Vol XI No 3

ORBIS Our

BIG

Ideas Issue

Vol XI No III 12.2011

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Orbis / In This Issue / December 2011

Inside Orbis

Published with support from the Center for American Progress/Campus Progress Online at http://www.campusprogress.org

Features 04. Bush-era general speaks at Vanderbilt on war actions Steve Harrison

Former Joint Chiefs-of-Staff Richard Meyer expresses doubt over using force in Iran.

05. Land grab teach-in asks for administrative transparency Sae Park

Vanderbilt conducts a teach-in to educate students and community members about Vanderbilt’s practices in Africa.

05. Presidential speechwriters discussed role of media Andri Alexandrou

Panel discussion in the Commons brings together three Washington insiders to discuss the presentation of politics on a national stage.

06. Finding purpose in unlikely pair of comedy and teaching Dan King

Dan King guest writes for Orbis, discussing the common thread to his two passions and how they have come to shape his future.

Culture Insert 08. Melancholia: Film Review Evan Jehl

10. A Letter to My Parents Curtis Fincher

Curtis Fincher guest writes for Orbis discussing the complex relationship between privilege and responsibility during a study abroad experience, and the kind of life we search for.

12. Nashville vs L.A. Meghan O’Neill

A California native shares her experience in the two cultural meccas.

13. True! Action! Zine Rachel Young

Vanderbilt students start an irreverent paper zine to fuel a grassroots cultural exchange in Nashville.

Commentary 15. Looking for a better college athletics institution

With the increasing amount of money infiltrating into supposedly amateur sports, something needs to change to give these athletes a better preparation for their future.

17. Modern advertising and its impact on women Meghan O’Neill

Advertising infiltrates the subconscious of America’s women, lowering self-esteem in order to promote increased sales.

09. JEFF the Brotherhood

19. Immigration center acts as

Nashville locals Jake and Jamin Orrall are stimulating a homegrown music scene, going far beyond the work of their own band.

Amplifying Vanderbilt's Progressive Voices

December 2011

Volume X1, Number III

What is Orbis?

Orbis is a forum for social and political commentary relevant to the Vanderbilt, Nashville, and greater communities. By providing a voice for alternative viewpoints at Vanderbilt University, Orbis creates a platform where diversity can be a unifying force in the community.

Visit us at www.vanderbiltorbis.com.

Editor-in-Chief Andri Alexandrou Associate Editors Carol Chen

Meghan O’Neill

Andri Alexandrou

The latest film from Lars von Trier proves to be a tragically beautiful exploration of an earthly apocalypse. Kirsten Dunst stars.

Interview: Local Nashville

Orbis

community unifier Sae Park

Immigration coalition is a volunteer institution that supports immigrants, providing workshops and youth outreach to give broader reach to the American dream.

Features Editor Steve Harrison Commentary Editor Dylan Thomas Designer Ricky Taylor Web Editor Matt Joplin Editor Emeritus Jon Christian

Questions, comments, concerns?

E-mail us at vanderbiltorbis@gmail.com.

E-mail submissions to the address listed above, or send to Box 1669, Station B, Nashville, TN, 37235. Letters must be received one week prior to publication and must include the writer's name, year, school and telephone number. All submissions will be verified. Unsigned letters will not be published. Orbis reserves the right to edit letters for length and clarity. All submissions become property of Orbis and must conform to the legal standards of Vanderbilt Student Communications, Inc., of which Orbis is a division.

Editorials represent the policy of Orbis as determined by the editorial board. Letters and commentary pieces represent the opinions of the writers.

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Please recycle.

Orbis / From the Editor / Calendar / December 2011

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Campus Progress engages students in national issue campaigns on critical issues — from global warming to civil rights, student debt to academic freedom. Visit CampusProgress.org/issues for more.

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a note from the editor With this issue we decided to bring something a little different to the Vanderbilt community. For that reason we brought together a lot of the issues we’ve been thinking about this year.

We’ve also included a special insert that features some of the cultural context for the here and now in Nashville as well as with our Vanderbilt students.

The national political stage has made its presence felt at Vanderbilt recently. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, came to discuss the military decisions of the early Bush years. Vanderbilt’s own dealings in Africa have come under fire, resulting in a teach-in being held to educate the community on what the possible consequences could be. Insiders of Washington politics also came to campus to discuss the role speechmakers and the media have in guiding the American political agenda.

The issues we’ve chosen to highlight do not necessarily meet the criteria necessary for being strictly political dialogue; however, we feel that what should be emphasized for interacting with and positively impacting our modern world is not always a part of the political dialogue.

The most common thread we’ve found for these discussions happens to revolve around the given roles we play, whether woman, athlete, immigrant, child of privilege or future educator of the next generation.

Sometimes these roles are given to us. Meghan O’Neill discusses the challenges posed by a media eager to capitalize on a vulnerability present when we relax in front of the TV screen, in which advertisers allow women to feel inferior to their models to drive up sales. Sae Park discusses what a Tennessee coalition is doing to actively bring immigrant families into the community by educating them on their rights and providing a resource for youths to work constructively toward their futures. Guest writer Curtis Fincher discusses, conversely, what choices he has made given a privileged upbringing and the responsibility that entails when it comes to choosing a career path.

Other roles are the ones we take on. I discuss what kind of dedication it takes to be an athlete, and how important it is that the sacrifices made by those individuals are not squandered by institutions looking to use their talent for profit rather than to help build a better person. Then Dan King, the editor-in-chief of The Slant, Vanderbilt’s satire paper, guest writes for us on how his two passions have made a surprising intersection in provoking an audience—whether the audience of an improv comedy show or an audience in a classroom—to question what information they thought they knew.

We hope you enjoy our Big Ideas issue, and that you have a restful winter break that brings you back to school ready to take on the second half of the academic year. Thanks for reading.

Andri Alexandrou

January 2011 January 2 The Jean and Alexander Heard libraries will display collections of beautiful books in the month-long “Book as Art” exhibit which features examples from nine centuries of bookmaking.

January 9 Check out the Izel Vargas mixed media exhibit in the Sarratt Student Center Gallery on display until February 9th. Vargas, an artist and essayist, hails from the U.S.-Mexico border and uses his art to explore cultural identity.

January 16 Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Sign up for a special day of volunteer service through Hands on Nashville. Visit www.hon.org for more details.

January 19 The American Studies at Vanderbilt Sustainability Project hosts poet, author and cultural critic Lewis Hyde at 4 p.m. in Ingram Hall. Hyde will speak about “cultural commons,” the topic of his latest book, and the ways in which we need to preserve and expand upon the ideas, artwork and innovations of the past.

January 20 VPB will sponsor its annual Casino Night in the Student Life Center Ballroom.

Expect lots of your favorite games and tons of prizes. Event begins at 8 p.m.

January 21 Participate in this delicious cooking class taught at Whole Foods. Transportation will be provided by CityVU. Class begins at 12 p.m.

January 24 The School of Engineering will welcome Rebecca Bergman, vice president of New Therapies and Diagnostics for Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management, January 24 at 4 p.m. at Feathering Hall as part of the annual John R. and Donna S. Hall Engineering Lecture series. Ms. Bergman will deliver a speech on “Medical Technology: Opportunities and Challenges for the Next Decade.”

January 30 The Vanderbilt History Department presents University of California-Berkeley Professor James Vernon as part of its Rich & Poor seminar series. Vernon will speak on “Modernity as a Social Condition: Imperial Britain, 1750-1950” at 4:10 p.m. in Sarratt Student Center 220.

Orbis / Features / December 2011

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National Politics Oct 21

at Vanderbilt

Military Restraint in the Bush Years General Richard Myers speaks at Vanderbilt

Steve Harrison FEATURES EDITOR

As the highest-ranking uniformed military official in the United States from 2001 to 2005, retired four-star General Richard Myers supervised one of the most active and tumultuous periods of U.S. involvement overseas.

He oversaw the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the deployment of troops in Iraq during 2003, both problematic and extended forays into foreign affairs.

After Myers spoke at Vanderbilt on “past, present, and future U.S. policy in the Middle East” for the National

Security Symposium, he focused primarily on diplomacy and inadvertently raised a larger question: Why was Myers’ restraint on the military option largely ignored during his tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

Pragmatic and terse, Myers did not condone a simplistic “us vs. them” xenophobic mentality nor did he completely denounce the Bush administration. Instead, the majority of Myers’ speech focused on the U.S.’s future foreign engagements, occasionally lamenting that the two wars could have proceeded differently and hinting that they might have both been avoided altogether.

In discussing the problems associated with Iran, Myers reprimanded the government of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for secretly supporting Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah, calling the organization the “A-team of terrorism.” He concluded that the American sanctions imposed on the Iranian economy are indeed working to a certain degree, but also that another form of as-yet undetermined leverage would be necessary in order to successfully decimate the current government’s efficiency and legitimacy.

