NBNtertainment Weekly

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Trigger warning for mentions of sexual violence from 5:15 through 5:50.

Spoiler alert for everything beyond 11:50.

Beck Dengler 

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Normal People: College Relationships, Mental Health, and the “Perfect” Man

V: Hi, this is Victoria Benefield. 

L: And I’m Lami Zhang 

V: Welcome to Subtitled, a podcast where two fake film students take a look at popular movies and TV shows. Seriously, Neither of us can get into any film classes, if anyone knows how please help us. 

["Wirklich Wichtig (CB 27) ," by Checkie Brown, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]

L: This episode contains strong language, and discussions of mental health and familial abuse.

V: And the overwhelming hotness of a chain-wearing Irish man. 

L: Today, we're talking about Normal People. An Irish show that follows Marianne and Connell through high school and college, as they weave in and out of each other's lives. The show focuses on relationships, mental health and masculinity.

V: Today we have a special guest Kevin Park, a second year vocal performance major, who's a big Normal People fan.

K: What up. I love this show a lot. 

L: The show starts off with a pretty toxic relationship between Marianne and Connell. 

V: They both have a lot of growing to do at the beginning, because it's high school and they're both dumb and Marianne had never been in a relationship before. And then they jumped into things pretty quickly. There was a lot of that, like first love, like it's super exciting, but then they also have no idea what they're doing at all.

L: Right. It's kind of a weird mixture of a physical relationship and like a really twisted, buried underneath emotional connection that neither of them kind of know how to go forward with. 

K: But they get to explore feelings and thoughts that they've never had to experience before. They got to express how much they feel like through intimacy and through, you know, sex, which I think like brings up this larger topic of like how intimacy is dealt with within relationships. And also just in film and TV in general. 

L: I read this article that said, that there was an accumulative 44 minutes of sex portrayed in the entire show. And I was like, this is interesting. They make the sex and intimacy seem really realistic, especially like your first time and your first love.

K: There's like one part that I remember. It was just like the first ever time I've ever seen, in like popular film or TV, consent just being shown, so normally, just a part of sex and a part of like having your first time. And I thought that was very powerful, cause that's something that has been a dialogue within our Northwestern community. 

V: I think a lot of times in media, film and TV specifically, there's kind of this implied consent that’s shown where like the couple, just look each other in the eyes and they just both know that now's the moment, right? And then I feel like this show really breaks that standard.

L: Right? Like one of the major themes of the show is communication within a relationship. 

K: It's like a mirror to us in terms of like, how we think that we are being communicative. Like Marianne asked, do you love me or something? and Connell’s, like, obviously, but she's like, who is it obvious to? You know, there's this level of miscommunication between the two of them that really mirrors to, like, are we being communicative to our partners and our relationships, whether, romantic or, you know, like a friendship or whatever.

L: The first time they broke up in college was pretty memorable, when Connell goes back to his hometown and he's afraid to ask Marianne to stay at her place. I was really confused as to why they broke up, cause clearly they're so in tune with each other physically and mentally, but their failure to communicate kind of just ruins their whole relationship.

K: We all know when we watched the show, like, just say it just like talk to them, just talk to them. Right. And like, we talked to our friends about relationships, whatever, it is, like, just talk to them. But none of us really, really want to do it. And I think it shows the consequence, as well. There's a sense of like realism to that.

L: Another key factor of the relationship is their differing socioeconomic statuses. In the first episode, we meet Marianne who lives in this giant house and Connell's mother works for her family. And throughout the show, there's always been this underlying differing, socioeconomic factor in their relationship. And I think that really shows up in their college years when they both got scholarships, but for Connell, that was kind of a matter of survival and being able to continue college while for Marianne, it's more for a pride thing.

V: You don't recognize what a big impact it can have on your relationship with someone, but it just means you have drastically different experiences from them and that your backgrounds are very different and you grew up with sort of a very different mindset. There's just the sort of instability that Connell faces that Marianne can't understand.

["Line Spacing,” by Mild Wild, CC BY 4.0]

L: I have a question for you two. When was the first time you realized that Cornell had anxiety?

v: For me, it was this scene where I think he was in high school still. And he runs into the bathroom, and you can tell he's having a panic attack.

K: I knew that he had troubles within himself, but I didn't really know what to classify it as. The first time that I really understood, he actually went to therapy. 

