Moody Monthly Winter 2017-2018

WINTER 2018

COMMUNICATION COUNCIL

CONTENTS

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

MOODY SPOTLIGHT: C&L

LISTICLE: CURRENT MOOD

WINTER 2018

09 11

ROOVIEWS

HOROSCOPES

STAFF LIST

STAFF EDITORS MAYA SHAWS-HADDOCK WRITERS ELIZABETH ROSSIO EMMA HUGHES HOLLAND SMITH KENNEDY WILLIAMS ROOPA NAGARAJAN RYAN STANLEY VICTORIA STRANCZEK DESIGNERS ALEXANDRIA CHUNG EMILY WARD JOSEPH WALLACE

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

HELLO FRIENDS, A new year promises much for the Moody student. For some, this marks their last semester at our university, a place many of you cherish and call home. For those of you embarking on this final journey, know that all of Moody is at your back supporting you. Each graduate that goes out and writes their own destiny is an inspiration to us all, and we can’t wait to see what you all undoubtedly achieve. On the other hand, for some of you this may only be your first or second semester at our institution, and us here at Moody Monthly are sending you all our hopes that you are finding your place and filling each day with happiness.

Don’t be afraid to reach out if not – there is always a place for those who seek it. For those of you in between these two stages, you may be feeling a bit lost. What a weird limbo college places us in, this precipice between adulthood and adolescence. Revel in this uncertainty – it only promises that there is so much more to come.

To what lies ahead, happy new year!

As always, if you have any questions or just want to vent, fill out the form below. We promise to do our best to help. https://goo.gl/forms/yVZDPhgj0glvntg72 Sincerely, Maya Shaws-Haddock

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

MOODY MONTHLY

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MOODY SPOTLIGHT: C&L

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WINTER 2018

MOODY SPOTLIGHT: C&L

MOODY SPOTLIGHT: COMMUNICATION & LEADERSHIP The Communication and Leadership major, Moody College of Communication’s latest academic addition, welcomed its first class of students in Fall 2016 to a unique education in ethical leadership. With 88 majors already involved in this young program, The Moody College and UT Austin have high hopes for growing this discipline that reflects the leadership and ethics flags already incorporated in every student’s curriculum.

The curriculum itself features 4 main core classes about communication and leadership as well as an internship course and a capstone course. Students also take a variety of classes over foundations of communication and critical issues and are able to create their own class structure based off of their specific interests.

involving active leaders from the community into classroom presentations and discussion. The speaker series “Leading Positive Change” invites globally recognized leaders, such as Chancellor McRaven to engage with students and provide a first-hand look at the positive outcomes of ethical leadership.

“Learning how to face crises and uphold your morals and values is very important. I believe others should understand the importance of studying [leadership and ethics] and what this major can do for students.

The freedom of this major is very applicable to every job across the board. We are able to shape our major in to anything we want it to be,” says sophomore Communication and Leadership major Rebecca McCraney.

“We believe that our graduates will be prepared for graduate work or professional opportunities related to public service, philanthropy, and corporate social responsibility,” said Dr. Karen G. Wilkins, Associate Dean for Faculty Advancement and Strategic Initiatives. “With specific training in interdisciplinary perspectives on contemporary social issues and in communication skills devoted to effective leadership, our students will be well versed in ethical issues, ready to be informed and thoughtful citizens as well.”

When asked about the promising future of Communication and Leadership, Dr. Wilkins responded, “The students are the most exciting part of this program.

We offer a structure for academic engagement, but the students make this all work.”

The program goes beyond traditional curriculum by

By EMMA HUGHES

For more information regarding Communication and Leadership, its faculty member and guest speaker information, visit the Moody College of Communication website.

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LISTCLE: CURRENT MOOD

CURRENT MOOD

By MAYA HAWS-SHADDOCK

ALBUM: ALVVAYS “ANTISOCIALITES” “Antisocialites” has been around for a semester now, but we still have these bops on repeat. Alvvways raises the bar even higher with their indie pop sound. Songs like “Not My Baby” have got us torn between an ugly cry and a happy jog into this new year, and have “Dreams Tonite” promises to be the soundtrack of every romantic dream we have for the next year.

PODCAST: MODERN LOVE

Feeling romantic just in time for Valentines Day? Or perhaps more remorseful? Regardless, take a listen to this podcast to hear all topics on Modern Love addressed. The podcast brings fresh new perspectives on what it means to fall in love and what it means to mourn.