Yet Myers stopped short of invoking brute force, claiming that an air strike on Iran would be definitively ineffective in the long-term. He also mentioned that an attack on Iran would lead to unrest in the Middle East and cause the Saudi states to abhor the United States, an interesting remark considering that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have already fulfilled a similar prophecy.

Myers also dismissed the idea of using any sort of military power on China even though its government perpetuates major human rights abuses. He described China as a “power that would like to have military power commensurate with their economic power” but is a long way off.

He also indicated that only gross miscalculation on either country’s part could lead to flaring tensions, since China is an indispensable business partner to the U.S. Unable to avoid discussing his most notable leadership

experience as chairman, Myers saved his suggestions concerning the Afghanistan and Iraq wars for last. The former general made an admission that both wars had been mishandled from the start, because the U.S. had overused its military power in the War on Terror.

He confessed that al-Qaeda still maintains a strong presence in Afghanistan, saying that “until we learn to deal with this on a strategic level, we will not really be safe.” Myers stressed that President Obama and future administrations need to primarily use diplomacy, economic considerations and political tact before even considering increased strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Myers claimed that he had explicitly appealed to the National Security Council for reevaluation of the wars but was “unable to convince the NSC to focus more on informational instruments.” He also differentiated himself from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in that Powell ignored the informational component and would only immediately consider a military-based option.

Before concluding, Myers took a few subtle parting jabs at the Bush administration. “It’d be nice if we [the U.S. government] were a little better organized,” he said.

Myers also seemed to be generally confused as to why President Bush did not consult with any high-ranking retired military personnel as is customary for the president during times of war.

Stressing diplomacy over military action in all current unsavory foreign relations, General Myers provided a complicated legacy for American foreign policy. Despite his four-star general status, decorated military career, and position as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Myers appeared to be unable to convince President Bush and others to proceed with caution and delicacy in both wars.

But by critiquing ineffective strategies and continuing to advocate for different, information-based approaches, he still may be praised for his contributions to foreign policy theories despite the failure in actual implementation.

Orbis / Features / December 2011

Nov 9

Land Grab Teach-In for Transparency Awareness could be first step to gaining transparency Sae Park STAFF WRITER

Nov 9

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Vanderbilt students are being proactive with the university’s alleged dealings in Africa. Roughly 50 students and community members gathered at Buttrick Hall for a teach-in presented by members of the Vanderbilt Campaign for Fair Food. After initial reports of Vanderbilt’s land grabbing practices emerged this June, a group of students gathered to form a committee to act upon the matter. The teach-in started with a presentation that provided general information about land grabs as well as the university’s recent implications in investing in land grabbing in Africa.

The student presenters said that they believed transparency has been missing from Vanderbilt regarding the exact nature of its investment policy and practices, and that they are working to ensure that the university takes accountability.

In addition, executive director Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank in California, joined the teach-in via video chat to speak more about the current issues of land grabbing and answer questions from the audience. The teach-in concluded with the presenters asking the attendees what they thought about the situation, which led to a group brainstorming session about possible steps to take in the future.

“I’ve learned a bit about this issue through one of my classes this semester, but I am excited that Vanderbilt students who had no idea at all about it came out to find out more,” said junior Erin Ryan. “I hope it inspired them to get more information themselves, and more importantly, get involved in the process of creating change.”

The students who hosted the information session are also members of the Vanderbilt Campaign for Fair Food— they meet every Wednesday at 6 p.m. in Sarratt 114.

Washington from Behind the Words Panel discussion of Washington insiders reveals behind the screen culture Andri Alexandrou EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

There’s one version of Washington politics with which we’re all familiar; the feuding party politics that gain national media attention are nearly clichéd by now.

There’s another side to Washington that we’re not as familiar with, and all it takes is a few insiders to tell us a more vivid version of the politicians we thought we knew, and a curious behind-the-curtain peek at the presidents by the words we’d only seen from a television screen.

The panel discussion on November 9 in the Commons, called “Writing for the President and Interpreting the News,” brought three of these men to talk about the influence of words on a presidency and on a nation.

Present were David Halperin, a speechwriter during Bill Clinton’s second term and director of Orbis’ parent organization Campus Progress; John McConnell, a speechwriter for George W. Bush; and Sam Feist, Vanderbilt alumnus and current CNN Washington bureau chief.

These were the insiders, and an interesting polarity arose not from across the aisles, but from either side of the television screen. Both Halperin and McConnell attested to the good-natured, cordial relationships pres-

ent in Washington politics while the cameras weren’t around.

Their bosses, or “principals” in a speechwriter’s world, were good men whose differences the public only knew as partisanship would show up in their personal work habits. Bush was asleep by ten while Clinton tended to burn the midnight oil. Bush rarely strayed off the beaten path

According to Feist, it’s the job of the news media to check up on the claims made in politicians’ speeches, to “keep them on the straight and narrow...” as determined before going live, whereas Clinton would either stick to the script or speak freely as inspired.

This is the life of the politician, or so it would seem

after listening to their day-in, day-out activities. They’re performers, in a sense: performers for a cause that hopefully they believe in as much as their words suggest.

Feist presented another side to the story, speaking from a news media perspective. According to Feist, news provides something akin to a Fourth Estate. This fourth “balance,” unacknowledged in the Constitution, is perhaps as influential and responsible to the American people as the three proper branches of government.

According to Feist, it’s the job of the news media to check up on the claims made in politicians’ speeches, to “keep them straight and narrow, to make sure their stories match.” However elusive the truth may be, it’s the news media that wants to get there.

Despite the democratization of media through online blogs and ever-multiplying sources of news, Feist argued that the mainstream media—like his own CNN—were still needed for their strict fact-checking protocols.

Even with news programs and television screens acting as the intermediary between politics and the American people, both Halperin and McConnell expressed a kind of mentality to approaching speechwriting that emphasizes intimacy and locality.

As McConnell said, “we don’t live in an oratorical age, we live in a conversational one.” Added Halperin, “it’s about that audience feeling like the only audience.”

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Orbis / Features / December 2011

Where Comedy and Teaching Coincide Dan King GUEST WRITER

Think for a second about how you spend your day.

Don’t just think about all your activities as being separate from each other, but really try to find the common threads that connect them. I tried this activity just before writing this article and, when I did, it dawned on me that something like 90 percent of my waking hours are spent doing one of two things: learning how to be a good teacher or making people laugh.

I am studying education here at Vanderbilt, but when I’m not doing that I’m working with several student organizations including Tongue N’ Cheek (improv comedy) and The Slant (humor and satire newspaper).

For a while, I’ve thought of these two pursuits as being wholly disconnected; one is my passion inside the classroom, the other outside it. But lately I’ve been starting to see the connection between the two. I’m noticing that good comics and good teachers have a lot more in common than you might think.

It wasn’t until high school that my desire to become a teacher really solidified, which is a cool thing because I can actually remember the whole thought process behind this decision. At that time I had a history teacher, Mr. Fortin, who had a knack for making his subject really interesting. I couldn’t wait to go to his class every day, and, at first, I couldn’t figure out why.

I spent months trying to keep track of what he did as a teacher, and soon I had found the answer. Mr. Fortin was unlike any history teacher I’d ever had. He would never just give us “facts.” Instead, he would work to figure out what we thought about some historical situation, and then he would mess with our heads and try to flip these assumptions upside down. He’d give us conflicting sources and he’d question lots of things we thought we knew. There were no easy answers in Mr. Fortin’s class; questions always seemed to lead to more questions.

When I realized what was going on, I got really excited. I had always thought of teachers as people who imparted some objective truth onto their students. But Mr. Fortin didn’t do that. Instead, he went out of his way to take our expectations about history and mess with them. And every time he did, he forced us to form a new way of understanding that would inevitably be more valuable. I knew right away that this was the kind of teacher I wanted to be—one who forces students to see the world in new ways.

My career goals didn’t come together until high school, so they are easier to talk about in that regard.

[I]t isn’t really accurate for me to say that I spend most of my time either teaching or making jokes, because these two pursuits are intertwined in a very real way.

Unfortunately, I’ve been laughing since before I can remember so my connection to humor is more difficult to explore. That being said, I can remember a time that, for me, represented the start of a new relationship with comedy. I was in high school the first time I ever watched Andy Kaufman doing stand-up. If you’ve never heard of Kaufman, go and check him out right now. He was funny as hell and crazy to boot.

Anyway, I watched video online of a bit Kaufman does called ‘Elvis impersonator.’ First, Andy comes out and acts very nervous. In a soft, high-pitched, barely there voice, he announces that he’s going to do some impressions. The first will be Jimmy Carter. Andy settles himself and begins the impression by pronounc-

ing, in the exact same voice as before, “I am Jimmy Carter!” Boom, impression over. The audience laughs mildly and sarcastically while Andy gives the same awful impersonation of three or four other celebrities.

