72782aaa496.
Larner, Jesse. “A Non-Gendered Pronoun.” The New York Times,
10 Jan. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/opinion/non-gen-
dered-pronoun.html.
Quimby, Tom. “Fifth-Grade Teacher Gets Schooled by Parents
After Gender-Neutral Grammar Lessons.” The Washington
123 Mercer Street
Times, 28 Sept. 2017,

www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/28/chloe-bressack-
florida-teacher-gives-gender-neutra.
Rozsa, Lori. “Transgender Teacher Removed From Classroom
After Some Parents Object to Gender-Neutral Prefix ‘Mx.’”
The Washington Post, 29 Sept. 2017,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2017/09/29/transgender-teacher-removed-from-
classroom-after-some-parents-object-to-calling-her-
mx/?utm_term= .0d604803e345.
Steinmetz, Katy. “Behind the TIME Cover Story: Beyond ‘He’ or
‘She.’” Time, 16 Mar. 2017, www.time.com/4703058/time-
cover-story-beyond-he-or-she.
Stone, Victor J. “THE LAW: For the Record; E Has a Modest
Proposal on Ungendered Personal Pronouns.” The New York
Times, 25 Aug. 1989, www.nytimes.com/1989/08/25/us/l-the-
law-for-the-record-e-has-a-modest-proposal-on-ungendered-
personal-pronouns-326689.html.
Winter, Jessica. “Are You a Boy or a Girl?” Slate, 11 May 2016,
www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/05/gender_revea
l_celebrations_for_babies_help_explain_transphobia.html.
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
Paige Smyth
W
hen Micah turned two years old, his parents learned
that he was profoundly deaf. After processing this
information, they decided to get him cochlear
implants, devices that are surgically implanted into
the skull and send electrical signals to the brain in order to replicate
hearing. However, Micah did not react well to his cochlear implants.
When he heard his mother’s voice for the first time, “his hazel eyes
widened and he screamed with terror, his body trembling”
(Engelman). His parents continued his various speech and auditory-
verbal therapies, but after realizing that he had a severe language
delay, they decided to enroll in American Sign Language classes and
cease their use of the cochlear implants altogether. With American
Sign Language, “Micah blossomed” (Engelman). He told stories with
rapid signs and animated expressions. He communicated excitedly
with his family. And in the dark, with a flashlight shining on the wall,
his mother could “see his voice” and “hear his face. His pristine silence
fill[ed] a room far more than sound” (Engelman). For Micah,
cochlear implants were not the best solution; instead, he found success
through the use of American Sign Language and involvement in Deaf
culture.
Every day, parents like Micah’s must make the same choice: to
implant or not to implant. In the United States, about three out of
every 1000 children are born with some level of hearing loss (“Quick
Statistics”). In the past, children with mild levels of hearing loss could
receive hearing aids, but those with profound deafness did not have
any options at their disposal. In the last thirty years, however, audiol-
ogists have developed the cochlear implant, a new hearing technology
for the profoundly deaf. Unlike hearing aids, which amplify the
sounds already reaching the brain, “cochlear implants bypass damaged
portions of the ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve”
(“Cochlear,” National Institute). In addition, while hearing aids sit on
the outside of the ear, cochlear implants require invasive surgery to
implant the device inside the skull. They also do not replicate natural
125 Mercer Street
hearing; instead, they electronically produce a recreation of the sounds

in the environment. The total cost of a cochlear implant, including
screenings, the surgery, and rehabilitation, can amount to almost
$100,000 (“Cochlear,” American Academy). While most insurance
companies cover some if not all of these costs, a financial burden still
exists if parents choose cochlear implants for their deaf children. The
invention of cochlear implants is a breakthrough in the world of hear-
ing technologies, but there are both benefits and shortcomings to the
devices. This begs the question: just because scientists invented
cochlear implants, should every deaf person use them?
The invention and rising popularity of cochlear implants has
ignited a debate regarding parents choosing cochlear implants for
their deaf children. This debate pits the argument that all deaf chil-
dren should receive cochlear implants against the idea that other
options, such as Sign language, are better for a child’s growth and
well-being. Those arguing for options other than cochlear implants
focus largely on Deaf culture and the Deaf community. It’s important
to note that Deaf (with a capital D) and deaf (with a lowercase d)
carry two different meanings. The latter refers to the medical defini-
tion of deafness: lacking the ability to hear. The Deaf community, on
the other hand, is a group of people—both hearing and Deaf—who
use Sign language and have a common understanding of Deaf culture,
which includes its own history, struggles, and values (Ludden).
According to the National Association of the Deaf, most Deaf indi-
viduals in the United States use American Sign Language, a visual
language that uses hand shape, placement, facial expressions, and
other body-driven cues to convey information (“What”). For mem-
bers of the Deaf community, Sign language, along with the richness
of Deaf culture, constitutes an important part of the Deaf experience
that may not be provided to deaf children if they receive cochlear
implants.
Those advocating for cochlear implants acknowledge Deaf cul-
ture and the merits of Sign language, but they argue that cochlear
implants allow for a fuller life through increased opportunities for
communication, connection to family and the rest of the hearing
world, and greater capacity for cognitive development. One such pro-
ponent, Jennifer Rosner, discusses the importance of communication
between parent and child in her article “Teaching a Deaf Child Her
Mother’s Tongue.” She asserts that in order for a baby’s brain to
develop rapidly, particularly in the language regions, the child needs
access to language immediately. For most parents, they can “whisper
and coo to their children in their native tongues,” but Rosner’s two
daughters are deaf; she had to decide if she would coo in Sign lan-
guage or find a way to speak to them in spoken English, her mother
tongue (Rosner). Rosner ultimately decided on spoken language and
chose cochlear implants for both of her daughters. Many parents
make the same choice, because over 90% of deaf children are born to
hearing parents who most likely have no knowledge of Deaf culture,
the Deaf community, or Sign language (Rosner). For Rosner’s daugh-
ters, cochlear implants allowed them to thrive and communicate
effectively with their family and peers as well as with the rest of the
hearing world. Cochlear implant supporters also contend that the
implants increase a child’s ability to grasp spoken language, some-
thing that is much more difficult when one cannot hear at all
(Rosner). Finally, many choose cochlear implants because learning
Sign language is not possible for every parent or every family. This
consideration suggests that a child with implants can communicate
easily with their family and other non-Sign language literate people,
while a child without implants may or may not have that ability.
Overall, those who argue for cochlear implants value spoken commu-
nication and the ability to connect with their family and peers using
their mother tongue.
Opponents of the cochlear implant, on the other hand, argue that
the richness of Deaf culture and the use of Sign language allow for
greater cognitive development and increased psychological well-
being. While supporters of cochlear implants claim that learning Sign
language slows the acquisition of spoken language, opponents of
cochlear implants argue that learning any language—spoken or
signed—allows for equal cognitive development and capacity to learn
another language if, for example, a child receives cochlear implants in
the future. In a 2015 commentary in Pediatrics entitled “Language
Choices for Deaf Infants: Advice for Parents Regarding Sign
Languages,” Tom Humphries explains that “the starting point is
acquiring a language, not speech per se. Languages can be spoken or
127 Mercer Street
signed, and both modalities are ‘equal citizens’ in a cognitive sense;

that is, they fully support all human communicative needs in daily
interactions and academic endeavors” (Humphries). In other words,
Sign language can only help, not hurt, language acquisition and devel-
opment of communicative skills. Therefore, if a deaf child does
receive a cochlear implant at some point in their life, they will have
the cognitive ability to interpret and learn a spoken language based on
their first language, American Sign Language. Opponents of cochlear
implants contend that the only thing that separates deaf children with
cochlear implants and deaf children without cochlear implants is their
ability to hear.
The opponents, then, argue not against cochlear implants, but
against the idea that children who can hear are inherently better than
children who cannot hear. This form of discrimination, called audism,
can also be defined as “the notion that one is superior based on one’s
ability to hear or to behave in the manner of one who hears”
(Humphries qtd. in Gertz). Proponents of cochlear implants often
argue that the devices make it easier for children to learn spoken lan-
guage, but this implies that all children should come to speech
through surgery. This represents an example of individual audism and
can lead to a more pervasive form of discrimination called institution-
al audism—individual audism “reinforced through the dominant cul-
ture’s system of policies and practices meant to grant privilege to
members of the dominant group, and oppress members of minority
groups” (Gertz). Much like institutional racism, institutional audism
prevents those who cannot hear from succeeding to the same degree
as their hearing peers due to the dominant group’s control over the
minority group. For instance, hearing people hold many positions of
power in institutions. Their authority affects the lives that deaf indi-
viduals lead in hospitals and deaf institutes, creating an unfair balance
of power between the dominant hearing group and the minority deaf
group.
The final and most damaging form of audism is ideological aud-
ism, “the belief that the unique feature of human identity and being is
the human ability to use language, where language is defined as
speech” (Gertz). In other words, ideological audism refers to the idea
that spoken language marks the superiority of humans, therefore
those who use spoken language are superior. This sentiment often
arises from proponents of cochlear implants—particularly hearing
parents—but it is not always a conscious bias. As David Ludden
points out in his article “Is Deafness Really a Disability?,” “It’s only
natural to want to raise your child in your own language and culture,
and it can be heart-wrenching to see your deaf child seek out a sign-
language community that seems so alien to you” (Ludden). Hearing
parents most likely do not have any experience with the Deaf commu-
nity or Sign language, so to them, the ability to communicate through
spoken language is unfamiliar and possibly overwhelming. However,
the decision to give a deaf child cochlear implants should not be based
on the parents’ comfort. Instead, we must consider the deaf child and
how cochlear implants, language, and audism will affect a child’s cog-
nitive, social, and psychological development and well-being.
Individual, institutional, and ideological audism represent exter-
nal opinions projected onto deaf individuals. These biases do harm
individually, but they become more harmful when they incite dyscon-
scious audism, defined by the SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia as
“the acceptance of dominant hearing norms, privileges, and cultural
values by deaf individuals, and the subsequent perception of hearing
society as being more appropriate than Deaf society” (Gertz). Deaf
individuals experiencing dysconscious audism realize the oppression
they face, but in not rejecting all of its forms they limit their ability to
“develop their own deaf consciousness and identity” (Gertz). If deaf
children cannot escape from both the internal and external audist
mindsets—whether or not they have cochlear implants—they will not
have the tools to overcome and work to eliminate audism in the
future, thus giving more power to their oppressors. Dysconscious aud-
ism exacerbates the effects of external audist oppression and inflates
the unequal power dynamic between the hearing majority and deaf
minority.
This unequal power dynamic, along with the continuation of
hearing-centric norms, has led to “deafness through a disability
model” or “the pathological view of deafness” (Gertz). The patholog-
ical view frames deafness as a disease, something that needs to be
‘cured’ or ‘fixed’; this mindset only furthers the audism we see today.
It also brings up the idea of ‘disability,’ a term with which deaf indi-
129 Mercer Street
viduals often identify, but culturally Deaf individuals do not. In com-

mon practice, disability “refers to a physical impairment that prevents
one from successfully engaging in one or more major life activities
. . . ‘Major life activities’ is generally interpreted as seeing, breathing,
hearing, walking, speaking, using limbs, involuntary bodily functions,
as well as mental and emotional health” (Wright). Many Deaf indi-
viduals reject the ‘disabled’ label because their lack of hearing does not
prevent them from successfully living their lives, but other individuals
with characteristics suggesting disability stray from society’s standard
and experience discrimination. Just as deaf individuals experience
audism, people with disabilities experience ableism, which “stems
from the belief that being able-bodied or ‘normal’ is more desirable
than being disabled or ‘abnormal’” (Bacon). Ableism manifests itself
in many forms, but they all feed into the idea that individuals with
disabilities are inadequate human beings. In fact, the psychological
damage from classifying someone as disabled can influence a person’s
daily life more than the characteristics causing that classification in
the first place. This dilemma has proven so paradoxical that it has
inspired the development of an entirely new field known as disability
studies.
Disability studies, according to the Encyclopedia of Diversity in
Education, investigates the origins and “status quo assumptions about
disability that have” led to ableism and today’s dominant understand-
ing of disability (Ware). One of the commanding concepts in the field
of disability studies is disability critical theory, which focuses on the
idea that disability does not stem from impairment, but rather from a
combination of personal, institutional, and social factors. According
to the theory, disability is a social construct. Thus, “the social disad-
vantage experienced by disabled people is the result of the failure of
the social environment to respond adequately to the diversity present-
ed by disability” (Hosking). In other words, our social environment
has not embraced the positive diversity of disability to the degree that
is needed in order to remedy the disadvantages that ‘disabled’ individ-
uals still face today; the continued disadvantages only further the
divide between the dominant and inferior groups. Raising awareness
about ableism and ableist practices represents a step in the right direc-
tion, but true progress will require a shift in how we view disability as
a whole. If we want to begin the improvement process, we first need

to reframe the concept of disability into a spectrum of ability and cul-
tivate a society based on qualities and aptitudes, not the lack thereof.
Disability critical theory seeks to understand the workings of
ableism. A similar theory could exist for audism. Deafness critical the-
ory, then, would suggest that social and institutional factors, not deaf-
ness itself, has led to audism and the resulting discriminatory behav-
iors and mindsets. One of the most influential institutions for parents
of deaf children is the medical community, often the doctor who first
tells them that their child is deaf. Unfortunately, many doctors sub-
scribe to the pathological view of deafness and present cochlear
implants as the “cure” without providing any information about Sign
language or the Deaf community. This unequal dissemination of
information only promotes audism and the idea that children are
inherently better if they can hear and communicate through spoken
language. While cochlear implants may be the right choice for some
children, our institutions need to accurately provide parents with
information about both options in order to combat the pervasive aud-
istic mindset. Deafness critical theory could represent a turning point
in the cochlear implant debate, allowing parents to focus on how to
create an accepting and interactive world for their deaf (or Deaf) child
as opposed to determining which option will make it easier for them
to simply get through life.
Ultimately, this debate is not about whether or not parents should
choose cochlear implants for their deaf children; it is about the fact
that this choice could lead to a life of discrimination. Today, audism
and ableism paint deaf individuals as inferior in the hearing commu-
nity, but a child raised within the richness and diversity of the Deaf
community would have the means and motivation to tackle those
prejudices. Deaf culture will only enrich, not muddle, the world’s
ever-growing array of cultures and abilities, and can foster the next
generation of critical theorists to attack audism head-on. In 1857, a
group of hearing men signed the charter for one of the first schools
for the deaf, the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf
and Dumb and the Blind. The school’s name alone illustrates the
embedded ableism the deaf and disabled community must confront.
We can let that mindset endure another 160 years, or we can recog-
131 Mercer Street
nize the signs of the times: all children need a supportive, accepting
environment, not necessarily a hearing one, in order to succeed.
WORKS CITED
Bacon, Jessica. “Ableism.” Encyclopedia of Human Services &

