BULU Review 2023

THE BULU REVIEW

A review of arts and spaces presented by the Bath University Left Union

2023

THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF POMPEY

The Tricorn Centre

As I trace the hat-shaped plot of land formerly occupied by Portsmouth’s Tricorn Centre, jumping between smashed bottles and puddles of piss like a game of hopscotch gone horribly wrong, I can’t help but feel a strange sense of loss, a feeling muddied by the knowledge that I never lived to explore the Tricorn (bulldozed in the summer of 2004). Once loved and loathed in roughly equal proportion, the Centre was put down like an injured workhorse more trouble than it had become worth.

The Tricorn was once Britain’s most celebrated example of Brutalist architecture: a post-war style characterised by its raw concrete elements, rugged aesthetic, and bold architectural forms. The Centre’s architect was workingclass South-Londoner Owen Luder, whose uncompromising aesthetic, social and political ideals doomed the Tricorn Centre from the get-go. Teething problems began soon after completion when large companies refused to move into the spaces devoted to them and left a multitude of smaller market traders to fill the gaps. A bankrupted developer, damp storerooms,

Jesper-Jay Harrington

and spiralling staircases inaccessible to supermarket lorries soon made the Tricorn, commercially, a resounding failure. The structure proved far too strange and visually enigmatic to serve the interests of Capital.

The Centre contradicted the entire purpose of its conception. Yet, ironically, it was this very contradiction that gave it purpose. This negation of duty did not necessarily constitute an architectural failure, but rather enabled the Centre to be used the way Portsmouth locals saw fit - freed from the talons of commercial development. As the near-mythical pressure group Proles for Modernism halfseriously put it “The Tricorn is a ‘machine for revolution’. It negates bourgeois culture. It puts people off shopping.”

There is an infectious cockiness to the Tricorn; the work of a brilliantperhaps misguided - architect seizing the opportunity to sculpt his labyrinthine fantasies into a concrete reality, the result of this experiment-in-form being a cavernous playground frequented by skaters, punks, drunks, and prostitutes all drawn to its towering staircases, sweeping

vistas, and seedy passageways.

The Tricorn’s bold, austere, and dynamic forms were perfectly suited for Portsmouth’s industrial-maritime heritage, and its destruction marked the end of an era that - perhaps suitably - would never return. The demolition of the Tricorn, however, reflects a fear that haunts the minds of the British public, a fear that anything might be truly captivating, might disturb the spectacle of consumerism and force people to experience something raw and visceral. Brutalism’s ability to evoke such stark reactions is a testament to its architectural strength, as the critic Ian Nairn noted, “At last there is something to shout about in Portsmouth!”

WHY TRIANGLE OF SADNESS IS THE PERFECT DOCUMENTARY ON CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY

Triangle of Sadness

Yordan Nikolov

From the first moments Triangle of Sadness establishes the continuously running theme of equality. One of the main protagonists, Karl, promptly questions his love interest Yaya about what he considers her subconscious acceptance and active replication of stereotypical gender roles, after she responds with the somewhat awkward and even superficial “thanks, honey” to the arrival of a dinner bill. Indeed, Karl is saddened by this, noting that “it’s the way you said it”. He is obviously hurt by the situation on a political level and his dissonance with Yaya over money is the first insinuation of a deeply political work of art.

This noble philosophical proposition, equality, is immediately questioned and eventually totally thwarted by the plot’s unravelling. The second and third parts of the film most aptly demonstrate the harsh and inhumane regime that is capitalism. Neoliberalism is viciously attacked, even mortally so, in an exchange between a francophone “crazy Russian” and a worker. This “crazy rich Russian”, as she is labelled by the workers of the luxury cruise she is enjoying, holds a bewildering monologue

about society around the following premise: “We’re all equal… I was just born into this”. The consequent exchange between her and a worker manifests the pretences’ illusionary character. When the worker refuses her request, she in a manner most infantile shouts “I order you!”. Whilst this may seem to have summarised the intellectual degeneracy of Neoliberalism and meritocracy, the critique that is to follow absolutely annihilates any ‘justifications’ of capitalism.