Then, finally, Andy announces that he will impersonate Elvis Presley. At this point all but the drunkest audience members have stopped laughing. It is clear that everyone in the room fully expects Andy to wreck this impression like he wrecked the others. But when he goes into Elvis, something changes. Andy stops his nervous shaking and sets his jaw. He pulls strings in his clothes that let his pants flair out Elvis style and pulls on a fancy bedazzled jacket. Andy turns around to grab his guitar and slick up his hair and when he faces the audience again his lip is up in the trademark Elvis curl. It’s the best Elvis impersonation you’ll ever see.

Andy does two or three songs as Elvis before leaving the stage, and the audience loves him for it.

This act made me laugh, but it also made me very excited. I liked it for the same reason that I liked being in Mr. Fortin’s class. Kaufman was standing on stage trying to give the audience something to expect. Then, once everyone in the room is expecting him to screw up all his impressions, he shatters their expectations like a hammer through a window.

Here lies the connection between good teachers and good comics. When they are successful, their audience leaves with a brand new understanding of how to look at the world. In Peabody we spend hours upon hours thinking about how to get our students to challenge their own knowledge. And every week at TNC and The Slant we try to figure out what our audience expects about the world so that we can do the opposite. So it isn’t really accurate for me to say that I spend most of my time either teaching or making jokes because these two pursuits are intertwined in a very real way. The truth is that I spend all of my time trying to get people to think consciously about and challenge their assumptions. I spend my life learning from comics, and laughing at teachers.

Orbis / Culture / December 2011

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Orbis / Culture / December 2011

Dear Father and Mother,

Photo: Curtis Fincher

I will be candid and forthright in my reasons for writing the two of you—first, to thank each of you for your admittedly increased patronage of me as of late, and second, to tell you both why you should continue to pump capital into me. I also want to explain a little bit about why I think this support is a good, healthy thing.

Okay, fine, you’re right. The skeptics will say that this was prompted by the recent purchase of a roundtrip, weekend ticket to Mallorca on the Visa debit card into which the two of you jointly deposit a monthly allowance, but you know what I say? Fuck the skeptics.

Let’s dream big here, people. Let’s go for the gold. And anyway, airplane really was the cheapest way to go. It was sixty euros round trip which, if you stop to think about it, isn’t very much at all. But the problem is that I just got back from a flight to Paris for 110 euros in an attempt to save money, but, if you stop to think about that too, it really isn’t that much for me to get a chance to see Paris again now that I’m old enough to actually appreciate it.

But it just adds up, you know? And then there was the train police who told me that I had to pay a 40 euro fine because I didn’t have my ticket stub (which I really had purchased but also had thrown away before I got on the train because I figured it was only used for getting past the turnstile). I put up a fight with them, a valiant scene-causing one, because forty euros is a lot of

money—that’s like sixty bucks­—but he said he’d get the real cops at the next station and let them handle it. Even if I had done that and given myself a chance to get out of it, I also had half of my 110 euro flight to catch.

But I get it, I really do. You guys are very good and generous with me. I do realize it and I cannot thank you both enough. I actually feel very guilty about it because you two have provided me with such a solidly happy upbringing, a part of which was founded on money.

And it’s not that all or even most of said upbringing was founded on money, but sure, realistically, some of it was. You paid for great schools when I could have gone to good ones for free. I never had to ask if I could buy a book, and my friends could always take whatever they wanted from the fridge.

The scary part is that, now, a part of me feels like someday I need to provide my own kids with an equivalent standard of living, and that’s hard to live up to because each of you has done so well. But it’s even scarier because already I feel like my career choices are narrowing down and my decisions are becoming more

limited because to guarantee that I am able to give my children the standard of living that you have given me, well, that’s a lot to guarantee. And I don’t know if it’s completely fair either, because in the field of science I think each of you was able to be what society defines as successful without compromising a whole lot on what you wanted to do for the world.

For me, I don’t think it’s that easy and I don’t know if I can have both. So what if I want to do something where I can’t guarantee that success? Am I being selfish? Neither of you ran off on some strange tangential path and risked what I would later receive. For that matter, neither of you received half of what you would go on to give me. So why on earth would I have the right not to put myself in a position to give to my children at least as much as I have been given?

I don’t know. I still haven’t figured that one out.

So then, logically, I should break free right now, this second, because by accepting this kind of money from each of you, I am encroaching on my own liberty since everything in this world, in some way or another, has

Orbis / Culture / December 2011

to be paid back. And I’m not saying that has anything to do with either of you asking for anything back but I just mean it’s a weight in my stomach that I know and remember and will for a long time, maybe forever. But breaking free monetarily isn’t that easy either, because money also means freedom; I want to be young and do things like go to Spain and Mallorca, where, by the way, you can go rock climbing on cliffs that lean out over the ocean and, if you fall, you just fall into the sea. I don’t know...it’s hard and I want to be independent but then I see a book on the Kindle that I really want to read and learn from, but it’s $9.95 with just the push of a button. That’s not a lot either, but I do read a lot. When it comes to books, I know you guys are happy to pay for it, but sometimes I feel bad that I don’t use a public library like I know I would if I had to.

And I work, summers at least—I have since I was sixteen—and the job pays well and isn’t hard but somehow last summer I became bored with it and being unhappy in order to make money I wasn’t even using didn’t seem all that important—but I’m certainly using it now. And I made some, I did, but it ran out quickly, more quickly than I paid attention to, and then I really wanted that camera that would let me take photos to put on the travel blog I was planning on making, which I also think was a valid and useful and constructive purchase that came at a great time, but that shit’s still expensive, you know? And these other kids...I’m looking around and not all but some planned better than I did, and I feel bad about that, really bad, but what should I do now that I’m here?

To get a menial job at this point would undermine the investment you have already made in sending me here because the education I receive abroad is technically inferior to the one I receive at an elite, expensive, American university. True, but there are other kinds of education that are just as, if not more, important that have to be experienced and seen to be learned.

I’m working on learning those things but I’m not going to learn them by washing dishes. I’m not saying that there’s nothing to learn from washing dishes but I am saying that it is a different lesson that, even if I do end up having to learn someday, now is not the right time for it.

I don’t know. I owe you each more than I can pay back any time soon and there is still much of this semester still to come. So I offer my collective birthday and Christmas loot as a minor down payment on this loan of yours—because there is really nothing I would like more from either of you than being here, a gift which you’ve already given me. Even still, that offer doesn’t quite do it. You shouldn’t be obligated to give me those gifts so I shouldn’t be leveraging against them.

That’s what caused the bubble to burst, right— people investing their Christmas gifts before they had

them? Isn’t that what a derivative is? But it just shows that this is all part of a bigger and more important realization—you’ve been investing in me since I was born.

Feeding me was an investment. Housing me. Clothing me.

Educating me. You did all of those things, every single day for so many years, and I’m really only figuring it out now. How am I ever supposed to pay that back to you? I don’t think I ever can and I don’t think I am ever completely meant to. Like I said, I’m supposed to pay it forward and perpetuate the human race and maybe even our relative wealth (because that is the easiest way to ensure survival and comfort and even some freedom in this world) but, more than that, I think you really just gave it to me to make me happy and secure for when you wouldn’t be able to do so anymore. It was an investment for the good of the investment itself.

But how can I ever put that same stock in myself, that same faith and willingness to wait and watch and pour in more and more capital while the numbers are still in the red and before I know if they will ever come out in the black?

By the way, getting suspended feels like so long ago!

But it’s all a lot of pressure and I’ve felt the weight of it in everything I’ve ever done that I didn’t do for myself.

So how do I pay you back if monetary compensation is not what either of you are after? That’s a hard question, and I’ve thought about it a lot.

I think the answer has something to do with what I’m doing right now. This getting out. This freeing myself.

I don’t think I’m going to live a prototypical, normal life but I think it has the potential to be an interesting and maybe even special one. That kind of life is not a normal opportunity, and it was you two that gave it to me by giving me these experiences and the background to understand them (and a pretty clean slate as far as inheritable genetic diseases go), and teaching me how to think and challenge authority and ask questions. I wasn’t going to wander after college and I wasn’t going to be one of those kids. I was going to make money, be successful, and get you a return on what you put in as quickly as I could so that every Christmas I could come home and show you the quarterly reports that my eighty-hour weeks had brought you (well, at least, I would’ve done that after I convinced you to help me pay for law school—it’s tough out there for English majors right now!).

But I’m not going to do that now because I’ve decided and/or figured out that you invested in me and not what I would do; now it’s my job to figure that second part out.

So yeah, I know, the end of the line is coming soon,

9

I’ve decided and/or

figured out that you invested in me and not what I

would do; now it’s my job to figure that second part out.

Photo: Curtis Fincher

and it should. I’m getting a little too old to mooch off you two in the way I do. I respect, realize and accept that, because it’s a part of the investment too. It’s a part of teaching me to figure this stuff out on my own; if I talk about money like it doesn’t mean much or anything or everything, then why don’t I really try to live without it for a while? That’s fair; that’s reasonable.