L:  Right. And it was his roommate who , encouraged him to go get help at college. And I think that was just a really frank portrayal of mental health in college.I haven't really seen that portrayed in any other TV show in high school or college that, Oh, you should go see a counselor. 

v: Another aspect of it that they do really well in terms of mental health is showing how it is a constant and consistent struggle. It doesn't go away just when his relationship with Marianne is going well, or when he gets a scholarship, it's something that he's going to deal with. and they don't glorify it at all which is so important, especially after getting shows like, um-- 

L: 13 Reasons Why?

V: 13 Reasons Why, yes.

L: Oh, I think we can't blame Connell for having a lack of communication with Marianne, because his anxiety and his other mental health issues really play a big part into that. He was so anxious to ask her to stay at her house, which is such an insignificant thing to most other people. For Connell, like his anxiety amps it up so much that he feels like he's going to get rejected if he asks her to do such a simple thing for him.

K: Also in Marianne's perspective, also like scary for her to reach out. —this whole like, series, Marianne struggles with worth, does she feel worthy enough to like, be in a relationship with Connell?

L: there's a phrase she repeats throughout the whole series. "I have an unlovable quality about me," so she feels like she cannot engage in any sort of emotional relationship besides from the one she has with Connell and even in the one she has with Connell, she's always saying, I'll do it. If you want me to do it. 

V: Yeah. I think her relationship with her family. I don't think I realized the extent of the abuse within the household in the first few episodes. At the end, it really crystallizes and I think they did a really good job showing how that abuse makes its way into your life in ways that you don't really understand. 

["Line Spacing,” by Mild Wild, CC BY 4.0] 

L: So, Connell is a pretty complex character and that's kind of unprecedented for a male character and that he shows both this type of physical masculinity and this emotional vulnerability.

K: It's something that a lot of other shows that I've watched tried, I think it's very hard to write because it's not very common either. Just in normal life, you know? I've been hearing a lot from my female friends who have watched the show: Wow, Connell was perfect. Connell’s perfect, which,  I understand. But it’s also like, is this an ideal man in the 21st century or is this just like how men feel, actually feel, like in real life?

V: that's so interesting. I do think there has been a recent trend where vulnerability among men is definitely celebrated. And we see that in Connell, like he cries so many times throughout the show, Marianne rarely cries. I feel like we might get a couple moments where she cries, but you see Connell cry so much more often. And I feel like that's kind of a big thing. 

K: Connell comes to a point where he understands his flaws and he’s very introspective about that. And I think that's just something that we perceive men to not talk about.

L: What you mentioned about Connell being this ideal male character, are we romanticizing this idea of mental health in men? Do men have to have a mental health problem to be emotional and communicative?

V: So interesting. I think the mental health aspect explains the crying and the emotionality of him and you can like justify it. And it makes sense. So outside of the context of his depression and his anxiety, would we be like, Ooh, he's crying so much. It's weird. Why is he crying? Would we still feel the same way about him?

K: I think it also might be like we perhaps romanticize people who have mental illness and we want to be there to listen to them or have this savior complex.

L:  As simple as it may be, that Marianne would be Connell's savior and Connell will be Marianne savior. Connell goes to therapy to better his mental health.

V: Yeah. I think that's a great point. I think they grow the most as people when they're not in a romantic relationship, when they're just friends. Even though they're madly in love with each other, they need that space, and they need to be physically distant from each other in order to grow as people. 

L: Right. I think the show really just brings to life that cliche of maybe you're the right person for each other, but it's not the right timing. 

V: Yeah. That's true. Actually, I did think like the last scene that they were like, Oh, I love you. I'm never going to love anyone else as much as I love you. I was like, okay. Yeah, sure. I mean, they've had this connection, but really it's been over what, like six, seven years of their life. They have a lot longer to go. You know, I wonder if he goes to New York, meets someone, 15 years later, Marianne is just like a footnote, she’s just like a number that he can call sometimes. You know, I wonder if their relationship really is that meaningful in the grand scheme of their lives.

K:  I think that there is some sort of connection that we see. They also acknowledge how different it is. And I guess we'll never know, but in terms of just like our own personal relationships, if we think back to people that really impacted us, I don't think I'll ever forget them. 

V: I think there are some people who are really impactful in your life. I have this — I’m sure Lami has heard this rant before —about my theory about love.

L: Oh my god. 

V: Because like they have this connection that they call love, but I think love is an action. And so I do think that they're very much infatuated with each other and that that infatuation has led to this action of loving each other. But I don’t think they will have that feeling of infatuation for that long, and I think that they will grow distant. I don't think that they will be in love for the rest of their lives. That's my opinion on it. Controversial, maybe?

