This year marks the 75th anniversary of Pippi Longstocking’s arrival at Villa Villekulla. In her first appearance Astrid Lindgren’s eponymous heroine fascinates her neighbours, Tommy and Annika. As they watch her through a hole in the fence, they’re enchanted by her wild red hair and even wilder life. Pippi is a true eccentric. She has superhuman strength, keeps a suitcase of gold coins and, as a result of a life spent at sea, is comically unaware of basic manners. Unlike her new friends, she never goes to school and in the place of parents, she lives with a pet monkey and a horse. Over the course of three books, Tommy and Annika follow her on a series of adventures, bringing generations of children with them.
Originally conceived as a get-well present for her young daughter, Lindgren’s stories capture the unique atmosphere of childhood fantasy. As a pirate lover from a young age, the third book, Pippi in the South Seas, has always been my personal favourite.At night I’d lie in bed and pretend I was on a raft that would take me away to a tropical island. I don’t remember when I first encountered Pippi Longstocking, but once I had I was obsessed. I dressed as her for every fancy dress party. Wearing odd socks and dungarees with my pipe cleaners in my plaited hair, I felt safe in the knowledge that I had the coolest costume. I spent a large part of my childhood trying to copy her with limited success. Once I tried to sleep with my feet on the pillow just as she claims to do. As it turns it turned out, it isn’t very comfortable.
Fortunately, I’m not alone in my admiration. Pippi Longstocking has fans from all over the world She’s featured in live-action films, animations, adverts, tv shows and even on Swedish 20 kronor note. Since their publication in 1945, Lindgren’s books have never been out of print. It’s not hard to see why they’ve endured for so long. They’re filled with a sense of joy that few other children’s authors have managed to replicate. Yet despite their outlandish nature, Pippi makes for a good role model, albeit an unlikely one. She’s a compulsive liar who doesn’t go to school, can’t read and laughs in the face of adult authority. But at the heart of her character lies an unwavering sense of optimism, strength and self-assurance.
Perhaps some of these traits came from her creator. Throughout her life, Astrid Lindgren campaigned for various human rights causes and became something of a national icon in her home country of Sweden. Her outspoken nature and feminism are easy to spot in her iconic heroine. In one story she declares that though she has freckles, she doesn’t “suffer from them” as an advert in a shop window suggests she might. In another, she’s warned against fighting “the strongest man in the world” at a circus. She simply replies that he may be the strongest man “but I am the strongest girl in the world, remember that.”
Her self-confidence is highlighted in almost everything she does and has served as an inspiration for children of all genders. At eight years old she represented everything I wished I was: funny, strong, fearless and independent. I had three separate editions of Lindgren’s stories that I read obsessively. Nowadays they sit dog-eared in a prime position of my bookshelf and I still find myself returning to them. A few sentences in and I’m hooked again, as if I haven’t aged a day.
Even when I am most in need of time to myself, I still crave company. Nora Ephron’s characters, from jolly, larger than life Julia Child in Julie and Julia, to the grieving, endearing, and altogether perfect father Sam Baldwin in Sleepless in Seattle, are the perfect confidantes. The late director was adept at understanding people. Without close attention to her work, it’s easy to dismiss her movies as quirky romantic comedies, with a few famous scenes. Yet this quirk, this cleverness, has a deeper impact than one might first expect. Thanks to Ephron’s ingenious screenplays and heartwarming style, these films challenge genre conventions and work to mend our hearts. And true self care is, after all, tending to your emotional wounds, speaking to your inner child and reigniting a romance with the world. Luckily, good film lets us do this.
What places these films a cut above other romantic comedies or dramas is how they encompass something idealistic and grounded at the same time. In You’ve Got Mail Kathleen Kelly may be on the verge of meeting her true love (Tom Hanks, for the second time!) and living in the cutest part of New York you’ll never see, but she still faces real struggles as her small book shop loses business to a major franchise and comes to terms with the loss of a parent. Nora Ephron once said, “everything is copy”, meaning everything that happens to you is fair game to write about. Her screenplays are built on characters, conversations and observations that feel real and honest. Ephron brings a warmth and cosiness to everything she writes about, while bravely exploring the most profound feelings of love, loss and friendship head on.
An absolute classic, which frequently appears on Top 10 Romances and 100 Best Films list, When Harry Met Sally (1989)is perhaps the most critically acclaimed of Ephron’s work. With Ephron’s reliable leading lady, Meg Ryan, and the unconventional male heart throb Billy Crystal, the film explores the age-old question: can men and women just be friends? The film does not find an easy answer when, in the middle of a flurry of back-talking, the protagonists pause and switch to making out. Instead, the structure of the film takes its time to bring these characters together, tracking their relationship over the course of a decade. Over the years, they experience each other’s heartbreak (Harry is still pained by his divorce while Sally recognises she’s too happy-go-lucky in her attitude), and navigate mundanity too, like moving apartments. The growth of these characters and their relationship doesn’t just make you hope they get together; you need them to get together. The film serves as a reminder that love is not limited to an American high school or some grand romantic gesture, often at a wedding, but that it can be unexpected, slow burning and understated. It’s worth noting too, from an extra-narrative perspective, that originally, Harry and Sally were not meant to end up together. However, director Rob Reiner (you might remember him as Jordan Belfort’s dad in Wolf of Wall Street) actually met his wife during production, reshaping his outlook on love, and changing the ending forever.
Another equally witty, though perhaps under-celebrated film, is Ephron’s 1998 Hanks-Ryan reunion, You’ve Got Mail. Given today’s fixation with online dating , and the success of apps like Tinder and Hinge, You’ve Got Mail, a story of a couple engaged in an online romance whilst unwittingly engaged in a business rivalry as well, is surprisingly relevant, even 20 years later. Ephron is brilliant at making stifling, fast-paced New York feel like a cosy village. There is something so personal in the quirky children’s bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly, and when the film passes through December, it looks so festive and inviting, the whole thing could be classed as a Christmas film. Yet once again, the purposeful dialogue makes this film something special. Its humour and truthfulness bring the characters to life. When Kathleen Kelly says how she wishes she could say the exact thing she wanted in the right moment, and then finally nails a cutting response to her rival Joe Fox, her meanness becomes the worst feeling in the world. It’s a prime example of an insightful facet of human character, lightly offered to the audience but not dwelt on too long, allowing the characters to make mistakes, grow and be human.
Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia (credit: REX USA)
As a light-hearted biopic with enough food porn that it just might inspire you to actually cook rather than order in, Ephron’s final film in 2009, Julie & Julia, deserves a special recommendation., Though the movie was made years after her more successful Meg Ryan romps, it retains the unmistakable wit and charm of her earlier work. This film is not interested in two characters falling in love but in a parallel exploration of two women’s struggle to reinvent their lives and turn passion into ambition. Meryl Streep offers an excellent portrayal of the American chef Julia Child, while Amy Adams sympathetically depicts a woman in the present day, working a stressful office job, but finding a new lease on life through cooking.
Not only is Ephron a wonderful film maker, she is also a multiskilled playwright, journalist, author and activist. Her personal life, career and death are tenderly explored by her son’s documentary, Everything Is Copy (2015), which is certainly worth a watch. If you can’t get enough of these films so far, some alternative, expert, unconventional romances include: Moonstruck (1987), perhaps the only film where Nicholas Cage was truly hot, Chocolat (2000), another one for the foodies, and Bull Durham (1988), a movie often seen as just a baseball film, where Susan Sarandon and Kevin Costner’s relationship ends up taking centre stage.
I’m not saying that Ephron’s films are something to compete with big blockbuster dramas (although she was nominated for Best Screenplay at the Oscars three times) but she is outstanding in her own field. Ephron’s films are both believable and make you want to believe. Fall in love with love again! With cooking or bookstores! With Seattle, New York or wherever Ephron chooses as her setting! With friends and friendship or just underrated, ingenious moving making. While self care is an increasingly difficult concept for young people to embrace and truly master, putting a film on is not so hard.
Gatis and Moffat’s revamp (sorry)
initially feels like a breath of fresh air, dusting away the cobwebs of a much,
possibly over-adapted late-Victorian tone. Their decision to camp-up an overworked
story, littering it with labyrinthine castles, stylized gore, and a smattering
of puns, manages to limit the sense of treading old ground, and the script
makes the most of its audience’s foreknowledge, turning it into an article of
fun. The narrative structure plays into this as well, presenting the first two
episodes within a frame narrative – the first with Agatha van Helsing (Dolly
Wells) interrogating Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan), working out the cause of
his mysterious illness after visiting Dracula (Claes Bang), and the second also
with Agatha, this time interrogating Dracula himself, working out what happened
on his sea voyage from Transylvania to England. This sense of narrated-ness
manages to allay the fact that, realistically, we all know what’s going to
happen, and salvages a compelling sense of suspense.
The
overall effect of this attempt to camp-up Dracula,
however, is ultimately to code Dracula as more explicitly queer – I say more
explicitly, because in Stoker’s novel Dracula is already quite clearly
presented as an ominous non-het non-European invader bent on corrupting
England’s unsuspecting gentlefolk. Gatis and Moffat’s version of the count is
repeatedly sexualized, over and over and over ad nauseam, despite Moffat’s insistence that he’s ‘bihomicidal,’
not ‘bisexual’ (honestly, this is what he said). Dracula is transformed into an
urbane, witty, Oscar Wilde-esque aristocrat, forever punning on his (explicitly
sexualized) appetites, and the reliance on queer tropes in this
re-characterization is unmissable. The task of Agatha, the sparky and cynical
nun working to “neutralize” Dracula’s “threat,” thus implicitly becomes one of
policing queer desire, protecting the nice heterosexual characters Dracula
attempts to “infect.”
The
result is a narrative of containment, othering, and demonization. The first
episode’s medicalized frame is, from the outset, related to sexual “contagion”:
in the opening scene, a withered, deathly Harker is asked directly if he ‘had
sexual intercourse with Count Dracula’ – the narrative logic here is clearly
that of an AIDs narrative. The second episode subsequently becomes one of
outing, as the ship’s passengers try and work out who’s killing everyone off –
compounded with the only overtly queer subplot, in which Lord Ruthven (Patrick Walshe
McBride), recently married as a cover for his relationship with his valet
(Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), cosies up to Dracula on discovering he’s a vampire,
hoping they’ll become ‘partners’ and helping him to kill off further passengers.
The danger, in each of these episodes, is queerness, framed as an invasive,
infectious, intrinsically violent and deceitful presence. The queer characters gang
up on the poor innocent straight people, and horror ensues. Which is underlined
by the miniseries’ repeated reliance on a linguistic logic of “bestiality,”
uncovering the “monster” beneath Dracula’s smooth, aristocratic “veneer.” What’s
being reproduced here is, unmistakably, biphobia. Dracula can “pass,” but his
ravenous (sexual) appetite prevents him from doing so.
All
of this comes to a head in the final episode, which plonks Dracula 123 years in
the future in a conspicuously hospitable present-day England. Clearly we’ve
reached the crux of Gatis and Moffat’s efforts: the series’ gradually-dwindling
campness is now dropped in favour of an atmosphere of forced sincerity – now
they’ve got your attention, Gatis and Moffat have Something To Say.
Sadly/predictably, this takes the form of a boomer’s wet dream,
paint-by-numbers, sixth-form-poet-esque critique of contemporary society’s
sexual mores, and it’s just as problematic (and boring) as it sounds. Dracula’s
now on Tinder. His victims, such as party-loving Lucy Westenra (Lydia West),
now freely offer themselves up to the count – gleefully portraying
sex-positivity as perverse, in what is possibly one of the most grossly
misogynistic plot arcs in contemporary television (I can’t formulate content
warnings to cover what Gatis and Moffat do to her, so I won’t describe it; rest
assured, it’s revolting). After being briefly imprisoned at the Harker
Foundation established by a fleeing Mina Murray (Morfydd Clark) from the first
episode, Dracula escapes after asserting his “rights” through a lawyer he meets
on the internet, as Gatis and Moffat take a not-so-subtle dig at rights
discourse (LGBTQ+ and otherwise). And the forces ranged against Dracula
(unintentionally) become caricaturishly puritanical: Jack Seward (Matthew
Beard), mopingly “friendzoned” junior doctor pining for Lucy who only has eyes
for Dracula (she doesn’t owe him shit, Moffat, move on), teams up with Zoe
Helsing (also Dolly Wells), descendant of Agatha manically searching for
Dracula’s key weakness. Why’s he afraid of sunlight, and crosses, and mirrors, she
(and Agatha) repeatedly ask? These characters are hateful in the extreme particularly
because Gatis and Moffat so clearly want us to take their mind-numbingly dull
side. And in a queerphobic denouement par
excellence, Zoe works it all out: Dracula’s ashamed of himself. He can’t
bear spiritual introspection (the cross), or to be seen (sunlight), or to see
himself (mirrors). The show’s queer-coded antagonist has been motivated,
throughout, by self-loathing.