And when that day comes (and I know it’ll come soon; too soon, and that scares me) I will. I try now but it’s hard when you have money that you can spend because, as you can clearly see, my thoughts are noble but my will is weak and I really want to go rock climbing in Mallorca. I have money that I can spend because you two are good and sweet parents that want me to have fun and grow and be safe. I try, I really do try, not to live expensively as I do those things, but it is hard and I struggle and I am working on it. I feel like a fat kid who eats a big bowl of ice cream and enjoys it like he doesn’t enjoy anything else in the world. The whole time he’s eating he feels guilty and gluttonous and he isn’t sure if it is even worth it, but it’s just too hard for him to stop while that silver spoon is still in his mouth.

Lots and lots of love, Your son, Curtis Fincher Excerpted from his blog at waywardgentry.blogspot.com

Orbis / Culture / December 2011

10

Melancholia: A Review

Latest Lars von Trier film provides achingly beautiful look into human, and earthly, apocalypse Evan Jehl STAFF WRITER

Following 2009’s “Antichrist” as the second, and more titularly apparent, product of director Lars Von Trier’s recent bout of depression, “Melancholia” is a study of the manifold and otherwise inchoate reactions to the threat of a planet colliding into Earth. Like the majority of Von Trier’s filmography, the narrative is divided into chapters– although more akin to movements in this one–opening with an overture of slow-motion sequences set to Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” prelude, and dividing the remainder between the vantages of Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).

Img Src: Magnolia Pictures

Part One finds the newlyweds Michael and Justine at a lavish mansion for their wedding reception, which gradually descends into disaster as tensions build within Justine’s family and with Claire’s husband, John (Kiefer Sutherland). Justine seeks seclusion, and eventually decides to separate from Michael, thereafter sinking into depression. Meanwhile, the planet Melancholia has emerged from behind the sun and is destined to collide with Earth. Claire stays at the mansion to care for her increasingly disturbed sister in Part Two, and expresses concern to John about the approaching Melancholia, which he claims by scientific calculation will only pass Earth. Unconvinced, both Claire and Justine must cope with this potential apocalyptic omen.

Continuing on the trajectory of his most recent films, “Melancholia” is by far von Trier’s most radical departure from his roots in the minimalist Dogme 95 school, to the point that the director expressed regret in an interview for having made such a “polished” film. Nevertheless, the film surpasses many of von Trier’s previous works cinematographically (with perhaps the exception of “Europa”

and “Breaking the Waves”) and features some of the most sublime scenes he has ever caught on film. Offering a brief respite from both the suspense of the approaching planet and Justine’s sickly demise, an idyllic scene of blueberry picking in the estate orchard is further quieted by a spontaneous, tranquil snow. Later, Wagner’s rapturous prelude returns as Claire encounters Justine’s luminous nudity reposing in a forest clearing, lit only by the looming planet Melancholia.

The science fiction elements of the film are also surprisingly well executed, considering that von Trier’s closest attempt at the genre before this film was 1987’s largely overlooked “Epidemic,” which drew on a raw, experimental aesthetic, in contrast to the high-budget graphic design employed in “Melancholia.” Aside from the direct glimpses of Melancholia, the planet’s lighting provides a unique component to the mise-en-scène. The estate’s courtyard is vaguely reminiscent of Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad,” in its arrangement as well as in its startling surrealism– of course, French director Alain Resnais’ trope was the absence of shadow altogether, whereas von Trier’s is the consistency of symmetry in that the moon and Melancholia cause both lines of trees to cast shadows into the courtyard, beyond casting the courtyard in a polarity of pallid hues.

The most impressive aspect of this film is Kirsten Dunst’s performance, justly earning the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival this year. For having played predominantly balanced, indistinct characters for most of her career, she dons pathology with bravado. From her first doubts at the wedding reception, one observes in her face the unwaveringly listless reticence of existential paralysis, almost recalling Elisabet in Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona.”

Gradually, she contracts an incurable grief, a nausea of an impending fate amidst cosmic indifference, assuming a nearly identical persona to Charlotte Gainsbourg’s “She” in “Antichrist” (who coincidentally also won Best Actress at Cannes in 2009). Just as Gainsbourgh’s She says, “Nature is Satan’s church,” so Justine declares, “The earth is evil.

We don’t need to grieve for it. Nobody will miss it.” Justine’s declaration, however, manifests a different complexity than She, at once possessed by Epicurus and Thanatos, consigned to the prospect of the insensate afterlife and yet festering with resentment against crass casualty.

Of course, the common denominator amongst these

two is the irreconcilable psyche that science, in its apodictic arrogance, believes it can subvert and diagnose. In “Antichrist,” “He” (Willem Dafoe) embodies this arrogance as the therapist seeking She’s object of fear. Now, in “Melancholia,” John is the astronomer explaining away the planet’s danger with statistics, even while conceding a margin of error. If anything, Melancholia is the more severe counterpart to She’s anxiety, inescapable and unpredictable, emerging in an instant and inevitably resolving in catharsis.

[Spoiler Alert] While the film culminates in a collision that would embody this catharsis, it ultimately lacks the von Trier viscera that would serve as the conduit of catharsis.

In “Antichrist,” there was the horror of She’s “Gynocide” femininity, her bloodcurdling shrieks for “He” to return to her side; in “Dogville,” the torching of the town and the massacre of its despicable residents; in “Dancer in the Dark,” Selma’s swan song at the gallows. “Melancholia,” though offering a promising resolution in the overture–and remaining rather tame throughout as the suspense slowly accumulates up to the final dramatic shot of Justine, Claire, and Claire’s son moments before Melancholia hits–ends just a bit too abruptly to sustain the impact.

Additionally, the same current has run through Von Trier’s films since his first feature, “The Element of Crime,” namely an opposition to those aforementioned ideals that hubristically assume everything in the universe can be described in algorithms. This recurrent theme in and of itself is not the issue; it is rather the tendency for his films to relapse into the didacticism that first undermined the cogency of “The Element of Crime,” and which so far only “Europa” and the films of the “Golden Heart” trilogy (“Breaking the Waves,” “The Idiots,” “Dancer in the Dark”) have completely evaded. “Melancholia” is an improvement from “Antichrist” in this regard but nevertheless is still somewhat at fault, in particular confining Kiefer Sutherland’s character John to a single dimension.

Of course, these shortcomings are for the most part vindicable in light of the film’s strengths. While one would hesitate to claim that it is von Trier’s best yet, it is certainly among his best, and thus far more than merely a proof of consistency. “Melancholia” is rather yet another discovered terrain of von Trier’s vast and enigmatic world of imagination, of which at times it seems even he himself is not its Nostradamus.

Img Src: Magnolia Pictures

Orbis / Culture / December 2011

11

JEFF the Brotherhood

Nashville music pioneers

JEFF the Brotherhood, a Nashville two-piece from natives Jamin (left) and Jake Orrall (right), may well be shaping Nashville’s music scene as we know it.

Their style, dubbed every variation from garage rock, to punk, to psychedelic rock, is one that’s gaining traction in a part of the country that has a very strong musical tradition. To the best of their abilities, they’re keeping the spirit of an older rock era alive but reshaping it with a twist specific to the kids who ran the Nashville streets as middle schoolers and have since grown to command an influential music taste and style.

Their story begins when the brothers picked up a few instruments to start a band in high school. A long discography of DIY albums and a few years worth of non-stop touring later, they’re playing in places from Nashville to New York to Russia and receiving critical acclaim from the likes of Spin Magazine, the New Yorker, and Seattle indie connoissseurs at KEXP. Trippy music videos of songs that harken back to the hard rocking eighties while maintaining a mellow psychedelic smoothness, these guys have become the arbiters of cool and are using that to build a business.

Through their label Infinity Cat, they put out their own records as well as those from other Nashville locals, bands such as Heavy Cream, Diarrhea Planet, Cy Barkley and Denney and the Jets. The industry for a home-grown, vinyl aesthetic has finally found its place in Nashville with the Orrall brothers.

Hopefully, JEFF is the sign of more to come.

To check out some of their personal updates, visit jeffbrotherhood.blogspot.com. There you’ll find the kind of rockstar antics that make these guys so awesome to party with.

Photo: Gary Copeland

JEFF the Interview [ORBIS] So what was the motivation behind starting to play?

[JAKE ORRALL] We started really just for fun, that was all it was meant to be at the beginning.

[ORBIS] story at between bands in

Do you think of yourselves as a success this point? What made the difference you and the half-billion other aspiring Nashville?

[ORRALL] We’ve worked really, really hard for a long time. Not to say that other bands haven’t, but I think hard work has a lot to do with it.

[ORBIS] What do you like more—playing in town or on the road?

[ORRALL] I like both just as much. There are lots of cities that feel like home because we have so many friends from touring so much.

[ORBIS] At a house or a venue?

[ORRALL] Depends on the house and depends on the venue.

[ORBIS] What do you think of the Nashville music scene...

[ORRALL] I like it. I think it’s pretty much like any other scene, except we have better bands.

people who are curious and don’t live here and want a window into Nashville.

[ORBIS] Do you think Nashville, in general, has the possibility to sustain this growing music scene?