L: I actually completely agree with you because I think TV shows in popular culture emphasizes and exaggerates ‘the right person for each other’ trope. And how like if you're with the right person it's supposed to all be easy, like, it's not. And I think Normal People kind of shows that, in that Oh, if they don't communicate, they won't have a relationship together. But I agree with you, people can have this type of connection with a bunch of other people. And it's just about how much effort you put in. 

K: I think they are soulmates, but my definition of soulmate, as, in terms of just like, it could be anyone, it could be a friend, it could be a lot of people. But it's just this deep connection with someone that you walk your life with. And it doesn't have to be a relationship where you're holding hands forever, but it's just a person that you're continuously walking your life with. 

V: I always say that I believe that anyone can fall in love with anyone. And by that, I mean like, is there something about them that like their personalities and their souls that makes them intricately connected and makes them soulmates? Or is it just because they grew up together? 

L: That's interesting. I think if you go through certain situations and experiences in your life with someone, it kind of really sticks with you, whether they be like romantic partners or friends. I think we can talk about it in the context of Northwestern. Right. 

K: I personally think a lot of what they said and did seemed very real. Like first time having sex,, I could relate to that, you know, or like, staying up with them on Skype, and just like watching the other person fall asleep, or them breaking up, but still being friends and having that connection. I feel like a lot of those things are just personally relatable to like my life. I feel like every person no matter, like what their personality is like, can find something in the show that they deeply resonate with. 

L: For me, it was more about having anxiety and being in a relationship. I think I struggle with a lot of the same issues that Connell has with Marianne in terms of communication, 

K: Actively being good? Yes.

L:  Let’s go.

V: We have to talk about the chain, right? 

L: Oh my God.

K: Guys. I got a chain.

L: Oh my God. Kevin, you're basically a Connell now, emotional and has a chain. Damn!

K: After I bought it, I was like, did I buy this, like subconsciously in my head because I perceive Connell as a perfect man? And I thought, no, that can't be, but looking back, I most definitely did. Yeah.

V: Everyone needs to wear a chain. I can't reiterate this enough. Everyone needs to be wearing a chain constantly. Just purchase one, start wearing it. 

L: Is that a chain Victoria? Oh my God.

V: I am wearing a chain, I just realized it!

L: I'm in the same room with two Connells! 

V: Thank you for listening. This has been Subtitled. I’m Victoria Benefield

L: And I'm Lami Zhang.

K: And I was special guest, Kevin Park. 

V: Tune in next time for more fake film analysis. Thanks for listening! 

["Funky Garden," by Ketsa, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]

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LAMI: Hey, this is Lami Zhang

VICTORIA: This is Victoria Benefield.

LAMI: Welcome to Subtitled, a podcast where two fake film students take a look at popular movies and TV shows. Seriously, neither of us can get into any film classes. So if anyone knows how, please help us.

LAMI: This episode contains strong language and discussion of the sexualization of children and sexual assault.

VICTORIA: And also spoilers.

VICTORIA: Today, we’re talking about Cuties, a French film released in September directed by Maiimouna Doucouré. If you somehow haven’t heard anything about this movie, I’ll sum it up for you: an 11-year-old Senegalese girl, Amy, who has just immigrated to Paris with her family, meets a group of young girls who are preparing to enter a dance competition. The film follows her friendship with the girls, their journey to the competition, and Amy’s internal conflict between her traditional Muslim roots and the liberal culture represented by her friends and social media. Sounds innocent enough, right?

LAMI: Wrong. Backlash around the movie started in August, after U.S. Netflix released promotional material showing the young cast in suggestive dance poses and costumes. Critics deemed the movie “child pornography,” saying it sexualizes the 11-year-old main character and her friends. The hashtag #CancelNetflix started trending on Twitter. Disapproval came from both sides of the political spectrum, including Rep. Brian Babin, Senator Ted Cruz, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. a grand jury in Texas brought criminal felony charges against Netflix, indicting the streaming giant for “promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child.”

VICTORIA: So, Lami, what did you think about this movie?

LAMI: I heard about the controversy surrounding this film before I actually saw the movie on Netflix. To be honest, I was a little skeptical about the backlash, mostly because I don't trust a single word that comes out of Ted Cruz's mouth. But after I watched the movie, I honestly really liked it. It covers a lot of issues pertaining to growing up as a girl and learning how to be a woman in this modern age.

VICTORIA: I've had friends who quite literally cancelled Netflix. And so I went into it thinking it was going to be pretty bad. And then I watched it, and I understand the concerns, but I think it was exaggerated. I thought that the film raised a lot of really important themes that you don't really hear or see portrayed in film or any other form of media very often.

