Set to release in May 2021, Disney’s “Cruella,” based around the “101 Dalmations” antagonist Cruella de Vil, is the company’s newest addition to its series of live-action movies. The trailer promises a dark backstory for the classic villain, with actress Emma Stone’s voiceover declaring, “I am woman, hear me roar.”
2021 is shaping up to be an eventful year, but one unexpected development was the GameStop short squeeze. After finding out that gaming retailer GameStop had the most shorted — or bet against — stock on the market, a group of Reddit users organized themselves and individually bought GameStop stock en masse. They drove up the cost of stock, forcing hedge funds that had bet GameStop stock would decrease in value and had hence borrowed stock to sell at a low price. This practice is known as “short selling” — buying borrowed stock back at a much higher value than anticipated, which created the “squeeze.”
In recent years, the popularity of the shopping app Depop has skyrocketed, and its trendy, Instagram-like approach to shopping has resulted in an explosion of thrift resellers. Many middle- and upper-class individuals with storefronts on the app shop at thrift stores in low-income communities, buy trendy, good-quality pieces in bulk and resell them for three or four times the price. With the right lighting and fashion blog posing, a T-shirt that cost a few dollars from Goodwill warrants a $20 price tag on Depop. Though the mainstream popularity of thrifting is certainly a win for sustainability advocates, thrift reselling for multiple times the original price of an item from a store particularly catered to lower income communities is unethical and indicative of a flagrant lack of class consciousness in the sustainability movement.
By Nina Larbi ’22
Op-Ed Editor
Released on Nov. 24, Vogue’s December 2020 issue has sparked controversy, as the cover features British singer Harry Styles wearing a Gucci dress. Conservative commentators like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro have voiced their disapproval of Styles’ appearance, claiming that wearing a dress is an outright attack on masculinity. Various people have come to Styles’ defense, asserting that gender roles are restrictive and clothing is genderless.
As important as it is to have these conversations, I feel as though this happens every six months. Harry Styles will wear one skirt in a photoshoot or paint his nails, and media outlets and social media platforms will shoot out article after article and post after post on how he is either a traitor to masculinity or how he is the vanguard of breaking gender norms — all for one measly skirt. Whether you fall into one of those two camps — or neither — Styles has been chosen as the face of “gender-neutral fashion,” as affirmed by Priya Elan in The Guardian. Though he is a major public figure who dresses in a manner that challenges traditional Western masculinity, centering him as the sole forerunner of gender neutrality in fashion is dismissive of the various people of color that are doing the same.
To answer Shapiro and Owens’ rhetorical questions on the fate of Western masculinity, men have been wearing skirts since antiquity. The link between pants and masculinity may be due to the necessity of divided legs for riding, but the strong association of the two was cemented during the 19th century in the West. Traditional masculinity hasn’t been traditional for very long. Moreover, there has been a myriad of people who have challenged conventional masculinity since, like Prince and David Bowie.
The fashion world itself specifically owes much to LGBTQ+ artists of color. In the 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning,” director Jennie Livingston recorded the 1980s New York City ballroom culture and the involvement of Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ people in the scene. “Paris is Burning” provided insight into a community that was disparaged for its race, gender, sexuality and class, and has been recognized as culturally significant by the Library of Congress. The documentary’s depiction of ballroom culture heavily inspired the popular television show “Pose,” which has been met with critical acclaim. Ballroom culture and the window “Paris is Burning” provided for mainstream audiences has roused people. The fashion industry is no exception.
Though clothes are highly gendered modes of expression, fashion has always pushed the envelope regarding gender nonconformity. The Met Gala is certainly a place where gender norms can be challenged, as it is meant to be a spectacle put on by celebrities and designers for the fashion critique of the masses.
The 2019 Met Gala pushed a bit more with the theme “camp.” Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, picked the theme herself, along with the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton. Celebrities showed up in a variety of colorful and over-the-top costumes. But, as Lena Waithe put it, “Black drag queens invented camp.” She continued, “Pepper LaBeija, Benny Ninja, RuPaul, all these pioneers. … I really wanted to pay tribute to them and all that they did for the culture. … They started this whole ‘camp’ thing by being over-the-top.” Despite this long historical precedent, camp was still considered groundbreaking in 2019, as well as Styles’ dress a year later.
