The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, January 18, 2017 — 5A

“Hidden Figures” uplifts
NASA’s unsung heroes

Film highlights necessity of professional diversity and the 
ability storytelling has to retroactively write history

Exiting the movie theater 

last week, I heard snippets of 
a conversation about “Hidden 
Figures.” 
“I 

grew up in the 
same 
town 
as 

her,” a woman 
said, referring to 
one of the main 
characters. “And 
I 
didn’t 
even 

know that she 
did that much 
until later.”

If 
this 
tells 

us anything, it’s 
that storytelling 
is 
powerful. 

Following 
Katherine 

Johnson (Taraji P. Henson, 
“Empire”), a physicist and 
mathematician 
who 
made 

seminal 
contributions 
to 

celestial 
navigation, 
Mary 

Jackson (Janelle Monáe, “The 
Electric Lady”), NASA’s first 
black female engineer, and 
Dorothy 
Vaughan 
(Octavia 

Spencer, “The Help”), NASA’s 
first black female supervisor, 
“Hidden Figures” understands 
that what goes unsaid is often 
what says it all.

Despite 
their 
college 

degrees 
and 
unparalleled 

technical 
capabilities, 
the 

women 
face 
innumerable 

barriers, big and small, to 
succeed as black women in 

STEM. “If you were a white 
man, would you want to be an 
engineer?” a colleague asks 
Mary.

“I wouldn’t want to be an 

engineer, because I’d already 
be one,” she replies. The film 
outlines just some of the 

reasons 
why: 

A NASA policy 
requires that all 
engineers take a 
specific 
course 

only 
offered 

by 
segregated 

schools. 
When 

Katherine 
joins 
an 
all-

white 
team, 

she is provided 
a 
“colored” 

coffee 
machine 

exclusively 
for 

her use. She runs half a mile in 
heels through the parking lot 
because not a single colored 
restroom exists in the entire 
building complex.

Every shot is staged to make 

the 
discomfort 

known. Katherine 
walks 
into 
a 

sterile sea of white 
button-downs and 
black 
ties. 
The 

only color present 
comes 
from 
the 

cardigans worn by 
the two women in 
the room, and her 
dark skin.

“Hidden 

Figures” aims to 
undo 
superstar 

culture, 
splitting 

hierarchy 
down 

to its core and revealing the 
multitudes of people that really 
make genius happen. Dorothy 
says, “progress for one of us 
is progress for us all,” and it’s 
evident in the making of the 
film. While it sheds light on 
three incredible black women, 
“Hidden Figures” also pays 
tribute to the partners, children, 
churches and role models that 
empower them. Dorothy doesn’t 
just aspire to be a supervisor 
for 
herself. 
She 
stubbornly 

stands by her girls in the colored 

computing team to ensure the 
security of their futures at 
NASA, refusing to advance if 
other they can’t advance, too.

The space race contextualizes 

the 
civil 
rights 
movement 

within a foreign policy context. 
While this has a positive effect 
of categorizing people not by 
race, but as Americans on equal 
footing, its unrealistic execution 
makes it a distraction. With 
simplistic 
and 
unnecessary 

dialogue, John Glenn’s boyish, 
Labrador 
Retriever 
charm 

verges on dopey. The highly 
unrealistic space CGI also takes 
away from the heartwarming 
storyline of the women.

Still, 
it’s 
a 
feel-good 

movie, 
stuffed 
with 

sweeping 
monologues 
and 

snappy 
comebacks 
against 

microaggressions. 
Though 

it’s 
unlikely 
that 
every 

conversation 
occurred 
in 

reality, the film does not 
sugarcoat how hard black 
women 
fough; 
how 
hard 

they 
still 

fight 
today. 

Instead, 
the 

optimism 
in 
“Hidden 

Figures” acts 
as 
a 
voice 

clapping 
back 
against 

racism, 
speaking 
for 

all 
people 

color 
who 

cannot 
speak out for 
themselves.

Even 
for 

viewers, “Hidden Figures” has 
the power to bring together 
communities, 
eliciting 
the 

most sniffling I’ve heard in 
a theater as of late. “C’mon, 
seriously!” someone muttered 
from behind me when the door 
of the command room closed 
in Octavia’s face. The theater 
erupted in applause when the 
supervisor who once actively 
emphasized 
her 
inferiority 

and lack of belonging passed 
by her desk and made her a cup 
of coffee.

20TH CENTURY FOX

Math!

VANESSA WONG

Daily Arts Wrtier

SOHN’s ‘Rennen’ a weak, 
gloomy sophomore release

London-raised, 
Vienna-made 

and 
now 
Los 
Angeles-based 

Christopher Taylor — or SOHN 
— just dropped his second album 
after almost three years of silence. 
The record’s title, 
Rennen, 
translates 

from 
German 
to 

“run.” 
With 
this 

follow up to his 
successful 
debut, 

SOHN 
found 

himself itching to pivot away from 
the snowy Austrian capital where 
he made his first album, Tremors, 
in 2014. The artist elaborates, “I 
went from holing up in a dark 
studio in Vienna, leaving at 6am 
and trudging through the snow 
to get home, to being on a ranch 
in the California hills, worried 
that a fire’s going to sweep across 
and 
blow 
everything 
away.” 

