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This week, the Nass talks about movies, bodies, and movies about dog bodies.

The Nassau Weekly

Volume 47, Number 6 November 9, 2023

In Print since 1979 Online at nassauweekly.com

November 9, 2023

Director’s Cut Masthead 4 7 8 10 13 20

The Head By Mariana Castillo Designed by Hazel Flaherty

Art By Katherine Rea Designed by Pia Capili

You Look Healthy: Body Shaming in Urban South Asia By Yaashree Himatsingka Designed by Vera Ebong

11 Fall Break Movie Reviews By Ellie Diamond Designed by Cathleen Weng and Emma Mohrmann

When Your B1tch Becomes Human: A Review of My Dog Tulip By Lara Katz Designed by Jasmine Chen

Occupation of a Life By Ayse Basak Ersoy Designed by Pia Capili

You Look Healthy: Body Shaming in Urban South Asia Read more on page 8.

Editors-in-Chief Sam Bisno Sierra Stern

Assistant Design Editor Vera Ebong

Publisher Allie Matthias

Art Director Hannah Mittleman

Managing Editors Assistant Art Director Lucia Brown Emma Mohrmann Charlie Nuermberger Events Editor David Chmielewski Staff Creator Director Audiovisual Editor Lara Katz Teodor Grosu Director of Outreach and Engagement Ellie Diamond Alumni Liasion Peyton Smith Business Manager Jana Pak

Design Editor Cathleen Weng

Hannah Mittleman

Historian Julia Stern Social Chair Kristiana Filipov

Trustees Senior Editors Alexander Wolff 1979 Lauren Aung Katie Duggan 2019 Leah Boustan 2000 Junior Editors Leif Haase 1987 Frankie Duryea Marc Fisher 1980 Isabelle Clayton Rafael Abrahams Otto Eiben 2013 Sofiia Shapovalova Robert Faggen 1982 Daniel Viorica Sharon Hoffman 1991 Eva Vesely Sharon Lowe 1985 Ceci McWilliams Julia Stern Head Copy Editor Beth Villaruz

Cover Attribution

Web Editor Jane Castleman

Volume 47, Number 6

This Week:

Fri

11:00a Firestone Discover Firestone Library and Special Collections: A Walking Tour

4:30p Friend Tanner Lectures on Human Values

Tues

7:30p LCA Reading by Marlon James & Patricia Smith

8:00p Taplin Princeton Sound Kitchen presents Mixtape 2

Sat

2:00p LCA Grief Work, an original choreopoem by Kenza Benazzouz ’24 and Welcome Reception 2:00p McCarter Princeton Triangle Show: Ship Happens, A Cruisical!

5:00p Community Muslim Monologues

Wed

5:00p Architecture Building Jonathan Crary: “Tricks of the Light”

8:30p Richardson Suleika Jaouad, Writer & Jon Batiste, Musician

3:00p McCarter The Winter’s Tale — A Public Works Musical

Thurs

4:30p JRR Reading: Sally Wen Mao

5:30p Robertson Panel Discussion: PanAfrican Collecting at HBCUs and Beyond

12:00p Dodge Women’s Meditation

5:30p LCA Faculty Panel | Perspectives on Doug Aitken’s migration (empire)

Got Events?

Email David Chmielewski at dc70@princeton.edu with your event and why it should be featured.

For advertisements, contact Allie Matthias at amm8@princeton.edu.

Sun

Mon

Verbatim:

Overheard at Campus Club Dedicated cinephile: “Is James Cameron that YouTube makeup guy?” Supportive friend: “No, that’s James Charles.” Overheard in Whitman Staten Islander: “Your brain really is the notes app of your mind.” Overheard on Washington Road Pedantic freshman: “All the shroom books come from Princeton University Press.” Overheard in front of the Office of Religious Life Prospective father: “If someone presented me with a baby right now, I would eat it.”

About us:

Overheard during a tornado Tuckered-out JP writer: “It might just be me, but this is kind of a vibe.” Overheard in Seminar Perceptive Visiting Professor: “I know you people. I know it’s cookies that get you excited.” Overheard in a Colombian Cafe Iowa man to Colombian friend: “I’m going to be honest, I never feel whiter than when I’m around you.” Overheard by the LCA Girl wearing men’s shorts: “It’s giving micropenis.”

The Nassau Weekly is Princeton University’s weekly news magazine and features news, op-eds, reviews, fiction, poetry and art submitted by students. There is no formal membership of the Nassau Weekly and all are encouraged to attend meetings and submit writing and art. To submit, email your work to thenassauweekly@gmail.com by 10 p.m. on Thursday. Include your name, netid, word count, and title. We hope to see you soon!

Overheard in a Car Supportive friend to CWR senior: “It’s like that myth where the man killed and ate his children and now he’s stuck in hell with water he can’t drink and fruit he can’t eat over his head. That’s what they did to you and your thesis.” Overheard at NCW dining hall Confused male: “My sister and I are going to have a kid.” Overheard during NCAA March Madness Delirious fan: “Hormones! Sex! Basketball! NBA 2K!”

Overheard in Writing Seminar Sleep-deprived student’s search bar: “Why am I always tired?” Sleep-deprived student’s search bar, a few seconds later: “Can cancer cause fatigue?” Overheard in Yeh Guy who just picked up five oranges from the dining hall: “Will we be late if I run these back to my room? I don’t want to carry five oranges all day.” Submit to Verbatim Email thenassauweekly@gmail.com

Read us: nassauweekly.com Contact thenassauweekly@gmail.com us: Instagram & Twitter: @nassauweekly Join us: We meet on Mondays at 5pm in Bloomberg 044!

Volume 47, Number 6 PAGE DESIGN BY HAZEL FLAHERTY ART BY HAZEL FLAHERTY

THE HEAD “The ears had a pinkish color—a real lively color, like if The Head had stepped out in the cold of the previous night and come back in the morning. Simon marveled at the thought that El Chato had really killed this man with a saw.”

By MARIANA CASTILLO

t was on Sunday afternoon, after Simon Valencia’s family had returned from church, that the town finally discovered El Chato’s body. El Chato hadn’t missed a day of mass since he’d moved back to the town after over a decade of fighting guerrilleros in the mountains and jungles of Colombia. Upon returning, he was missing one leg, three fingers, and a whole mind. People said he had been a troublemaker, robbed some stores and almost killed his older brother in a drunken fight. So, his father, with few options and even fewer savings, had lied about his son’s age and sent him off to serve in the army at fifteen—to become a man. At thirty-three, El Chato had stepped on a landmine, and over time everyone in the town had come to recognize the tap of his cane as he limped to church every Sunday and back from the bar every Friday night. After church, Simon’s family prepared lunch. The smell of spices boiling in water wafted through the house and into the backyard, where the Valencia family grew some crops and kept a small fenced-in plot for their chickens. Simon followed his father out the back door and toward the

clucking and stopped walking, leaving some space between them. He watched his father’s tanned, broad arm pluck a frantic blur from the ground. Simon closed his eyes. The crack of chicken necks echoed in his dreams every week after the Sunday killing. He followed his father and the dead animal that swung from his rolled-up sleeves, mouth agape and blue eyes closed, to the tree stump. It lay beyond the sheets that his mother had once put out to dry. She’d left them there, no doubt to conceal the stump from their white brick house and his two younger sisters, Sofia and Rosario, whose curious shadows were visible from the window. Simon looked down at the bloodied ax in his hands and couldn’t recall if it had been handed to him or if he had picked it up on the way. He was tall for his age, but his father still towered over him and blocked the afternoon sun with his widebrimmed sombrero. Church bells tolled in the distance as his father flung the chicken on the rippled surface of the stump. He dutifully handed his father the ax and his eyes escaped the gore beside him and landed on his father’s face. He tried to memorize the expressions—the furrowed brow against the heat, the clenched teeth, the inscrutable eyes—so that he could imitate them later. His job was to stand and hold the ax every time his father needed both hands to pluck and skin the corpse, and to discard the leftover pieces after his father was finished. Now that Simon was nearing thirteen, he would soon be the one to crack the animal’s spine and wield the ax, as his father never failed to remind

him. He brought it up as if it was a gift he was saving, winking and laughing. “You’re getting strong, my son,” he would say, and squeeze Simon’s skinny arms, “ready to crack a chicken’s neck—maybe even a man’s. Crrrk!” he’d say, followed by a harsh, guttural laugh. “I’ll teach you everything. To be a man like me. Look!” slapping his own biceps, “A real man.” After they were done, Simon delivered the skinned carcass to his mother. He stooped down next to the stump and let the remains, feathered strings of skin and fat, plop from his red fingers into a bucket. He took it to the side of the house where a group of mutts, attracted by the smell of blood,