Seriously. You
couldn’t make it up.
And I think
that’s fundamentally the problem here. Initially we were promised a camp,
tongue-in-cheek adaptation, laying bare what we now see as the ridiculousness
of Stoker’s narrative and its entrenched queerphobia, vamping it up into a
neo-Victorian horror-opera. But the final result is more an uncritical
reproduction of Stoker’s queerphobic narratives, rather than a melodramatized
distancing. Gatis and Moffat are, in a sense, being too faithful in their modernization. They’re not making anything
up. Which all begs the question – what did we expect? Moffat is notorious for
his gleeful queerbaiting (Sherlock)
and appalling representation of women (Doctor
Who), focalized through a weird nostalgic appreciation of, or even desire
for, a lost Victorian past. This is what Moffat does. We shouldn’t have hoped
for more.
Based on Christine Leunens’ Caging Skies, Jojo Rabbit is a very different kind of war film to Sam Mendes’ 1917, advertised just moments before. The brainchild of director Taika Waititi, who also tops the bill as Adolf Hitler, Jojo Rabbit leaves you genuinely unsure whether to laugh, shudder or cry, lurching so unexpectedly from humour to despair that it’s difficult to define altogether. And that’s a good thing.
Johannes ‘Jojo’ Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is a ten-year-old Fuhrer superfan who’s not quite evil enough for the Hitler Youth, despite being best friends with Hitler – in his head, anyway. An act of defiance, spurred on by Hitler, goes horribly wrong, leaving Jojo to deliver the mail while his able-bodied peers prepare to become German soldiers under the single watchful eye of Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell) and his stooge, Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson), a kind of Nazi version of Rebel Wilson.
Jojo’s faith remains unshaken, until he discovers that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) has been sheltering a Jewish girl, Elsa, in their loft. Knowing that the local Gestapo will be after his mum if he snitches, Jojo, who dreams about slaying Jews, comes to an agreement with the girl living in the walls. And he’s perplexed: she’s not the fire-breathing monster he’d expected, and she seems rather nice. Nor is he a Nazi, Elsa tells him. She’s right: he’s a typical ten-year-old boy who wants to be a part of something, even if that means believing in all kinds of ludicrous rubbish.
How can Jojo learn to live with Elsa when it goes against everything he’s been taught by his politics and his imaginary friend? And will he listen when Elsa tries to persuade him that Jewish people are just like everyone else – scared, tired of war, desperate to be reunited with their families? This is the denouement of war presented through the naivety of a child, one shattered by the realities of conflict. Just as Jojo’s understanding of the world, drilled into him by doctrine and an unthinking desire to belong, is brought tumbling down by Elsa, so the slick facade of Nazi rule rapidly disintegrates as the Allies lay ruin to the city. The film’s final scene is startling but brilliant, capturing the confusion that war has brought to Jojo and Elsa’s lives and their search for a way to cope.
Waititi’s cartoonish Hitler plays a less prominent role than expected. Above all, this is the story of Jojo and Elsa. As for Hitler, his creeping progression from buffoonish imaginary pal to the spitting, flailing despot we recognize from those grainy newsreels is reflective of Jojo’s enlightenment. Even in moments of dark comedy, Jojo Rabbit says something important about the catastrophe of fascism – for those who blindly followed it, and those who fought against it. As Allied tanks roll in, Fraulein Rahm has taken to arming children with bazookas, before she charges into the carnage herself. There’s room for humour even as Germany falls, but it’s never insensitive. I don’t think it’s meant to be a comedy. Rather, it’s meant to be discordant. It was a time when nothing quite made sense, nobody quite knew what to believe any more.
It’s got a touch of TheDeath of Stalin about it but, to me, the comedic element serves to emphasize the tragedy of Germans caught up in the fatherland’s collapse. At first, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or recoil. The initial Hitler Youth scenes verge on a Horrible Histories sketch, an almost patronising Nazi best hits compilation, replete with book burning, abundant heils and some truly preposterous antisemitism. It’s so in-your-face, so unsubtle, it makes you wince. It’s easy to see why the film divides critics. Is it ever right to satirise something so grotesque, so devastatingly inhuman, so wrong? You soon realise that if you’re laughing, you’re not laughing because the Nazis are funny. No, you’re laughing because they don’t realise how ridiculous they are. Waititi wants to remind us that fascism is totally absurd. Jojo Rabbit sets out to laugh in the face of Nazism and blind, idiotic racial hatred, while never underplaying its devastating impact on its millions of victims.
It’s an odd film, but war is odd – and so is fascism. Jojo Rabbit manages to ridicule the Nazi cult of personality, while powerfully underlining its murderous reality. It’s a delicate balance to strike but I think Waititi just about manages it, helped by standout performances from Davis and Johansson. And in a world where there are children not far off Jojo’s age flaunting their ‘alt-right’ credentials across the internet, I think there’s something important that we can learn from this film.
Space Operatic Dullness by Mattie Donovan, “The Critic”
When this new trilogy of Star Wars films began back in 2015, there was a charming sense of nostalgia and goodwill among fans of the franchise. The Force Awakens was indulgent and silly yet a winning opening chapter – it may have felt like a dialled-up rehash of A New Hope, but it was also a piece of cinematic renewal that you couldn’t help getting on board with. New lead characters Rey, Poe and Finn were not fully formed, but were well on their way to having realised arcs centred around the time-old Star Wars themes of fate, binary morality and the pull of parental legacies. Hell, they even serviceably bumped off series veteran Harrison Ford, with one last hurrah for Han Solo on the Millennium Falcon . The baton felt well and truly passed on.
The Rise of Skywalker attempts to circumvent 2017’s divisive follow up The Last Jedi, serving more as a soft reboot to the franchise rather than a definitive saga closer. The result is a turgid mess, devoid of thematic exploration but rife with the window dressing of a 42-year-old franchise that feels its age.
We enter in spectacular media res to this new story, with the opening crawl informing us that Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is alive and has been orchestrating things from behind the scenes, raising his forces to form the Final Order, a slightly less Nazified but just as drab Starfleet designed to quell the Resistance. All the while, newly appointed Supreme Leader Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) consolidates the power of the Empire and forges his own path. Such revelations are shrugged off with clinical ruthlessness by returning Force Awakens director JJ Abrams- what would have once made the meat of a whole other film is now mercilessly condensed into a prologue that is keen to move on.