Diversity, edited by Linwood H. Cousins, 1st ed., Sage
Publications, 2014.
“Cochlear Implants.” American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head
and Neck Surgery, 3 Jan. 2018,
www.entnet.org/content/cochlearimplants.
“Cochlear Implants.” National Institute of Deafness and Other
Communication Disorders, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, 6 Mar. 2017,
www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/cochlear-implants.
Engelman, Elizabeth. “My Deaf Son Fought Speech. Sign
Language Let Him Bloom.” The New York Times, 26 May
2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/well/family/my-deaf-son-
fought-speech-sign-language-let-him-bloom.html.
Gertz, Genie, and H-Dirksen L. Bauman. “Audism.” The SAGE
Deaf Studies Encyclopedia, edited by Genie Gertz et al., 1st ed.,
Sage Publications, 2016.
Hosking, David. “The Theory of Critical Disability Theory.”
Lancaster University, 2008, www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/events/dis-
abilityconference_archive/2008/abstracts/hosking.htm.
Humphries, Tom et al. “Language Choices for Deaf Infants.”
Clinical Pediatrics, vol. 55, no. 6, 2015, pp. 513–517,
doi:10.1177/0009922815616891.
Levi, Sandra J. “Ableism.” Encyclopedia of Disability, edited by
Gary L. Albrecht, 1st ed., Sage Publications, 2006.
Ludden, David. “Is Deafness Really a Disability?” Psychology
Today, 1 Feb. 2018, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talk-
ing-apes/201802/is-deafness-really-disability.
“Quick Statistics About Hearing.” National Institute of Deafness
and Other Communication Disorders, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, 20 Dec. 2017,

www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/statistics/quick-statistics-hearing.
Rosner, Jennifer. “Teaching a Deaf Child Her Mother’s Tongue.”
Motherlode Blog, The New York Times, 27 Mar. 2018, parent-
ing.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/teaching-a-deaf-child-her-
mothers-tongue.
Ware, Linda P. “Disability Studies.” Encyclopedia of Diversity in
Education, 1st ed., Sage Publications, 2012.
“What Is American Sign Language?” National Association of the
Deaf, 6 Dec. 2016, www.nad.org/resources/american-sign-lan-
guage/what-is-american-sign-language.
Wright, S.J. “Diversity: Disability and Deaf Studies.” The SAGE
Deaf Studies Encyclopedia, edited by Genie Gertz et al., 1st ed.,
Sage Publications, 2016.
THE TRUTH BEHIND PHOTOSHOP
Tracy Ma
A
stark black and white photograph: two fishing boats lay
upside down on the sand as their long black shadows
stretch out toward you. The boats, seeming to match you
in height, appear at first glance like rounded tents or
houses, not because they are particularly large, but because you are
positioned at eye-level beside them. Off in the distance stands the
comparatively small Lindisfarne Castle, overshadowed in size by the
two looming boats in the foreground. Darkened clouds hang omi-
nously above the entire landscape, and the monochromatic scheme of
the image makes the scene all the more haunting. Titled “Lindisfarne
Boats,” this photograph earned David Byrne the 2012 Landscape
Photographer of the Year award—along with a $16,000 prize. But
what may be even more haunting than the scene itself is that just four
days later, this same photograph caused Byrne to be stripped of his
prestigious award. After other competitors had pointed out certain
unnatural details in Byrne’s image, Byrne was disqualified for his
excessive use of photo manipulation—adding clouds, removing small
background boats, and making other small changes to the photo that
Byrne believed were minor. He admitted to not having read the com-
petition rules for his section, “Classic View”—which stated that “the
integrity of the subject must be maintained and the making of physi-
cal changes to the landscape [must not be] permitted”
(“Competition”)—and so he accepted his disqualification wholeheart-
edly (Zhang). Nonetheless, the situation sparked criticism from other
landscape photographers, and contributed to an age-old concern that
had arguably been renewed by the birth of Photoshop: by threatening
the ‘objective truth’ of photos, image manipulation may eventually
lead to the distortion—or even the extinction—of photography as a
craft.
First released in 1990, Photoshop is a program that allows users
to manipulate digitized photographs to do things such as “enhance
quality, create original pieces of artwork, add text and shapes, and
apply professional-quality special effects” to photos (Broneck).
134 Mercer Street
Although photographic manipulation had been in practice long

before the invention of Photoshop, the program was considered rev-
olutionary because it “ushered in a never-before-seen level of sophis-
tication” that made it vastly more difficult for one to distinguish
between a real photo and one that has been digitally altered
(Broneck).
For those like landscape photographer Declan O’Neill, who
believes in the “craft” of being able to capture a scene for what it is,
the rise of Photoshop in the field of photography is particularly trou-
bling. What concerns O’Neill specifically is Byrne’s defense of his use
of Photoshop: “I treat my photography as art and I try to make the
best looking picture” (Byrne qtd. in Brown). In O’Neill’s opinion
piece titled “Why Photoshop is Ruining Landscape Photography,” he
sharply responds to Byrne that “It is something entirely different
when a photographer wants to be an artist. An artist creates images
from their imagination. . . . Just leave photography to record what the
camera sees” (O’Neill). For O’Neill, photographers are not artists. He
implies that the camera—as a non-human object—documents what is
objective and “real,” what is untainted by the human imagination.
Unlike art, which is based on creativity and imagination, photogra-
phy, in O’Neill’s eyes, should be considered a craft, based on objectiv-
ity and technical skill. He portrays the camera as the device that pro-
vides us with this objectivity, and thereby views Photoshop as a ‘sub-
jectifier’ of “what the camera sees.” Thus, the likely reason why
Photoshop presents a cause for concern for O’Neill and many other
“purist” photographers is that it facilitates the integration of photog-
raphy with imagination, consequently blurring the “truth” that distin-
guishes photography as a craft from its status as an art.
This idea that pure, unedited photography is inherently ‘truthful’
has defined photography since its conception. French inventor
Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce—commonly credited as the inventor of
photography—concluded that the daguerreotype, created by Louis-
Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in 1839, was a photographic process that
“allow[ed] nature to reproduce itself” (Navab). Respectively,
American writers Edgar Allan Poe and Oliver Wendell Holmes saw
the photograph as being an “absolute truth” and “a perfect mirror that
fixes reality” (Navab). In her piece “Photographic Truth,” Aphrodite
Truth Behind Photoshop 135
Désirée Navab notes that several common themes present in early

commentaries surrounding photography were that photography was a
“trace . . . of the real,” and had the “superhuman ability to do (spon-
taneous reproduction) and to know (supreme eyewitness) things
beyond human capacities” (Navab). If anything, the sustained belief
that the camera is capable of providing a perfect, absolute, and super-
human record of reality reveals humankind’s insecurity regarding our
abilities to perceive reality for ourselves. Our perception is indeed lim-
ited, and in many ways is flawed, as well. Perhaps this is why O’Neill
finds it important that photography remains “what the camera sees,”
and not what we humans see. It is almost as if we require the affirma-
tion of truth and reality from a device, because we doubt the authen-
ticity of our own sight.
For Teju Cole, an American writer, photographer, and art histo-
rian, however, the primary human limitation that photography patch-
es is not sight, but memory. In his essay “Memories of Things
Unseen,” Cole details his fascination with Thomas Demand’s photo-
graph of a model of a forest, titled “Clearing,” that he had seen in the
FotoMuseum in Antwerp, Belgium. What intrigued him most about
the photo was that Demand had intentionally destroyed the original
model, and so its essence now only existed as a photograph, or a “trace
of the real,” as Navab would say. But what interests Cole is what hap-
pens when the “real” disappears: “when the photograph outlives the
body—when people die, scenes change, trees grow or are chopped
down—it becomes a memorial” (4). Given the fleeting nature of
human memory, photography can be seen as a way of preserving a
“trace of the real,” when we ourselves are no longer able to do so.
Thus, for Cole, photography is about retention, or the act of saving
an image.
But if human life is so finite, why do we feel the need to memo-
rialize or save our memories? Should our memories not die as we do,
when we do? Cole hints at an answer to this question from a historical
angle, declaring that photography is also used to “ward off . . . obliv-
ion,” citing how photographs of “Courbet’s ‘The Stone Breakers’ and
van Gogh’s ‘The Painter of the Road to Tarascon’ accidentally made
the lost paintings visible to future generations” (5); essentially, these
photos gave us a “memory of something we had never seen” (3). In
136 Mercer Street
this way, photography can indeed be seen as a device that transcends

“human capacities” to compensate for our perceptual and mnemonic
limitations. As Cole briefly observes, the truthfulness of a photo,
when considered through the lens of history as ‘just so,’ becomes
rather necessary to us as humans and to our future generations.
Therefore, if Photoshop allows photographers to manipulate their
imaginations into the truth, as O’Neill implies, the greater threat that
Photoshop poses is not the potential transformation of a craft into an
art, but the possible destruction of our only means of seeing the world
in a way that is uncontaminated by human subjectivity and finitude.
Without any other way to view the world besides our own eyes, how
can we be sure that anything around us is real?
When viewing photography through the lens of history, it
becomes clear why many individuals like Poe and Holmes may have
regarded photography as an “absolute truth” and a “perfect mirror” of
reality. In history, where there is a demand for truth, photography
presents us with the supply that we seek. In a similar way, author Fred
Ritchin views photography as having a “stenographic function” as a
“recorder of the past,” and thus believes that the value of photography
lies in its “truth”: if “documentary photography cannot be trusted at
least as a quotation from appearances, then photography will have lost
its currency” (qtd. in Amundson 362). If we can no longer trust pho-
tography, then there will be nothing that differentiates it as a
“recorder” of reality from our own flawed sight or memory. At that
point, photography, at least as a documentary, will become useless to
us and cease to exist—or at the very least, will no longer exist in the
form that it does today. By making the tools of photo-manipulation
more massively accessible, and the act of distinguishing between the
real and the digitally augmented more difficult, Photoshop seems to
have made such a future seem all too probable.
However, this isn’t the first time concerns over the potential
“extinction” of a medium have been raised. In “Photographic Truth,”
Navab insists that when new technologies are invented, many are
“quick to apply Darwinian notions of ‘the survival of the fittest.’” She
notes that when photography was first introduced, “Many felt [it]
would render painting obsolete, but [painting] continues to thrive.” If
we were to adopt a Darwinian perspective regarding this hypothesis,
then the “survival” of painting would suggest that it held, and still
holds, value to us, even in the face of a more “evolved species”—the
photograph (Navab). It can be said that prior to the invention of pho-
tography, painting was more or less the only form of pictorial “docu-
mentary”; it served as a “record” of the likenesses of historical figures,
places, and events (Navab). While painting indeed still “thrives”
today, it is questionable whether it does so in its “original” form
(Navab). Today, paintings seem to be more often created as art than
as a form of documentary. When viewed from this perspective, it is
possible that paintings have, in a sense, become extinct, because they
no longer exist in the same form as they did centuries ago. Painting
“evolved” from documentary into art to “survive.” Perhaps photogra-
phers like O’Neill, who protest the use of Photoshop, are doing so
because of an underlying fear that photography will undergo the same
fate as painting and will henceforth exist only as an art.
But while our reliance on the photograph as a form of historical
documentary demonstrates our need for truth in photography, it does
not necessarily confirm the existence of truth in the photograph. To
fear that Photoshop will eventually sever the relationship between
photography and reality is to assume that the photo, when unedited,
is inexplicably truthful. “Just leave photography to record what the
camera sees,” demands O’Neill. But is what the camera sees not in
some ways what humans see? Does the “craft” of photography, such
as decisions regarding “lenses, filters, the position from which the
photo is to be taken, the film stock, the shutter speed, etc.,” not
involve human creativity, and thus subjectivity (Kessler 173)? Since a
camera must be operated by someone, is it even possible for a photo—
even if completely unedited—to be absolutely objective and truthful?
Frank Kessler, a professor of media history at Utrecht University,
recognizes that when taking photos, “there is no way to fix a standard
that could guarantee . . . absolute objectivity” (173). He cites photog-
rapher Dona Schwartz in distinguishing three strategies to keep pho-
tographs as close to objectivity as possible: “depicting the subject ‘as
the camera sees it,’ depicting it ‘as someone present at the scene would
have seen it,’ or to ‘authorize the photographers to make decisions
regarding image production consistent with the prevailing norms gov-
erning journalistic representations across communicative modes’”
138 Mercer Street
(qtd. in Kessler 173). According to Kessler, the first two strategies

suggest that objectivity—and by association, truth—is defined by
“repeatability.” Thus, it is implied that minor manipulations, so long
as they keep the image as similar to the ‘original’ scene as possible, do
not destroy the objective quality of a photo (173). The third strategy,
however, admits that even the concept of objectivity itself is rather
subjective, “relying . . . on a set of more or less unwritten rules that can
at any moment be modified or revised” (Kessler 173).
Photography seen through the lens of journalism presents us with
another exception in which a photograph may not be absolutely truth-
ful but is conditionally so. Roger Fenton, known to some as the first
war photographer and to others as a pioneer of photojournalism, also
happens to have been one of the first ever to fake a photograph.
Fenton’s photograph of a road covered in cannonballs during the
Crimean War, titled “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” was con-
cluded by optical engineer Dennis Purcell to have been staged, after
Purcell had spent hours comparing the photo to a nearly identical
photo taken by Fenton where that same road was clear of cannonballs.
Whereas the photo with the bare road showed cannonballs on top of
a nearby hill, “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” depicted those
cannonballs lower down on that hill. The displacement of a rock from
the untitled photo to a lower position on the hill in “The Valley of the
Shadow of Death” makes it clear that “The Valley of the Shadow of
Death” was taken after the photo of the cannonball-less road.
Therefore, Purcell concludes that Fenton must have moved the can-
nonballs onto the road to stage this famous photograph. As to why
Fenton may have done so, Purcell believes it was “to make it look the
way it felt”; Purcell thereby finds the faked photograph to be more
authentic than the real one, because it exemplifies “emotional truth”
(qtd. in Abumrad). So although Fenton’s photograph may not be
truthful in the literal and absolute sense, in a conditional sense, it is.
In their book The Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom
Rosenstiel argue that journalism seeks “a practical and functional form
of truth” or a “[truth] by which we can operate on a day-to-day basis”
(qtd. in “The Elements”). In that case, perhaps the “functional” truth
that is necessary in photojournalism and history is not an absolute and
objective one, but an emotional one. Fenton was able to manipulate
the scene so that his photograph no longer represented how “someone

present at the scene would have seen it,” yet his image was still “truth-
ful” to an extent (Schwartz qtd. in Kessler 173). Perhaps, then,
Photoshop is capable of maintaining the ‘truth’ of an edited photo in
a similar way—by preserving or accentuating its emotional integrity.
But even if Photoshop allows for a photograph to remain emo-
tionally truthful, it can be argued that such a truth is not a “perfect
mirror” of reality, and thus does not provide for us the affirmation of
reality that we seek. In his book Ways of Seeing, John Berger reminds
us that even the original, unedited photograph “is not . . . a mechan-
ical record,” because the photographer is selecting from “an infinity of
other possible sights” (10). In a way, the photographer is applying his
subjective human perspective to capture a portion of reality, and by
extension, a portion of the truth, or rather, one truth out of an infinite
number of truths. Berger’s statement raises the question of whether a
singular truth is even possible, given that we—and thus the cameras
that we wield—all see reality from a different perspective. Berger
insists that prior to the camera, our conception of reality was rather
egocentric: “Every drawing or painting that used perspective proposed
to the spectator that he was the unique centre of the world. The cam-
era . . . demonstrated that there was no centre” (18). If, as Berger sug-
gests, there is no singular, “centered” way of viewing reality, then per-
haps there is also no singular, objective truth for photography to
record. In a way, it can be said that reality and truth are both subjec-
tive, in that they depend on the perspective from which they are
viewed.
The contexts in which photography holds “currency,” such as his-
tory and photojournalism, can be regarded in a similar way. Michael
A. Amundson, a professor of history at Northern Arizona University,
finds that “history is a cultural construction created by each generation
to help it explain the past and its own future” (362). Because of the
subjective nature of history, “photographs are never assumed to repre-
sent the ‘truth’ of the past,” but instead are “one small snippet of the
conversation that helps us understand it” (362). It is in this way that
photoshopped photos which hold “emotional truth” can serve as reli-
able historical documentaries of the past: although they may not por-
tray the past exactly as it looked in that particular moment, photo-
140 Mercer Street
shopped photos can reveal the implicit values and thoughts of that
time to potentially provide an even more comprehensive understand-
ing of our past than the original, real scene may have.
Returning to the Darwinian notion that Navab mentioned, paint-
ing as a documentary was made “extinct” because a more reliable form
of documentary—photography—was introduced. In his essay “Steps
Toward a Small Theory of the Visible,” Berger defines painting as “an
affirmation of the visible which surrounds us and which continually
appears and disappears” (347). Much like Ritchin’s notion that the
“currency” of photography is based in its truth, or its ability to mirror
reality, Berger asserts that the painting, in more primitive times, was
valued for the same reason. If it were not for the finitude of
humankind, or the unreliability of our own perceptions, such a “mir-
ror” would not even be needed. Berger goes on to say that “[w]ithout
the disappearing, there would perhaps be no impulse to paint,” and
thereby, there would be no impulse to photograph either (347). But
so long as we are mortal and our minds are imperfect, there will
always be this need to affirm reality. Thus, it logically follows that for
photography to become obsolete, a more advanced, more truthful
form of documentation must be introduced in its place. But even if
such a medium emerges, it is still unlikely that photography will
become ‘extinct’ in the ways that O’Neill and Ritchin fear that it may,
as this did not happen to the photograph’s closely related predecessor,
the painting. Although painting has fallen out of favor as a form of
pictorial documentation, it continues to exist for the same reason that
photography is likely to remain: it is capable of providing us with an
emotional truth that will allow us to understand our past.
Berger makes the further claim that “More directly than any other
art, painting is an affirmation of the existent” (347). In other words,
he implies that the state of being an art, even as subjective as it is, does
not render a medium any less an affirmation of the real. So if
Photoshop does cause photography to become solely an art as O’Neill
fears, it will likely still remain valuable to us as a reflection of our sub-
jective reality, as well as a historical document of our emotional and
cultural truths for posterity to examine. Many believe that by distort-
ing the truth in photographs, Photoshop may lead to the extinction of
photography. But it is more likely that Photoshop will be what pre-
serves photography as a medium, for if a new, more truthful form of

