The Georgetown Voice, 11/18/22

features

Hoya Sex-a: The Voice’s 2022 sex survey

CONNOR MARTIN, MARGARET HARTIGAN, AND JOANNA LI

voices

Despite the negatives, D.C.’s restaurant industry needs Initiative 82

SHAJAKA SHELTON

Organizers for slavery accountability disappointed with reconciliation fund

FRANZISKA WILD

Pandemic upheaval: How “zero-COVID” policies have burdened Chinese international students

JUPITER HUANG AND JULIO WANG

halftime sports The skeletons in the closet at the 2022 Qatar World Cup

SAM LYNCH

11 voices The true crime of 'true crime' COLE KINDIGER

12

halftime leisure House of the Dragon soars beyond its stuttering start

LUCY COOK AND AMANDA YEN 15

halftime leisure “Lift Me Up” is a soothing, triumphant tribute from Rihanna AJANI JONES

Editor-In-Chief Max Zhang

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The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty, or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Columns, advertisements, cartoons, and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright The Georgetown Voice, unless otherwise indicated.

Staff Contributors Nicholas Budler, Bradshaw Cate, Romita Chattaraj, Leon Cheung, Elin Choe, Alex Deramo, Erin Ducharme, Nikki Farnham, James Garrow, Christine Ji, Julia Kelly, Ashley Kulberg, Olivia Li, Sam Lynch, David McDaniels, Amelia Myre, Grace Nuri, Madeleine Ott, Natalia Porras, Owen Posnett, Brett Rauch, Caroline Samoluk, Michelle Serban, Amelia Shotwell, Isabelle Stratta, Amelia Wanamaker, Zachary Warren, Amanda Yen

ANNABELLA HOGE AND PAUL JAMES

To say goodbye is a strange act. What a fundamentally odd task: Distill everything you’ve given or taken into a few elegant sentences. How fragile, this feeling of trying to do justice to an experience or a person who taught you something about the world—about yourself—about your limits and your fears and your ambitions—and maybe even a bit about love.

So preparing to bid farewell to the Voice something I’ve committed at least a thousand hours to—is a weird thing. Freshman fall seems an eon ago; this place has transformed in the years since. Even demographically—16 percent of the fall 2019 section editors were people of color; 45 percent of them are today. To be the first person of color elected the Voice’s editor-in-chief since

A SWIFT LISTEN

Looking for Midnights discourse, or even just people to commiserate with about Eras Tour Ticketmaster woes? Join Fallon and Nadine as they discuss all things Taylor Swift! From track by track analysis to fan theories to listening parties, Swift-Talk has your Swiftie news covered.

Listen on Spotify or on our website!

spring 2016 is an odd feeling. I’ve been both a purveyor and a site of change, swimming through a Voice adjusting to a global pandemic, values crises, multiple format changes, sociopolitical uprising and turbulence, work culture shifts, and so much more. And as I now produce my final issue at the magazine’s helm, I’m struck by how humbled I feel.

I can’t even begin to thank the teams and individuals I’ve worked with to make the Voice a more equitable, hospitable, and safe place for students and subjects. Of course, this is a continual work of progress—but I’m convinced the Voice I’m leaving behind is a world away from the one I walked into three years ago. Certainly, I hope it won’t take 11 semesters for another person of color to sit in this seat, and I strongly believe this magazine will continually

reevaluate its own work and conscience to ensure that it is contributing towards a better, more just world—at Georgetown and beyond.

More than anything, I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who has trusted the Voice with a story of theirs. To every source, every editor, every writer, every designer—thanks for being part of this journey. I leave this office with nothing but hope for the future. One defined by solidarity and community and heart. Something like what we’ve built here. Dream big, friends. x

With love, Max Zhang Editor-in-Chief, Fall 2022

Well (Taylor's Version) Taylor Swift

bon iver mxmtoon

Subaru Curtis Waters

Getaway Car Taylor Swift

It’s fucking cold.

Last week teased us with sunshine, but now it’s colder than a rat’s ass (my ass, to be specific). The tunnels I scurry through conduct wind like the buttholes of the students on campus after Taco Tuesday at Leo’s. I’m fighting for my life out here.

But despite the temperature outdoors, I realize this is the time of year to be thankful. What do you think I am? A hEATHEN?

I am thankful for students going home next week so I can be left in fucking peace. I am thankful for Rangila ending this weekend so I can get some fucking sleep when I’m hanging out in Gaston. I am thankful for the Copley fire for warming my frigid heart (albeit temporarily) and heating this moist, drenched, seeping rat body—now I’m hotter than ever; I can’t help but feel turned on.

But most of all, I’m grateful for you, the readers of the Georgetown Voice. Your obsession with this smexy bod (and mind—I’m more than just a pretty face) of mine has kept you coming back week after week, giving a platform to this succulent loverboy of a rat to air his grievances. Thank you, you horndogs. Have a nefarious break, and until next time …

xoxo, Gossip Rat

drivers' license Olivia Rodrigo

Tokyo Drifting Glass Animals, Denzel Curry

Story of My Life One Direction

Little League Conan Gray

"In the words of Shakespeare: Fuck it, we ball."

F

rom Nov. 9 to Nov. 12, the Voice asked Georgetown undergraduate students about their sexual practices and their opinions on Georgetown’s Catholic identity and its influence on university contraception policies. This is the third survey the Voice has conducted on Georgetown students’ sex lives, updating our 2007 and 2012 assessments after a decade-long hiatus.

This survey is not intended to be a scientific representation of Georgetown as a whole.

As the first brisk wave of winter air blows across campus, the Voice wants to know more about the steamy sex lives of its readers. More importantly, we want to promote a raw dialogue about sex—the carnal details, the riveting minutiae, and everything in between.

The results—and superlatives

692 Hoyas responded to our poll, including 432 cisgender women, 222 cisgender men, 41 gender queer, gender non-binary, or genderfluid individuals, four transgender women, two transgender men, and 12 individuals who declined to identify a gender or self-identified.

Despite a large sample size, some demographic limitations should be noted. Cisgender men, firstyears, and students in the MSB, SOH, and SON were underrepresented in our survey. The proportion of cisgender women responders was five percent higher than Georgetown's undergraduate gender ratio. Our survey, however, accounted for gender identities outside of the male-female binary, whereas official university gender data does not, potentially explaining this discrepancy.

With that said, here are a number of spicy findings that deserve recognition.

School with the most fucks: MSB on top

A majority of students have had sex and are currently sexually active, but the most sexually active superlative goes to the MSB, with 71 percent of respondents from the school self-reporting current sexual activity. This is followed by 63 percent of sexually active students in the SOH/SON, the College (59.5 percent), and the SFS (53.3 percent).

Overall, 72 percent of students who completed the survey have engaged in sexual intercourse, with 83.3 percent of this subgroup considering themselves currently sexually active. This is consistent with the Voice’s 2012 survey, which found 72 percent of Georgetown students are sexually active, up from its 2007 survey with 63 percent sexually active respondents.

But while college-age people overall are less sexually active than they were in 2007, Hoyas seem to only be shaking more sheets over the last decade.

Of the 498 respondents who have ever engaged in sexual intercourse, 15.5 percent had six or more sexual partners in the last year. 4.2 percent of self-identified “sexually active” students hadn’t had sex in the last year (excluding the 28 percent of students who have never had sex). 3.2 percent of all students identified as asexual.

of cisgender men are having sex—a slight increase from 77 percent in 2012 and 67 percent in 2007. The number of cisgender women having sex fell slightly; today, 63 percent of cisgender female-identifying respondents are having sex, down from 65 percent in 2012.

virginity—over half reported having never had sex. For sophomores, that figure cuts nearly in half—just 29 percent. (Something in the air during freshman spring, we guess?) For seniors, just 18 percent report never having had sex.

