Many people deal with controversy differently. Some refuse to say that the said thing is actually controversial in the first place. Some avoid and ignore the issue completely or they believe it to be pointless as they see it not as a solution. Others see it as the be all and end all of making change and actually fixing the problem. It’s up to each individual person how they face–or avoid– controversy. I personally believe controversy is a necessary evil within the world.
These days, the amount of people who are stepping outside of the box of societal rules is becoming less and less. Due to ‘cancel culture’, people are terrified to slip up. This can both be seen as good as well as a bad thing. I agree people should be held accountable for tweeting something racist a few years back, but I don’t think people should be so afraid to speak out at all. For example, so-called celebrities are silent in regards to the crimes being committed upon Palestinian people because they are supposedly afraid of offending the wrong people in the industry.
Controversy illustrates the values of epistemic independence which is the ability to consider issues ourselves without relying on higher authorities. Basically, thinking for yourself rather than sticking to what the government or media tells you. Controversial actions allow people to see outside of the social norm and reveal things that are both good or bad in the world. It exposes what needs to change. Engaging with controversy allows us to examine the answers to problems rather than accepting what is and make us question what if.
Throughout history there are examples of people causing change through standing up and making some controversy. In 1928 the Women’s Suffrage movement in the UK had women chaining themselves to railings, interrupting parliament and holding rallies, all for the fight for women’s rights. Not even a 100 years ago women did not have the human right to vote. Because these women were not afraid to expose that change needed to be made, women today are allowed to vote. The Salt March in India was a result of the 1882 Salt Act which prohibited citizens of India, under British rule, from collecting, selling or producing salt. The poor suffered hugely, as they were not allowed a mineral that was needed for human metabolism, and those who went against this act were imprisoned. Mahatma Ghandi took against this act in protest and joined by 78 followers, they walked 240 miles to the Arabian Sea. The peaceful protestors who were arrested brought global recognition of what was happening in India. These controversial acts of defying British law was the first step on the road to independence for India.
Speaking of independence, a moment of uprising to create controversy we can look upon our own history. The Easter Rising of 1916, was an insurrection within this country that resulted in a domino effect to our independence from British Rule. James Connolly, Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, Èamonn Ceannt, Seán Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Mary Plunkett, all leaders of the Rising and all saw that change was necessary. To stand up for the right of a free state. Even if they all met a dire fate we can thank them for being an independent country now.
Sitting quietly and letting things pass is no good because nothing will ever happen then. These examples are all of the people who saw that change was needed and stood up even if they were afraid of causing controversy. They used their voice, just like how you should use your voice, now, today and forever.
In this issue of Motley we explore all different takes of controversy, both good and bad. Many of these articles are the writer’s opinions as they discuss these controversial items, so I do hope you read them with a pinch of salt. Enjoy, feel enraged and speak out…
LISA AHERN
editor in-chief
Lisa is coming back to Motley after studying abroad in Boston for a year. She is in her final year of BA English and is returning to her Rory Gilmore wannabe role as Editor in Chief.
meet the TEAM
Tiernán Ó Ruairc, Deputy Editor In Chief
Tiernán Ó Ruairc is a final year history and politics student with an interest in current affairs, and is looking forward to another year at the Motley Magazine.
Adrian Quinn, Current Affairs Editor
Adrian is a final year arts student studying History and Economics. He loves music, cooking and playing sudoku whilst tanning on Mediterranean beaches.
Kate O’Hanlon, Deputy Current Affairs Editor
Kate O’Hanlon is a second year BA English student who loves to travel and go to concerts in her free time. She is also extremely interested in politics making her prefect for Current Affairs.
Tess O’Regan, Entertainment Editor Tess is returning to Motley this year while pursuing an MA in English Literature and Modernities. Always reading or watching something, Tess is particularly fond of the work of Cormac McCarthy, Hilary Mantel and Pat Barker, and will happily spend the rest of time rewatching The Wire.
Darren Keogh, Deputy Entertainment Editor
Meet our mature student Darren Keogh who is the Deputy Entertainment Editor in his final year of BA Arts studying History and English. He loves music, films, books and trying to find the cheapest vinyls around now that he is a student again.
Cian Walsh, Features and Opinions Editor
Cian Walsh is a third year History and Politics student. He wanted to get involved with Motley for the way it culminates a lot of the creative endeavours he has always had a passion for. Different avenues like poetry, short stories, opinions, etc. Besides that, he ’s also good at getting told he looks like any male actor with dark hair and sleepy complexions.
Luca Oakman, Deputy Features and Opinions Editor
Luca is a second year Arts student. One of their biggest passions is Ancient Greek Culture and Mythology. Stephen Fry’s books are some of their favourites. They have always loved reading and writing, hence they are excited to get started working for Motley as they one day want to pursue a career in publishing.
Stephen O Brien, Fashion Editor
Stephen is in Final Year of BA English. He is deeply interested in Pop Culture, including music, film, and fashion, and is even a member of the Pop Culture Society!
Sinead Sheridan, Deputy Fashion Editor
Sinead Sheridan 2nd year English Student. Sinead has a huge interest in fashion along with photography. Writers Sinead looks up to are Anthony Bourdain and Hunter S. Thompson
Ester de Alcantara, Graphic Designer
Ester is a second-year International Law student with a passion for graphic design. She loves books, movies, good music and Tom Hiddleston (mention him at your own risk). Will spend her free time making pizza and brigadeiro for her friends.
Brayden Spencer, Web Designer Brayden is a third year Digital Humanities and Information Technology student. Brayden is the Web Designer for this year’s motley team. Brayden is a tech geek and also a huge cinema and TV nerd!
Joanne Ryan, Social Media Manager
Joanne is a third year English and Politics student. She loves sport, coffee and film and she is looking forward to joining the Motley team as Social Media Manager
CONTRIBUTORS
INSIDE
FIVE - MARCH 2025
CURRENT AFFAIRS ENTERTAINMENT FEATURES AND OPINIONS FASHION
IRELAND’S HOUSING CRISIS CONTROVERSY CONTINUES: 2025 SO FAR CROSSWORD CONTROVERSY ISSUE ART FROM THE ARTIST AMERICAN SABOTAGE P. 5 P. 10 P. 19 P. 31
IRELAND’S HOUSING
CONTROVERSY CONTINUES:
Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has received heavy criticism as he recently hinted at changes to, and the possible removal of, Rent Pressure Zones (RPZs) at the end of this year. RPZs were introduced at the end of 2016 and were scheduled to last until December 2024. They were extended until 31st December 2025 in May last year by the then acting government.
RPZs were first set up in order to moderate rapidly rising rents in Cork and Dublin. These designated areas now cover approximately 75 percent of the country’s private rental properties. They cap annual rent increases at two percent, or at the rate of inflation as per the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices - whichever figure is lower.
The effectiveness of RPZs have been called into question. The International Money Fund (IMF) pointed out that there appears to have emerged a two tier rental system in Ireland due to RPZs. Sitting tenants have generally benefited from lower rents in compliance with RPZs, whereas new tenants are often faced with higher rents.
When discussing the possible changes to RPZs, the Taoiseach said that this suggested shake up comes as the government attempts to establish a system which “protects renters but also enables people to have a clear, stable environment in which to invest”.
The most prominent alternative to have been suggested is the “reference rent” system, as outlined in the Housing Commission’s report in May of last year. This expert run body was set up in 2021 by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage by Minister Darragh O’Brien.
In the 2024 report commissioned by the government, it was said that this system would base rent prices on various conditions, such as the location and the characteristics of the house.
The Chair of the Housing Commission, John O’Connor, speaking to the Independent, recently advised that RPZs would be required for a further two years before any changes were to be made. The Commission stressed that any changes should be made only on evidence based reviews on the impact of the market.
Mary Conway, Chairperson of the Irish Property Owners Association (IPOA), speaking on Morning Ireland, welcomed the possibility of a change to the RPZs, stating that “they haven’t worked” and have instead “driven landlords out of the system” and “given tenants less choice”.
CONTRO VERSY
CONTINUES: 2025 SO FAR
CURRENT AFFAIRS EDITOR ADRIAN QUINN HOUSING CRISIS
The Residential Tenancy Board (RTB) recently published figures indicating that the number of landlords in the market had increased by 5.7 percent in Q3 2024.
Conway called into question the accuracy of these figures, stating that estate agents and members of the IPOA have reported landlords are leaving the market.
The Taoiseach’s remarks regarding changes to the RPZs have come shortly after recent figures showed that the government had failed to reach their housing targets for 2024. In the closing months of last year, former Taoiseach, and current Táinaiste, Simon Harris had assured the public that there would be close to 40,000 houses built.
Figures published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) recorded that 30,330 dwellings were completed in 2024, a decrease of 6.7 percent from the previous year. The largest drop came in apartment completions, which fell by 24 percent.
Speaking with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio One, the Táinaiste laid the blame for this shortfall on Minister O’Brien.
The current government has come under fire from opposition parties for their failure to provide the 40,000 homes that were promised. Sinn Féin’s National Spokesman on Health, TD David Cullinane, accused the government of misleading the public in order to win votes in last November’s election. Speaking to the Dáil, Cullinane claimed that the Central Bank, the CSO and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) had all provided figures before the election suggesting that the government would not achieve its targets.
The new Programme for Government has laid out plans to build 300,000 homes from 2025 until 2030. This is in line with the ESRI’s figures which have stated that 60,000 homes need to be built annually in order to meet demand.
Speaking on Morning AM, housing policy expert, Dr. Lorcan Sirr of TU Dublin, cited Davy stockbrokers' claims that 93,000 homes will need to be built annually by 2031 in order to meet rising demand.
In order to reach the ESRI’s targets, the Taoiseach has pointed out that the state would need “€20 billion of development funding for housing” annually. Presently, the government is spending approximately €6 billion.
The Taoiseach has confirmed that in order to make up the €14 billion shortage, the government is considering providing tax breaks to private developers in order to incentivise investment.
Contrary to the Taoiseach’s statements, Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, has denied the possibility of reintroducing reliefs. Speaking from Brussels, Donohoe said that “We should not bring in and reintroduce the reliefs that proved so costly and did such harm a number of years ago.”
Leader of the Labour Party, Ivana Bacik, speaking on Morning Ireland, pointed out that in a report conducted by the ESRI, that providing developers with such tax breaks only leads to the transfer of tax revenues from the state to developers without much change in supply.
Despite the controversy surrounding RPZs and housing target figures, the government has yet to announce a clear solution to these plans.
CONTRO VERSY
“DUDE,
WHERE’S MY DATA?’ ASHTON KUTCHER & THORN’S PLAN TO CHANGE EUROPEAN
PRIVACY LAWS
“Walk for me baby I’ll be Diddy, you’ll be Naomi, woah-oh” Any positive reference to Sean “Diddy” Combs has aged like milk. The rapper, producer and record executive is currently awaiting trial at a New York City jail, and if convicted for his alleged crimes, will face a minimum of 15 years in prison for sex trafficking and up to life in prison for racketeering. Several Hollywood actors have been speculated to be involved in his suspected ‘freak off’ parties, and unconfirmed rumors continue to spread about who could have been involved.