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licked it all up. Then, he washed his hands with a splash of water from a basin and walked to the front of the house where his father rocked on a chair next to the open front door. A glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. Inside, Simon could hear the pressure cooker whistling and his mom’s radio that blared news about a burial site they had just discovered in a cave somewhere near the Amazon with the bodies of sixteen missing children. Sad new victims of la guerrilla, the reporter was saying, all under eighteen. When his father saw him, he stood up and went inside. After a few seconds, he emerged with another cup and, handing it to Simon, signaled for him to take a seat in the chair next to his. Father was always exceptionally cheerful after the killing. He took a sip and began telling Simon how proud he was of him, his only boy. Simon brought the glass to his nose and sniffed. The smell burned his insides. His father continued, “In life, there are two things for a man to love, Simon. Just two things, you hear? Good. The first is women— above all else, love women, son. You understand? Good, good. And the second—” His father tapped the bottle in his hand and drank straight from the mouth even though the glass in his hand was still full. He smiled wide and jabbed Simon in the ribs, looking at him and the full cup in his hands. Simon brought it to his lips and

his throat tightened at the smell. He held his breath and took a sip, and just as an unfortunate gag escaped from his innermost being, Señor Guarnizo came running down their street, holding his hat to keep it from flying off his balding head. He was still wearing his church pants but had taken off the shirt and jacket and now stood before the two of them, droplets of sweat pooling at the edges of his weak mustache. He lurched forward with hands on his knees to catch his breath before looking up with wide eyes, “Don Leonardo, El Chato was found dead in his home. Looks like a suicide, shot right through the head. There’s blood everywhere, a real brave death,” he waved his hands wide over his head, and to Simon’s horror continued to describe the scene in detail for some minutes. Soft brains sprinkled with gritty cranium stained the floor. “Officer Pepe said to call you and see if you were available—they already took most of the body away, but he requested a few men help clean up.” Panting and wide-eyed, he waited for a response. Smiling at this call for manhood, Papa sipped the rest of his glass before telling Simon to run in and grab his shoes. Simon felt his cheeks turn cold, and as he searched for an excuse that he knew he couldn’t find, his mama called his name from the kitchen. Simon felt a wave of relief wash over him. He jumped up, mumbled goodbye to Señor Guarnizo,

and ran inside, following the aroma of warmth that flowed from his mother’s freckled bosom. She embraced him when he walked into the kitchen before handing him a peeler and a bucket of potatoes. “Help me here, baby.” He grabbed a potato and let the skin plop into the sink. He watched the two men outside the window become smaller and smaller, walking briskly to El Chato’s house. His mother leaned over him to stare. “Where’s your papa off to now?” She asked. Simon told his mother about El Chato’s suicide, but didn’t tell her about the blood. She shook her head, grabbing a potato and another peeler and moving to stand next to him over the sink. “Lunch is almost ready,” looking at her watch. Then after a moment, she added, “If Chato wanted hell he didn’t have to kill himself—he was going there anyway.” She left and came back a second later with Soledad, Simon’s youngest sister. She rocked and kissed her, and then began breastfeeding her while Simon continued to peel. Her scorn toward El Chato surprised Simon. His father always spoke well of him, and admired his service in the army and functional, religious devotion to the bottle. El Chato was known to have murdered over twenty guerrilleros— but he didn’t just shoot them. He tortured them. The stories circulated through the town, and Simon’s friends

idolized him, arguing over who would get to be El Chato when they reenacted scenes of guerrilleros being violently murdered. And if their mothers hadn’t sent for them to go back home when the sun had set, they sat in a circle and recited the tales they’d heard about El Chato’s time in the army in as much gory detail as they could think up, their whispers more terrifying than those of the blackness around them. In one story, El Chato tied one guerrillero up and left him flopping around like a fish while he passed a lawnmower over the body. In another one, he forced a guerrillero to swallow glass. In a third, he tied one to a tree and sawed its head off—while the guerrillero was still alive. Legend was, he still had the head, preserved in a glass jar under his bed. He told people it helped him sleep at night. An hour passed and then two. Sofia and Rosario had been crying and pulling at their mother’s apron, complaining that they were hungry. But nobody could eat without father, and Simon did his best to distract them by putting on a show for them with their dolls. His mother walked back from her bedroom, exhaustion in her eyes. She had just spent an hour putting Soledad to sleep. The table had been set for almost two hours. As he held a doll in each hand, his sisters absorbed by the doll show, heavy steps trudged up the porch steps. Finally, after

November 9, 2023

almost three hours, their father had returned. They watched him walk through the door holding a bulky object wrapped in a sheet under his arm. He glanced at Simon and the dolls in his hands and scowled. “What the fuck are you doing?” He smelled of sweat and alcohol, and Simon knew he’d been to the bar. And there was something else, a smell Simon couldn’t identify. It was the smell of the color gray, of wet stone, of mold. It reminded Simon of the smell of his grandmother’s ancient doll collection—it was the smell of decaying time. Simon let the dolls drop to the floor. “I’m starving,” Father said and let the sheet under his arm drop to the floor, revealing a dusty, green orb. He took care to place it gently before them, on the middle of the dinner table. It made a light, clinking sound. There was a second of silence between the delicate echo of glass and his mother’s glass-shattering scream. Soledad, awakened by the noise, began crying in the other room. There, on the counter, with its swollen eyes wide open and a curved mustache, was a head. It was The Head, Simon realized, guardian of El Chato’s dreams and nightmares, keeping watch for years from underneath his bed from the thickness of its dusty, eternal orb. Simon could

feel his mouth hanging open as he stared at what he’d always imagined was a made-up story. There it was before him, its features disfigured and magnified by the liquid and thick glass, its sun-damaged forehead, the scaly yellow cheeks, and the thick, black lips. It was a boy, just some years older than him. His mother’s face was pale. She began to speak, but his father spoke over her, ordering Simon to pray over the food. He nodded and closed his eyes, thankful not to have to look at the thing anymore. Simon prayed over his sisters’ whimpers, speaking slowly, hoping to give his mother time to compose herself. “Amen,” he said, but nobody repeated after him. Father began slurping his soup. “Dios mío, Leonardo— where did that—what did you just put on my table?” his mother’s voice shook. Father scowled and threw his hand back toward his ear dismissively, as if flinging her anger away. “El Chato died today,” he said. “I found The Head. Nobody wanted to keep it, so I did.” He looked at it and the corner of his mouth turned upward slightly, and then hearing Soledad’s cries for the first time, said “Can you get your damned baby, please?” His wife slammed the table and let her chair scoot back across the clay tiles as loudly as she could.