documentary emerges, and photography can no longer measure up as
a prime affirmation of reality, it will be Photoshop that “revalues”
photography as art. If photography and painting as documentary
reveal our need for an affirmation of reality, then, as art, they will
reveal our need for a sort of “affirmation” of ourselves. We seek to
understand the world around us just as much as we do what is within
us. If that truly is the case, then Photoshop is not what will extinguish
photography, but what will save it.
WORKS CITED
Abumrad, Jad, and Robert Krulwich, hosts. “In the Valley of the
Shadow of Doubt.” Radiolab, WNYC Studios, 24 Sept. 2012,
www.wnycstudios.org/story/239499-in-the-valley-of-the-shad-
ow-of-doubt.
Amundson, Michael A. “Epilogue: Atop the Digital Divide.”
Wyoming Revisited: Rephotographing the Scenes of Joseph E.
Stimson, University Press of Colorado, 2014, pp. 355-366.
Berger, John. “Steps Toward a Small Theory of the Visible.” The
Brooklyn Reader, edited by Nicole Callihan et al., Pearson
Education, 2016, pp. 345-351.
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Broneck, Kathy. “Photoshop.” Encyclopedia of New Media: An
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Brown, Larisa. “Photographer who won prestigious prize for striking
image stripped of title and for over-use of Photoshop.” Daily
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142 Mercer Street
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tition-rules.
“The Elements of Journalism.” American Press Institute, 2018,
www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/what-is-
journalism/elements-journalism.
Kessler, Frank. “What You Get Is What You See: Digital Images
and the Claim on the Real.” Digital Material: Tracing New
Media in Everyday Life and Technology, edited by Marianne
Van den Boomen et al., Amsterdam University Press, 2009, pp.
187–198.
Navab, Aphrodite Désirée. “Photographic Truth.” Encyclopedia of
Identity, edited by Ronald L. Jackson, II, 1st ed., Sage
Publications, 2010. CREDO, search.credoreference.com/con-
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O’Neill, Declan. “Why Photoshop is Ruining Landscape
Photography.” Digital Photography School, www.digital-pho-
tography-school.com/opinion-why-photoshop-is-ruining-land-
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Zhang, Michael. “Landscape Photographer of the Year 2012
Stripped of Title for Too Much ‘Shoppin.” PetaPixel, 2 Nov.
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of-the-year-2012-stripped-of-title-for-too-much-shoppin.
WE’RE NOT JUST WINDOW DRESSING:
ASIAN REPRESENTATION
IN FILM AND TELEVISION
Jessica Ji
I
t’s nighttime in the city. The skyline is covered in neon lights
and holograms and crisscrossed with highways, giving the city a
distinctly futuristic, sci-fi feel. A woman stands at the edge of a
rooftop, looking over. The only part of her visible to the viewer
is her silhouette from the back. As the camera tracks closer and closer
towards her and the view of the city, it becomes clear that the city is
in Japan: Japanese characters adorn many of the buildings, holograms
of human figures wear distinctly Japanese-style clothing and makeup,
and you can hear Japanese voices mixed in with the English voice
coming from the woman’s radio. And yet, when the camera swings
around to reveal the woman’s face, we are confronted by none other
than Scarlett Johansson—a white actress.
This is the opening scene of the 2017 film Ghost in the Shell. Of
course, a white actress playing a character that is in Japan might not
seem very controversial at first glance; there are many action films
with white leads that might start out with a scene in a different coun-
try, but the casting of Scarlett Johansson as main character Major
remains controversial because of the context of the film. Ghost in the
Shell is based on a Japanese manga and anime of the same name, both
of which star Japanese characters, yet the film chose to cast a white
actress for the historically Japanese part. The character’s name, as
explained by the film’s producers, was changed from “Major Motoko
Kusanagi” to just “Major” to accommodate the change in the main
character’s race (Sun). Scarlett Johansson justified her own casting by
saying that the character was “essentially identity-less,” suggesting
that the character’s race didn’t matter since the character had no iden-
tity while, probably unintentionally, implying that the default race is
white (qtd. in Sun). Many were upset that the role was given to
Johansson, despite the fantastic opportunity to give a lead role to an
Asian actress. In a conversation between performers of Japanese
144 Mercer Street
descent who watched the film, actress Keiko Agena spoke about how
the movie was “such a star-making vehicle . . . and this could have
made a young, kick-ass Asian actress out there a Hollywood name
and star” (Sun). As an Asian American, I share this opinion and made
the decision not to see the film. Judging by the film’s poor box office
performance and critical reception, many others made the same deci-
sion. The film made a little over $40 million in the US, compared to
an estimated $110 million budget (IMDb), and holds a measly 44%
on the film rating site Rotten Tomatoes.
The debate surrounding the representation of Asian Americans in
North American film and TV is by no means a recent phenomenon.
Early examples of the controversial representation of Asians in film
include Mickey Rooney’s offensive yellow-face portrayal of a Japanese
man in the Blake Edwards-directed classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and
the use of white actors to portray the entire main cast of Chinese
characters in the 1937 Sidney Franklin film The Good Earth. Of
course, as time passed, such obvious examples of yellow-face became
less and less common. However, this doesn’t mean that the white-
washing of Asian characters has become a thing of the past; it has
simply taken on a new form, as evidenced by Scarlett Johansson’s cast-
ing as Major in Ghost in the Shell. They no longer literally dress
white actors up as Asian; instead, the race of the character—usually a
character who has historically been Asian, or should be and easily
could be—is rewritten as white or the white actor is given a fictional
Asian heritage without looking or actually being Asian at all. Notable
examples include white actress Emma Stone’s casting as a character of
Hawaiian and Asian descent in Cameron Crowe’s Aloha (2015), the
primarily white main cast of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last
Airbender (2010), which is traditionally Asian-influenced, and the
casting of black actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and white actress Mackenzie
Davis as, according to the book the movie was based on, an Indian
man and a Korean woman in Ridley Scott’s The Martian (Davé).
However, as the issue of Asian representation in American culture has
gained more exposure, the conversation surrounding Asian represen-
tation has become more complex, growing to encompass issues such
as cultural appropriation and racial stereotypes. As a result, it has also
Asian Representation 145
complicated the question of what proper representation of Asian

American culture and characters look like.
While Ghost in the Shell may seem like a relatively straightfor-
ward example of whitewashing—the making white of an Asian char-
acter—not every controversy faced in recent years has been so clear-
cut. In 2017, Marvel Studios faced criticism for the casting of white
actor Finn Jones as lead Danny Rand, a white Buddhist man who
masters martial arts, in their Netflix series Iron Fist. Many Asian
Americans took to social media to express their disappointment, cre-
ating the hashtag #AAIronFist and saying, amongst other things, that
“Iron Fist is an orientalist-white-man-yellow-fever narrative. Asian
actor would have helped subvert that offensive trope, and reclaim
space” (@marjorieliu qtd. in Bramesco). The role could have gone to
a Chinese man, saving the actor playing Rand the trouble of having
to immerse himself in Chinese culture. However, the difference
between this controversy and the Ghost in the Shell controversy was
that Danny Rand is in fact white in the original Marvel comics, lead-
ing many to believe the controversy over the casting was unfounded.
Despite this, a white actor playing this role made the character him-
self problematic, running the risk of appropriating Asian culture—
specifically martial arts—with the purpose of glorifying a white man.
As a white character, Danny Rand falls perfectly into the problematic
white savior trope “in which a white visitor becomes the only one who
can save a culture that’s framed as ‘less civilized,’ while he or she also
learns valuable lessons from the uncorrupted spirituality of the people”
(Wheeler). Stories containing this trope therefore “treat non-white or
non-Western cultures as exotic playgrounds for the improvement of
white people,” effectively reducing the non-white characters to props
(Wheeler). In this case, Chinese culture is the “playground” that
Danny Rand gets to play in.
Many, however, don’t buy into these claims of cultural appropri-
ation and the white savior trope. The creator of the series, Roy
Thomas, defended the casting by saying that “it’s all about a fictitious
race, a fictitious place like Shangri-La, and one person who happens
to be its emissary. There’s no reason why he can’t be Caucasian” (qtd.
in Busch). Additionally, prominent Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu said
that he doesn’t “buy into the cultural appropriation bullshit because
146 Mercer Street
that’s saying [for Iron Fist] that ‘only Asians are allowed to do martial
arts’ [and] only black people can play basketball and rap. . . . That’s
bullshit” (qtd. in Benjamin). And, of course, the fact remains that
Danny Rand is established within the Marvel canon as a white man.
It could be said that critics are overreacting—how could this be white-
washing if Rand was white in the first place? Yet this casting decision
still represents a missed opportunity to cast an Asian actor, which
would solve both the white savior problem and the cultural appropri-
ation problem. But if Marvel had cast a Chinese actor in the role of
Danny Rand, would Marvel then have faced claims of playing into the
Chinese martial art stereotype? It’s entirely possible that they would
have, but we’ll never know, since Marvel ultimately cast Finn Jones.
Regardless, given that martial arts are an intrinsic part of the Iron Fist
story, a white lead just “makes it worse, relegating Asian martial
artists only to the roles of villains, mentors, and goons” (Wheeler). It
might be more worth the risk to play into stereotypes—stereotypes
that can always be played down if needed—if it means an Asian
American has a chance to take a prominent role.
It is this risk of playing into stereotypes that many refuse to take.
While avoiding stereotypes remains an important part of the conver-
sation around Asian representation, it is often used as an excuse for
casting white actors in a potentially star-making role. Such roles could
be revised to be less stereotypical and given to an Asian actor. Using
the defense that a show or movie is trying to avoid stereotypes can
make it seem like not casting Asian Americans actually benefits them.
An example of this sort of thinking can be found in the explanations
given for the casting of white actress Tilda Swinton as The Ancient
One in Marvel’s 2016 film Dr. Strange. The Ancient One is a
Tibetan man in the comics and was changed into a Celtic woman in
the film to fit Swinton’s casting (Desta). This decision was met with
much criticism, with the President of the Media Action Network for
Asian Americans (MANAA), Rob Chan, saying that “Given the
dearth of Asian roles, there was no reason a monk in Nepal could not
be Asian” (qtd. in Yee). However, the creative team behind the film
explained that they had given the role to Swinton in an effort to undo
the ‘Dragon Lady’ stereotype. Writer and director Scott Derrickson
said, “Every iteration of that script played by an Asian woman felt like
a ‘Dragon Lady’. . . . I moved away from that” (qtd. in Yee). The pres-
ident of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, also defended the casting, say-
ing in an interview with Deadline: “We didn’t want to play into any
of the stereotypes found in the comic books, some of which go back
as far as 50 years or more. We felt the idea of gender swapping the
role of The Ancient One was exciting. . . . Why not make the wisest
bestower of knowledge in the universe to our heroes in the particular
film a woman instead of a man?” (qtd. in Fleming). With this defense,
Feige makes the case that their casting of The Ancient One was in
fact progressive—not only did they avoid playing into stereotypes, but
they also made the character a powerful woman rather than a man.
Derrickson’s and Feige’s explanations rely on flawed logic—in
casting Swinton, they effectively took an opportunity away from an
Asian actor or actress and gave it to a white actress, while at the same
time saying that what they did was actually good for Asian represen-
tation and for social progress as a whole. As said by Guy Aoki, the co-
founder of MANAA, “you could modify ANY problematic, outdated
character and maintain its ethnicity . . . letting a white woman play
the part . . . just erases an Asian character from the screen when there
weren’t many prominent Asian characters in Marvel films to begin
with” (qtd. in Yee). Their explanation allows the studio to “promote
itself as an agent for social change by transforming an Asian stereo-
type into an empowered white woman to move the audience past
racist representations” (Nishime 30). Why couldn’t they have cast
Asian women instead, when that would have made the most sense in
both cases? Why is it that casting a white woman in a role made for a
person of color is considered progressive?
Linking whitewashing to notions of progressive change can be a
dangerous path to go down. In a piece about whitewashing in science
fiction films, Leilani Nishime explains how “the case of Doctor
Strange vividly illustrates the imbrication of white-washing with nar-
ratives of racial uplift and globalization. . . . [It] [links] whitewashing
to stories of racial progress so that imagining a nonracist future means
imagining a white future,” something that she calls a “disturbing”
notion (30). Creating an abundance of white characters that think
they would somehow benefit other races just leads to decreased diver-
sity and increased racial erasure, along with the continued perpetua-
148 Mercer Street
tion of the notion that white people are the dominant and default
race. Ghost in the Shell falls victim to this “white future,” ironically
because of the plot twist that screenwriters included to attempt to jus-
tify why Scarlett Johansson’s Major is white. Near the end of the film,
Major finds out that she actually used to be Japanese before she was
turned into a cyborg. Japanese actress Atsuko Okatsuka said, “the text
at the beginning of the movie explained that Hanka Robotics is mak-
ing a being that’s the best of human and the best of robotics. For some
reason, the best stuff they make happens to be white” (qtd. in Sun).
By revealing that Major used to be Japanese, the film and its writers
imply that creating a being that’s “the best of human” involves putting
Major into a white body. Nishime also explains in the same essay
how, especially in science fiction films, Asian characters are seen as
disposable. She points out that “these movies include ancillary Asian
female characters as more than techno-orientalist window dressing”
(31). By “more,” she means that these characters are often robots, sug-
gesting Asian people and their culture are reduced to a submissive and
aestheticized “product” (Nishime 31). This tendency can be seen in
Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, where the Asian character is ultimately
discarded for the empowerment of the white female character, playing
into stereotypes about the compliant Asian woman (Nishime 31). In
some instances, Asian characters aren’t present at all: in Denis
Villenueve’s Blade Runner 2049, even though there are clear Asian
influences on the aesthetic of the city in which it takes place, the film
itself features no Asian characters.
This use of Asians as “window dressing” and “products,” of
course, is not only limited to science fiction movies. Wes Anderson’s
2018 film Isle of Dogs was largely criticized for stereotyping Japanese
culture despite a cast that featured Japanese actors and a Japanese co-
writer who was brought in to ensure the accuracy of the film (Ramos).
Guardian reviewer Steve Rose describes how “Anderson’s alternative
Japan . . . ticks off a great many tourist clichés. There is sushi, sumo
wrestlers, cherry blossoms, taiko drummers,” providing a very simpli-
fied, stereotypical view of Japan and its culture. In an essay for
BuzzFeed, Alison Willmore talks about how the film shows “Japan
purely as an aesthetic—and another piece of art that treats the East
not as [being] a living, breathing half of the planet but as a mirror for
the Western imagination.” Japan, and the fictional Japanese city of

Megasaki in which the film takes place, is used simply as a backdrop,
and not an intrinsic part of the story—had the story taken place any-
where else, it would have remained pretty much the same. The
“tourist clichés” mentioned by Steve Rose are used mainly to make
Anderson’s film look pretty and seem quirky. Greta Gerwig’s charac-
ter Tracy Walker, an American exchange student in Japan, also per-
petuates Asian stereotypes, as she leads “a singlehanded campaign to
turn the tide of public opinion against Mayor Kobayashi [the antag-
onist of the film], thus reifying old stereotypes about Japanese passiv-
ity” and fulfilling the white savior trope (MacFarlane). It’s interesting
to see how Anderson chose to insert a white American as a central
character when he just as easily could have written the character as
Japanese. It could be a “symptom of treating Megasaki City as mere
background, rather than an actual city filled with people who are able
to recognize what’s happening to their pets” (Song). Or perhaps it is
an attempt to show how “one group is persuaded when an outsider
brings a different perspective to see what’s happening,” as explained
by Isle of Dogs co-writer Kunichi Nomura (qtd. in Song). Regardless,
Walker’s presence as a white person reinforces tired Asian stereotypes
and makes the people of Japan look incompetent at dealing with the
problems surrounding them. However, while it’s easy to point out
that these things are stereotypical, it’s much more difficult to figure
out how to represent and appreciate a different culture without acci-
dentally presenting stereotypes and, as a result, aestheticizing the cul-
ture. With all of the different opinions about representation, there is
no set of rules to follow that guarantees representation that pleases
everyone.
Outside of visual stereotypes, a similar conundrum can be found
in the discussion around heavy accents, which are especially prevalent
amongst South Asian characters. Shilpa Davé calls this the “brown
voice” in his essay, “Racial Accents, Hollywood Casting, and Asian
American Studies.” Davé emphasizes that it “operates as a racializing
characteristic among South Asians that suggests both foreignness and
familiarity in a US context” and is employed by both South Asians,
such as Kunal Nayyer’s character Raj on the CBS sitcom The Big
Bang Theory, and non-South Asians, such as the Hank Azaria-
150 Mercer Street
voiced character Apu on The Simpsons (143). An initial reaction to

this stereotype might be to just create more characters who speak with
neutral accents, but the problem is more complex than it first appears
to be. Davé notes that “one way to read some of these representations
is to note that when characters speak with a ‘neutral accent,’ the plot-
lines erase or bury racial and ethnic markers” (146). Essentially, the
character is stripped of racial and cultural identity in favor of being
racially neutral, which is not necessarily what people are looking for in
terms of representation.
This concept can be applied outside the world of accents. If you
were to write a completely race neutral character and then cast an
Asian in the role, the character would be completely devoid of any
non-physical characteristic that would mark them as Asian. For some,
this would be an unrealistic representation, since Asians have unique
cultural identities. Therefore, it’s difficult to navigate how exactly an
Asian character should be represented—it wouldn’t be best to erase
the character’s Asian-ness altogether, but at the same time the char-
acter shouldn’t be too much of a stereotype. Recently, there’s been a
push for Asians to play lead roles normally given to white actors or
actresses, as exemplified by a popular campaign called
#StarringJohnCho, which photoshops Korean-American actor John
Cho into popular movie posters as the lead. Notable examples fea-
tured on the campaign’s website include Cho as Captain America on
the Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) poster and as James Bond on the
Spectre (2015) poster (Starring John Cho). People are tired of not
seeing Asians in lead roles, so why shouldn’t Asians be stars? Why
can’t John Cho play the leading man in a Hollywood blockbuster?
While this campaign is simply meant to ignite conversation about
why the industry doesn’t cast Asians in lead roles, it does pose the pre-
vious issue of how to present race on screen—if an Asian actor were
to play a role originally written for a white lead, should the role then
be re-written to match the character’s race, or left as is? Does leaving
the character written as is erase the character’s Asian identity?
With all the nuances and complexities around representation, it’s
probably impossible to find a universal answer to the question of what
proper representation of Asians and Asian cultures on screen should
look like. Everyone, including those in the Asian American commu-
nity, has different opinions and outlooks on what they deem accept-
able and unacceptable. While I refused to watch Ghost in the Shell,
Iron Fist, and Doctor Strange, many of my Asian American friends
saw and enjoyed them. Although I found the representation of Japan
in Isle of Dogs to be problematic, when I asked my Asian American
roommate about it she shrugged and said that she thought Wes
Anderson was just paying homage to Japan, and she couldn’t fault
him for that. What remains consistent, however, is the fact that data
has found “that America’s increasingly diverse audiences prefer
diverse film and television content,” yet Asians continue to be under-
represented in film and television. Only 3.1% of film roles and 2.6%
of roles on cable scripted shows went to Asians in 2016 (Hunt).
While we might not reach a general consensus about how to properly
increase representation of Asian actors on screen, it’s important to
keep having conversations about representation and to listen to all
sides—especially the concerns that Asian Americans themselves have
regarding their own representation.
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Aloha. Directed by Cameron Crowe, Columbia Pictures, 2015.

