Wednesday 8th October 2025
Blog Page 362

Why we should all get a tattoo (or stop hating on those that do)

Renee Reid
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Why we should all get a tattoo (or stop hating on those that do)

In a city where every other person walking down the street is clad in either a Barbour jacket or an overcoat, and seems to regularly frequent dinner parties and wine-tastings, Oxford does not always appear to be the right place for tattoos.

The University of Oxford boasts the title of oldest English-speaking university and has hosted some of the world’s most respected personalities — we’ve all proudly recited their names before: C.S. Lewis, Stephen Hawking, Emma Watson, and Hugh Grant for all the fangirls out there. Yet surprisingly, for an establishment steeped in tradition, this 5000-year-old practice of tattooing (the Wellcome Collection suggests it might even be longer) is one long-standing tradition that has not been so readily accepted.

Hailing from the Bronze-Age, Ötzi the Iceman is said to be the oldest example of humans with tattoos. Now, tattoos can be found all over the world, throughout countless different cultures; depending on the country, they may signify anything from tribal identity to religious belief, but most importantly, they always reflect something personal.

So with their eclectic history, why haven’t tattoos made the cut? Our current student body is in the midst of great change – we are challenging expectations and destabilising traditions, flaunting our freshest and funkiest image of academia yet, and still, tattoos remain the subject of stigma and awkwardness. (My guess is that long ago we adopted the opinion of our beloved Greeks and Romans who associated the art with barbarism and this attitude has stuck since then). We’ve all been subjected to the agony of an awful tattoo reveal: the classic strained smile, lips pursed together, the words ‘nice!’ and ‘interesting…’ floating around the room. Yes, it can be painfully awkward.

The tattoo industry has been heavily misrepresented by three common myths that fervent critics, or perhaps just people who are deathly afraid of commitment, have made it their duty to disseminate. And while I will readily admit that I once fell into the former group (or potentially the latter…), I can confirm that, since admiring the tattoos of my amazingly intelligent and sensible friends, I no longer subscribe to that school of thought, and have instead decided to commit myself to claiming a space for tattoos in this prestigious institution.

Myth number one: “Tattoos are dangerous.” A common argument employed by anyone who isn’t too well acquainted with the practice or is perhaps only familiar with its black-market cousin (DIY hand-pokers, I’m talking to you). It’s also probably the most inaccurate of the three. If you do your research carefully and choose a legitimate artist with genuine reviews, there will absolutely be legislations in place to ensure the safety of staff and clients. What’s more – an increasing number studios are committed to using vegan and non-toxic inks making their practices even safer for the body. And above all, it is most important that you voice your concerns if something seems a little dodgy – don’t be scared to leave and go somewhere else if you don’t feel comfortable!  

But seriously, my main question is: what is so different about tattoos and body piercings? After all, they are both permanent, both intrusive – just in different manners. The same risks even apply: scarring, infections, allergic reactions, etc. Yet for some reason, when these complications are related to piercings, they are risks worth taking. Tattoos on the other hand? Often deemed not worth it. If I think about it carefully, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard more horror stories about my friends’ piercings than I have tattoos, even when they are done in reputable studios.  

Myth number two, a grandmother’s special and possibly my favourite: “Tattoos are meaningless, unprofessional and—dare I say—impulsive.” Admittedly, those infamous tales of people drunkenly surrendering their bodies to street tattoo artists in Mallorca would seem to be perfect examples of this (thanks Tattoo Fixers). However, let’s focus on the people who decide to get tattooed with fully informed consent. In these circumstances, it’s safe to say that tattoos are a form of art. And as we all know, art (as well as taste!) is relative, and body art is no exception to this rule – so who’s to decide which piece of art possesses meaning and what doesn’t? Surely we’re allowed to express ourselves in whichever way seems most appropriate without it negatively impacting the way we are perceived? Plus, the very experience of getting tattooed is undoubtedly memorable and is bound to hold meaning whether that be positive or negative!

Myth number three: “They look horrible when you get old.” An oldie but goldie. This one might well be true, but it is irrelevant. The point of a tattoo is not purely aesthetic longevity but rather that it is a form of self-expression – more specifically, a permanent one. Of course, it is inevitable that a tattoo will fade or become disfigured, but there will always be a memory attached to that precious site of inkage. Our bodies are canvases to be adorned with the things that best express who we are, and tattoos are an entirely valid way of fulfilling the body’s artistic potential – consider it an honour to have your body be the coffer of a piece of art that will last forever.

There is definitely pressure to conform to traditional stereotypes and mould yourself into a replica of the classic Oxford student – television representations would definitely suggest so (Riot Club anyone?) – but alas, let us remember the potent words of our French 19th century predecessors: art for art’s sake.

No, I am not encouraging you to spontaneously go and get your college motto tattooed on your body somewhere (I cannot confirm nor deny whether I have considered this before) but I am saying respect the art, it’s nowhere near as bad as you think!

Image credit: Alexander Kuzovlev via Wikimedia Commons.

Portrayals of Royalty: Film vs Reality

J Daniels
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Portrayals of Royalty: Film vs Reality

It has always amused people to produce performances centring on the lives of their rulers – our most famous entertainer, William Shakespeare, wrote ten plays dramatizing the life and exploits of British monarchs, though not in quite the same way as Peter Morgan (writer of many films about Kings and Queens, including The Other Boleyn Girl, King Ralph, The Queen, Henry VIII, The Crown and Bohemian Rhapsody). Some productions inspired by royal deeds and persons, like A Royal Night Out go straight for comedy and largely ignore any questions of accuracy or veracity – but more present themselves as revealing the secret inner lives and characters of famous figures. Do these portrayals serve to humanise or exotify their royal subjects?

The answer is both, always both.

Dramatize is the key word in most film and television portrayals of royal persons. Certain Lifetime films notwithstanding, the real problem is that most of these dramas approach royalty with a sense of reverence and delicacy which at times dates and always raises the subjects of the production above their audience. The 1998 film Elizabeth and its 2007 sequel, both starring Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I, are a famous example of productions playing fast-and-loose with historical fact but still somehow hoping to give an ‘authentic’ depiction of the Royal, or tell the ‘untold story’ – but as is inevitable with portrayals of famous figures about whom we have little or unsubstantiated information, the character will only ever be some combination of the writer, actor and director’s impression of the real person. Suggesting that any historical drama can reveal the ‘true nature’ or a ‘hidden side’ to its real-life inspirations is a fallacy, and an arrogant one at that. This line is somewhat blurred when it comes to more recent figures, as there is usually a far greater wealth of resources available from which to piece together the person behind the persona – but this is less true in the case of the Royal family, who remain notoriously tight-lipped regarding private matters.

