June 4, 2021 Ballard High School (Seattle, WA)
OPINIONS 15 ballardtally@gmail.com
AP (absolutely piss) testing Josie Laur Copy Editor
D
ear College Board,
What a year it’s been, huh? Longer than that at this point, actually, but the days all start to blur together. In fact, the days have blurred themselves right into May, which means that next month is June—and, with June, comes the AP tests. Lovely.
Cartoon by Sam Rainville
As you may have once been students yourself, you may be aware that the big standardized tests come with an innate level of stress. There’s cramming to be done, old study guides to find and friends to freak out with. You study, you don’t retain anything, the test happens and whomp bang done, have a happy summer. It’s a pretty simple rinse-and-repeat formula that students have endured for generations. This (my) generation of students, however, has encountered an unexpected wrench in the plans: the global -pandemic. Now, when the quarantine lockdown began last March, the decision was made to change the AP tests from full-length tests to shorter and simpler versions, to accommodate for the four months of school we’d miss and the economic/mental/physical damages that came along with a global pandemic. Because we wouldn’t have completed a full year’s worth of instruction, the logic was that we couldn’t take a test that relied on knowing a full year’s worth of knowledge. I approved. I ask you, College Board, what happened to that idea? As I said, it’s been a year, and we are now weeks away from the start of the 2021 AP tests. This year, not only are they full-length, but they’re also in a “lockdown browser” that prevents us from leaving
the test page, and we can’t go back to previous pages to check our work or fill in an answer that we bypassed the first time—something that we have been encouraged to do by the school system since our kinder years. If you changed the tests to be easier than usual because we missed four months last year, why would you make them harder than usual when we have missed a full year? Are we technically back in school? Yes, and in online school for a while before that, but I guarantee that I have not learned a year’s worth of curriculum in any of my six classes. I’m going to be generous and say that I’ve learned a semester’s worth of each—at most. This push that we have been seeing from the school system to get things “back to normal” since the early days of the pandemic is understandable, but also extremely frustrating in practice. Things aren’t normal, and I promise that standardized tests are not the first things that people want to come back. Anyway, can I come complain to you when I fail because I accidentally clicked the “next” arrow too soon and now an entire page of questions remains unanswered? Let me know! All the best, Me.
‘Pose’: Subculture representation done right (CONTAINS SPOILERS) How to properly involve people from the community you’re portraying Theodore Heim Staff Reporter
T
he captivating FX drama series “Pose” puts a face to a mostly-untold story of the LGBTQ+ people of color living through the HIV outbreak, the popularization of “vogue” (dance originated in the ballroom scene), and the increasing violence rates towards their community. In the ballroom scene, competitions with many categories like voguing, runway and beauty are held. Gay and transgender (trans) people of color found a haven at balls, where they could express their creativity freely. Many LGBTQ+ kids were kicked out and left homeless, but within the ballroom community could find their chosen family, called a “House.” The show follows Blanca (MJ Rodriguez), a trans woman starting her own ballroom house after she finds out that she is positive for HIV. She recruits three new house members, founding the House of Evangelista. While the characters of the show are spending their nights preparing and attending spectacular balls, the HIV outbreak is quietly taking the lives of many and instilling fear into the whole community. Blanca decides to keep her status from her house, and lives the rest of the show without knowing how long she has left. Even though “Pose” is a drama, a lot of these scenarios are very much real. That is what makes the series so powerful, the fact that most of these storylines aren’t really embellished. The writers for “Pose” also showed a dedication to the story when casting personalities of the ballroom community, especially trans women of color. It’s no surprise that producers Janet Mock and Our Lady J helped to write and direct some of the most impactful episodes.
Elektra Abundance is one of the most significant characters of the show, because of her sharp wit and glamorous presence. She is played by ballroom legend, Dominique Jackson. Mock and Our Lady J write one of her most satisfying scenes, where Elektra and her friends are asked to leave a restaurant by an entitled white woman. Elektra verbally tears her apart; “We fought for our place at this table, and that has made us stronger than you will ever be. Now pick your jaw up off the floor, go back to your clam chowder and shallow conversations.” It’s definitely worth searching up this scene even without watching the show. Watching Elektra tear a fragile Karen apart is extremely satisfying. Lead director Ryan Murphy and writer Mock co-wrote the episode where a primary character is murdered, Candy
(Angelica Ross). Candy is an outspoken character that wants to change things for her community. She is killed in a motel, and forgotten about for a few days. Her friends realise something is wrong, and they go to the motel to find her themselves. Possibly the saddest episode of “Pose,” the show forces the viewer to deal with her death very abruptly. What might seem like just a surprise murder story, is actually a very sad reality carefully
retold by Murphy and Mock. “Pose” is written by and for trans people. In an interview with lead actresses MJ Rodriguez and Indya Moore, Rodriguez breaks down the problem with cisgender actors playing trans roles. “If [playing a trans role] is a way of challenging yourself as an actor, then I think you should let us challenge and play some cis roles,” Rodriguez said. When a community is underrepresented, it is easily ignored.“Pose” is so important as a show because it can make people empathize with a demographic that needs to be heard, while also being very entertaining.
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