‘Miseducation’ is relatable 
for some, important for all

The communal experience 

of seeing a movie in theaters 
is 
often 
underappreciated. 

It’s a good way to be more 
engaged with the film than 
alternating between Netflix on 
your computer and Twitter on 
your phone every 10 minutes. 
There’s a certain charm to 
watching the newest “Star 
Wars” 
or 
Marvel 
vehicle 

with 
a 
slap-happy, 
hype-

fed audience that makes an 
opening weekend blockbuster 
unforgettable. 
All 
movies 

don’t 
have 
action-packed 

conclusions 
and 
fulfilling 

endings though; some leave 
you still processing what just 
transpired for the last hour or 
two. The prevailing remark 
from most walking out of 
“Sorry to Bother You” was 
“what the fuck just happened,” 
while my fellow “Hereditary” 
goers 
mixed 
silence 
with 

shocked facial expressions.

And then there’s movies 

like 
“The 
Miseducation 
of 

Cameron Post,” movies that 
provoke people in the theater 
to exclaim “that’s it?” when the 
credits roll. This movie may 
wind up being a divisive film 
simply for the fact that one’s 
enjoyment of it is directly tied 
to how much it resonates with 
them — non-teen, non-queer 
audiences might just not get it. 
While it only taps into specific 
sensibilities, the movie still 
has an enriching, powerful 
message that everyone should 
appreciate.

The story follows the titular 

high schooler (Chloë Grace 
Moretz, “Neighbors 2: Sorority 
Rising”) in early ’90s Montana. 
An orphan who lives with her 
religious aunt, Cameron is 
sent to God’s Promise, a gay 
conversion 
therapy 
camp, 

after she’s caught making out 
with her friend Coley in the 
backseat of her boyfriend’s car 
during prom. What follows is 
not much, actually, as Cameron 
is forced to integrate into God’s 
Promise and adjust to this new 

life as scenes of high-intensity 
drama pepper the narrative.

This superficial mundanity 

is hard to peel away. But when 
the film manages to do so, it 
reveals a heart that is primarily 
concerned 
with 
Cameron 

coming to embrace her own 
identity 
and 
personhood. 

This is brought about, not 
by any life-changing event 
or transformation, but the 
world around her. Cameron’s 
arc may seem static, but she 
tacitly moves and adapts to her 
changing environment.

Nothing wraps up nicely 

in 
“The 
Miseducation 
of 

Cameron Post.” The trauma of 
the residents of God’s Promise 
is brought to the forefront only 
to be left there. Fellow campers 
Jane 
Fonda 
(Sasha 
Lane, 

“American Honey”) and Adam 
Red Eagle (Forrest Goodluck, 
“The Revenant”) make quick 
friends with Cameron and have 
similar inertia towards their 
own sexual orientations. They 
seem surprising targets to end 
up at God’s Promise — Jane was 
raised in a hippie commune 
and Adam believes in his 
tribe’s non-gender-conforming 
“two-spirit” philosophy — but 
they’re there regardless.

The camp itself is run by the 

kindhearted Reverend Rick, 
an “ex-gay” played by John 
Gallagher, 
Jr. 
(“The 
Belko 

Experiment”) in a satisfying 
subtle performance, and his 
sister, 
the 
oppressive 
Dr. 

Lydia March (Jennifer Ehle, 
“Fifty Shades Freed”). Rick is 
slowly revealed to be a tragic 
character himself, as he was 
a guinea pig for his sister to 
force upon the same brand of 

“therapy” that they now make 
a living off of. Meanwhile, 
Lydia is the closest thing “The 
Miseducation 
of 
Cameron 

Post” has to an antagonist 
(Adam labels her as a “Disney 
villain that doesn’t let you 
masturbate”), but she is not 
exactly a Nurse Ratched type 
that threatens Cameron with 
electroshock therapy.

In fact, “Cameron Post” 

has no fiery conclusion, no 
explosive confrontation that 
marks the peak of the action. 
It drapes itself with coming-
of-age tropes only to pull them 
away to unveil a wholly unique 
story when the 90-minute 
runtime comes to an end.

No one depicted in “The 

Miseducation 
of 
Cameron 

Post” is inherently evil; the 
only evil is the idea of such a 
conversion camp even existing 
(while it may seem far-fetched, 
facilities like the one depicted 
still exist to this day). Cameron, 
Jane, Adam and all the other 
campers are not physically 
mistreated at God’s Promise, 
only pushed to their emotional 
limits. And while some bend to 
the Christian rhetoric of the 
camp, others break.