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Studios Motion Pictures, 2015.
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Bramesco, Charles. “What Is This ‘Iron Fist’ Controversy? (Also,
What Is ‘Iron Fist’?).” The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2017,
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A CINEMA OF CONFUSION
Erik Oliver
S
omething is wrong. Videotapes appear on the doorstep of
Fred (Bill Pullman) and Renée Madison (Patricia Arquette).
They show, in floating, ominous frames, the exterior and
then the interior of the couple’s home. Even ignoring the
tapes, Fred and Renée seem off, somnambulant. They speak in non-
sequiturs and long pauses. Their house is always dark. We sense an
intrusion taking place, but never that there might be one specific
intruder. Something is looming, and it’s impossible to tell what it
might be. Things in this successful couple’s upscale home seem like
they should be normal, but they feel fundamentally wrong, and by the
time Fred receives the final tape—chronicling his murder of Renée—
the grainy footage seems itself like the act of violence. The police
arrest Fred, but once within his jail cell, he physically transforms into
another man, Pete (Balthazar Getty). The police can’t figure out what
to do with this man, so they release him. Pete returns home to his
own family and work, which soon will lead him to Alice (also played
by Patricia Arquette), who looks identical to Renée.
So, we have questions, but the answers we receive from David
Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) only confound us more. Fred murdered
his wife. But when? Why? And even taking this account for the truth,
Fred is no longer Fred, but Pete. Fred’s arrest seems like a climax to
Lost Highway’s odd, oblique psychodrama, but with the transfigura-
tion in the jail cell, we’re delivered back into a status quo, albeit one
that disrupts our understanding of the plot. And as Pete works his
way into a classical noir narrative—one that mirrors Fred’s story,
especially jealousy and rage—his world begins to intersect at odd
angles with Fred’s. What seemed like a resolution—the reveal of
Fred’s violence—acts as an anti-revelation of sorts, one that returns
Lost Highway to a state of unease rather than resettling and restoring
it. Even as this new storyline plays out, its seeming straightforward-
ness pushes us further towards an edge that we cannot see but know
is there.
156 Mercer Street
Thus go the films of David Lynch, whose work veers from beauty
to horror to hilarity and traffics in the deep confusion we see in Lost
Highway. Frequently, his films dabble in familiar genre conventions,
only to disrupt them and send storylines careening off into parallel
realities. When analyzing his filmography, it can seem difficult even
to find a solid inquiry; one takes it all in and doesn’t know where to
begin. Yet the deeper one looks, the more that quality of constant
destabilization seems itself to be the point. Indeed, Lynch’s work,
taken as a cinema of confusion, perplexes and distorts, but it also elu-
cidates fundamentally emotional and relatable ideas, albeit in uncanny
ways. At his heart, Lynch is a deeply earnest filmmaker, but it would
be wrong to think that his films’ strangenesses and disorientations act
as barriers to understanding his worldview. Rather, they’re the key to
it. In the cinema of David Lynch, confusion may be the truest way to
understand the human heart.
If we look at Lynch’s impact on the popular consciousness, we see
that his ethos has translated even to a mass audience. He’s become a
strangely iconic figure, with his idiosyncrasies and tonal trademarks
inspiring the widely-used moniker, ‘Lynchian,’ that describes a specif-
ic nightmarish, uncanny tone. His films have found recognition as
midnight movie standards (Eraserhead, 1977), Palme d’Or winners
(Wild at Heart, 1990), and even Oscar material (The Elephant Man,
1980, most extensively, with select nominations for others). Yet
amidst this sporadic acclaim, many critics tend to dismiss serious
examination of his work. Audiences can sometimes detach from him;
some consider him a provocateur who seeks to simply make audiences
uncomfortable, or a strawman creative who “ladles on the random
weirdness” to hide dull, overdone thematic ideas (“Review”). In this
regard, his public persona of nasal Midwestern oddness, with his
weird stories and near-total caginess on the meanings of his films, can
seem like a mask that hides a playful, creative emptiness. Yet despite
cycles of critical dismissal and commercial underperformance, Lynch
has endured, growing in reputation as the years go on. In the long run,
it seems that people respond to his work, even if they also consider it
strange. He must be doing something accessible, even if he does so in
an unexpected way.
Cinema of Confusion 157
It might help if we set a baseline. Lynch’s unique way of convey-

ing emotion can be more explicable if we isolate it. How does it oper-
ate in his more straightforward material? His wilder abstractions? We
might find his most basic principles of cinematic empathy most clear-
ly articulated in Twin Peaks (1990-1991), a popular TV whodunit in
which FBI agent Dale Cooper investigates the murder of high school
student Laura Palmer. In “Episode 14,” Lynch resolves the series’
central mystery and reveals the killer. Lynch infuses every moment
with a queasy tonal balance, though most of what’s here is more trans-
parent than the strangeness of, say, Lost Highway. Still, the rational-
ity of the plot is balanced by an abstraction of emotion that seems
more of a precedent to Lynch’s later work.
In the episode’s pivotal scene, Lynch demonstrates his knack for
creating tone through tactility, imbuing the empty Palmer living
room with a deep sense of dread through vacant compositions and the
looping click of a needle on an ended record. Again, we have that
sense that something is wrong. The sense of dread crystallizes, how-
ever, with the murder of Laura’s identical cousin Maddy (Sheryl Lee).
Lynch continues to create meaning through lyrical, visual associations
that enhance a more direct plotting of the mystery. Leland Palmer
(Ray Wise), Laura’s father, looks in the mirror and sees the grinning
face of BOB (Frank Silva), a supernatural presence signifying absolute
evil. As Leland, possessed by BOB, beats Maddy to death, Lynch
employs visual signifiers to create his feeling of unraveling tragedy.
He intercuts the already drawn-out, brutal violence of the scene with
slow-motion interludes that shine a literal spotlight on the two char-
acters and replace Leland with BOB. Meanwhile, the denizens of
Twin Peaks, gathered to celebrate and socialize in the town bar, begin
to mourn and cry without knowing why. The reverberation of the
episode’s central murder spreads throughout the diegetic world of
Twin Peaks, in a way dictated by the show’s form and its underlying
emotional climaxes, rather than literal causation. “Episode 14,” like all
of Lynch’s work, operates on a deep sense of tragedy that defies logi-
cal structure, and while the way each scene feeds into the next can be
disorienting, the emotional currents cut deep.
In Twin Peaks, however, such impressionistic stretches are
backed by a largely straightforward procedural narrative. Several
158 Mercer Street
episodes’ literal plot frameworks allow us to shift into abstraction

without losing our sense of context. It’s a little harder to latch onto
Lynch’s films post-Peaks, which tend to emphasize illogic as their
own appeal. So whereas Lynch’s primetime murder mystery has an
understandable appeal to its audiences—the desire to uncover “Who
killed Laura Palmer?”—we have to wonder why his later films can still
evoke such strong reactions. We must consider how their illogic can
still provide clarity.
Without the ability to subvert an established context, as he could
within Twin Peaks’ ongoing story, Lynch constructs confusion in his
later films by distorting traditional genre conventions. For example,
Lynch steeps Lost Highway in the imagery of noir, with its covert
phone calls, double-crossings, and identical femme fatales, whereas
the “Pete” segment of the film plays more like a straightforward crime
drama. Likewise, Mulholland Drive (2001) tracks a seemingly
straightforward mystery: its central characters, Betty (Naomi Watts)
and Rita (Laura Harring), attempt to track down Rita’s lost memory
and end up entangling themselves in a Hollywood conspiracy. Yet in
both films, the concrete mysteries disintegrate as other realities collide
with the ones we know. In Lost Highway, The Mystery Man (Robert
Blake) that Fred encounters reenters Pete’s story, and Pete becomes
complicit in the violence inflicted on Alice, forcing him back into the
role of Fred. In Mulholland Drive, Betty and Rita unlock what seems
to be a major clue, but when we see them next on the screen they are
in dramatically different roles, in an entirely different story. The mys-
teries hinge on the same thematic ideas, but they enter a metaphysical,
rather than strictly literal, dimension.
Lynch unsettles us by breaking his own rules. As Martha P.
Nochimson notes in David Lynch Swerves: Uncertainty from Lost
Highway to Inland Empire, he likes to set up parallel realities that
seem to reflect each other, only to collapse into each other and desta-
bilize whatever straightforward dynamics we might have been able to
parse. “By employing entanglement and superposition in conjunction
with a ‘many worlds’ paradigm,” she says, “Lynch creates a complex of
circumstances in which the world is both uncertain and also somehow
unified” (13). It’s not so simple as establishing a world and then a
counter-world that illustrates certain points about the first, as some
straightforward science-fiction does; the worlds intrude on each

other, and bleed into each other, becoming increasingly difficult to
track. Everything feels broken up and wholly disorienting.
The effect of Lynch’s parallel universes is more personal and dis-
orienting than a more straightforward thought experiment about the
concept of alternate realities. Whereas science-fiction must rely on
cohesive internal logic when depicting alternate timelines, Lynch cre-
ates chaos in order to emphasize points of comparison, because that is
how his characters perceive the world. In what might be one of his
most candid interviews, he explains this empathetic approach to film-
making: “What does the mind do . . . after . . . a horrific murder, and
that experience? How does the mind protect itself from that knowl-
edge, and go on? And that’s interesting to me, and the mind is inter-
esting for sure. Huge, huge stories in the mind” (“Lost Highway”).
Taking this into account, Lost Highway stops seeming like a taunt to
its audience and more like an exercise in a kind of radical empathy.
The audience reacts with the same disorientation and horror that
Fred does. They experience the same shocks and breaks in reality—
the same sickening certainty, and the same feeling of persecution by
the time Fred ends the film, screaming. One could read Lost
Highway as a fantasy-horror movie about a Mystery Man manipulat-
ing Fred’s realities in order to frame him or drive him insane. But that
kind of reading can’t encapsulate the erratic, nerve-shredding emotion
we experience with Fred as the delineations between realities take
place. Actually, we find ourselves thinking, where are the shifts?
Really, there are none—and as Lynch makes more films, he only
delves deeper and deeper into this chaos, embedding his confusions in
the aesthetic qualities of the films themselves. With Inland Empire
(2006), famously shot on a consumer-grade camcorder, he moves into
full-on assault, with its visual ugliness and dizzying leaps between var-
ious storylines with borders that aren’t even clear. There isn’t room for
reality to contort in this film, because there is no reality; the grainy
images announce their falseness instantly, ripping open into each
other with an odd, aggressive seamlessness. Inland Empire’s plotlines
carve out labyrinths across its three-hour runtime, with reverberations
and potential overlaps ultimately buried within the pure density of the
thing. Only the gorgeous confusion of Laura Dern’s performance,
160 Mercer Street
which spans characters, emotions, and possibly planes of existence,

offers itself as an anchor. Yet that feint towards continuity only desta-
bilizes the audience more, as her character continues to expand and
shift into something impossible to track. There are no separations or
delineations between the doppelgängers and the strange recurrent
images; there seem to be many worlds, but really there is only one.
The one true reality might be the conflicted human mind, so it is
only natural that Lynch would rely on splits and doubles to evoke the
mind’s messiness. Much of this fractal division within the mind, par-
ticularly when taking the form of a doppelgänger, can be traced back
to Hitchcock’s Vertigo, with its doubled heroines and spiralling visu-
als and plotlines. In Twin Peaks, Lynch even borrows the names of
Hitchcock’s tormented lovers—Scottie Ferguson and Madeleine
Elster—for Maddy Ferguson, the identical cousin to murder victim
Laura Palmer and a prime Lynchian doppelgänger. Lynch also
acknowledges film noir as a major influence in his use of doppel-
gängers. Noir, itself a movement that sought to reflect post-war
destabilization, featured many doppelgängers and mirrored images. In
“The Film Noir Doppelgänger: Alienation, Separation, Anxiety,” Ed
Cameron asserts that noir doppelgängers “allow classical films noir to
implicitly reveal how the noir protagonist is often haunted by his own
doubled desire, duplicitous nature, and monstrous id” (39). Through
these doubles, “[w]hat is not, or could not, be shown directly within
the diegetic content of the cinema because of the overriding need for
narrative coherence, because of generic constraints, or because of the
Production Code is forced onto the screen mostly through the formal
elements of the film’s mise en scene” (39). Reading the doppelgänger
through a psychoanalytic lens, Cameron argues that the double repre-
sents the repressed urges and desires of the protagonist, which can
only pass the restrictions of the Production Code in disguised form.
The doppelgänger represents what could not be presented directly, for
fear of losing the stamp of approval.
Lynch, working in the late twentieth century, had few such con-
tent restrictions (by the 1990s, one could argue that he owed his edgi-
ness to his financiers—see Wild at Heart, a Palme d’Or winner and
edgy to the point it falls off a cliff). But Lynch exhibits a similar inter-
est in how narrative form can reflect internal character psychology.
Through this lens, Lost Highway’s detour into noir begins to seem
like a form of discretion, placing us with Fred as he tries to evade his
murderous actions. Lynch’s major innovation is in muddling devices
that are already meant to disorient. By the time we reach Inland
Empire, we aren’t dealing with a single doppelgänger, but a seemingly
infinite variety of Laura Derns.
Lynch’s entire career seems to work towards a destabilization of
the dichotomies he established in Twin Peaks, which featured his
most narratively straightforward noir doppelgänger. “Episode 14”’s
juxtaposition of BOB and Leland remains one of Lynch’s simplest
doubles, so concise and clear that it can function as a plot-based
reveal: a family man looks into the mirror and sees a monster. The
sight and the implications it carries are unbelievably upsetting, but
they posit a contrast and accepts the results. Post-Peaks, we can never
be so sure. Did Fred Madison kill his wife? Is he the Mystery Man,
or is someone else? And by Inland Empire, the questions become
even more abstract: who is Nikki Grace? Is Nikki Grace?
Lynch does not allow us comfortable clarities. It seems in all of
these films that the truth will be painful, and where we won’t accept
it directly, the confusion illuminates the truth more than reality does.
What we can’t find step-by-step in an ordinary narrative, we can only
find buried in the chaos, by searching for ripples and resonances. This
principle may find its apotheosis in the unusual filming of Inland
Empire, during which Lynch says he would “get an idea, write it
down, and then go shoot it,” continuing this process “until one time
it kinda started unfolding how they all related” (“David Lynch”).
Lynch himself seems to find meaning in that confusion, not by plant-
ing recurrent ideas but allowing them to emerge as he forges along
with the creative process. The spontaneity of creating art through
Inland Empire was an experiment for Lynch, but it also serves as a
therapeutic mechanism. By expressing the chaos in all its messiness,
Lynch attempts to reckon with an insane world.
Indeed, as terrifying as change can be in the works of David
Lynch, nothing seems quite so alien to him as stasis, as denial. Lynch
is here to remind us what denial looks like, to remind us that it looks
like Fred Madison’s house—long corridors and dark rooms. We can
look at the nice décor, listen for the low hum of electricity, and wait
162 Mercer Street
for whatever’s coming. It is a liminal space, where we will never know

what is wrong. We know nothing; we are static; we don’t know what
horror might be sitting in the other room. We haven’t watched the
tapes yet; we aren’t aware of the violence. But that doesn’t mean it
hasn’t occurred. Once the tapes do arrive, we may be confused, disori-
ented, horrified. But we’ll know.
WORKS CITED
Cameron, Ed. “The Film Noir Doppelgänger: Alienation,