The first explicit and direct ideological confrontation occurs between the captain of the luxury cruise, an “American communist”, and a “Russian capitalist”, who is the self-proclaimed ‘King of Shit’. The captain is a drinkloving individual with an intolerance to socialising with his passengers, preferring the subliminal melody of The International. During the absurdist events that are to follow, the two men get utterly drunk together over a discussion of their respective ideological positions. They cite their favourite political quotations, the American communist Twain and Marx and the Russian capitalist Thatcher and

Reagan. The revelations about the sources of income of each passenger on the cruise take an ironic turn when the King of Shit finds himself surrounded by it even on the yacht, both metaphorically, and as anyone who is to watch will find out, quite literally. But perhaps the most precious moment after the captain’s quotation of Marx “the last man who we will hang is the one who sold us the rope”, is the death of the British Clementine and Winston from the fruits of, well, their workers’ labour…

However the truly psychologically traumatising part is the third and final. The characters find themselves in a primitive stateless and classless society, and, having experienced their total lack of skills required for basic survival, lead them to accepting the maxim of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, quoted by none other than the previously vehemently capitalist Russian. Alas, as historically proven, reaction is inherent in any revolution. Except that in this case, revolutionary change was accidental. That is to say, it was not desired nor driven by the characters. The plot therefore indirectly alludes to the fact that any socio-economic change is doomed to degenerate into capitalism if it is not consciously driven by a conscious working class, because the aforementioned corresponds to reformism aiming at assimilating problematic dissenters, not emancipatory revolution. We soon witness the degradation of that society into a power hierarchy. But it is not only in the realm of power that we are confronted by the film’s (and indeed reality’s) capitalist oppression, but in the characters’ intimate

relationships where a critique of marriage most magnificent is evident.

In the end we realise the final situation was completely absurd, as indeed were all the situations preceding it, yet simultaneously serving as a microcosm for global inequality. The second stoning of the film – indeed the Judeo-Christian symbolism is palpable – is not finalised in front of us; we are spared from the brutality of what a return to ‘normal’ entails. Abigail, the character who established herself as the leader (“the captain” in her own words) in this stateless society, refuses such a return. It is Abigail’s refusal to accept Yaya’s offer that can be interpreted as a metaphor for a wider refusal of returning to capitalism. Yaya had minutes before praised Abigail for creating a matriarchy, revealing her fundamentally liberal institutionalist feminism, which was questioned by Karl from the very onset.

The morale of the story is crystal clear. Capitalism is dysfunctional, but reaction is everywhere and it takes collective consciousness for emancipatory revolution. Triangle of Sadness demonstrates how a socio-economic change that is so profound as to be considered a revolution by traditionalist criteria is nothing more than a momentary mirage, an illusion, according to Marxism because of the central role that a collectively conscious working class performs in a true revolution. For it is those who do not have the imagination to conceive an alternative, or indeed those who have experienced the change passively or even against their will, who will instantaneously reverse all to how it was before at any opportune moment.

BEYER AND DORSCHNER’S ANTICLIMACTIC RECAPITULATION OF ROBIN HOOD GARDENS

Robin Hood Gardens

You’ve likely walked past or through a building of Alison and Peter Smithson’s on your way to a lecture. And likely realised why the University’s prospectus doesn’t show them off. But, before the conception of our visually controversial campus, the Smithsons were busy navigating the utopian language of New Brutalism in post-war Britain, intent on overturning the cliché principles of ‘high modernism’ –classical proportion and symmetry – with those of ‘forms in process’.

This ideology, one of governing ‘circulation, penetration, and thresholds’, can be seen fervently in the pair’s Robin Hood Gardens scheme, a monolith of a residential estate built in 1972 on the brownfield land of London’s docklands. Only forty years later it was slated for wholesale demolition: categorised as a failure.

The premiere of Beyer and Dorschner’s 2022 documentary, Robin Hood Gardens, commences with a pre-existing prologue – B.S. Johnson’s The Smithsons on Housing (1970) – a recollection of the optimistic genesis of Robin Hood Gardens. The words of

Elliott Bryant-Brown

Alison and Peter themselves remind us of overzealous modernism and its desperation for practicality; we see the scheme from the sky as its concrete walls are poured and its nuances carefully explained.

The screen goes dark. The next time we see Robin Hood Gardens, a portion of its façade is in pieces en route to the Venice Biennale.