Attempts are rarely even made at a true biopic of Royalty. Most productions seem to get swept up in the grandeur of their own sets and costuming – and often overly grandiose acting, akin to that of the overly reverent Shakespearean actor who is fan first and actor second – and thus fail at any attempt to truly humanise their characters, and instead make them seem even less real and relatable. Films adapted from Nicholas Sparks novels are rarely truly relatable to audiences, and when you throw in palace backdrops and headpieces dripping in jewels, the divide is widened. It is the creations which embrace the absurdity of their subject matter that, in my opinion, are the most successful. In Diana (2013), Naomi Watts symbolically kicks off her heels when alone to walk across the carpet barefoot, but the unnecessary focus of the shot turns this into a moment reminding the audience how separate they are from the character on the screen – removing your shoes when home is not something so remarkable for most people. Contrastingly, The King’s Speech and The Favourite (both of which earned numerous awards including the Oscar for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively) embrace a weird playfulness and become more human through their humorous touches. The use of the fisheye lens in The Favourite further accentuates that truth that audience and creators all know: that the reality in this film is not one even remotely imaginable for most people. However, in accepting this, the film actually becomes much more accessible than most depictions of Royals – as does its refusal to shy away from the crude, with Emma Stone’s character arriving at the Royal residence spattered with mud after suffering a carriage ride sat opposite a man smiling at her while touching himself.

It would be impossible to discuss portrayals of royals in film and television without mentioning Netflix’s The Crown. In season 1 the late Prince Philip was shown savvily pushing for Elizabeth’s coronation to be televised to try and increase the monarchy’s popularity and make the public feel a more emotional connection to it. Yet the royals today either can’t or won’t acknowledge that The Crown has actually continued this work, cementing the image of the ineffectual, harmless Queen who lacks any real power, thus making her harder to criticise, and also distracting the public from current scandals (the Prince Andrew interview) by returning its sympathies to older upsets, such as the tragedy of Princess Diana. Marketed in the customary manner as something that would lift the veil and reveal the real people under the jewels and silver spoon accents – one of the promotional videos for the first season showed a pair of doors opening to reveal the characters caught in a ‘candid’ moment before they resume their public faces for a picture to be taken – The Crown has received both praise and reprimands regarding its faithfulness, or not, to reality. In its familiar, misbegotten quest for ‘authenticity’, The Crown has not quite lifted the veil but rather showed us how intricate it appears from the other side. Just like everyone else, these plummy-voiced people can also suffer from heartbreak and jealousy and being the side-lined sibling; unlike everyone else, most of their problems are rooted in their restrictive roles as royals. It is audacious, to say the least, that a group of people whose biggest problems are portrayed as a result of their being trapped at the very top of Britain’s rigid class structure are still expected to garner sympathy among an audience largely made of those trapped in the lower echelons.

Yet the sympathy is there – and for Princess Diana, especially after The Crown’s fourth season, is there in buckets. There is no possibility of a complete normalisation of the Royals simply because of the absurd and immoral reality of the monarchy, but productions like The Crown have still achieved that dual effect of both humanising and further exotifying the royals – and this is the best result any production tackling royalty with the aim of showing their vulnerable side can hope for.

Image credit: U.S. Embassy London via Flickr

The return of fans to football matches: a big win for supporters and teams alike?

Caitlin Murray
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The return of fans to football matches: a big win for supporters and teams alike?

Love it or hate it, artificial crowd noise has become a staple of televised British football since ‘Project Restart’ kicked-off back in Summer 2020. It has polarised football fans, broadcasters, players and managers alike. For Bristol City manager Nigel Pearson, it “got on his nerves” so much he ordered it to be turned off at Ashton Gate for their recent fixture against Nottingham Forest in the Championship. Whereas, if you’re anything like me, you may have become so accustomed to the ‘fake’ crowd noise that you don’t even notice it anymore. Either way, the days of listening to artificial crowd noise appear to be numbered, with the return of fans to football grounds pencilled in for this summer. The first of the pilot events is scheduled for the FA Cup semi-final between Leicester and Southampton on Sunday 18th April 2021 where 4,000 local residents will be allowed to attend the game. If this pilot event, alongside others including the Carabao Cup Final and FA Cup Final at Wembley are successful, “up to 10,000 people or 25% of total seated capacity, whichever is lower” will be allowed in stadiums for sporting events from the 17th May.

Without fans in the stadiums, some may argue their team has lost their home advantage. Statistics would support that claim, with the probability of the home team in a Premier League fixture losing rising by 4% since fans have been unable to attend games. The particular losers from playing behind-closed-doors include Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield United and Brighton. Specifically, the Premier League holders, Liverpool, have uncharacteristically only managed to score three goals at Anfield in 2021, and have dropped 20% more points without fans in the stadium compared to pre-pandemic. On the other hand, teams like West Ham have thrived without fans transforming from a team fighting to stay in the division at all, to challenging for a Champions league place. A pertinent question, which only time will tell, is whether the return of fans will restore the ‘home advantage’ back to pre-pandemic normality, or the loss of ‘home advantage’ will be a part of the ‘new-normal’ for footballers and fans alike.

Should the pilot events be successful, it is likely that the clash between Newcastle and Fulham, on the final day of the season with both teams fighting to remain in the division, will be played in front of 10,000 Fulham supporters. I am almost certain Fulham will welcome this home advantage, whilst Newcastle will highlight the unfairness of a fixture of this magnitude being played without representation of their supporters. Whilst we are all eager to return to watching our beloved teams in person, fixtures such as these raise the question of whether it is fair to have fans return at such a crucial point in the season when so much is at stake.

Another factor to consider is how the players themselves will respond. It has been more than a calendar year since games began being played behind-closed-doors, and much like fans have become used to hearing artificial crowd noise, I imagine some players have also become accustomed to playing to empty stadiums. Many Premier League players have referenced the importance of fans and how much they have been missed during this period; therefore, I am sure players cannot wait for the return of the ‘12th-man’ to stadiums very soon.

For teams under particular pressure, however, will fans returning in time for the end of the Premier League season be a positive force or will it just increase the burden on managers already under heavy scrutiny? Put differently, have some Premier League managers and players had it ‘too easy’ without fans being able to visibly show their reactions to games and performances? As much as fans are the ‘12th-man’ and can offer support and encouragement at crucial points in games, they also make their feelings very clear when they feel their teams aren’t performing. With many Newcastle fans venting their frustration towards both their owner Mike Ashley and manager Steve Bruce on social media, it will be interesting to see how the return of supporters to St James’ Park unfolds in the near future. Likewise, would Liverpool supporters have been sympathetic of their teams drop in form this season, particularly at home, had they been present at Anfield?

