Thursday, July 24, 2014 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com C,2 Cigan 4at Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu Thursday, July 24, 2014 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 9' Bad behavior" FILM COLUMN Greatest Hindi film? IAN DILLINGHAM EDITOR IN CHIEF AARICA MARSH EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR STEPHANIE SHENOUDA MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations representsolely the views of their authors. Minimizing maternal deaths Poverty must be addressed to lower deaths related to pregnancy n early July, it was announced that Detroit's maternal death rate is three times the national average. Between 2008 and 2011, the Department of Community Health reported that 26 Detroit women died as a direct result of pregnancy or childbirth. Fortunately, two months earlier, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan alongside Wayne State University, Henry Ford Health System, the Detroit Medical Center and several other partners launched the "Make Your Date" campaign to help expectant mothers in need. While it's extremely important that the campaign continue to grow and assist mothers in need, Duggan and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder must also address the root cause of the drastic maternal death rate: poverty. This past March Sigma Alpha Epsilon's Supreme Council decided to eliminate the fraternity's pledge programs entirely. "As an organization, we have been plagued with too much bad behavior, which resulted in loss of lives, ZAK negative press and WITUS lawsuits," Bradley M. Cohen, the Eminent Supreme Archon, President of SAE's national organization, said in a YouTube video. "In order to survive, we must change not only some of our practices, but our culture." SAE isn't the only fraternity organization that might want to listen to Cohen's advice. Though SAE is a particularly deadly fraternity (nine people have died in events connected with SAE since 2006), overall "there have been more than 60 fraternity- related deaths in the U.S. since 2005," according to Bloomberg News. In today's Greek Life, the "bad behavior" no longer seems to be rare or anomalous, but instead disturbingly normal and common. What's more, as anyone even remotely involved on college campuses probably knows, the troubling examples and results of "bad behavior" don't just include death, negative press or lawsuits, but violence, hazing, sexual assault (including rape), among other misconduct. Eventually we might ask whether today's fraternity system produces this "bad behavior" because it's intrinsically flawed, or whether the "bad behavior" is just the fault of a few bad individuals. Most fraternities and universities answer that it's the latter case. In a statement, SAE's national fraternity organization said that members who violate its rules "are in no way representative of the fraternity." Though, according to the New York Times, "Numerous studies show that members of Greek organizations drink more heavily than other students, and alcohol abuse is strongly tied to other forms of misconduct. But (once again) in interviews at multiple campuses, fraternity members said their reputations was tainted by the. bad acts of others." Patricia Telles-Irvin, Northwestern University's vice president for student affairs, said, "We have to be very careful before we blame the Greeks." Telles-Irvin doesn't claim that "the Greeks" are innocent, but she believes that it's because "they're so visible that they get easily targeted." Dartmouth college President and former University provost Philip J. Hanlon appears to hold a similar view. In response to sexual assault at Dartmouth and what he calls "a culture where dangerous drinking has become the rule," Hanlon didn't single out fraternities, despite the fraternities at his school largely dominating social life and recently facing intense criticism. . But why not single out fraternities? If they're so visibly a part of the problem, then why not blame them? Of course fraternities don't deserve all the blame, and further restricting Greek Life probably won't definitively end death, sexual assault and so on, on college campuses, but it will end some. By denouncing individual fraternities and individual members, the larger fraternity institution tries to protect itself from ridicule and thereby survive. This happened when Theta Xi's national organization tried to isolate the blame to the one University chapter member who posted a racist Facebook party invite; when Alpha Epsilon Pi's national organization ousted University senior Andrew Koffsky from his chapter presidency after he publicly admitted to hazing allegations; and when Arizona State University suspended