The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, January 19, 2018 — 5
I
love
period
dramas.
I
love everything about them:
gorgeous cinematography of old
cities, scores with music I’ve
come to associate with growing
up despite it being much before
my time, transatlantic accents
when
appropriate.
I
love
thinking about all of the work
that goes into making sure
they’re true to the times they’re
portraying. It’s fun to trace
history through the details of a
story: trying to guess what part
of a decade a film is set in based
on the eyeliner and lipstick, on
the hemlines and hairstyles,
on whether everything in the
kitchen is matching pastels or
eclectic earth-tones, on the
tiny gestures of femininity or
chivalry that we’ve grown up
seeing on big screens.
Basically,
I
binge
“Mad
Men” and rewatch “Pride and
Prejudice” like The New Yorker
is paying me to.
But after watching some of the
newer cinematic offerings of the
past couple months, I couldn’t
help but compare two that have
almost nothing in common —
Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel” and “Darkest Hour” —
precisely for how each handled
those minute details. I’m talking,
almost exclusively, about how
and what we see in the vanity
mirrors, the cosmetics scattered
throughout the women’s rooms
(and,
of
course,
everything
they metaphorically represent).
Because I’ve started to tire of
the easier moves that some of
these dramas are employing.
“Mrs. Maisel” is set in the
late 1950s, following the title
character,
Midge
(Rachel
Brosnahan “House of Cards”),
a young Jewish housewife who
discovers a talent for stand-up
when her gleamingly perfect
life begins to unravel. “Darkest
Hour” is a film about Winston
Churchill that provides, among
other things, a look into the
political underside of the plot of
“Dunkirk.”
“Darkest
Hour,”
eerily
reminiscent in some scenes
of
Spielberg’s
“Lincoln,”
included two female characters:
Churchill’s
secretary,
a
complete and unabashed cliché,
and his wife Clementine, the
only character who seems to
truly “get” him. Very limited,
perfunctory attention was paid
to the secretary’s lines and
direction; with Clementine, they
tried harder. There are a few
moments where she gets to show
a glimmer of understanding
about her husband, typically
withheld from other people. In
one scene, we see her sit in front
of her vanity mirror. She looks
worn, almost haggard, looking at
her reflection; her eyes are lined
with soft charcoal, and face
powder is lifting a little from
her skin. Various concealing
cosmetics are scattered artfully
around her vanity table. There is
a quiet sort of grace around her;
we see her breathe deeply in, out
— and then she reenters public
life, wearing a uniform for a
photo shoot to inspire women to
do their part.
It was a quietly touching
scene, but it came nowhere
near the poignancy it was
going for simply because we’ve
seen that exact scene formula
time and again. An intimate,
feminized instance of privacy,
of strength and vulnerability,
surrounded and framed by the
accoutrements of femininity or
“womanhood” — moments like
those are littered throughout
period dramas, both the good
and the bad. They’re easy
to do, so they’re given more
weight than they should, and
because they’re so familiar,
they’re easily accepted without
critical examination. They’re
perfunctory at this point and
almost self-indulgent.
Part of what I found so
compelling
about
“The
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was
the funny and fresh take on
moments like those, portrayed
in a totally different light. We get
to see Midge wake up next to her
husband, Joel, under the sunlight
that she has strategically let
shine through her window onto
her face. She scurries to the
bathroom, freshens up, undoes
her hair rollers and applies
makeup, and then goes back to
bed and pretends to wake up
with her alarm. Later on in the
season, we watch her mother
do the same thing. They both
perform their nightly cosmetic
rituals after their husbands are
asleep. In one of the episodes,
when Midge finds herself having
an impromptu make-out session
with Joel, she stops him abruptly,
with a serious look on her face,
and tells him she has something
important to tell him. Confused,
and distracted, Joel urges her to
spit it out — and she informs him
that she had spent years secretly
undoing every other button on
her corset before having sex so
that it wouldn’t take him too
long to do it himself.
These moments are set to
music, and aren’t at all rushed:
They’re given the space they
deserve.
And
they’re
not
framed didactically — there’s
no
disapproving
shadow
of
judgment cast over the women
who partake in behaviors meant
to make themselves as appealing
and faultless to men as possible.
These scenes breathe.
Both “Maisel” and “Darkest
Hour” have been criticized for
some
historical
inaccuracies
(“Darkest Hour” has also been
criticized on other accounts,
such as not truly conveying the
trajectory of the relationship
between
Winston
Churchill
and the English people), which
I would be remiss for not
mentioning. But these moments
in “Maisel” are so compelling
that I was willing to forgive
some of them anyway.
Whose self-indulgent
vanity mirror is it, really?