One of the many celebrities rumoured to have attended and even co-hosted the alleged parties, Ashton Kutcher, has been reported to be avoiding the spotlight due to his associations with Diddy. Kutcher is an actor who rose to fame after starring on That ‘70s Show alongside his nowwife Mila Kunis. In 2009, Kutcher and his then-wife, actress Demi Moore founded Thorn, a non-profit organization designed to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse online. The organization has been widely promoted on YouTube, especially on the true crime section of the platform by channels like Rotten Mango and Kendall Rae, however the organization has been raising controversy since 2023. Although the non-profit was founded by Kutcher, he had to resign as chairman of the organization after vocally defending convicted rapist Danny Masterson by sending a letter to a judge requesting leniency to his conviction. On top of this, he has openly defended known sexual abusers on several occasions. Ashton Kutcher stood up for football coach Joe Paterno, whose contract was terminated after he allegedly covered up another coach’s sexual abuse crimes against children. He also defended former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick in 2017, who resigned after allegedly having ignored various reports of sexual harassment and discrimination within the corporation.
Although Thorn presents itself as a non-profit organization, the closer you look into it, the more it looks like a tech company. According to an investigation by Follow the Money, Thorn makes millions off the EU’s fight against child abuse online. The 2023 article states that Thorn pays several of its employees six-figure salaries and has invested almost a million dollars in a venture capital firm called A-Grade, which is co-founded and co-owned by Ashton Kutcher himself.
So, how does Thorn fight the sexual abuse of children online, and how does it make money doing that? Thorn has worked with tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon to develop artificial intelligence tools used to detect child sexual abuse material on social media and messaging platforms. According to documents obtained by Follow the Money, while advocating for fighting child exploitation, it also heavily promotes its own software to EU officials. In 2022 alone, Thorn spent over 630,000 euros lobbying in Brussels, an amount which would be more likely to come from a tech company than an NGO. On top of that, Thorn has spent a significant sum of money on PR, advertising campaigns, and hiring lobbyists within the EU.
Thorn has been praised as a partner in drafting a new privacy law, and is considered to be the driving lobbying force behind it. The European Commission has proposed a regulation that would allow all user generated content, including images, videos and end-to-end encrypted messages to be scanned by authorities in the EU member states. Apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram and TikTok would be required to scan content on the user’s device before it is sent or after it is received.
Privacy advocates have raised concerns over the proposal. They claim that scanning content indiscriminately targets mostly innocent people, and can be misused by governments for other purposes than originally intended. One of Thorn’s previous tools, Spotlight, drew criticism for being repurposed by the US government in order to target consensual sex work by adults, according to a 2017 article by Reason. The European Commission has been warned by the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee about possible undue influence by Ashton Kutcher and Thorn in the drafting of the law proposal. The Commission has also refused to provide transparent documents to the European Ombudsman regarding Thorn’s influence on drafting the new legislation in 2024, a decision which the Ombudsman has raised concerns over.
Paul Tang, a former member of the European Parliament, stated to Follow the Money in 2023 that “you cannot represent a business interest and [at the same time] the interest of abused children. That is hard to combine.” Wojciech Wiewiórowski, the European Data Protection Supervisor, agrees. “Whilst one can be a movie star to advocate for a good cause, it is a thorny problem when stakeholders hide behind the notion of civil society, therefore misleading the public, even if unintentionally”, he stated at a conference in Madrid in 2023.
However, some within the Commission push back against the criticism. Ylva Johansson, the EU’s Home Affairs Commissioner, stated that she was proud to work with Thorn, and that the legislation would not favour any particular provider for scanning software. Thorn has also received support from Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, who has stated that she and Kutcher have a common cause of protecting children. Fighting against the sexual abuse of children is one of the most crucial issues online, and many believe that any measures available should be used to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material. However, some are concerned about the risks posed by allowing tech companies to draft laws that benefit them financially, especially when those laws concern the privacy of all European Union citizens. Some are afraid that loosened privacy laws in combination with new AI surveillance tools can allow businesses and governments to misuse them for previously unstated purposes, possibly compromising the privacy and safety of innocent people. On top of these concerns, Ashton Kutcher’s past of having defended alleged sexual abusers leaves a bad taste in the mouth of some who stand up for victims of sexual misconduct.
By Staff Writer Lia Daskalopoulos
DELIBERATE CONTROVERSY OR DEFIANCE OF CABAL: THE CALCULATED PROVOCATION OF
Charlie Hebdo is a satirical magazine published weekly in France that features deliberately polemic reports, cartoons and jokes. While they have made a name for themselves by being as controversial as possible, this magazine has incurred an absurd amount of controversy due to their insensitive and at times outrageous handling of news stories that other reporters would write about cautiously. Charlie Hebdo are proponents of what they deem to be “free expression” and secularism. But at what point does free speech become hate speech?
While this publication aims to make headlines for their velitation on a weekly basis, their most egregious comic of the last few months is one of Gisele Pelicot. Ms. Pelicot was drugged and raped by her husband and over 50 other men, he found online, for over a decade. These assaults were recorded by Ms. Pelicot’s husband and discovered following an investigation in late 2020 after he was arrested for recording up a woman's skirt in a supermarket. The cartoon published by Charlie Hebdo depicts the active assault of Ms. Pelicot by multiple men while her husband records with the caption “l’amour ouf… un film de Dominique Pelicot”, which means “crazy love… a film by Dominique Pelicot”. However “l’amour ouf” implies an obsession with something that leads you to forget your own nature and almost forces you to do crazy things for the other person. The choice of words here coupled with the grotesque comic, are strongly indicative of a dehumanizing method of victim blaming on the artist's part.
The vicious satirisation of Ms. Pelicot, who bravely made her trial public in order to make women aware of the warning signs of the abuse she endured, undermined her story and what she aimed to achieve by sharing it. This cartoon, which not only downplayed her plight but also made light of it, has set back women’s rights movements in France by making it more difficult for people to come forward and share similar stories of exploitation. While the release of this cartoon is technically an expression of free speech, it ultimately perpetuates a culture of silencing victims.
Ms. Pelicot has stated that she wanted her case handled publically she didn’t “want [victims of sexual assault] to feel ashamed anymore. It’s not for us to feel shame–it’s for [sexual attackers],” she said. “Above all, I’m expressing my will and determination to change this society.” Sexual assault cases in France are usually handled with tight discretion and the stigma surrounding them has made it difficult to have open dialogues which could lead to societal changes such as updating legislation.
Only in 2021 did France introduce a legal age of sexual consent–notably after public outcry following the rape of an 11-year-old schoolgirl by a man who was initially convicted on the lesser charge of sexual assault. Stigma and a lack of social movement leads to even further shame and taboo around these topics which may make it harder for victims to even report what has happened to them. We can see this trend in statistics from the the Institute of Public Policies, which found that just 14% of rape accusations in France lead to formal investigations.
The cartoonists and reporters at Charlie Hebdo surely would have been aware of this political background in France in regards to sexual assault victims. Most have concluded that, even for a deliberately satirical publication, this comic has taken the joke too far with their Gisele Pelicot satire. Sarah Legrain, an MP for the La France Insoumise party of the 16th constituency of Paris wrote that “You have to have fallen really low to rely only on ignoble drawings to exist”.
Indeed Charlie Hebdo has fallen out of favour in recent years, especially with the younger generations. While it could be argued that their intentional political goading may be a method of spreading awareness about contentious issues, the media buzz it generates is not worth hindering more constructive forms of free speech like creating a space for victims to speak up. Does Charlie Hebdo comics add anything meaningful or insightful to dialogue surrounding controversial issues or does it just opt to degrade those involved?
Seeing as this magazine built their reputation on scandal, it comes as no surprise that this isn’t their first time coming up in media headlines as being a controversial outlet. However in some ways this is the first time that we have seen Charlie Hebdo actively ridicule the free speech of others. Even following the fatal attack on their offices in 2015 following their depiction of the prophet Muhammad in one of their cartoons Charlie Hebdo maintained their “commitment to the defense of the right to freedom of expression, even when that right is being used to express views that some may consider offensive”.
Indeed Charlie Hebdo articles and illustrations can be viewed as a symbol of free speech and artistic expression that stand against censorship and oppression. By satirizing political, religious, and social issues that are often considered too dangerous to mock due to the media’s obsession with ‘cancel culture’, this publication encourages critical thinking and allows for a more open dialogue regarding sensitive or taboo topics. Its cartoons are especially accessible and force reflection on uncomfortable truths within society. Charlie Hebdo’s commitment to defending freedom of expression, even in the face of violence and threats, is a testament to the resilience of democratic values. While modern media outlets and governments alike use censorship to silence dissent, the magazine reminds us of the importance of free speech in the face of 21st century media control.
While it would be fundamentally wrong to advocate for the censorship of Charlie Hebdo, the outrage and disgust at some of the articles and cartoons they decide to publish is part of the dialogue that they so actively encourage. Perhaps the strong reactions to such degrading caricatures of various social issues signals a lack of apathy which may spur on activism and further social change in the future.
By Deputy Current Affairs
Editor Kate O’Hanlon
CROSS WORD CONTROVERSY edition
PLAGIARISM AND THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL “IT” COUPLE
Was Zelda Fitzgerald plagiarised by one of the most famous authors of the 20th century, her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald? There are many reports circulating the internet outrightly stating that Zelda wrote The Great Gatsby or that F. Scott stole the words directly from her diaries. There is constant critical debate around this topic. For one to answer these questions, one must explore the passionate, rowdy couple that is the Fitzgeralds.
Zelda Fitzgerald was born 24 July 1900 in Montgomery, Alabama and was the youngest child of Alabama Supreme Court Justice, Anthony Dickson Sayre. She grew up in a world with wealth and was a rebellious “Southern Belle”. One day in 1918, F. Scott Fitzgerald stumbled into her life. F. Scott was stationed in Alabama as part of the military. At the time he was an aspiring author. His career ambitions didn’t promise much money, meaning there was hesitation on Zelda’s part and refused F.Scott’s first proposal. Rich debutante meets a not so wealthy boy in the military–this plot sounds oddly familiar… The pair eventually married in 1920 and soon became the “It” couple of the swinging 20’s.
They lived in excess during the “honeymoon” years of their marriage, drinking and partying. During this time, F.Scott was creating his debut novel This Side of Paradise and allegedly began scrapping a large proportion of the novel to rewrite it to fit his new muse, Zelda. The lead female character Rosalind Connage is based on Zelda herself, dubbing the title of “first flapper girl” upon Zelda. This is where the “plagiarism” accusations are starting to arise. Zelda was a woman of the arts just like her husband, and she adored writing, but in a more personal fashion. She kept journals and wrote letters. Her prose style was said to be very poetic and lyrical. Apparently while F. Scott was writing his debut novel, these journals and letters were given to him “voluntarily” by Zelda, meaning the prose was heavily inspired and influenced by her.
The claims that they were given voluntarily can be contradicted. Zelda later writes in a review about F. Scott’s sophomore novel, The Beautiful and The Damned, in the New York Tribune: “It seems to me that on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and, also, scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald (I believe that is how he spells his name) seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.”