Tau Kappa Epsilon's chapter for several violations. If fraternity and University officials were not to scandalize the bad behavior but instead acknowledge that they lead a corrupt system and institution, they would risk their own destruction, thereby rendering their acknowledgement an act of suicide. Therefore, because we cannot reasonably expect them to be so self-critical, we must ask whether the scandalizing response of the fraternity institution is legitimate and based on facts, or merely based on private interest. My intuition is that the fraternity system creates "bad behavior" not on accident, but as the normal byproduct of being secretive institutions with problematic ideas of manliness that praise alcoholism and womanizing while having unjust immunity from policing. But, we shouldn't simply follow my intuition or anybody else's. We should continue to research the question of the legitimacy of Greek Life and the scandalizing claims of its officials while remaining open to the anti-establishment explanation that "bad behavior" might just be a normal aspect of frat life. - Zak Witus can be reached at zakwitus@umich.edu. "Gangs of grainy cell phone ringers, a nar- rator tugs us back in time to the Wasseypur" a start of this sprawling, generation- spanningcrime epic. Tarantino-esque Though leaving it off at 'crime epic' would be like calling "The crime s aga Godfather" trilogy 'those videos with the Italian people shooting By AKSHAY SETH each other.' "Wasseypur" unfurls Daily Film Columnist like a continually-expanding patchwork quilt, balancing scores "Gangs of Wasseypur" starts of characters, each with their with the opening credits of a pop- own unique backstories, to paint ular Indian soap opera. Everyone a stinging portrait of the way cor- looks happy. The main character, ruption feeds off cycles of poverty. billed as "the perfect daughter- It races over hours of content at in-law" to a wealthy household, an unyielding speed, demanding beckons viewers through her life, its audience keep pace as it breaks smiling in response to weepy intro countless unspoken censorship music while making pit stops on barriers along the way. Grisly dis- the way to point out her support- plays of violence, coupled with ing cast. They wave and namaste even more forward depictions of at us in return. As the music sexuality are strewn at every cor- wavers, slows, the camera dollies ner of the script, yet what props away to reveal the glowing tele- the film up is a steady arc for the vision screen we've been watch- masculinity exhibited by the three ing. A family crowds around it. clashing clans squabbling for con- But the small, battered-looking trol. TV seems too far away. Isolated The first of those clans and in the bottom-left corner of the the one which becomes our guide frame, our faceless family stares at through this expansive portrait of it, absorbed - eyes locked toward the Indian mafia are the Khans, the top-right. descended from Shahid Khan, a It's a brain-numbing pause of 1940s era gangster who was chased detachment dedicated to the sort out of Wasseypur by his competi- of brain-numbing entertainment tion, Sultana Daku. Shahid, then Bollywood, an industry churn- forced to earn an honest living as ing out nearly daily installments a coal miner in nearby Dhanbad, of these 30-minute dramas - the is eventually killed at the hands one referenced in the opening of his employer Ramadhir Singh, scene withered away for a grand who overhears Khan's plans to total of 1833 episodes in its eight seize the wealth he has recently year run - gets so much hate for acquired from the departing Brit- producing. Which is why what ish. As the years roll by, Khan's comes moments after that apa- son, Sardar swears vengeance for thetic first scene resonates like a his father's murder, knowingly crackling "fuck you" to the entire sparking a blood-feud that molds Bollywood establishment, shap- decades of conflict between the ing the following 320 minutes in Khans, Singhs and eventually the the form of a middle finger aimed Sultanas, who are thrust back squarely at the formulaic, tepid into the fray after Sardar returns filmmaking that has plagued Indi- to Wasseypur. It sounds like "The an cinema for so long. Real Housewives of Orange Coun- Ahailofbullets streaksthrough ty" meets "Game of Thrones" level the room, blows up the TV along shit because it is. And it's never with every shitty soap character blemished by an apology or a stray inside and sets up the extended moment of hesitation. We trudge tracking shot which launches us through the violence without ever into the film, following a gang glancing over our shoulders, and of gunmen in their attempts to the film is better because of the surround and assassinate