With only three managerial casualties this season, it is not unreasonable to suggest that a lack of fans has kept a few managers in employment where club owners would have probably responded to fan pressure had their frustrations been highlighted at stadiums each weekend. Equally, you could argue that the lack of visible pressure from fans every week has allowed managers to focus on the job at hand rather than being distracted by speculation about their job status.

All in all, the pandemic and subsequent empty stadiums have highlighted the importance of fans. There remain a number of question marks surrounding how players, managers and fans alike will respond to the return of spectators at football matches, but I suppose the vast majority of fans cannot wait for the day they can finally walk through the turnstiles again and cheer on their team, albeit with a face mask on. Only time will tell whether such a return will benefit the ‘Big six’ the most, or whether the return of supporters will offer huge boosts to the smaller teams in the Premier League. One thing is for sure, given that the first of three pilot events is to be played imminently at Wembley Stadium, I am sure millions of football fans in the UK, eager to return to watch their beloved teams in action will be watching the games extra-closely, if not with a slight hint of jealously towards the lucky few able to return early.

Image credit: Steffen Prößdorf via BuliNews (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Oxford medics raise nearly £4000 for charity after running the height of Olympus Mons in 48 hours

Maurício Alencar
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Oxford medics raise nearly £4000 for charity after running the height of Olympus Mons in 48 hours

A team of Oxford medicine students from Tingewick have climbed a total of 22,862m, which is over the height of Olympus Mons, the largest planetary mountain in the solar system and twice and a half times the size of Mount Everest, by running up Headington Hill over the weekend. The group also ran a total of 758.89km, which is equivalent to the distance from Oxford to Frankfurt. As of the 19th of April, the group have raised a total of £3762 for Oxford Hospitals Charity and Calon Hearts. The group are still looking for extra donations.

Tingewick is a charity run by Oxford medicine students which hosts a range of fundraising events across the calendar year, leading up to an annual pantomime at Christmas for hospital patients, a tradition which has lasted 83 years. Tingewick has 29 members, and many of them have been volunteering and working in Oxford’s hospitals over the pandemic. The group “also always do a big physical challenge”, which has included cycles to Paris and the Oxford Half, as Meirian Evans, producer of Tingewick Firm, told Cherwell. Their donation target was initially £1000, and they hoped to run the height of Mount Everest, but the team members managed to stunningly surpass those targets by enormous amounts. As a result of last Christmas’s pantomime not happening and given current difficult circumstances in healthcare, Tingewick firm has sought to go the extra mile in fundraising.

The charities Tingewick and fundraising for this year are Oxford Hospitals Charity and Calon Hearts. Oxford Hospitals Charity supports NHS staff in Oxford working on the pandemic frontline through funding extra psychological support. The charity also funds specialist equipment for patients. Calon Hearts is a charity chosen in memory of Issie Mogg, a “much-loved and greatly missed friend and medical student of Oxford University” who unfortunately passed away suddenly of an undiagnosed heart condition in 2018. Calon Hearts is a charity which works to tackle heart disease in Wales by placing defibrillators in communities and delivering the training of CPR and defibrillation as well.

Runners in the event were rotated and given breaks across the 48 hours in order to give them time to “refuel on both food and sleep” and ran in pairs to keep motivation levels at a high. Most runner groups also ran in 3 or 4 hour time slots, with friends lining up along Headington in support of the run. Lucy Denly, one of the event’s organisers, told Cherwell prior to the event, that she was particularly nervous of “people missing alarms and failing to wake up for their 3am shifts”. The bar has been raised for next year’s physical challenge.

The group is always looking for donations from the student community and wider. You can visit their website for donations.

Image courtesy of Tingewick Firm.

Nanotechnology – Opportunity or Risk?

Alice Banfield
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Nanotechnology – Opportunity or Risk?

Nanotechnology is a rapidly evolving field of science involving creation at the nanoscale: the objects made measure between one and one hundred nanometres. For context, one nanometre is just one billionth of a metre, which is around one hundred thousand times smaller than the width of an average human hair. Nanotechnology was first envisioned by Professor Richard Feynman in his 1959 lecture, ‘There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom’, but the term was coined in 1974 by Professor Norio Taniguchi, who used it to discuss the ability to design materials at the nanoscale.

There are some naturally occurring nanomaterials (e.g. in sand and volcanic ash) as well as nanostructures that can be found in many living organisms. For instance, there are some bacteria which can synthesise magnetic iron nano-minerals that help them to navigate using the Earth’s geomagnetic field. Scientists also have the ability to create nanostructures themselves by rearranging atoms within an object or binding atoms which have not been previously bound. Sometimes, unusual physical, chemical and biological properties will appear in materials at the nanoscale which are not ordinarily seen.

The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering suggest that there are two main reasons why materials at the nanoscale often display different properties; the first of these is due to the larger surface area, which leads to the substance being more chemically reactive. Nanomaterials may also display quantum effects and the electronic, magnetic and optical behaviour of the material may then differ – this allows new, useful materials to be constructed. For example, materials may be manufactured so that they have a very high strength to weight ratios, high solubility or high conductivity, to suit their desired applications.

There are numerous nanomaterials with a plethora of varied properties, and so they are able to be used in practically all fields; nanosilver has antibacterial properties and is used in equipment like chopping boards, while carbon nanotubes can be added to the frames of tennis racquets to stiffen them and increase power when striking the ball. Zinc oxide particles provide great UVA protection and are used in sun creams, while titanium dioxide nanoparticles conduct electricity and are used to make anti-static clothing items. Although many of the aforementioned products may be considered mundane, these examples clearly illustrate the versatility of nanostructures, and the practical application of such in our everyday lives.

There are many other arguably more significant areas in which nanotechnology can have an impact; nanoparticles are often used in the medical field, as they have an important role in drug delivery. Nanoparticles can act either as the drug itself, or as the carrier. There are many challenges surrounding the use of large sized materials in medicine, such as poor solubility and poor absorption, but nanoparticles are able to move much more freely in the human body compared to these bigger materials and so are often much more useful.

Nanostructures can be used as delivery agents by encapsulating drugs which can then be delivered precisely to infected cells or tissues. Particles can be engineered so that they are attracted to diseased cells only, which reduces damage to healthy cells and has been shown to be much more effective than non-targeted delivery. The size of these nanoparticles also means that they have the potential to cross cell membranes like the blood-brain barrier. Other uses of nanotechnology in medicine include the use of nano-robots to make repairs to damaged cells, and the use of gold nanoparticles to sterilise surgical equipment.