[ORRALL] I think there’s plenty of room for a bigger scene here, we just might need more venues!

[ORBIS] ...and what role do you feel you guys play, especially with the Infinity Cat label? Is that an establishment you want to keep up with throughout the years?

[ORBIS] The big question for budding bands— will you stay in Nashville?

[ORRALL] I think it’s important for a music scene to have labels like Infinity Cat. You can kind of see some of what’s going on in Nashville through the records we put out. So it’s good for the local scene because labels are putting 7” [vinyl records] out etc., but it’s also good for

[ORBIS] What’s your favorite late-late-night haunt here?

[ORRALL] Be true to your city.

[ORRALL] That is a secret!!

Orbis / Culture / December 2011

12

Nashville vs. Los Angeles Does Nashville’s rising cultural diversity match the West Coast entertainment giant?

Meghan O’Neill ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Miley Cyrus may not be a genius in any sense of the word, but she definitely has one thing right: Los Angeles “definitely ain’t a Nashville party.” Growing up in southern California, and frequenting the City of Angels for concerts, internships, and visiting family, I know a thing or two about the differences between Los Angeles and Nashville.

Granted, I’m a little biased. I was born in L.A. and grew up in southern California, so my heart will always reside there. But I came to Nashville because I became really tired of where I lived, so I understand the downsides that present themselves in my home state.

When I first came to Nashville, I had never been anywhere west of the Mississippi and south of the Mason-Dixon Line. I had thought that the idea of regional differences was a legend, something that had once existed but had died long before my time. I mean, it’s the 21st century, we have the Internet. It seems to me that things should be pretty universal by now. In my time here at Vanderbilt, though, I’ve noticed significant differences between Nashville and Los Angeles and while to me, no place will ever be as desirable as Los Angeles and the surrounding area, both cities definitely have their pros and cons.

Aesthetically, Nashville wins, no contest.

The greenery is lush, the streets are clean, and there aren’t any really smelly parts of town.

Los Angeles is smoggy unless it just rained, and the streets are dirty and littered. There are palm trees every so often but, unless you’re in a really rich part of town, greenery is nonexistent. Weather-wise though, despite the smog, L.A. beats Nashville to a bloody pulp. It’s sunny nearly every day, it never gets below 30 degrees for more than a couple of days each winter, and humidity is nonexistent except for that one random day every year. It has none of Nashville’s random weather patterns, and no surprise tornadoes.

In terms of attitudes, the people in each city are pretty different. People in L.A. tend to be angry most of the time, at least in public.

They’re angry about their traffic-filled commute, the Starbucks baristas who mess up their latte orders, the tourists, their asshole bosses, the douchebags next to them who have way nicer cars and are weaving in and out of traffic like they own the place. Nashvillians, at least in my experience, tend to be a little more laid back. They drive a little slower, smile more, and are generally polite and pretty welcoming. Even though this makes Nashville more pleasant during the day, this family-friendly atmosphere ruins its nightlife. Never before coming here

had I heard of fast food restaurants or diners not being open until at least 2 am. Where in town can I get food after midnight besides Cafe Coco? Why the hell would a popular restaurant like Noshville close mid-afternoon on a weekday? Or any day for that matter. And last call is much earlier in Nashville than in Los Angeles, where some bars are open continuously. Not to mention Tennessee’s weird liquor laws, where you can’t run to your local grocery to pick up a handle. What purpose does that serve?

However, that angstier attitude of Angelinos, combined with their desire to be doing something at all hours of the night and day, has led to a more culturally rich city.

Maybe it’s also due to the city’s age and greater population, but Los Angeles has exponentially more cultural events than Nashville does. Not just more music, but more art galleries, more theaters, more book readings. Not just in sum, either, but per person. Sure, in Nashville there is always at least one thing going on culturally, but in Los Angeles you have hundreds of events to choose from every day. Even in terms of music, L.A. has more going on than Music City. Though, per capita, more people in Nashville may be involved in the music industry than in L.A., a higher percentage of people in L.A. attend shows than in Nashville.

There are even differences in what people find attractive in each city. Not that one city is better-looking than the other—both are full of attractive people—but each certainly values a different aesthetic. Though Los Angeles is often chastised for being incredibly superficial, I often feel that Nashville is somewhat more so, at least in the limited way they define beauty. In the City of Angels, attractiveness can be appreciated across style lines so, say, hipsters can find preps attractive, and goths can find surfers attractive, etc. In Nashville, there seems to be a very limited definition of attractive, and even good-looking people can be considered undesirable if they don’t dress a certain way. The exception is the Los Angeles club scene, which, to be honest, is a lot more boring than the movies and gossip blogs make it out to be. In order to be considered attractive enough to get into a popular club, one has to look and dress in a very specific way, one that is even more limited than Nashville’s definition of beauty.

Though I sincerely hope that after graduation I can move back to Los Angeles and spend the rest of my life there, I can definitely see the desirability of living in Nashville. Nashville’s definitely got a flavor that’s all its own, and the growth happening right now may end up changing a lot in the next few years.

Here’s hoping.

Orbis / Culture / December 2011

13

True Action Zine, a New Nashville Literature Irreverent, apolitical, DIY publication aims to promote a get-it-out-there cultural philosophy Rachel Young STAFF WRITER

We’ve all heard the warnings from older generations of the potential dangers stemming from our digitally-dominated age, calling for a closer examination of what technology will do to humanity over time. Social networks and blogs have threatened to render face-to-face communication obsolete and have fostered large-scale cuts in the publication of physical material.

However, many of us who grew up learning to read books alongside playing video games on our computers recognize the value of physical contact with others and are wary of the isolation that results from the false sense of interconnectivity digital media can create. Some of us still cling to our well-worn books in the face of Nooks and Kindles, play vinyl on refurbished record players in our dorm rooms, and prefer to change film instead of memory cards.

There’s something about being able to hold tangible items in your hands that digital media can’t replicate.

Enter senior Richard Houston, who, along with a few of his friends, is currently working on the second issue of their zine, True Action. The first issue, which came out in September, featured poetry and prose submitted by friends and classmates, interspersed with eye-catching and humorously offensive drawings.

The zine is pretty simple to make–just a dozen or so printed pages, stapled together and folded in half–but it’s all coming out of their pockets to manufacture. They gave away many of the first editions to friends and students, and then left the rest at local coffee shops and bars for anyone to pick up. When it would be much more budgetfriendly and easier to share their content on a blog or website, why are they going through all of this trouble? And where are they going with this anyway?

At first glance, it seems that True Action could have been founded upon some kind of political goal, or as an attempt to critique virtual society.

However, as Houston explained, the goal of the zine is much simpler than that. Having artistic

inclinations outside of academic expression, he realized that there was a great number of people around him who liked to draw, play music and write, but had no real outlet to share their talents, or perhaps weren’t confident enough to do so.

“The intention of the zine is to find these people and give them a place to share what they work on without pretension or trying to look good on a resume. It’s simply a way to meet people and encourage them to share their talents,” he said.

Houston sees True Action as a way to engage in a conversation with other artistic people, and to inspire others, who maybe have never considered

themselves to be artistically-inclined, to tap into their own creative aptitudes.

Even though digital means of publication can reach more people, it seems that True Action is aiming for quality over quantity. “It’s fun to have a physical, tangible product that has your name on it, and you hand it to someone and they see your face, read what you write and associate those ideas and things with you. You can be the poet, the philosopher, the short fiction writer, the artist that you wanted to be because you have a way of sharing that with people,” Houston stated. He wants to show people that it isn’t hard to create an outlet for ideas and perceptions, and he hopes that this zine will act as a template for others to improve upon and make their own.

And True Action is not meant to be associated

with Vanderbilt alone—instead, it’s an “engagement with Nashville, with the community, something you can pick up at a bar and laugh at.” The content and form of the zine has been designed to exclude as few people as possible. The number of people who would pick up a literary magazine is unfortunately low; this is where the images and “superfluous vulgarities” come in to play, catching your attention so that you are intrigued enough to continue reading. “I’m not against virtual media, and there’s a time and place for political commentary but this is not one of them.

And if we gave it a political leaning then we are closing off the possibility that some people would even read past the first page,” he said.

True Action was born from a “desire to bring what I love to people that didn’t love it,” Houston said. He wants to encourage others to be brave enough to share their work and meet others in the process. By making something from start to finish on one’s own, there is no filtering of expression through the hands of editors or by someone else’s financial or political interest, giving one a sense empowerment and accomplishment. “I get my inspiration from the DIY culture of the disparate 80s punk rock scenes of D.C. and LA – how they threw together shows themselves, made record labels and magazines themselves. There’s a certain power behind that.

Knowing I can do this myself. I can have complete creative control over this product or organization.

There needs to be a reclaiming of that power to do things for oneself, in my opinion, because it’s a good feeling when you do all the work on something on your own.”