an confidence in its transitions. unnamed family in Wasseypur, Director Anurag Kashyap India. As the classic Hindi song embellishes countless stories "Khalnayak" (roughly translat- - mostly stemming from innu- ing to "badass motherfucker with merable references to classic Hol- a pimp-ass hat") blares through lywood gangster flicks - with individual quirks that harken to an almost Tarantino-esque treat- ment of character. Early along, in the film's very first act, the final mission is written in blood, but as in "Reservoir Dogs" or "Jackie Brown," we only climb on for the five-hour-long ride because every- thing that happens in between is doused in self-referential hilar- ity: The murderous, blade-chew- ing psychopath who perpetually speaks with alisp; the fact that Sar- dar's second oldest son, Kashyap's Michael Corleone, is a pothead; the flirting (ft. random goat). The number of times the word "penis" is screamed at random passersby. Still, despite an undeniably hilarious sequence of vignettes to tie the story together, the film's heart pulses with the rise and eventual demise of the Khan clan. In doing so, the movie adopts a somewhat beaten stance about the perils of heedless greed - the con- stant need to one-up the competi- tion even if the outcome is chaos. But the more intriguing bit is how Kashyap threads the movement of time using pop culture references to each passing decade's Bolly- wood hits. And in doing so, he again forces us to confront the role this far-reaching media can play in the violence unfolding in small, education-lacking towns like Was- seypur. The bloated, unrealistic portrayals of masculinity these films adopt can be seen influencing the characters' displays of ferocity, with Kashyap taking special care to use various Hindi movie songs in scoringthe aftermath of or lead up to a fatal conflict. "Wasseypur" solidifies itself as arguably the greatest Hindi film I'll ever see because it forces us to look directly at the bloody after- math. The mini-Indian history lessons are narrated detachedly and presented in black-and-white news format to give matter-of- fact information about the stark realities in the small mining vil- lages of northern India. Guns are eventually imported from neigh- boring towns. The money-making schemes become more complex. The Internet makes a cameo. But the real intrigue lies with the realization that Bollywood can be seen filling in the human side, and as "Wasseypur" makes clear, fuck the soap operas, because the mes- sage has to change. Detroit's maternal death rate is grossly inflated with 58.7 deaths per 100,000 babies. While this number is highly unacceptable, it's not surprising given the linkpercent of the city's population live below the poverty line, which is only made worse by a lack of education and deteriorated living conditions. Women in poverty are less likely to receive consistent medical care throughout pregnancy, putting a large number of Detroit's expectant mothers at risk. This situation contributes to a maternal death rate in the city that's higher than countries such as Libya, Uruguay and Vietnam. While health care before and duringpregnancyisimportant, Dr. Sonia Hassan - a dean for maternal, perinatal and child healthcare - insists that good health prior to pregnancy is vital for "cutting down the risk of obesity, hypertension, diabetes." Preventing these conditions is strongly rooted in a healthy diet and exercise, solutions that many Detroit residents do not have access to. The expense of healthy eating can be difficult for many to afford, so women in lower socioeconomic groups struggle to pay for the lifestyle that decreases the likelihood of maternal deaths. "Make Your Date" is vehementlyworkingto"ensure that every pregnant woman in every neighborhood knows that our great city is stepping up to provide support and ensure she delivers a healthy, happy baby." The campaign along with several provisions in the Affordable Care Act help provide preventive service coverage to women with no cost-sharing. Women are provided with services such as pap smears, mammograms, vaccinations, colonoscopies, contraception and screening without needing to pay a portion of the cost. Providing a wide array of fully-covered services will help women, yet more must be done to provide healthy opportunities for women in these conditions. Implementing initiatives to decrease the root of the problem - Detroit's high poverty levels - alongside thoroughly educating the public will help thousands of pregnant women in Detroit deliver their babies safely. Redefine your Future Apply now to the country and program of your choice! peacecorps.gov/openings 1.855.855.1961 1 chicago@peacecorps.gov Join Editboard at 6:30 on Mondays at 420 Maynord