School with the least fucks: SFS on bottom

If you’re a part of the 46.7 percent of sexually inactive students in the SFS, fret not—you’re not alone. For many students, professional success and academic performance rank higher on the priorities list. “Georgetown is so pre-professional that even our sex lives are efficient. We commit dormcest and hookups, always thinking about convenience and separating personal/business,” one student wrote in the survey, alluding to an article they had read.

hoya sex-a: The Voi ce Sex Survey

forward culture. Over half of all sexually active Hoyas report engaging in oral sex 1-5 times per month, on average, while 20 percent report having oral sex zero times per month.

Despite a lack of frequent sex on campus, students report being satisfied with their sex lives. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their sex lives, while only 15 percent of respondents admitted feeling “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with their sex life.

The kinky and the not-so-kinky Wisdom comes with age, and apparently, so does adventurousness. Students in the class of 2023 are the most sexually audacious, with a mean score of 6.02 on our 1-10 vanilla-to-freaky scale. With a score of 5.94, the class of 2024 closely followed. The class of 2025 and 2026 scored slightly below the 5.70 campus average, with scores of 5.35 and 4.98 respectively.

And for anyone wondering, the MSB is the most sexually adventurous school by a small margin, and the SFS is the least.

Filthiest sex stories

Speaking of freaky, we can’t ignore some of the tips we got.

When students are in a committed relationship, more than a third report having sex with their partner 15 or more times per month. For non-committed partners, the percent of respondents having sex more than 15 times per month falls to 1.4 percent. In fact, 51 percent of our respondents admitted to having sex zero times per month with noncommitted partners, pushing back against notions of Georgetown having a hook-up

Some respondents offered curious suggestions. “You should ask if you’ve ever had sex in a classroom, I’m curious how filthy the ICC carpets are,” one wrote. (We’re taking notes for the next survey). Others wondered if dorm stereotypes—namely the urban legend that Darnall was one of the horniest dorms in America in 2003—could be verified.

Some students reported peculiar sexual partners. “Did it with the John Carroll statue once,” one respondent wrote. We have no way of confirming this incident, nor are we a judgmental entity, but keep this in mind the next time you consider sitting on John’s lap.

Most pressing sex issues

When asked if college life at Georgetown

design by dane tedder

ce 's 2022 Survey

Students overwhelmingly voted that the university’s affiliation should have no effect on its contraception policy (80 percent responded this way). Around 92 percent of respondents believed that the Student Health Center should be allowed to prescribe birth control pills and that contraception should be

But more nuanced opinions came up in the free response portion. “As a Catholic institution, Georgetown has a right to not provide free contraception. However, that’s only acceptable because of organizations like Hoyas for Choice,” one respondent wrote. “If Georgetown’s policies towards contraception actually prevented people from engaging in safe sex, I would feel more passionately that

BY CONNOR MARTIN, MARGARET HARTIGAN, AND JOANNA LI

either “agree” or “strongly agree.”

Some survey takers lamented the logistical hurdles of having sex on campus, complaining of thin walls, omnipresent roommates, and little privacy. One respondent remarked, “Increased availability of single rooms would solve a lot of sexiling related roommate problems.”

While that may be true, it’s unlikely the university will make easing student sex logistics a priority, especially considering the university’s prohibition of sexual sleepovers in campus housing—Georgetown classifies sexual activities as Class A Violations subject to similar punishment as noise and alcohol violations. According to section 41 of the Student Code of Conduct, “Cohabitation, which is defined as overnight visits with a sexual partner, is incompatible both with the Catholic character of the University and with the rights of the roommates.”

There are some resources on campus to support sexual health, but they are incredibly limited. Health Education Services (HES), for example, provides certain resources for students affected by sexual assault, violence, alcohol, drugs, eating disorders, nutrition, and sexual health (but not abortion or contraception). “Students do not need a referral to seek services at HES, and all clinical services are completely free and confidential,” HES director Carol Day wrote.

The university, citing its Catholic affiliation, prohibits the official distribution of contraceptives on campus. In the final section of our survey, we gathered student opinions about the influence of Georgetown’s theocracy on sex choices.

For many, contraceptive needs ought to go beyond what H*yas for Choice, which receives neither recognition nor funding from the university, can provide— especially for those with student health insurance, or who otherwise lack the resources to venture outside the gates for additional safe sex supplies. Georgetown’s student health insurance does not “contract, arrange, pay or refer” for contraceptives—including the pill, IUDs, and other forms of birth control—as the university has a religious accommodation from federal coverage requirements.

Some students argue that Georgetown’s anti-contraception policy actually violates the religious freedom to engage in other, nonCatholic faith traditions.

“Other faiths require the right to reproductive healthcare services that Georgetown denies, and its Jesuit affiliation should not infringe upon the religious freedom of non-Catholic students,” Salmah Elmasry (COL ’25) said. Many practitioners of Islam, Judaism, and Dharmic traditions view reproductive healthcare as an

essential part of their faith.

Some students commented on potential upsides of H*yas for Choice’s unofficial status. “Granting H*yas for Choice institutional legitimacy is only reasonable if administration couldn’t restrict their current (excellent imo) work in any way,” a respondent wrote.

Could university coverage of common contraceptives encourage safer sex habits? 62 percent of students who have had intercourse indicated easy access to contraceptives affect their choice to have sex. In terms of general contraceptive usage, while 43 percent of respondents who have engaged in sexual activity always use protection, 28 percent usually use protection, and 18 percent of survey takers “rarely” or “never” use protection.

This survey also revealed some disparities in having protected sex between heterosexual students, 78.6 percent of whom usually or always use protection, and individuals who identify with other sexual identities, 63.6 percent of whom usually or always use protection.

Students also expressed frustration with the lack of other sexual health resources—particularly STI testing. While the Student Health Center provides testing for sexually transmitted infections, there is no free STI testing on campus.

“I wish Georgetown offered free STI testing in a similar capacity to Covid testing. The health insurance here is grossly overpriced and I’d rather not bill my dad’s insurance and him be aware I’m having pussy for dinner,” a survey respondent wrote.

Queer students face extra challenges in getting into the hanky panky with their peers, with some survey respondents expressing frustration with the close-knit culture of the Georgetown LGBTQ+ dating scene. One student noted that “having wide networks of acquaintances [in the queer community] makes it hard to engage in hookup culture without worrying about how it will affect your social network,” and added that this has led them to seek out partners from other D.C. universities through dating apps.

“A lot of queer students coming to campus maybe didn’t feel comfortable expressing their sexuality in high school,” Abby Kirk (COL ’23), a board member of H*yas for Choice said. “They get here and they feel a little bit more comfortable with the outward expression of being Queer, but they don’t feel a ton of support in the actual sexual part of it.”

According to Kirk, that is tied to the lack of contraceptive use and accessibility on campus. “I personally definitely see a lot of health risks in terms of queer women having sex; dental dams are not as commonly used as they should be,” Kirk said.

The takeaways

In this survey, we've exposed some surprising— and some unsurprising—facts about our peers’ sex lives. Like on other campuses, sex is common among Georgetown students. There are challenges facing sexually active Hoyas—from a lack of STI testing to thin Henle walls— but regardless, the Voice can see that nothing will stop determined Hoyas from bambamming in the ham (or on Cooper Field). G

Despite the negatives, D.C.’s restaurant industry needs Initiative 82

BY SHAJAKA SHELTON

Exploitation is the status quo in the restaurant industry. It follows that any method of fixing the industry is impossible to undertake while protecting workers and small businesses from the inevitable fallout. The current D.C. restaurant industry can’t sustain the elimination of the tip credit for the same reason that it needs to go—systemized tipping culture. The newly passed Initiative 82 will help build a better restaurant industry, but it must tear the industry down to its foundations first.

On Nov. 8, voters in Washington, D.C. overwhelmingly cast their ballots in favor of Initiative 82, ending the tip credit, which incorporates gratuities into minimum wage calculation. Previously, employers were allowed to pay “tipped employees” a minimum wage of $5.05 (the current standard minimum wage is $16.10) as long as they make up the difference in tips. Initiative 82 is a functional replica of Initiative 77, which was repealed 7-5 by the D.C. council in 2018 before coming into force over the same concerns that many are voicing now.