GENDER & MEDIA COLUMN
SOPHIA
KAUFMAN
Carlina Duan’s identity in
‘I Wore My Blackest Hair’
In “I Wore My Blackest
Hair,” Carlina Duan conjures
up a richly textured jewel box
of poems, each one offering
a glimpse into a world that
is both lushly strange and
heartrendingly intimate. These
poems
are
filled
with
the
mystical — a girl transformed
into a bird, the body conceived
of as an ocean or a feral animal
— and the mundane — moons,
rain,
teeth,
cups
of
milk.
Through them, Duan wrestles
brilliantly with what it means to
be suspended between cultures,
continents, ages and the polar
forces of hope and loss.
Duan, an Ann Arbor native
who received her BA from the
University and is currently
pursuing an MFA at Vanderbilt
University, wrote most of the
poems that appear in this book
for her undergraduate honors
thesis. The book is in many
ways a coming of age narrative
that examines the meaning of
girlhood, the adventures and
misadventures of romantic love
and the attempt to understand,
as Duan put it in a phone
interview with The Daily, “Who
your parents were before they
were your parents.” Duan says
that the original inspiration
for the project was the idea
of
girlhood:
“I
was
really
interested in interrogating that
idea of girlhood and seeing
how it could be expanded,
specifically as someone who
maybe doesn’t fit this box of
American girlhood. To me,
coming of age felt so ripe and
so essential to what a lot of
the book ends up being about,
because of the courage and
the fear and the rage and the
adrenaline and the total joy that
it takes to be able to be inside a
body and inhabit that space and
then grow up beyond it.”
Duan is the child of Chinese
immigrants, and the ambiguity
of existing between cultures is
a common thread through many
of her poems: “I was thinking a
lot about the uniqueness of being
born in the United States and yet
born to immigrant parents, and
all of the thousand ways that
my girlhood was influenced. As
I got older a lot of the questions
that I had about girlhood
revolved around that friction
of
Chinese
and
American
identity, and wondering when
I looked around myself in the
larger world why there were all
these monolithic boxes of what
identity was.” In her poems,
Duan aims to break down those
boxes and reclaim the liminal
space between them.
Although
the
poems
in
this collection were written
before the 2016 election and
the
subsequent
upswing
in
public declarations of American
xenophobia,
“I
Wore
My
Blackest Hair” is remarkably
current in its expression of
anxiety regarding what it means
to belong in this country and
who gets to decide. Although
Duan doesn’t consider herself a
political poet, she said that “all
poetry is inherently political,”
and believes in “The power of
poetry to open up windows of
conversation.”
Although
the
incidents
of
blatant
racism
depicted in this book are largely
autobiographical and indicate
a bleak contemporary reality,
Duan’s outlook is altogether
hopeful.
As
much
as
she
exposes moments of ugliness,
she also revels in the beauty of
connection and the power of
family and culture.
“This
book
is
definitely
tapping into a longer ongoing
conversation of a history of
violence, but I would also say
a larger history of love in this
country, and the attempts and
the misattempts to love through
language, or when we fail to use
language and language becomes
violence,” Duan said. In these
poems, many of which code-
switch between English and
Chinese, language is the most
powerful force, for both harm
and healing.
Duan could be considered
a poet of place; much of this
collection is set in Ann Arbor,
and
Duan
considers
her
hometown “a part of my poetic
obsession.” But her conception
of home in these poems is
complex,
tied
not
only
to
physical land but also to webs of
family and culture and language.
The poems in this collection are
concerned as much with place
as they are with displacement,
what it means to be severed
from the people and places
you love. In her meditations on
place and displacement, Duan
plays an emotional note that is
at once intimately specific and
surprisingly universal: the need
for belonging and the longing
for home. As a whole, “I Wore
My Blackest Hair” speaks to
what might be the most human
of desires: to “love all I love /
with my wide open mouth / I
bite down bite down / & keep
biting I don’t / spit any of it /
out.”
JULIA MOSS
Daily Arts Writer
TINDERBOX POETRY JOURNAL
‘Alone Together’ amuses
despite its inadequacies
In a world full of brand deals,
Instagram models, green juice
and hipster millennials, it’s
rare to come across originality
in media. Yet, in a strange turn
of events, Freeform’s newest
comedy, “Alone Together,” is
not only able to accomplish
that kind of authenticity but
also simultaneously subvert
and
embrace
mainstream
L.A. culture. That’s not to
say, though, that the pilot was
some immense success, that
the show fits in on Freeform
or that “Alone Together” is a
series for everyone — but hey,
at least it has some potential.