Separation, Anxiety.” Inderdisciplinary Humanities, vol. 33, no.
1, 2016, pp. 33–47. EBSCO,
web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid=f0e
2e36b-d12f-4fec-9aa5-ffd54f89b963%40sessionmgr4008.
“David Lynch on his film Inland Empire.” Youtube, uploaded by
Leah Xylona, 10 Nov. 2009,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=37J68A6QcKg.
“Episode 14.” Twin Peaks, written by Mark Frost, directed by
David Lynch, season 2, episode 7, ABC, 10 Nov. 1990.
Inland Empire. Directed by David Lynch, performances by Laura
Dern and Karolina Gruszka, Absurda, 2006.
Lost Highway. Directed by David Lynch, performances by Bill
Pullman and Patricia Arquette, October Films, 1997.
“Lost Highway extra, Interview with David Lynch.” Youtube,
uploaded by Scarecrowproject, 17 July 2012,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rcv1W146Gs.
Mulholland Drive. Directed by David Lynch, performances by
Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, Universal Pictures, 2001.
Nochimson, Martha P. David Lynch Swerves: Uncertainty from
Lost Highway to Inland Empire. University of Texas Press,
2014.
“Review of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.” TV Guide,
www.tvguide.com/movies/twin-peaks-fire-walk-with-
me/review/129233/.
IN THINKING OF EVIL
Jesse Schanzer
T
here is a universal challenge in seeking to understand the
Holocaust, albeit one too difficult for most to confront:
how can we move beyond our limited capacity for emo-
tional understanding, that inescapable feeling of lacking
that one faces while trying to imagine the experience of the victims?
Blunt facts and figures have become an acceptable crutch these days.
Six million Jews. Two thirds of the Jewish population of Europe.
Eleven million overall. Adolf Eichmann was a man of facts and fig-
ures. And though he facilitated mass murder on an unprecedented
scale, he did not do so with a sword, but with a spreadsheet.
Eichmann hardly saw with his own eyes the horrible consequences of
his actions, yet in his mind he knew them full well. Still, his mindset
disconnected the names—those that could be found on the pages of
spreadsheets stacked in nondescript filing cabinets around his Vienna
office—from the souls they represented. In writing this essay, there
are times when I will slip into a similar mindset. In certain instances,
there is hardly more I can give you besides the facts and figures. These
you surely must know, and I do not fault myself for presenting the
subject in such a way. It is, after all, an approach commonly taken by
our contemporary educators and historians. I do not fault them,
either, for time has only made understanding harder, made memory
banal. Even so, a failure to think beyond the facts and figures, or at
least a failure to attempt to do so, implicitly accepts the apathetic way
of Eichmann. It is therefore all the more important that we wrestle
with this common yet crucial challenge, both as individuals and as a
society.
As a shepherd examines his flock, making his sheep pass under his staff,
so do you cause to pass [before you] every living soul, and You count,
reckon and are mindful of [them] . . . and inscribe the verdict of their
judgment.
—Unetaneh Tokef (Author Unknown)
164 Mercer Street
On April 11, 1961, former Nazi lieutenant colonel Adolf

Eichmann stood before a special tribunal in Jerusalem in defense of
his crimes. His trial was broadcast worldwide, as the event was seen
by many as a closing chapter in the prosecution of Nazi war crimes.
Eichmann himself was charged with facilitating the mass deportation
and extermination of Jews during the Holocaust. Only through his
efforts were the Nazis capable of committing genocide with such bru-
tal efficiency and on so broad a scale. The evidence against his case,
in the forms of physical documentation and witness testimony, was
immense. Over the next fifty-six days, hundreds of documents and
112 witnesses, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, testified to
the horrible consequences of his actions. The trial went on to assume
an even greater historical significance, in no small part due to the
issues raised by Hannah Arendt in her final trial report, Eichmann in
Jerusalem. Within it, Arendt concludes, “It was as though in those
last minutes [Eichmann] was summing up the lesson [of] this long
course in human wickedness—the lesson of the fearsome, word-and-
thought-defying banality of evil” (252). What is the lesson of the
“banality of evil,” and what does it say about our own natures? In
Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt would come to challenge customary
moral assumptions and redefine established notions concerning evil.
Arendt’s choice of the word banality, meaning that which is com-
mon to all people, raises complex issues beyond the scope of the
Eichmann trial. What does Arendt see in Eichmann that warrants
such a claim? If evil is so common, how could Eichmann’s actions be
uniquely horrible? For many of her critics, Arendt’s use of banality
comes across as a perverse accusation: before your eyes, on trial, stands
a murderer paralleled by few, if anyone, yet your verdict is not guilty
but banal? Shortly after the release of Eichmann in Jerusalem, her col-
league, Gershom Scholem, wrote to her, “Your argument would apply
equally to those hundreds of thousands, perhaps, millions of human
beings, to whom your final sentence is relevant” (qtd. in Arendt, The
Jew as Pariah 244). While I can sympathize with his sentiment,
Scholem misses the essence of Arendt’s insight. Eichmann was not a
psychopath, nor a bloodthirsty warlord, nor a supernatural demon. In
the context of Nazi Germany, amid like-minded individuals under a
popular, totalitarian government, Eichmann was the equivalent of a
Thinking of Evil 165
senior accountant—far from the corrupted ideologue one would

assume, given the consequences of his actions. Moreso, questions of
conscience were not his responsibility to answer inasmuch as they
were not, evidently, the responsibility of other Germans. In his eyes,
he merely sought to do his job as best he could.
In this grossly oversimplified view, Eichmann’s actions could even
be seen as understandable. Only now can we begin to see the crux of
the issue. Evil is banal in that, when simplified, when not fully
explored via individual thought, it can spread across people like wild-
fire. This banality is perhaps best illustrated by Arendt herself: “[Evil]
is ‘thought-defying’ as I said, because thought tries to reach some
depth, to go to the roots, and the moment it concerns itself with evil,
it is frustrated because there is nothing” (251). However, in order for
evil to “spread across peoples,” it requires more than the lack of
thought of any individual. It requires a collective failure to think, a
fault of which Nazi society was guilty. Throughout Eichmann in
Jerusalem, Arendt notes Eichmann’s lack of radical features. She
writes, “Half a dozen psychiatrists had certified him as ‘normal’ . . .
behind the comedy of the soul lay the hard fact that [Eichmann’s] was
no case of moral let alone legal insanity” (26). To say that Eichmann
the individual was fully responsible is wholly unsatisfying. This man
was motivated to adhere to a political system that requested he per-
form such actions. So while he was fully responsible for his actions,
his thoughts regarding them were delegated to those politically above
him. As such, his crimes were not only reflective of his individual
criminality but also of the thoughtless, and subsequently corrupted,
Nazi society that he was a part of. How could a society of millions of
individuals collectively allow actions so heinous? Where was the
thought behind these actions?
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
nothing.
—Edmund Burke (in a letter addressed to Thomas Mercer)
166 Mercer Street
In the television interview series Zur Person, Arendt describes a

tension between man as a “thinking being” and man as an “acting
being” (Gaus). Eichmann himself represents an extreme point along
this spectrum, for his case features a total disconnect of action from
thoughtful justification. Still, the challenge of merging thought with
action confronts us all. If an entire modern society can fail to function
simultaneously as both acting beings and thinking beings, there is a
risk of failure again. What then, if anything, is the optimal balance of
these two aspects of humanity—one that satisfies our moral standards
with political reality?
In “Moral Idealism and Political Realism,” Simone de Beauvoir
further outlines the issue at stake here. Writing among the rubble of
post-World War II Paris, Beauvoir is all too aware of the conse-
quences of weak political systems and thoughtless societies. Her home
country of France not only surrendered to the Nazis, but even assisted
Nazi forces in the deportation of French Jews to concentration camps.
My great-grandfather, Bruno Schanzer, was one of those Jews.
Many times, my grandfather has retold the story of the last time he
saw his father before he was deported. Only eight at the time, he did
not understand why or where his father was going. What he does
remember is that before being rounded up by the police, his father
held him and his brother, and while in tears managed to whisper, “Be
good boys . . . take care of your mother for me.” Soon after, he board-
ed a train, and my grandfather never saw his father again. This took
place in St. Étienne, France, and those directly responsible for
Bruno’s murder were French.
In the wake of the war, Beauvoir sought to answer the question:
Where do we go from here? How do we determine the nature of our
future political world? She recognized how, in the present world of
liberal democracies, everyone is a political actor, and everyone is con-
fronted with questions of deep moral complexity. Therefore, it is
increasingly crucial that one thinks deeply and critically about their
values and the larger aims for society. Yet, she notes, many instead
take comfort in extreme and evidently dangerous political approaches.
To some, she goes on, moral idealism offers the justifiable escape.
Of them, Beauvoir claims, “If they decide on moralism, they choose
to obey an interior necessity, and enclose themselves in pure subjec-
tivity” (177). However, this version of moralism is deeply flawed.

Mere adherence to general laws of justice and truth offers little in the
way of a solution to specific political issues. While moralists would
object to the notion that “the end justifies the means,” such an
approach nonetheless may allow, at least occasionally, for the best
course of political action (178). What moralists fail to appreciate is
their role as acting beings. Rather than apply their ideals to the real
world, they abstain from participating in it.
On the other end of the spectrum exists what Beauvoir calls the
“political realist,” one who, having resolved that the end goal is justi-
fied, will take any step towards achieving that goal. The realist model
necessarily assumes an objective understanding of reality, one that
entails a relentless pursuit towards idealized futures and end goals. So,
Beauvoir argues, “The end being posited as an absolute, and the
means as relative to the end, the realist evades any moral indecision
. . . the only problems posed to him are of a tactical nature” (181-82).
The realist simplifies the situation by disregarding its moral implica-
tions, assuming that such factors are only a distraction from achieving
the desirable outcome. The leaders of Vichy France, faced with the
oncoming Nazi invasion, resolved that in order to save France, surren-
der was the only option. What these leaders failed to realize was that,
by choosing to concede to Hitler, they destroyed the ideological foun-
dation upon which France was built. They thought they were saving
France but instead gave it up without resistance. They deported
77,000 of their own citizens, sentencing them to their deaths. A
country that would act this way is not a country worth saving. As
Beauvoir writes, “The first mistake of the political realist is to under-
estimate the existence and weight of his own reality” (181). By sim-
plifying choice and its consequences, the realist fails to factor in the
freedom and values they ought to protect.
In a sense, Beauvoir’s comparison of the “moral idealist” to the
“political realist” parallels Arendt’s division between man as a “think-
ing being” and as an “acting being.” Eichmann can be seen in both
extremes. Eichmann acted as a realist by rigidly acting according to
orders from Nazi command. He simplified his choice throughout,
believing that he was but a cog in the machine rather than an inde-
pendent, thinking person. Equally so, Eichmann considered his duty
168 Mercer Street
paramount in much the same way a moral idealist would think of jus-
tice and law. While duty did not guide his decision-making, it pro-
vided a corrupted framework through which he was capable of justi-
fying his actions.
Beauvoir concludes, “Reconciling ethics and politics is thus rec-
onciling man with himself; it means affirming that at every instant he
can assume himself totally” (189). This may appear to be the proper
balance Arendt searches for in pitting thought against action. Yet in
Arendt’s report of Eichmann, he, too, seems to make a reconciliation
between idealism and realism. Where does his failure stem from, and
what does it imply about Beauvoir’s conclusion? Perhaps it was that
Eichmann lacked an individual sense of responsibility. Therefore, he
could not reconcile these philosophies within himself, so he recon-
ciled them outside himself. On the surface, such irresponsibility
allowed Eichmann to project an air of normalcy. Still, true reconcili-
ation requires a sense of oneself as an individual in the world, and thus
it was Eichmann’s lack of the sense of self that ultimately led him
astray.
Isn’t it so that if you do good, you shall be forgiven? However, if you will
not do good it is because sin crouches at the entrance [of your heart], and
to you shall be its longing, although you have the ability to subdue it.
—Genesis 4:7
Arendt’s idea of the “thought-defying banality of evil” contrasts

earlier definitions of the term, particularly one from a Jewish perspec-
tive. From a general standpoint, the Oxford English Dictionary pri-
marily describes evil as “the antithesis of [good] in all its principal
senses” (“evil, n.1.”). Traditionally, Jewish philosophy sees this
“antithesis of good” in connection with sinning against or transgress-
ing the word of God. There is a concept within Jewish liturgy that
every one of us has a yetzer hara, or evil inclination. Though it is
always present, it does not necessarily make one evil. Rather, as beings
with the ability to choose—as acting beings—we can overcome the
evil within us. While Judaism similarly touches on the banality
Arendt stresses, in that evil inclination is a common force, the source
of Jewish evil is instead derived from a failure to operate as an acting

being, rather than as a thinking being.
Judaism’s perspective on evil further speaks to Eichmann’s failure
as an acting being. While Eichmann’s evil actions were exceptional,
they stem from a common misconception: that the consequences of
our actions are beyond our individual responsibility. Eichmann him-
self is quoted as saying, “I was one of the many horses pulling the
wagon and couldn’t escape left or right because of the will of the driv-
er” (qtd. in Edidin). His perspective is one that does not appreciate
the individual’s ability to choose, or to frame it in Jewish terms, to
overcome the yetzer hara. In much the same way that a realist con-
cedes to existing political circumstances, Eichmann conceded his abil-
ity for action independent of his Nazi superiors. His argument does
not diminish his guilt, but it does illustrate how his denial of choice
enabled him to perform evil action.
On the other hand, Arendt’s evaluation of Eichmann highlights
the importance of fulfilling our collective role as thinking beings.
Eichmann affirmed, “Now that I look back, I realize that a life pred-
icated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life
indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one’s own need
to think” (qtd. in Cohen). Only by dismissing the need for thought
was he capable of executing his duties with a clear conscience, or at
least with one that struggled to maintain supposed clarity. With crit-
ical thought comes nuance and perspective, which, given the thought-
defying nature of evil, was incompatible with Eichmann’s reasoning.
As an individual myself, I find the duality of human beings as
both thinking beings and acting beings to be at once informative yet
challenging. Arendt’s banality is a concept difficult to accept, as it by
definition reflects an element of the Eichmann in me, in all of us.
Still, I know the existence of Arendt’s ideas in the actual world to be
true, for I see them in my own life. I was raised as an Orthodox Jew.
In my pursuit of a good life, and as a student of Jewish philosophy, I
have always lent particular attention to my role as an acting being. For
me, evil was framed as a submission to the yetzer hara. Therefore, in
a way, my active observance of Jewish law functioned as both a rejec-
tion of this evil and as a salient representation of my values. But I have
always had questions and qualms about my faith. Over time, I have
170 Mercer Street
come to doubt foundational assumptions within Jewish thought: the

existence of a God, the creation myth, the sanctity of the Torah.
Despite these doubts, for years I maintained a contradictory set of
beliefs and actions. While religious observance fulfilled my acting
being, it could not satisfy my thinking being.
Separately, Arendt showed through Eichmann that evil comes
from a two-part failure: a failure of the thinking being, and a simul-
taneous failure of the acting being. In internalizing this idea, I no
longer see a conscious suspension of my religious observance as an
inherent submission to evil. On the contrary, it is a product of my
employment of the acting being. At the same time, I realize that the
process by which I define my being, both in thought and in action, is
a continuous one. For in every person, the acting and thinking beings
require constant attention, a scrupulous consideration of one’s envi-
ronment, and, most of all, an awareness of the self, of the ability to
think and to choose, to feel the responsibility that comes with being
human. Beauvoir similarly balances ethics with reality: “at every
instant [man] can [and must] assume himself totally” (189). This bal-
ance is by definition complex work, as it requires a radical confronta-
tion with banality, simplifications, and the forces of thoughtlessness
and passivity that allowed for an Eichmann to exist in the world at all.
In opposition to the banality of evil is the good, for, as Arendt
writes, “only the good has depth and can be radical” (251). In thinking
of the radical good, I am reminded of my grandfather’s story. In 1943,
when my grandfather was eight, the Bonhommes, a French family,
hid him and his brother. While hiding young Jewish boys on their
farm, the family easily could have been condemned and put to death
by Nazi authorities; they put their lives in great danger to save my
grandfather. In their deep empathy for my family’s condition, the
French family embodied the thinking being. In the extreme measures
they took to protect my grandfather and his brother, they assumed the
role of acting beings in the highest form. Only through the fulfillment
of both beings did they achieve the radical good. They assumed their
responsibility not as friends or countrymen, but as human beings. It is
because of their efforts that I am alive today. It is because of them that
I am able to struggle against the banality of evil, to strive for this rad-
ical good.
WORKS CITED
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem. Viking Press, 1964.