After a traumatic event that 

leaves the campers scarred and 
the administrators questioning 
how it could have happened, a 
state investigator is sent in 
to monitor the conditions of 
the camp. In a conversation 
where he questions Cameron 
if there is any ongoing abuse, 
Cameron maintains that she is 
not being physically harmed, 
but raises the question: “How 
is 
programming 
people 
to 

hate themselves not emotional 
abuse?”

Therein lies the core of “The 

Miseducation 
of 
Cameron 

Post.” 
While 
Cameron’s 

story takes precedence, the 
emotional vignettes of the 
other 
teens 
she 
is 
newly 

surrounded 
by 
prove 
that 

although invisible, self-love 
and acceptance will always 
be a more powerful agent 
of positive change than any 
forced 
method 
manifested 

from hate.

ROBERT MANSUETTI

Daily Arts Writer

FILMRISE

“The 

Miseducation 
of Cameron 

Post”

State Theater

Filmrise

Death Cab for Cutie is no 
less emo on ‘Thank You’

ATLANTIC

FILM REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW

Every time one of my favorite 

artists releases a new album, 
I get a little nervous. It’s not 
necessarily because I don’t 
have faith in them to put out 
something mind-blowing; it’s 
just that I’m scared their new 
music will change how I view 
their discography as a whole 
and the memories I have with 
that band. The more music 
a band puts out, the more of 
themselves they’re exposing. 
In recent memory, bands like 
Arcade 
Fire, 
Interpol 
and 

Weezer have gone from debut 
albums that received critical 
acclaim to albums that received 
extremely mixed reviews, in 
many instances giving off the 
perception that the band sold 
out as not only musicians, but 
also people.

So when I heard the first 

single “Gold Rush” off of Death 
Cab for Cutie’s latest album 
Thank You for Today, I became 
a 
little 
nervous. 
The 
new 

song was catchy, but it felt so 
different from their previous 
work. I couldn’t tell if it was the 
Yoko Ono sample, or the lyrics, 
but it felt off. I didn’t want it to 
change the way I listen to Death 
Cab, the band that’s been with 
me through the majority of my 
emotional teenage life.

But the Death Cab that put 

out some of my favorite albums 
like Transatlanticism, The Photo 
Album and especially We Have 
the Facts and We’re Voting Yes 
is now over 20-years-old. To 
expect them to continue putting 
out the same music that they 
were putting out back then is to 
expect the band to refrain from 
any sort of musical growth — a 
band that lacks growth lacks 
maturity and artistry.

And grow they have. Not 

only does this album feature a 
completely new lineup for the 
band, with the departure of 
Chris Walla after 17 years of 
playing guitar and producing 
for the band, and the addition 
of Zac Rae and Dave Depper 
(who I had the privilege of 
interviewing last month), but 
also features a sound different 
from any Death Cab album in 
the past.

Although 
it 
could 
be 

compared to Narrow Stairs, 
the album features drastically 
different 
songwriting 
and 

sonic textures. They’ve never 

shied from incorporating keys 
and synths into their music, 
and the addition of a full-time 
keyboardist shines through in 
all of the new songs. In every 
song, there’s at least some sort 
of ambient pad backing things 

up, or a Rhodes electric piano 
accompanying guitar, or even 
acoustic piano. But although 
the core sounds of a Death Cab 
instrumental are there, it all 
still feels a little different.

Dave Depper does a great job 

at creating those lead guitar 
lines Chris Walla was so adept 
at, but some of the lines feel 
less risky. They feel like they’re 
missing a little bit of grit. 
Granted, this is a completely 
different album from some of 
Death Cab’s older, “heavier” 
stuff, but certain moments like 
the last half of “Summer Years,” 
brings back a little bit of that 
grit that Death Cab used so well, 
and so sparingly. The songs are 
catchy, but not too corny (with 
the 
exception 
of 
“Autumn 

Love,” which may be one of 
Death Cab’s weakest songs.)

But, Nick Harmer and Jason 

McGerr continue to hold it down 
in the rhythm section, giving 
performances as solid as any 
previous Death Cab record. The 
band sounds different, but the 
new members seem to make it 
sound more complete. However, 
Walla’s production touch still 
feels a little bit lost. One thing 
that really stood out about 
Death Cab records was how 
crisp and dynamic they were. 
Thank You For Today seems a 
little more compressed than 
previous records, but still feels 
clear. However, contemporary 
indie rockers Foxing’s most 
recent record, Nearer My God, 
which was produced by Walla, 
is unsurprisingly comparable to 
old Death Cab records.

However, as good as their 

songs are instrumentally, the 
band is nothing without Ben 
Gibbard’s lyricism and sense 
of songwriting. Best known for 
writing lyrics that span from 
overwhelmingly depressing to 
incredibly romantic, Gibbard’s 
role as the lead vocalist and 

songwriter in the group is 
a position that has gained 
widespread fame for the group.

