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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

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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