—. The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern
Age. Grove Press, 1978.
Beauvoir, Simone de and Sonia Kruks. “Moral Idealism and
Political Realism.” Philosophical Writings, edited by Margaret
A. Simons et al., translated by Anne Deing Cordero et al.,
University of Illinois Press, 2004.
Cohen, Roger. “Why? New Eichmann Notes Try to Explain.” The
New York Times, 13 Aug. 1999,
www.nytimes.com/1999/08/13/world/why-new-eichmann-
notes-try-to-explain.html.
Edidin, Peter. “THE WORLD; Eichmann's House: The
Bureaucracy of Murder.” The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2000,
www.nytimes.com/2000/03/05/weekinreview/the-world-eich-
mann-s-house-the-bureaucracy-of-murder.html.
“evil, n.1.” Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2018,
www.oed.com/view/Entry/65386?rskey=Bz8ZWE&result=3&is
Advanced=false#eid.
Gaus, Günter. “Zur Person.” Hannah Arendt, season 1, episode 17,
28 Oct. 1964.
HAVE IT YOUR WAY,
BUT AT WHAT COST?
Shivali Devjani
C
urrently at ShopRite, a family pack of fresh chicken drum-
sticks costs $1.79, and a twenty-four pack of Kraft
American cheese singles costs $3.52. In another section of
the store, however, an eight-ounce pack of Brussels
sprouts costs $3.29, and a twelve-ounce pack of blackberries is priced
at a frightening $6.99 (Shoprite). With these prices, it’s no wonder
that the average consumer, perhaps unconsciously, opts for the chick-
en over the vegetables, and most certainly over the fruit. But these
purchasing decisions, while seemingly innocuous, may have large
implications for our health and well-being. Several studies have
shown that heavy consumption of meat and dairy can increase blood
pressure and cholesterol, leading to heart disease and stroke (Butler).
Furthermore, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization, globally, 14.5% of all greenhouse gas pollution can be
attributed to livestock, which is more than that attributed to cars and
planes combined (FAO). With that in mind, why do these pricing
disparities exist? When did meat and dairy become more affordable
than fruits and vegetables? Researchers hypothesize that variance in
prices comes from the way agricultural subsidies are allocated across
the nation. It is not surprising, therefore, that discussion surrounding
the 2018 Farm Bill—the law governing subsidy allocation—has
sparked debate across the country (Lauinger).
Agricultural subsidies first emerged in the midst of the Great
Depression to act as a helping hand to struggling Midwestern farm-
ers. Arthur Allen, a writer at The Washington Post, explains that the
federal government aimed to both “protect the national food supply”
and compensate farmers for the “unpredictable swings in agricultural
markets.” In the 1930s, land-based subsidies were spread out amongst
a variety of commodities. However, land, and thus most of the subsi-
dies, soon became concentrated in the hands of farmers of a few
industries, namely wheat, soy, corn, and rice (Bittman). These con-
centrated subsidies, initially intended to act as temporary measures to
173 Mercer Street
stimulate growth, have become more or less permanent. Programs

created in the hope of weaning producers off of subsidies have not had
their intended effect, and the government currently pays farmers over
$20 billion annually (White).
Corn and soy products, two of the most heavily subsidized com-
modities, are both mainly used as “animal feed for production of meat,
dairy products, and eggs” (“Government Support”). Even the other
greatly subsidized commodity products—such as wheat—and waste
products from crop processing also act as animal feed. Consequently,
meat and dairy are heavily subsidized while “specialty crops,” like
fruits and vegetables, receive no regular direct subsidies
(“Government Support”). In a post on his website Meatonomics,
which is based on his book of the same name, David Robinson Simon
states that “American governments spend $38 billion each year to
subsidize meat and dairy, but only 0.04% of that . . . to subsidize fruits
and vegetables.” Economists hypothesize that this variance in subsidy
allocation is responsible for the drastic decrease in prices of meat and
dairy relative to those of fruits and vegetables. David Leonhardt, of
The New York Times, found that since 1978, fruits and vegetables
have increased in price by roughly 40%, while sodas, also dependent
on corn production, have decreased in price by 33%.
Much of the current debate surrounding the 2018 Farm Bill
stems from differing opinions regarding food pricing resulting from
the allocation of these subsidies. Primarily, the question that arises is:
should meat and dairy be cheaper than vegetables? The debate centers
on a few crucial consequences, namely the influence of these subsidies
and the resulting prices of nutrition and the environment. Two dom-
inant sides arise in response to these concerns: those who believe that
cheaper meat and dairy prices ensure sufficient calorie-dense food at
affordable prices and those who believe that these same prices jeop-
ardize the health of the nation.
Opponents of the status quo are calling for subsidy reforms in the
2018 Farm Bill in the hopes of altering subsidy allocation and thus
commodity pricing. Primarily, they argue that while meat and dairy
subsidies have increased consumption of these foods in the United
States, the rates of consumption “exceed[] nutritional needs and con-
tribute[] to high rates of chronic disease, such as cardiovascular dis-
Have It Your Way 174
ease, diabetes mellitus, and some cancers” (Walker et al.). A JAMA

study from 2016 found that individuals whose diets “consist of a lower
proportion of subsidized foods have a lower probability of being
obese” (Siegal et al.). More specifically, compared to people who ate
the least amount of subsidized food, the people who ate the most had
a “37% higher probability of being obese” and a 41% greater risk of
having belly fat (Siegal et al.). Subsidy opponents argue that both the
high prices of foods proven to help reduce these risks as well as
increasing costs of treating these diseases in America (now roughly
$150 billion a year) only act to worsen health outcomes (Russo and
Smith).
Moreover, opponents lament the large disconnect between
America’s nutritional recommendations and the nation’s agricultural
policies. On MyPlate, the federal food diagram published in 2011 to
replace the food pyramid, Americans can see what a healthful diet
should look like: roughly one-half fruits and vegetables, one-third
grains, one-fifth protein, and a small circle for dairy (Allen). The
designers of MyPlate crafted this diagram in the hopes of lowering
incidence rates of chronic disease largely attributed to animal fats
(Allen). However, it is clear that federal incentives to farmers reflect
a different agenda, one that seems intent on encouraging our con-
sumption of animal fats. Furthermore, consumers have little choice,
as Simon, the author of Meatonomics, argues: “legislation and price
control . . . deprive[] consumers of the ability to make informed and
independent decisions of what and how much to eat” (Simon qtd. in
Hunt).
But how causal is the relationship among food pricing, consump-
tion, and health? Proponents of meat and dairy subsidies argue that
the connection between farm subsidies and worsening health, includ-
ing the development of chronic diseases, lacks evidence. Dr. David
Katz at the Yale University School of Medicine claims that consumer
habits have a greater impact than price subsidies on consumption. “If
you took the price of fruits and vegetables down by 10 percent,” he
insists, “consumption would not increase” (qtd. in Williams). Raj
Patel, a research professor at the University of Texas, Austin, similarly
argues that commodity subsidies play a smaller part than several other
factors—such as cultural icons signing deals with massive junk food
175 Mercer Street
chains like Pepsi (Aubrey). Their conclusions stem from evidence-

based economic principles and argue for a lack of price-responsiveness
when it comes to staple food items such as meat, dairy, fruits, and
vegetables (Alston).
Furthermore, several proponents argue that the premise of these
subsidies was and is to ensure a “plentiful supply of food at reasonable
prices” (Siegel et al.). Reduced prices for these commodities have
increased demand for them and thus their consumption, but this
increased consumption of meat and dairy could help sustain the lives
of poor American families through their dense caloric value at low
prices. Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, suggests that
McDonald’s double cheeseburger is “the cheapest, most nutritious
and bountiful food that ever existed in human history,” providing
twenty-three grams of protein, nineteen grams of fat, and 20% of cal-
cium all for a mere $1-$2 (qtd. in Johnson). Much higher quantities
of fruits and vegetables—categorized as less energy dense foods—
would be required to satiate Americans and would still not fulfill the
nutritional guidelines, let alone provide such a ‘bargain’ (Haspel).
At the root of the debate over food subsidies is the weight placed
on certain costs and benefits to individuals. Proponents argue that
lower prices and subsequently increased consumption of meat and
dairy can help sustain the lives of poor American families through the
dense caloric value provided by these foods. Opponents argue that
this type of short-term thinking overlooks the immense health costs
of medical treatments that will be required and the societal costs to
the environment related to meat production. Philip Wollen, a philan-
thropist and recipient of the Australian of the Year award, adds in his
renowned speech “Animals Should Be Off The Menu,” “Cutting
meat by only 10% will feed one-hundred million people. Eliminating
meat will end starvation forever” (Wollen). He reminds us that one
kilo of beef requires 50,000 gallons of water—water that could be put
to use growing far more fruits, grains, and vegetables, and thus help
end starvation. Simply stated, while proponents focus more on short-
term benefits that cheap meat and dairy provide to Americans, oppo-
nents concern themselves with long-term consequences.
Despite the potential future consequences, subsidy allotments
denoted by the farm bills in past years have remained more or less
constant. For most Americans, long-term consequences of meat and

dairy consumption are harder to substantiate and consequently they
appear to be less convincing as arguments. This stems from a longing
for short-term gratification embedded in both human nature and
American society. Journalist Paul Roberts defines America today as
the “Impulse Society,” a people driven by instant gratification shame-
lessly seeking the fastest reward. He argues that this pursuit of short-
term self-gratification once suggested a personal failing, but is now
the default principle for both individuals and sectors of society.
Roberts’s conclusions are rooted in evidence from a number of differ-
ent disciplines, including economics, political philosophy, and busi-
ness management (Roberts).
Roberts, along with other social scientists, believes that this type
of trapped thinking acts as an impediment to societal change in a
number of areas, including both human health and the environment.
In a study by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. Stephanie
B. Coursey Bailey argues:
The patience and commitment required to improve population

health outcomes over the long term run counter to our strong cul-
tural desire for instant answers and immediate gratification. Such
a system, based only on short-term change, is incompatible with
the provision of meaningful incentives for population health
improvement. (Coursey Bailey)
Americans similarly avoid addressing long-term threats to the

environment, as Coleen Jose, a writer for Scientific American, notes
in “Short-Term Gratification Proves an Obstacle to Climate Change
Progress.” But are American citizens to blame for our tendency to
zero in on the present and the immediate consequences to our health
and the environment that may result, or are there other factors at play?
Darrell Worthy, a psychology professor at Texas A&M, explains that
“immediate gratification is the default response” and that it is “diffi-
cult to overcome these urges” (qtd. in Muther). Phil Fremont-Smith
of ImpulseSave, Inc. agrees: “We’re not wired to think about the
long-term anymore” (qtd. in Muther). Even more concerning, some
argue that long-term thinking has never been our priority: research
177 Mercer Street
from Massachusetts Institute of Technology contends that short-term

prioritization may be partly biological (Princen).
This tendency to prioritize our short-term gratification prompts
us to consume larger quantities of meat and dairy than we would oth-
erwise. However, with respect to consumer demand, Dr. David Katz
and Raj Patel, proponents of meat and dairy subsidies mentioned ear-
lier, assert that changing prices of these commodities does not reflect
changes in consumption patterns. Thus, this may unveil another
problem present in our society: one of habit and dependency. Food
historian Rachel Lauden explains that eating meat is “the expression
of being modern, progressive, and civilized” and that consumption is
driven by high demand (Barclay). The problem with meat and dairy
consumption, as with cigarette usage, is that “It’s tough to convince
people to cut back on something they crave” (Barclay). Nonetheless,
according to many social scientists, there may be more to our cravings
and our tendency to satisfy them instantly than merely a biological
predisposition. A reporter for CBC News suggests that “food cravings
[are] engineered by industry” (Crowe). Marta Zaraska, author of
Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year
Obsession with Meat, agrees that meat consumption is driven by sup-
ply rather than demand. Even Beef, a cattlemen’s magazine, confessed
that “The beef industry has worked hard to create the love affair that
Americans have with a big, juicy ribeye” (qtd. in Zaraska). Moreover,
while the meat industry is “ultrapowerful and ultraconsolidated” and
thus “capable of swinging out food preferences,” the fruit and veg-
etable industry “hardly exists as a united entity” and, as a result, has
very little power (Zaraska).
In either case, Americans’ predisposition to short-term gratifica-
tion is vastly manipulated by price, taste, culture, or, most likely, a
deadly combination of all three. Zaraska explains how campaigns pro-
moting meat manipulate us far more effectively than those promoting
vegetables:
Between 1987 and 2013, the U.S. beef checkoff collected $1.2 bil-
lion, an impressive pile of money that is used “to increase domes-
tic and/or international demand for beef.” . . . To give you some
perspective: one of the very few campaigns drafted to promote eat-
ing veggies, 5 A Day for Better Health, developed by the National

Cancer Institute and the Produce for Better Health Foundation,
had in 1999 a public communications budget of less than $3 mil-
lion. (Zaraska)
Advertisement furthers the manipulation. Zaraska cites a European

study that insists most meat advertising is carefully crafted: “Rather
[than] make the consumer reflect about the living animal, communi-
cation should be centered on other attributes linked to the hedonic
sides of meal preparation and consumption” (qtd. in Zaraska). The
industry particularly focuses on millennials. To target the younger
sector, the industry aids in designing “beef education” curriculums for
school classrooms, in which lessons are created “to show the diverse
products that cattle give to enrich our lives!” (ANCW). To reach
older millennials, the industry finances recipe sharing and picture pro-
motion of their beef-centric meals on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
and Pinterest (Zaraska).
These carefully crafted manipulations force us to reconsider the
role of government. In our democracy, in which the Declaration of
Independence protects and safeguards the right of individuals, how is
this deception excused? Much of the justification lies in the presence
of several conflicts of interests that have become manifested through
the years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) outlines its
strategic goals for 2018-2022. Three of which are: to “Promote
American agricultural products and exports”; to “Facilitate rural pros-
perity”; and to “Provide all Americans access to a safe, nutritious and
secure food supply” (USDA “Strategic”). In a nation where 51.7% of
all farmland is devoted to just livestock and poultry (excluding dairy)
these two goals simply cannot safely coexist (USDA “Overview”).
Furthermore, several members of committees drafting dietary recom-
mendations evidently do have a history in meat campaign organiza-
tions. Former USDA director of communications Alisa Harrison was
first executive director of public relations for the National Cattlemen’s
Beef Association (NCBA), and JoAnn Smith, the NCBA’s former
president, was later appointed as chief of USDA’s Food Inspection
Division (Zaraska).
179 Mercer Street
As American citizens, we are left to ponder how to respond. The

government promises a “secure” food supply for our nation. But is a
food supply so heavily promoted by such dominant industries really all
that secure? Evidently, our tendency to fulfill short-term gratification,
as a result of both biological predispositions and cultural cravings, is
fairly difficult to eliminate. If we continue to overlook it, our tendency
may very well act to worsen health and environmental outcomes, lead-
ing to a glum future. Presently, the biggest hindrance appears to be a
lack of knowledge. While the influence of industry is visible every-
where—in media, scientific studies, and even governmental nutrition
organizations—industry proponents have done well to deeply pene-
trate our subliminal perception and they aim to keep it that way: hid-
den and tucked away. But we have a choice—we can continue to
ignore it, or we can raise our awareness levels and fight for a healthier,
safer future. If we are not willing to help ourselves, we cannot count
on others to bail us out. Hopefully, in this case, we will not let our
short-term tendencies prevail.
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THE CASE OF AZIZ ANSARI:
BRIDGING THE PLEASURE GAP
Christina Wang
F
or any fan of romantic comedies, the following visual is eas-
ily recognizable: a girl, in her quest to find ‘the one,’ subjects
herself to an awkward and upsetting first date with a male
considerably more obnoxious and unpleasant than the
movie’s main love interest. Cut to the next sequence, where our
female protagonist storms out of the venue in tears, perhaps in the
rain for dramatic flair. It is a scene so trite and overdone that it prac-
tically screams ‘summertime box-office hit.’ Yet despite the cheesy
excesses, this scene of a girl in tears after an atrocious date is far more
common than one might think. Indeed, this was precisely the case for
a woman publicly known as “Grace,” who retold her encounter with
actor and comedian Aziz Ansari in a Babe.net article titled “I Went
On A Date With Aziz Ansari. It Turned Into The Worst Night Of
My Life.”
In the week leading up to their date, Grace had been excited to
see the celebrity again after they had met at a party. However, when
they ended the night at Ansari’s apartment, she immediately felt
uncomfortable with his overbearing sexual approach. Despite the fact
that Grace had displayed her discomfort through many non-verbal
cues—her “hand stopped moving” and her lips “turned cold”—Ansari
repeatedly made aggressive sexual advances, such as “physically
pull[ing] her hand towards his penis multiple times” (Way). Even
after she explicitly said, “I don’t want to feel forced because then I’ll
hate you,” Ansari motioned for Grace to perform oral sex on him, to
which she obliged under pressure (qtd. in Way). This back-and-forth
dynamic continued throughout the night until Grace finally “stood up
and said no, I don’t think I’m ready to do this” and left shortly after
(qtd. in Way). Unfortunately for Grace and for countless women like
her, what should have been a fun and enjoyable night left her feeling
violated and helpless.
184 Mercer Street
At a time when movements such as #MeToo and #TimesUp are