Clearly, nanotechnology is very important and practical, both in everyday life and within medicine, but there is still so much opportunity for growth. Improvements in our understanding of nanotechnology may lead to many more sophisticated developments in multiple fields like medicine, cosmetics, clothing and home appliances in the future.

Despite the amazing things the application of nanotechnology has achieved, there are still lots of concerns and uncertainties surrounding the use of nanoparticles. There are many potential risks and researchers are concerned that some nanoparticles could be toxic. Many nanomaterials are possibly dangerous, but there is a great degree of uncertainty as some of these materials, which are not very harmful by themselves, could be toxic if inhaled in the form of nanoparticles. Many scientists worry that we may have an asbestos type issue on our hands. Asbestos was widely used in the late 19th and 20th centuries for its useful insulating and fireproofing properties, but is now known to be lethal. There are some physical similarities between asbestos fibres and carbon nanotubes, which has led to scepticism.

Recent tests carried out by the Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit in Leicester also showed the nanotubes having a carcinogenic effect on mice. While this is only evidence of the malfunction of one particular nanoparticle, many others could have similar issues which have simply not been discovered yet.

Although the size of nanoparticles is advantageous in certain aspects, their size is also seen as a drawback due to their ability to cross cell membranes. Nanoparticles can travel through the body to reach the blood and key organs like the brain, liver and heart, and although this is useful in drug delivery to normally inaccessible areas, the particles have been shown to cause issues such as lung inflammation and heart problems. In a study published in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology, Chinese researchers discovered that a class of nanoparticles being widely developed in medicine (PA-MAMs) can cause lung damage by triggering a type of programmed cell death. Evidently there are certain dangers involved with nanotechnology – the question is whether these can be overcome.

Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionise the way in which we live, as long as we can determine which nanomaterials are safe to use through the use of regulatory mechanisms and safety assessments. The National Cancer Institute in the US has said that it is likely that most nanomaterials will prove to be completely harmless, but in order to reach a point where we can safely and confidently expand the use of nanomaterials into the production of more consumer goods, we must carry out further research. Currently, there is insufficient knowledge and data pertaining to the detection of nanoparticles, their behaviour and their characteristics. In particular, the long-term effects of exposure to these nanoparticles must be investigated in much more depth.

The complexities behind nanotechnology are making development more difficult; however, its future does seem to be promising.

Image credit: Health Sciences and Nutrition, CSIRO via Wikimedia Commons

Drawn to Nature: Flies

Tom Leslie
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Drawn to Nature: Flies

Animals come in many shapes and sizes, none more so than flies. There are flies that mimic other species, flies with incredible iridescent bodies, and even some species that cannot fly at all. I had the pleasure of being introduced to quite a few of these little creatures at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History’s online event: ‘Drawn to Nature: Flies’. This was part of a series of online events delivered by the museum, in which guests are invited to draw some of the specimens whilst listening to an expert’s presentation on what makes them special.

Leading us through the fascinating world of flies was Zoe Simmons, Head of Life Collections at the museum, who is specifically responsible for the museum’s fly collection. Zoe started us off by asking how we might define what a fly is, or at least what it isn’t. Flies, she begins, belong to the phylum euarthropoda, an extremely diverse grouping of organisms, which includes insects, arachnids, and crustaceans. Due to their diversity, arthropods can be hard to classify; however, as Zoe points out, you could do worse than looking for things that are small-ish, crunchy-ish, and quick-ish. These are all qualified terms, because as we will find out, in the case of flies and other arthropods, rules are often made to be broken.

Tom’s illustration from the event.

Flies themselves have a fairly distinct morphology. They have three segments: the head, the abdomen and the thorax. Aside from this common geography, their bodies can be squat and rotund, like the common bluebottle, or long and lean, like a mosquito. Another common feature of flies is their two wings, for which they are named diptera (literally two-winged). Here you also see a lot of variety, with transparent, veinated wings on such species as the fruit fly, or beautiful patterned wings, such as on the liberally-named notch-horned cleg.

When you get up close to these little marvels, you can see a great number of features that might not have been immediately apparent. As Zoe took us through the collection we saw that most flies have small antenna, and their legs are generally structured in the same way, with two long segments and five smaller ones, called tarsi. Some flies are covered with hair, with some of the hairiest being bee-flies, such as Bombylius major. These bumble-bee mimics definitely skew toward the cuter end of the spectrum, but other fuzz-balls can be quite terrifying to look at. One such creepy customer is the aptly named ‘terribly hairy fly’, which has such tiny wings that it can’t get off the ground, and consequently resembles a kind of spider. Moving along in the presentation we encounter some even more bizarre denizens of the world of diptera, with the stalk-eyed fly and antler fly being amongst the strangest. These winged weirdos have highly specialised features on their heads; the stalk-eyed fly looks like a cross between a hammer-head shark and a patron of the Mos-Eisley cantina, whilst the antler fly wouldn’t look out of place mounted on the wall of a tiny hunting lodge!

Image Credits: Hauke Koch and Richard Bartz via Wikimedia Commons

Taking the time to draw these strange creatures allows one to see the beauty in the oddness. Zoe ends her talk with a nod to the contribution flies make to the food chain, as prey to birds and small rodents, and as major pollinators. It just goes to show that, no matter how small, and no matter how odd, it pays to be thankful for the little things.

The natural history museum will continue to put on events both in and out of lockdown, providing interesting activities and learning opportunities for all. Find out more at: https://oumnh.ox.ac.uk/events#/

The full talk is available as a recording on the OUMNH YouTube channel here. 

The Arab Spring: ten years on

Zoe Lambert
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The Arab Spring: ten years on

A decade ago, the Arab Spring shook the Arab World. Today, Syria, Libya and Yemen remain embroiled in brutal civil wars while Egypt is under military autocracy. Thousands have been killed and millions have become refugees, extremists such as ISIS have seen a rise, and even Tunisia touted as a ‘success story’, is suffering from bureaucratic gridlock and facing dire economic hardship. 10 years from its start, it is time to examine the contents of this Pandora’s box; what caused it to be opened, and whether there remains any hope. 

Living in Morocco in 2011, months before the Arab Spring erupted there, I was painfully aware of the authoritarian grip and high level of corruption in the country. Police corruption was blatantly obvious, fabricating law infringements to collect fines and accepting bribes to turn a blind eye to numerous crimes. State welfare provision was severely limited, the education system a complete farce, and some village schools hadn’t seen a single teacher for a whole year. Public healthcare was limited to the cities, and even then, it was dismal. A third of all workers were unemployed with limited welfare benefits, meaning that many had to beg or take seasonal work in Europe to live. Similar and even worse patterns of corruption, authoritarianism and dire socio-economic conditions were common throughout North Africa and much of the Middle East. With such a combination of circumstances, it was only a matter of time before people stopped passively acquiescing to these conditions, and when they did, there would be a violent chain reaction throughout the Arab world.