Styles’ Gucci dress certainly got more attention than is warranted in 2020, even if he is the first solo man on a Vogue cover. The Vogue issue praised him as “revolutionary” when he and many others have worn skirts and dresses before.
Why is it that when Styles does it, he’s radical? Various artists of color similarly challenge gender norms but are met with heavy criticism and little praise. To be clear, Styles isn’t intentionally profiting off of femininity to give his work more intrigue. In an interview with The Guardian, he answered such claims: “Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No.” He then went on to say, “I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool.”
Though he is not deliberately wearing dresses to market himself as LGBTQ+ adjacent, Styles’ brand of gender nonconformity is the most easily accepted by people because he is a white cisgender man. Many artists of color, LGBTQ+ or not, are told that they are “doing too much” when they adopt gender neutrality and subcultures like ballroom as part of their image. Prince, Jaden Smith, Janet Jackson, Janelle Monae, Young Thug and Lil Nas X have all been branded over-the-top as if they are challenging gender roles too much for their image choices. Still, Styles’ ruffled dress somehow seems to be the perfectly palatable type of nonconformity. Young Thug wore a similar pale blue ruffled dress on his “JEFFERY” mixtape cover, but it didn’t create nearly as much buzz as Styles’ Gucci number.
I am happy to see that people are growing increasingly supportive of Styles’ manner of dress, but I also want to see other artists, the ones I mentioned earlier, receive that same praise. Rather than having a narrow type of “acceptable” gender nonconformity, we should seek to expand and include artists of color and their nonconforming presentation. We need to recognize the impact that people of color have had on fashion and, rather than appropriate, give credit where credit is due.
Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22
By Nina Larbi ’22
Op-Ed Editor
Climate change is the slow apocalypse already underway. The planet has warmed 1 degree Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, threatening mass extinctions and natural disasters like wildfires and floods. Awareness of the dire situation of the planet has led to increasing environmental consciousness in highly developed countries with a history of mass consumption like the United States. People are sitting down and asking themselves, “How can I reduce my carbon footprint?” beyond just turning the lights and water faucet off when they are not in use.
In response to the pursuit of a smaller carbon footprint, various “ethical and sustainable” brands have established themselves, making their way to consumers via social media advertisements and targeted articles on lifestyle websites. Despite the clear benefit ethical and sustainable products provide, we cannot buy our way out of a global environmental crisis. Climate change requires both top-down and bottom-up levels of change, and not just with consumer products.
Overconsumption is directly leading us to impending environmental collapse, whether it be fossil fuels releasing greenhouse gases that warm the planet or consumer goods with externalities. Cheap goods, like $15 t-shirts, exchange a low price tag for poor working conditions and pollution at various points along the supply chain. In this way, both the environment and workers are paying the price for cheap goods.
In over-consuming countries like the U.S., consumption is built into people’s lifestyles. Gasoline-powered cars, smartphones, toilets that flush down a stupidly large amount of water and the ubiquity of rarely recycled plastic packaging are parts of our lives. This consumption can be reduced by using hybrid or electric cars and energy-efficient light bulbs and buying a toilet that has varying flushing settings. But these modifications are either nominal in their impact or absurdly expensive for most people.
Regarding lifestyle goods, consumers do have more choice and can pick a sustainable option that is neither incrementalist nor inordinately expensive. Clothes and shoes are the easiest to swap out for sustainable alternatives because they don’t require in-depth research, installation or maintenance, unlike other products. Thus, a crop of “ethical” and “sustainable” brands like Everlane, Ecoalf and Veja have gained popularity, each promising a guilt-free product that neither harms workers nor excessively pollutes the environment.
Despite the attractiveness of such products, companies are still companies, and they want to sell people products. Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing tactic that makes products seem more environmentally friendly than they are; for example, using the color green on packaging and advertising that a product has “natural” qualities despite there being no clear definition of the word. Blue-washing is the formation and heavy advertisement of an agreement to comply with the United Nations Global Compact, a non-binding corporate commitment to sustainability.