The poignancy seems to end there. Although both films demonstrate a disjunction between the perceived and the existing – a sociological fault between architect and user – Beyer and Dorschner’s ninety-minute documentary expends this beyond self-awareness, characterised by shots of the late Charles Jencks perched in his Cosmic House evaluating the scheme solely by its appearance. The narrative devolves into a sort of Marmite argument, a love-hate discourse that hijacks topical commentary on social housing and resident wellbeing.

In seeing the visually irresectable concrete cliffs of Robin Hood Gardens, retrospective questions of intent become apparent. Was the scheme unjustly approved at its planning stage? Doomed

by ‘social jealousy’, according to Peter Smithson, was it nothing more than a failed interpretation of the ‘garden city’, of ‘new brutalism’, a dangerous homage to modernism? The film ignores these inquiries, distracting us with convoluted starchitect interviews and unnecessary post-modernist debate.

Between Alison Smithson’s criticism of residents’ behaviour and the galled, decade-old debates beneath the many centrist articles written of the scheme, a richer question emerges concerning the residents themselves, those who have lived, breathed, and raised families within the walls of Robin Hood Gardens: were the flats fit for use? Fortunately, the documentary begins to scrutinise this, albeit far too late and too little. We hear from a young family who praise their flat for its daylight and considerate planning, but freely admit its poor maintenance and poorer reputation, views that are corroborated by short conversations with

passing residents.

At face-value, the documentary is amateur and disjointed. Its inconsistencies echo the uncertainty of its message, jarring viewers with objectively poor audio engineering and inert typographical choices. At the film’s medial point, for example, the story recesses into approximately four minutes of unintroduced drone videography around the scheme; through this we learn nothing of the people who have and do inhabit it, of what will become of it, or of the ardent fights to save it or to tear it down. In its wordlessness we have very little to reflect on; such intermissions are mere thematic distractions, leaving the audience bracing for interrogation that is never delivered. It overworks the device of cyclical storytelling, ineffectively reaching for the threads of its ‘first act’, humanising interviews with irrelevant gestures –darkroom shots, cigar breaks – and ultimately leading to anti-climax.

FINDING LOVE IN EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

Anais Lau

Following the historical seven-Oscars success at the Academy Awards 2023, David & David’s 2022 film Everything Everywhere All At Once has been more popular on social media than ever before. An incredible film that strains to contain itself in neat boxes of genres, it has gained a significant volume of analyses on the social and philosophical catharsis of its fantastical narrative and the mind-boggling experience of watching it.

Evelyn is the protagonist of the film and the Asian-immigrant owner of a small family-run laundromat audited by the IRS, during which she encounters a fanny packslinging doppelganger of her originally loving yet meek husband from an alternate futuristic universe, alpha Waymond, through whom she is introduced to the ability of jumping through multiple universes and alternate timelines. She is enamoured by this more ‘alpha’ version of Waymond, and follows his instructions to save the galaxy from destruction by the antagonist Jobu Tupaki, an evil iteration of her daughter also from the alpha-verse, who created an Everything Bagel out of her and her mother’s failed hopes and

expectations, and gathered a cult around it.

In her verse-jumping, Evelyn is at first drawn and attached to the reality where she is an award-winning actress and Waymond makes it big as a CEO in the states, after they part ways in their youth instead of starting a family together. The famous laundry-and-taxes scene, where CEO Waymond states to actress Evelyn his will to want a mundane life together in their next incarnations, in particular pays tribute, in lighting and Waymond’s attire, to Wong Kar Wai’s 2000 classic In the Mood for Love.

In the Mood for Love depicts two recent emigres from mainland China living as boarding-house neighbours in 1960s Hong Kong, where they grow close as they discover their own respective spouses are cheating on them with each other. They meet up and write together in spaces escaping the scrutinizing gaze of their tight-knit community, and eventually part ways without consummating their yearning for each other. The film’s allusion to In the Mood for Love reinforces the hurt and melancholy that Evelyn and Waymond

have everything material yet (literally) no joy in their lives.

Indeed, the pain of possibilities takes centre-stage in Everything Everywhere, where Jobu was borne of the madness that came from witnessing all multitudes of Joys that have ever existed in the galaxy, and main-universe Evelyn undergoes this as well, acting out destructively across the multiverses once she realises the futility of her reality – signing her divorce and destroying the laundromat in the original universe, and sabotaging a co-workers career in another. In the manic kaleidoscope of simultaneous timelines, Evelyn almost gives up until the compassion of original-verse Waymond awakens her to the importance of love, and she pays this forward.