In any other situation, paying workers subminimum wage would draw widespread public fury, and while Initiative 82 passed with 73.4 percent of the vote, the days leading up to the elections saw heated discourse. This is because the restaurant industry has a unique problem: Tipping culture is a foundational business practice.

Tipping culture refers to the social phenomenon in which customers routinely pay service workers a bit of additional money outside of the flat price normally paid. American business owners claim tipping makes the restaurant world go round. The restaurant industry is the only one in which employers are only obligated to put up a third of their workers’ pay. With the remaining two-thirds, employers can cover required costs to keep their businesses afloat while keeping dining prices low. On paper, low prices make a customer’s dining experience seem cheaper and encourage tipping, which makes up the two-thirds missing from their server’s wages. The institution of the tipped wage is

the lynchpin of this operation. The only way to keep everyone happy in this model—workers with high enough wages, business owners with high profits and low operating costs, and customers with the restaurants’ low prices—is to retain the tipped wage.

They’re right. Initiative 82 will harm businesses, workers, and customers alike, and there is no denying that, given that restaurant owners are already looking to cut staff, push more work onto their employees, and raise their prices. However, this narrative conveniently clears business owners of their role in any potential downsides of this business model as well as refuses to address that restaurants can and do operate in states without the tip credit. It assumes that whether or not customers tip is more dependent on restaurant prices than social convention and quality of services rendered, an argument that falls apart when one realizes that people tip at both cheap and expensive restaurants.

Not to mention, this notion grants the immediate negative effects of change primacy over the long-term benefits as a means to justify hampering the worker’s rights movement.

For the employees, beneath the thin appeal of fast cash from a beefy tip lies a world of instability and mistreatment that must be navigated in order to stay afloat in our capitalist society. While a job with such obstacles is better than no job at all, breaking free of the service industry is notably difficult. The compliance of the workers within this system enables further exploitation.

While servers are generally part-time employees, even full-time minimum-wage servers in the District are only guaranteed to bring in $214 a week directly from their employer before taxes. Everything after that is simply guesswork and chance. The business of the restaurant, the personality and prejudices of the customers, and the physical health of the employee are some of the many variables in the equation that makes an adequate paycheck unpredictable. Only around 35 percent of employers track their servers’ earnings as they are legally obligated to do, making it possible that some workers simply don’t make the minimum wage.

Despite servers being predominantly female, male servers have higher overall earnings—female servers made 87 cents to the male server’s dollar in 2021. Additionally, the wage gap between servers of color and white servers is, as in other industries, significant. Disabled workers may also struggle to provide typical “tippable service” due to the physical demands of restaurant work. Visibly queer workers may also face tipping discrimination for their appearance. Worker income should not be determined by the customer’s personal biases. Yet, they face precarity: In the District, 31.7 percent of tipped workers are parents; 11.6 percent are in poverty. 38.8 percent are two times below the poverty line. Initiative 82 will not end discrimination, but the measure will cut down on the number of ways it can affect worker compensation.

Tips should be a bit of extra money to take home, not the basis for livelihood. But enforcing this norm may still negatively impact workers. Initiative 82’s passing will put pressure on already struggling businesses post-pandemic. Hours will be cut, workers will be laid off, and businesses will be forced to close or sharply raise prices to offset labor costs. Those who aren’t laid off will grapple with being understaffed and overworked, while those who are will struggle to find another job. But, what is the alternative? Allowing workers to continue suffering under the current system?

Purely positive systemic change is an unattainable ideal.

To make progress in the workers’s rights movement, we must be realistic, and D.C. voters were: Most D.C. voters chose to pass Initiative 82. While the bill’s immediate effects may harm the individuals it was meant to protect, there is no escaping consequences when attempting to dismantle such a widespread and entrenched business practice. Restaurants don’t have to operate under tipping culture forever, and Initiative 82 will make sure that they don’t. Right now, the restaurant industry is too flawed for Initiative 82, but it needs it, badly. G

Organizers for slavery accountability disappointed with reconciliation fund

BY FRANZISKA WILD

Student activists also expressed concern that the money from the fund may not go directly to descendants, as “community-based initiatives” include everything from developing a new preschool to health care initiatives, according to a university spokesperson.

“I believe as a group we feel the fund is not reparative justice and there is so much more the university has to do,” Julia Thomas (COL ’24), an organizer with Hoyas for Slavery Accountability (HASA) and a descendant of people enslaved by Georgetown, wrote when asked about her thoughts on Georgetown’s long-awaited reconciliation fund. She did not mince her words.

The Office of the President announced the Georgetown University Reconciliation Fund on Oct. 26, as a continuation of the efforts started by the 2019 undergraduate student referendum pushing for university action on reconciliations. Passing by a wide margin, the referendum called for financial reparations from students—those who benefit most from Georgetown’s history of enslavement— in the form of an extra $27.20 per semester added to tuition to go to the descendants of those the university enslaved. The referendum was originally intended for fall of 2020, but the administration has stalled implementation until now.

“The GU272 Referendum was created in light of Georgetown’s refusal to engage meaningfully with student and descendant initiatives for years prior,” Thomas wrote. “Designed to support an ongoing partnership between Georgetown’s student body and the descendant communities, the GU272 Referendum is a part of a larger movement for the redistribution of stolen capital to African descendants of formerly enslaved peoples.”

According to a university spokesperson, the fund awards $400,000 annually, raised via alumni donations, to “community based projects that aim to have an impact on Descendant communities whose ancestors were once enslaved on the Maryland Jesuit plantations.” It aims to give out roughly $200,000 per project application cycle with two cycles held per year, one in the fall and one in the spring.

Olivia Henry (COL ’24), another organizer for HASA, explained that the $400,000 is derived from the original total generated by adding $27.20 to each student’s tuition, as was proposed by the 2019 referendum. Sourcing the money from students—not from alumni donations, as the recently announced fund depends on—was a critical part of the referendum’s philosophy.

“It was genuinely meant to be a symbolic thing of students saying we want to increase our tuition so that it is known by all students and all university faculty that students are invested in financial reparations,” Henry said. She emphasized that because the number is symbolic ($27.20 for the 272+ individuals the university sold), it’s not derived from any measurable estimation of the impact of slavery, which a $400,000 fund cannot begin to address.

Additionally, activists in HASA feel a deep disappointment with the fund’s structure.

“The formation of a charitable fund in lieu of implementing the student referendum is an insufficient response to both the student body and descendant communities,” Thomas wrote.

Student activists also expressed skepticism about how exactly projects are selected, given the fund is supposed to be distributed via recommendations from the Student Awards Committee, a new group of students appointed by the university, who will work in tandem with the Descendant Advisory Committee. Advocates argue it is one of the ways the university absolves itself of truly engaging with descendants.

“Currently, the Georgetown reconciliation fund has both a group of students and descendants working together to decide what groups will be approved for funding and what groups will be denied. But because students are the ones who will be voting on this approval process for organizations, the university can use students as a scapegoat if any of these organizations turn out to not benefit descendant communities and cause harm in whatever way shape or form,” Henry said.

HASA activists see a charitable fund like this as a means of creating distance between the university administration and descendant communities— an attempt by Georgetown to quickly and neatly resolve its past harms and simultaneously relegate them to the past.

That broad definition potentially allows the university to redirect reparations to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) rather than to descendants directly. “They are able to fund non-profit NGOs that could potentially engage in very white savior-ist work to ‘benefit’ descendant communities, while Georgetown itself is not doing anything to support its descendants on campus or in surrounding areas,” Henry said.

The fight for reparative justice extends far beyond the newly announced fund. HASA has been continually involved with organizing mutual aid projects on campus, including a recently completed school supply drive that raised $335 for a school in Maringouin, La., according to Kessley Janvier (COL ’25). HASA is also working to address issues such as William Gaston’s recently publicized history of enslavement—the prominent Catholic North Carolina Supreme Court justice after whom Gaston Hall is named.

In Sept. of 2022, Professor John Mikhail at the Georgetown Law School published work shedding further light on Gaston having enslaved at least 163 people and advocated for judicial solutions to uphold slavery’s legality. HASA organizers have reached out to university administrators about what actions should be taken, including discussions of a name change and having President DeGioia send out Mikhail’s research in a university-wide email.