But move on to what exactly? The first act is beyond expositional, delivered more like a sequence of bizarre PS4 cutscenes, detailing Rey (an admittedly more assured Daisy Ridley) and co’s travels to new galactic hinterlands in search of this doo dad or that one, all in the name of locating the Emperor for the final showdown. Previously prophetic or fun worldbuilding now feels tired and strangely unearned. Revelations such as Rey’s parentage, previously put to bed by TLJ director Rian Johnson, are recklessly revived here by Abrams and co-scriptwriter Chris Terrio, in a confused attempt to establish new stakes.
This confusion extends to the ensemble cast, many of whom don’t serve a clear purpose in the story.. Billy Dee Williams’ iconic Lando Calrissian, seen sporting his cape centrally in the trailers, is sadly a non-entity, while relative newcomer Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) is only given lines of nondescript urgency in the film’s muddled climax. A saving grace can be found in the handling of the untimely passing of Carrie Fisher; while noticeable to the attentive viewer, the stitching together of previously unused footage allowed for a fitting swansong to be given to General Leia. It’s just a shame that such a sense of earned finality does not extend to the wider saga.
Kylo Ren, forever the black sheep of this trilogy, is arguably the best served here. Trading in his dark side broodiness for something more conflictual, Driver gives Kylo Ren much belated elements of pathos and resignation that were previously unseen in his interactions with Rey. While the thematic duality of their relationship has never been more on the nose, Ridley and Driver have been able to make their conversations, if not their lightsaber duels, maintain a degree of sorely needed intrigue.
John William’s updated score never disappoints, but it also feels like the only way of rousing emotional sentiment in this final instalment. In lieu of meaningful character moments, The Rise of Skywalker opts for technically impressive but empty spectacle. It is a misguided attempt by Abrams to replicate what he packaged so well with the Force Awakens: nostalgia. But such nostalgia has a rapid half life the first time around, let alone when you are attempting to conclude two previous films’ conflicting visions for your heroes’ . It’s serviceable as a lightsaber duelling blockbuster, but given the sort of space opera Star Wars promises to offer, it’s painstakingly dull and uninspired.
Our critics agree: Adam Driver’s performance as Kylo Ren has been one of the few true highlights of the trilogy. credit: Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Hope Wins, Kinda bySamuel Lapham, “The Diehard”
It’s safe to say that the audience response to this latest Star Wars trilogy has been tepid at best. The Force Awakens played it remarkably safe, and The Last Jedi divided opinions for its mistreatment of Luke and Snoke, as well as the planetary separation of the three main characters.As the trilogy’s finale,, The Rise of Skywalker had nothing short of a momentous responsibility. Not only was it tasked with wrapping up the entire Star Wars saga, but it faced an arguably even greater challenge in attempting to steer this trilogy into a direction that felt clear and cohesive, something sorely lacking in the previous two instalments. As a result, it becomes difficult to determine whether The Rise of Skywalker underwhelms at an individual narrative level, or suffers because of the disjointed entries preceding it. But even despite its faults, Abrams teaches us that hope prevails in a galaxy far far away.
It’s no spoiler that a large part of the film’s marketing has been centered around the return of Emperor Palpatine, but because his arrival has not been anticipated or teased across the trilogy, his revival feels hollow. Moreover, it undermines Vader’s ultimate triumph over evil in the original trilogy. The decision feels less like an organic story development and more like a last ditch attempt to regenerate fan interest, which wouldn’t have been the issue that it is had Palpatine been utilised to better effect. Instead, his screen time is a compilation of snarls and taunts, lingering in the shadows without ever feeling relevant or essential to the story. To make matters worse, the revelation of a shoehorned personal connection between Palpatine and one of the main characters seems designed to evoke dramatic shock, but feels unearned.
The other major gripe is the pace at which the film moves. We never linger on a scene for more than the time it takes that scene to practically serve the narrative, and so characters aren’t given time to grow and develop. One lengthy subplot in particular, involving a meandering quest for an artefact that will enable our heroes to find the Emperor, could have been sacrificed in favor of much needed character development. Abrams does attempt to give each character their moments of self-discovery throughout the runtime, but again, this feels like a last ditch effort to create empathy before it’s all over.
Yet, as unnecessarily convoluted as the plot is, it thrives when the characters are allowed to breathe. One of the best things to come out of The Last Jedi was the strangely intimate force connection between Kylo and Rey, and The Rise of Skywalker capitalises on their complicated relationship. When the film grounds itself in the duo’s moral ambiguities, it delivers. And credit where credit is due, Adam Driver has remained the only real constant anchoring these films.
Technically speaking, amid speeder chases and space battles, the spectacle that steals the show is undoubtedly the magnificent lightsaber duel on the wreckage of the second Death Star. Shot against the backdrop of a tidal storm, the scene reminds us of the phenomenal choreography that pitted Anakin against Obi Wan in the prequels – Contrasting the fires of Mustafar, Kylo and Rey’s final battle is set against a riotous tempest.
Rife with nostalgia, fan surprises and contrived stakes, the film still contains scenes destined to ignite smiles. Star Wars has always been about the colossal binary of light and dark, and the ability of seemingly ordinary people to conquer temptation. Though the Rise of Skywalker perhaps tries to do too much while lacking a solid foundation, it undeniably stays true to the roots of the saga.
The lightsaber duel between Rey and Kylo Ren on the wreckage of the Death Star was a stand out spectacle for many fans. credit: Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd.
Déjà vu in a Galaxy Far, Far Away by William Atkinson, “The Holdout”
Readers, I’ve disappointed my Mum in many ways down the years: I’ve forgotten Mother’s Days, I’ve failed to tidy my room, and I even did History at Oxford as an embarrassing teenage rebellion against a Mum who studied it at Cambridge. But there has been no area, no zone of motherly concern where I have let her down more spectacularly than in my lack of interest in Star Wars. I’ve really tried my best. I’ve watched the films, played the Lego video game and even got plastic lightsabers for Christmas. But to a lady who grew up queuing around the block to see The Empire Strikes Back, a mother who has cried at all the various sort-of and actual deaths of Han Solo, my stubborn refusal to be enthusiastic about a galaxy far, far away is pretty much the best reason she has for disinheriting me.