On the precipice of Jobu/Joy’s selfdestruction through the Everything Bagel, Evelyn attains enlightenment and affixes a googly eye to her forehead, utilizing the verse-jumping ability to fight opponents with compassion, remedies the wake of her own destruction across the multiverses, and with the combined strength of the crowd present saves Joy the consuming infinity of the bagel – the image of the googly eye as Evelyn’s third eye reminding me of bell hooks’ conclusion on spirituality and love that all awakening to love is spiritual awakening (hooks, 2001, 83)

bell hook’s All About Love (2001) is a nuanced treatise on love, relationships, and commitment encompassing msot if not all areas in life. The fifth chapter, Spirituality: Divine Love (hooks, 2001, 69-83), details the author’s understanding

of spiritual life and practice, pointing out how the co-opting of religious ideology through consumerism, fundamentalism, and commodification is contradictory to the heart of spirituality that is love as a practice. Particularly of note is the author’s promotion of love or the hope of knowing love that acts as an anchor and gives strength against nihilism brought by the knowledge of universal disaster and despair (78).

This is reflected in Everything

Everywhere where Evelyn is enticed by the affluent possiblities of the lives of her alternate selves, yet through the events of the film, she comes to realise that the endless timelines of wealth and fame are melancholy and empty without the fulfilment of her love with Waymond and the presence of her beloved daughter Joy. In a literal sense, Evelyn is granted strength by Waymond’s compassion and love to help everyone around her, and save Joy. At the end of the film, life still drones on – the taxes of the laundromat are yet to be sorted out, and Waymond negotiates with Deidre again, though this time Evelyn gazes at the world around her in wonder – the mundane, ordinary and grating life of laundry and taxes – and finds love in everything everywhere around her.

BENEATH THE PAVING STONES, THE TEMPLE!

London Mithraeum

Hidden under England are strata of our past. Through archaeology we can learn so much about our history, but what is in some ways more interesting is what the way we present these findings tells us about our society today.

The London Mithraeum is a relatively new museum dedicated to the remains of an ancient Roman temple to the god Mithras. Mithraism was a secretive, allmale cult focussed on ritual worship in small, dark, cave-like temples. Mithras was not part of the Greek or Roman pantheon of gods, nor did his worship have any connections to early Christianity. Instead, the figure emerged from Persian Zoroastrianism (although while sharing a name, the Roman cult was different in almost all respects). Mithraism continues to elude our understanding largely because of its differences to other contemporaneous religions. It had no texts; rituals and beliefs were kept secret and only revealed to initiates; temples were small and obscure. Yet despite this, it was immensely widespread throughout the ancient Roman empire – carried by soldiers, merchants, bankers, and bureaucrats. The

Alexander Whitwell

Cult of Mithras continued to hold sway throughout the empire until Christianity became the official religion, and Mithraism disappeared.

From the street the London Mithraeum is unassuming. Sitting as part of Foster and Partners’ billionpound Bloomberg headquarters, only the ‘Bloomberg Space’ – a corporate art gallery-come-waiting room – is visible in the shop-front style opening. Moving past this, you reach a display of artefacts found during the excavation works for the project. Bloomberg is most proud of the writing tablets discovered which are the earliest record of a financial transaction in Britain, and these take pride of place. Continuing onwards, you descend a flight of stairs into a dark anteroom. This is the beginning of the Mithraeum experience, designed by Local Projects (most famously creators of the September 11th Memorial in New York). The walls here display ghostly silhouettes of artefacts from the temple, and a series of tablets offer more information on the history of the cult and this specific site. Resin casts of key objects from the dig provide a tactile experience

usually missing from archaeological exhibits.

An attendant informs that the experience is about to begin. We are ushered into a pitch-black chamber in which the temple ruins sit. Vapour begins to fill the room, and a soundscape starts to play. Light shoots down from above, becoming walls and columns thanks to the vapour and a few carefully placed hanging elements. It has an uncanny resemblance to daylight. We hear the voices of men engaging in a ritual. They chat and incant and move about the space. Finally, the image of Mithras slaying a bull – the tauroctony – is illuminated at the end of the temple and the ceremony is over.