On the 17th December 2010, the spark came following the self-immolation of a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, outside the Governor’s office in Sidi Bouzidi, Tunisia, in protest against government corruption, becoming the martyr figurehead of the Jasmine Revolution and igniting revolution across North Africa and the Middle East. Inspired by the apparent success in Tunisia, mass demonstrations and violent protests saw the overthrow of President Mubarak in Egypt, after 30 years of authoritarian rule. The call for “Freedom, justice and bread” echoed through Tahrir square, encapsulating the demands of the protestors across the Arab world. Dissent spread rapidly and protests erupted in Libya, Yemen and Syria, rapidly turning violent and undermining their authoritarian regimes.

While countries such as Morocco and Bahrain did see some unrest during the Arab Spring, this remained isolated to the cities, and even there did not attract the scale of support seen across Syria and Tunisia. Morocco was plagued with equally dire economic conditions, high unemployment rising oil and food prices, an ever-growing wealth inequality gap and high poverty rates. The state was hardly less autocratic, the King had absolute power and high levels of government corruption sparked mass outrage. How then did King Muhammad remain standing amid the toppling dictators?

In stark contrast to many of the Arab leaders, the Moroccan monarchy’s stability is anchored by its traditional integration into the culture. King Mohammad VI’s lineage can be traced back more than three centuries, causing his legitimacy to be unquestioned. Children pray for the monarch every morning in school and all houses have a photo of the king. The idea of usurping the monarch was and remains unfathomable. Whereas other authoritarian rulers had been politicians who expanded their own powers and created dictatorships, in Morocco, the monarch’s authoritarianism culturally embedded. This ensured that while there remains a high level of corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency, the institution of the monarchy remains highly integrated and thus much more stable. 

Further, while other dictators had been consolidating their own power and restricting the people, in Morocco the government had already been gradually introducing reforms to liberalise the country. In Egypt, Mubarak had ruled for 30 years, while in Libya Gadaffi had been in power for 43 years, and both had sought to implement reforms to secure their positions. Since his ascension, Muhammad VI had been gradually giving greater rights to women, increasing decentralisation and introduced an independent commission to handle claims of human rights violations. Both he and King Hamad of Bahrain had been gradually introducing reforms to turn their respective countries into constitutional monarchies. Rather than calling for a complete overthrow of the system as had been the case in many Arab countries, therefore, the people called for increased democratisation of the existing regime. As a consequence, protests were reformative in nature, ensuring the smooth transition of the Moroccan state to a constitutional monarchy and therefore preventing violent clashes and power struggles. 

In countries where the revolutions posed a real threat to the governments, there was a great disparity of outcomes. In Libya, the government repeatedly opened fire on unarmed civilians with live ammunition, or attacked protesters with warplanes and armed helicopters, while in Syria, Assad used chemical weapons, causing over 1,400 casualties. This power struggle and extensive use of force seem to be one of the main contributors to the deterioration into civil war. Taking advantage of the unrest, rebel groups and extremists rose to prominence, fragmenting the fighting, which then deteriorated into a brutal civil war that still rages on to this day. Greater success was achieved when the autocrats were overthrown with minimal struggle. Tunisia is heralded as the success story of the Arab Spring, having overthrown their President, Ben Ali, with a relative lack of force. They were then successful in implementing democracy, drafting a new constitution and holding free elections within the year. This decisive overthrow and quick imposition of a new government before divisions could turn into a civil war seem to be one of the major reasons for Tunisia’s success. The prolonged power struggle in the other Arab countries led to the fragmentation of the conflict and foreign intervention, obscuring the intention of the revolution and causing them to drag on. 

Conflicts were further exacerbated by protesters’ failure to recognise that while the removal of an authoritarian regime is the first step in democratisation, it is merely the precursor to a much greater struggle; implementing and ensuring maintained support for a stable democratic system. After the fall of any leader, let alone an authoritarian one, there is a power vacuum that requires strong and decisive leadership to fill. In the wake of the Arab Spring, such decisiveness was impossible. Authoritarians desperately defending their position of power, rival rebel groups, extremists and foreign intervention all exacerbated the conflict, convoluting it and preventing a smooth transition to new leadership. In Egypt, the power and decisiveness of the military meant that they could step in during the instability while implementing a new democracy, thereby crushing it and effectively reinstating a new authoritarian regime. Tunisia, however, had a rapid transition; overthrowing Ben Ali without prolonged struggle, in under a month, implementing an interim government almost immediately and holding free elections within a year. This rapid progression prevented growing unrest and reduced instability, therefore, ensuring that a smoother transition to democracy.

Technology played a vital role in the spread of dissent. In Libya, the revolutionary leaders set up satellite dishes and live-streamed messages throughout the country. Social media was used extensively to organise protests and publicise government atrocities, catalysing the revolutions. This was especially powerful due to severe levels of censorship and control of the media, allowing the scale of unrest to be recognised and messages of the protestors to spread rapidly. While this did have an impact within the country, internet access was limited, with only 65% of all Egyptians having access to social media. It was, however, essential in communicating the progression of the conflict to the outside world. Due to high levels of government control over the media, social media was the only accessible platform from which revolutionaries could freely relay the events of the conflict.

Foreign powers were severely detrimental to the course of the civil wars, convoluting the conflict and obscuring the aims. While many powers entered the wars on the grounds of combatting the atrocities enacted by the government, it has become increasingly clear this is not their sole motivation. In 2018, Trump removed all troops from Syria, leaving only a base near the large gas fields in northern Syria. In Libya, the highly contested oil fields at Al-Sharara remain the centre of the conflict. Control over the crude oil supply has a serious impact on the international oil market and hence on global economies, giving foreign powers significant incentive to interfere. 

Further, it allowed global powers to promote their national image and values by engaging in indirect conflict with one another. Foreign interference thus led to proxy wars being fought in Syria, Yemen and Libya allowing the US, Russia and other global powers to use existing conflicts as a ground to indirectly thrash out their differences. Supporting opposing sides allowed them to have a power struggle without coming into direct conflict. This has led to their own political agendas undermining the objectives of the war at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives. Thus, conflicts that were already convoluted, owing to fragmented rebel factions, were further complicated, causing them to drag on without a foreseeable solution. 