Originally, I thought that one 

of my biggest complaints about 
this record was going to be the 
lack of growth from a band 
that has been around almost as 
long as I have been alive. And 
while they have grown slightly 
instrumentally, 
Gibbard’s 

vocals and songwriting ability 
have aged like a fine wine. His 
voice somehow has gotten more 
delicate and smooth as he has 
aged.

But the biggest contribution 

Gibbard has on this record 
are his lyrics. My initial draw 
to Death Cab as an angsty 
teenager was Gibbard’s songs 
about 
heartbreak, 
love 
and 

relationships, but hearing a 
married 40-year-old sing about 
those things would feel kind of 
weird. Luckily, as Gibbard has 
matured, so have the basis of his 
lyrics (I used to joke about how 
happy I was when he and Zooey 
Deschanel split because of how 
good his lyrics were when he 
was in a sadder state, as cruel as 
that sounds).

Although 
Ben’s 
happily 

married again, he still sings 
about things he’s passionate 
about. The first single from 
the album, “Gold Rush,” for 
example, is about the expansion 
of the tech industry in the 
band’s 
hometown. 
Although 

the message might be kind of 
overdone (see: get off your stupid 
phone, you dumb kids), it’s done 
in a fresh and compelling way. 
Songs like “When We Drive” 
and “60 & Punk” feel more 
grown 
up, 
commenting 
on 

relationships and realizing that 
your idols aren’t as great as you 
once thought they were.

After the first few listens, I 

was getting ready to talk about 
the regression of one of my 
favorite bands. But the more I 
put off writing this and listened 
to the record, the more those 
bad comments started to turn 
into good ones. A lot of people 
are likely to give this record a 
listen and write it off as being 
a mediocre indie rock record. 
But it deserves more credit. 
When you listen to this in the 
context of the rest of the band’s 
discography, 
it’s 
clear 
that 

while the band has maintained 
the elements that brought them 
such critical acclaim, they’re 
also embracing the modern era 
of music they find themselves 
in.

RYAN COX

Daily Arts Writer

Thank You For 

Today 

Death Cab for 

Cutie

Atlantic Records

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW 

RCA

Donald Glover, better known 

musically by his pseudonym, 
Childish Gambino, has existed 
alone on an island in the corner 
of the hip-hop world since his 
first mixtape, Camp. Technically 
speaking, he isn’t tied to any 
of the rap conglomerates of 
his peers, like Kanye West’s 
G.O.O.D. Music Label or Drake’s 
OVO Sound Label. What’s more, 
his prominence can’t really be 
credited to anyone but himself, 
something that cannot be said 
for artists like Chance the 
Rapper and Travis Scott, who 
received endorsements from 
already established acts during 
their come-ups. In short, Glover 
is a lone wolf. This status affords 
him a unique perspective in the 
hip-hop world, one through 
which he can neutrally observe 
trends; this lense is exposed in 
the newly released music video 
for his melancholic sunset track, 
“Feels Like Summer.”

The video in a nutshell: An 

animated Glover, looking jaded 
with tired eyes and a rugged 

beard, strolls down a suburban 
street with headphones in his 
ears and hands in his pockets. 
Around him, prominent figures 

in hip hop take part in various 
scenes that insightfully speak 
on the state of the popular genre 
today. Drake chases Future, 
who rides into the sunset on a 
bicycle; Nicki Minaj and Travis 
Scott 
play 
with 
children’s 

blocks; Lil Pump and Trippie 
Redd skip around like toddlers 
and seek attention from 21 
Savage and Kodak Black; most 
interestingly, Michelle Obama 
comforts a crying Kanye West. 
Through it all, Glover looks 
tired and almost desperate for a 
new order.

Through 
these 
images, 

Glover brilliantly allegorizes the 
hip-hop world in 2018: Drake 
owes much of his prominence 
to Future’s influence; Lil Pump 
and Trippie Redd compete with 
acts like 21 Savage and Kodak 
Black, but have a significantly 
less 
mature 
image; 
Nicki 

Minaj has been bickering over 
Astroworld’s dominance of her 
Queen; Kanye West infamously 
made major waves with a Trump 
endorsement over the summer. 
Amidst all of hubbub, Glover 
has remained a true boundary-
pushing artist while avoiding 
negative press and trivial feuds, 
relying solely on his talent by 
embracing the aforementioned 
lone wolf characteristic. Based 
on the emphatic images of 
his new music video, it seems 
Glover has also been a silent 
observer of the music world 
around him, steering clear of 
the bad, learning from the good 
and establishing himself as hip 
hop’s wise man.

-Mike Watkins, Daily Arts 

Writer

“Feels Like 
Summer”

Childish Gambino

RCA

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, September 6, 2018 — 5