MOVIE: CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

Love or lust, call it what you must, but “Call Me by Your Name” has got it all. With promises of releasing that good ugly cry that you’ve been saving up all January, this film will have you on the edge of your seat wanting more. This Oscar nominee has been praised by many, and promises to cement itself as a love story for the ages.

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LISTCLE: CURRENT MOOD

MOODY MONTHLY

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ROOVIEWS

ROOVIEWS

SPOILER ALERT THE CASE AGAINST: THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI JANUARY 2018 DIRECTED BY MARTIN MCDONAGH WRITTEN BY MARTIN MCDONAGH STARRING FRANCES MCDORMAND,

After the 2018 Golden Globes and Screen Actors’ Guild awards, the two most capable predictors of the following Academy Awards, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is the unequivocal frontrunner for Best Picture. Three Billboards took both lead actress and supporting actor (Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell) at both awards, as well as Best Motion Picture Drama at the Globes and Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the SAG awards. Martin McDonough won Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes.

That last one is the most absurd to me. The performances of Three Billboards are admittedly amongst the best of the year, but the movie itself fumbles over its own attempts to create characters with layers and depth. Three Billboards doesn’t deserve any non-acting Oscars—or even nominations if you ask me, and here’s why: Summarily, Three Billboards is a story of revenge and redemption, built around a grieving mother who overlooks racism in a way only a white woman can and a white cop whose history of racist brutality is simply a minor, excusable character flaw.

Now, before I delve into anything, let me recognize the other side of opinions. I understand where positive reviews are coming from, and I see why some people find the story and characters so compelling. People love this movie because it’s a devastating and heartbreaking portrayal of a mother’s coping and grief. It’s about loss, and violence, and how small kindness can teach others to be good. But there’s one com-

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5/10

mon justification for the portrayal of racism in Three Billboards, and it’s that it is realistic: the racism, the bluntness, and the small-town mentality mirror the rural American experience.

But can the themes explored (and not explored) in the movie be justified by simple realism? Was the racism necessary to flesh out the on-screen universe? And if it was, is it fair—or even just good writing—to treat it as something discountable?

From the beginning, the movie makes deliberate steps to make racism an off-screen and largely irrelevant story element. We learn of Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), a young and brash white cop who tortured a black suspect in interrogation (just the once or on many instances, I don’t know—but the once is enough), but this event is prior to the movie’s events and simply serves to introduce Jason’s character.

Despite the introduction, the racism of Jason is quickly and quietly overlooked.

Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) is our lead, a grieving mother who channels her loss into anger. One of her first interactions with Jason Dixon is at the sheriff ’s department. She asks him, “How’s the [n-word] torturing business, Dixon?” and he replies, “You can’t say ‘[n-word] torturing’ no more, you gotta say, ‘Peoples-of-color torturing.’”

Although it clearly establishes both of their racisms, or at least the fact that being complicit is normal for these characters, there’s something more important than the fact that both Mildred and Jason say the n-word here.

ROOVIEWS

It’s Jason’s utter lack of justification of his actions. When we read about police brutality or the Black Lives Matter movement, the most common excuse or explanation about cop-onblack violence is that the cops feared for their lives. It wasn’t their fault they were pushed to such extreme measures or violence. But when confronted about the torture of a black suspect, Jason doesn’t flinch or fumble for excuses. It’s almost like the actual torture of a person is just business. Martin McDonagh is best known for his bleak and black humor. But this felt like more than just a dark humor attempt at establishing Jason’s oafishness. It sent chills down my spine. It was treated so nonchalantly in-movie, it felt malicious.

Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) plays off Jason’s racism by saying, and I’m paraphrasing: that if all the racist cops were fired, only three would be working; but Jason has a good heart.

And so immediately, what could have been a display of the inability for the sheriff department to protect (all) its citizens, becomes a push to forgive Jason for his faults. Such a shift somewhat transforms the main point of the film; what began as a story about police negligence and grief becomes an arc of forgiveness and, to a degree, redemption.

The climax of Jason’s time as a Bad Cop comes when he throws a white man out of a window.

