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Arts
Friday, November 20, 2015 — 5
TV NOTEBOOK
‘Faking It’: the rule-
breaker we all need
MTV show goes
beyond stereotypes
in its characters
By BEN ROSENSTOCK
Daily Arts Writer
“Faking It” has never gar-
nered the ratings that MTV’s
other realistic teen comedy
series “Awkward” gained over
the course of its first two sea-
sons. There could be many rea-
sons for that. To begin, it has
an objectively silly premise:
two best friends pretend to be
lesbians to get popular at their
liberal Austin high school. In
the act of “faking it,” Amy (Rita
Volk, “The Hungover Games”)
realizes that she actually has
feelings for Karma (Katie Ste-
vens, “American Idol”), her best
friend.
The first season began by
exploring this pretend relation-
ship, and it was entertaining
fluff. There are some good jokes
as Hester High School satirically
reverses the stereotypical high
school food chain in the same
way that “21 Jump Street” made
the nerds popular and the ath-
letes the underdogs. However,
there were no real stabs at social
commentary in the first season.
The second season, which
ended on Nov. 2, took “Faking
It” in a whole new direction.
The original premise, while
occasionally being referenced
for laughs, is mostly thrown
out in favor of exploring these
characters’ inner struggles in
real and honest ways. While
most shows would immediately
classify Amy as a closeted les-
bian, “Faking It” illustrates that
sexuality lies on a spectrum. In
the second half of the second
season, Amy finds herself sur-
prised to have feelings for new
kid Felix (Parker Mack, “For
the Booth”). When questioned
about
being
bisexual,
Amy
can only muster up an unsure
“maybe.” Amy’s unwillingness
to box herself into a neat cat-
egory defines the main arc of
the series, and it’s a surprisingly
complex topic to tackle.
Even more radical than Amy’s
characterization is that of Lau-
ren (Bailey De Young, “Bun-
heads”), Amy’s stepsister. The
season two premiere features
the revelation that Lauren is
intersex, an identity hardly ever
explored on TV, much less by one
of the main characters in a main-
stream teen comedy. One of the
most touching moments of the
season two finale features Lau-
ren openly declaring her sexual
identity to the school board. She
says that before she’d come to
Hester, she’d never been able to
say that out loud.
Encouraging
people
to
embrace their weirdness isn’t
unique to “Faking It.” “Be
yourself” is probably the big-
gest inspirational cliché in teen
drama. In Hester High School,
however, “Faking It” has found
a setting specifically dedicated
to it. This is a school where the
Queen Bee is intersex and the
big man on campus is gay, where
people actually fake being differ-
ent to attain popularity.
Even setting aside the pro-
gressiveness of its message, the
narrative of “Faking It” is very
well-written. So much teen
drama on TV is based around
keeping secrets and lying, but
no secret stays hidden for long
on this show. One standout
episode in particular, “Boiling
Point,” traps all the main char-
acters in one room for deten-
tion in an overt homage to “The
Breakfast Club.” In this episode,
all the conflicts that have been
building throughout the season
come to a head. Karma admits
that her ex-boyfriend Liam’s
(Gregg Sulkin, “Pretty Little
Liars”) father wants to pay her
to stay away from him, and her
precarious financial situation is
forcing her to consider it. Most
cathartically, Shane (Michael J.
Willett, “G.B.F.”), the gay guy
notorious for outing people, is
finally called out for his destruc-
tive habit. “You can’t just do the
wrong thing and pretend it’s for
the right reason,” Liam points
out. Most refreshingly, this
all happens in episode 15 of a
20-episode season. Many shows
would wait until the finale to
disrupt the peace, but “Faking
It” moves the plot forward con-
siderably each episode.
This is a time when the view-
ership for shows like “Degras-
si” and “Awkward” wanes and
genre shows like “Teen Wolf”
hold the most weight among
teen audiences. “Faking It”
provides a funny, relatively
new series that’s defiant in
its breaking of stereotypes. It
offers characters of all sexu-
alities, genders and sexes, yet
refuses to define them by those
identifiers. It’s the realistic yet
over-the-top TV series that
audiences deserve.
MTV
“There’s something good on MTV?”
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
Young & Sick blends
electronic and soul
By CATHERINE BAKER
Daily Arts Writer
“Hard to tell where the skies
end and the water begins / All cov-
ered in sunlight and it’s not even
spring.”