BY EDITOR IN CHIEF LISA AHERN
There are obvious signs of satire within this comment with the mention of the spelling of his name, but how much of it is true or was it an inside joke between the couple? This was a very public call out to the controversy of the plagiarism of Zelda Fitzgerald. Was she “just” a muse or did she write parts of these novels?
As the years went on, Zelda started to write her own short stories outside of F.Scott’s influence. Tensions rose within the marriage. Alongside the couple’s relationship slowly falling apart, Zelda’s mental health began to deteriorate also. Zelda was apparently having an affair at the time and The Great Gatsby was supposedly inspired by these biographical events,basically airing Zelda’s dirty laundry out in public. To emphasise the point that Daisy was inspired by Zelda, the famous line: “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool–that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool,” was apparently a direct quote from Zelda after the birth of their daughter Scottie. This information was all reported within Beloved Infidel, which was written by Sheilah Graham, a mistress of F. Scott, so we do not know if she could be classified as a reliable narrator or not.
More things that hint to F. Scott taking extracts directly from his wife’s writing was the scandal of the journals. George G. Nathan, an editor of a publishing house, approached Zelda, the infamous party girl, to publish her journals to show the world the real Zelda Fitzgerald. This however was refused by F. Scott as he did not want the world knowing their private business. However, was there possibly another reason for this? Was it because he was afraid of people comparing his novels, like The Great Gatsby, to her journals and making connections that would be damaging to his career? Unfortunately we will never know the answer because the journals vanished and were never to be found again. How very convenient for F. Scott.
As their marriage was on the rocks, Zelda’s mental health was at an all time low and she was institutionalised. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and treated for it in 1930, following a mental breakdown. While she was in hospital she did not stop writing and wrote her debut, and only novel, Save Me the Waltz. This is a semi autobiographical novel that follows Alabama Beggs who meets a 22 year old Irish Catholic man and explores their marriage as he tackles with alcoholism. While Zelda wrote this, F.Scott was working on his novel Tender is The Night. Apparently there was contention between the couple because some of the sections within Zelda’s novel overlapped with what was written by F. Scott, since they both decided to take a more autobiographical route within these novels.
Tender is the Night and Save Me The Waltz are both pieces of work that the couple produced independently of each other. Zelda’s novel was not received well by the public, making only $120. Critics said Zelda’s prose was beautifully composed but the narrative fell flat. While having a fast pacing and inventive plot was one of F. Scott’s strengths in his novel, the prose was reviewed as lacking poetic fluidity that was present in his previous novels. Tender is the Night also did not make it big in the public eye, it sold more at 13,000 copies but it was still a struggle for F. Scott. Could it be said that the novel lacked the feminine touch of Zelda Fitzgerald?
Even if the two pieces of fiction that they wrote separately “flopped”, it unfortunately does not answer the question of how much of F. Scott’s novels were really written by Zelda. It does however demonstrate to us that it took the minds of both Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald to create masterpieces like The Great Gatsby. Whether Zelda was plagiarised or not is it undoubtedly clear that the mark Zelda made on F. Scott’s work is inestimable.
AFTERLIFE OF THE AUTHOR: CONTROVERSY IN THE WORKS OF ANNE RICE AND CORMAC MCCARTHY
Recently, I (Entertainment Editor, Tess O’Regan) invited a colleague and good friend, Dante Kunc, to join me in a discussion about the authors we are researching for our theses, as part of our Masters in Modern English Literature, here at UCC. Neither of our subjects, Cormac McCarthy and Anne Rice, were strangers to controversy. Now both deceased, scandal still haunts their personal lives and texts. What follows is an abridged email exchange on this topic. As it turns out, the conversation surrounding the “death of the author” does not simplify with the actual death of the author!
Tess: I wanted to have this, I guess, “conversation” with you because I think we are both in interesting positions with our respective theses. We are focusing on the works of authors whose personas/legends interact with the texts in interesting ways. I think it would be fair to say if either Rice or McCarthy were alive today they would be “cancelled”. But, as I heard someone put it recently, you can’t cancel the dead. What we can do is consider them in a critical, but scholarly, way.
I will introduce my author first. In short: Cormac McCarthy was an American novelist, best known for writing The Road, No Country for Old Men, and the Border Trilogy. His work focuses on dark and violent themes. In fact, McCarthy is on record for stating that he had no interest in literature that did not ‘deal with issues of life and death.’ His work would be widely considered as “Men’s Books”, in that the subject matter and genres he deals in––westerns, apocalyptic narratives, murders, rape, incest, mathematics––are not what would be marketted towards a female audience. I firmly believe there is something for everyone in McCarthy, and that everyone should give him a try at least once (just do not start with Blood Meridian, like my sister did).
I have told you this before, but a recent story in Vanity Fair suggests that Cormac McCarthy had a “secret muse”; teenager Augusta Britt, whom he began an affair with when he was in his forties. The VF article however, is a complicated text in and of itself, since it was written by an aspiring author–the journalist, Vincenzo Barney, apparently plans to write a fictionalised version of the story–who romanticise the story to no end. While I believe McCarthy abused Britt, it is hard to trust Barney’s account of it, especially when he maintains that this is not a case of grooming–he quotes Britt on this too–but rather ‘the craziest love story in literary history.’
Of course, even before this story broke, McCarthy could have been read as controversial by virtue of being a Man’s Author, reticent to write women into his stories, with a similar reticence for shying away from hyper-violence. But that is all in the text, the VF article is not.
One cannot, I think, let an author’s life dictate the entirety of academic analysis made on their work, but neither can you ignore that an author’s personal beliefs, ideologies, or ethics can and will find their way into a text. What are your thoughts on the interrelation of author and text and the way it informs critical study? Do you think your knowledge of Rice influences your reading of her novels?
Dante: First things first: Anne Rice is, I believe, best known today for her novel Interview with the Vampire and the subsequent installments in the Vampire Chronicles series. On the internet, she is a controversial figure, mostly known for her crusade against fanfiction and her decade long conversion to Catholicism. Her works, similar to McCarthy’s, include many heavy, dark themes, amongst which are (sexual) slavery, pedophilia, and racism.
Critiques of Anne Rice and of her works differ greatly, but are as valid as each other. Yet, I find that engaging with the texts does not pose a moral dilemma for me. For one, Anne Rice and Cormac McCarthy are both dead. They do not profit off their estates, though, of course, somebody always does. Both of their works’ are complicated, yes, but they have greatly influenced their fields, and the genres in which they wrote would not be the same without them. If we do not analyse and interrogate the novels, they will continue to influence current culture, and sometimes perhaps in negative ways.
We cannot ignore them–they exist, they influence us. I do find that this conversation would be entirely different if the authors in question were alive and doing harm today. My knowledge of Rice’s life influences the way I read her books, but, to me, it only provides context to what she writes. I believe that you cannot ever truly divorce a work from its author, the author is never fully dead, but rather looming over their creations, less like a god, more like a ghost. If we were to ignore the people behind the books, I think we would also lose some of the humanity that comes with literature. Do you agree? Or do you think there is a way to divorce an author from their works?
What I am curious about when it comes to McCarthy is whether you find that his works contain anything of the controversy of his character. Is he similar to Anne Rice in the way that he has both personal and textual issues when it comes to controversy? And did you find that knowing of the VF article complicated your decision to focus on his novels for your thesis?
Tess: You asked if I could trace any of McCarthy’s character or controversy in his work. Like I said, McCarthy refuses to shy away from violence in his writing. Even a casual reader of his work would probably have come across scenes of sexual abuse and violence against animals. While this can be distressing to read, it never seems as if McCarthy is condoning these actions. Rather, I think McCarthy includes these themes to emphasise their evil––he just happens to be very talented at depicting them. But, as with most USAmerican novelists, this issue complicates when we bring race into the picture. I do not know if McCarthy was a racist man. However, his portrayal of Mexicans, Native Americans and Romani people can be problematic, although McCarthy is one of those writers who (I think) manages never to fall fully into the trap of stereotype, and it is the nuance he affords all situations that saves him.
Yet this nuance could also be his downfall. McCarthy’s style presents you with a situation and very rarely a judgement. I would argue he is more preoccupied with asking questions than answering them, and that it is in the act of reading that we as readers can make our own moral judgements. What I see in McCarthy’s literature might not be his meaning at all, but that is the nature of the creative collaboration that occurs between writer and reader.
All this to say: yes, I do think McCarthy and Rice are similar when it comes to the complex matrix that is the interplay between their personal lives and textual output. I say this because, before the VF article, I rarely read the man into his literature. Yes, McCarthy’s work is rife with gendered violence and abuse, but portrayal of a topic is not equivalent to condoning it.
I agree with what you said about the author haunting their own work. If we refused to let their lives inform our reading of them we would lose the humanity and, in doing so, lose what is so fascinating about their work. This is what makes the argument surrounding the “Death of the Author” so complicated, is it not? If we divorce the text from the author, we do not take into account how their unconscious and conscious biases might inform their work. On the other hand, we cannot abandon their texts just because we might deem them “problematic”.
I would love to hear more about your thoughts with respect to adaptation and the skirting/addressing of controversy. It is not something I have to consider with McCarthy, but I know adaptation is central to your thesis and am curious about your thoughts on the interplay of problematic hypotext and a more considerate, some might say “updated”, hypertext.
Dante: I find it so interesting that his books are seen as “men’s” by the publishing industry. As I mentioned, Anne Rice’s works contain nearly identical themes of rape, incest, murder, body mutilation, etc. The two differences I see between them are that: 1) McCarthy’s works are categorised as “westerns”, which is seen as a more “manly” genre, and; 2) McCarthy is a man. We could definitely have an entire different conversation about the publishing industry and its treatment of gender, but I will try to keep on topic, I promise.
In my opinion, book censorship is never the way to go. Of course, there are books that I believe can be harmful, but I would rather have those on the shelf than have to deal with censorship. Anne Rice has/had been banned multiple times, and is currently on the viral banned books list from the USA, which was published after the Trump inauguration. I believe she has a similar issue to McCarthy–she never fully condemns the dark themes that are so prevalent in her narratives. I do, however, think that to write off everything she had created just because of ambiguity would be doing the field of literature a disservice.
You asked about adaptations–I believe that what AMC did with addressing race in the narrative was the only way to go in order to make those who were uncomfortable with that aspect of her works able to watch the series. Importantly, Rollin Jones and Hanna Moscovitch (the showrunner and the writer, respectively) did not just remove the racial content, but rather recontextualised it in two steps. First, instead of simply not making Louis a plantation owner, they gave him a similarly exploitative career. Secondly, race is addressed in the show itself, whether overtly or in-between lines. Yes, they have changed quite a big part of the original text, but they kept the soul of it, and it did not feel like they were trying to spite Anne Rice, or that they did not honour the texts.
To me, the key to engaging with works by authors such as Rice and McCarthy is reading their texts critically. When I say I love Anne Rice’s work, I am not saying I love romanticising slavery or incest, what I mean is I love looking at the text and analysing it. Looking at such big authors, ones who have a cult following, is important to our understanding of our culture as a whole.