dominating the discussion of sexual harassment, it is unsurprising that
the published details of Grace’s date have sparked a fiery debate large-
ly centered on Ansari’s behavior and whether it constituted sexual
misconduct. At the core of this debate, there seems to be a fundamen-
tal disagreement on whether bad dates like Grace’s are just that—an
experience that, while disappointing, should be expected—or some-
thing indicative of a larger issue.
Bari Weiss, staff editor for The New York Times, is one of many
in favor of the former standpoint. She argues that Grace’s nonverbal
cues throughout the night were vague if not misleading, and that
women like Grace should be “more verbal” when expressing their dis-
comfort: “If he pressures you to do something you don’t want to do,
use a four-letter word, stand up on your two legs and walk out his
door” (Weiss). From Weiss’s perspective, the backlash against Ansari
isn’t due to the fact that the encounter was nonconsensual. Rather, it
is because modern-day feminists have “radically redefin[ed]” what
consent is and have introduced “new yet deeply retrograde ideas about
what constitutes . . . sexual violence” (Weiss). For this reason, Weiss
believes that labelling Grace’s encounter as sexual assault “trivializes
what [movements like] #MeToo first stood for.” She makes it clear
that, far from being a case of actual sexual assault, Grace’s experience
with Ansari was simply a fact of life that all women must experience:
“I too have had lousy romantic encounters, as has every adult woman
I know . . . There is a useful term for what this woman experienced
on her night with Mr. Ansari. It’s called ‘bad sex’” (Weiss).
Many women agree with Weiss. Editor of The Atlantic Caitlin
Flanagan laments for Ansari, writing “there is a whole country full of
young women who don’t know how to call a cab.” HLN anchor and
former CNN host Ashleigh Banfield went on air to directly address
Ansari’s accuser: “By your own clear description, this wasn’t a rape,
nor was it a sexual assault . . . You had an unpleasant date and you did
not leave. That is on you” (qtd. in Ricci). There seems to be a consen-
sus among the opposition that Grace’s choice to not explicitly say no
and to remain at Ansari’s apartment made her largely at fault and that,
in comparison to victims of rape and workplace harassment, Grace’s
experience was trivial.
Bridging the Pleasure Gap 185
Yet many people argue that this critique fails to take into account
the immense societal pressures that dictate how men and women
should act in situations like that of Grace and Ansari. In her article
“The Aziz Ansari Story Is Ordinary. That’s Why We Have To Talk
About It,” Vox senior reporter Anna North describes what is expected
of each gender: that women be accommodating and that men pursue
the opposite sex relentlessly, even by means of “repeated small viola-
tions of [women’s] boundaries.” She comments on how frequently
romance movies “depict men overcoming women’s initial lack of
interest through persistent effort” and, as a result, how these movies
have encouraged men to do the same in real life. North argues that
girls in America often receive a different message. Not only are they
taught that it is “rude to reject boys,” but they are seldom taught “how
to ask for what they want, or even how to think about what that is.
. . . The result is that situations like the one Grace describes, in which
a man keeps pushing and a woman, though uncomfortable, doesn’t
immediately leave, happen all the time” (North). North, along with
many other writers, contends that while saying “no” is certainly an
option, society teaches women not to use it and men not to hear it.
Megan Garber, staff writer for The Atlantic, echoes this sentiment:
“‘No’ is, in theory, available to anyone, at any time; in practice, how-
ever, it is a word of last resort—a word of legality.” Put simply, con-
trary to what writers like Weiss and Flanagan believe, just saying “no”
and leaving is easier said than done when one has been taught their
entire life not to do it. For this reason, North believes that
“reckon[ing] with stories like Grace’s” is necessary. Doing so facili-
tates a “social conversation about the importance of communication,
consent, and actually caring about one’s partner’s experience” and
demands that men “do better . . . so that badgering and pressuring
women into sex is deplored, not endorsed” (North).
For both parties, the overall conversation surrounding the case of
Aziz Ansari seems largely focused on Grace’s sense of agency in the
situation and on how consent should be defined. However, is it pro-
ductive to argue about whether the encounter was consensual, given
that the very concept of consent has widely varying definitions? Erin
Murphy, a professor at New York University School of Law, elabo-
rates on the lack of consensus concerning what constitutes consent:
186 Mercer Street
“One person’s idea of consent is that no one is screaming or crying.

Another person’s idea of consent is someone saying, ‘Yes, I want to do
this.’ In between is an enormous spectrum of behavior, both verbal
and nonverbal, that people engage in to communicate desire or lack of
desire” (qtd. in Associated Press). Regardless of what people believe
consent is, its execution is often messy and confusing in practice. A
1999 study by researchers Hickman and Muehlenhard showed a large
discrepancy between how people perceive consent versus how those
same individuals express it. Researchers found that although partici-
pants listed certain behaviors such as verbal affirmations as most
indicative of giving consent, they also reported using these behaviors
least when engaging in sexual activity. On the other hand, although
participants rated a lack of response as least indicative of consent, it
was also the most frequently used means of doing so. This suggests
that attempts to assign formal and all-encompassing definitions to
consensual sex are extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Therefore, despite our fixation on whether Grace’s encounter was
consensual, it is perhaps more useful to question the fundamental
ideas that make experiences like Grace’s possible in the first place.
Her story as well as the ensuing reaction bring to light a problematic
mindset that continues to permeate our conversations about sex.
Banfield’s open letter is perhaps the best example of a flawed precon-
ception. “By your own clear description, this wasn’t a rape, nor was it
a sexual assault,” she claims (qtd. in Ricci). Despite being a powerful
crusader for the #MeToo movement, Banfield and others like her
tend to point to society’s worst offenders in their condemnation of
sexual misconduct, but are seldom willing to carry the argument to a
more nuanced place. While these movements certainly benefit
women, their efforts all too often result in a binary view of sex: it is
either consensual or it is not.
What is lost in the codification of the issue is our ability to cri-
tique bad sex—which, although consensual, is still worthy of our crit-
icism. As Garber puts it, “It’s an awful irony: women spent so much
of their time and energy and capital reminding the world of their right
not to be raped, that the next obvious step in their sexual liberation—
discussions about what makes sex good, in every sense, for all
involved—got obstructed.” Culture critic Lili Loofbourow discusses
society’s tendency to only evaluate the extremes and, in the process,

normalize bad sex:
The Aziz Ansari case hit a nerve because . . . we’re only comfort-
able with movements like #MeToo so long as the men in question
are absolute monsters [whom] we can easily separate from the
pack. Once we move past the “few bad apples” argument and start
to suspect that this is more a trend than a blip, our instinct is to
. . . insist that this is just how men are, and how sex is.
(Loofbourow)
In other words, while people can easily discuss the wrongdoings of

Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, few are willing to analyze the con-
tent of their everyday lives by looking inward and challenging their
own notions and preconceptions about sex. Therefore, when Weiss
trivializes Grace’s experience by simply calling it “bad sex,” or when
Banfield characterizes the sexual encounter as merely “unpleasant,”
they fail to acknowledge that bad sex in and of itself is still worth talk-
ing about and can still be indicative of a larger problem.
Loofbourow explores this problem in her opinion piece, “The
Female Price Of Male Pleasure,” in which she analyzes and criticizes
our sex culture and, more specifically, how we prioritize the fulfill-
ment of male pleasure, often at the cost of female pain. She claims
that our refusal to recognize female discomfort in the pursuit of the
“straight male orgasm” is pervasive in many aspects of our everyday
lives. It is evident in our beauty standards, which demand that women
wear clothes “designed to wrench the bodies” so that they can be sex-
ually appealing to men (Loofbourow). It is evident in our sexual edu-
cation, which teaches young women that losing their virginity is
meant to hurt. It is even evident in our medical research, which pub-
lishes more studies on erectile dysfunction than it does on dyspareu-
nia, vaginismus, and vulvodynia—conditions all characterized by
severe physical pain during sex—combined (Loofbourow). Perhaps
what’s most revealing is the vast difference between how men and
women characterize bad sex: “A casual survey of forums where people
discuss ‘bad sex’ suggests that men tend to use the term to describe a
passive partner or a boring experience . . . But when most women talk
188 Mercer Street
about ‘bad sex,’ they tend to mean coercion, or emotional discomfort

or, even more commonly, physical pain” (Loofbourow). The result is
that women have been “enculturated” to expect little satisfaction out
of their sexual encounters and, unfortunately, to endure physical or
mental discomfort so their male counterparts can experience pleasure
(Loofbourow). It is important to note that Loofbourow does not even
mention the word ‘consent,’ precisely because affirmative consent
should not negate the pain a woman may experience in the process.
While consent is absolutely required before one can even think of ini-
tiating sex, it should not be the sole requirement for decent sex.
Loofbourow makes an unconventional yet important statement in her
article, arguing that consensual sex can still cause pain and discomfort
for the parties involved, and that this pain is often meaningful in our
social context and worthy of a broader discussion. Therefore, when
people like Weiss and Banfield discredit experiences like Grace’s, it
encourages women to suck it up, get over it, and accept painful sex as
a fact of life.
The consequences of prioritizing male pleasure over female pleas-
ure go beyond what Loofbourow has listed and range from the unas-
suming to the grotesque. In Rebecca Traister’s article “The Game is
Rigged,” she lists multiple ways in which “male sexual entitlement”
manifests itself among college students. She asserts that the “male cli-
max remains the accepted finish of hetero encounters; a woman’s
orgasm is still the elusive, optional bonus round.” She also discusses
the negative social consequences for women who wish to seek sexual
pleasure: “A woman in pursuit is loose or hard up.” On the contrary,
men who do the same are “healthy and horny” (Traister). Both of
these scenarios reveal the unfortunate reality that female pleasure isn’t
offered the same priority as that of males. Further reflection on our
sex culture reveals that valuing male pleasure and ignoring female pain
often go hand in hand. In 2016, a clinical trial for a male birth control
injection that proved to be 96% effective was terminated due to sub-
sequent adverse effects on male participants, including “mood
changes, depression . . . and increased libido.” However, many
researchers were quick to note that these adverse effects were
extremely similar to those that women must regularly face when tak-
ing birth control (Dicker). In other words, what society considers a
safety risk for men is socially acceptable for and even expected of
women. This difference is no longer just a bias and can be more accu-
rately described as an institution. Even in the supposedly objective
world of research, the neglect of female pain still pervades.
The dismissal of female pain can have tangible and even trauma-
tizing consequences. These are perhaps most evident in how our legal
system treats rape victims. For example, there exists a troubling ten-
dency for police to disregard the distress of the victim. Instances like
an Ohio 911 dispatcher’s telling a woman to “quit crying” are all too
common (Sun). Even more distressing is the fact that victims are
often blamed for the rape itself. In the field of public health, this phe-
nomenon is termed “secondary victimization,” which is defined as
“the victim-blaming attitudes, behaviors, and practices . . . which
results in additional trauma for sexual assault survivors” (Campbell
and Raja). These practices include “questioning victims about their
prior sexual histories, asking them how they were dressed, or encour-
aging them not to prosecute” (Campbell and Raja). These legal tactics
reveal not only our insensitivity to female suffering, but also the great
lengths to which society is willing to go to defend the pursuit of male
pleasure—as if a short skirt or a history of promiscuity were reason
enough to cause immense physical and emotional harm to women.
This type of behavior relates to what Grace now faces. “If you are
uncomfortable, then leave!” one New York Times commenter wrote.
“Aziz was just led on by . . . ‘a tease’ who should be exposed for what
she is,” wrote another.
This defense of male pleasure is also demonstrated in the media’s
protective attitude towards rapists. The case of Brock Turner and his
rape of an unconscious twenty-two-year-old woman is a salient exam-
ple in recent history of how media chooses to represent rapists. A
2016 article by The Washington Post best demonstrates this tenden-
cy; its title alone, “All-American Swimmer Found Guilty Of Sexually
Assaulting Unconscious Woman On Stanford Campus,” focuses the
case on Turner’s achievements. The article portrays Turner’s crime
less as an egregious offense and more as a “stunning fall from grace”
(Miller, “All-American”). This impression management seeks to
humanize rapists and alleviate the severity of their actions on the basis
of their prior reputations. A statement written by Turner’s father best
190 Mercer Street
exhibits this social tendency; he claims that Turner paid “a steep price
. . . for 20 minutes of action” (qtd. in Miller, “A steep”). This is the
extent to which we will defend male pleasure and minimize female
pain, to the point where the debilitating act of sexual assault is
reduced to “20 minutes of action.” It is scary to see how quickly critics
of Grace launched a similar defense of Ansari’s actions. “Aziz Ansari
was a man whom many people admired . . . Now he has been—in a
professional sense—assassinated, on the basis of one woman’s anony-
mous account,” Flanagan wrote. Banfield also lists Ansari’s achieve-
ments prior to the Babe.net article, mentioning his award for his
Netflix series Master of None at the 75th Golden Globes.
It is precisely this defense of male pleasure and minimization of
female pain that make the polarization of sex fundamentally possible.
This polarization protects many men from having to acknowledge the
entitled and even harmful nature of their sexual encounters; it also
allows men like Ansari to straddle the border between consensual sex
and harassment without criticism. Perhaps it is for this reason that
Grace’s article has been so controversial and threatening, for it
“involves a situation in which many men can imagine themselves”
(North). Her night of “bad sex” forces everyday men who aren’t typi-
cally grouped with the “Harvey Weinsteins and Kevin Spaceys of the
world” to reconcile the fact that what they believed to be normal,
socially acceptable sex is not as harmless as they assumed (Banfield
qtd. in Ricci). Up until now, this limited understanding of appropriate
sexual behavior allowed men to assume that as long as they weren’t
“absolute monsters,” they were guiltless. However, without challeng-
ing this idea and having these difficult conversations, men will con-
tinue to push women’s boundaries during sexual pursuit, thinking that
what they’re doing is excusable. Further, the toxic notion that male
pleasure should override women’s desire and justify their pain will
persist and wreak havoc. Continuing to ignore women’s suffering will
only reinforce it.
I have no doubt that current discussions surrounding Grace’s
encounter with Aziz Ansari are well-intentioned. However, these dis-
cussions, by focusing solely on the nuanced issue of consent, have
missed an opportunity to open a new discussion on “bad sex”—a topic
that many try too often to avoid. The conversation that we need to be
having must go beyond consent by first and foremost breaking down

the false equivalency that exists between consensual sex and good sex.
Only after we pass this stage can we begin to deconstruct the pervasive
and toxic mentality that enables male pleasure to erase and even justify
female pain. Contrary to Grace’s opponents, having this discussion
does not entail “women torching men for failing to understand their
‘nonverbal cues’” (Weiss). Rather, it simply calls upon men to do bet-
ter: to self-analyze and see if they’ve contributed to our harmful sex
culture, and, if they have, to do something about it. It implores society
to acknowledge female pain beyond instances when their sexual
boundaries are so thoroughly and severely breached as to call the
encounter rape. It demands that men and women alike adopt higher
standards for sex that don’t just fulfill affirmative consent, so that the
desires of both parties are fulfilled. As Maya Dusenbery, editorial
director of Feministing, puts it, “I don’t want us to ever lose sight of
the fact that consent is not the goal. Seriously, God help us if the best
we can say about the sex we have is that it was consensual” (qtd. in
Traister).
WORKS CITED
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Varies Widely.” WTOP, 18 Dec. 2017, www.wtop.com/nation-
al/2017/12/in-society-and-in-law-definition-of-consent-is-a-
gray-area.
Campbell, Rebecca, and Sheela Raja. “The Sexual Assault and
Secondary Victimization of Female Veterans: Help-Seeking
Experiences with Military and Civilian Social Systems.”
Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1, 2005, pp. 97-
106.
Chemaly, Soraya. “How Police Still Fail Rape Victims.” Rolling
Stone, 16 Aug. 2016,
www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/how-police-still-fail-
rape-victims-w434669.
Dicker, Rachel. “Male Birth Control Injections Found Effective,
But Study Cut Short Due to Side-Effects.” U.S. News, 31 Oct.
192 Mercer Street
2016, www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-10-31/male-birth-
control-injections-found-effective-but-study-cut-short-due-to-
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Flanagan, Caitlin. “The Humiliation of Aziz Ansari.” The Atlantic,
14 Jan. 2018,
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humiliation-of-aziz-ansari/550541.
Garber, Megan. “Aziz Ansari and the Paradox of ‘No.’” The
Atlantic, 16 Jan. 2018,
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ansari-and-the-paradox-of-no/550556.
Hickman, S. E. and C. L. Muehlenhard. “‘By the semi-mystical
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Loofbourow, Lili. “The Female Price of Male Pleasure.” The Week,
25 Jan. 2018, www.theweek.com/articles/749978/female-price-
male-pleasure.
Miller, Michael E. “All-American Swimmer Found Guilty of
Sexually Assaulting Unconscious Woman on Stanford Campus.”
The Washington Post, 31 Mar. 2016,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2016/03/31/all-american-swimmer-found-guilty-of-
sexually-assaulting-unconscious-woman-on-stanford-campus.
—. “‘A steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action’: Dad defends
Stanford sex offender.” The Washington Post, 6 June 2016,
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mix/wp/2016/06/06/a-steep-price-to-pay-for-20-minutes-of-
action-dad-defends-stanford-sex-offender.
North, Anna. “The Aziz Ansari Story Is Ordinary. That’s Why We
Have to Talk about It.” Vox, 16 Jan. 2018, www.vox.com/iden-
tities/2018/1/16/16894722/aziz-ansari-grace-babe-me-too.
Ricci, Kimberly. “HLN’s Ashleigh Banfield Delivered A Scathing
Open Letter Directed at Aziz Ansari’s Accuser.” Uproxx, 16
Jan. 2018, www.uproxx.com/news/aziz-ansari-accuser-ashleigh-
banfield-open-letter.
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bad.html.
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the Worst Night of My Life.” Babe, 1 Feb. 2018,
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harassment.html.
MERCER
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CONTRIBUTORS
Isabela Acenas, ’21, is an Environmental Studies student on the pre-

law track at the College of Arts and Science. Born and raised in
California, Isabela was brought up by parents who fix vacuums and
value life’s simple pleasures. After spending two summers by herself
in the Philippines, Isabela began researching her people’s roots in the
farms of Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and California.
Agriculture became the heart of her desire to elevate such communi-
ties, prompting her to explore the intersection of humanities and sci-
ences as a full scholar at NYU. Isabela’s essay seeks to validate indige-
nous voices in the scientific community. This piece served as the start-
ing point of Irrigate Elevate, a social venture she created for young
indigenous entrepreneurs in irrigation technology.
Jennifer Agmon, ’21, is from Los Angeles, California, and is majoring

in Nursing and Global Public Health. She is inspired by people who
slash binaries and fight against socially-created defaults for identity
and expression. Jennifer’s essay, “Gender Hysteria,” has allowed her to
explore current research about gender, read personal experiences of
people in the LGBTQ+ community, and reaffirm the importance of
language. An aspiring pediatric nurse, Jennifer intends to continuous-
ly advocate for the health and overall well-being of children. Outside
of school, Jennifer volunteers as a Crisis Counselor for the Crisis Text
Line and spends her free time writing.
Cheongho Cho, ’21, transferred from the Tandon School of