VICTORIA: One of the really important themes that Cuties raises is the sort of dichotomy between the two different cultures that Amy is a part of, which is her African Muslim background, and the Western culture that she finds herself in when she immigrates to Paris. Some of the ways that the director talks about this is, it's most definitely through the lens of womanhood, and how womanhood is defined in both of those cultures.

LAMI: She's trying to figure out what it means to be a woman, meaning what responsibilities come with that and how she's supposed to get in touch with her sexuality. What does her sexuality mean? And her female family members don't really go into much detail about that. For me, there was a really poignant part of the movie, where she gets her period. For like every young girl, the first time you get your period is pretty memorable, right? I distinctly remember mine. Her mother later that night just said to her, you're a woman now. As validating as that may be to young Amy, I feel like there needs to be more discussion.

VICTORIA: And I think it's just sort of indicative of the way that Amy's family really wasn't there for her as she's growing up and as she's discovering more about herself, and her sexuality and her womanhood, and she's also making this huge transition from living in Africa, and then moving to Paris. Like, she's going through all of these things, including getting her period. And her family is just not there to listen to her.

TRANSITION MUSIC

LAMI: So let’s talk about one of the more controversial parts of the movie, the laser tag scene.

VICTORIA: The cuties girls sneak into a laser tag place and they get caught by two security guards who wouldn’t let them leave without paying. The girls protest, and one of the security guards grabs Angelica by the arm, and she was like, “If you don’t let us go, we’ll tell everyone that you sexually assaulted us.” And I think that was really interesting, because it shows that Angelica knows that she is an easy victim in society, and that she can use that status to her advantage. I also think it's kind of sad, that she's so aware of that, and that she knows that that is believable.

LAMI: Right, and that was a really jarring moment. Her accusation didn’t end up working, so [Amy] started dancing, in a pretty provocative way. She was twerking in front of the security guards and we could clearly see this disturbing ass expression on the security guard’s face and he was very intently staring at her body.

VICTORIA: And I think that was intentional, because I think the director really wanted to emphasize how wrong this was. And this is an aspect of our society that we need to be aware of, and that we need to critique and that we need to work on.

LAMI: That reminds me of that other scene where they're being filmed for a music video on that bridge, and they were dancing. it's clearly filmed from the male gaze, because it's focusing on their crotch areas. And I just find that to be an interesting choice on the director's part. Because, on one hand, she's clearly saying, we should not sexualize children. Look at this fucking security guard. And on the other hand, she's showing the scene that's kind of sexualizing them in a way.

VICTORIA: One of my friends who actually cancelled Netflix over this pointed this out and that like you don't make a stand against killing puppies by killing puppies, which was her way of saying that the director shouldn't have been making a stand against exploiting children by exploiting children. And I think in that scene specifically, she was really exploiting these young child actors without showing how wrong it was. I think at this point, we should mention while the director is female, the cinematographer was a male. And I think that it's really interesting to watch the movie from that perspective. And I just think that's kind of strange. And maybe a poor choice, on her part.

LAMI: It definitely gives the camera a sort of voyeuristic perspective. I think another moment in the film that’s pretty hard to watch is when Amy takes a picture of her vagina and posts it on social media. The next day, all her friends were extremely angry with her for doing that.

VICTORIA: One of the boys in her class, and, as she walks by him, he smacked her on the ass. And she was like, What the fuck, dude? She didn't say that. But it was essentially that. This man considered her posting her nudes as permission for him to not just sexualize her but sexually assault her basically.

LAMI: Right. He feels like just because she holds ownership of her own body by posting a nude, he somehow gets the permission and access.

VICTORIA: To me, that was really just like an encapsulation of what this film is about. Any time a girl, a young girl, is putting herself out there sexually on social media, men, even young boys, are taking advantage of that, sexualizing them, using their method of expressing themselves as a way and as a reason to sexualize them inappropriately.

TRANSITION MUSIC

VICTORIA: So like we mentioned earlier, in Texas, Netflix is being indicted for “promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child.”

LAMI: In order to qualify the film as child pornography, they'll have to make a case that there's no artistic, literary, or any, like, educational value in the film itself, which I think will be a hard case to make, because obviously, the director is very passionate about her cause. And she's trying to show that oversexualization of young girls is wrong.

MAIIMOUNA DOUCOURÉ: I put my heart into this film, because this is my story. I believe that cinema, and art in general, can change the world. We are able to see oppression of women in other cultures. But my question is, isn’t the objectification of a woman’s body that we often see in our Western culture, not another kind of oppression?