She disappeared behind her bedroom door, letting it close as loudly as she could. Simon sat and stared at his soup, which had cooled, and the grease was congealing into little perfect circles on the surface. His father finished eating and stood up. Simon watched him wipe the sweat and grease off his face with a rag as he walked out the front door, leaving it open behind him. He heard the creak of his rocking chair on the porch, then the radio, then a lighter. He smelled cigarette smoke and then made out the distinctly familiar crrrk of the seal being broken off a bottle through the open window, and knew it was time to put his sisters to bed. He coaxed them into eating some of their soup and carried them into their shared bed, praying over

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

Volume 47, Number 6 PAGE DESIGN BY PIA CAPILI

By KATHERINE REN

November 9, 2023 PAGE DESIGN BY VERA EBONG

YOU LOOK HEALTHY Body Shaming in Urban South Asia

How cultural ideals of thin, fair, and lovely are wounding South Asian women. By YAASHREE HIMATSINGKA

t’s half-past-six on a damp March evening. I walk along Amarsons Garden, a sea-facing public park in South Bombay, and my eyes sting with salt. I’ve just returned home. I’m taking a semester off from college, and as I look out on the fishing boats and never-ending coastal construction, a woman in kurta and sweatpants huffs past. Kites circle overhead. A boy chases after a stray kitten in the sand. Minutes later, the woman reappears. “Hi sweetie!” she huffs. Her gaze travels the length of my body. “How come you’re in town?” I recognize her as a school friend’s mother. “Aren’t you supposed to be in college right now?” she asks. I mumble a response. “You look… healthy. You were like a stick in school,” she laughs. We chat for a few minutes as the

sun sets and shadows lengthen. She leaves. This is usual. ‘Healthy’ is a euphemism for ‘fat’ in urban India, a guarded insult in a fatphobic society. Like other young women, I’ve grown used to near-strangers making comments about my body. Body shaming is pervasive here, where deep-cutting barbs are written off as “jokes” or as ways of “making conversation”— if you can’t handle it, you need thicker skin. What are the hidden impacts of casual, seemingly harmless body commentary? A study from the University of Minnesota finds that “weight-based teasing by peers or family members was associated with low self-esteem, high depressive symptoms and thinking about or attempting suicide, as well as unhealthy weight control practices and binge eating.” And it has been shown that body surveillance—defined as the “habitual and constant monitoring of the body”—leads to self-objectification and body shame in women, underscoring how a heightened awareness of appearance can damage one’s self-esteem. What can we glean from

science and lived experience about the manifestations of these trends in South Asia? I interviewed young women from cities across India and Pakistan to learn the ground realities. Ashira Shirali, 22, grew up in Gurgaon, a city near Delhi. I met Ashira for the first time four years ago at a Princeton send-off event in a ritzy Delhi hotel. The first thing I noticed about her were her eyes, big and sparkling like pools. Perhaps they explain the witty and perceptive friend I know her as now. “I think the casualness with which body shaming comments are made is uniquely South Asian,” Ashira reflects, “especially how blunt they are. For instance, once, my grandfather and dad were talking in front of me about how much weight I’d gained – just talking about me as if I wasn’t there. I think this would be considered rude in America, but these are the kinds of comments Indian families feel they can make.” Then I speak with Stuti Bagri, 23, a classically trained Bharatnatyam dancer who grew up in Mumbai. Stuti is tall, fair, slender, and brilliant. I get all my punchlines from her, and

she echoes Ashira’s experience. “Aunties and uncles constantly tell me how thin I’ve got,” she protests, “and how I’m all bones and how weak I look. Clearly, they haven’t seen me [dance] or eat chocolate cake.” Aditi Gupta*, 22, is also a classically trained dancer but in Odissi, which originates in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. Aditi grew up in Delhi and is graceful like a woven shawl. She shares how her family encouraged her to lose weight when she went through weight cycles. “Comments from family members and exes led to disordered eating. I went through cycles of binging and extreme restriction. The waves of disordered eating come and go still.” How does she feel about herself now? “I have fluctuating emotions about my body,” Aditi says. “Some days, I really do love it and I’m so grateful to it for keeping me alive. Other days, I want to change a million things. Sometimes I think of correcting it with surgeries, sometimes I think of starving it, and sometimes I spiral because I see no reasonable solution.” Clearly, it is not only outright

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shaming that can cause harm. Even lighthearted slights and ‘\”well-meaning” comments can lead to body dissatisfaction. Body dissatisfaction is defined as an emotional process when “a person has persistent negative thoughts and feelings about their body […] influenced by external factors such as pressures to meet a certain appearance ideal.” It carries serious implications for physical and emotional wellbeing. Studies show positive correlations between fat talk, body shame, and restrained eating, and a study from UNC Charlotte found that restrictive or judgmental comments made by caregivers around eating were linked to increased feelings of body shame and reduced self-compassion. For South Asian women living in the United Kingdom, appearance-related teasing was linked with body dissatisfaction and an increased desire to adopt mainstream appearance ideals. What beauty ideals are South Asian women held to today? And where do these ideals come from? “The ideal Indian woman is fair or medium-complexioned,”

writes Rebecca Gelles, a researcher from Carleton College, in a paper on beauty ideals in modern India. “[She] has a narrow waist but wider hips and breasts, and has large eyes, full red lips, and long black hair that is either straight or wavy.” As a child, I was often scolded for playing for too long in the sun. I remember the “home remedies” of sandalwood or mashed papaya my grandmother used to prepare, and I remember the Fair and Lovely ads that ran on television in between serials. Fair and Lovely is a popular skin-lightening cream in India. These ads portrayed dark-skinned women as failures and misfits, who, after applying Fair and Lovely, would miraculously secure marriage proposals and ace job interviews. “One of the most influential moments in the establishment of [fairness as a beauty standard],” writes Gelles, “was the introduction of Fair and Lovely […] in 1975. Suddenly, the perception was implanted in Indian women that you could make yourself fair, leading to the possibility that it might actually be your fault if you were not.”

The South Asian fairness ideal is rooted in colonialism, classism, colorism, and casteism. In June 2020, in the wake of a global racial reckoning, Fair and Lovely was renamed Glow and Lovely. “They’ve changed the name now,” remarks Riya Choudhury*, a twenty-one-year-old from Mumbai, “but it’s still a product that upholds fairness as a beauty ideal.” It remains the most popular cosmetic line in India. Kashf Azam*, a twenty-twoyear-old who grew up in Lahore and Islamabad, recalls an advert for Zubaida Apa’s Whitening Soap, the equivalent Pakistani product. “The tagline was “ab gora hoga Pakistan” [now Pakistan will be fair],” she laughs. “I remember when I was younger,” Anya Singh*, a nineteen-year-old from Delhi, reflects, “I did want fairer skin, and I think that’s interesting. This was pre-social media, so I only had the Indian beauty ideals imposed on me. I kept getting called dusky, which I feel is a very Indian word. But when I got older, and my media exposure evolved, I completely forgot about it. It shows how arbitrary

the beauty standard was.” As Anya’s experience reveals, beauty ideals aren’t static. In her paper, Gelles notes how “cultural standards of beauty in India are narrowing and conforming to more international standards.” Scholar Susan Runkle describes how, in post-liberalization Bombay, actresses “[metamorphosed] into thinner, more model-like versions of their former selves” following perceived cosmopolitan trends. I ask interviewees to describe the ideal female body. “Lean and strong,” declares Stuti. “Very thin and yet curvy,” Aditi says. Where do these ideals come from? “Models and conventionally attractive people in movies,” Stuti tells me. Aditi agrees. “Bollywood and Hollywood” she says, “and I’m sure social media plays a role.” A 2011 study conducted in Uttar Pradesh found body dissatisfaction and dietary behaviors to be higher among young women who live in urban areas as compared to rural areas, which could be attributed to increased media exposure in urban CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