The legacy of the Arab Spring is devastating. In Libya, the last 10 years have seen massacres, abductions, Jihadist occupation – and for what? The country remains embroiled in civil war, with no clear leader and no constitution, making it the perfect climate for trafficking, smuggling and piracy. Massacres and abductions by Jihadist forces and airstrikes from foreign forces are commonplace. The economy has completely collapsed, resulting in high levels of unemployment, while the few who are employed are left without their salary due to major cash flow problems. Multiple attempts to maintain peace have all fallen through largely due to internal divisions among different factions within Libya, and the UN is currently intervening to instate an interim government.

In Yemen, crumbling supply chains and infrastructure along with brutal civil war led to the worst famine globally in a century, with the UN estimating that in 2016, almost three-quarters of the Yemeni population lacked potable water and sanitation and a half lacked food. Almost 16 million were on the brink of starvation, with children dying of preventable causes every 10 minutes. Since then, Egypt has remained under military rule with over 60,000 political prisoners and a debt of over 125 billion dollars. Voices of dissent are immediately silenced, leaving Egypt remaining an incredibly oppressive country, which ranked in 2020 as 117 out of 160 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, a clear demonstration that the demands made in Tahrir Square are far from being met. 

While in contrast the Tunisian revolution appeared initially successful, the parliament in Tunisia is characterised by inefficiency and stagnation, leading to high levels of dissatisfaction. Many now claim that the objectives of democratisation have not been met, causing them to support other more decisive and radical movements such as extremists, the military or even the previous regime. Despite this, Tunisia is considered by Freedom House as the only free country in the Arab world. While the state is unstable, however, it has already come a long way in achieving the aims of the revolution. There remains hope that if it can withstand current discontent, the regime can reform and strengthen.

Following 10 tumultuous years, it is hard to see any hope for these war-scarred countries. The deep-rooted divisions and dire economic conditions in the aftermath of severe civil wars and military rule are enough to make even a strong, established democracy shudder. Are these the birthing pains of democracy or merely the long drawn out stifling of anti-authoritarian insurgency? The Arab Spring is far from over; voices still call for “Freedom, justice and bread”. The tragic reality is that these voices are gradually being suffocated. With millions displaced throughout the world and hundreds of thousands dead, the cost is hardly justified by any gains that have been made. A decade after the start of the Arab Spring, countries find themselves in a far worse situation, with little hope of the longed-for democracy and losing the energy to keep fighting. 

Image Credit: Maghrebia via Flickr & Creative Commons (License: CC BY 2.0).

Precarity and prejudice: reflections from a Chinese student in Oxford

Flair Donglai SHI
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0
Precarity and prejudice: reflections from a Chinese student in Oxford

CW: Mentions of Racism.

I am a Chinese international student in Oxford, and I have been living in the UK since 2014. I have not been able to go home to see my family since the pandemic hit in early 2020. I delayed my graduation process as my studies had also been disrupted. The recent restrictions in international travel has made life particularly difficult for many of us international students. Despite my hope that staying put and waiting patiently would see things improve, China cancelled all direct flights to and from the UK in January 2021 due to the spread of the new variant here. As I am writing this short article in April 2021, there is still no sign of flights being arranged again. As I have never been this isolated in my life, I have had much time to reflect on my connections to the UK, and how my racial identity and way of thinking have influenced my life. Below is a personal encounter I recently had in Oxford. I hope that by sharing it with everyone, we can all be reminded that solidarity starts with very small actions and reflections. 

Today I gave money to a white homeless man for the first time in my life. When I first arrived in London, and then Oxford, I was not familiar with the conditions of the homeless here. To me, their life seemed less dire than that of the “real” homeless street beggars I used to see in the non-urban areas in China when I was young. I just couldn’t bring myself to give out pounds to these white people while I hardly even gave small change in yuan back in China. That was just part of the social reality I learned to live with in a desensitized way. Also, because the white people I saw and knew in China were all professors and international professionals, the idea that white people could be poor too really took some time to register with me after I came to this island, as ridiculous as that may sound. 

Tonight, I was really craving some fruit and decided to visit the local Tesco before it closed. I was the only customer at the time, and a young black man was on his last shift, busy arranging the goods on the shelves. I often saw him working at around this time and I felt bad that he always had to be the one doing the manual work until so late. All that people-of-colour-solidarity stuff I had been reading online was at the forefront of my mind when he smiled at me at the counter. As I was walking out of the supermarket with my bag of groceries, a homeless white man suddenly started to shout behind me and chasing me. 

Traumatised by all the news about racist crimes in the U.K. and the US recently, I was extremely scared, as there was hardly anyone on the street at the time. I almost started running away before he caught up with me and gave me the toothpaste that had dropped out from my bag without my knowledge. I thanked him, and, in a friendly manner, he asked whether I could offer him £5 pounds as he was very close to being able to get a bed for the night. I honestly replied that I paid with my phone and had no cash on me, and I asked him whether he would like some of the fruits I just bought. He politely declined and returned to the dark corner he was sitting in before. After I reached home, I started to feel extremely bad about the whole experience, of me being so scared without good reason, but also because of my prejudice against the homeless. I decided to go out again and took out some money for him from an ATM. Nothing much was said when I gave the money to him, and he seemed a bit surprised that this Asian guy returned just to give him the money. I don’t know. It’s really a strange feeling, a mixture of guilt, anger, and shared vulnerability. 

Racist crimes and homelessness are problems the government should deal with, and will not be solved by small actions like this. However, the money I gave out today did bring a little more peace to my tortured mind during these difficult times, if only just to appease my own sense of precarity and privilege. Black, yellow, or white, we were just three poor souls devoured by this dark night that seems to see no end of itself. This is how this world-famous British city feels like in the vast emptiness of spring 2021. The government says it will all go back to “normal” in the summer, by which I perhaps will have to leave the country already, with no clear prospects of ever returning. However, I will remember this episode of fear and guilt that night, before everything gets washed away in the banality of capitalistic hustle and bustle again.

Small actions are useful, but it is necessary to think big about the international politics that lie behind such racialized encounters. We all need to check our prejudice and racialized sentiments if we want to build cross-group solidarity in a global health crisis. 