In my defence I believe I have a good excuse. I’m prepared for the backlash, but ladies and gentlemen, I find Star Wars a bit boring. The films mostly have the same plot; they’re as predictable as Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs. The good guys win, the bad guys lose, and a planet-destroying Space MacGuffin gets blown up. Rian Johnson tried to do it somewhat differently with The Last Jedi , but his attempts at reinvention were immediately opposed and reviled by the Jedi neckbeards of the Twittersphere. Thus the plot developments of TLJ are almost entirely ignored by this year’s entry, The Rise of Skywalker. Instead of something vaguely original, we get another couple of hours of the same repetitive and unoriginal fan-pleasing tedium.
The film is sadly formulaic. The plot, essentially, is that Ian McDiarmid’s Evil Emperor is back (with almost no explanation, since he’s there for fan service) and is after our hero, Daisy Ridley’s Rey. Ridley has come a long way since The Force Awakens. There, her performance had a range of about two different facial expressions, but now she has blossomed as a talent. It’s mainly down to her and her co-stars, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac, that the film is marginally more entertaining than it has any right to be.
Our plucky heroes are up against Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. He stomps about a bit, is often a bit cross, and has a series of repetitive conversations with Rey. Whereas in The Last Jedi these were laced with sexual tension and the potential for Rey to go over to the Dark Side, here they are as immemorable as Christ Church hall food. Being a Star Wars film, this all eventually sets up a final act – via a series of planets inhabited by forgettable characters, one note aliens and continuity references – which involves the destruction of a planet-destroying weapon and the battle for the Ultimate Triumph of Good Over EvilTM.
Despite The Rise of Skywalker’s total unoriginality, it could have mustered up some more entertainment if it hadn’t felt like the stakes were lower than a school sports day. Characters die for all of five minutes; scenes are sold as big emotional moments and then rendered pointless by a reversal a few scenes later. By the end I was laughing at the latest shlocky twist or obvious fake-out. Everything you expect to happen happens. Whereas Rian Johnson was audacious enough to do something shocking and different, J.J. Abrams has repeated his trick from The Force Awakens and reheated all the old tropes in a fan-friendly package. For someone indifferent about the whole saga, it’s not infuriating or disappointing – just dull.
I hope I’m not coming across as a party-pooper. For two hours of mindless entertainment, The Rise of Skywalker is still perfectly decent entertainment. For those who’ve grown up loving it, I’m sure the film will leave them with a smile on their faces: it certainly did for the bunch of Star Wars-loving mates I saw it with. So maybe I’m just an old cynic. But if Star Wars fans can be satisfied by this monotonous, brain-dead and stale slice of fan fiction, then I’m glad I’m not one of them.
“Uneasy is the head that wears a crown”, wrote Shakespeare, who seemed compulsively committed to documenting the simultaneous lure and burden of monarchy more than any other. As the world comes to terms with Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex’s announcement of their decision to “step back” from the Royal Family, we are once again obliged to debate the most divisive issues of the state, function and future of the Crown in the 21st century. In an age of intense and intrusive media scrutiny, it is perhaps no surprise that some sovereigns should want to jump ship, but – as the many films devoted to the world’s monarchies have demonstrated – royals never had it easy.
We know now more than ever that the regal existence is no Princess Diaries fairytale. With great power, of course, comes great responsibility. Here are 10 films that offer fascinating insight into the privilege, paranoia, and persistence of the monarchy.
Henry V (1944)
In the middle of World War II, Winston Churchill instructed Laurence Olivier to create an inspiring and patriotic picture to boost morale on the Home Front. The product was this gloriously rousing version of Shakespeare’s Henry V, with the eponymous King’s victory alongside his “band of brothers” in the Battle of Agincourt coinciding for audiences with the Allied seizure of Normandy in the same year as the film’s release. Though clearly propagandistic (it was funded partly by the War Office), it is no surprise that the film broke box office records and received international attention. Olivier would commit Shakespeare’s royals to film again with his ruminative Hamlet in 1948 and dastardly Richard III in 1955.
Laurence Olivier as Henry V
Roman Holiday (1953)
Longing to be free from the interminable constraints of royal duty, Audrey Hepburn’s fictional European Princess, Ann, escapes from her entourage and takes to the eternal streets of Rome. In an ironic twist, she is rescued by journalist Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), who conceals from her his true profession while being pressured by his editor to milk the princess for an exclusive scoop. Naturally, Peck and Hepburn fall in love and so Joe decides against printing his story, much to the dismay of his paparazzo friend, who insists that – as a royal – Ann is “fair game” for the insatiable appetite of the media.
The Lion in Winter (1968)
“Well, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs?” The tour-de-force partnership of Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn as the squabbling King Henry II and his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, showed us how royal families could be just as dysfunctional as any other. It’s Christmas in 1183, and Henry has temporarily released Eleanor from her imprisonment for the holidays. What follows, of course, is anything but a festive family gathering, as each parent supports a different son as Henry’s successor. It isn’t long before the knives are out: absolute power, as they say, corrupts absolutely. As Henry succinctly summarises: “I’ve snapped and plotted all my life. There’s no other way to be a king, alive, and fifty all at the same time”.
Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter
The Madness of King George (1994)
The dependably witty and erudite Alan Bennett transferred his own enthralling National Theatre hit to the screen, and with it came once more Nigel Hawthorne’s acclaimed performance as the mercurial King George III. This darkly comic account of the King’s long-misunderstood mental illness illustrates how the slightest shred of vulnerability in monarchs will soon be sniffed out and exploited by those vying for power. The obligatory vultures here are conspiratorial politicians and the King’s own son, the Prince of Wales, who – hoping to be made regent in the event of his father’s mental deterioration – commits George III to the straightjacket-methods of Dr. Francis Willis (Ian Holm). Unsurprisingly, George gains new-found respect for the tragedy of King Lear.
The Lion King (1994)
Shakespeare sneaks onto the list again in this thinly veiled leonine adaptation of Hamlet, surely the jewel in the crown of the Disney Renaissance. When benevolent King Mufasa is murdered by his brother, exiled lion-prince Simba must avenge his father’s death and take his place as King of Pride Rock. This is a stirring tale of destiny and the right to rule, richly drawn against vibrant African plains, and the evil usurper Scar – voiced deliciously by Jeremy Irons – is a megalomaniacal villain for the ages.
A Hamlet reference in The Lion King.
Elizabeth (1998)
In the same year that saw Judi Dench’s scene-stealing turn as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, Cate Blanchett offered a far more substantial portrait of the Virgin Queen in Shekhar Kapur’s majestic drama. Underestimated by her patronising male counsellors, whose only interest is how soon she can form a convenient marital alliance and produce an heir, Elizabeth defies all expectations as she rejects Papal authority and thwarts repeated assassination attempts. Though factually slippery, this is a gripping account of what it means to be a female ruler in a world dominated by men. A less successful sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, was released in 2007.