Volume 47, Number 6

PAGE DESIGN BY CATHLEEN WENG ART BY EMMA MOHRMANN

11 Fall Break Movie Reviews Yooo, fall break was a movie…

By ELLIE DIAMOND

ast year, I watched 10 movies over fall break. This year, I’ve broken my record: Eleven movies in six days. If you didn’t think it could be done, at the very least you hate me and at the very most you hate women with hobbies. Mentally, I feel pretty much the same, maybe a little bit more smug than I was a week ago. Physically, the only impact that’s been left on me is a slight loss of muscle mass as a result of taking under 500 steps four of those six days. Last year, I gave short reviews of these movies

and this year, I’m back to do the same. As an expert in the film critique industry, you’re going to want to keep reading... 1. A Tale of Springtime (1990), A Tale of Winter (1992), and A Tale of Summer (1996) dir. by Éric Rohmer These three films, directed by lush French director Eric Rohmer, are part of his “tales of the four seasons” collection of films. There is indeed a fourth one (I’ll let you guess the title), but I didn’t have time to watch it. Sue me. Rohmer’s films have a lived-in quality that makes them both easy and breathtaking to watch. Not like an old sweater you put on when you have nothing else to wear, but a perfect vintage leather jacket that you don’t

wear often but when you do it’s just right. These films were no different. All three films feature hot, French, 20-something-year-olds experiencing differing levels of Seasonal Affective Disorder. The energies of the respective seasons shape the characters’ emotions and actions. Summer is the one I’d recommend most. Rohmer has a way of infecting his summer films with the restlessness people often experience during the season. As one of my old coworkers put on letterboxd, “funny that this guy was freaking out about when to go on vacation when he was literally in the most beautiful beach town ever the entire time.” If there’s one thing the French know well, it’s summer vacation, which is why a healthy quarter of Rohmer’s filmography depicts it. It’s also his film that he’s described as the most autobiographical, featuring a male protagonist (his proxy) instead of his typical female protagonist. His films are mostly plotless, just malaised characters moving through time. Due to the utter lack of any suspense, these films are a complete breeze to watch, and I wholeheartedly recommend them and any other Rohmer films you decide to sink your teeth into after this. 2. Mona Lisa Smile (2003) dir. by Mike Newell This film felt really correct to me. Set at Wellesley College in the early 1950s, it follows a young art history teacher (played by Julia Roberts), as she changes the lives of the girls in her class (seemingly played by

every working white actress in the early 2000s) with her “subversive” teaching style and content. It’s definitely more of a “pop” movie than anything else on this list (chick flick, one might even say), but it was sweet and actually necessary viewing for me as an art history major. Some major plot holes, such as why was an ART100 class composed entirely of seniors? Why was saidART100 class a year-long class? Would Wellesley really have been so unreceptive to “progressive” politics and teaching? These are important questions movies rarely pose nowadays. 3. Secretary (2002) dir. by Steven Shainberg NSFW. Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader, who apparently exclusively starred in softcore erotic movies in the 90s-00s, play a lawyer and his secretary who begin a sadomasochistic relationship. The relationship is life changing for both parties, but more so for Gyllenhaal’s character, a severely repressed woman who had recently been released from a psychiatric facility prior to acquiring this job through the classifieds. Early in the film, Gyllenhaal performs acts of self-harm to relieve herself of the pain she feels on the inside. Once the relationship with Spader begins, the S&M they engage in becomes her new form of pain relief, allowing her to ditch the toolkit she keeps hidden, first in her bedroom then in the office. Gyllenhaal’s character soon blossoms from a socially

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awkward and sensitive girl to a fully-fledged woman, and Gyllenhaal seamlessly shifts to reflect her character’s changes. This movie looks at the situation with a more comedic eye than other films that depict relationships of this nature. However, it also normalizes the couple’s dynamic, so as not to poke too much fun at this very real aspect of human sexuality. This was one of my favorites of the week, and I endorse it with every fiber of my being. 4. Dead Ringers (1987) dir. by David Cronenberg I would argue this movie is also NSFW, but you shouldn’t expect anything less from David Cronenberg. The film is based on the book Twins: Dead Ringers by Jack Gleasand and Bari Wood, which highly dramatized the true story of two twin gynecologists who both became addicted to barbiturates and died within several days of each other. In the film, the twins (both played by Jeremy Irons), also take advantage of their identical features and the clientele of their shared OB-GYN practice to seduce and hand women off to each other. The mental and physical states of the twins deteriorate and fluctuate throughout the film, and by the end each is but a shell of the man we see at the beginning. Irons masterfully plays each twin with such nuance, drawing a thin but visible line between each one. The deep reds of the costume and set design gave this a really evil feeling. Though this was certainly not my favorite Cronenberg (far less deviant than he usually is), it was still engrossing and absolutely mad. 5. sex, lies, and videotape (1989) dir. by Steven Soderbergh Despite the tantalizing title, this movie was pretty milquetoast. It also began a weird succession of movies for James Spader, whom I

mentioned earlier as being somewhat of a king in the “men with sexual inefficiencies and weird kinks” genre. The acting, aside from the Andie Macdowell, is definitely the only saving grace to an otherwise

more scandalous. NEXT. 6. Damsels in Distress (2011) dir. by Whit Stillman Oh boy. This was upsetting. I’m staunchly a Whit Stillman fan, so I sat down for this film with an open

boring and, dare I say, not great movie. Maybe I’m just desensitized due to the undisclosed number of psychosexual movies that I’ve seen but I’d hoped for something a little

heart and a warm embrace. I was not met with the same quality I’ve grown to expect from Stillman, whose brilliant series of films depicting the “Doomed-Bourgeois-In-Love” in

the 90s made him an instant icon for me. But, as I said earlier, Oh Boy. It follows a troupe of girls at a New England college, navigating life as Pretty Girls in a sea of unhygienic, pompous, and at times “playboy/operator” guys. The girls run a suicide prevention clinic, whose aid consists of dance classes and donuts for the students who seek out their unauthorized help. I don’t know what it was about this film, but it just fell so flat. I think the majority of the dialogue did not have the spontaneity or wit that was the marker of Stillman’s earlier films. The film is sectioned off by title cards, which disjointed it and took me out of the viewing experience. The usual cast of actors Stillman used in the 90s were able to balance the line of real and glamorized, which the actors in this were not able to replicate. It was like an uncanny valley version of a Whit Stillman movie. As I said in my one-sentence letterboxd review (elliediamond—you’ll regret it), this movie had flashes of the Whit Stillman I’m used to, but not enough to tolerate it. NEXT. 7. The Celebration (1998) dir. by Thomas Vinterberg Known as Festen in its native language, this Danish film serves as the first and most recognizable film of the Dogme 95 movement created by Vinterberg and Lars Von Trier. It tells the story of a wealthy family gathering together to celebrate the 60th birthday of its patriarch, punctuated by stories of abuse, incest, suicide, and other trauma the family endured at the hands of the man they are supposed to be celebrating. The Dogme movement stripped down the technique of filmmaking, eschewing special effects and techniques to highlight story, acting and theme. The handheld camera and grainy lens utilized in the film coupled with its content give

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PAGE DESIGN BY CATHLEEN WENG ART BY EMMA MOHRMANN

it a really eerie and disturbed feeling, almost like a really twisted, found-footage home video. What may seem like an incredibly heavy movie is treated with a darkly comic tone that I’m told is characteristic of Scandinavians, which made it a really dynamic and interesting experience. Probably my favorite watch of the whole week, second only to the next film I discuss… 8. Mistress America (2015) dir. by Noah Baumbach What I wanted out of Whit Stillman I got out of Noah Baumbach. Co-written by and starring Greta Gerwig, who also starred in the Stillman-That-ShallNot-Be-Named, the film follows an awkward freshman at Barnard (Lola Kirke), who seeks refuge and companionship in her soon to be step-sister (Gerwig). Though I’ve not been an 18-to-30-year-old residing independently in New York (but

I am from there, don’t get it twisted), it makes me miss the brief period of adultishness I experienced this summer working as a host (and also “funniest person”) at a restaurant. These types of people, also examined in works like Girls, The Color Wheel, and other entries into the “mumblecore” and post-mumblecore genre (which, for the uninitiated, are characterized as films that feature minimal plot with naturalistic dialogue and acting), exude a sense of self that is completely manufactured yet somehow comes across as entirely authentic. Because I’m coming to this content about 10 years too late, I’m still in awe of the quick-witted, spontaneous lives these people live. I’d go so far as to say that I aspire to experience the restless, doomed-bourgeois life that several filmmakers on this list highlighted, but maybe I should keep that closer to my chest.