Trump’s deliberate instigation of racism via highly incendiary terms like “China Virus” and “Kung Flu” has led to a surge of anti-Asian abuses and hate crimes in the US and in many other Western countries. However, there has been a lack of solidarity in many quarters of American society. Many Asian and Asian American communities continue to fail to see the danger of racializing another state with a new Cold War mentality. Immediately after Trump’s speeches, T-shirts with the words “I am not from China. I am X (American, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, from Hong Kong etc.)” appeared in online stores and even gained popularity in the US. Such racial or political distancing is essentially racist in itself and counter-productive in the fight against racism. Anti-Asian racism in the West has never been just an Asian American issue, or a China versus West issue, like Trump – or even Biden – would want us to believe. Such exclusive and narrow-minded views are operating with a fundamentally discriminatory logic, as if racism can simply be solved by educating these white supremacists to distinguish Asian Americans from Asians, Chinese from other Asians, mainland Chinese from the so-called “Sinophones” (other Chinese-speakers) or good, regular Chinese from CCP (Chinese Communist Party) members. It in effect encourages them to keep antagonising China as a Yellow Peril, whose very existence is thought to be detrimental to the US-centric international order.

As I have written elsewhere, anti-racist solidarity not only requires cross-racial alliance but also necessitates the sensitivity towards racialized aspects of international politics and the willingness to fully examine the positionality and implication of our critiques before we utter them. As a Chinese student in the West, I have found myself constantly caught in between the entanglement of racialized identities and international political battles. This in-betweenness may never disappear, but no matter what, we should always treat anti-racism as the common denominator of our different struggles, and remember that racists see no nationality, and nor should we when building our alliances. 

Image Credit: Kake via Flickr & Creative Commons (License: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

‘Blanched and pureed’: what does globalisation do to world music?

Coral Kim
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0
‘Blanched and pureed’: what does globalisation do to world music?

K-pop group BTS made pop music history with their explosive 2020 single, “Dynamite”. It became the first song by an all-Korean group to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Within Korea, Bangtan Sonyeondan (the name with which BTS is more known as domestically) cemented their place among the ranks of retired Olympian Kim Yuna and Tottenham footballer Son Heung-Min as breathing banners of national pride.

But how much good did “Dynamite” really do for Korean culture? Its lyrics are entirely in English. Both of its songwriters, David Stewart and Jessica Agombar, are British, which for some may diminish the significance of its global success. Is the hit single really a triumph of Korean music and the result of successful diversification of the globalised music industry? Or is it an omen of homogenised world music, blanched and pureed under Anglophone influence?

L’exception française is the French response to such questions. France has a history of protectionist cultural policy, which was pursued by the post-WWII culture minister André Malraux. This was contemporaneous with, if not caused by, Anglophobia in the 1950s and onwards (although fear of Anglo-American superiority existed as early as the late 19th century); in the 1960s, President Charles de Gaulle sought to target the Anglo-American as ‘both a historical and a contemporary geopolitical’ rival. It was under de Gaulle, of course, that Malraux was Minister of Cultural Affairs. In line with such history, for music ‘l’exception’ involves a legal minimum quota of French songs played on the radio. A 2013 Financial Times article largely defends the measures, arguing that it: ‘should be understood more positively: as safeguarding a niche for some French cultural products’. Today, eight years later, with world music more globalised than ever in our age of streaming, I doubt such a safeguard is necessary.

The old-world equation of globalisation with Americanisation, the invasion of the Harley-revving rock stars and NYC-dreaming songwriters, no longer holds. Variety’s 2019 article declares our age of Spotify as ‘a time where breaking in America is no longer the primary goal or the definitive sign that an artist has made it’. The mainstage belongs less and less to 15-months-long America tours, Madison Square Garden and the Ed Sullivan theatre—and more and more to streaming platforms, installed in smartphones all over the world. So we begin to witness dynamics much more diverse than the non-American artist / American audience or American artist / non-American audience relationship.

Another dubious equation is that of globalisation with homogenisation. ‘Mondialisation ne signifie pas uniformisation du monde’ [Globalisation does not indicate global uniformisation], argues French political scientist Jean-François Bayart in an interview with Alternatives Economiques. In fact, globalisation has been producing new varieties.

Take rock music. It began, yes, with American rock and roll in the mid-20th century. But what followed American Elvis singing ‘That’s all right’ in Memphis, Tennessee wasn’t simply a range of echoes—although the line ‘that’s all right’ and its many permutations seem to be chorus favourites everywhere—with a kick of gayageum or maracas to vaguely signpost the band’s nationality (this record better sell, man, says the Hawaiian-shirt-sporting record company executive, as the non-Anglophone band frontman from a non-Anglophone country gulps foreignly). The best of what followed was a diverse harmony of original and incredibly distinct rock music from across the world.

French rock musician Renaud declares, ‘Y’a eu Antoine avant moi / Y’a eu Dylan avant lui’ [There was Antoine before me / There was Dylan before him], in his song “Société tu m’auras pas”. This grumbling, broken-voiced descendant of Bob Dylan scribbles French discontent all over his American inspiration, projecting his Frenchness onto American rock’s subversive self-expression—his disgust for the average French bourgeois and bobo (bourgeois-bohemian) makes him all the more French. With Apple Music’s ‘Renaud Essentials’ playlist downloading in the background, I dived into link after link of ‘Similar Artists’ profiles, stumbling upon my current two French favourites, Alain Souchon and Laurent Voulzy.

Mexican band Maná, which I “discovered” from their collaboration with Santana, sent me into a completely new direction. Proudly and loudly rock en español, they blast an internationally popular yet strikingly Latin American sound, imbibed with cumbia and bachata sounds.

Listening to Maná via streaming, as with earlier French musicians, further facilitated my exploration. Hours of listening and half a dozen clicks later, I landed on Spanish-speaking music elsewhere. I began with La Oreja de Van Gogh. When my high school Spanish teacher recommended the band years earlier, I had brushed them off to the back of my mind—the effortlessness and low commitment of the streaming platform allowed me to tap on ‘Puedes Contar Conmigo’ light-heartedly, then download their essentials, then become their loyal fan of 4 years—and still going strong.

Though I may have just exposed my rather low effort, ‘Top Hits’ listening tendency, my experience is but a quick glance at how diversified globalised music can be, and how easily accessible it has become. This is not to reject l’exception française as entirely pointless—its drive toward state sponsorship of local artists is just and needed. Its protectionist grounds, on the other hand, are indeed debatable, if not outdated in this era of incredibly fluid cultural exchange through streaming and online sharing.

“Dynamite” is undoubtedly a product of Anglophone influence. Yet even this single, as an Insider article argues, is more of a ‘balancing act’ between appealing to English-speaking and Korean audiences, and still engages with several elements of BTS’s ultimately Korean identity. Only a few months after the song’s release, “Life goes on,” another single by the group, this time predominantly in Korean and involving Anglophone as well as Korean songwriters, debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was the first non-English song to do so. BTS’s successes, then, seems to me as a triumph of Korean culture—if not world culture.