Copies were dispersed throughout Nashville, and the creators don’t really know where they are or who picked them up. But Houston has gotten some feedback, face-to-face and via email. “Some dude from Oregon liked one of my poems—I don’t even know how he got his hands on it. But that’s cool. I want to get others involved so that they can feel that affirmation. I’m not particularly good—I think I’m me—but when someone finds interest in a part of me, that feels good, and everybody deserves to feel that.”

Orbis / Culture / December 2011

14

Entertainment Calendar Spring 2012 M usic

T heater

August Burns Red with Silverstein, Texas in July, and letlive.

Rocketown January 18 at 6:00 pm, Price TBA

Little Shop of Horrors Tennessee Performing Arts Center April 26-May 19, $20-47.50 Hairspray Larry Keeton Theater May 4-20, $15 for students, $18 for adults

Harlem Globetrotters vs. Washington Generals Municipal Auditorium January 8 at 2 pm, $15-117 Rob Riggle Zanies January 12-15, $20, 18 and over Queer Queens of Comedy Zanies January 23 at 7:30 pm, $20-30, 18 and over

Img Src: nickcarter.net

Nick Carter with Guinevere & The Midi Mafia Cannery Ballroom January 30 at 7:30 pm, $28 Ani Di Franco Cannery Ballroom February 4 at 9:00 pm, $32 in advance, $35 at the door “Big Poppa’s UDG & Nashville Scene” SAVE WRVU Featuring Stacie Collins, Cold Stares, The Ettes, Icandy, Adalene, The Worsties, The 5 Tones, Meant to Bleed, and Chris Hurt Exit/In February 17 at 7:00 pm, $5, 18 and over

Img Src: Zanies Img Src: Montty Python

Spamalot Tennessee Performing Arts Center January 27 at 8:00 pm, January 28 at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m., $28-65

John Oliver Zanies February 3 and 4, $27, 18 and over Chris Kattan Zanies February 9-12, $20, 18 and over Monster Jam Bridgestone Arena February 10-11 at 7:30 pm, $25-50

Dropkick Murphys with Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls Marathon Music Works March 3 at 8:00 pm, $29.50, 18 and over

O ther

Nashville’s Dead Presents The Freakin Weekend Featuring Jeff the Brotherhood, Jacuzzi Boys, Cy Barkley, and Diarrhea Planet Exit/InMarch 4 at 8:00 pm, $5, 18 and over

Music City Burlesque Presents The Ford Theatre Reunion Exit/In January 5 at 8 pm, $8 in advance, $10 at the door

Lewis Black Ryman Auditorium February 25 at 8:00 pm, $32.50-65 A Prairie Home Companion Ryman Auditorium April 21 and 28 at 4:45 pm, $35-85

Orbis / Commentary / December 2011

15

Photo: Andri Alexandrou

Where is the Cure for College Sports?

Money, the NCAA, and the strained definition of the student-athlete beg for change Andri Alexandrou EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

This has been a rough couple of months for sports.

Reeling in the wake of Penn State’s recent blow-up scandal and only just now seeing a resolution from the NBA, sports fans have gotten to see a whole lot more of the athletic underbelly which, up until now, has remained hidden by regulations and secrecy.

Despite the exposure of this underbelly, sports fans will be sports fans. They will attend events. They will sit in bars with their friends, watching the game on the flat screen. They will gather around the TV at home. They will enjoy a common pastime and discuss the statistics, the predictions, the patterns of decision-making and accidental slips that foil plans. That is one very strong advantage for sports in our culture: it promotes togetherness.

The stature of sports in our modern world, America especially, is nearly insurmountable. Sports fans are dogmatically connected to teams, and often take losses to the level of personal injury.

The sports institution itself embodies essential elements of Americanness, which perhaps explains the large quantity of American sports fans and their strong connections. These sports espouse loyalty to a team, sometimes regional, sometimes not; this quickly becomes a tradition that originates in the family and travels down through generations.

There is space for individual success through determination, another truly American characteristic. Success comes to those who have the discipline and talent to succeed. For Americans, sports (unlike politics, I might add) becomes the greatest source of common ground. Sports are the strongest national unifier.

The underbelly of which I speak is the corporate machine that capitalizes on what it knows to be America’s favorite pastime. At the arena, it’s very clear that sports can drive great profit and with $7 sodas and tiny portions of $10 nachos, there’s simply no disguising that.

Stay home and watch, though, and you’re still a part of the money-making. You watch the commercials, you hear who’s endorsing whom. You learn which brands the athletes trust, which liquid energy they depend on to main-

tain their endurance.

With my liberals arts mind and bleeding heart eyes, I can’t get past this simple advertising. In my view, sports are the vehicle for reaching the widest audience of American consumers all at once.

This is my problem with sports. I can’t get to the place where I can enjoy a Sunday afternoon watching the game with family or friends without thinking about corporations and advertising. The sports teams are corporations themselves and in many ways their profit-machining ways are well within their rights.

It’s when we start looking at college sports that this issue becomes much, much more hazy.

NCAA We American youth know these letters well. At my high school we were told to participate in sports, and on the sidelines of my participation was the mention of the NCAA. The role of the NCAA was minimal, however. As we already know, the relationship between the NCAA and college sports is much more involved.

The assumed ideal by the NCAA is that the college teams are made up of the “student-athlete.” It is no accident that student comes first in this hyphenated identity.

According to the NCAA, the student-athlete’s education is paramount to their collegiate experience.

In the SEC though, it’s hard not to see that these athletes are very much a part of the school’s pride, their legacy, and their appeal to potential donors. Think University of Tennessee, think University of Alabama, think about any of these schools whose athletic departments dwarf academic departments in both priority and monetary contribution to the universities.

Athletics is very much a part of a university’s bookkeeping. Ideally, the role of the NCAA is to protect the student-athletes so that their talents are not overworked or subjected to monetary influence. In a 2011 article that appeared in The Atlantic Monthly titled “The Shame of College Sports,” Taylor Branch goes through an exhaustively detailed account of each party’s responsibility in the college sports monetary exchange.

“For all the outrage,” writes Branch, “the real scandal is not that students are getting illegally paid or recruited, it’s

that two of the noble principles on which the NCAA justifies its existence—‘amateurism’ and the ‘student-athlete’— are cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes. The tragedy at the heart of college sports is not that some college athletes are getting paid, but that more of them are not.”

Branch concludes that the real problem with college sports is that their high-stakes worth to the university is not compensated, all while these students are punished for offenses which are ultimately minor in relation to the substantial gain made by these universities.

Ideally, the role of the NCAA is to protect the student-athletes so that their talents are not overworked or subjected to monetary influence.

This “pay-for-play” argument, espoused here by Branch but by no means his own idea, is not without its flaws. A recent consideration facing NCAA conferences would allow teams to add up to a $2000 stipend to the scholarships received by athletes in order to cover the other expenses of attending college not included in tuition, room and board.

Is this the way to remove the possibility for corruption and inequality? Think of the complexity of salary appropriations: would they be equal across the board, or differ for male versus female athletes, for the third stringer versus the starter, for the volleyball player versus the football player?

continued...

16

Orbis / Features / December 2011

[cont’d from page 15] The Cure for College Athletics Mark Emmert, current NCAA president, spoke earlier this month about the possibility of adding that stipend, as a detrimental compromise to the current problems at hand. “Turning them into professional athletes is not the solution to the challenges we face right now,” said Emmert.

Money, unsurprisingly, is no easy solution.

The Culture of a Sports Education What Branch highlights as the major problem is money exchanging hands at the college level. The NCAA deals with money, the universities deal with money. He argues the athletes should enter the conversation on money with more power than they already do.

However, the ideal of the student-athlete, in many ways, is its own inhibitor of youth who feel their only chance at success is through sports. From personal experience with family members and friends my age, I’ve seen how sports can alter one’s priorities away from schoolwork toward athletics. Youth will trade the possibility of a future cultivated over the long term from dedication to school in favor of a chance at a college athletics scholarship.

From age five on up, many students start fostering dreams of going big, even of going pro. They dedicate themselves to a dream that will likely last longer than its reality, if the dream ever does materialize.

If these students remain dedicated all throughout high school and prove lucky enough to land a position on a college team, with a scholarship no less, their struggles in prioritizing academics and athletics do not end.

As we have already noted, their struggles with the NCAA have just begun. Depending on the specific sport, these athletes interact with any number of mentors—from academic tutors to team psychiatrists to coaches and assistant coaches to professors to parents to alumni to fans—and the NCAA works to make sure the influence of these outside individuals remains professional, not monetary.

In many ways, these student-athletes have it harder than professional athletes. They have the national spotlight on them, but they also have the pressure to deal with a very trying phase in the life of a growing young adult.

College isn’t easy. For a regular undergraduate student, it’s already difficult enough to find a social niche, to strike the balance between work and play, or to simply evaluate early classes to decide what our best academic fit is in the university.

Athletes have to add early morning practice to that mix. They go to class in their sweats, eat lunch in their own private cafeteria and spend their evenings doing any number of activities related to their sport, like practice, travel, or study. Their weekends get taken up by games and competitions. Their identity becomes that of the athlete. If they do have time to be social, their only means of making money is to pick up a simple part-time job, further zapping their time away.