“We are passionately advocating for a name change of Gaston hall. We have been contacting the university and will be updating our Instagram with ways fellows students can help in the effort,” Thomas wrote.

HASA activists remain committed to fighting for reparations despite institutional stalling by the university and the Office of the President, which took over three years to only partially implement the 2019 referendum and remains silent on Gaston Hall, deeply disappointing descendants.

“This is a continuation of Georgetown’s commitment to white supremacy. Today it’s Gaston, tomorrow it’s something else,” Janvier said. “Our goal is to make it actively impossible for you to navigate this school without encountering how your privilege is directly at the cost of oppressed peoples.” G

design by graham krewinghaus; photos courtesy of georgetown voice

Pandemic upheaval: How "zeroCOVID" policies have burdened Chinese international students

BY JUPITER HUANG AND JULIO WANG

I

n late May 2022, when most Hoyas had already reunited with their families, Fenny Qi (MSB ’25) stood with heavily packed bags on both sides, thinking about how she ended up at the Tacoma Airport in Seattle—5,705 miles from Shanghai— with no idea how she would get home. Given the 12-hour time difference, her parents were fast asleep, and Qi, with her friend Penny Li (COL ’25), frantically ran through their possible options, including the expensive option of staying in the U.S. At that moment, however, both women thought they may be stuck in Tacoma indefinitely.

“We thought we literally weren’t going back to China and then we stayed for the entire night at the airport,” Qi said. “All our plans were based on going back to China, so I had no idea where I was going to stay, what I was going to do in the summer in the U.S.”

For the Chinese students who brave the monthlong ordeal of travel and quarantines to return to China, the hope of seeing family members after being abroad for a full year and missing life at home are the primary motivations for going back.

“I wanted to see my family, especially my grandparents on both sides,” Qi said. “I wanted to go back to be able to make them happier.”

Qi and Li’s journey back to China was mired by the logistics of the Chinese government’s COVID-19 policy. At the time, entry into China required a seven-day pre-travel quarantine at one of the few departure cities that still service direct flights—Seattle being one of them, which brought Qi and Li to Tacoma in the first place. Indeed, because D.C. is not one of those cities, Chinese students must travel significant distances to test, quarantine, and await their flight. Qi recalled that the government-recognized pre-travel COVID tests alone cost upwards of $400, not to mention plane tickets costing up to $5000 for economy class due to a tit-for-tat series of flight suspensions initiated by the Chinese government.

Getting on a plane with test results in hand clears only one of many hurdles. After Qi had already boarded her flight and settled into her

exceeded their flight time limitations. And no replacement was to appear: An industry-wide severe pilot shortage was intensified for East Asian routes by a mass resignation of pilots flying to mainland China and Hong Kong. Qi and her fellow passengers were shepherded off the plane. After meeting up with Li, the two scrambled to find a place to stay.

“Eventually, we called the airlines a million times to negotiate, and they agreed to change our flight to two weeks later. I would never go back to Seattle airport if I can choose not to. It was literally traumatizing,” Qi said.

For Chinese international students, the tumultuous return home is merely a symptom of the Chinese government’s broader “zero COVID” policy apparatus to manage COVID-19. It involves a system of strict restrictions on mobility to protect the country’s vulnerable or unvaccinated populations against increasingly infectious variants. It’s a policy that has lasted for almost three years, and with recent lockdowns in Guangzhou, the country’s third largest city, it shows no sign of relenting.

Consequently, getting onto Chinese soil is just one part of the process. Travelers arriving in China enter a stringent quarantine system after landing. Prior to the most recent policy change in June 2022 that shortened the entire isolation process to 10 days, all passengers had to enter a two-week, supervised hotel quarantine upon arrival and were required to quarantine at home for an additional week after. Isolation facilities can vary dramatically in quality depending on location and resources.

Though guidelines loosen once travelers are permitted to begin home quarantining, local community workers may install electronic locks on the apartment door if residents are found leaving their residences without permission.

Kristen Xiao (SFS ’25) went through this quarantine process in 2021 and decided not to return this past summer.

“Because I have been back in China one year ago and went through the quarantine, I just didn’t feel like there is a strong support system, and it was just challenging for my mental health,” Xiao said. “I was just mentally prepared that I may not be back home until junior year, so in freshman fall I just started looking for opportunities over the summer in the States.”

Li was clear there were no good proxies for going back home.

“What I miss more here is my lifestyle back in Shanghai. Things that I will do a lot back in Shanghai, I won’t be able to do it here,” she said. “Back in China, our social bonding was mainly related to food: We cook together and go out to

eat. Here in the U.S., the main social activity is partying, which is not something I am used to.”

Both Qi and Li said that COVID policies drastically changed their experiences back home. Though some changes such as restaurant closures led to more well-off citizens participating in “restaurant hunting,” a trend of searching for dining locations that remained open discreetly, in violation of strict restrictions, other policies had more severe outcomes.

The government’s enforcement of “zeroCOVID” relies on an extensive color-coded health system integrated into Chinese social media apps such as WeChat and Alipay. The system limits the movement of citizens based on contact tracing and other forms of surveillance. Green indicates free movement, yellow requires a series of PCR tests, and a red code entails an often undefined period of self-isolation. All citizens must scan a “Health QR Code” wherever they go, and keeping a green code and access to public spaces requires a PCR test every 72 hours—although there are many reports of health codes mysteriously changing.

Sudden lockdowns of individual neighborhoods where residents have come in contact with COVID-positive individuals are common, constituting one of the most disruptive policies imposed by the government.

“If you live in a building with a person in contact with a COVID-positive person, the building gets locked down for two days,” Qi said. “This happened to me five times, it’s crazy.”

Public attention around the extremeness of China’s “zero-COVID” policy peaked with the two-month-long lockdown of Shanghai, a city of over 25 million people. Beginning in March 2022, neighborhoods in Shanghai experienced localized shutdowns due to the Omicron variant. Almost immediately, grocery shortages occurred as residents panic-bought supplies, but conflicting messages from health authorities about the length of the upcoming lockdown hampered residents’ ability to effectively stockpile for the impending shutdown. What began as a five-day temporary measure eventually evolved into a citywide shutdown that ended more than two months later in early June.

“Before I left for the States, I knew there are a lot of strict COVID policies for all of China based on personal

experience during quarantine, but I have never expected the same kind of policies to be implemented at such a large scale in Shanghai,” Xiao said. “A lot of us thought, ‘Even if all the cities in China went into lockdown, Shanghai would be the only one that wouldn’t go into lockdown.’”

The lockdown in Shanghai undercut China’s most prosperous economic hub, but the human toll was just as high. Outrage over a lack of access to essential goods, even food and water, and instances of residents finding themselves unable to access critical health services like cancer treatment flooded Chinese social media outlets.

“I was frustrated, because there was nothing I can do besides just reposting it, and even reposting cannot reach the people who are actually in need of resources to help them,” Xiao said. Chinese censorship has rendered its domestic internet entirely separate from international platforms such as Instagram and Google. The Chinese authorities likened complaints about the pandemic control measures on social media to “a virus of rumors” and quickly took down any such posts.

Even as new variants of the virus have become less severe, China’s “zero-COVID” policy continues to produce significant secondary damage: Many residents died of preventable causes during Shanghai’s lockdown. Requiring a negative PCR test result within the previous 48 hours to enter hospitals wasted precious time that could have been spent on emergency treatments, leading to the deaths of many patients with chronic diseases that necessitated immediate surgery. Such deaths have not been included in the official COVID death toll.

Abiding by the strict lockdown restrictions also places extraordinary pressure on residents, health workers, and government officials alike: As many as two in five Shanghai residents experienced depression during quarantine, with some choosing to tragically end their lives.

The experiences of those in Shanghai caused Xiao and many other students to rethink going home. “A lot of people’s mindsets have been shaken by the lockdown,” she said.