LAMI: As we can clearly tell from this interview, she has all the right intentions for making this film. It's her story. It's her culture that she's depicting. And she also did research on girls of that age, and how they're kind of coming into their own bodies and coming into teenagehood.

VICTORIA: Yeah, so I think a lot of the backlash surrounding the age, and the provocativeness of the film is coming from people who have not actually watched the movie, which is very important when you're going to judge content. They're just making assumptions, based off of what they've heard from others, and also…

LAMI: Promotional material.

VICTORIA: Yes, Netflix, what were you thinking?

LAMI: So the advertising for the film is different here in the US versus in France, where it first premiered. So in the American advertising, there were provocative images of the girls dancing in crop tops, and very, very short shorts.

VICTORIA: Yeah, and then the advertising in France and other countries just showed them holding shopping bags and running in the street.

LAMI: Also, marketing is so important. It's your first impression of a film. And if your first impression of a film is, oh, my god, these young girls are being sexualized, you're going to look at the film in a completely new light, as opposed to, oh, these young girls are trying to discover their sexuality.

VICTORIA: At the same time, I think we both generally agree that the casting of actual underage girls to be in these very provocative scenes shot in a very provocative way is a problem. Regardless of whether they agreed to this, I mean, the director was like, we tried to make this as safe as possible. There was, like, a counselor on set. The thing is, they’re 11. Like, at the age of 11, I wasn't capable of making the decision about whether I would be in a film where I would be dancing, where I would be shown taking nude photos.

LAMI: And even if they were able to comprehend kind of the gravity of the role they're

taking, they don't necessarily know what's going to happen in the future, like with all this backlash, like, I doubt any of them anticipated this.

VICTORIA: This film would not even be close to as problematic if the actresses were over 18. But also, another question we have is like: how much of this critique is actually about the casting versus about the expression of young girls’ sexuality? Like, are all these Republican politicians really that concerned about the five girls in the film? Or are they more bothered by the mere idea of girls being sexual entities at all?

LAMI: There really haven't been a lot of films, where shows girls at that young of an age trying to discover their sexuality, like I can’t even think of any off the top of my head, I guess, like, coming of age movies, but they’re usually in high school, they're like, 17, 18, going into college, and they're trying to finally discovering their sexuality, which I feel like is unfair, because with social media and what Amy and her friends are going through, when you're seeing portrayals of female sexuality and oversexualization of the female body at such a young age, you just unintentionally start to think about your sexuality and your own body from that age.

VICTORIA: Yeah, I guess the question is it bad that girls are becoming more sexually aware younger because of social media?

LAMI: Well, let's look at it from the other perspective. If you have a young boy discovering his sexuality, at the age of like, 11 to 13, we think of it as normal. There's so many depictions of that in coming of age film.

VICTORIA: One that comes to mind is mid90s, which is on Amazon Prime. And in it, the main character, who is 13, is shown in his boxers with a girl who is also only in her underwear. Later, he describes their sexual encounter to his friends in, I’ll just call it explicit detail. And then further, at the time of filming, the lead actor was only 11, and the woman in the sex scene with him was 22. So where was the backlash when this came out? Why didn’t anyone cancel their Prime subscription? I think the director had every good intention in the world. But I think the problem is that, yes, while you can make a piece of art with all of these good intentions, you don't know how the result is going to be perceived by the world, and you don't know what the actual impact of your film is going to be. And I think the problem that a lot of people have with it is whether people are going to use this as, like, pedophilic material. I think she ends up unintentionally exploiting these young actresses.

LAMI: If you make a film depicting a clearly very controversial and very hard topic to depict, directors and writers shouldn't have to take into account the feelings of pedophiles and rapists. Like do we not include a rape scene, just because a rapist might find it sexually rewarding?

VICTORIA: I guess the problem is like when you're doing a rape scene, the person isn't getting raped. Right? It's consensual.

LAMI: But she's unintentionally sexualizing, portraying these child actors in a sexual light.

VICTORIA: Yeah.

LAMI: Which is something they didn't ask for.

VICTORIA: Yeah. I wonder, though, if the backlash to this film will scare people away from this topic. Like if the thought now of talking about young girls and their sexuality will become taboo.

LAMI: But also I feel like future directors can take away a lot from this controversy and this discussion. Whether it's casting older actresses to portray a younger role, or just like framing the story in a different way. So I think it really brings up questions on how you tell these stories, because obviously these stories are very important to tell, especially surrounding issues like pedophilia, which is kind of clouded in a way. So how do you tell these stories in a way that doesn't exploit or sensationalize the issues?