And so we come to the end of our discussion. I would like to thank Dante for engaging with me so thoughtfully in our conversation, and putting up with my late night rambling emails. I hope that the reader (yes, you!) got as much out of this as I did. If our discussion achieved anything, I believe it stresses that controversy should not be a deterrent for reading an author, but rather a propellant to study mindfully in order to understand, as Dante says, ‘our culture as a whole.’
DANTE KUNC
GRIMES: WHEN A HERO FALLS
I first discovered Grimes in 2016; I was 14 years old and an avid Tumblr user, religiously following musicians like Lana Del Rey and The Neighbourhood who dominated that scene. Grimes had released her 4th album, Art Angels a few months prior in November 2015, and what drew me to her originally was her connection to Lana, since she opened for Del Rey’s Endless Summer Tour that year. While exploring her discography, I discovered that her song ‘Oblivion’ had been used in an Eircom ad only a few years prior. That ad had captured my 10-year-old mind, not just for the sliding, holographic set, but for the dreamy and mysterious music that soundtracked it. Finding out that the same alien girl was the mind behind that elusive track, I knew I had to delve into her world.
As an average teenager in the mid-2010s, I followed (and made) many fan accounts. I won a competition through one Instagram account, awarding me a download link for Art Angels; this was before I had a consistent Spotify Premium account (not just the sporadic free trial and gift card) and used iTunes far more regularly. I had that album on repeat, and once I got Spotify Premium the rest of Grimes’ discography was there for me to fall into. Back then her Spotify profile was distinct and alluring: she was pale and gangly-looking, arms outstretched in front of a giant wall of roses. Her stance was unnatural, like a creature outside the realms of ‘human’ Her music reflected that. Geidi Primes and Halfaxa, her lo-fi outputs from 2010, were a blend of unintelligible chanting and surrealist synths. It was futuristic and otherworldly, but strangely familiar, like an alien recreating prehistoric music. Her breakthrough album, Visions, was still lo-fi, but much more refined. ‘Circumambient’ is a great example of that refinement; a pop song scattered about in a cacophonous whirlwind of New Order-esque synths and echoey vocals. Visions has many stand-outs like ‘Nightmusic’, ‘Symphonia IX’, and ‘Skin’, though its two most well-known tracks are the already mentioned ‘Oblivion’, and the track ‘Genesis’. Those two tracks have become generationally well-known through TikTok, and do a great job of capturing her raw talent, and why I became infatuated with the Canadian musician in the first place.
Art Angels was a step in a different direction, but it wasn’t a downgrade, far from it in fact. Where her previous output was lo-fi and ethereal, Art Angels was a highly produced dive into pop music, but distinctly Grimes. Like the PC Music label (run by A.G. Cook) that had been gaining attention around this time, Art Angels is over-the-top, bombastic, and colourful. The songs still include her dreamy vocals, but now it feels like music created by a cartoon pop star from the year 3000. Grimes is a producer first and a singer second; Art Angels is an auditory exhibition of her production abilities, showcasing her knack for mixing the pop formula with her eccentric soundscape. Listen to a track like ‘Kill V. Maim’ or ‘Pin’ and it’s evident. I feel indebted to Grimes for soundtracking my life during a time in my life when I was lost and in need of light. ‘World Princess Part II’ and the elusive ‘Realti’ were anchors for me in a sea of dismay and hopelessness, and they meant the world.
I could spend hours parading my love of those 4 albums (and her 2011 collab EP with d’Eon, Darkbloom), but I need to move on and get to the crux of this, to when Grimes started to slip, and that was May 7th 2018: the MET Gala. I didn’t know at the time that seeing Grimes standing next to the infamous billionaire Elon Musk would signal her decline. It was a month before the Tham Luang cave incident when Vernon Unsworth rescued a group of children stuck in a cave, and when Elon, upon losing the chance to stroke his ego and flaunt his wealth, labelled Unsworth a pedophile.This was the first time Musk’s ego issues and desire for public validation became clear to the general public. I only knew of him as the SpaceX guy who Reddit guys heralded as a genius. Back in 2018, I actually thought it was funny that Grimes was dating him; that week on Twitter where Azealia Banks was live-tweeting her experience of being stuck in Musk’s house because of Grimes was hilarious! But that brief appearance on the red carpet became a marker in the timeline of Grimes’ career, and unfortunately, it only goes downhill.
Miss Anthropocene is not a bad album. Songs like ‘Delete Forever’, ‘4ÆM’, and ‘Violence’ are great additions to her discography, and most of the songs are enjoyable, but compared to the albums that preceded, Miss Anthropocene is lackluster. A handful of the tracks like ‘Darkseid’, ‘New Gods’, and ‘Before The Fever’ feel like unfinished, stretched-out interludes, which is especially disappointing as the standard album is only 10 tracks long. The album’s theme, a concept about a god-like figure representing climate change, is incoherent and badly executed.
BY FASHION EDITOR STEPHEN O’BRIEN
At its worst, Miss Anthropocene is like if Art Angels was a teenager going through their angsty, ‘misunderstood’ phase; desperate to be profound, but too focused on coming across as edgy and cool. I still enjoy a lot of Miss Anthropocene, especially the aforementioned ‘Delete Forever’, an electro-country pop song that captures the feelings of lethargic misery when confronted with your past and mistakes. This song conveys the climate change theme she intended with the album incredibly. But the album, despite being worked on for at least two years, felt underwhelming and half-baked.
In the years since Miss Anthropocene, Grimes has promised multiple albums, Book 1 and Book 2, though neither has come to fruition–bar some dreadful songs like the Elon breakup song ‘Player of Games’. When she isn’t peddling AI, NFTs and crypto, she’s making statements like how she ‘kinda likes the patriarchy’, or that she’s ‘happily proud of white culture’ after concerned fans criticized her proximity to far-right figures. She’s been featured on a handful of songs, but they’re all bland American-rave EDM that’s ridiculed online by its fanbase of (self-appointed) ‘enlightened’ people, who co-opt Eastern mysticism in a pathetic, psychedelic-obsessed fashion; it’s the type that takes shrooms once and suddenly proclaims to be an ‘empath’, yet is still deeply fixated on themselves… but that’s beside the point. Her music, which was once self-made and experimental, has now become a pastiche of itself. When before I would have been excited to hear about Grimes and whatever endeavour she was undertaking, I now roll my eyes and mourn the artist that I once adored and admired.
There is a part of me that feels bad writing all this. It’s become apparent as time has passed that Elon was allegedly cruel and controlling towards Grimes, who is in the midst of a legal custody battle with the billionaire over their three children. My inclination to empathize has me considering that this pathetic right-wing pandering she’s doing is due to the manipulation, and I sometimes hold out hope that she could escape this pit she’s fallen into. Back in 2014, when Grimes released the single ‘Go’ (a song originally intended for Rihanna), she received backlash from pretentious music snobs saying that she had sold out. This experience fuelled the direction of Art Angels, as the album had been in a bit of development hell between 2013-2014. I’m reminded of ‘Flesh Without Blood’, a gorgeous track that highlights this treatment, whilst remaining undeniably pop. Whenever I listen to this track, I’m reminded of all of my conflicting emotions surrounding Grimes nowadays. Maybe this entire piece is a repeat of what those fans did back in 2014, but I know in my heart that this is different. I’m not jaded by the decline in her music, I am disappointed that a person I once saw as inspirational and magical has now become a shell of herself. She traded in feminism for the misogynistic crypto bros, she dropped self-made music for AI and outsourcing her work (which led to a Coachella performance labelled as one of the worst of all time). I’ve become disillusioned. I consistently listen to her previous albums, but these songs now hold a different message for me. They capture the feeling that comes from witnessing someone lose their spark. ‘Delete Forever’ has a mournful quality that makes it perfect to act as an elegy for the person Grimes once was. I listen to songs from Geidi Primes or Halfaxa and I hear the bountiful talent she seems to have lost…
I’m reminded of the lyrics of ‘Flesh Without Blood’ when I bemoan what has happened to Grimes: I don’t see the light I saw in her before, and when it comes to Grimes, I just don’t care anymore.
Art from the Artist by Features and Opinions Editor Cian Walsh
(Preface: This Article is purely satire and should be read and for my fragile little ego, enjoyed as such. Any points or justifications made are not serious and none of the content explored throughout should be denounced.)
Musicians are great. They make music. Music is fun. They are also human beings, which in some cases is unfortunate. People will often make excuses for their favourite musicians who have shady personal lives. It’s only natural. We wish to maintain the pedestal that we place them upon. Without them, phrases like “he made Graduation” don’t seem to hold as much weight as they used to. But seriously though, he made Graduation, don’t you get it? It’s a masterpiece, damnit. I don’t care about what he tweets, that album is a gift to mank-
Editors notes: we had to cut Cian off and try salvage the Motley image that he wishes to drag through the dirt. Hate that guy. Back to you, Cian.
With this month’s theme being controversy, it only seemed fitting to make a brief list of musicians who have done very bad things and try to see if their actions are forgivable based on how good their music is.
Thom Yorke:
Starting off strong with everyone’s favourite creep and weirdo, Thom Yorke. The Radiohead frontman has received backlash for an incident occurring in Melbourne last year at one of his solo shows. A member of the audience has shouted aloud “condemn the Israeli genocide of Gaza,” to which Yorke took offence to, calling the person a coward and insisting that they come on the stage and say it to his face. He would eventually storm off the stage but returned later to finish his set. Not the first time he would say some questionable things publicly. Probably won’t be the last. Back in 2006, he claimed that the Arctic Monkeys were gaining traction on account of the music industry and called them something that I do not wish to repeat. Look up the NME article. It’s wild and also very bad. Suffice it to say, he’s kind of mean. In Rainbows is great though. Not massive on Pablo Honey. 6.5/10 excuse.
Dave Grohl:
Following that, we have Dave Grohl. The former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters’ frontman had revealed his affair with another woman and fathered a child outside of his marriage. Goddamnit, Dave. You were basically the only nice rockstar for about 20 years. You wrote ‘Everlong’. You brought in Pat Smear to play with Foo Fighters. You’re Dave! You’re fun! Why would you do this to me? As you can tell, I really like his music. However, I wish to make one thing extra clear. I, Cian Walsh, think cheating is bad. Furthermore, it’s very bad and since the scandal I have strictly limited my Grohl content to Nirvana and that one Queens of the Stone Age album. We’ll give this a 7/10.
Michael Jackson: Not going there.
R-Kelly: Definitely not going there.
P-Diddy: AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Morrissey:
Okay, this one will be fun. There is quite a stigma around being a Smiths fan. You like The Smiths? That’s great! I’m sure you enjoy the colour blue-green, but refuse to call it teal. I bet tap water is a touchy subject for you. How much tweed is currently in your wardrobe? I beg to know. Regardless, Morrissey is a funny dude. Not funny as in “haha” funny, but more funny like, “What in the name of Christ?”. He hates the Chinese–called them subspecies in 2010 –that is very bad. He believes meat is murder as per the 1985 album of that very name. He cast doubts on the many, many women who spoke out against the predatory behaviour of Harvey Weinstein and also displayed a defence for Kevin Spacey amid the accusations he faced of sexual harassment in 2017. Were The Smiths good? No, they were fantastic. Good enough to defend Morrissey? That question answers itself. 3/10.