Brands will also proclaim their mission to work on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals without any evidence of doing so. There are ways to check companies’ sustainability commitments, but all require synthesizing publicly available data and statements, which are often sparse or nonexistent regarding labor standards and pollution. Popular ethical and sustainable brand Everlane’s data was synthesized by the Australian application Good on You, and they found no evidence that Everlane pays a living wage in its supply chain or makes conscious efforts to reduce textile and water waste.
Ultimately, green consumption is a business-as-usual model with a leaf on it. Even if companies aren’t lying about their commitments to sustainability, feigned sustainability pressures individuals to bear the burden of global environmental destruction through the singular freedom of consumer choice rather than holding large corporations and governments responsible for causing and allowing climate catastrophe. Cultural awareness of sustainability is beneficial, but it does little to remove the problem at its root, which is lax and avoidable environmental and economic policy that permits corporations to completely wring the Earth dry of its resources and mistreat workers.
By Nina Larbi ’22
Op-Ed Editor
Within the past year, alternative styles of dress based primarily in emo, punk and goth subcultures have gained popularity on social media. It may be the 20-year cycle of fashion looping back to the scene and emo styles of the early 2000s, or quarantine nostalgia for pop punk bands, but the 2020 reiteration of subculture styles by contributors on platforms like Instagram and TikTok is distinctively more diverse than I remember them being. Punk, emo and goth subcultures have historically excluded people of color, maintaining the image that people of color were never meant to be a part of their movements. These exclusions have also buried the contributions made by people of color to these ideologies and arts. Though the tide has been changing for a while, people of color are still excluded from these subcultures, and their white peers need to actively uplift and acknowledge them and their artistic and ideological contributions.
Individuals are drawn to subcultures because they feel rejection from society and its institutions, like the working-class Brits who created punk. Punk is anti-establishment and anti-consumerist, emo is saturated with angst and misanthropy and goth is characterized by anti-conventional beauty standards and gender expression. Emo and goth subcultures originated as reactions to an established punk scene, and they share some ideologies. These subcultures all have artistic elements, including music and dress, from the dyed mohawk punks to the Hot Topic studded-belt-and-skinny-jean emos.
Rejecting the status quo and deviancy is what makes a subculture a subculture. However, the issue with racism and exclusion stems from a misunderstanding and willful ignorance of what it means to be oppressed. The 2003 documentary “Afro-Punk” opens with plain text referencing Patti Smith’s song in which she likens herself to Black people via a slur, then points out that “She felt she could liken her personal trials as a feminist musician in a c----rock culture to the African American struggle for equality.” If punks are not already on the outside of society, they want to be there. But people of color are already there. Why can’t white punks, emos and goths recognize that without trying to conflate all marginalized identities into one underclass of society? The experience of racism is different from that of sexism and that of homophobia, and some individuals experience all three.
There are aesthetic values within subcultures that reject and appropriate people of color besides their otherness, like in the case of Smith. Goths and emos like pale skin, dark hair and dead eyes because it’s the opposite of the tanned (but white), blonde-haired, bright-eyed beach babe.
Moreover, from their roots these three subcultures have had heavy contributions from people of color, but their legacy has been ignored and actively suppressed. All types of rock music have their origins in American blues and country music, which were created by Black people. Additionally, various proto-punk bands, like the Mysterians and Death consisted of musicians of color and subsequently influenced the punk genre for decades. Different punk scenes came to be because groups of people felt like they were ignored by the system or just didn’t fit in, and this included communities of color. The Los Angeles punk scene was created by youth who felt othered because they were Latinx, which led them to create the L.A. punk scene and hardcore punk.
Punk, emo and goth continue to evolve today thanks to the efforts of artists of color. Now, there is emo rap and punk rap, with artists like Lil Uzi Vert and Rico Nasty challenging the emo and punk conventions through musical synthesis. After the success of the “Afro-Punk” documentary, the annual Afropunk Festival was created, giving space to people of color to explore subcultures and defy expectations. People of color are key members of and contributors to the punk, emo and goth subcultures. We share experiences of otherness not to be likened to each other — and shouldn’t subculture be open to all those who reject the status quo and want to join? I sincerely hope that recent visible diversity in subculture social media continues and that members of such subcultures vocally acknowledge and uplift people of color.