All this is to say that the life of the student-athlete is difficult, to be sure. Those who stick with it all four years no doubt have done so out of a sense of gratitude or obligation. For football and basketball players especially, their faith in the future they’ve built up to lies in trying their talents out in the big leagues.

There are options for those who find the life of a stu-

dent-athlete unsuitable to them, though, and the advantages of considering dropping the athlete portion of their college identity don’t get touted enough by the academic department. Senior Andrea Messer, a former member of Vanderbilt’s women’s golf team, says that when she heard Vanderbilt wouldn’t cut her funding even if she quit the golf team, a viable path to experiencing college that better suited her priorities opened up. “I was worried it was too good to be true,” Messer said. “As soon as I found out about [Vanderbilt’s new financial aid program] I went to the financial aid office.”

This is another gray area when it comes to the university’s obligation to the student-athlete. If more indi-

All this is to say that the life of the student-athlete is difficult, to be sure. Those who stick with it all four years no doubt have done so out of a sense of gratitude or obligation. viduals, such as Messer, choose to leave their sport in order to give due attention to their education, the university should honor that commitment. Yet the university doesn’t have limitless funding, either.

Taking on the job of being a student-athlete right now is an honor for those who have chosen this path, and certainly a payoff for what’s been a life’s worth of dedication to a sport. However, there are the disadvantages that go unmentioned by universities that benefit from youth who have always dreamed of college sports.

The Future of the College Athlete The popularity of college sports, and sports in general, far outweighs the popular concern over these complexities. Sports aren’t going anywhere, that much is certain.

The complexities aren’t going anywhere either. One strained duality present in college sports is that what the NCAA touts as the amateur ideal of the student-athlete gets pushed closer and closer up against the increasing profits gained from the sports, and of course the increasing demand that places on the athletes.

Have we reached the point where we need to reassess what we want from our college athletes? Perhaps this middle ground worked fifty years ago, but we’ve reached something close to the end of the line for this idealist notion of the college athletic tradition.

There are the extremist solutions. One solution, mentioned already, is to start increasing the scholarship funding given to these athletes so that they are compensated in a way that rewards their abilities. This could potentially lead to giving these athletes salaries, and would create a third hybrid, the student-athlete-employee.

Another solution is to take away varsity sports altogether and go back to the utopian world of club sports,

where the sport takes on more of an extracurricular role in the life of the student. This solution, though admirably intended, would be impossible. Even if the universities, the advertisers and the aspiring athletes all turned an altruistic page and forgot about the great profits that result from college sports, an American public would be outraged. We’ve created a culture that cannot be eliminated.

There may be room for some halfway solutions.

Consider again the lives of student-athletes. Seventyfive percent of their education is spent doing, studying, being their sport. The actual education part, the part that requires choosing a major and planning for a non-sports future, often gets placed second (or third, or fourth, etc.) on the priority list. Despite its falling far down on the priority list, this major is often used by student-athletes as a practical fallback. Choosing physical therapy is not unheard of; neither is business. Therefore, why not take advantage of these strong correlations and allow for a full department to be developed that can better provide the kind of practical education an athlete needs?

Here at Vanderbilt, as at many other universities, we have the standard arts and sciences as one school with its own requirements. We also have Engineering; we have Peabody; we have Blair. These are the schools that vary their requirements depending on what the student will be pursuing after college with the express interest of finetuning their skill set for what’s to come. As an English major, I’ve never been required to take a preliminary computer science class, and I’ll likely never suffer for that.

Can the same be said for the student-athlete? Designing a curriculum around the chosen career of a student-athlete could only benefit these students when the time comes to graduate. In the meantime, their particular schedules should be taken into account so that their “extracurricular” may be taken into account when assigning classwork.

I am no educator, and definitely not a director of a program or an administrator at a school. I am not an official of the NCAA. However, I want to show that there are possible solutions out there to the challenges at hand.

Someone just needs to look for them.

Photo: Andri Alexandrou

Orbis / Commentary / December 2011

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Advertising and the Invisible War on Women The hidden agenda behind ads geared toward female improvement conveyed through network programming, but also by advertising, an increasingly large portion of the media consumed each day.

Television, magazines and the Internet, the propagators of these messages, are all growing exponentially in their collective influence on the average American.

Studies show that teenagers now consume, on average, 10 hours and 45 minutes of media a day. Children are beginning to watch large amounts of television at younger and younger ages, and people of all ages are increasing their television watching times.

The populace, then, is fed media messages for most of their waking hours, and these messages, both obvious and subliminal, seep into the national consciousness. This is becoming increasingly harmful for the average American, and increasingly beneficial to the corporations who fund the media.

The strongest messages often come from advertising. As Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman have observed, “…[T]he media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them.” As companies have become more and more globalized and competitive, increasing their emphasis on the bottom line, the advertisers have pressured—and paid—the media to become more commercialized. Commercial time has skyrocketed on both basic and premium cable channels, and product placement in programming is becoming more and more prevalent, as well as subtler, while still remaining effective.

Because the programming is increasingly funded by advertising, rather than the channels that run it or the consumers who watch it, the corporations that advertise have more and more power over the media and the messages they send. Thus, programming increases its focus on things that support consumerism and messages that increase audience spending. Chomsky and Herman explain: “With advertising, the free market does not yield a neutral system in which the final buyer decides.

The advertisers’ choices influence media prosperity and survival.”

Over time, the media has realized its power in influencing women and the money they have at their disposal, and has exponentially increased its marketing toward women, all while developing incredibly effective techniques to convince women to buy consumer products in jaw-dropping quantities.

Rather than tell women directly that they aren’t perfect and that they need to work to make themselves into the ideal female, the media subtly urges women to this realization through their own subconsciousness.

Advertisers photoshop models to make them look superhuman, creating an impossible ideal for women to work toward and without ever revealing that these pictures

are not real. Ads for cosmetics boast of their power to “create perfection,” and thus the reader gets the message that they are not perfect, without ever realizing it.

Because cosmetics, clothing and skincare companies are the biggest advertisers, the focus of media is increasingly centered on the way women look. Without monetary pressure to create female characters that are true to life, women in ads and television shows are reduced to flat characters that serve only as eye candy for men and impossible ideals for women. Intelligence, humor, personality and anything beyond superficiality escape their focus, and are less and less important in media portrayals of women.

Since these messages are most often hidden in programming and ads that are consumed somewhat mindlessly, the information is absorbed without filters, and women, often without realizing why, feel less confident about themselves. And this drives women to the store in droves: the average American woman spends between $12,000 and $15,000 a year on cosmetics and skincare. It’s hugely profitable for consumer products corporations to make women feel bad about themselves.

The media’s focus on women’s appearances reduces the importance of their accomplishments; its treatment of high-powered, intelligent women such as Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice provides a message to women everywhere: regardless of what you have achieved, you will always be judged mostly on your appearance. When the media scorns Hillary for looking tired during her campaign, rather than mentioning her poll numbers or the subject of her speeches, when they deride Condoleeza Rice for her outfit choices rather than focus on the foreign policy conference she is attending, viewers of both genders receive the message.

The messages are internalized by the public, without them realizing it, and are then perpetuated by the victims. The propaganda has become so ingrained in our cultural conscience that it is affecting the way we raise our children, with extremely negative consequences for men as well.

A self-described “mommy blogger” recounted a story about her three-year-old daughter, who loves movies about princesses: her daughter had previously enjoyed a lot of time running around outdoors, but one day this mom walked outside to find her daughter just sitting on the porch. When asked why she wasn’t playing, her daughter responded that she was “waiting for her prince” to come get her, and when encouraged to run and jump around, she answered, “Princesses don’t jump.”

This is increasingly becoming the mindset of girls and women all over the country. Girls and women feel, sometimes only subconsciously, increasingly pigeonholed into society’s portrayal of what a woman should

[T]he media has realized its power in influencing

women and their money, and has exponentially

increased its marketing toward women.

Img Src: Victoria’s Secret

Meghan O’Neill ASSOCIATE EDITOR

For a long time after the 1950s it seemed like women were consistently making progress in the fight for equality. In the 1980s it seemed like women were really close to getting it. And then, somehow, we started regressing.

It seems to me that women are further away from equality today than they have been in decades thanks in large part to the media, the advertisers that fund them, and the masses who consume the information they are fed.

Increasingly, messages from the media have been derogatory toward women, snowballing into a troubling phenomenon, and for good capitalistic reason. Women control roughly 86 percent of the purchasing power in the United States, and telling women they are perfect just the way they are doesn’t make them want to spend their billions of dollars on personal products in a misguided attempt to “fix” themselves. Instead, the media uses its power to manipulate women into a “buying mood,” one in which they feel inadequate.

These messages are internalized by the general population without much question. What makes these messages incredibly effective is that they are not only

continued...