Taylor Swift:
I fear for my life right now. Let’s get right into this. Taytay. Swifty. Other nicknames. I’m sure she has some. She makes music. She has fans. They’re fun. Great guys and gals who really like Taylor Swift. And her music. But most importantly, Taylor Swift. She probably gets a hard time. She did kind of slut shame a girl in her song, ‘Better Than Revenge’. That’s not cool, man. She’s been argued to use feminism to her advantage and weaponise it for herself and herself alone. Other people said that–not me. I did not ever say that in my life. I do have a family. Please don’t hurt me. But still, she could just drive some places. Overall, I hold some bit of a grudge toward her indirectly as my 5th class teacher made us learn a parody of ‘Shake It Off’ as gaeilge. So, yeah. Erm… 10/10 guys. She’s awesome?
John Lennon:
Our last ranking and once more a funny one. Not exactly Morrissey funny, but more like “if you gave me one hundred years to write the stuff he did in his life both before and after The Beatles broke up, I’d maybe get as far as ‘Helter Skelter’.” What a creature he was. He wrote a song about his son with lyrics and a melody read and heard like a gentle lullaby. Timothy Chalamet was in a movie with the same name as that song. That’s great! The song’s about his second son Sean Tara Ono and was written within a few years of Lennon excluding his first son, Julian from his will. Yikes. He also had Sean with Yoko Ono whom he had an affair with during his marriage to Cynthia neé Powell, Julian’s mother. Double yikes. He also admitted to being physically abusive in his marriages and relationships. Once more, that is very, very bad. He should not have done that. I was always more of a George Harrison guy, myself. Given that Harrison and Paul McCartney also wrote or had a vast input into The Beatles’ songwriting, we’ll give this a 5/10.
So kids, what have we learned today? Musicians can be rather controversial. Sometimes, very. Sometimes, a tad awful or cruel. These are things that did happen. They were very bad things. That’s a hard pill to swallow when you’re listening to ‘Jigsaws Falling Into Place’,’ My Hero’, ‘This Charming Man’, etc. Unfortunately, it’s the reality. Pedestals seem befitting when we admire the work and passion that an artist puts into their art. However, I beg the question. Perhaps they could have spent that time not doing bad things? Maybe? Guys? Anyone? At the end of the day, they are people too and they’re not perfect. Some are the outright opposite of that. Should you reconsider your listening preferences based on what I’ve outlined here? I don’t know, man. You’re probably an adult. Make your own decision. I wouldn’t be running to their defence. I would suppose it’s better to just be aware that these artists we idolise are still human. For better or worse.
Tied to a Sharp Cross: A Broken Catholic Story
By John Doe
When I look back on the day it started, something that I always remember was how sunny it was outside. To be able to walk around, in Cork especially, and not need to worry about having a jacket, I was able to feel something that you don’t get much here– warmth. Thinking back on the day, it reminded me of what George Orwell wrote in his novel, 1984, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” It may have not been the same horrors that were foreseen in his novel, but it seemed to be a sign for the hell I was about to endure. I saw them with a small stand handing out free coffee and tea. I went to get a coffee and they explained to me how they wanted to create a Catholic group for young people. I thought it was an interesting idea because my church at home was mostly older people, so to be with more people my age was intriguing. I decided to join and they made me sign a consent form with my phone number. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but this soon turned out to be one of my greatest regrets, I signed myself into a cult.
In my life, I guess I was just born Catholic. My family was religious, so I guess I was too. The main thing I knew about it was there was a man in the sky who would pass judgment if we followed what his teachings stated. I wasn’t a serious believer, but I did like to use the framework to help build a good moral compass. Back at home, there wasn’t a Catholic community that knew English, so we played a part in building one. In the span of a decade we grew to be a community of over 100, but even being a core member, I still felt different.
Being a young child that was part of building a community, I was put on a pedestal as the “perfect Catholic child”, even though I wasn’t. It was strange not being a true believer in a group that believes you are. Maybe it was because I was born on the spectrum, but the way I absorbed the teachings really forced me to divide myself based on my mentality. I had to filter the accepted stuff in and keep the restricted stuff out. This eventually led to me having a second voice in my head, a whole other version of myself that I want to disassociate with, but they’re just stuck to me, voicing the intrusive thoughts that may not even be mine. In the end, it was hard. I couldn’t go to the cross with hope for forgiveness, I was on my knees begging for mercy. With my family being serious believers in the community, and not having many friends, I was all alone.
When I met them, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to be with a community of people my age. Since it’s majority was students, I thought it would be a laid back group who used religion in a similar way as me. In the beginning, it was fine. Everyone was nice and every week we would all meet up on Sundays and have brunch together. There were even days when we came together to play board games, and through that, I was happy to see that the group was what I had hoped it would be.
Then I noticed something strange, there would be times I may talk about something that wasn’t on par with the standards of their beliefs, and the feel of the room changes. The leaders’ expressions would shift, I would be given disapproving looks, and be told that what I was saying was wrong.
When I first met them, they said that they were open to hearing all opinions, but I guess that may not be the case. I tried to ignore it, but then it kept on happening. From small anecdotes to even jokes and riddles, somehow religion has to always play a role in listening and criticizing everything. It was discomforting because I would always enter the room thinking I am being judged. Given how introverted I am, and how much social anxiety I hold, I felt obligated to reach their standards. Even though I wasn’t a serious believer in Catholicism, it was always something that was a part of me since birth. With me living on my own and taking responsibility for myself, the leaders were the closest thing to a mentor that I had.
Then the bible studies came in, and that’s when I realised that I couldn’t take part in this anymore. The first lesson we were taught was about having blind faith and following what is being told to you. If someone says the plate is hot, don’t touch it–seems to be the explanation for following religious authority. The next lesson was about the use of religion, and when I told them the way I use it, they shut me down. They explained how it was the worst way, and how you need to dedicate your full life to Jesus.
I noticed that they saw I was different the following week when they added me to a group called ‘Exodus 77’. It was a program to test your faith by completely disconnecting yourself. I couldn’t use technology, I had to fast for the majority of the week, take cold showers, I could only view Catholic media, and I would be assigned a person to overlook my progress. I’d had enough and left the group chat, then the voices came back. I would wake in a cold sweat, and would hyperventilate in the middle of the night. Even in a silent dark room, I never knew it could be so loud. After many nights, I lost my fear of death and found comfort in it, which was the scariest thing. Even after all the suffering, at least there was a way out.
I eventually broke and told my friends in the society I was in. From what I told them, they said I had most definitely got myself into a cult. They comforted me, and gave me the strength to block the missionaries and leave the group. From that point on they became more than friends, they became my family. The leaders still reside today, but I don’t fear them when they’re around. I learned to take pride in who I was, and that it’s okay to be a broken Catholic. I can’t say that there’s an easy lesson to this story, but I will encourage you that you shouldn’t let people or religion be the judge of who you are. Though these religions will try to encourage others to be a reflection of their saints, there is still beauty in being cracked, fractured, and broken.
CHE GUEVARA: MARTYR OR
MURDERER?
BY CIAN MCDONAGH
In the tapestry that drapes across the 21st century, few figures have split the seams and polarised opinion as much as Ernesto “Che” Guevara. To this day, Che’s name, legacy and image represents defiance of the status quo. His message is still reflected in modern protests all across the globe, his face adorned on college dorms and protest murals. I recently spotted his flowing locks flapping at me from a window of the Castle White Apartment. However, depending on who you ask, Che is either upheld as a beacon of justice or beaten down as a bigoted mass-murder.
Born into a wealthy Argentinian family in 1928, Che had little reason to leave his life of comfort. However, as a young man, Guevara took a motorbike ride across the Length of South America where he witnessed the reality of life for the impoverished majority. Che identified the problem to be corporations that looted the land and marginalised indigenous people. This eye-opening experience influenced Che to explore Marxism and set him on a course that would not only alter his life, but also many others involved in revolutions around the world.
Guatemala in 1954 – Che got his first taste of revolution, joining the communist youth, in a failed coup d’état against the military junta in power at the time. Propelled towards Mexico in 1956, alongside the likes of Fidel Castro, he became a key figure in the Cuban resistance against the infamous dictator Batiste. Through guerilla tactics and constant resistance, the Batiste’s US-backed government was overthrown in 1959. Guevara was awarded for his role in the war, being selected as the minister for industries in the fledgling socialist state. However, the ever-rebellious Che could not settle down. In 1965, he relinquished his Cuban citizenship. In the following years, he went on to address the UN about South Africa’s apartheid, travelled to Cuba’s various communist allies, introduced guerrilla warfare to the Congo rebellion, and was finally captured and killed in 1967 while fighting in the Bolivian resistance.
To many, Che stood as an enemy to western ideals, a threat to democracy and a terrorist. However, when it comes to such a polarising figure, the old saying, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” rings clear. In contrast, Che is also considered a hero to many. A bastion against anti-imperialism, rampant capitalism and a protector of the exploited. It is difficult to classify Guevara as a murderer. There are no records of him causing deaths outside of the conflicts he was involved in.
There is no doubt that Che believed in his cause to liberate oppressed peoples. Corruption was rife in Cuba under the Batiste dictatorship–his rule became increasingly tyrannical in the face of a communist revolution. It is estimated that as many as 20,000 civilians were killed by Batiste and many were imprisoned. Once more, in the Congo, Che was involved in revolts against tyrannical leadership. Finally, his last rebellion in Bolivia was driven by his desire to free the country from the cycle of military juntas and dictators.
Although a controversial figure in the western world, it is clear that many discredited Che out of fear. His views on social justice, economic equality, and liberation are just as relevant –to some, controversial–today as they were 6 decades ago. It is clear from his writing that Che believed in rooting for the disenfranchised, downtrodden and tyrannized. Perhaps we don’t have to agree with everything that Che stood for, but we should appreciate him as a man who gave it all up for the causes he believed in.
THE DARKSIDE OF FAMILY VLOGGERS
BY DEPUTY FEATURES AND OPINIONS
EDITOR LUCA OAKMAN
With the rise of Youtubers came a rise of Vloggers, people filming their day to day lives. To connect with their audiences on relatable content in life and because of this, many parents began documenting the highs and lows of parenting. The Family Vloggers. What could go wrong with showing the joys and simultaneously the struggles of being parents? Demonstrating how they deal with anything from tantrums, bad grades, extra curricular activities, to how they practice discipline and even medical emergencies. Audiences worldwide connected with these channels, their struggles were being highlighted and talked about and some of these channels amassed a huge following. What could be so controversial about such a wholesome genre of Youtube videos?
Well in recent years, alongside the rise of other media platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok many viewers have noticed a common theme rising among some of the most well known Family Vloggers, they have noticed a rise in suspected child abuse and neglect. While this is not the case for every family vlogging channel, it is becoming more common for once loved vloggers to be accused and charged with various crimes against minors.
One channel that faced ridicule from fans was The Stauffer Life. Myka and James Stauffer had been running their channel since 2012, where Myka shared her lifestyle, her weightloss journey and her experience as being a mother and nurse. She would share anything from her domestic chores, to pregnancy announcements, and dealing with miscarriages.