9. The Master (2012) dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson This just didn’t do it for me. I’m sorry. I can respect it as “good” or whatever but I was neither thrilled nor enlightened while watching. I’d take any other PTA over this. I think he’s much better at writing postmid century stories (“write what you know” and all that) and I’m so tired of hearing about cults. Oh, and I don’t like Joaquin Phoenix, which may be a hot take (though he does jerk off in a very odd way about 5 minutes into the movie). Much love and respect to Phillip Seymour Hoffman, though. The Nassau Weekly stripped down the technique of filmmaking, eschewing special effects to highlight story, acting, and Ellie Diamond.

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When Your B1tch Becomes Human:

PAGE DESIGN BY JASMINE CHEN

A Review of My Dog Tulip

“If Ackerley perceives his dependent, female dog as essentially human, this is a strong statement regarding Ackerley’s beliefs about women in general. In fact, many of his statements regarding Tulip, throughout the film, feel steeped in misogyny, given that they are not statements generally associated with dogs.” By LARA KATZ

In 1956, J. R. Ackerley, a literary editor for the BBC, composed an earnest memoir about his dog— and all the sex he wished she was having. In 2009, the memoir was turned into an animated feature film. The beginning of the film explores Ackerley getting to know his Alsatian Tulip; the more human she becomes to him, the more he believes he understands her. But Ackerley gets ahead of himself as the semi-biographical, illustrated film, My Dog Tulip, progresses— disconcertingly ahead of himself. Over the course of the film, the drawings of Tulip are increasingly humanoid before she is depicted as a literal human. By the end of the film, Ackerley has fully fictionalized his relationship with Tulip into that of a husband and wife— perhaps ironic, given that Ackerley himself was an openly gay man. How to interpret this odd dog-owner relationship? In the

philosophy of dog-trainer Vicki Hearne, discussion of social dynamics between dogs and humans should not extend to humanization of dogs. Instead, Hearne’s How to Say “Fetch!” distinguishes the species sharply and cautions against inter-species assumptions, which Hearne compares to the “uneasiness we [humans] feel when we walk into a room and find that our spouse, or a friend, has plainly been sitting around inferring something about us” (Hearne, 60). Crucially, Hearne analogizes but does not synonymize humans and dogs. In contrast, by humanizing Tulip, Ackerley limits his relationship with her: Not only is he seeing a fictional version of her, but he even permits himself to subject her to human misogyny. Tulip’s humanoid portrayals begin without apparent ramifications. The first occasion she is depicted as part-human, part-dog, is halfway through the film (40:45). In this scene, the film establishes Tulip’s character and relationship with Ackerley as analogous to one between humans. This scene also begins with Ackerley describing Tulip’s urination habits. Then, humanoid Tulip appears, wearing her dog head, a dress, and glasses. Humanoid Tulip walks upright and daintily on slender feet; the only dog-like characteristic she has is her head. That’s right, she’s a woman with the head of a literal bitch. Throughout the scene, Tulip acts like a dog, rubbing horse

dung on her body and urinating on “dead and decaying animals.” Tulip is sketched lightly here, in black lines on a beige background, indicating that this scene is another one of Ackerley’s fictitious ideas, rather than a scene representing real events. Ackerley is projecting what he believes Tulip feels and does, not what she actually does, which is presumably the case in the full-color scenes. Within this superficially humorous and innocent scene, Ackerley assumes he has insight into Tulip’s mind; he projects onto Tulip, and he relates her animalistic activities to those of a human woman. One might assume, then, that Tulip’s behavior is, to Ackerley, the behavior of a human woman, and his opinions on her akin to those he might hold of women. Such assumptions about Tulip’s interior world exist in opposition to Hearne’s philosophy regarding dog and human communication. Challenges arise when humans “attempt to infer whether or not the dog will bite, jump up on them or whatever” (Hearne, 59). Ackerley engages in this kind of inferential behavior throughout the film. When Tulip and Ackerley head to a friend’s house, Colonel Pugh, for a summer retreat (32:38), Pugh expresses concern that Tulip might chase his chickens. Hearne would say that Pugh is unfairly inferring that Tulip is not intelligent enough to understand that the chickens shouldn’t be chased; she might chase the chickens, but keeping

her away from them prevents her human companions from finding out. In that vein, Ackerley muses to himself, “How can one gauge the intelligence of one’s animal if one never affords it the chance to display any!” Although this may seem very generous and not at all inferential, it in fact is inferential, just in the opposite direction to Pugh: Ackerley is so confident in Tulip’s “intelligence” that he is assuming it will override her natural hunting instincts. In a nearly identical situation, Hearne displays a different approach. When she walks her dog, Salty, past “something huntable” (her cat), she makes sure that Salty is leashed. She “gauge[s] the intelligence” of Salty without assumptions or ramifications: If Salty does not chase the cat, no harm done. If Salty does chase the cat, still no harm done—she is on a leash, and it is a teachable moment. Ackerley’s assumption about the fully untrained Tulip does result in harm, however. Promptly upon arrival, Tulip bolts toward the chickens, forcing Ackerley to invoke a belated “TULIP!” He has poorly judged Tulip’s character, which Hearne warns against repeatedly. For such poor judges, Hearne claims, “It is not that the required information will follow too slowly on their observations, but that they never come to have any knowledge of the dog, though they may come to have knowledge that” (5960). Ackerley is not simply too slow in his judgment of Tulip, but he

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entirely misjudged her and is consequently only able to react after the irrefutable fact that she bolted. In the subsequent shot, Ackerley’s extended hand, attempting to grab Tulip, remains suspended for an unnaturally long time, emphasizing the futility of his attempt. He has reached for her and called her name, which are efforts in the right direction, but he did not even attempt to communicate with her until the relevant time was past. Ackerley also personifies Tulip in the film in a somewhat less light-hearted realm: sex. Prior to this scene, the communication gap has shrunk between Ackerley and Tulip, because Tulip has begun treating Ackerley’s urine with the same reverence she does fellow dogs (41:38). As a result, Ackerley senses an erasure of “differences,” as well as feeling that he himself is now “a proper dog.” Hearne’s exploration of the way relationships develop as shared vocabulary expands helps illuminate this scene. A crucial landmark in Hearne and Salty’s relationship is when Salty begins sitting without being commanded; she “enlarged the context, the arena of its use… [thus] Salty and [Hearne] are… obedient to each other and to language” (56). Previously, Salty was merely obedient to Hearne; the language went one-way. Similarly, when Tulip perceives Ackerley’s urinating as discourse in her language, they forge a new connection. But Ackerley takes things too far. He interprets this erasure of “differences” as license to set out and find Tulip “a

husband,” a word only applicable to humans. There is a role reversal: Ackerley is “a proper dog” and Tulip a potential wife. Yet this role reversal is purely in Ackerley’s head. In contrast, Hearne emphasizes that humans should always be aware of their status relative to their dog. She explains that her dog “is free, or rather she is not free, in the way babies aren’t free” (57). Dogs, like babies, are reliant