Marie Antoinette (2006)
There’s a touch of Terrence Malick to this exquisitely shot study of the ill-fated final Queen of France. Sofia Coppola’s ingenious idea is to mostly mute the burgeoning revolutionary politics, instead confining the camera to the decadent and debauched ivory tower of Versailles to show just how small the royals’ world is. Kirsten Dunst brings tremendous spirit to Marie Antoinette, plucked from Austria at the age of fourteen to marry the awkward Dauphin, Louis XVI, consigned to a life of vicious scrutiny and unconscionable wealth. Coppola employs deliberate anachronisms, including music by The Cure and Squarepusher, to ground the story in a timeless reality. The famous beheading is never shown, but we know from the beginning that this royal family’s days are numbered.
Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antoinette.
The Queen (2006)
Helen Mirren won every major gong going for her understated portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II as she weathers the media storm surrounding the tragic death of Diana, the “People’s Princess”, in 1997. Running parallel to Tony Blair’s landslide Labour victory, Stephen Frears’ film shines a light on how the remote and time-honoured monarchic institution came to terms with a country committed to change. There are many questions asked of this secure and private world of privilege: how quickly it must adapt if it wishes to survive, how celebrity and monarchy may not be such dissimilar entities, and to what extent the royals “owe” the people their time, their grief, and even their identities.
The King’s Speech (2010)
Few films are as sympathetic to the monarchy as Tom Hooper’s sentimental but stylish study of King George VI’s stammer. Landed unexpectedly with the cumbersome Crown following his brother’s abdication, Colin Firth’s stuttering King must learn to overcome his crippling insecurities with the help of an eccentric Australian speech therapist. George has no choice but to accept the sudden weight of sovereignty, even if it means exposing a part of himself that he never wished to be seen. The mounting backdrop of the Second World War highlights how, in times of national hardship, the royals are looked to for constancy and resolve.
Colin Firth as King George VI
The Favourite (2018)
Olivia Colman is superb as the paranoid, grief-stricken and gout-ridden Queen Anne, who finds her attention coveted by two conniving cousins in the early 18th century. Rachel Weisz is Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and Emma Stone is the impoverished Abigail Masham – both seek to claim the affection, ear and bedchamber of the miserably isolated Queen. The inimitable Yorgos Lanthimos brings his signature absurdist menace to the dog-eat-dog world of fickle regal politics, enhanced by Robbie Ryan’s claustrophobic convex cinematography. As Sarah and Abigail plot and scheme, Anne becomes a mere pawn in this ugly game of one-upmanship. It is soon abundantly clear that the Queen has no real power here at all.
An Oxford professor has been provided security by the University over fears she may face physical violence and intimidation from trans rights activists.
Selina Todd, a Professor in Modern History as St Hilda’s, has been criticised for a number of transphobic statements and her involvement with trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) groups.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Todd stated she requested the new security arrangements after she was informed by two students of threats made against her on email threads. The threats, as well as previous hostility to her views, left her feeling “vulnerable.”
Todd addressed the developments on Twitter, writing: “I understand those sceptical [about] how serious threats made towards me were/are. As a historian, I like robust evidence. But on basis of limited info me and my employer could get, we decided not to wait and see if I’d get hit in the face … before taking action.”
Threats to Todd have come from trans rights campaigners who take issue with her stances, such as keeping those who self-identify as women but are anatomically male, out of single sex refuges.
Todd added on Today: “When I first heard about the threats the thing that worried me was that I knew from my experience of speaking at women’s rights meetings that sometimes there had been attempts to disrupt those meetings.
“I was also struck that the University rightly I think did its own quick investigation and was convinced there was enough evidence to provide protection in the lectures.
“In the world today, democracy is under threat and therefore we all have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of debate.”
In a statement, the University said: “When staff raise concerns with us, the university will always review the circumstances and offer appropriate support to ensure their safety and their freedom of expression.”
Security for Todd comes after a row erupted over trans rights and academic freedom at Merton last week, regarding an event ‘Perspectives on trans intersectionality’.
The College withdrew a code of conduct which asked all participants to “refrain from using language or putting forward views intended to undermine the validity of trans and gender diverse identities,” in favour of a statement saying that “The University and College prioritise the protection both of academic freedom and of their members from unlawful discrimination.”
Todd described the original code of conduct as a “dangerous precedent” that had left her “stunned”.
She went on to say “I’m delighted that Merton College has upheld freedom of speech and the right to debate in accordance with College and University policy.”
Todd has a history of transphobic remarks and associations with TERF groups. She has previously retweeted transphobic groups on Twitter including the parody twitter account ‘British Gay Eugenics’. She retweeted a tweet from the group which joked: “Please join our MASSIVE thanks to @stonewalluk, @ruth_hunt, Gendered Intelligence, & Mermaids UK for helping #transawaythegay.
“Parents, there is an alternative to having an embarrassing gay son or lesbian daughter! All it takes is timely intervention!”
Todd also mocked a trans man who said he was happy after transitioning. She tweeted: “Here are lots of success stories as we #transawaythegay. Emmett wasn’t allowed to be a lesbian and had to wear skirts and makeup. But when he realised he was supposed to be a boy and started taking testosterone, his church accepted him. All better now!”
Outlining her perspective on trans rights, Todd wrote on her website: “As a gender critical feminist, I have seen my views misrepresented on social media and elsewhere. So here, I explain my views. By ‘gender critical’, I mean that I believe that men and women are defined by their sex, not by culturally constructed gender norms. You can’t change sex – biologically, that is impossible.
“I believe that UK law should remain as it is, with sex a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act, against the claim of some trans activists that people should be able to define themselves as men or as women simply by describing themselves as such. The notion that people can ‘feel’ like a woman or like a man is highly socially conservative, implying as it does that being a woman rests on dressing or behaving in a ‘feminine’ way. Being a woman rests both on certain biological facts and on the experience of living in the world as a woman, from birth, an experience that is shaped by particular kinds of oppressions. A movement that claims to be advocating a liberating kind of ‘fluidity’ is in fact reinforcing and promoting highly conservative gendered stereotypes.
“The claim that some people ‘naturally’ feel feminine is ahistorical, since it overlooks that what is understood as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ has changed over time.”