The opening lyrics of Young &
Sick’s self-titled debut album set
the tone for the rest of the work,
focusing on subjective yet univer-
sal experiences of all young adults.
Released in April 2014, Young &
Sick combines soul, electronic and
R&B music to share thoughts on
love, life and adolescence.
Created by Dutch artist Nick
Van Hofwegen, Young & Sick is a
Los Angeles-based music and art
project. While they started their
career by covering full albums
for major acts like Foster the
People and Maroon 5 and posting
the songs online, Young & Sick’s
designs were featured in a fashion
line by Urban Outfitters in 2012. By
the winter of 2014, Young & Sick
played its first live show and was
announced to play at the Coachella
Festival. Today, Young & Sick con-
tinues to foster their triple-threat
status by creating album artwork
for artists like Mikky Ekko, Robin
Thicke and Maroon 5.
Despite being categorized as
soul and R&B music, Young & Sick
transcends these labels and com-
bines synthetic beats with tradi-
tional instruments to create an
entirely new genre. The album’s
opening song, “Mangrove,” is
soothing and repetitive, using
simple mediums and upbeat har-
monies to question life. Lyrics like
“I feel the best I have in my life /
Something must be very wrong”
contemplate
darker
themes
through a lighthearted instrumen-
tal.
“Counting
Raindrops”
uses
artificial riffs to emulate rain pat-
ter, using seductive and sultry lyr-
ics such as “Let the rain overflow
and keep us here / Kiss me like you
would if this was our last,” while
still maintaining its electronic
and R&B roots. By incorporating a
funky breakdown of electric piano
and guitar in the middle of the
song, Young & Sick sets themselves
apart from other competitors in
their field.
Conversely,
“Gloom”
moves
away from electronica and heads
toward jazz, incorporating tra-
ditional soulful instruments like
trumpets and saxophones into
a lust filled ballad. With harmo-
nizing falsetto and sultry lyrics,
“Glass” encompasses a full swing
band sound with relatively few
instruments. Transitioning back
into strong electronic, “Glass” uses
artificial beats to musically dem-
onstrate the feeling of falling in
and out of love. The lyrics, “Don’t
keep me from falling deeper in love
/ Pour me another lover,” demon-
strate the transient nature of lust
and love and vocalize a cynical
view of modern dating culture.
The closing song on Young
&
Sick,
“Twentysomething,”
describes adolescence by focus-
ing on lyrics rather than instru-
mentals.
Getting
into
the
mindset of a young adult, Young
& Sick expresses the sentiments
of many, singing, “Still not used
to my skin / Loving the scars
though / The cuts and bruises.”
It leaves the listener with the
feeling of being stuck between
carefree and trapped, with one
foot in adulthood and one left in
childhood.
While Young & Sick’s debut
album has thrust them onto
music lover’s radars, their talent
and ambition makes them an art-
ist to watch. Despite their lack of
name recognition, Young & Sick
is forging their own path through
the industry. Keep your eyes (and
ears) open.
FILM NOTEBOOK
Why can’t Disney do
anything original?
By VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
Between 2009 and 2016, Dis-
ney and Pixar will have released
seven new animated movies:
“Up,” “The Princess and the
Frog,”
“Frozen,”
“Tangled,”
“Brave,” “Inside Out” and the
upcoming “Moana.” To put it
in perspective, that’s two presi-
dential terms with only seven
spunky Disney protagonists to
counter the political strife brew-
ing in our hearts.
Yet in the past two years alone,
Disney released four live-action
remakes of classic stories: “Malef-
icent,” “Into the Woods,” “Cinder-
ella” and “Peter Pan.” Also in the
works are remakes of “Beauty and
the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid,”
“The Jungle Book” and unsolidi-
fied plans to reimagine Dumbo,
Winnie the Pooh, Tinkerbell and
the genie from “Aladdin.” It has
also been capitalizing on sequels,
with the Pixar branch churning
out an equal ratio of sequels to
new films. “Toy Story 3” brought
the supposedly definitive finale
of the franchise, only for produc-
ers to turn around and stick in
a fourth film because it was so
profitable.