Engineering to major in Interactive Media Arts at the Tisch School
195 Mercer Street
of the Arts in hopes to further explore the interaction between human

subjectivity and the mechanical world. His dream is to mechanically
translate the phenomenon of the mind to understand the human con-
dition and create a universal “language of mind.” He believes in the
existence of a commonality in all human experiences, holding a con-
viction that all human opinions and actions can be understood when
observed sufficiently. Coming from the gun-free society of Korea,
Cheongho had his values profoundly challenged in the United States.
He explores these challenges in his essay.
Shivali Devjani, ’18, studied Finance at NYU Stern while pursuing

the pre-medical studies track. Born and raised in Long Island, she is
a native New Yorker, but has been fortunate to study abroad in both
London, UK, and Sydney, Australia. Her time in Sydney and in NYC
as a Cohen Children’s Medical Center volunteer spawned her inter-
ests in nutrition and chronic disease prevention. Influenced by her
experience as a part-time tutor at NYU Metro Center College Prep,
she hopes to work with children and use her business acumen to run
a successful pediatric clinic and perhaps even develop a healthcare
startup. Her essay, inspired by her passions, explores the mystery of
large price disparities between fruits/vegetables and meat/dairy and
considers their implications on our health.
Lynn Fong, ’21, is a Film and Television student at NYU’s Tisch

School of the Arts. She moved to Orange County, California from
Taipei, Taiwan, as a young child and has lived there ever since. Her
love of filmmaking stems from its ability to convey ideas applicable
not only on an interpersonal level, but also on a national or even inter-
national one. Hoping to eventually work in children’s animation, she
is passionate about art's ability to change a person's perspective on the
world. Her essay on Moonlight is both an analysis of the film's artistry
and an exploration of how the film uses that artistry as an exercise in
the groundbreaking power of empathy to change minds.
Carolyn Ford, ’21, studies English and Gender and Sexuality Studies
at the College of Arts and Science. Originally from Glen Ellyn, a
small suburb of Chicago, Carolyn’s interest in political activism began
Contributors 196
as an effort to build a community with other queer kids in their home-

town. Their essay, “Broken Rules, Broken Silences: Audre Lorde and
the Power of Language,” is an investigation into the uses of writing
and speech as dynamic tools that can ignite movements, propel ideas,
and enact lasting political and social change. At NYU, Carolyn’s work
with the First Year Queers and Allies program encouraged them to
use their love of literature and language to vocalize the needs of and
issues within the vibrant LGBTQ community in New York City.
Adelia Gaffney, ’21, was raised in Toronto, Canada, and currently

studies Biochemistry at the College of Arts and Science, with the goal
of conducting research in the field of evolutionary developmental
biology. As a young woman hoping to enter a STEM profession,
Adelia has been aware of the male-dominated nature of her field of
interest from an early age. Instead of deterring her from pursuing her
interests, this imbalance continues to serve as motivation to contribute
to the academic conversation in her field. In her essay, Adelia explores
the obstacles that have historically prevented women from assuming
the same roles as men in academia, as well as the importance of having
the freedom to maintain their feminine identities when assuming
these roles today.
Haorui Guo, ’20, studies Mathematics and Computer Science at the

College of Arts and Science. He hopes to solve real-world problems
mathematically and beautifully. After transferring from Beihang
University in China, it took him a while to adjust to his first English
writing course. As he gradually broke down the language barrier, he
was able to engage in the analytical process of deepening an essay. In
his writing, Haorui explores the unique characteristics of photojour-
nalism which separate it from other forms of photography, and he
offers a novel approach to capturing a beautiful photojournalistic
image without compromising its initial function: representing reality.
Jessica Ji, ’21, is a Film and Television major at the Tisch School of
the Arts. Born in Rockville, Maryland, she became interested in the
arts at a young age and began making short films and documentaries
in middle school. After volunteering at and attending various enter-
197 Mercer Street
tainment industry events and panels, she developed a passion for

diversity and inclusivity in media and entertainment, noting a lack of
representation of people like herself in much of the media she con-
sumed, both on screen and behind the scenes. This realization
inspired her to explore in her essay representation of Asian Americans
in film and television and the different perspectives on what represen-
tation looks like and should look like.
Isak Jones, ’21, studies Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the

College of Arts and Science. As a white male raised in Bologna, Italy,
Isak was immediately surprised and a little intimidated by the social
issues at the heated forefront of American discourse. However, his
inquisitive spirit and open curiosity drove him to face such issues by
interacting with the literature surrounding them. In his essay, he
explores the topic of feminism and hopes to communicate his new-
found disenchantment with classic gender dichotomies by reevaluat-
ing his upbringing in Italy through the lens of the texts he has
discovered.
Olivia LeVan, ’21, studies Journalism and Politics at the College of

Arts and Science. Raised in York, Pennsylvania, she has always had a
desire to make an impact on the world by educating herself and others
on less commonly known subjects. As a feminist who has been sur-
rounded by strong female role models her entire life, she is especially
interested in tackling women’s issues. Olivia was inspired by the
#MeToo movement to delve into the issue of sexual harassment both
within and outside of the entertainment industry. By looking at it
from multiple perspectives, she hopes to shed light on the intricacies
of the problem and to inspire a demand for change.
Tracy Ma, ’21, studied Computer Science at the Tandon School of

Engineering during her first year at NYU and intends to study
Integrated Digital Media starting her second year. This change was
prompted by a period of self-reflection, during which she recognized
her undying urge for creative expression and her reliance on technol-
ogy as an artistic medium. As a creator who utilizes the Adobe
Creative Cloud to merge imagination with reality in photo and film,
Contributors 198
Tracy began to wonder whether such artistry tarnishes the reliability

and truthfulness of these mediums. In “The Truth Behind
Photoshop,” she examines the ways in which Photoshop shakes the
foundation of photography as a form of documentary, and explores
the human need for truth through both a historical and philosophical
lens. Born and raised in Manhattan, New York, Tracy hopes to one
day be able to paint the rest of the world using her camera and creative
vision.
Paul Mapara, ’21, is from the Bronx in New York City and was born
in Berlin, Germany. He is currently pursuing a double major in
Philosophy and Politics at the College of Arts and Science. Paul is a
member of NYU’s Policy Debate team and is interested in politics and
creative writing. Additionally, he is an avid film enthusiast and first
became interested in the subject of his essay—selfhood, how it’s
formed, its potential transience—when he saw the Swedish film
Persona in his junior year of high school. By revisiting this film and
putting it in conversation with texts by Zadie Smith and Roland
Barthes, Paul managed to reach a deeper level of insight into the
notion of selfhood in the Information Age.
Erik Oliver, ’21, studies Cinema Studies at the Tisch School of the
Arts, and hopes to figure it out from there. Since his early adolescence
in Madison, Wisconsin, Erik has fostered an accidental obsession
with David Lynch, originating with the initial run of Twin Peaks but
evolving with Lynch’s increasingly abstract, diegesis-dissolving work,
as well as his own shifting tastes in cinema. Particularly in an era of
confused semiotics, breakdowns in individual communication, and
general societal angst, Erik finds Lynch’s purposefully disorienting
work increasingly resonant with the tumult of the times, as well as
oddly reassuring in its occasional moments of transcendence. Erik
believes that aesthetic and cultural analysis can help us better under-
stand our everyday experience. With consideration of cultural hege-
mony and lots of caffeine, he aims to use art as a lens for better living.
Dylan Palmer, ’21, is majoring in Social and Cultural Analysis and

minoring in both Film and Music. He is a Martin Luther King, Jr.
199 Mercer Street
Scholar. As a mixed-race individual born and raised in the whitest

major city in America (Portland, Oregon), he became entranced with
concepts of race and identity at a very young age. This fascination has
fueled Dylan’s involvement in social justice, which remains an impor-
tant part of his life at NYU, where he was a member of the Social
Justice Stream in the Goddard Residential College. His essay, written
in association with this program, employs Jordan Peele’s film, Get
Out, as a tool to expose enlightening connections between horror
movies and the lived experiences of black folk in America.
Jesse Schanzer, ’20, from New Rochelle, New York, studies Finance
and Economics at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business. His
essay, “In Thinking of Evil,” is dually inspired by the story of his
beloved grandfather, who was hidden as a child in France during the
Holocaust, and by his relationship with his Jewish faith. Jesse was
raised as an Orthodox Jew and the issues raised in his essay reflect his
continuing struggle to reconcile his childhood learning, his continued
family relationship, and his personal growth. Using Hannah Arendt’s
Eichmann in Jerusalem as a starting point, his essay explores the
nature of evil in history, what it may imply for our present society, and
how it influences his evolving perspective.
Paige Smyth, ’21, studies Early Childhood and Special Education at

the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human
Development. As she cannot seem to choose just one field, Paige also
plans to double major in Psychology with a minor in American Sign
Language, a passion fueled by her love for the language and culture of
the Deaf community. Her essay, “Signs of the Times,” reflects all of
her passions, examining a prevalent debate in the Deaf community
through a psychological lens. In the future, Paige hopes to merge
more of her interests through work with educational and assistive
technologies to create more engaging learning environments for all
students.
Akiva Thalheim, ’21, is from Long Island, New York, and studies
Psychology with a focus in design and human interaction at the
College of Arts and Science. Resonating with Leslie Jamison’s explo-
Contributors 200
rations of her own pain and that of others in The Empathy Exams,
Akiva was inspired to probe the relationship between the two. “The
Empathy Lessons” presents the possibility that recognizing one’s own
pain leads to greater discernment of the pain of others, thereby raising
our collective empathic abilities. Reading Jamison’s essays prompted
Akiva to explore the therapeutic benefits of writing, a message he
hopes to share in his own work.
Christina Wang, ’19, born in Flushing, Queens, currently majors in

Chemistry on the pre-medical track at the College of Arts and
Science. When she isn’t teaching organic chemistry review sessions or
making posters on the chemistry behind coffee, Christina craves an
opportunity for thoughtful discussion and creative thinking. She
viewed her “Writing in Community” class as a channel for expressing
opinions that would have otherwise remained unspoken in her science
courses. In her essay, “The Case of Aziz Ansari: Bridging the Pleasure
Gap,” Christina took the opportunity to express her views on the con-
troversy surrounding Aziz Ansari’s sexual misconduct as well as soci-
ety’s warped views on sex and, more specifically, female pleasure.
Emily Yan, ’21, studies Marketing and Finance at the Stern School of
Business. She grew up in Warren, New Jersey, a small suburb one
hour from New York City. Moving to New York City inspired her to
explore what the city represents to both outsiders and locals. Outside
of the classroom, she tutored at a public middle school and delivered
meals to a homeless shelter in New York City. Both experiences
allowed her to witness firsthand the economic and privilege disparities
between outsiders who move to the city, like herself, and locals who
grow up there. Her essay, “Keep on Prowling,” examines, through the
lens of photographer Bruce Davidson’s work, how individuals claim
identity and ownership in urban shared spaces.
Wendy Yang, ’21, studies Biology at the College of Arts and Science
and plans to minor in Studio Art. Hoping to devote equal zeal to
analysis of visual media and to her scientific pursuits and involvement
in Asian cultural organizations, the Hangzhou-born student set her
sights on deconstructing one of her birthplace’s most defining
201 Mercer Street
moments on the international stage, when the opportunity presented

itself. She was especially motivated to write about Tiananmen Square
by the fact that her extended family had lived under an increasingly
iron-fisted leadership decades after Tank Man supposedly ignited a
pro-free speech revolution. She also sought to examine why the ensu-
ing supportive international response changed little and fizzled out as
quickly as it had initially gushed from the mouths of sympathetic
onlookers.
Jen Khai Yew, ’21, is a rising sophomore studying Comparative

Literature at the College of Arts and Science. Jen’s essay, “Language
and the Self,” explores the long-term impacts of colonialism on lan-
guage.
Soyoung Yun, ’21, studies Cinema Studies at the College of Arts and
Science, and desires to make cinema the most accessible cultural space
where people freely discuss gender, race, and social justice. Born and
raised in Seoul, Korea, she has a passion for producing cinematic plat-
forms that can lead East Asian cultures to be more knowledgeable and
supportive of gender diversity and feminism. With an ardor for learn-
ing about LGBTQ+ and feminist studies, she focused on reading
gender theorists during her first academic year. Especially inspired by
Judith Butler, Soyoung contemplated how gender identity affects
individuals and society. Her essay navigates disturbing revelations of
poststructuralist gender theory, but ultimately it finds a way to inter-
nalize Butler’s insights with enlightening positivity.
MERCER
street
NOTEWORTHY ESSAYS
In the In Between
Nina Allison
Subway Soliloquies
Emily Hromin
St. Vincent, Gaze, Her Body, Our Bodies

Vivian Hu
Germany, Refugees, and a Broken Dialogue

Paul Mapara
The Queerest Eye: Critiquing the Commodification and

Normative Expectations of Intersectionality
Jhenelle Marson
What Fresh Hell Is This?

Mohammad Saleem
C
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MERCER STREET

Essays from the Expository Writing Program

Senior Production Editor

Mercer Street Committee

EXPOSITORY WRITING PROGRAM

Welcome to New York University!

The essays collected in this volume represent some of the best

With all best wishes,

Dara Rossman Regaignon

Each year, the appearance of a new Mercer Street allows us to say

The Expository Writing Program is grateful to Gene Andrew

Writing the Essay

Broken Rules, Broken Silences:

The Descent of Woman: Joining the Academic Conversation 9

Juliana Moreira: An Ideal to Strive For 17

Don’t Get Too Comfortable 24

The Empty Mask 33

The Empathy Lessons 45

The Carbon Chains That Bind Us 54

Hero Complex: The Oversimplification of Tank Man 67

Language and the Self:

Writing the Essay: Residential College at Goddard

Different, Not Backwards 80

Writing the Essay: Art and the World

The Forgiving Blue 89

International Writing Workshop I

Photojournalism: What’s True, What’s Beautiful 97

International Writing Workshop II

How To Live With It 101

International Writing Workshop II: Tandon School of Engineering

The Good Guys with Guns 108

The Advanced College Essay: Education and the Professions

Gender Hysteria 116

Signs of the Times 124

The Advanced College Essay: Tandon School of Engineering

The Truth Behind Photoshop 133

The Advanced College Essay: The World Through Art

We’re Not Just Window Dressing:

A Cinema of Confusion 155

In Thinking of Evil 163

Have It Your Way, But At What Cost? 172

The Case of Aziz Ansari: Bridging the Culture Gap 183

Noteworthy Essays 202

“the machine will try to grind [her] into dust anyway”

United States. Certain words and connotations of words are “embed-

Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of

In the larger context of the American political climate, the

validation and celebration of differences in the the United States is

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press,

pregnant (299). But, Rich insists, we must push forward. We must

time to take on a life of meaningful work, or because she views the

Paglia, Camille. “Academic Feminists Must Begin To Fulfill Their

Solnit, Rebecca. “The Mother of All Questions.” The Broadview

In her essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian

the female body, but it does not go so far as to make it unrecognizable.

verse of the colonized,” their thoughts, in order to dominate their

female babies, through procedures such as vaginoplasty and hormone

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Translated by Sheila

Preciado, Paul B. “Technogender.” Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and

against Harvey Weinstein surfaced, it is impossible to ignore the issue

an ABC/Washington Post poll, more than half of women in the

roles seems to be the norm in this supposedly glamorous industry.

with mystique and glamour, so it is fitting that it utilizes a more daz-

Adams, Thelma. “Casting-Couch Tactics Plagued Hollywood Long