Bloomberg’s headquarters are unusual for corporate offices in the way in which the public interacts with it. Occupying an expansive and central site in the City, we’re invited to walk through as well as around the project, and experience London as written by Bloomberg. The London Mithraeum is the same: a representation of British history through the lens of corporate America. An ancient ultra-masculine cult of bankers, merchants and businessmen portrayed and displayed by their modern-day counterparts. It’s often said history is written by the victors, but perhaps in a world of multinational corporations, history is written by the owners.

A WORKING CLASS LOVE-LETTER TO CLASS HORROR

The horror genre in film

Sofia Shalaby

Age ratings never held much sway in my house. I still remember the horror on my reception teacher’s face when I brought her some crayon drawn fan art of the latest Indiana Jones film I’d gone to see for my fifth birthday after weeks of bargaining. My love for films was facilitated by the old, landlord painted cupboard in the corner of the living room, squashed behind the sofa, packed full with old DVDs my mum had collected over the years. It was a treasure trove. I would cram myself around the side of the sofa and ease the cabinet doors open around me, buzzing at the prospect of getting free reign to choose the evening’s viewing. I loved it. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Disney films and the Princess Diaries as much as any other kid, but my first horror film was seminal.

My brother was babysitting and flicking through the channels when he found it: Alfred Hitchock’s ‘The Birds’. He laughed, announced that ‘I’d enjoy this’, flicked it on, and hid the remote. I was terrified. I’d managed to dodge actual horror films up until now, my mum by and large vetoing them. I didn’t know what to expect, only that from the look

on my brother’s face, it was nothing good. Unready for what was to come, I snatched the tartan blanket from the back of the couch, bundled the scratchy fabric up under my chin, and waited, joints aching, sure that my brother was about to instil a lifelong fear of seagulls in me. The title card flashed up and I peeked out between barely agape fingers, but as I watched, the old effects and bird villains took out just enough of any terror that I didn’t have to hide behind my hands, but the suspense? The ending? It was brilliant. I was hooked. A lifelong love of horror was instilled and thus, this love letter to working-class love of horror inspired.

A genre of B-movies. Of cheap scares and simple plots. When they’re good, they’re great, they’re ‘The Shining’, ‘Psycho’, or ‘The Exorcist’, they’re the bread and butter of the film-bro, Kubrickdevotee lifestyle. But most horror films aren’t directed by Stanley Kubrick, don’t revolutionise tension like Hitchock, or have a score as distinctly disturbing as tubular bells. Most horror films can be quickly judged from a quick scroll through the genre tab on your nearest available

streaming service.

Film after film of the same formulaic jump scares and brutal gore, separated only by their own individual gimmicks, because what more do they need? There’s a simplicity to horror, to the shared fear of death and violence, a very human reaction to gore or torment that demands the viewer empathise. You don’t need to go beyond that, to have any profound effect on the viewer beyond disturbing them, or to flesh out your characters and make them relatable; a shared, instinctual cringing at violence is relatable enough. So that’s what we get. An unremarkable genre leaving the viewer with little to contemplate beyond how afraid or disturbed it made them.

Or at least, that’s how critics and award panels seem to see it when snubbing films of the genre year after year, seeing them as unrefined and unmemorable. And maybe they’re right. Horror does rely on fear. That’s the niche it’s established and it’s good at it. Even the low budget horror still leaves your skin crawling, forgetting to notice signs of lacking funds amidst your fear. And there’s a power to that. To the stalkerish effect terror has on us, a lingering threat even after you leave the cinema or close your laptop and return to the safety of reality. That uneasy waiting when you turn out your light at night and just have to dwell on the silence.

It’s the feeling that has horrorfanatics turning out for the genre over and over again. And so, rejected by film elites, loved by the masses, and able to hit the same beats even on a low budget, it’s unsurprising that horror became a

movie medium embraced by the working classes. Rather than trying to convince the elites that had rejected them, horror wore its rejection proudly. And I can hear you, sitting there asking in what world do I consider the white, straight, middle-class protagonists that plague the genre, society’s rejects? But even then, prettily packaged in all the wrappings of middle-class, white suburbia, these films still tell the story of the underdog, the last-girl who fights back with no support against the odds. It’s no surprise it resonates so deeply with the working classes, demonised, over-policed, and underfunded, fighting themselves to survive in a world that seems happy to let them fall helpless into victimhood. There’s something cathartic about getting to watch someone face those odds, face the impossible, and win.