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Orbis / Commentary / December 2011

[cont’d from page 17] Advertising’s War on Women be, which is, for the most part, a pretty, and otherwise useless, person.

Girls are being taught this at younger and younger ages. According to a recent study of films from the last two decades, women are “just as likely to be wearing sexually revealing clothing” in G-rated movies as in R-rated movies. And because children’s brains are still in development and don’t have the mental capacity needed to interpret what they see, they receive these subtle messages without filter and internalize them. Since many adults mindlessly receive these messages when they relax in front of the television, they too internalize these messages and then instill the ideas in their children, whether consciously or not.

Girls and women then, subconsciously at least, feel marginalized by society, and see their sexuality as their only means to gain power. Thus, rather than focusing on increasing their intelligence or delving into their favorite hobbies or honing their skills at something that interests them, females spend their time focusing on their looks and buying the products they are told will make them more attractive. This reinforces the system by making sexuality the only power that women possess and by proving to the advertisers that their techniques are working.

Furthermore, this gender propaganda system is quite harmful in the way we raise boys. With the same media exposure as girls, boys are taught from a young age that being a man means being smarter than girls, providing for them, being better than them at sports and “manly” things, and that girls should be pretty and nothing else.

This puts enormous pressure on males to outperform their female counterparts while keeping their emotions bottled up. And how is a male supposed to react when a female outperforms him? This tension leads to an unhealthy relationship between the genders in American society, and has contributed to the rise in violent behavior in men. Currently, 1 in 18 men is in prison, a number that has more than tripled in the last 30 years.

This gender propaganda system not only affects our subconscious and our children, but it also actively shapes the adult world around us every day in extremely profound and disheartening ways. What’s more is that the system seems to be getting progressively worse.

Women make up only 17% of Congress and the 2010 mid-term election is the first time women have not made a gain in Congress since 1979. In fact, the United States is 90th in the world in terms of percent of women having served terms in legislatures.

In nine states and in Washington, DC, women who are victims of domestic abuse can be denied medical insurance coverage because domestic abuse can be considered a pre-existing condition.

Today, 65% of girls and women have or have had an eating disorder.

Flipping through the latest issue of Cosmopolitan, the most popular magazine for young women with an average monthly circulation of over 3 million, shows how intensely this propaganda system has dictated the national perception of gender. According to its own advertiser media kit, Cosmo content contains everything a “fun, fearless” woman cares about: 29% relationships,

18% fashion, 14% beauty and grooming, 8% health and fitness, 8% entertainment, 7% improvement, 1% home, and a combined 14% for matter unrelated to appearance and stereotypical “women’s” roles: careers, personal finance, general interest, and other.

This, however depressing, is not surprising. In the latest issue, out of 232 pages, 132 pages featured outright ads, with a whopping eight ads not devoted to cosmetics, clothes, perfume, jewelry, feminine products, or sex toys. While we can expect that Cosmo will cover topics its advertisers want women to see, it takes it even further in the way its feature stories talk about women. In an article featuring Nicki Minaj, an incredibly successful female rapper who has managed to break into an industry often referred to as a “boys’ club,” Cosmo spent about a third of this section discussing her appearance, and attributes the unexpected and incredible success of her album to, not her talent, but her “larger-than-life image” and “epic curves.”

Features don’t just talk about different ways a girl can do her hair; they dictate that women should dress and look certain ways, not for themselves, but for men. One feature advised, “[S]porting a high neckline mashes the girls together, resulting in a uniboob and boxy shape… undo a few buttons to visually slim down.” Accompanying the commentary was a picture of Reese Witherspoon wearing a sweater in what seems to be a cold setting, suggesting that women should wear less clothing in such climates because it’s more attractive.

One page literally postulates on which color of towel is sexiest to wrap around oneself when exiting the shower.

And this constant barrage of degrading media has affected the way women see themselves. When discussing this issue with other women, I usually find that they think the issue to be unworthy of their time because they don’t really have a problem with women being treated this way.

For men, even if they can see that the system is in place and is wrong, it can be hard for them to get around it. Driving my younger brother Dylan home from school one day, he commented on a beautifully tragic Christina Aguilera song that was streaming through the speakers.

He had heard the song before and quite liked it, but he explained his dilemma to me: “I really like this song; it’s

Img Src: Giorgio Armani

so good. I wish I could listen to it more. It’s not fair that girls can listen to music by guys or girls, but guys can only listen to music by guys. If they listen to girl music then people think they are weird.” Dylan, already ostracized for his small stature (an unfortunate effect of the growing obsession with appearance), cannot afford the extra alienation.

We’ve internalized what our gender roles should be, so much so that people perpetuate the system while being completely blind to it. As Chomsky and Herman point out, “It is much more difficult to see a propaganda system at work where the media are private and formal censorship is absent.” It is hard for the average person to believe that, with over 1,000 channels on the television, and countless websites and magazines, that the vast majority of them will send the same message regarding anything.

Furthermore, the stereotypes and expected gender roles that are conveyed are accepted, and the more they are accepted, the more they are legitimized, leading to more acceptance. Women are treated as second-class citizens, and we don’t even notice it anymore because it just seems so normal.

Orbis / Commentary / December 2011

Immigration Center a Powerful Resource TIRRC provides education and outreach for community needs

Sae Park STAFF WRITER

Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) was founded in 2001 as a reaction by a grassroots network of immigrant groups and community leaders to a newly introduced Tennessee state legislature bill granting immigrants better access to obtain driver’s licenses. The bill later became a law and, since then, TIRRC has been working with other refugee and immigrant groups to strengthen the coalition.

Throughout my years as an undergraduate student, I have garnered a strong academic interest in immigration. It began with a freshman seminar about the general immigrant experience in America. This also intertwined with my religious studies major, and I specifically became interested in religion’s social role in the migration and settlement processes of immigrants. I found myself wanting to engage in contemporary immigration issues outside of the classroom, and searched for immigration advocacy organizations within Nashville. One of the first groups I found was TIRRC, and it seemed to have all of the qualities I was looking for in a volunteer organization. I especially appreciated the “coalition” aspect of TIRRC, which indicated that it promotes cross-ethnic and cross-cultural interactions between different immigrant organizations in and around Tennessee.

According to its website, TIRRC is a “collaboration whose mission is to empower immigrants and refugees throughout Tennessee to develop a unified voice, defend their rights, and create an atmosphere in which they are recognized as positive contributors to the state.”

TIRRC works through many channels to improve and strengthen Tennessee’s immigrant communities.

For one, it regularly hosts workshops for immigrants.

Know-Your-Rights programs are one example of these workshops, providing immigrants with critically useful information to combat some of the most common issues that immigrants face in light of recent anti-immigrant ordinances and legislation. In the state of Tennessee, the 287(g) program, which gives local law enforcers the ability to enforce immigration laws, and the increasing number of immigrant raids conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have increased the need for immigrants to be aware of exactly what their rights are, and when those rights are being violated.

Another important component of TIRRC is youth organization and outreach. JUMP (Jóvenes para Un Mejor Presente) is a program which specifically focuses

on undocumented youths and the problems they face because they cannot continue on to college after high school. Its members meet twice a month to discuss current immigrant legislation. Recently, members have talked about the work they have been doing in Tennessee because certain schools have slowly been banning undocumented students from attending. JUMP also works alongside the Nashville DREAM Act Committee, a group asking for federal legislation that would grant undocumented youths with the opportunity to attend college.

On a more personal level, finding out about TIRRC’s youth organizing efforts has also impacted me, as I am an immigrant myself. Now a naturalized U.S. citizen, it is disconcerting to hear about the contentious state of immigration in this country today, especially the ongoing challenges faced by immigrants. It soon became clear that the immigrant experience in America varies for different immigrant groups. Immigrants from industrialized nations tend to have higher levels of education and as a result may have more flexibility in choice of job and

Immigrants are... individuals seeking infinite

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opportunities by wanting to chase that ever so elusive American dream. residence. Those from less industrialized nations tend to have no choice but to settle in urban areas that only offer certain labor opportunities. Some immigrants, such as blacks or Hispanics, find themselves in far more difficult circumstances than others. Not as welcomed as Asian immigrants are in suburban areas, many resort to settlement in urban areas and often form ethnic enclaves, which in the long-term may prolong their status as “outsiders” in mainstream American culture.

Despite the diversity and multiculturalism that exist in American society today, it seems that immigrants are essentially generalized into one category: individuals seeking infinite opportunities by wanting to chase that ever so elusive American dream. But too often we do not attempt to understand much about what we see and hear about immigration beyond condensed soundbites and loud rhetoric. I now know about immigration not only as I once understood it from personal experience, but also through the experience of others as they settle in the United States. Organizations such as TIRRC are critical for immigrants because the resources they provide, from workshops and informational meetings to interpretation services, give immigrants a safe place where they can gather and discuss common causes.

You can also visit campusprogress.org to see what’s affecting college students across the nation.

Orbis / December 2011

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email andri.j.alexandrou@vanderbilt.edu