My nostalgic heart argues that
well-made remakes can — and
do — generate new artistic con-
tent that simply uses the original
story as a loose baseline to tease
out finer details and unique per-
spectives. It’s no wonder that
powerhouse
actors,
directors
and screenwriters vie for the
prestigious responsibility of hon-
oring these treasured characters.
Modern technology allows for
increasingly sophisticated repro-
ductions of visual worlds. But if
the original was so timeless, do
we really need another version?
The box office screams yes.
The prospect of seeing Lupi-
ta Nyong’o (“Twelve Years a
Slave”),
Scarlett
Johansson
(“Under the Skin”) and Bill Mur-
ray (“Rock The Kasbah”) sharing
a screen — and romping through
the forest from my worn “Jungle
Book” VHS tape, no less — will
inevitably draw me to the the-
ater. I probably won’t even watch
the trailer; my loyalty to the star-
studded cast and a childhood
favorite is enough.
While directors may, at times,
be legitimately inspired by clas-
sic stories, it’s clear that the cur-
rent deluge of recycled material
spawns not from passion alone.
Disney saw the easy money and
seized it. But restricting output
to remakes confines the imagi-
nation to a single world of char-
acters and hampers personal
creative expression. Meanwhile,
it blocks fresh content, which
often
features
more
diverse
perspectives and launches new
careers, from getting produced.
How many potential “Frozens”
rot on Kickstarter pages because
Disney would rather play it safe
and recreate yet anot
More than any other studio
in the industry, Disney boasts
the well-padded coffers and
clout to take bold creative risks.
Once upon a time, Disney built
its fortune on virtues of innova-
tion and discovery; now, it grows
stale, greedy. If the unparalleled
success of “Frozen” told us any-
thing, it’s that audiences crave
new fictional worlds to get lost
in. The droves of recent gradu-
ates flocking to Hollywood with
original scripts prove that there’s
no shortage of imagination to
make that happen.
Is Disney going to take a
chance on them? Or will they
regret to inform you that they
value profit over novelty and
will randomly select from a list
of classic Disney movies and
famous filmmakers to decide
their next project instead?
COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
On trigger warnings
By SOPHIA KAUFMAN
Daily Arts Writer
Last week, the University’s
Young Americans for Freedom
chapter constructed a wall in
the Diag that protested “Political
Correctness: The Iron Curtain of
the University.” It had phrases
like “offensive,” “social justice,”
“safe spaces” and “newspeak”
spray-painted on them.
But the one phrase stood out
most, in sprawling blue letters
across the lower center of the
wall: “Trigger Warning.”
Few other phrases on media
platforms right now spark the
same kind of contentious debate
that “trigger warning” does, and
there are intellectual leaders
with impressive credentials on
both ends of the spectrum. The
debate over trigger warnings,
which centers on the use of these
warnings on college campuses,
fits into a larger context of reen-
ergized interest in social justice
and political correctness, but
it also deserves to be separated
from that. Unlike the pursuit of
social justice, trigger warnings
on syllabi could someday reach
a consensus in University policy.
Trigger warnings in class-
rooms — preceding lectures,
readings, films, photographs, dis-
cussions, etc. — are presented as a
semi-formal “heads-up” that the
material deals with sensitive sub-
ject matter that could be upset-
ting for some. Trigger warnings
often precede content about war
violence or sexual assault/abuse/
trauma, but they can also alert
the reader to material includ-
ing sexism, racism, homophobia,
self-destructive behavior or sui-
cide.
Arguments
against
trigger
warnings stem from worries
about censoring class materi-
als, coddling students, stunting
intellectual growth and inhibit-
ing the freedoms of others. Many
University
professors
believe
that students should be exposed
to difficult material and won’t
grow intellectually if they don’t;
they feel threatened that they
could get in trouble for students
feeling “unsafe” in their class-
rooms. Many students resent
the usage of trigger warnings,
claiming that the overreactions
or sensitivities of some students
shouldn’t hinder the intellectual
pursuits of others.
The negative rhetoric that sur-
rounds trigger warnings over-
whelmingly constructs an image
of the coddled college student,
inviting ridicule on every word in
that phrase. But trigger warnings
aren’t about coddling students
or protecting sensitive feelings.
They aren’t about shielding peo-
ple from difficult material. Trig-
ger warnings themselves don’t
constitute censorship.