Image credit: Yun_Q via Flickr (Public Domain)

‘That’s So Fetch’: Teen Movie Musicals

Katie Kirkpatrick
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0
‘That’s So Fetch’: Teen Movie Musicals

CW: brief mention of eating disorders, suicide & sexual assault 

This week it was announced that Heathers: the Musical will be returning to the Theatre Royal Haymarket on the West End for a second run. The musical adaptation of Mean Girls is also still planned to open in London, and Bring It On is being revived this August. The West End is increasingly set to be populated by shows about high school hierarchies, their teenage heroines taking their places alongside the Hamiltons, Phantoms, Elphabas, and Mormons. So many teen movie musical productions lie in wait for when theatres reopen, fuelled by a year of theatre fans multiplying via platforms like TikTok… but will they ever be able to find commercial and critical success outside of the digital sphere? 

While it may seem like a recent phenomenon, the teen movie musical has been part of the fabric of musical theatre for decades. Arguably the first teen movie musical was 1988’s Carrie: based on the 1974 book and 1976 film of the same name, the Broadway musical became one of the most famous flops in theatre history, closing after only five performances. Other teen movie adaptations, however, have taken their place as musical theatre classics – for example, 2002’s Hairspray, now perhaps one of the most popular musicals ever, was originally based on the 1988 film of the same name. Following this, 2007 saw the hugely successful stage adaptation of Legally Blonde, which spawned a casting reality TV show called The Search for Elle Woods and a West End transfer. In 2012, Broadway then welcomed Bring It On: the Musical, with music by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame.

It was in circa 2018, however, that the teen movie musical really became its own genre. An illegal recording of the Off-Broadway production of Heathers: the Musical went viral on YouTube, and the show’s suddenly massive online following led to an Off-West End run at The Other Palace in 2018, followed by a West End transfer. In the same year, the theatrical adaptation of Mean Girls opened on Broadway, giving iconic lines like “That’s so fetch!” and “On Wednesdays we wear pink” a second life. In the wake of these two productions, numerous other adaptations were attempted. 90s teen movies became a particular target, with the jukebox musical adaptations of Cruel Intentions and Clueless using almost exactly the same soundtrack – to be fair, ‘Torn’ by Natalie Imbruglia is a pretty perfect fit for some retro teen angst.

A huge part of what makes adaptations like Heathers and Mean Girls so distinctive are their fan bases – it seems unlikely that Heathers would ever have made it to the West End without its impressive online following. It was also helped by Hamilton spawning a sudden boom in young musical theatre fans on platforms like Tumblr and Twitter and thus forming the perfect environment for a catchy show about teenagers to take off. Young people make up a huge amount of the audience of musical theatre, and therefore shows that feel like they have been made for them are bound to find an audience. In addition to this, these films often include subjects that feel highly relevant to teens but aren’t often seen in other productions; shows include topics that range from popularity politics and eating disorders to teenage suicde and sexual assault. This intense fan culture extends to live audiences: I saw Heathers twice in London and both times was surrounded by young people dressed up (‘cosplaying’) in red scrunchies, blue blazers, and black trench coats.

The primary issue these productions face is the discrepancy between fan popularity, commercial success and critical opinion. No recent productions have had very long runs, despite their massive online fanbases. In fact, Mean Girls had to resort to some of the least successful stunt casting in recent history, with recordings of Vine star Cameron Dallas as love interest Aaron Samuels going viral for just how incredibly out of tune he was. This is firstly because young people as a target audience are often less likely to be able to buy tickets: West End and Broadway tickets are increasingly extortionate, and teenagers are also less likely to be able to easily travel to London/NYC. Secondly, most of these shows receive mediocre to negative reviews, meaning they tend not to appeal to older theatregoers. With their primary audiences often unable to come, and those who can turned off by poor reviews, it’s not easy for a teen movie musical to sustain its run.

In spite of this, these musicals keep cropping up. Heathers, Mean Girls, and Bring It On are all set to be on the West End soon, and there are always more productions being workshopped (currently including musicals based on the 2010 indie film It’s Kind of a Funny Story, which centres mental health, and the 1999 cult lesbian film But I’m a Cheerleader). This is because teen movies naturally make excellent subjects for musicals. They combine ensemble casts of distinctive, eccentric characters, a comedic, feel-good tone, some kind of light moral lesson, and, of course,  the teen movie musical holy grail: a party scene. While it’s true that the similarities can make these shows feel derivative, they also prove that the format works. For example, the party scenes in all of these productions allow for key plot points to intersect with iconic costume moments, strobe lights, and flashy dance sequences. We see this in ‘Big Fun’ from Heathers, ‘Someone Gets Hurt’ and ‘Whose House is This?’ from Mean Girls, ‘A Night We’ll Never Forget’ from Carrie, and the iconic playboy bunny moment in Legally Blonde. All four shows also share at least one song that breaks down the high school/college food chain and speaks to the pressures of that kind of social environment: ‘Beautiful’ from Heathers, ‘It Roars’, ‘Where Do You Belong?’, and several other songs from Mean Girls, ‘In’ from Carrie, and ‘The Harvard Variations’ and ‘Blood in the Water’ from Legally Blonde. 

The truth is that when these productions take into account the current cultural and political climate and introduce catchy, original music, they can be really excellent examples of musical theatre. Heathers continues to be a success because it manages this – it walks the line between genuine heart and satire expertly, and the music is well-written and catchy. For this same reason, productions like Clueless and Cruel Intentions are unlikely to ever really take off. When using a story that’s already well-known, introducing original music is more important than ever to offer audiences something fresh.

Even successful shows like Heathers and Mean Girls, though, have continually struggled with awards and critics: Heathers received zero Olivier nominations, and Mean Girls had to resort to poor stunt-casting before closing in the pandemic. The reason for this is that musicals centred around teenagers are destined to become ‘cult’ shows: their audience is intrinsically niche, and, due to their youth, unlikely to be able to sustain commercially and critically successful runs, leading these shows to fan-centric cult status. The importance of internet culture also feeds into this, urging us to reconsider how we measure a production’s success.

Looking to the future, it seems like we could be walking into a renaissance of the teen movie musical. With Heathers and Bring It On both in London this summer, combined with the way that the pandemic will have spawned a new generation of young theatre fans eager to get into theatres, we’re unlikely to see a decrease in demand for stories about young people on stage. It remains to be seen, however, whether these shows will ever manage to break into the musical theatre canon and win awards and glowing reviews. It doesn’t look like adaptations are slowing down, in spite of criticism of the lack of original stories in theatre: with the TikTok musical versions of Ratatouille and Bridgerton making international theatre news, who’s to say which film will take to the stage next?

Image Credit: Brecht Bug via Flickr & Creative Commons (License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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