Ironically, it seems the moody, 
wintry 
atmosphere 
charged 

Tremors 
with 
the 
signature 

spark that set SOHN apart in the 
electro-indie arena. Despite his 
sunny shift in scenery, SOHN 
seems proccupied by the shadow 
of looming loss that the hills of LA 
cast over his headspace — a shadow 
that dimmed the emotional impact 
of Rennen.

The majority of the record’s 

poignant songs are placed at its 
opening. “Hard Liquor” is a pulsing, 
soulful track that peaks at the 
ringing harmonies of the chorus. 

Its sexy title and electronic layers 
are dulled by the surface-level, 
redundant lyrics. For example, 
he sings repetitively, “she needs 
her hard liquor/give her that hard 
liquor/and she’ll be ok.”

“Conrad,” the second of Rennen’s 

three singles, matures lyrically and 
maintains the bassy funk of the first 
track. Initially, it sounds like an 

80’s jam as SOHN 
croons, “I can feel 
it comin’ we can 
never go back” in a 
Michael 
Jackson-

esque tenor range. 
The 
production 

progresses into a synthy, frenetic 
collage that leads listeners into 
the 
meditative 
“Signal.” 
The 

anticlimactic third track is laced 
with 
an 
eastern-influenced 

riff — the only component that 
keeps listeners attention until it’s 
almost-cringey conclusion. 

“Dead Wrong” and “Primary” 

are at times both disjointed and 
screechy — the former shows wood-
clinking hints of a Glass Animals 
knock off, while “Primary” is 
grounded in unintriguing vocals 
and a generally messy electronic 
mix.

SOHN simmers down into an 

echoing piano ballad for the record’s 
eponymous track. Its ethereal call-
and-response vocals occasionally 
overlap into chill inducing, weepy 
harmonies. The layered voices 
act as a reminder of the depth and 
captivating energy that pervaded 
Tremors — a depth that Rennen, for 
the most part, lacks.

“Proof” attempts a last shot 

at this sensual appeal before the 
album winds down in its concluding 
tracks. Loaded with distorted oohs 
and ahs, creaky bass vibrations 
and intermittent audible exhales, 
“Proof” is enticing. Beyond 
its sexual surface — lines like 
“skin to skin … I know that 
you need me now” — SOHN 
suggests 
something 
deeper, 

sighing, “yeah, we believe in a 
system, a system but everybody 
knows it’s wrong.”

There 
is 
more 
brooding 

beneath the somber surface 
of 
Rennen’s 
concluding 

track, “Harbour,” as well. If 
listeners somehow make it to 
the last minute of this song 
(the last minute of the album, 
actually) they’ll be surprised 
by a sudden, suspense-inducing 
assault of pixelated noise. The 
conclusion of “Harbour” could 
effectively act as the the ending 
song of a “Mission Impossible” 
soundtrack – one that strikes 
when the screen goes black and 
reads, “to be continued.” It’s 
the type of frenzied song that 
beats in the background as the 
audience sits in a theatre, entranced 
by an uncalled-for finale.

The 
album’s 
finish 
will 

seldom be reached, though, 
for the majority of Rennen’s 
alluring ambiance occurs at the 
front end of the album. Beyond 
a 
handful 
of 
ear-perking 

melodies 
and 
invigorating 

beats, SOHN seems to have lost 
some of the electro-lushness 
that set the bar high for his 
follow up record.

AVERY FRIEDMAN

Daily Arts Writer

Worldstar and the insidious 

appeal of online schadenfreude

If you peruse the Internet 

endlessly like me, you are bound 
to have seen a viral video of a fight 
break out. It was probably recorded 
on a low-quality camera phone and 
has received thousands, possibly 
millions, 
of 
views. 

They can appear as 
either single clips or 
compilations, 
with 

the 
latter 
showing 

extended clips of other 
ridiculous stuff, like 
pranks gone wrong 
or outrageous public 
sexual 
acts. 
While 

videos 
of 
school 

and 
street 
fights 

are intended to be 
funny, they instead 
normalize violence by 
portraying a fight as 
entertainment.

One of the biggest outlets of 

these kinds of videos is WorldStar 
Hip Hop, a video blog that has 
been producing online content 
since 2005. As of 2013, WorldStar 
has garnered a large following, 
currently coming in at 1.76M 
followers on Twitter, nearly 7 
million likes on Facebook, 3.8 
million YouTube subscribers and 
7.2m 
followers 
on 
Instagram. 

With its multifaceted platform, 
WorldStar has pervaded nearly 
every facet of social media, playing 
a particularly influential role on the 
now-defunct Vine. 

WorldStar 
Hip 
Hop 
isn’t 

completely devoted to producing 
explicitly violent content; the site 
has been instrumental in promoting 
Black voices through music videos, 
intimate 
behind-the-scenes 

features, breathtaking rap battles 
and other original content. In fact, 
it reposts and shares many non-
violent videos that are genuinely 
funny and captivating. At the same 
time, though, it’s astonishing that 
WorldStar is mostly known for 
being unapologetic in distributing 
violent content.