VICTORIA: I think that is kind of the main point to take away from not only this film, but this whole controversy. She has a good story to tell, this is an important message to talk about.

LAMI: In a way it's her story.

VICTORIA: And it’s also every little girl’s story in this society about the way that social media shapes who you are as a person, the way your culture shapes your concept of womanhood. But it's so marred by the controversy.

LAMI: Also I think, it's hard to pinpoint what the actual impact of the film is right now, because there are so many films throughout history that were thought of as very controversial, temporarily. And then in like, a couple of years, people were like, Oh, my God, this sends such a strong message. And I think that might be the case for this film.

LAMI: This episode was produced by me, Lami Zhang, and Victoria Benefield, for NBN Audio. Thanks for listening!

Graphic by Lami Zhang and Victoria Benefield

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[“Coffee” Theme by Cambo]

Gabriel Firmo: Alright, so welcome back to State of the Arts, a podcast by two idiots on NBN. My name is Gabriel Firmo.

Lucas Bezerra: And I'm Lucas Bezerra. And Happy 2020!

Gabriel: Yeah, welcome back. It was surprisingly quick, the break.

Lucas: It was extremely quick. Well, the break was quick, but traveling back was not. I think you took a direct flight from Brazil.

Gabriel: Yes, it is the worst.

Lucas: I did not. It's not the worst for you. I mean, jumping around on airplanes wasn't fun. But we're back. We're here recording our third episode of State of the Arts.

Gabriel: Yeah. And so what is the...? We have a pretty traditional question to start the year?

Lucas: Yeah I mean, I figured we'd just do a little recap of 2019 and our favorite arts-related thing that we did. It could be like, one in Northwestern, one out of Northwestern.

Gabriel: That we did or that we consumed?

Lucas: That we did, that we consumed, I guess is a better way to put it. That we saw, experienced.

Gabriel: Okay, okay, that makes more sense. Yeah. Do you have one like right off the bat?

Lucas: I've got one for my Northwestern.

Gabriel: Okay, go for it!

Lucas: It isn't really at Northwestern. But yeah, it was during my time here; as soon as I got here, basically. So the MCA last year had a Virgil Abloh Expo. And that Expo was really cool. It really showed like his sort of vision of what design and what art is, and he's got a lot of--

Gabriel: That was out here at Northwestern?

Lucas: No, that was in the MCA, like in Chicago.

Gabriel: Oh, okay. Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah,

Lucas: But it was while I was here, I guess this could be my not Northwestern.

Gabriel: I mean, I guess that kind of counts for it? There's no hard and fast rule.

Lucas: No, but I kind of want to showcase something from Northwestern.

Gabriel: Okay, sure.

Lucas: So let's leave that as my not Northwestern-related.

Gabriel: Yeah. This year I went to--so Giovana, my girlfriend, she surprised me with tickets to Next to Normal, which is my favorite musical of all time.

Lucas: Just to be clear, not Next to Normal at Northwestern.

Gabriel: No, no--That was also amazing.

Lucas: That was really good.

Gabriel: But there was one that was playing in a nearby town. And I was surprised with tickets and we went, and it was like it brought me to tears on like two different, three different occasions. Just like throughout the runthrough. And that was just like crazy. I had never seen any of my favorite musicals live before and Next to Normal, it's just like so near and dear to me. So it was crazy good. Definitely highlight of my 2019. Next to Normal at Northwestern, also very good,

Lucas: Also very good, yeah.

Gabriel: But it would be kind of terrible if both of my highlights Northwestern and non-Northwestern were both Next to Normal.

Lucas: Yeah. Next to Normal was the first thing that I did here, arts-related. Well, that I went to. But I have to say maybe my highlight was going to--So our guest on the second episode, Joe, his band, another Northwestern-based band and a third Chicagoland group had a performance. They had a gig, North Side of Chicago. It was a little bit after we interviewed Joe. So, he told me about it, and I went, and both his band was great, but also the other Northwestern band. So I'm just gonna, I'm gonna shout them out again. So Joe's band is called Morning Dew and the other band is called Honey Butter. And they're both really good.

Gabriel: Damn, I really need to go to one of these.

Lucas: You really do.

Gabriel: I did not manage to go last quarter.

Lucas: It was a lot of fun. And it was full of Northwestern students and just good energy, you know?

Gabriel: Yeah, I mean, that sounds--I'm not a big concert person so I always get a little bit "eh," but for music on like the smaller scale where it's not the enormous super packed concerts I feel like it'd be more fun just in general. For my Northwestern thing, I think Dolphin Show 2019 was Hello Dolly. And I remember Hello Dolly being so extraordinary--and like both of mine are musical theatre.