To deny the utility of trigger
warnings — especially for war
veterans and survivors of sexual
assault — is insulting and dismis-
sive of traumatic experiences.
Claiming that trigger warnings
perpetuate a culture of victim-
hood is the equivalent of say-
ing “suck it up” or “move on”
— which isn’t psychologically
sound advice.
My Resident Adviser put it
well: “I feel like people are some-
times against trigger warnings
because they feel like we can’t
expect to be protected from the
bad things in life. But the rea-
son trigger warnings exist is that
some people haven’t been pro-
tected from the dark things in
life.”
I’m in a Literature of Aboli-
tion class, and we’re studying
“12 Years a Slave.” This film
has graphic, violent scenes that
include physical abuse and rape.
My professor told all of us before-
hand that we would be watching
it in class and that if anyone pre-
ferred to watch it by themselves
at home rather than in a class-
room setting, we were welcome
to do that.
She didn’t use the phrase “trig-
ger warning,” but she was effectu-
ally giving one. By giving a content
warning and a choice in how, when
and where we wanted to view
this film, she was granting us the
agency to know how we learn best.
She wasn’t “coddling” us — she
was giving us choices that didn’t
impact the learning opportunities
of our classmates.
Personally, I took advantage of
that choice. I watched “12 Years a
Slave” in a class setting last year,
surrounded by people I didn’t
know, and though I wanted to leave
the room during the sexual assault
and rape scenes, I was sitting in
the front of the class — I felt like I
didn’t want to disrupt everyone by
getting up. But I felt emotionally
jerked. I had trouble breathing for
the rest of the day; I had to skip my
next class and avoid my friends, so
I wouldn’t worry them.
I appreciate having the option
to watch it by myself for this class.
Yes, in the “real world” there
are going to be times when we will
witness things that we’d rather not
— but you’d be hard pressed to find
a time outside of university classes
when you’d have to sit through an
intense portrayal of something
without having the option to pre-
pare or remove yourself from the
situation if you needed. You can
walk out of a movie theater; you
can put down a book or exit a con-
versation.
The debate over trigger warn-
ings in the context of art in class-
rooms, where it’s being used
explicitly as an educational tool
to deepen our comprehensive
understanding of a topic, is espe-
cially intriguing because artwork
is often designed to elicit emo-
tional responses — like “12 Years
a Slave.” But artwork isn’t simply
an educational tool. There is a dis-
tinction to be made that is lacking
from debates I see around trigger
warnings preceding exposure to
artworks.
Art can be offensive, which
can make it controversial. But
there should be a difference in
how we treat controversial piec-
es of art and pieces of art that
have the potential to be trigger-
ing though they are often both.
In classrooms, students should
be confronted with topics and
discussions — and yes, artwork —
that make them challenge them-
selves, their assumptions and
beliefs. But no one should be con-
fronted with topics, discussions
or artwork that could potentially
make them feel unsafe, without
warning. And despite popular
opinion, it isn’t impossible to rec-
oncile these ideas.
Another aspect that’s skirted
around in discussions about
trigger warnings is the fact that
intellectual growth is not the
only kind of personal growth
that matters in college. Using
trigger warnings in our class-
rooms doesn’t hinder our intel-
lectual growth; it fosters our
emotional growth. The recogni-
zance that some have had expe-
riences that others haven’t is a
lesson in empathy and aware-
ness. By asking for trigger or
content warnings, students are
making concerted efforts to rec-
ognize that none of us check our
experiences at the classroom
door — we carry them in with us.
Even people who have expe-
rienced trauma have spoken
against
trigger
warnings,
a
notable example being Roxane
Gay. Trigger warnings aren’t
a one-size-fits-all type of deal,
and trigger warnings themselves
don’t mean we will always feel
safe; we can’t prepare ourselves
for being triggered suddenly on
the street with no preparation in
a “real world” situation. As Gay
points out in her book “Bad Fem-
inist,” “there is nothing words
on the screen can do that has not
already been done.”
I agree with this. Nothing
preceded by the phrase “trig-
ger warning” is going to be as
harmful as whatever happened
that created triggers for a per-
son in the first place.
But that being said — in
a learning community, why
not have the option for mak-
ing choices that will make us
feel safer when we’re trying to
learn?
WALT DISNEY PICTURES
“What’s Olaf doing with his carrot?”