In 2016, the couple announced that they were in the process of adopting a young boy from China and thoroughly documented every step of this long and complicated journey online. From 2017, he was officially a part of the Stauffer family and the Stauffers became a family of six. Their new son, who they named Huxley, quickly became the centre of their videos. Not long after the adoption was finalized, Huxley was diagnosed with autism and a sensory processing disorder; Myka started to put the focus of their videos on the struggles she faces as a parent of an autistic child. In 2019, Myka and James welcomed another baby to their family, now having five children in total.
However, in 2020, many people began to notice that Huxley was no longer being featured in their family orientated videos and later in May of that year, the couple released a video that shockingly announced that Huxley was no longer in their family. The couple described how they dissoluted their adoption, how Huxley was now living with a new family who was described as ‘better equipped to handle Huxley’s medical needs’. They had essentially given away their adopted son.
Their viewers were outraged and many accused the couple of going through the whole adoption process for financial and business gains on their channel, due to the Stauffers receiving various sponsorships for their most popular videos that heavily featured their children. The Stauffers have refused these allegations and ever since Myka posted an apology on Instagram. However, the couple have not posted any more social media posts that involve themselves or their children.
Another example of controversy that erupted from the Family Vlogger genre, a well known criminal case, is in regards to Ruby Franke and her Youtube channel, 8 Passengers. Ruby Franke documented her family’s daily life, her videos consisted mainly of her demonstrating how she parents and disciplined her six children. While her channel did have a large number of followers, her parenting style did spark some controversy online very early on; many describing it as harsh. Some even go as far as saying her form of discipline bordered on abuse. An example of her questionable parenting decisions was refusing to bring her youngest daughter’s lunch to the school after she forgot it that morning, saying that “if she goes hungry, it’ll mean she’ll learn her lesson and won’t forget it again”. However, one particular event that sparked major backlash from their viewers occurred when Ruby aired what she did to discipline her eldest teenage son for playing a prank on his sibling. She ended up taking away his entire bedroom, and forced him to sleep on a bean bag on the floor for seven months.
This sparked many of their viewers to look back on older videos on their channel and found a disturbing pattern which revealed Ruby’s seemingly harmful methods of disciplining her children. Many outraged viewers began a petition to get local authorities and child protective services involved to investigate the well being of the children in the Franke household. To avoid further allegations, this did effectively bring the end of 8 Passengers. However, Ruby did not stop from posting on social media and later made another channel with her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt where they advertised their life coaching business, ConneXions. This is when everything took a dark turn; in August 2022 Ruby’s youngest son had escaped the family home and ran to a neighbours house. He was severely malnourished, bruised and had signs of chafing from restraints being previously chained to his legs.
This brought the authorities to the house, where they also found Ruby’s youngest daughter in a similar condition.
Soon after all the children were safely removed by authorities and an investigation found that she subjected her two youngest children to starvation and confinement, as well as other horrendous conditions.
Ruby, along with Hildebrandt, were both charged and found guilty for four counts of child abuse; each were sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. Her eldest estranged daughter, Shari, later came out and called her mother the “family’s very own cult leader.”
Youtube is 20 years old and Family Vloggers are still an unregulated corner of the internet. This has obviously not only brought the children’s safety to question but many dread to wonder how many vloggers are using their children for fame or financial gain. These families hide behind the screens, being sure not to let their true colours seep into their videos but over time this dedication slips.
Although not all Family Vloggers use, abuse or neglect their children, many are completely innocent and honourable with pure intentions of simply sharing their life’s journey.
While this is true, there is still a need for laws and legislations to be brought in to protect these children to ensure that they have future access to all earnings that are raised from paid and sponsored YouTube videos that they featured in.
The children in these videos are essentially working and should be treated and have the same protection as child actors would have. Youtube should follow all child acting laws, which essentially means that the children cannot work over a certain amount of hours a week and a portion of all the earnings go into a protected trust, which the parents cannot access and the only one who can access the earnings is the child once they become a legal adult.
This would avoid the exploitation of the children in this so-called Family Vlogger genre and if they are in an abusive situation like the Franke children, it allows them agency outside of the family when they come of age.
The GorGons of Grand Parade
By Jake Griffin
The steps of St. Patrick’s church were dawn-cold and damp. Behind the clouds, those white vessels, a piercing radiance was hiding. Filtered sunlight danced in ribbons, pirouetting along smokish locks of moisture from his waking breaths. Where the sun met the stone of the pillars, it yielded no warmth. As the last blankets of shade were ripped away from Tommo, he felt exposed. The polyester quilt was wet. Either the sleeping bag was ripped or he’d pissed himself in his sleep. The pills did that sometimes. The former was the case. This was fortunate for Tommo considering that a spare pair of underpants was not in his possession. He laid his pockets bare on the biting ground and blew air into his hands.
He had a butane lighter with a picture of a Nubian woman’s breasts. It bore the words ‘Marijuana, Jamaica,’ in comic sans that covered the woman’s breasts. A bright apple of a sun was behind the woman, unlike the mean oppressor concealing itself on that morning. He withdrew from his pocket a pen knife, good only for paring packages or threatening someone who’d never been threatened with a real knife, and an empty prescription pill bottle. He peeled off a book label that was covering the information. His fingers were stiff but they warmed up as he scratched away at the paper. Tommo wanted to see the name on the bottle, for it always amused him. For three months he’d consistently gotten the opiate prescription of a man named Hieronymous McCarthy. He would often reminisce of the days of Jacinta Mulberry.
Those were summer days when ripe cigarettes fell from trees and there was not a spritz of fentanyl on the isle. The bins outside the student bars were always full of half-eaten food. Tommo did not begrudge them, for their waste had become his sustenance. He found a burrito, and opened it. Chicken, beans, cheese, rice and black beans fell. It was still warm. He started eating it on the spot. He washed it down with a quarter of a bottle of Bulmers from the foot of the Michael Collins statue. The spray-tan victims of Sunday morning wobbled past on cheap stiletto heels. He washed the sour cream off his hands in the Berwick fountain. Murders of crows perched nearby, gun-blue in the bright sun. It stung the eyes, it turned all the glass panels of Grand Parade into glaring gorgons.
Paul Street up as far as North-Main Street smelt of frying bacon and was torturous to Tommo. He watched fluorescent Barbies and Kens on their way to the gyms. TRT hulks stumbled in gumshield runners and gimpy forty year olds chopped by in shiny Asics. He stood in the water of the fountain and eyeballed the crooked-necked fools that cut past. How easy it would be to rob them. How disconnected they were from the world around them, the white-robed January world. He scratched at his wrists and broke scabs. Drops of sticky blood fell into the water. His sandals were soggy. Heavy clouds were rolling in, gray and forlorn. Tommo rolled out of the fountain. On Nano Nagle bridge, he found Tony Sulls begging for change. Sulls was a squat, one eyed codger with a big Ming Dynasty goatee hanging from his chin. Something about Sulls’ smile seemed wrong. It struck Tommo that Sullie had been avoiding him for weeks now. He’d been avoiding him because…he owed Tommo tic money.
“Alright Tommo,” said Sulls.
He smiled a gravestone smile at Tommo, like nothing had ever passed between them.
“Get up off the floor ya fuckin’ junkie,” shouted Tommo. He kicked over the cup of coins. They sang out across the ground, all worthless coppers. Tony recoiled in genuine fright.
“I’m sorry boy, I’m sorry. Tommo don’t hit me boy please boy,” and on he went, the cockroach.
He squirmed and thrusted out his good leg and put his runners to work. It was a pathetic pantomime, and Sulls’ mumming was drawing to a close.
“Where’s my money?” asked Tommo, veins bulging from his head. He felt his teeth grinding and his fists clenching. Tommo lifted up his boney chest and loomed over Sulls.
“What?” asked Sulls.
“What! What! You know very fucking well what, Sullie, you owe me a fuckin’ fortune, boy,” yelled Tommo.
His voice was carrying on the quay but pedestrians did not intervene.
“I only took the first batch, Tommo. I got robbed, boy. Would you have some humanity?” begged Sulls.
“Humanity? Alright so, humanity you’ve requested,” said Tommo. He lurched forward, grabbed Sulls by his hairy legs and swung him over the side of the footbridge. Still, rather than intervene, a shoal of millennial brunchers were holding out the fruits of Silicon Valley and hitting record. This would have destroyed Tommo’s reputation, if he had one to begin with.
“I don’t care if you only scraped off the film, you still took them off me, now you better tell me you’re gonna pay me back or I swear I’m gonna drop you into that water, boy,” said Tommo, concerned only that the gathering crowd could summon the Garda. Tommo felt his grip loosening on the stained tracksuit bottoms.
“I will, I’ll go to Cash Connectors, I’ve chains and rings to sell! Gold! I’ll pay you back on the spot!” shouted Sulls, to the river as much as anyone.
Tommo dragged him back over the railing. Sulls’ face had flushed cherubic, like Santa in the Coca-Cola Christmas commercials.
“If you’re lying to me, I’ll flay you. Do you know what flaying is, Sullie?” asked Tommo.
A true dramatist, he flicked his little pen-knife out to scare Sulls, who fell for the bit.
“Flaaing?” asked Sulls, disturbed.
“No, not flaaing, flaying!”
“Oh god no, Tommo, I know what flaying is! Don’t flay me, brother, please don’t flay me, boy. Have some…” said Sulls.
“Have some what, Sullie?”
“Patience. Patience, Tommo.”
“If I give you any more patience you could open up a clinic.”
“Yeah, some clinic that would be, wouldn’t it. Like a Shanghai den,” said Sulls, bringing up foul breath with harsh sibilance. “Come up with me to MacCurtain Street and I’ll pay you back, with interest man.”
“I’ve the salt and the blade handy if you’re spoofing me. I’d as soon make a cloak of ya’,” boasted Tommo, helping Sullie to hobble onward on his gammy leg.
There were still a few other homeless people asleep on the Mary Elmes bridge. They crept past them. The River Lee shimmered. Tommo thought that the Dean and its surrounding obelisks would forever remain the ugliest buildings in Cork. Not even the wreaths of divine light could purify them: they had stolen the view. Sulls pulled up a manky bag of chains and rings and coins from the soil of a flower bed on Harley’s Street. Tommo waited outside Cash Connectors until Sulls brought the cash he owed. He hugged Tommo, and several times apologised and reiterated his plights. Tommo blanked him, snatched the cash and bolted onward into the cruel unyielding light. That was a good day; a great day; nobody had to die.
Nobody enjoys being wrong. To be more accurate, no one enjoys being seen as wrong. It’s embarrassing to be confident in something and then realise you were defending something clearly untrue. But how far does this go? Is our love to fit in so strong that we will lie about our opinion, even if we know we are correct? And how does this aspect of ourselves shape the society we live in?