It’s a scene that demonstrates Jason’s anger issues, his proneness to violence, and his lack of remorse in the aftermath. It’s truly his biggest Bad Cop moment of the film. And yet his violence is against a white man. What would have happened if advertising man Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones) was black? Would the movie have treated him being thrown out the window any differently? Would the town of Ebbing have? If the answer is no for both, then why did he have to be white? And if the answer is yes for even one, then it just demonstrates that the movie takes steps to avoid making race and racism an actual issue.

But is the violence inflicted on Jason enough to be actual comeuppance for his crimes? Three Billboards is largely more interested in Jason’s feelings and character than the people who he has hurt along the way. While we see discomfited and angry glances in his direction from the

black people in Ebbing, we never really talk to any of them about anything serious. The black people are used as props, and their suffering is used as a white man’s character detail. If Jason’s racism had no larger role to play in the movie (and it didn’t, especially because the event that gets him fired is excessive violence against a white man), then why did the black characters have to exist at all? The simple answer is storyand character-building. And so again, racism is a simple story detail: something so sidelined, you can overlook it.

For its story, Three Billboards needed a Bad Cop. Someone who was power-mad, angry, and violent. Someone who would wrongly arrest someone for his own purposes, as Jason did to Denise, Mildred’s black friend. But it didn’t need a Racist-and-Bad Cop. But that’s what Jason was. But when Three Billboard tries to redeem Jason—or if you don’t agree with that, at least “tries to make Jason sympathetic,” it does so by having him use police channels, if improperly.

Scratching the rapist’s cheek in the bar and allowing himself to get hurt is a far cry from the Jason of the beginning of the movie, who probably would have attempted to kill the man himself. No, this scene doesn’t make Jason a Good Cop, but it does make him a Good-Hearted Cop. But racism is not redeemed with a good heart, and Jason makes no specific reparations to the black people he’s oppressed. Bad Cop might be neutralized by Good-Hearted Cop, but there’s no fix in the movie for his racism.

What if Mildred was a black woman instead?

Mildred is able to ignore racism in a way a black woman would not be able to. Well, she’s not, you’ll say. And you’d be right. She’s not black; she’s a white woman who’s able to prioritize the misogyny of a rape and murder against the racism of a cop torturing a black person.

Three Billboards isn’t intersectional. It uses racism as a background filler. And it makes you feel complicit. It wants you to sympathize with racist characters, but not by tackling the issue head on, like American History X. Instead, it pushes the racism aside as a condonable character flaw, which is, in itself, a racially insensitve thing to do.

By ROOPA NAGARAJAN

MOODY MONTHLY

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HOROSCOPES

HOROSCOPES

By MAYA HAWS-SHADDOCK

RADIO, TELEVISION, FILM

New year, new beginnings, and new creative pursuits for the RTF major. Whether you plan on revisiting a forgotten dream project, or throwing your all into your friend of a friends new passion project, this month promises to be a journey of teamwork and excitement.

JOURNALISM

This year is all about new possibilities and new stories to be found. Take some time this year to go deeper into everything in life – look for new depths in blossoming friendships and spend some time reflecting on yourself.

There are always new perspectives to discover.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Life can often feel pretty draining these days, especially with a plateful like yours. However, your go-getter perspective will get a boost going into a semester full of exciting opportunities and the promise of summer break lurking around the corner. Don’t let the next few months

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HOROSCOPES

COMMUNICATION DISORDERS February brings promises of love for you, but not necessarily in romantic ways. While we all love a little romcom action from time to time, take some time this month to reconnect with the people you care deeply about, whether that be friends, family, or mentors. Your loving nature will flourish when it’s surrounded by like-minded individuals.

COMMUNICATION LEADERSHIP Determination and headstrongness will steer you into new directions this semester, CLD major. Promises of long hard weeks aren’t getting anyone too excited, but passion for what you do has always carried you through hard times. Don’t let the heavy workload of the next few months let that change it.

COMMUNICATION STUDIES

Busy, busy, busy! This semester surely holds a multitude of new duties and responsibilities for a Comm Studies major like yourself, but keep your positive energy flowing and you can keep your head up through anything.

Successful ventures promise to be aplenty for you.

ADVERTISING Phew, finally that new semester breath of fresh air – don’t get too excited though. We advertising majors know how quick those deadlines sneak up on ya, and this semester promises to be no different. Amid the unavoidable chaos that will surely come, take some time to genuinely get to know someone new – advertising is all about teamwork, and you may as well take a shot and try to nail down the best ones you can get. Maybe you’ll even make a few friends in the process!

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