The series, written by and
starring
Esther
Povitsky
(“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) and
Benji
Aflalo
(“City
Girl”),
follows two platonic aspiring
comedians in their attempts
at
adulting,
navigating
the conceit of the city and
constantly dodging the “are
you two dating?” question.
The duo — characteristically
the same person, just different
genders — makes it through
the first episode by staying
loyal and having each other’s
backs while still calling each
other out on their bullshit.
A round of applause is most
definitely in order for Povitsky,
Aflalo and Eben Russell (“New
Girl”)
as
co-writers.
The
sharp one-liners and moments
of
pure,
eccentric
hilarity
are somehow able to trump
the show’s flaws enough to
persuade me to follow up next
week. In fact, the writing in
a show meant to mock the
status-obsessed
nature
of
young Hollywood is probably
so spot-on that it seems like
the script was based on the
authentic lives of eager stand-
up comedians themselves.
That is, I’m not entirely
sure that Povitsky and Aflalo
needed to star in the show as
well as dream up the humor
behind it. The delivery of the
jokes was often too awkward,
making
me
wonder
how
much more connected to the
characters I would feel if the
acting was more polished and
nuanced.
Esther’s
Cali-girl
tone and millennial whining
were exaggerated to the point
of annoyance, and Benji was
never truly given a moment to
shine as anything other than
Esther’s sidekick and self-
deprecating best friend.
Moreover, “Alone Together”
just feels majorly out of place
on Freeform — a network
that usually contains more
well-rounded characters and
investigative storylines. The
layout of this half-hour comedy
seemed choppy and jumbled,
as so many different, wacky
scenarios took place in such
a short amount of time. I was
left feeling a little confused
and unsure about the show’s
plot direction. How is it that
Esther and Benji jump from
being on the getaway from
Esther’s
chaotic
one-night
stand to ordering wellness
shots and spirulina crisps from
a quintessential L.A. juice bar
to Esther wanting to become
an escort in order to boost
her self-esteem? I’m still not
following that train of events.
The show itself is unclear
about its motive as a comedy.
Is the premise centered on
two comedians trying to make
it big in a city of stars, or is it
focused on Esther and Benji’s
possible and highly anticipated
future relationship? Hopefully,
we’ll find out as the season
progresses, though I’m not
entirely sure which run-of-
the-mill route I’d prefer.
In the end, by no means is
“Alone Together” a show that
all audiences would welcome
into their weekly schedules.
As a matter of fact, I think you
have to be a social media fiend
and sometimes a self-doubting
millennial yourself to truly
understand and appreciate the
comedy. The playful banter
and loving yet brash criticism
that
overwhelms
most
of
Esther and Benji’s encounters
is oddly familiar and twistedly
endearing for a millennial
like me. And while the basis
of the show was cluttered,
“Alone Together” does enough
in wittiness and relatability
in order for me to reconsider
watching it when in need of
some mindless TV.
“Alone
T
ogether”
Series Premiere
Wednesdays @
8:30 p.m.
Freeform
NETFLIX
MORGAN RUBINO
Daily Arts Writer
EnspiRED fashion show
ENSPIRED
University
of
Michigan
organization EnspiRED Runway
will be hosting their 12th annual
charity
fashion
show,
RAW,
on Saturday, Jan. 27 at the
Biomedical
Science
Research
Building.
The show will feature students
modeling clothes created by local
designers.
General
admission
tickets are available for 15 dollars,
while Gold VIP (one front row
seat, one gift bag, access to pre-
show festivities and admission to
the afterparty) and Platinum VIP
(catered dinner, one front row
seat, one gift bag, access to pre-
show festivities and admission
to the afterparty) are available
for 25 dollars and 35 dollars,
respectively. All profits from this
year’s show will be donated to
Ozone House, an Ypsilanti-based
nonprofit that provides at-risk
youth with housing and intensive
intervention
and
prevention
services.
“I’m so excited for everyone to
experience what EnspiRED has
created,” said Skylar Wilkes, one
of EnspiRED’s public relation
chairs and an LSA sophomore.
“The people on e-board have so
much love for each other and this
show, and I know that will come
across to the audience. Without
giving too much away, this show
is one that hopefully everyone
will relate to. It’s more than
fashion and great music. RAW has
meaning and purpose behind it.”
The runway show begins at
7 p.m., while doors open at 5:30
p.m. and VIP pre-show festivities
start at 6:00 p.m. Tickets may
be purchased here or at any
upcoming
EnspiRED
events
to avoid online fees. For more
information
about
EnspiRED
Runway, visit their Facebook
page. For more information about
Ozone House, visit ozonehouse.
org.
TESS GARCIA
Daily Style Editor