Gabriel: Man, Hello Dolly was so good it made me want to write stuff again and sing again. I hadn't written in a good while, and I hadn't performed any music for a very long time because I had stopped taking classes when I came here. And I remember I came out of Hello Dolly and I turned to one of my friends and was like we need to start some project together because I am so inspired.

Lucas: Yeah.

Gabriel: Because, for a student musical that thing was--not even for student musical just completely even out of its context it would be one of the best shows I've ever seen. It was so, so, so, so good.

Gabriel: So actually our guest for this week, because we have a guest every week is Elynnor Sandefer. She is someone I'm super excited to interview. She's an old friend of mine at the school, but also just kind of someone that I met tangentially through my creative writing classes. She was one of the most unique writers there. Like, there are a lot of very good writers at Northwestern, and for sure, Elynnor is one of them. But specifically, like her style and her choice of topics was always one thing that was just so out of left field that makes her a very, very unique writer, and she was actually one of the first people I suggested when we start with the show.

Lucas: Yeah, so I'm excited. I met her today, didn't really get a chance to talk to her that much. I’m excited for this.

Gabriel: Yeah. Let’s go to that now!

Gabriel: Ok so, we are here now with our guest, Elynnor.

Elynnor Sandefer: Hello!

Gabriel: Would you like to kinda introduce yourself, say what you do that’s artsy...

Lucas: Why do you think we asked you here, I guess?

Elynnor: I'm Elynnor, I put words together and make them do things. Optimistically, good things. I'm here because Gabriel has had some writing classes with me and thinks that my work is weird.

Gabriel: Yeah. I think it's good, also. Like, disclaimer.

Elynnor: That can be the same thing.

Gabriel: But very weird.

Elynnor: Yeah. Thank you.

Gabriel: Like, that is...I mean, we'll get into that in a bit. I think like the standard first question that we ask everyone here, which is that like, necessarily, if you're doing art on a university campus, like you're pre-validation, essentially, like you're not getting any external validation most of the time. Especially for writers more than any other profession. So, with that in mind, why do you do it? Like when no one is in your corner, why do you still do it?

Elynnor: Well, the work that I do is mostly writing. And for me, a lot of that starts with journaling. So I do it for my own brain before anybody else's brain. And in that sense, validation has never been that significant. Okay, that sounds wrong. It sounds like I don't take criticism. But everything I make is usually first for myself, which I find works for me. When I write things it is because I'm driven there by some kind of personal urgency. So to that extent, I don't really care if other people want to read it. I also haven't started trying to publish yet so that may change, will change, definitely will change.

Gabriel: Okay. Yeah.

Lucas: Yeah. I mean it from what I've heard about you and what you write... When I met you today, I mean, you asked me about my opinion on melons?

Elynnor: I sure did.

Lucas: And I've heard that you wrote an essay on whether boba is a soup.

Elynnor: I sure did.

Lucas: So you've got a wide range of topics, although they do seem to revolve around food somehow.

Elynnor: Yeah, that's been pointed out to me. I don't know what to make of that. I don't eat that much.

Lucas: So I guess like, where does the inspiration for this kind of stuff come from? Like, what are you trying...Where does it, how does it work in your brain? I guess.

Elynnor: Um, well, I have a tendency to hyper fixate on things, often objects. So the cereal being soup is something I fixated on for a while last year. Melons are something I just find personally interesting right now because people don't seem to think that they have strong opinions. But if you ask them for an opinion, they almost always have one. Except for when they don't know what a melon is...like some people.

Gabriel: Is that a call-out? I think that’s a call-out. ’Cause she asked me what a cantaloupe was, and I was just like, I blanked on it. I only know fruit names in Portuguese.

Lucas: Not gonna lie, same. I mean, she asked me specifically about cantaloupes and I... No images came to mind. So...

Gabriel: But like, I have read a little bit of your stuff, and so this is a really interesting thing is that you talk about these hyper fixations, which are some kind of like oddball ideas, but you do take them somewhere, right? You're not just writing about melons or just writing about, "Is boba a soup or is cereal a soup?" You do something in the nature of all nonfiction, which is something more profound out of like kind of surrealist or just kind of out of nowhere topics. So, what is exactly that process like? Because at least from my perspective, I also do a fair bit of writing and a lot of your topics I can't even really imagine inroads into that range, you know?