Perhaps a counter argument 

would suggest that WorldStar is 
simply capturing the uncensored, 
unfiltered reality of certain public 
schools and neighborhoods in 
America. But the kind of violence 
in these videos are depicted as 
“shock value” humor, priming its 

viewers with a funny, eye-catching 
caption like “Racist Guys Attack An 
Interracial Couple In Washington 
State!” or “Dude Calls Classmate 
The “N” Word Then Runs For 
His Life Yelling “Help Me”!” By 

pulling viewers in with 
these insane headlines, 
people can laugh more 
easily at the misfortunes 
of whoever is getting 
punched, 
kicked 
or 

beaten in the video. 
There’s something so 
sinister 
about 
shock 

value that it makes you 
wonder why people find 
violence entertaining in 
the first place.

In addition to the 

brutal 
violence, 
what 

bothers me most about 

WorldStar videos, as well as its other 
amateur, copycat sites like Quality 
Fights (28.8k Twitter followers) 
and Vine Fights (165k Twitter 
followers), is that they perpetuate 
and generalize stereotypes about 
the people they depict in the video. 
Take Sharkeisha, for example. In 
November 2013, WorldStar posted 
a one-and-a-half minute clip from 
Instagram of a woman named 
Sharkeisha 
sucker-punching 
a 

friend, who seemed totally non-
confrontational in the video.

As the video circulated and 

gained millions of views, the 
Internet reacted in various ways. 
Some expressed shock, disgust 
and 
disbelief, 
including 
the 

family of ShaMichael Manuel, the 
woman who Sharkeisha sucker-
punched. According to a report 
from the New York Daily News, 
ShaMichael’s 
mother 
shunned 

people for “glorifying Sharkeisha” 
and simultaneously “taunting my 
daughter.” Others, however, were 
undeterred by the video’s violence, 
as Sharkeisha became a hit meme 
among Twitter and Vine users and 
even got her own definition on 
Urban Dictionary. On November 
27th, the day after the video was 
published, 
“Sharkeisha” 
had 

become the number one trending 
topic on Twitter and the third most 
searched keyword of the day on 
Google Trends. Nothing, not even 
Sharkeisha’s punching, seemed to 
stop the Internet from spreading 

her name everywhere.

At the time, the Sharkeisha 

phenomenon may have seemed 
like a humorous addition to the 
Internet’s world of strange viral 
videos. But as Hip Hop Wired 
pointed out in an article a day after 
the video’s release, people who find 
this funny will “think this is the 
sort of classless behavior typical 
of any and all Black women.” 
Sharkeisha may have an odd name 
and a physical strength unknown 
to mankind, but her sudden act of 
brutal violence against an innocent 
person, as promoted by WorldStar 
and other online outlets, is far 
from funny. It’s shameful not just 
for the way it depicts the violence 
and distorts the identity of the 
person who caused it, but also for 
neglecting the victim of the fight 
almost entirely. This is just one of 
many examples of popular videos 
that normalize and perpetuate 
unmediated 
violence 
without 

considering the consequences.

Why do we laugh at other 

people’s 
misfortunes? 
Do 
we 

genuinely find school fights and 
public embarrassment funny or 
are they so startling that they 
naturally elicit an uncomfortable 
chuckle? Are we so masochistic 
that our sense of morality has 
been completely drained by the 
devious inner workings of social 
media? The Internet is obsessed 
with violence, but this notion 
isn’t a new development. Across 
most mediums, people consume 
violent content, whether through 
staged fighting on WWE or the 
Transformers franchise. There’s 
even a movie coming out this 
year called “Fist Fight” about two 
grown-ass male teachers (played 
by Charlie Day and Ice Cube) who 
engage in a classic, old-school fight 
in front of their school. It’ll probably 
score big at the box office.

But what is most troubling about 

these videos, specifically the ones 
found on WorldStar’s website, is 
that they spread faster and become 
far more pervasive through social 
media. Watching people beat each 
other up is certainly a fascinating 
way to observe human behavior, but 
it’s not productive or entertaining 
in any way. To put it simply, it’s 
dangerous and needs to be stopped.

SAM 

ROSENBERG 

Social Media 

Columnist

SOCIAL MEDIA COLUMN
FILM REVIEW

A-

“Hidden Figures”

20th Century Fox

Rave Cinemas, 

Quality 16

INTERESTED IN WRITING FOR ARTS?
MASS MEETINGS — 7 P.M. ON 1/19, 
1/23, 1/26, 1/30 @ 420 MAYNARD

Any questions regarding the application process? Don’t hesitate to email us at 

anay@umich.edu or npzak@umich.edu

MUSIC REVIEW

Artist’s return to musical fold falls short of expectations
“Hidden Figures” 
understands that 
what goes unsaid 
is often what says 

it all

Even for viewers, 
“Hidden Figures” 
has the power to 
bring together 
communities

Rennen

SOHN

4AD