Despite hindering everyday life, COVIDrelated restrictions have remained favorable in the Chinese bureaucracy. In a Politburo meeting on July 28, President Xi Jinping announced that a strict pandemic response should be considered a sign of party loyalty, and his call was echoed across the country. Local officials showed their adherence to Xi’s leadership by conducting mass tests and “drill lockdowns,” even in cities without any reported positive cases.

“I think it’s more political than health. I think their handling of the issue is a little bit extreme,” John Yang (COL ’25) said. “This doesn’t turn me against the Chinese government, but I’m definitely upset because I can’t go back home.”

China’s extreme COVID-19 response has significantly increased student demand for oncampus housing at Georgetown during summer

and winter breaks. Yichu Huang (SFS ’23) authored a November 2021 petition that urged the university to provide winter break housing for international students, many of whom faced extremely limited housing options.

“Many of us are unable to return home this winter as the quarantine time simply exceeds our break, not to mention the difficulty in securing international flights and the continuous risk of being exposed to the virus,” Huang wrote in the petition. “We urge the school to consider providing winter housing for students who are unable to return home at this unique time.”

After negotiating with students, the university eventually offered international students the opportunity to apply for housing at the university’s hotel, but winter break housing costs were not covered by financial aid. Moreover, the only on-campus dining option available was Epicurean and Company, which still charged flex dollars at the time. Students faced similar difficulties securing transition housing for the summer.

“The email of the transition housing last semester came too late, like in April. It was just kind of inflexible,” Xiao said. “When we already figured this out and paid a higher price for offcampus housing, it came, but there was no way we can get everything undone.”

According to a university spokesperson, several Georgetown offices “worked together to review requests and provide emergency housing and food support on campus during the summer” due to “emergency circumstances during the summer of 2022. Leaders in the offices of Residential Living, Student Affairs, and Student Financial Services will work with students who won’t be enrolled in classes this summer and who face housing insecurity to determine how to assist them.”

Students noted that being a Chinese international student during COVID is a unique burden—deciding when and how to travel home, especially given the extended quarantine and threats of lockdown, is unlike the decision calculus faced by many of their peers.

“Some of my friends just cannot imagine how we can stay a year away from our parents and what it feels like not able to go back to home,” Xiao said.

“My friends here haven’t experienced that, so they don’t truly understand that,” Qi said. “But we wouldn’t expect people to understand that because obviously we don’t want people to experience that.”

Qi and Li eventually got back to China— but only after being stuck in Seattle for an additional two weeks.

The ordeals of Chinese students like Qi and Li have, however, fostered closer community relationships.

“Having people in the same situation as you is very helpful. I feel like I got a lot closer to Chinese friends I wasn’t that close to [during] the summer because we were together, and we didn’t have our families here,” Yang said. This past summer, he worked for Residential Living and stayed with other Chinese students who did not return home.

As Yang’s family continues life under “zeroCOVID” thousands of miles away, that sense of community among Chinese international students has been crucial. “We basically supported each other,” he said. “We would help each other move, going out to dinner together, just being like a family.” G

The skeletons in the closet at the 2022 Qatar World Cup

BY SAM LYNCH

Acolossus looms on the horizon: the skeleton of a soccer stadium in Qatar ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In the midst of construction, thousands of underpaid migrant workers toil in the scorching heat. Many desperately want to help their families back home but have no idea if or when their next paycheck will arrive.

I detailed the labor conditions faced by migrant workers in Qatar for my Georgetown SFS application essay two years ago. Now, as of Nov. 18 publication, the World Cup kicks off in Qatar’s Al Bayt Stadium in less than 48 hours. The whole world is gearing up for its most viewed spectator sporting event—3.572 billion people tuned in back in 2018. Millions of fans have descended upon the tiny Gulf nation to witness the tournament as well. However, the spotlight on the first World Cup in southwest Asia has shed a light on issues beyond the thrilling action on the pitch.

Strong suspicions of corruption, logistical issues, and human rights concerns have surrounded Qatar’s World Cup since it launched its bid. While nothing direct has been proven, the Department of Justice accused Qatar of bribing officials from FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, to vote for them in the host selection process. Several FIFA officials have been arrested in connection with TV rights deals linked to the scandal. Adding to the complications, an average summer temperature of 107 ° F in Qatar forced FIFA to move the World Cup from June-July to November-December. This directly conflicts with the club soccer season of most European leagues, condensing an already tight schedule to fit the Cup. As a result, player injuries have spiked due to decreased rest, ending the World Cup dreams of high-profile stars such as France’s Paul Pogba, Germany’s Timo Werner, and Portugal’s Diogo Jota.

Additionally, there have been concerns from fans and international human rights organizations about Qatar’s human rights record, as Qatar criminalizes homosexuality. Nasser al-Khater, Chief Executive Officer of the Qatar World Cup, said that “any fan of any gender, [sexual] orientation, religion,

race should rest assured that … they’ll all be welcome here,” but this will be tested throughout the next month.

The most significant controversy surrounding Qatar 2022, however, is the Qatari government’s handling of the migrant workers who comprise 90 percent of the state’s workforce and built all of their new stadiums from scratch. Under the kafala system, Qatar sponsored workers from several South Asian countries to come work but then proceeded to make them sign restrictive contracts that left their employers in total control of their working rights. It was not uncommon for employers to confiscate passports, and workers sometimes didn’t know if they would ever be able to leave the country again. They worked long hours in extreme heat without breaks. Although government records claim 37 World Cup stadium construction workers died between 2014 and 2021, that count does not include heat-related deaths, and a 2021 investigation by The Guardian found that 6,500 workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka have died since the World Cup was awarded to Qatar.

To its credit, Qatar introduced a reform in 2017 that eliminated many conditions of the kafala system. It set a minimum wage and allowed workers to leave the country and change jobs without employer permission.

According to Amnesty International, though, this only helped marginally. Workers still experience subpar conditions, past compensation is still owed in some cases, and many deaths remain unexplained.

Nevertheless, some aspects of the reforms have succeeded. A Nov. 14 panel at Georgetown, “Under the Spotlight and in the Headlines: Qatar and the 2022 World Cup,” pointed to some substantial changes. Danyel Reiche, a professor at Georgetown in Qatar (GU-Q), mentioned a trailblazing law implemented last year forbidding outdoor work between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. between June and September. Zahra Babar, associate director for research at GU-Q’s Center for International and Regional Studies, highlighted a new electronic system that tracks worker payments, notifying the government if

they do not arrive on time. This does not erase the transgressions of the recent past, and all the panelists stressed that Qatar needs to be held accountable for its continued implementation of the new laws. Will these reforms continue after the World Cup ends and the global magnifying glass is removed?

Despite these reforms and FIFA’s warning to “focus on football,” several countries have protested migrant worker exploitation in Qatar. In Denmark’s World Cup kits, the national team logo and sponsor blend monochromatically into the jersey as a human rights protest, despite FIFA prohibitions on political statements on team merchandise. The Australian national team released a critical video about the situation, and Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal pledged that he and his squad would meet with migrant workers while in Qatar. German fans, notorious for their passion and often fiercely progressive political stances, were extremely vocal in their dissent; the hardcore fans of German Club Bayern München held aloft this message: “15,000 dead for 5,760 minutes of football. Shame on you!” While 15,000 is an exaggerated number deriving from Qatar’s official records of all non-Qatari deaths in the country between 2010 and 2019, not just those of workers, the message reads loud and clear.

Major international sporting events such as the World Cup always provide a spectacle on the political front. Countries bidding to host them seek soft power—more influence on the global stage—and visibility in addition to improved infrastructure. In this way, Qatar is not alone in its hunger for glory. The 2018 hosts were none other than Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and even former hosts like France and the United States sought to boost their international image by hosting the tournament.

With all this in mind, expect off-the-field issues to dominate the headlines over the course of the tournament just as much as the action on the pitch. The Qatari leadership will have to bank on the hope that the income and development generated by this tournament will outweigh the negative international attention the country has received. G

We may never be rid of Jeffrey Dahmer. The new Netflix series Dahmer –Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022), which captured public attention in late September, is just the most recent addition to a long line of Dahmer-related media. It follows My Friend Dahmer (2017), Hulu’s film about the serial killer’s adolescence based on a graphic novel, as well as the newest season of Joe Berlinger's Conversations with a Killer (2022), which—naturally—focuses entirely on Dahmer as well.