not Tulip. Yet, in reality, Ackerley has total control over Tulip’s destiny. Like the owner of a sofa that needs reupholstering, or a domineering father arranging a marriage without his daughter’s consent, he unilaterally determines that he knows what is best for her— without truly knowing if she is interested in sex or not. “A full life naturally included the pleasures of sex, and maternity,” Ackerley asserts, commenting not on Tulip’s

on humans—to assume otherwise is to disregard one’s privilege and delegitimize dogs’ subjection. But Ackerley often signals at Tulip’s agency and his own lack. When Tulip has her first heat (49:31), he says, “Dear Tulip chose to come to heat in the midst of the most Arctic winter this chilly country had suffered for fifty years.” Ackerley hands agency to Tulip by indicating that she could have “chose[n]” to begin her menstrual cycle at a different time. He also references the extremity of what his country has “suffered”; “this chilly country” seems to include himself but

desires, but on those which he assumes women must have. During this speech, Tulip is shown lounging in the living room, her belly exposed; even before Ackerley says the word “maternity,” puppies begin spilling out her pale, distended womb. This image serves to prove the reality of Tulip’s vulnerability and lack of agency in this context. By disregarding his privilege over Tulip, Ackerley further dissolves the line between humans and dogs, and assumes consent on Tulip’s part that she simply does not have: consent to be placed within a paw’s reach of a male dog

while she’s in heat. When Tulip has her first heat, dozens of dogs converge on her during a walk (50:18). The filmmakers work hard to make this image as apparently innocent as possible: soothing, cheerful music and softly falling snow fill out the scene. But the undercurrents remain—does Ackerley truly have Tulip’s best interests at heart, or is he making baseless assumptions rooted in misogyny on her behalf? In a scene shortly after, Ackerley describes Tulip’s sexual encounter with a dog named Chum (55:48). The film utilizes the same sketched, blackand-white visual that earlier heralded Tulip’s first depiction as humanoid. This humanoid-Tulip scene attempts to disarm the viewer just as the prior one did, opening with upbeat, rhythmic music and Ackerley’s insistence that Tulip is full of “infantile pleasure.” But this demeaning description of questionable consent does not take away from the scene’s central issue: Tulip is not interested in Chum’s advances. Arguably, the interaction between Tulip and Chum is a natural dog-dog interaction—dogs cannot ask for consent like humans can. But the filmmakers have deliberately presented Tulip and Chum in human bodies. The scene does not show Chum humping Tulip and Tulip running away, as might occur naturally between dogs. The film instead shows the disturbing image—accompanied by cheery music—of Chum thrusting his

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hand up Tulip’s skirt. “What was Tulip trying to tell us?” (56:15), Ackerley asks the audience, for once acknowledging what Hearne refers to as the “sketchiness of the tokens of this language game,” which is essential in avoiding “the wildest sort of anthropomorphizing” (Hearne, 71). Although Hearne finds this anthropomorphizing too wild to merit further consideration, her commitment to respecting what she does not (and cannot) know about dogs allows her to ground her communication in reality. Ackerley’s fictionalized relationship with Tulip obstructs his ability to answer an obvious question: Tulip is not interested in the sexual interactions forced upon her, given that she runs away from every dog that comes her

PAGE DESIGN BY JASMINE CHEN

way—no matter the humanoid fantasy Ackerley wishes to perpetuate. After Tulip has passed away, Ackerley discusses his personal evolution resulting from their fifteen-year relationship (1:16:40). The scene opens on the final appearance of humanoid Tulip, who then joins a full-color Ackerley. But Tulip soon fades, only to be replaced by a new version of herself, an old woman who appears at the very moment when Ackerley says that Tulip “placed herself entirely under my control,” implying that Tulip appreciates Ackerley’s penchant for micromanaging her, another assumption for which the film provides no evidence. The final boundary between dog and human has been erased—they are both full-color humans. Even

though Tulip is represented as a human woman, Ackerley continues to treat her like a dog, sending her to fetch his newspaper before leashing her, which appears to please her. If Ackerley perceives his dependent, female dog as essentially human, this is a strong statement regarding Ackerley’s beliefs about women in general. In fact, many of his statements regarding Tulip, throughout the film, feel steeped in misogyny, given that they are not statements generally associated with dogs. When Ackerley describes Tulip’s experience of being in heat (49:31), he applies stereotypes to Tulip generally applied to female women. For instance, he invokes phrases emphasizing feminine mystique, saying that

when Tulip is in heat he is “enchanted,” “touched,” and “felt very sweet towards her,” as well as calling the whole process “mysterious.” Ackerley also refers to her “Small dark bud, her vulva.” The term “bud,” as it relates to flowers, often represents notions about female virginity—e.g. phrases such as “popped the bud” or “lost her flower.” Given Ackerley’s numerous attempts to mate Tulip with other dogs, most of which result in her continued virginity, this word choice feels purposeful. Ackerley even victim-blames Tulip for the excess male attention she receives when in heat (59:49), claiming she was “spread[ing] the news” (i.e. asking for it) and her bleeding “all about” is what causes the male dogs to swarm, “naturally.” Boys will be boys, amirite? Throughout this scene, humanoid Tulip is shown dancing exuberantly to a lively, joyful piano tune. Ackerley has evidently not read Hearne; regardless, her theories regarding dog-human communication fail to account for circumstances in which the human sees the dog as human. But Hearne would argue that Ackerley’s inferences regarding Tulip’s thoughts only serve to limit their relationship, as they take away opportunities for genuine and evolving communication. Whether one can be sexist toward a dog is irrelevant— by humanizing Tulip with increasing fervor, Ackerley reveals that he in fact sees Tulip as human, whether she is or is not in reality. In the film, her entire reality is irrelevant to the question of whether Ackerley is sexist: only his reality is relevant. And ultimately, his reality is such that, as he gets to know Tulip better, his inferences about her become more sweeping, and more disturbing.

In contrast, Lara Katz emphasizes that humans should always be aware of their status relative to the Nassau Weekly.

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them. Just as he was about to step out, he heard footsteps in the hall. He paused and listened. His father picked up the head from the table, letting the glass echo on the wood, and carried it into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. The house was still. Something inside him felt uneasy. He couldn’t go back to his own bed, so he crawled into the sheets with his sisters and fell asleep beside them. He awoke the next morning to Soledad’s cries coming from his parent’s room. Outside, the sun was beginning to rise. After a minute, the crying intensified and then there was a loud thud. A door creaked open and then someone ran into a chair in the living room. He listened. Whispered swearing gave way to hushed sobs. The front door slammed. Next to him, his sisters stirred. He waited until they were snoring again and then slipped out. The air was chilly for an August morning. He peered into his parents’ bedroom, where they shared a bed next to a small crib for Soledad. It was empty. He tiptoed into the living room and froze at the sight of his mother sobbing at the dining table. Next

to her was The Head, blending more and more into the landscape of their home. It watched Simon. In the light of day, Simon could see that its features seemed to have changed. It looked older. The day before it had been the head of a boy, but now it was clearly the head of a middle-aged man, with dark circles under its eyes and wrinkled sun spots on its cheeks. Its expression, the way the guerrillero had looked in the last moment of his life with his body tied to a tree and El Chato with a saw to his throat, wasn’t