More than that, we enter a realm of moral fuzziness when confronted with death. Not only are we watching someone face those odds, but they are also allowed to do what they need to do to face them. No-one’s judging Jamie Lee Curtis for shooting Michael Myers or questioning the morality of Wendy putting Jack on ice in ‘The Shining’. There’s an understanding that when there’s a gun to your head, and no-one around to help, a person’s got to do what they’ve got to do. But too often this leniency doesn’t leave the cinema. While we can excuse extreme measures to defend against a brutal slasher, against the much more slow and sinister killer that is poverty, people are much more hesitant. Sure, protect yourself, he’s got a knife, a little murder here and there never hurt anyone,

but dare claim benefits to defend against the much less flashy killer of hunger or poor living conditions? Gasp! The horror! Quick, someone check Ari Aster didn’t direct the cost-of-living crisis!

Horror is expected to be extreme, and in that imminent extremist threat, you’re psychopathic if you don’t allow the protagonist to be slightly morally dubious. For the working classes, there’s a solidarity in that desperation. A soothing understanding extended for those two and half hours. Two and a half hours, where those slow, creeping silent killers of your own life can be forgotten in the face of a comparatively much more imminent threat. But the end result is the same. Hollowing out the welfare state has killed many more people just as brutally as any horror movie slasher. The slow creeping killer still catches up with you, and without help, it doesn’t matter if it’s slow and creeping, if it doesn’t have a knife, or doesn’t hide under your bed, it’ll still catch you. The threat is just as real, the violence just as great, but instead of empathising as they do in the comfort of the cinema, the audience, looking on through newspaper headlines and rolling breaking news screens, call for the victim to save themselves. To pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with fighting, call them a villain themselves for even thinking to ask for help.

But the genre’s become increasingly aware of this. If you haven’t seen Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’, what are you doing reading this? Go steal someone’s Netflix, you can read this after, it’s insanely good,

you’ll love it, but from here on out, beware of spoilers. The film throughout is pretty unmissable in its commentary on race, and in and of itself is a masterclass in political storytelling, but I’m going to be focusing on the ending. We watch Daniel Kaluuya face the creeping, real threat of racism but through the horror film lens of a bodysnatcher thriller. So, as we do what we do with any horror film, we suspend our morality. We understand why the protagonist has to do what he has to do when facing a worse-than-death fate, and cheer on the protagonist as he fights and kills to survive. It feels like a victory, albeit a twisted horror victory. But unlike in the typical horror film, when we get to enjoy peace in that victory, Peele yanks us out of the cinema and back into reality with a flash of police lights. A flash of police lights which, in any other context would mean our protagonist would gain empathy, and protection, and even absolution for having to kill his captors to protect himself. Except our protagonist is black. And his captors are white. And it’s a police car. And as an audience member your heart stops. It’s the least extreme part of the film, and its horrifying. Because he can’t save himself alone. There’s no single villain to be stopped or family to escape from, because structural inequality isn’t rooted in a villain. It’s a system, and no lone hero can dismantle it alone. So sure, in the perfect world of the cinema, the protagonist wins, gains empathy and forgiveness and can return to the status quo, but reality is so much more brutal. Peele reminds the viewer that as much

catharsis as we may find in horror, beyond the cinema, the horrors remain real, and alone, there will be no escape. But go, go enjoy horror films. Watch Hammer horrors, and psychological terror, and slashers, and for God’s sake go watch ‘Get Out’. Enjoy them, and this crazy, batshit genre. But once you’ve finished it, when you’re lying in bed afraid to poke your feet from under the covers, remind yourself, that if you can forgive a shotgun wielding horror protagonist fighting for their life, maybe a lecturer striking, a family on benefits, or a refugee seeking asylum isn’t so bad. Because unlike the horror protagonist, we’re not alone. No-one’s cut the phone line, we’re not isolated on an artic research base, or lost adrift in space with aliens. Unlike with our favourite horror protagonists, we don’t need to leave others to fight in isolation, to fall between the gaps in the system. So go, understand and forgive, provide allyship and join picket lines, and boycott villains, and watch horror films!