But we can’t pretend this phenomenon is limited to Dahmer. As growing numbers of people flock to shows like Dahmer Story or podcasts like Serial (2015), the true crime genre seems more popular than ever. But as viewers all gape in horror at Evan Peters glaring cinematically into the camera, it’s easy to forget that Dahmer was real—and that his victims didn’t have the benefit of a screen between them.

It’s clear that many of us are exhilarated by seeing atrocities committed up close and personal (but from the safety of our couches, of course). The rise of true crime in popular culture has prompted novel conversations about how we depict killers and victims in storytelling, and a larger question about the value of the genre itself: Is true crime worth it?

The genre is plagued with problems. Too often, true crime glorifies the criminal, intentionally casting them in a mysterious allure, sometimes even sexualizing them. (Consider the “Ted Bundy is Hot” movement that coalesced with the release of the Zac Efron-led Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2020)). Streaming services like Netflix use killers’ names like brands—continuing to

The true crime of 'true crime'

BY COLE KINDIGER

peddle content regardless of the message it sends about the criminals themselves.

“True” crime has a reputation for distorting its victims; that is, it treats real people as blank canvases whose lives can be freely warped to embellish the story. In an oped, Hilary Pozesky recounted how her friend’s murder was dramatized by a local TV show. The network doubled down on the murder’s late-October timing, splicing in assorted shots of tacky Halloween decorations and giving the narrator a voice straight out of “Monster Mash.”

But the show slapped on more than just fake blood and gratuitous jump scares. It added suspects, insinuated the victim had an affair with a neighbor, and generally directed attention away from her actual killer—the victim’s estranged husband who she had a restraining order against and the only person of interest throughout the investigation. After watching this vulgar, somewhat victimblaming reenactment of her friend’s murder, the journalist was wrecked: “She died uselessly twice.”

Stories that warp the nature of victimhood are common throughout the true crime genre. Victims’ lives are co-opted by producers, perverted for a shameless cash grab. The killers themselves are lionized so that viewers, acting on twisted curiosity, might be more inclined to watch Dahmer- or Bundy-branded content in the future.

Regardless of how artfully a true crime piece is created, it inevitably commodifies trauma. During Dahmer’s trial, Rita Isbell, the sister of victim Errol Lindsey, gave a heart-wrenching impact statement about how her brother’s murder ravaged her family. “Now I don’t ever want to see my mother through that again,” Isbell said during the trial. “Never, Jeffrey!” It was one of the most powerful moments of the proceeding, and one that crystallized all the harm that Dahmer had caused.

And Dahmer Story mimicked it exactly. DaShawn Barnes, the actor playing Isbell, sported an identical haircut and clothes, and spoke every word voiced by the grieving sister 30 years before. All of Isbell’s pain was fully on display, not just for the courtroom dedicated to convicting her brother’s killer, but for all of us—the millions of viewers paying Netflix to proudly present the destruction of families and lives. “It's sad that they're just making money off of this tragedy,” Isbell wrote in an Insider op-ed. “That's just greed.”

But true crime isn’t categorically unjust— at its best, the genre gives more than it takes. For example, it can highlight underrepresented stories that ought to be told.

Dahmer Story , for all its flaws, takes on an angle that was mostly unexplored in previous Dahmer stories: his exploitation of Black queer people and other people of color, and the role of systemic racism in inhibiting his capture. The show isn’t exactly breaking new ground—Black artists like Elizabeth Axtman in her “Dark Meat” exhibition have been pointing to Dahmer’s anti-Blackness for years—but it is one of the first widely successful Dahmer pieces to acknowledge race in any meaningful way. The true crime genre itself, or at least the part that has entered the mainstream, too often fails to reckon with how whiteness contributes to the violence committed by these (almost exclusively white) men.

True crime can even become a form of “true justice,” increasing public pressure on police departments and inspiring everyday people to work on unsolved cases— culminating in a criminal’s capture and conviction. Just two months ago, a suspect in a 30-year-old cold case was arrested because of evidence uncovered in a Barstool Sports podcast. To be clear, the attention that comes from the true crime genre can be psychologically devastating for victims’ families, but there are times when a story generates the kind of zeal that results in resolution for unsolved cases and closure for victims’ families.

Yet a purely ethical true crime piece seems elusive; its abuses are too deeply embedded within the genre. Creators are incentivized to expand criminals’ notoriety and twist victims’ lives to be maximally entertaining, regardless of their effect on the real people behind the stories. Exploitative true crime, grounded in the commodification of actual human beings, doesn’t deserve its viewers. And that’s where we come in.

It’s up to all of us to stop producing and watching shows that exploit the voices that are key to generating true crime, yet have no power to influence it. Voices like Eric Thulhu’s, who tweeted that Dahmer Story was “retraumatizing” his family. "And for what? How many movies, shows [and] documentaries do we need?"

He isn’t just asking Netflix. He’s asking us. G

House of the Dragon beyond its stuttering start

BY LUCY COOK AND AMANDA YEN

Content warning: This article includes references to sexual violence.

In a dark, imposing war room, a bleach blonde dragon-rider musters forces to war against male claimants to her throne. You would not be remiss to think this is a description of the disastrous seventh season of Game of Thrones Targaryen queen has entered the scene and is vying for succession in House of the Dragon. HBO’s new spin-off prequel to the beloved, behated, and everdebated Game of Thrones takes place nearly 200 years earlier and carries much of the same imagery, themes, and appeal as its predecessor. Yet, House of the Dragon’s first season, despite being borne on the backs of several CGI dragons, takes a bit longer to reach the same heights.

Where Game of Thrones paired a sweeping, multiregional, and multicultural scope with a similarly epic storyline, House of the Dragon’s inaugural season relies more heavily on interpersonal drama. Despite the enormous budget, there is something far more intimate, even restrained, about House of the Dragon. At its core, it is a story of a deeply dysfunctional family, mired by arrogance, ambition, lurid desires, and the complications of Westerosi politics.

Taken from George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, a fictitious history of the Targaryen family, the series details the events of “the Dance of Dragons”—the civil war that annihilates the last of the dragons and signals the beginning of the end for the Targaryen family. This first season chronicles the beginning of the conflict between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock, later Emma D’Arcy) and her childhood friend-turned-stepmother Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey and Olivia Cooke). As Rhaenyra’s father King Viserys (Paddy Considine) becomes ever sicker with an unnamed but fatal disease, the two young women vie for influence, power, and the security of their lineages. Much like the first few seasons of GOT, it is a struggle for succession.

Fire & Blood is a history compiled by one fictional Maester Gyldayn, who states within the text that the sources he is drawing upon are inconclusive and unreliable, often relying on rumor and the records of a court fool named Mushroom. Therefore, within the Thrones lore, the source material for House of the Dragon is neither narrative nor is it necessarily faithful to the “true” occurrences within Martin’s world. As one Polygon review put it, the show is then “free of the burden of adaptation,” with showrunner Ryan Condal and his

In another more obvious departure from of Thrones, House of the Dragon liberally utilizes time skips. The first five episodes take place across four years of Rhaenyra’s youth, with a three-year time jump between episodes two and three. The latter half of the season takes place 10 years later, followed by an additional six-year time jump to end the season almost 20 years after it started. This halfway point is also marked by casting changes for our two rival queens.

These pacing and casting decisions were made to provide context for the latter half of the season where the true conflict for succession begins, but end up lending an unfortunate unevenness to the structure of the season. Though many fans adore these early episodes for the performances by Alcock and Carey, the narrative ends up feeling fragmented, making it particularly hard to reconcile the mischievous, spunky portrayal of adolescent Rhaenyra with her cool, sharp, and wry adult self. Similarly, how can we reconcile the hopeful yet timid teenage Alicent with her more controlled and calculating persona 10 years later? The 10-year gap at times feels momentous (Rhaenyra and Alicent have grown and changed exponentially) and at other times minuscule (Is Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) really still this mad at Rhaenyra’s rejection 10 whole years later?). This uncertainty in the significance of the time jumps disjoints the pacing of the season, which leaves viewers wondering what exactly happened in all that time off-screen.