The protection accorded to Todd comes after attacks on other TERF academics. Julie Bindel attacked by a protestor after giving a talk on violence against women at the University of Edinburgh last year.
Bindel told The Independent in June that the attacker had screamed at her “saying that I was scum, I was a c***, I was filth,” before attempting “to punch me in the face but was dragged away by security.”
St Hilda’s have asserted their support for Todd. Claire Harvey, Communications Manager at St Hilda’s, said: “Security arrangements are a matter for the University. St Hilda’s College is committed to defending all college members’ rights to express their views.”
Harvey reiterated the college’s code on freedom of expression, as noted on the St Hilda’s website states: “It [freedom of expression] enables the pursuit of knowledge. It helps us approach truth. It allows students, teachers, and researchers to become better acquainted with the variety of beliefs, theories, and opinions in the world. Recognising the vital importance of free expression for the life of the mind, a university may make rules concerning the conduct of debate but should never prevent speech that is lawful.
“Inevitably, this will mean that members of the University are confronted with views that some find unsettling, extreme or offensive. The University must therefore foster freedom of expression within a framework of robust civility.”
Todd is a specialist in the history of the British working class, as well as women and feminism in modern Britain.
Merton College will once again host the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries’ Summer School this year, it has been announced.
The conference is hosted by the Zacharias Trust, an Evangelical Christrian group which has caused controversy for views which have been branded “homophobic, misogynistic, and Islamophobic” by the Oxford Student Union.
The summer school was also held at Merton College in 2019 and 2018. Last week, a motion passed by the college’s JCR voted to condemn the group’s “exclusionary remarks that deny other people’s identities,” and encouraged the college not to hold this programme again.
The motion passed by a sizeable margin of 24 to 11 in a secret ballot, following an extensive debate, during which the proponent of the motion argued that “there is a concern here that religious members of the LGBTQ community may take the inference from these statements that you cannot be both.”
Merton’s JCR president told Cherwell: “the Merton JCR, together with the college, stands for inclusion, acceptance, and mutual respect of all students, regardless of their views, sexual orientation, and beliefs.”
The motion tabled at Merton’s JCR meeting noted in particular the participation of David Bennett at the conference for his remark that “the opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality, it is holiness.”
Mr Bennett has now been confirmed as a speaker at the 2020 conference where he will host a seminar titled “Why is God so antigay?” The conference will also host talks on abortion by an Ethicist and Philosopher at Oxford University.
A spokesperson for Merton College told Cherwell: “Merton College hosts a variety of different organisations during its summer conference programme, the details of which are protected by commercial agreement. Separately, Merton maintains a close working relationship with its student community and through various forums, matters of concern can be raised and are openly discussed.”
As well as Merton College, the Queen’s College hosted the Trust’s summer camp in 2015. Wycliffe Hall were also criticised in 2015 for their close alignment with Ravi Zacharias and Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).
In 2006, the permanent private hall launched the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA) in collaboration with RZIM. The launch was immediately highlighted as a “cause for concern” by Oxford University after Wycliffe Hall did not clearly differentiate admissions to the OCCA from admissions to the University.
Ravi Zacharias has mentioned in interviews that the Centre was “accredited with degree programs at Oxford University.”
An emergency motion tabled at Oxford Student Union Council Meeting in Trinity 2015 urged Wycliffe Hall to distance itself publicly from the positions taken by Ravi Zacharias. The motion expressed that “such an association of esteem is problematic for, and could even be seen to contradict, the University’s commitment to equality and to diversity.”
St Aldate’s Church will continue its participation as a host of the Summer School this year. They did not reply to a request for comment.
Wycliffe Hall cut their ties with the OCCA in 2019, although there are a number of lingering attachments between the two institutions. Business students at the OCCA are still offered accommodation at Wycliffe Hall, and a philosophy professor at the PPH also serves as a tutor at the OCCA.
A spokesperson for the Zacharias Trust said: “Zacharias Trust believes in the sanctity and value of all human life regardless of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. As we have previously stated, the women we employ occupy some of the highest positions of leadership within our organization, and we also employ individuals with same-sex attractions.
“As a Christian organisation, some people will naturally disagree with our viewpoint. When disagreements in faith or philosophy arise, no matter the audience, we urge civil dialogue. Any claim otherwise is false and unsubstantiated.
“Lastly, we are grateful for our relationships with colleges and universities, which are designed to be a neutral public forum—a space welcoming of dissenting and divergent viewpoints, where students can explore conflicting ideas and engage with a variety of perspectives in a marketplace of ideas.
“We strive to communicate ideas in a sensitive manner and we have never had any issues using university facilities, as academic freedom is something that is protected and esteemed at the highest levels of the university.”
The Zacharias Trust are the European operational group of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. RZIM were founded by Ravi Zacharius in 1984 as an apologist Evangelical Christian Trust with the stated aim of “equipping Christians to share their faith with confidence and in an intelligent and articulate way.”
The Trust deliver training internationally through their website and YouTube videos, and through a number of conferences and training programmes which they operate. Their European offices are headquartered on Banbury Road in North Oxford.
Mr Zacharias has been personally criticised for repeatedly referring to himself as “Dr Zacharias”, despite only having been granted honorary doctoral degrees. In 2018 he clarified: “I have never earned a doctoral degree and was never enrolled at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge. And while I have lectured at Wycliffe Hall, I am not and have never been a professor at the University of Oxford.
“I recognize that academic terms and designations are important, and I apologize for any occasion on which I have wrongly titled my association with either of these institutions.”
Merton will be providing accommodation for guests of the conference, as well as seminar rooms for afternoon sessions. Guests will be expected to pay almost £2,000 for a ticket to the six-day event.
St Hilda’s College will abolish its chapel from next year, replacing the space with a multi-faith room. The announcement makes St Hilda’s the third undergraduate college in Oxford not to have a dedicated anglican chapel.
The announcement follows months of debate around the presence and need for a chapel at the college. According to a JCR motion debated in Michaelmas, a number of fellows at St Hilda’s moved to reallocate any religious spaces within the college.The issue has been raised as part of extensive development plans due to be completed in 2020. As part of preparations for St Hilda’s 125th anniversary, the Milham Ford building, which had originally housed the chapel, was demolished. A temporary chapel was established in an adjacent building, on the expectation that a new permanent chapel or interfaith room would be installed in the new development.
In response, the JCR resolved unanimously to vote in favour of the inclusion of a new space in which members of the college community may carry out an expression of their faith in the new building. The motion made no reference to the room necessarily being a chapel, and expressed an interest in the college dedicating an interfaith room, inside of which members of any faith are welcome to pray or spend time in contemplation. The new space will cater to a number of faiths by including ablution facilities, where those praying may wash themselves, and space to store religious objects.