one of fear, despite the wide eyes and arched eyebrows. Rather, it was pride, the way his chin stuck up and the corners of his mouth turned inwards. The ears had a pinkish color—a real lively color, like if The Head had stepped out in the cold of the previous night and come back in the morning. Simon marveled at the thought that El Chato had really killed this man with a saw. A part of him longed to stick his head upright against the glass and taunt it, mock it, shout insults at it just to see what it would do. A loud sob brought him back. “Mama?” He asked hesitantly. “Mama, what’s wrong?” He stared around the room. “Where’s Papa?” The quiet of the house was eerie. “Mama, where’s Sole?” He asked. “Mama, did Papa take Sole somewhere? Mama?” Her sobbing became louder, and he looked around the room frantically in case he’d missed her the first time he looked and she was simply crawling around some corner of the room. He ran back into his parent’s room again and looked inside the crib. The stuffed cow that Sole slept with was sitting upright in a corner, grinning. He yanked the sheet off his parent’s

bed. There was a bit of blood smeared across them. He ran back out and, crying, embraced his soft, melting mother. “Mama? Mama? What happened mama?” “Sole’s gone to Heaven,” she managed and began sobbing again. “Your—I–I rolled over her in bed while we were sleeping,” she said and cried loudly on Simon’s shoulder. “Papa’s taken her to be buried now.” Simon felt his face hot and as the tears dropped, he looked to The Head once more. It seemed to frown at him. Men don’t cry. He wiped his tears and pulled away from his mother’s warmth. He walked into the kitchen and opened Father’s cupboard, extricating the bottle and two glasses. He brought one to his mother, and though she hated it when his father drank, she took the glass from him without protesting and they

drank together. After some hours, Father came back. His footsteps lifted Simon’s head from the table where he’d fallen asleep. His mom was making lunch in the kitchen and his sisters, unaware of what had occurred, could be heard playing in their room, away from The Head. Father sat next to him at the table. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and despite just having buried his daughter, his face was dry and composed. He hadn’t cried, Simon knew, and he hoped that his own eyes weren’t swollen and red. His father grabbed the bottle from the table and served himself while his mother walked past them and into her room, emerging with the broom. She began sweeping the floor. As she got closer, Simon noticed that one of her eyes was swollen. He thought it was from crying, but then realized that a bruise had begun to form around the corners, black and yellow. He let the thought that he’d been keeping on the edge of his mind creep in. Sole always sleeps in her crib. He looked at his father, sitting next to him, drinking and smoking and staring at The Head. Sometime while Simon hadn’t been looking, The Head had aged even more. It was that of an older man, with a bald spot at the top of his head and white-blue hair. The smell was so intense now that even through the cigarette smoke there was that

November 9, 2023 PAGE DESIGN BY HAZEL FLAHERTY ART BY HAZEL FLAHERTY

scent of ashes and dried up dirt. Simon was about to comment on The Head’s morphing appearance to his father when, without looking up from the floor she was sweeping, mother hissed, “Don’t smoke in my house, Leonardo, please.” He ignored her, letting the ashes fall directly on the table. This was too much. She looked up at him now and threw the broom to the side, the sound of it devastatingly loud against the floor. She narrowed her eyes and said, “I said stop smoking, and get this—this head that’s on my table out of my fucking house, please.” Before Simon could see it coming, his father’s hand struck her across the face. “Are you going to keep disrespecting me today?” he screamed. His mother began sobbing again. Simon had seen his father strike his mother many times before, but there was something different about her today. She lurched forward toward the broom and swung it across his father’s face, but he caught it and ripped it from her arms. Beside them, The Head was laughing. Simon could see its thin, levitating hair shaking in the blue pond of its existence. Water bubbles popped out of its orange mouth, black and bloody. Simon realized that The Head was that of El Chato, whom he’d

observed many times from his pew in church. It laughed and urged father on, blood pouring out of his mouth. Father threw himself on his mother, cursing and screaming— Simon saw this last scene from the corner of his eye because he was already halfway out the back door, running toward the stump. He found what he was looking for and when he returned, his mother was on the floor barely moving now. His father was still screaming. Simon looked at El Chato on the table. It urged him on. Simon swung the axe over his head. A head rolled across the floor. The Nassau Weekly burned Mariana Castillo’s insides.

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areas. Since Pakistan and India are “pretty homogenous in terms of race and population,” Kashf says, beauty ideals are similar, emphasizing fairness and thinness. “If you’re not really thin,” she jokes, “then no one will marry you… I think most of these things, end with, like, no one will marry you.” While there is an appalling dearth of research into body image and eating disorders in South Asia, a study assessing the internalization of cultural appearance ideals among urban adolescents found that young people tend to compare themselves with movie stars. This was strongly associated with body dissatisfaction, since “actors and actresses typically represent narrow appearance ideals (e.g., youthfulness, thick hair, fair skin).” Moreover, Bollywood is now trending towards “increased thinness and muscularity.” “I have put on weight recently,” Riya tells me, “and that does show on my face, so when I come across someone with a more chiselled face, I get sad. I think that’s very culturally driven, especially with Instagram filters that change the shape of your face.” Anya recalls a strange childhood experience. “I have this vivid memory of all my friends holding their arms out and comparing them,” she says, “which in retrospect was, like, very odd.” On the criticism she has received about her body, Anya says, “I definitely got a lot of crap from boyfriends growing up being like, oh, you’re not curvy enough, or you’re so flat chested.” Isn’t it weird that women are expected to have double-D’s and thicc booties

without a trace of fat anywhere else, and sculpted abs and thigh gaps to boot? “The idea of body shapes as trends is ridiculous to me,” says Riya. Ashira reflects on socialization. “I think it comes from culture and media,” she says. “Like, on Instagram it’s become such a trend to have a big butt now where it wasn’t before. With influencers like Kim Kardashian and Nicki Minaj getting butt implants you feel like, woah, this is attractive.” As the thinness ideal proliferates, discrimination against fat bodies does the same. Ameya Nagarajan, an Indian fat acceptance advocate and podcaster, writes on fat acceptance: “It is the idea that all bodies are good bodies, that fat bodies can perform headstands and run races and dance swing, just like anyone else. It is the radical thought that we can all be just the way we are, and our bodies don’t determine our virtue.” “I wish I was taller,” Kashf says. “My sister is slightly taller than me and it drives me insane.” Tallness is, apparently, yet another ideal South Asian women are held to. However, “there is a certain point at which height ceases to be a positive and becomes a disadvantage,” Gelles notes. “Men often refuse to marry women who are taller than them […] so tall women are only considered potential marriage partners by even taller men.” Then there is hairlessness, which, according to Gelles, “is considered almost a baseline for beauty despite the fact that it is one of the most unnatural aspects of appearance.” “I remember in the sixth grade [an older boy] made a comment about my mustache,” says Meera Patel*, a twenty-one-year-old from Mumbai. “It made me feel horrible about my body hair. I’ve

occasionally been made fun of for having bushy eyebrows and for having acne, but I think that’s all part of growing up.” Similarly, Riya shares how, when she was a teenager and experiencing hormonal acne, people would make hurtful remarks and offer unsolicited treatments. “Even if they were coming from a good place, it still hurts, right?” she says. “Besides, it’s a normal part of growing up.” Gelles explains how narrowing ideals and body policing, like the kind Meera and Riya experienced, disempower women: “Women have fewer choices, and experience greater pressure to fit into an increasingly tight mold of conventional beauty ideals. If all women are expected to lack body hair, for example, women who choose to retain theirs have to give up on being considered attractive, whereas if this expectation did not exist, women who wanted to remove their body hair could choose to do so with no consequences.” Those women who are unable to, or choose not to, conform to society’s ideals experience humiliation and helplessness due to body shaming. Devanshi Kanoi, 27, grew up in Kolkata. She shares her experience with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), a hormonal disorder that can cause menstrual irregularity, weight gain, acne, and excess body hair. “When I was twenty-three and suffering from PCOS,” she says, “I experienced weight gain, acne, and increased body hair. Back then, I was studying in Singapore and eating salad and working out every day, but I couldn’t lose the weight. When I returned to India, people made remarks like, “look at how much body hair you have,” or “look how fat you’ve got,” or “how will you get married if you don’t take care