There are a plethora of examples to choose from when discussing conformity in society. The echo chambers on social media, where people only seek out those who agree with them. Discourse over fashion trends and ideas of masculinity and femininity. These are all things that exist because of our need to fit in. There are of course people who break this mold, who start the trends and can be content with the possibility of being controversial, but these are the minority. For most people it is easier to follow the crowd. A nice example of this is the Asch conformity experiments, where people are set up in groups and vote on what line in a series of pictures is longer. Actors are placed within the groups and intentionally get the answers wrong, even when they are obvious, to make the testees less certain of their own ideas. Usually about 1 in 3 people will give an answer they know to be wrong just because everyone before them gave the same one. For something as black and white as this to have such a large effect, it begs the question of the effect it would have on topics with more ambiguity.
WE NEED TO BE BETTER
This effect is most pronounced on people who are neutral to a certain topic. Being given an opinion in line with the masses is much easier to agree with when you don’t really care either way. This is also why first impressions are so important. If I start off neutral to something and then my opinion changes to be negative, turning it back to positive will be much harder than if I had been given the information in the reverse order. This is because I would have to internally admit that my viewpoint was wrong and this is not something that comes naturally. It’s a classic ‘Us vs Them’ situation. The first piece of info you gain will convince you of one thing, making you part of the group. ‘Us,’ who believe this versus ‘Them,’ who disagree. Converting to ‘Them’ is tough because you hold an inherently negative idea of ‘Them’ by default. It goes without saying though, that just because it’s the first piece of information you gain, it does not mean it is the best. This is something we all have to work on, to learn to be wrong, because often we assume that we have the whole picture when we may only have one side of the story. The idea of unknown unknowns is pertinent, we cannot know what information we don’t have and so it is very easy to make conclusions based on what you do have.
What is equally as important as learning to be wrong though, is learning to be right. When discussions were raised about the origin of life in the 1700s, each side had their opinion and believed the other to be foolish. They made experiments to prove both sides and critiqued the others as flawed. John Needham believed that life arose spontaneously from organic matter while Lazzara Spallazani believed life could only come from other life. Both had experiments to prove it but when it was decided that Spallazani was right, people jumped to the assumption that Needham had been blinded by bias. Furthermore, that he had performed poor experiments and simply did not have proper equipment, leading him to the wrong conclusion. In reality, the unknown unknowns were the cause; bacterial endospores that could survive being boiled were in Needham's experiments. Since no one knew these existed, when he ran the same experiment as Spallazani he saw life show up, a completely reasonable conclusion then is that it arose spontaneously. Spallazani was lucky that he had no endospores and got a different result. Neither had better or worse equipment, experiments, or biases. In fact, Needham actually had slightly better equipment, yet they came to different conclusions. It is unfair to act as if Needham had done something wrong with his science.
When I was in primary school I was the student who would be mad getting 18 out of 20 in the Friday test. I held myself to a standard above everyone else and thus saw myself as above them, believing my own ideas to be better without consideration of the contrary. Thankfully I’ve learned since then that doing well in school means very little in the grand scheme of things. The truth is, if I really was as smart as I thought I was, I would have been happy to learn something new, to change my view based on new facts, and to separate my self worth from how others perceive me and my opinions.
We need to be better at being wrong. We need to interact with others with a willingness to have our views challenged and potentially changed. Lying about your opinion to save face makes little sense unless the environment is hostile to you. Even then, they are hostile for the same reason; being unable to accept being wrong. Things like echo chambers, the increasingly polarised political climate, the hatred of ‘Them’ all come from a place of proud apathy to new ideas. Obviously this isn’t a single person problem, but we have to start with ourselves. Educated discourse is the greatest tool democracy has, we must use it as such.
BETTER AT BEING WRONG
In another world, it would be him who was celebrated for disproving spontaneous generation. It was only much later on that endospores were discovered and the whole truth came to light From this, it is clear that being right does not mean you have triumphed over those who are wrong, you have not proved your superiority. Humility and respect are more important than being “better,” and any acting as such will only dissuade others from having an open mind in future–for humiliation is a strong negative reinforcement. The truth is something you work towards with others, not something to wield as a weapon over them.
Almost all of us live under the assumption that our beliefs are correct. Otherwise, we would change them, right? But often we do not want our beliefs challenged. We want to convince others and not be convinced ourselves. This defensiveness is an issue and we should change our opinion based on new information, but it can be easier to ignore or not truly interact with the information in order to maintain our current worldview. Realistically, we are all wrong about many things. We do not know what we are wrong about and so when faced with new information we should embrace the possibility of being wrong.
BY ADAM MURPHY
“And Medusa Laughs”
I said it, didn’t I?
The thing you feared I’d say I didn’t mean to— or maybe I did.
The words slipped through with truth, cold as serpents’ touch, disrupting hiss, that anthem you’d so carefully composed. Misspeaking— isn’t that the euphemism for rebellion?
The unconscious rearing its head on that role you wrote for me. You wanted me silent, but my tongue failed.
And I saw it—that flicker in your face—
Did you feel offended? Betrayed? Relieved? In pain?
Misspeaking—I didn’t mean to —Oh, but I did.
All those swords I swallowed for years, almost lost my vocal cords, but I spilled them out in time —and Medusa laughed.
I’m not sorry for that.
And you’ll call it a mistake, a silly lapse. Refusing to see that the performance became a cage— a luxury cage that I longed to escape.
So I misspoke, if you wish. I tore the script, I burned the stage, and the laugh that came out —unexpected and cruel— resonated, effective, better than all that over-rehearsed play.
So let me speak and misspeak as well— You’ll choke on my words or swallow them whole.
But guilt is a weight that I won’t longer wear, not in silence, not this violence.
I am the truth you cannot tell.
By Carmen Lara Sánchez
RECOGNISING RESILIENCE
BY CATHERINE NIKOLAJEVA AND
THE WOMEN IN LAW FORUM SUB-COMMITTEE
The legal sector prides itself on upholding jus- tice and equality—yet it remains a bastion of entrenched privilege, where women continue to face systemic barriers, discrimination, and outright exclusion. From unconscious bias and flagrant sexism to the seniority gap, the legal profession has consistently failed to deliver on its promises of fairness when it comes to gen- der. Every second year, the UCC Law Society seeks to celebrate the resilience of the women who have overcome these challenges through the Women in Law Forum. The Forum is a bespoke event —the only one of its kind in Ire- land. This year, it will take place on March 12th, from 10:00-14:00, in the historic Aula Maxima.
The choice of Aula Maxima is more than just symbolic, it exemplifies the issues we’re trying to highlight: not a single portrait on those walls is of a woman, exemplifying the systemic erasure of women from the legal profession and posi- tions of power. This is why the Women in Law Forum, and events like it, matters. It is a call for change and a challenge to the status quo. It is a space where we confront the profession’s shortcomings rather than politely gloss over them. The legal industry remains an arena where men are the default leaders. Women frequently work twice as hard for half the recognition. Despite making up a significant portion of law graduates, they remain underrepresent- ed as partners, as senior counsel, and as judg- es, and they continue to be paid less than their male counterparts in many sectors of law.
The Women in Law Forum is a space to fight back. It is a place for women to engage with one another, share insights on overcoming these barriers, and discuss how to create a more inclusive and supportive legal environment. They recognize that we cannot wait for a legal system built by and for men to grant us equality—we must seize it ourselves.
As the Forum Convenor, my team and I are proud to be part of a platform that amplifies women’s voices in the legal field. We are aware of the deeply ingrained exclusion within the le- gal profession, and we decided to be part of the movement to change it.Law is still a field dom- inated by masculinity and by privilege, con- nections matter more than competence, and those who do not fit the mold are sidelined.
Our time studying at UCC has only reinforced our belief that students, especially women, deserve to see themselves represented at every level of this industry. That is precisely why the Women in Law Forum exists: it offers a rare opportunity for women in law, whether students or seasoned practitioners, to come together, share experiences, and learn from one another.
This year’s Forum promises to be particularly special. We are hosting three compelling panel discussions, ranging from Q&A sessions with trainee solicitors and young barristers to conversations with established female leaders in the legal profession and those who have forged unconventional career paths—whether in policy, in-house counsel, or beyond. And, perhaps most significantly, we are honoured to welcome our keynote speaker: Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh KC.
Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh is an international law and human rights law barrister, practicing in London, and is an undisputed leader in her field. She is perhaps best known for representing South Africa in their case against Israel for the violation of the Genocide Convention in the ICJ over the summer, but Blinne’s impressive list of achievements do not stop there. She is a former Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Law School, where her research focused both on the Arms Trade Treaty and on Israeli Military Courts in occupied Palestinian territory. Much of her practice focuses on justice and accountability for victims of State violence, including victims of the Troubles, and on the protection of the rights to free speech and protest. Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh is an absolute tour de force, and it is nothing short of an honour to be welcoming her to the 2025 Women in Law Forum.
Beyond the discussions, the Forum serves as a vital networking opportunity. It brings together people who share a common interest in promoting diversity and equality in the profession. The connections made at the Forum can spark collaborations, provide career opportunities, and foster mentorship, which are essential for anyone looking to build a successful career in law. We look forward to seeing you all there—because this fight is far from over!
AMERICAN SABOTAGE BY DEPUTY
It is undeniable that the rapper/songwriter A$AP Rocky currently is one of the most influential figures in fashion. Since his music debut in 2010 his style mainly consisting of flannels, hoodies and snapbacks was an accurate reflection on the streetwear style at the time. His unique style mainly featured Supreme, a brand known for its bold logo that dominated this genre of fashion. Adidas was another brand that was present in his style as his friendship with the designer Jeremy Scott materialised into a collaborative three-way sneaker collection in 2013. His love for fashion design is visible through the multiple collaborations he participated in throughout the years, from JW Anderson to Guess Originals. As we moved to the mid 2010s, his clothes became more tailored. Blazers and casual jackets were a prominent feature in his wardrobe. The Teddy Bomber Jacket designed by Yves Saint Laurent worn by the rapper was hugely influential. The muted colours suddenly became more bright as A$AP began to experiment with texture as he styled contrasting textures that broke the fashion ‘rules’. He wore pieces by Gucci and Balenciaga that enforced the boldness within his style.
As of now, the anticipation of his upcoming album, Don’t Be Dumb is accompanied by a fresh image of suits and sunglasses. Although some elements are reminiscent of his early style that consisted of the tailored clothes and aspects of muted colours, it has become more modern. This new style debuted last year, in his very first fashion show by his label AWGE. The show titled ‘AMERICAN SABOTAGE’ was certainly eye-catching, along with the featured pieces. The show’s venue was Hôtel de Maisons in France and had many famous attendees such as Pusha T to his girlfriend Rihanna.
FASHION EDITOR
SINEAD SHERIDAN
Once the show began, snippets of unreleased songs from his highly anticipated album set to release this year blasted throughout. The show’s satirical nature was made up of balaclavas, camouflage print, suits and even bulletproof vests were layered in a stylish manner whilst maintaining a deeper message that went beyond just satire. The show was a clear political commentary on the state of America. Models holding up signs of the slogan Don’t Be Dumb was a direct representation of the political protests in America right now as we live in a time of anxiety and existential dread due to the certain leaders holding such power within the USA. Cakes plastered with the imagery of the American flag, guns and money were served to each guest. One cake specifically had the words ‘It’s easier to buy a gun than a cake’. As the show came to a close with a loud applause, Asap Rocky came out with a bomber jacket with his own mugshot on the back of it.