The early episodes themselves reflect this sort of narrative uncertainty. Though they establish backstories and relationships between the main players, in these first few episodes the stakes have not yet been properly set, making characters’ supposedly momentous decisions feel inconsequential at best and downright silly at worst. A particularly useless bit of screen time is given to Prince Daemon’s (Matt Smith) lengthy battle with a pirate

truly begins to spread its wings—meticulously examining a painful struggle for power, freedom, and life between two women who were once friends. One of the most satisfying divergences House of the Dragon takes from its predecessor is its portrayal of female friendship against court intrigue. Young Alicent and Rhaenyra’s friendship is one of the more heartwarming aspects of the first half of the season, and portrayals of their burgeoning sexualities lend the relationship an erotic undertone. Carey, a queer actor, has stated that she played an Alicent unsure of the boundaries between romantic and platonic. Their relationship is compelling, however, because it’s affected by forces that remain largely out of their control; their choices are set by moves their fathers made while they were children, pieces placed years in the making.

The stakes heighten with the introduction of Alicent and Rhaenyra’s children. The question of succession extending to their children makes every conflict more dire and more brutal— particularly as the king’s health declines. Fabulous, biting performances by D’Arcy and Cooke are bolstered by sharp writing and

condemning her as a bad mother and a bad friend. Yet these criticisms tend to attribute more agency to the character than the show actually suggests. Alicent and Rhaenyra demonstrate two markedly different forms of female agency in this extremely patriarchal fictional society. Rhaenyra’s character may be more appealing because she can directly challenge patriarchal norms, due to the privilege that her family name and position allow her. Alicent, her foil, must operate within those norms because she doesn’t have the privilege of a birthright claim to the throne (or a fire-breathing dragon). She displays more political savvy than Rhaenyra precisely because she understands the unfavorability of Rhaenyra’s ascension among the nobles and the peasants of Westeros alike, and predicts how the impending civil war will endanger her family. Most of the show is filmed from the perspective of Rhaenyra’s party, the Blacks,

willed king, Viserys is the moral heart of this first season. He is peace-seeking and just. He loves his unruly brother and is as quick to punish him for his misdeeds as he is to forgive him. Most importantly, time and time again, he reasserts his faith in and support for Rhaenyra, his firstborn child and heir to the throne, despite the many protestations towards her right to rule and (occasionally accurate) accusations of her inappropriate sexual relations.

Viserys, plagued by what appears to be a type of leprosy, simply wants to see his family happy and whole, despite their best attempts to destroy each other. He is not a great ruler or a great king, but it is incontrovertible that his heart is in the right place.

Viserys’ last appearance in episode eight, “Lord of the Tides,” is a deeply moving portrayal of sickness, love, and death—his struggle and longing for peace cementing the episode as perhaps the strongest of the whole season.

House of the Dragon departs from Game of Thrones in many ways, from its narrowed scope to its stilted pacing, yet some issues of the original series have wormed their way into the spin-off as well. While the show’s depictions of sex have softened, its depictions of violence have only grown more brutal. Where once there were simple decapitations and stabbings there are now decapitations through the cheekbone and tongues rolling out of half-headless carcasses. And, like a plague that hounds George R.R. Martin’s work, no story of Westeros is complete without the brutalization of women’s bodies.

House of the Dragon is far more restrained in its portrayals of nudity and rape,

women’s reproductive rights, these scenes reflect popular anxieties about the violence of childbirth by unnatural deliveries and the demands placed on the female body when in positions of power and leadership.

While these life-threatening struggles with childbirth are certainly accurate for the vaguely Medieval period that Martin is invoking, and are arguably being utilized to show a different form of violence against women, the scenes are gratuitous and, for young women, deeply, deeply, deeply uncomfortable. This exploitation of female bodies in pain veers into trauma porn, especially given the high proportion of young male viewers. Perhaps one of these days, the Game of Thrones writers will understand that they do not have to graphically depict the specific horrors of childbirth and rape to demonstrate pain.

On a similar note, it is hard to write about House of the Dragon or the Targaryens in general without addressing the bleach-blonde elephant in the room. Yes, there is a lot of incest. And not only is it treated as normal, it is, in the case of Daemon and Rhaenyra, seemingly reified. Their story is treated as an imperfect romance rather than a critical example of grooming, which is abuse. And with the way Twitter is fiending for more of their relationship, it does not seem as though this glorified incest will be portrayed differently any time soon. Frankly, dear reader, these humble reviewers are not surprised, but would just like to let out an almighty sigh of defeat.

Despite its pitfalls—and sure, it has its fair share—House of the Dragon is only getting better. If it can learn from its predecessor’s mistakes, the best may still be to come. With moving performances, polished writing, and a complex and brutal conflict awaiting us, House of the Dragon has shaken off its stuttering start and taken off on dragonback. Whether it will be able to control its momentum, like a certain dragonrider in the finale, is still up in the air. G

The Rubell Museum DC offers an impressive yet incohesive inaugural exhibition

BY ANNABELLA HOGE AND PAUL JAMES

Behind a sleek glass facade, the Rubell Museum opens up into a 4,000-square-foot hall, awash in light streaming through arched windows. Four towering installations hang at opposite ends of the converted auditorium, the wide-open and industrial environment adding grandeur to the art.

Roughly a 20-minute walk south of the National Mall, the Rubell Museum DC seeks to bring artists of both national and international acclaim to District locals. D.C. residents enjoy free admission, and nonresident students pay $10.

The Rubell Museum DC is the latest expansion of the Miami-based Rubell Museum collection. The collection’s founding Rubell family began collecting in 1965 and prides itself on platforming overlooked and new artists alongside more established figures. The museum believes in making private art collections publicly accessible, drawing from its trove of over 7,000 artworks to do so.

Now, the Rubells, along with museum director Juan Roselione-Valadez, have brought this mission to D.C. with a permanent museum. The Rubell Museum DC opened to the public on Oct. 29 with the inaugural exhibitions Sylvia Snowden and What’s Going On

What’s Going On, named after Marvin Gaye’s revolutionary 1971 album, features over 190 works from 50 artists focused on contemporary social and political issues. Keith Haring’s “Untitled (Against All Odds)” (1989) is the exhibition’s cornerstone, followed by 20 pieces inspired by Gaye’s words. Haring dedicated the series of works to the memory of Steve Rubell, who passed in 1989 from AIDS. Haring himself died of AIDS-related complications a year later, and his featured written dedication to Steve reminds visitors of the collection’s now-public intimacy.

The inaugural exhibition brings together names big and small, not unusual for the Rubell collection. The pieces on display reflect a wide swath of artists in the Rubells’ contemporary collection, from Haring to Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, and Sylvia Snowden, a D.C. resident herself.

Wiley’s portrait is among the museum’s most attention-grabbing, mounted at the far end of the main hall. The artist’s strengths take center stage, rooted in that palimpsestic treatment of history that has become his trademark. Wiley has achieved celebrity status and significant acclaim for his official portrait of President Barack Obama in 2017 and “Rumors of War,” which debuted in 2019. “Sleep,” the 2008 portrait at the Rubell, co-opts the historical European style of portraiture but replaces the white subject with a Black one, reclining against a background of flowers.

Other triumphs include Matthew Day Jackson’s sculpture and portraiture. “Chariot (The Day After the End of Days)” (2006) is a full-size covered wagon, cobbled together from plywood, state flags, and historical documents on a Polish hay cart base. Jackson explores the exploitative effects of westward Manifest Destiny—which massdisplaced Indigenous tribes—and its contradicting aspirational possibilities in an artistic rendering of the technology that gave pioneers their mobility. On the walls in the same room hang “Harriet (First Portrait)” (2006) and “Mt. Rushmore” (2006), colorful wood-burned drawings of the faces of Black women. Incorporating innovative materials, gleaming panther eyes and abalone teeth give the portraits depth and follow visitors around the space.

closed in 1978 (and of which Marvin Gaye is an alumnus). Built in 1906, the school is a historic site in the District due to its former critical role in providing education for Southwest D.C.’s Black community.