Reverend Canon Brian Mountford, chaplain for St Hilda’s, told Cherwell: “The decision was taken by the Governing Body, of which I am not a member, entirely independently of me. There was a chapel in the now demolished Milham Ford building, enhanced in 2000 in memory of an alumna, and it had been understood that there would be a like for like replacement in the new building, carrying on the tradition of the last 126 years of St Hilda’s history. Every college has thought about the need for prayer space, for Muslim students in particular, and come up with various provisions – including none. Faiths other than Christianity and Islam do not seem to be pressing for dedicated space in college.
“St Hilda’s could easily provide a prayer space separate from the chapel. Equally, a Christian chapel would welcome people of all faiths and none to pray, meditate, or be mindful in. When it comes to decoration and iconography, a multi faith room inevitably tends to be lowest common denominator and therefore usually bland. Soulless you might say. But, much as we enjoy the colour and numinous atmosphere of, say, Exeter College Chapel, Christians can worship or pray in any space. Besides, after the Reformation, in anti-Roman fervour, the colourful pictures on the walls of English churches were whitewashed out.
“I think it is easy for people not involved with organised religion to suppose that religion is by nature dogmatic and narrow minded. The faith I represent is not like that and that’s why I use the word ‘inclusive’ with confidence. And Christians have to be included as much as everyone else! I have found that while research suggests 72% of your age group have ‘no religion’, when it comes to thinking about the nature of belief and asking those ultimate questions about the purpose of life and what matters most, there is a lot of interest in theological debate. That’s why ‘The Chaplain’s Chat’ is so popular, and it’s a discussion which involves a wide cross-section of students in this secular, polyglot university. Worldwide, we are not moving towards a more secular society, but to a more religious one. This is a fact it’s hard to take on board in our particular corner of Western liberalism.”
Decisions regarding the new chapel’s presence were made by a “chapel steering group.” The group consisted of members from the three common rooms which make up the College. St Hilda’s confirmed to Cherwell in November that plans to install a chapel in the new building were proceeding as planned, but it appears that further debates have resulted in a change of direction
The Office for Students have released a report on university admissions and access. The report, titled ‘Transforming opportunity in higher education’ comes following research into the access progression of universities, with the aim to “make greater and swifter progress in closing persistent gaps in outcomes for students from under-represented groups in higher education.”
The report outlines to universities that they must close the gap in access at England’s selective institutions, across the next five years. If the plans work, the number of disadvantaged students will rise to 6,500 each year from 2024-25.
The report states: “All universities and colleges wanting to charge the higher fee limit for tuition fees must have an access and participation plan approved by the OfS.The new approach reflects our ambition to make greater and swifter progress in closing persistent gaps in outcomes for students from underrepresented groups in higher education.”
The plan must set out what steps they will be taking to reduce the gaps in their institutions between different groups of students in relation to access to, success in and progression beyond higher education. It must include both year-on-year and longer-term targets for reducing these gaps, based on their own student populations and priorities.”
The report comes following a particularly interesting two weeks for access in Oxford, with the news that 69% of all undergraduate offers in this year’s cycle were made to students from state schools.
HMC (the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference) have responded to the report. They suggest that the inclusion of a higher number of the most ‘disadvantaged’ students is not representative of student socio-economic backgrounds. Mick Buchanan, HMC Executive Director, said: “We are confident that the exceptional results and soft skills that HMC schools provide will mean that our students will continue to get the university places they wish for in a competitive UK marketplace or at prestigious universities overseas.
“However, care is needed in starting actively to discriminate against individual young people on the basis of the class they were born into. The country needs all its young people to reach their potential if we are to create a bright new future for Britain post-Brexit.”
Ray Williams, Vice President for Access and Academic Affairs at Oxford SU has responded to the report and HMC’s reaction: “The OfS report shows that modest but welcome reform is on the table nationally, as it is here in Oxford. However there is still much more to do and the Student Union will continue to fight for a more diverse, representative Oxford.
“The knee jerk reaction from HMC shows just how out of touch they are with what modern day Oxford is trying to achieve in addressing educational inequality.”
Commenting on the report, a spokesperson from the University of Oxford detailed how, “Oxford’s admissions process is designed to identify academic potential and passion for a subject. This year, more than 69% of undergraduate offers were made to pupils attending state schools, and a record number to those from underrepresented backgrounds. A highly academically talented student with enthusiasm for their chosen subject has every chance of getting into Oxford, regardless of their background or where they live, and will continue to do so.
“We are committed to working with schools and the wider sector, and lobbying government for improved higher education opportunities for all. The changes we have brought in, with widespread support across the University and its colleges, have increased and diversified the pool of students applying to and receiving offers from Oxford. This year we saw a record of more than 23,600 students apply for just 3,300 places. Greater competition inevitably means more students will be disappointed, but we want the best talent possible for the outstanding education we offer.”
Oxford University has already began to close the gap in access and admissions: In the 2019-20 admissions cycle, 115 offers were made to students to study within the Opportunity Oxford bridging programme, which will begin in September. Alongside Opportunity Oxford, the University launched its Foundation Oxford programme, which from 2021 will offer places to up to 50 students. The scheme is partly inspired by Lady Margaret Hall’s pioneering Foundation Year, which “has shown that the one year intensive foundation year corrects gaps in prior attainment.” Buchanan of HMC continued to state that “Generally, contextual admissions are perfectly reasonable if used on a sophisticated, individual basis.”
His comment comes after the university stated that the reason they do not release the breakdown of school type within their state school admissions as: “Looking at an applicant’s school type in isolation is not an accurate measure of whether a student comes from a disadvantaged background. At Oxford we consider all information available on a candidate’s circumstances, including, any experience of being in care, their home postcode which provides information on if they live in an area of social and economic deprivation and low progression to higher education plus we look at if the school the student has attended has a high proportion of students eligible for FSM.”
Chris Millward, the OfS director for fair access and participation told the Guardian: “We expect providers to work towards these targets because they tackle two urgent priorities: the need to open up all of our universities to people from those communities where progress into higher education is lowest, and to ensure that every student has the same chance to succeed once they get there.”
The Office for Students is an independant public body, and is separate from central governemnt. The OfS was established by the Higher Education and Research Act 2017.
Their work aims to ensure that all students have a “fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers.”