As of now, the Asap Rocky gun trial has finally concluded after two weeks with the verdict of ‘not guilty’. The strange fascination of courtroom fashion was definitely present during this trial. The media could not get enough of his suits, long coats and sunglasses as it aesthetically aligned with the popular office core aesthetic. This trial clearly will not have a negative impact on his image as he was recently announced to be the new creative director of RayBan glasses with his collection being released in April. His fashion on trial garnered more attention than his last fashion show, even though the style was very similar. Did he carry the ‘controversial’ message he tried to portray in his runway show, of everything that is wrong with America, stronger within his own trial?
Perfection.
The nineties were the pinnacle of modelling and high fashion. The period in the fashion world was defined by its supermodels or the‘big five.’ These women were seen as the ideal, Naomi Cambell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Tatjana Patitz. They were meant to embody perfection and did so for the majority of the nineties. Their curvaceous and tall aesthetic was seen as the ‘sexy’ model, however the discovery of a young Kate Moss at the beginning of the nineties brought into focus a new aesthetic–heroin chic
Characterised by its origins in the grunge subculture, the pale skinned, worn and tired look became the look of the 1993 Calvin Klein perfume launch Obsession. The artistic meaning behind the look was meant to represent a disenfranchised youth who turned to heroin as a depressant. The look was demonised and vilified for its promotion of a dangerous narcotic which a decade earlier contributed to the AID’s epidemic. However, the power of recognition and popular culture continued to promote the aesthetic despite high profile deaths.
The 1997 death of Davide Sorrenti, a twenty year old photographer from Naples, was the beginning of the end of the glorification of heroin and the heroin chic aesthetic in fashion. Ms Sorrenti, the mother of the dead photographer, led a campaign against the use of drugs within the industry and slowly by the turn of the millennium heroin chic had died
The new millennium introduced the Brazilian model,as the latest standard, into the global stage.
Outlets like the Guardian and German broadcaster DW have noted the sudden change in interest amongst the fashion industry with interest in the Hollywood favourite diabetic drug Ozempic has created the same aesthetic as heroin chic had in the nineties. The 2025 spring/summer Namilia and Ed Hardy fashion show at the 2024 Berlin Fashion Week had one model wear an ‘I (Heart) Ozempic’ singlet. Berlin Fashion Week was not exclusively a call back to the nineties with plus size models still making an appearance, but can this newfound love with the super skinny model be healthy?
A 2022 article by the Guardian criticised The New York Times after they proclaimed skinny was back. The Guardian’s argument against this revival was that it hides its roots from the nineties and instead claims itself to be something new i.e. the clean girl aesthetic. With several cases of fake Ozempic entering the market and resulting in comas this era of the skinny girl appears to be just as dangerous as the original heroin chic. Ultimately the question remains is beauty worth the risk? Is the possibility of death worth the selfie or the modelling contract?
By Deputy Editor in Chief Tiernán B. Ó Ruairc
Unlike the nineties society, now people are more chronically online meaning more people would be at risk if heroin chic became the fashion standard once again.
Though the noughties and early twenty-tens remained an uncontroversial time, tabloids and magazines continued to make note of women’s body image within the fashion industry, but nothing compared to the unhealthy aesthetic of heroin chic. The late twenty-tens brought about diversity and inclusivity into the fashion industry by bringing in plus size and middle size models, while more people of colour were also included. This allowed the fashion industry to be more flexible and helped expand its audience.
Like the rest of popular culture, the late twenty-tens into the twenty-twenties are characterised by evolving standards and newfound inclusivity. Although, the mid twenty twenties have seen a wave of nostalgia, possibly kickstarter by the almost twenty four months in lockdown. For many sports enthusiasts it meant relieving World Cups from the past, for others it was binge watching shows from their childhood. For some fashion enthusiasts it meant rewatching 90’s runways. With a new audience watching the likes of Kate Moss, Jodie Kidd and Jaime King a new wave of interest in the heroin chic starts to bubble up.
Controversial outfits throughout the Years
BY fashion eDitor stephen o’Brien
Alexander McQueen – ‘Highland Rape’ Collection, 1995
Possibly one of the most controversial fashion shows of all time, McQueen was inspired by the forced eviction of his Scottish ancestors during the ‘Highland Clearances during the 18th to 19th century and also the domestic abuse his sister had faced at the hands of her husband. The outfits were made of sheer fabrics and knitwear, ripped and distressed in ways to disturb the audience. The models’ demeanor was also unnerving: some stumbled around like they were inebriated, others marched like soldiers. The rips and slits, made to look like violence had been committed against the models, would expose breasts and underwear and make some of the pieces look like they would fall apart at any moment. McQueen’s collection has always been incredibly provocative and still creates discourse over whether or not it glamourizes sexual abuse; McQueen himself said that it actually referred to “England’s rape of Scotland”. Ultimately this collection catapulted him to infamy, with him becoming the creative director of Givenchy only a year later.
Between World Cup matches in France, Beckham went out with his soon-tobe wife Victoria, wearing a monochrome-patterned sarong. As it was 1998, this fashion choice led to an immense backlash, particularly from the hoards of football fans that decried the footballer to be gay and effeminate for wearing something that resembled a skirt. This controversy is something deeply of its era, but a memorable one nonetheless.
McGowan admitted in 2018 that she wore this sheer beaded Maja dress (sans bra) as a ‘silent protest’ against Harvey Weinstein and the film industry: “That was my first public appearance after being sexually assaulted. I was like, ‘Is this what you want?’” Attending with her at-the-time fiancé Marilyn Manson, the pair matched in leopard print; Manson with his entire outfit, McGowan with her thong. This outfit inspired Amber Rose’s outfit at the 2014 VMAs, and was recreated by Charli XCX and Troye Sivan in the video for 1999. Speaking about the reaction to Yahoo Entertainment, McGowan said “They slut-shamed me like crazy. It was kind of hard. I hadn’t really ever dealt with global media shaming. But it prepared me for later on it happening to me a whole bunch. It was also like, ‘Sorry you’re square and I’m not. Bummer,’”.
Madonna – Wedding Dress, 1984 VMAs
Madonna’s appearance at the first ever VMAs was an unforgettable one; whilst her performance would not be that shocking in the year of 2025, back in 1984 the singer shocked the world as she sang her hit ‘Like a Virgin’ whilst writhing around on the floor in her dress as if mid-orgasm. The backlash was swift, but not strong enough, as Madonna went on to become the best selling female musician of all time. The future of VMA performances like Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga would not exist without this one, and Madonna later paid tribute to this performance alongside Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera in 2003.
David Beckham – sarong, 1998
Rose McGowan – Sheer Black Dress, 1998 VMAs
Similar to ‘Highland Rape’, Love’s Christian Dior dress was a part of John Galliano’s ‘Haute Homeless’ collection, inspired by ‘street people in Paris’ (another piece is the iconic ‘Newspaper dress’ from Sex and the City). Torn along her midriff and chest, the dress gives the impression of a ripped plastic bin bag with turquoise streaks of tinsel running down the bottom. Love altered this dress herself, removing the beer bottles, chicken legs, and switchblades that were sewn into the original. Courtney was already known as a polarizing figure in the music industry–she was someone who once interrupted a Madonna interview by throwing her compact at the singer after all–so naturally the response was controversial, though Galliano's entire collection sparked outrage for its concept of glamorizing poverty. Whether or not the collection was morally bankrupt, the dress was one to remember!
Bjork – Swan Dress, 73rd Academy Awards 2001
Lara Flynn Boyle – Ballerina dress, 2003 Golden Globes Award
Three years after Courtney shocked the Golden Globes, the Twin Peaks actress wore this infamous outfit. Boyle showed up with this Swarovski crystal-encrusted tutu designed by David Cordona, with Chanel slippers adorned with pink silk ribbons wrapped around her legs. Like Bjork’s aforementioned Swan Dress, Flynn’s ballerina-inspired getup was met with ridicule and mockery over her coquettish, girly attire. Whilst the top was a bit ill-fitting, this outfit would have been much better received had it been worn nowadays. The lambasting of Boyle seemed to err on the side of 00s media misogyny; God forbid a girl dress a bit silly…
By 2001, Bjork had released 3 albums, 16 UK Top 40 hits, and had already been subject to controversy and media attention; from attacking a reporter in Bangkok, to the attempted assassination from her stalker Ricardo Lopez. Known for her eccentric fashion choices – like wearing a sequined skirt of Michael Jackson – the public were (somehow) shocked when Bjork, who had recently starred in Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark, showed up to the 73rd Academy Awards in this Marjan Pejoski dress. She even went on to ‘lay’ six eggs on the red carpet. Obviously the reception was one of ridicule towards the singer, with Bjork being considered the worst dressed of the night on multiple different publications’ lists. The dress was later used on the cover of Bjork’s 2001 album Vespertine, and quickly began to be recreated by others like Ellen hosting the 2001 Emmys, to movies and TV shows like White Chicks, The Simpsons, and Hannah Montana. Over time, however, the swan dress has gained reappraisal, beginning with Valentino’s 2007 recreation.
Lady Gaga – Meat Dress, 2010 VMAs
Speaking of Lady Gaga, you cannot mention controversial fashion without mentioning the singer, especially when she hit the red carpet. The 2009 VMAs was full of looks, like her bloody Paparazzi performance, or her red lace headdress-mask-dress combo, but it was the 2010 VMAs where Gaga’s most memorable outfit debuted. The third look of the night, this dress, designed by Franc Fernandez, was made entirely of raw flank steak and included meat shoes, a meat purse, and a piece of meat that sat on top of Gaga’s head. When speaking on its meaning, Gaga said that “it has many interpretations. [...] if we don't stand up for what we believe in and if we don't fight for our rights pretty soon, we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones. And, I am not a piece of meat". She linked this to the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy in the US military that prohibited discrimination towards gay members of the military on the basis that they were closeted. The meat dress has become not just one of Gaga’s signature looks, but also one of the most well-known outfits any celebrity has worn.
Almost 100 years ago, the American/French actress wore this costume in the film La Folie du Jour. The 1920s was a period where Black culture and music gained traction with white audiences; whether it be through the rise of jazz, or the Harlem Renaissance, Black culture was in vogue, even when the people behind that culture were ostracized. European audiences held a fascination with non-white ‘exoticness’ and Baker capitalized on this fetishization by donning this outfit, which became a symbol of the Jazz age through Paul Collins’ illustrations. Baker played into these fantasies of an ‘exotic woman’–something she also used to find out Nazi secrets during the French Resistance in WWII–until she built a celebrity status that allowed her to become a vocal presence in the Civil Rights movement. During the March on Washington, Baker spoke alongside Martin Luther King, stating “And when I screamed loud enough, they started to open that door just a little bit, and we all started to be able to squeeze through it.” This controversial banana skirt helped make Baker the biggest black female star in the world at the time, and has been recreated since by Diana Ross and Beyoncé in homage to the controversial trailblazer.
Courtney Love – Dior shredded taffeta dress, 2000 Golden Globe Awards
Josephine Baker – Banana Skirt, La Folie du Jour 1926