Elynnor: Well, for cantaloupe, it was that my roommate was cutting a cantaloupe, and I realized I had forgotten about fruit, and I just hadn't eaten fruit in a long time. I started getting worried about scurvy because like citrus or something. But I don't know, I was watching her cut a cantaloupe. And it occurred to me that it just, I don't know, it would never occur to me to buy a cantaloupe. And I thought that was really interesting, because they've been a part of my life for a long time. They have them in dining halls, they're terrible in the dining halls and just generally average. So I use them in an essay I was already writing at the time as just like a joke about the realm of averageness. But yeah, I don't really know what the cantaloupes mean, except for maybe the fact that there are objects that are in everyone's life that no one really notices, but we care about...

Elynnor: What do you think literature is?

Gabriel: Oh God, you can’t drop that on me. This actually came up in one of my classes recently with a teacher who asked I think that exact question. And they disregarded genre fiction out of hand. So horror, sci-fi...

Elynnor: That's not literature?

Gabriel: That sort of stuff.

Elynnor: That's a...yikes. That's a hot take.

Gabriel: I think they were doing it like as a sort of, like, “Oh, it's the beginning of class and I'm going to do this to spur discussion.” Because it doesn't seem like that's their opinion, necessarily. But I was immediately as a genre fiction fan, like, "Ahh." Because fantasy is generally considered not literature.

Elynnor: Okay, but I've read amazing works of literature that are fantasy in nature, and I'm angry at this person whose name I don't know.

Gabriel: But so you are just like, "Anything is literature".

Elynnor: Well, I think that art more broadly speaking is anything whose existence is conditional upon a very particular arrangement of human choice. And I think that, within that it's very difficult to differentiate between different kinds of art. Like if you've read the poem “38” by Layli Long Soldier, this is not in that book I mentioned earlier, but it's a great poem that you should read. And in it, she is referring to a specific action/event as a poem, and that is like one of her main claims. And I think that there's a lot of power in that and saying that, well, I guess in naming what you're making or naming something, something other than it is.

Gabriel: Yeah, I guess it becomes just, if it's intentional, it's art that sort of almost, that level of simplification. Which I would get, like, crucified by some of my philosophy teachers for that, but I think that is a pretty good...I mean, you're the philosophy major.

Lucas: I mean, it's almost in the like, I think of the “this is not a pipe” painting.

Elynnor: Ah yes, The Fault in Our Stars.

Lucas: I'm not sure... Yeah, I mean, it's just this sort of idea that the objects and the things that we conceive of as being what they are...

Gabriel: Are totally a construction?

Lucas: Yeah.

Gabriel: So you can just say anything is anything.

Lucas: I wouldn't go... I wouldn't say that.

Lucas: But that's an idea. I guess.

Elynnor: Sometimes it's fun to.

Lucas: Sometimes it’s fun to.

Gabriel: I mean, in that case, then I'll just say boba is soup.

Elynnor: It obviously is!

Lucas: I mean, she walked in here and called this podcast art.

Gabriel: Yeah. That was, that was quite surprising.

Elynnor: To be fair, I have not listened to it. No offense, I'm sure it's great. I just didn’t know about it.

Lucas: Yeah, I think we're running out of time. We always end our episodes by asking our guests to plug something on campus that they are excited for related to the arts. Could be anything, I guess. So tell us what you're thinking.

Elynnor: Well, I'm not involved with any publications or performance groups or anything like that, but my roommate and best friend is on the staff of Helicon, which is a literary and arts magazine. And you should submit to that because they want you to submit to that.

Gabriel: I've read a good deal of Helicon, occasionally. I always forget about Helicon. And then I just, their book comes out, and I'll just see it around and be like "Oh!" I'll flip through it. It's really cool, what people do.

Lucas: I've never heard of it.

Gabriel: You should! There's very avant garde stuff in Helicon which is fun.

Elynnor: If you're a visual artist, especially, you should submit to Helicon because I think visual artists forget about it. Because I think it's mainly marketed to writers.

Lucas: Interesting.

Elynnor: Yeah.

Lucas: I like that.

Gabriel: Yeah. Well...

Elynnor: They publish anything. There's like a digital game thing on their website.

Gabriel: Yeah. And their physical copies should be coming around soon, because it's winter, right?

Elynnor: Yeah.

Gabriel: Yeah. So it'll be up soon. That's really cool. Thank you for coming by. Thanks for talking to us.

Elynnor: You're welcome. I hate talking to you.

Gabriel: For listeners, thanks for listening and hopefully join us in two weeks. If we can manage to edit this in our regular time frame, and we'll be back with another guest and another question as per usual, so anything left to say Lucas?

Lucas: No, thanks for listening. We'll see you in two weeks. All right.

Elynnor: Google images of hairless cats!

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