When boy bands are mentioned, most conjure the mental image of pubescent boys with over-styled hair, wearing ASOS catalogue clothes and singing vapid, conventional pop music. Members of these groups are not considered “true artists” and their fans are reduced to insipid fan girls who only care about looks.
Jane Kvederas discusses the fact that the new Dining Commons does not reliably serve enough plant-based protein options to provide enough sustainable nutrients for those with dietary restrictions. While the Dining Commons is doing a fine job overall providing for the dietary needs of students, there are improvements to be made in providing for vegan and vegetarian students, especially when it comes to protein.
BY NINA LARBI ’22
One of the issues dividing the ballot in the 2020 election is slavery reparations. The concept has always had an ambiguous definition, but fundamentally, it entitles compensation — usually financial — for the descendants of slaves, meant to make amends for the centuries of brutality Americans faced under slavery and their economic and legal disenfranchisement thereafter.
BY NINA LARBI ’22
The North African identity is complex and often goes unrecognized. Those who identify as North African are consistently labeled as Middle Eastern, Muslim or simply as ambiguously brown. We are grouped together with the Middle East most frequently, aggregated under the acronym MENA (Middle East and North Africa). Whatever the label is, it is hardly ever “African.” Today, “African” has become synonymous with “black.” This is not to dismiss anyone else’s pride or identity, but we as North Africans are Africans, too. Despite racial and cultural differences, North Af- rica should be considered part of Africa rather than an extension of the Middle East. The mindset that the Maghreb — the Northern region of Africa, including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Mauritania — functions as part of the Middle East damages North African identity and degrades ethnic pride in the region.
BY NINA LARBI’22
High schoolers across the nation are waiting anxiously for their college acceptance letters. When they receive their decisions, the agonizing often isn’t over. Students wonder why they did not get accepted by MIT while their friends did, or why they did not get enough financial aid from the University of Pittsburgh while their classmate got a full ride.
BY NINA LARBI ’22
“Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” has taken the world by storm. In the series, Marie Kondo, a Japanese author and organizing consultant, travels to the homes of disorganized Americans and aids them in cleaning their homes using her Shinto-inspired Kon-Mari method. Kondo has faced backlash for her methods, and this negative reaction is not only incurred from random individuals on the internet; prominent figures like Jimmy Kimmel and Ellen DeGeneres are also treating her with disrespect. The hatred directed towards Kondo is rooted in racism and a sense of American superiority, and this prejudice is coming from both sides of the political spectrum.
BY NINA LARBI ’22
Being new to college, I still find it jarring when I go on social media and see people I have known since we were seven years old posting pictures of themselves completely plastered in their white-brick dorm rooms, complete with cheap IPA. Maybe it is because I was part of the overachiever clique in high school, so the most risky thing that any of us did was watch an R-rated movie when we were 15, but it’s just plain weird to see your old friends become social alcoholics, all documented by Instagram and Snapchat.
BY NINA LARBI ’22
This year, I succumbed to capitalist America and went Black Friday shopping at a local mall in my hometown. Although I left the hellscape that is the Willow Grove Mall’s Sephora empty-handed and with my pitiful $20 bill still tucked into my wallet, I could not stop thinking about the advertisements, the environment, the staff and the store itself. Advertisements in the store displayed bright makeup looks, from red eyeshadow to purple highlighter, and showcased a diverse cast of models.
BY NINA LARBI ’22
Last Tuesday’s election saw many historic successes for women of color, including the election of the first NativeAmerican and Muslim women to Congress. These results have garnered support and celebration, as we, women of color, are finally seeing ourselves represented in legislative bodies.
BY NINA LARBI ’22
In late October, Donald Trump informed the nation of an executive order he was preparing that would eliminate birthright citizenship, the amendment that currently grants citizenship to anyone born on U.S. territory. His reasoning was simple: that America is the only country to have birthright citizenship (this is false; around 30 other countries share this law).