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of your skin?” I would just be like, okay, you’re coming from a mean place. You don’t understand what I’m going through. It’s not that I’m not taking care of my body; this is an illness. Suffering from PCOS is difficult because it has no cure, and yet girls are shamed for it. This is something I’ve experienced.” I wonder about women who like their appearances. “I don’t have a lot of body image issues because people always compliment my thinness,” says Devangi Maheshwari, a twenty-one-year-old from Mumbai. Stuti says, “I think I meet conventional ideals, which is why I’m satisfied with the way I look. Not the best thing to admit but it’s true.” And Aditi says that she doesn’t aspire to be fair or tall. “I’ll admit that this is because I’m fair and tall by Indian standards, so I’ve never felt targeted by these ideals.” This small set of responses links body satisfaction with conformity to conventional ideals. In Ashira’s case, changing her appearance to meet ever-shifting standards improved her overall body image. “I struggled with body image a lot while I was growing up because I was overweight until the twelfth grade,” she says. “I think my body image is better now, but that can be attributed to me losing weight and changing my appearance drastically. But I also think I have a healthier view of body image now and am more at peace with my appearance” How can we make peace with our bodies while living within systems that inspire self-loathing? “I think things that have helped me are being surrounded by beautiful women who look like me,” says Anya. “At home, my doctor is seventy-two and she models. A lot of the women in my family are very

beautiful and interesting.” “I do think as you get older you tend to worry about it less,” Kashf reflects. “I’ve definitely felt that way.” “I know that it’s all a façade,” Stuti tells me. “No one naturally looks gorgeous, and it takes a whole team of people to produce gorgeousness. That’s not authentic beauty and it has taken a lot of cultivation and effort and treatment. So, while I know where my ideals come from, I know they aren’t realistic.” Personally, I have found body neutrality to be a useful concept. Body neutrality means placing less emphasis on appearance and merely accepting our bodies for what they do for us. Cultivating gratitude for my body and for the experiences it allows me to have, rather than forcing myself to love it in a way that feels disingenuous, has helped. I struggle with chronic depression and some days I can’t find it in me to tame the nest frizzing atop my head or to dab on life-giving color and three coats of mascara. Sometimes it’s hard to get myself to shower or even just get out of bed. I try to remind myself that my body is sticking with me through these slumps, that I won’t always feel pretty and that’s fine because prettiness is constructed, always shifting, always impossible. But my body is here today and it’ll be here tomorrow, when I’m feeling a bit better and can walk myself off Nassau to try the new Bent Spoon flavor. Isn’t that something to be grateful for? It also helps to turn self-loathing outward by raging against systems of body shame that reduce us to our appearances. Philosopher Susan Sontag writes, “To be called beautiful is thought to name something essential to women’s character and concerns. (In contrast

to men—whose essence is to be strong, or effective, or competent) […] The way women are taught to be involved with beauty encourages narcissism, reinforces dependence and immaturity.” We continue to be conditioned to prioritize beauty above other aspects of our identities. When I’m feeling fragile, my divergence from conventional ideals makes me feel like I’m worth a lot less than I truly am. Can we imagine a world in which a woman’s whole and nuanced being isn’t reduced to “something essential” based in beauty? I was struck by the gentle wisdom of Bangalore-based essayist Soumya John, who has struggled with anorexia and crippling body shame. Writing on fatphobia, she urges: “Remember that people’s bodies change over time […] While considering health, know that weight stigma has proven to cause more harm than weight itself and as fat activist Aubrey Gordon often says, health is personal, complex, incidental, and transient. So, tell yourself that all bodies are good bodies, and a fat body is not a work in progress. Most of all, think of the human beings these bodies wrap themselves around. Find a way to see them, to stand up for them, and to choose kindness. You could be the difference they need.” *Names have been changed where requested to maintain anonymity.

As a child, Yaashree Himatsingka was often scolded for playing for too long in the Nassau Weekly.

Volume 47, Number 6

PAGE DESIGN BY PIA CAPILI ART BY CHLOE KIM

Occupation of A Life By AYSE BASAK ERSOY

He put his hands in the pocket of his brown leather jacket, looking for a piece of paper. All he found was a small receipt he had got from the stationary store in exchange for a red pen, and he wrote: A sailor on land Climbed to the mountaintop and all he saw was the labor of the waves For many years, he had closed his eyes (the shutters of his soul) and listened to the sea. Now, like a desolate seabird, he watched over the city, waiting to plunge back into the sea. The dust of the wind left his mouth cotton dry, he found the metal flask in his brown leather bag, and in one sip, he drank up the noise of the city down below and in two, the sound of the sea. His eyes were lost on the wavering line between the sky and the smoke of the city. The calluses on his fingers—the only shell protecting him from blending into the mist—brought him back to reality on a gray day in the city. Dampened by the light rain, the receipt in his hand slipped onto the soil. Its red ink spread slowly,

tracing a tree’s roots. He squatted to pick up the paper, now dissolving, and looked up to see the tree. It was a maritime pine, one of the only trees he could identify, foreign as it was to the land he now explored. The tree was bare on the top with only a few shriveled brown leaves on the bottom that were ready to fall at the slightest wind. A network of ivy, also fading, encased its stem. It reminded him of a maritime pine of his childhood that had protruded by itself from the dry soil in a brick red pot that was the seasonal home of his mother’s basil seedlings. His father had relocated it to the garden outside the house, where its roots could live peacefully. Was it still there, in somebody else’s house, or had its roots grown too deep for the small patch of land? Have roses, chrysanthemums, or cherry tomatoes and green peppers replaced it? The rain grew heavier, wetting his nape and leaving him transparent like an impenetrable glass door eclipsed in its own shadow. He knew nobody. On this hill where nobody saw him, could the rain wash him away, permanently erasing his existence from the pages of history? He felt the need to write something, an old habit from his years out in the sea, that primordial soup with no end, where one must imagine the land to stay sane and write to affirm their own existence. He always had a notebook with him, even after returning to the land, and would retreat to a bench in a corner to write

whenever a sea of people flooded his way, blocking his view of the street. He pulled out a thick notebook filled with coordinates and directions, his sailing journals, his fears, and his keenest memories. All he had witnessed in his life were in notebooks of all colors and shapes since he could not find anything better to do than write, becoming a personal historian and a witness to his own life. Yet he felt that he had witnessed everything but his own life, seen it all besides himself. Even when he directly wrote about himself, he never used “I”, which he thought was too imposing. On his journeys, he wrote about “the ship” or “the crew,” but never himself. He wanted no personal relationship with his writing. He wrote himself out of his own memories. He was stuck in a perpetual state of forgetfulness that alienated him from his life. He also liked reading to kill time until the ship rocked him to sleep, or he got distracted by an idea or a word in the book that poked his thoughts and left him in a world of his own. He never seemed to see the end–unfinished books, poems, and the worst of all: incomplete relationships. He would leave conversations half-done and ruminate on them for days. He was dying to unveil people’s secrets, ask them honest questions, and get simple answers. Yet something about his solitary disposition made intimacy impossible. This sentence of

solitude bred a sadness approaching melancholia, not a transient state but the mold of one’s existence, something inescapable yet deliberate—a sadness innately calm and constant.

He’d embraced his sadness long ago and never thought of it as a burden. He didn’t know who he would be without it and the sensitivity it allotted him. He appreciated little details, small beauties of life precisely because of his deep-seated sadness.

From the top of this hill overlooking the city, he was feeling brave. He jotted down in his notebook: I see a tree strangling itself A belt wrapped around its neck it cries songs of misery