The museum’s hallmark is an expansive, repurposed auditorium that serves as a contemplative warehouse-style presentation space. From there, the museum splits into three floors of galleries. Having largely retained the unassuming interior layout of a school, each floor has the effect of stumbling upon a small classroom full of priceless art. The close physical proximity of the galleries, however, makes passing through them a jarring experience with little time for reflection.

At times, the exhibition feels unable to live up to its ambition. The Rubell has brought together an impressive range of artists and voices, and its themes of Black individuality, female and queer sexuality, and revisionist narratives are a refreshing break from the stuffier elements of the D.C. museum scene. But the curation and spatial organization fails to connect these themes and the artworks that articulate them in any meaningful way.

Backdropped by Gaye’s song, “What’s Going On,” those 20 Haring drawings betray an anxiety about the state of the world, both its people and natural environment: an Earth pierced by daggers, a disorienting crowd of people, wounds, and enclosures. “These drawings are about the Earth we inherited and the dismal task of trying to save it—against all odds,” the artist writes.

With such a broad collection, not every piece is a success. Sylvia Snowden’s “Shell; Glimpses” (2010-2012) is a largely uninteresting series of canvases slapped with acrylic, like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. Tschabalala Self’s mixed media portraits of Black femininity and sexuality—brightly colored and composed of textiles, paints, and pencil—are by turns powerful and gauche. Self’s display of Black female bodies “on their own terms” may be a liberating exercise, but it also exposes the limits of this method: Merely breaking this perceived taboo is no longer a novel artistic statement.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the Rubell Museum DC is how it transforms the 32,000-square-foot building housing the collection. The building itself is a renovation and reinvigoration of the former Randall Junior High School, a historically Black public school that

Rather than adjacent works suggesting intentionality, the layout falls short of bringing together a curatorial meaning. Haring’s drawings and Gaye’s What’s Going On may be the headline, but their message diffuses in the rest of the collection. Some exhibits foreground intersectionality and find interesting ways of putting artworks and artists in conversation; other pieces seem to exist solely to fill blank space. This lack of grounded narrative is more an indictment of the exhibition as a whole failing to introduce a cohesive experience rather than of individual artists’ weaknesses.

Even with the disorienting layout and inconsistent experience, the museum and the quality of the Rubell’s collection should make the museum a mainstay of the city’s cultural scene. There are exciting possibilities for use of the space and for partnerships with local artists and students, and Rubell seems well-positioned to deliver on those aspirations. G

BY AJANI JONES

A minute left before the Oct. 28 midnight official release of Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up,” time slowed to an agonizing crawl as a million questions surged to the forefront of my mind. Was this actually happening? Would I even like it? But as the first few notes rose softly into the darkness, all the worry faded away, a gentle calm falling upon the night.

After six excruciating years of musical silence, pop icon Rihanna finally returned to the music scene with a stunning announcement. Shortly after announcing she would be the Super Bowl LVII halftime show performer, the Barbados-born singer—now beauty entrepreneur—revealed that she would lend her voice to the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) soundtrack with her single “Lift Me Up.” Elated fans took to Twitter, commiserating about surviving the extended drought in Riri music.

Anxiety was also palpable. After all the time spent focused on her lucrative makeup and beauty line, Fenty Beauty, and other non-musicrelated endeavors, would Rihanna live up to the hype built around her return? Beyond that, would the song even live up to the expectations surrounding the highly anticipated release of the Black Panther (2018) sequel?

Following the tragic passing of beloved lead actor Chadwick Boseman, fans of the franchise wondered how the Marvel Cinematic Universe would adequately pay tribute to the originator of the Black Panther role. Living up to the legacy was a tall order—and Rihanna attaching herself to a high-stakes project like this stirred fear in fans.

Rihanna fans have also struggled to navigate the singer’s controversial choice to feature Johnny Depp in a portion of her upcoming Savage X Fenty fashion show. Many longtime Rihanna supporters—including Olly Alexander, who announced he would no longer be supporting Fenty—expressed concerns over lionizing Depp. These concerns come in response to years of abuse allegations posed against Depp by his ex-wife, Amber Heard, and the high profile trial that concluded earlier this year, especially given the ruthless and often misogynistic public relations campaign mounted against Heard. Balancing all that, fans wondered: Was the wait worth it?

With a resounding yes, “Lift Me Up” is the answer to years of muddled emotions and building anticipation delivered in a deceivingly simple package. Rather than the party anthem many expected for Rihanna’s return, the song is a sweet whisper that wraps its listener in a blanket of warm catharsis.

From the first second, each lyric and note is steeped in a comforting sincerity that nudges the listener to embrace vulnerability as the song gently straddles the line between grief, melancholy, and hope.

“Lift Me Up” opens like a breath of fresh air as Rihanna’s soft humming builds over a slow rising, serene instrumental. Her vocals are clear and tender as she sings the first chorus: “Lift me up / Hold me down / Keep me close / Safe and sound.” Her satisfyingly simple lyrics lay bare a base yearning for comfort and security. Rihanna’s vocals parallel the bittersweet relationship many have with grief, and the lyrics channel a characteristic weighty disillusionment: “Burning in a hopeless dream.”

However, in its prevailing gentleness, “Lift Me Up” champions healing above all else. Responding to pandemic-induced loss and dislocation, the single comes as a ray of light peeking through hazy grief. Hold tight the memory of love and warmth, she says: “Hold me when you go to sleep / Keep me in the warmth of your love.”

“I wanted to write something that portrays a warm embrace from all the people that I’ve lost in my life,” co-writer Tems told Variety. “I tried to imagine what it would feel like if I could sing to them now and express how much I miss them.”

Despite its lyrical simplicity, “Lift Me Up” channels hidden complexity in its instrumentals and Rihanna’s phenomenal vocals. Steady use of light, gentle instrumental motifs are reminiscent of a new day’s sunrise. The instrumental is rousing from start to finish, maintaining a prevailing sense of new life after death as the song progresses. The ethereal combination of piano and harp accompaniment pairs perfectly with Rihanna’s sweet and steady vocals as the song walks the listener through the highs and lows of grief.

Carrying a central thesis that love prevails beyond loss, the song is a strangeyet-comforting concoction of a lullaby, a funeral procession, and a healing chant all rolled into one. The rawness of Rihanna’s vocals don’t diminish: As the song reaches its climax, she repeatedly calls for the love and comfort of lost loved ones in a brilliant falsetto that feels like a final, joyful release as she repeats, “I need love / Hold me,” before finally ending, “(Keep me safe) We need light / We need love.”

While “Lift Me Up” is far from Rihanna’s first foray into ballads (see the

heart-wrenching “California King Bed” or the eternal “Stay”), the song still came as a drastic, yet welcome, change in pace for the singer. It’s undeniable that Rihanna is most well-known for her more dance-centric, R&Bleaning releases; “Lift Me Up” is squarely out of her comfort zone, no matter her history of genre-hopping.

With her iconic tracks like “Bitch Better Have My Money,” “Umbrella,” and even songs that tapped into her Caribbean roots like “Pon De Replay,” Rihanna cemented herself as a singer who thrived on her more upbeat or gritty records. However, with “Lift Me Up,” Rihanna proved that she was far more versatile than many gave her credit for; the song taps into a realm of vulnerability—love surviving through loss—never before explored by the singer.

As the world celebrates the long-awaited release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, fans can rest easy as this single sets the perfect tone leading into the film. Shrouded in grief, the Black Panther sequel aims to reconcile the still-felt loss of Boseman while also carefully navigating what it means to “move forward.”

“Lift Me Up” seamlessly intertwines itself within the film’s narrative while also tenderly addressing the audience as they experience fresh waves of grief for a cultural icon. It shepherds the move forward for Boseman fans and regular listeners alike, asking listeners to welcome the next chapter lovingly. G