It’s nine on Sunday morning, and Eileen 

is going to mass with Simon. They’ve 
known each other for a very long time — 
since they were teenagers. They’ve shared 
a romantic interlude in Paris, only to part 
for years after. They’ve woken up in bed 
together this morning.

It’s both a notable and unexciting event, 

the sort that Eileen, nearing 30, clings to. 
The moment happens in her head more 
than in reality, in her heart. She watches 
this man she’s loved for some time now 
sing his praises to someone he’s never 
met, joined by the chorus of believers. She 
watches him pray. He kisses her on the 
cheek, and they say goodbye. In an email 
to her friend Alice, Eileen wonders, “Do 
I resent him for liking the concept of God 
more than he likes me?”

Alice is far from her friends in Dublin. 

She’s chosen to rent a house in the Irish 
countryside after a stint in a psychiatric 
hospital. She’s not working. She’s not 
writing a new novel, which is what she 
usually does in these private spaces far 
from the world. She has plenty of money, 
no car, no interest in resuming her old life in 
the city. Soon she meets a man named Felix 
and brings him along on a publicity tour 
in Rome for her last novel. They sleep in 
separate bedrooms for the first few nights.

In an email to Eileen, Alice asks, “But 

what would it be like to form a relationship 
with no preordained shape of any kind? 
Just to pour the water out and let it fall. I 
suppose it would take no shape, and run off 
in all directions.”

“Beautiful World, Where Are You,” the 

third novel by acclaimed Irish author Sally 
Rooney, is not “Normal People.” For Alice 
and Eileen, years have passed since the 
clarity and confusion of youthful romance. 
They believe themselves to be passed that 
stage of thrilling uncertainty. They’re in 
their late 20s; life should be happening by 
now, settled in some way, meaningful in 
some way. It’s not. Is the meaning still to 
come, or has the moment passed?

That touch of adolescent excitement, 

which Rooney played to perfection in 
“Normal People,” is used sparingly in 
“Beautiful World.” Alice and Eileen debate 
whether they should be thrilled by their 
lives, but they don’t often feel thrilled. 
In their email correspondence, which 
runs through the spine of the novel, they 
discuss looming topics in distant regard to 

themselves — the bleak hum of capitalism; 
the tepid reality of one’s career; the goes-
both-ways struggle of friendship and love. 
These are not new topics for Rooney, but 
they’re renewed, reworked for characters 
settling into the dire prospect that life lasts 
longer than 20 or so years. 

But the spirit of Rooney’s unintrusive 

narration is as stunning as ever: “Driving 
back that night, the crescent moon 
lopsided and golden like a lifted saucer of 
champagne, the top buttons of her blouse 
were undone, she put her hand inside, 
touching her breastbone, they were talking 
about children, she had never wanted any 
before, but lately she wondered…” It doesn’t 
matter which character this is — you know 
them at once. You know where they are, 
what they want, what they think they 
want.

Rooney is unmatched in her style, in the 

immersive draw of her prose. She doesn’t 
use quotation marks. She doesn’t stunt a 
lucid clause by binding it to a full sentence. 
In “Normal People,” this feeling of presence 
sometimes became a grotesque thing, a 
stunning intensity. How many conflicts 
could have been resolved if Marianne and 
Connell chose to speak their minds?

But in “Beautiful World,” we are less 

often challenged to criticize than to 
concord in silence. These lives are not 
so simple, so young, so defined by the 
question of whether to speak or not to 
speak. Simon and Eileen’s connection is not 
new, it’s known: “And their phone calls, the 
messages they wrote to one another, their 
jealousies, the years of looks, suppressed 
smiles, their dictionary of little touches … 
This much was in their eyes and passed 
between them.”

And here we are with another story 

about knowing someone, being known by 
someone. We find ourselves once more 
treading in that deep water, only now we’re 
further from the shore:

“I just want everything to be like it was, 

Eileen said. And for us to be young again 
and live near each other, and nothing to 
be different. Alice was smiling sadly. But if 
things are different, can we still be friends? 
she asked … Crescent moon hanging low 
over the dark water. Tide returning now 
with a faint repeating rush over the sand. 
Another place, another time.”

Readers will be initially disappointed to 

hear that Rooney hasn’t written another 
“Normal People.” She’s written something 
better: an honest account of the motion of 
life, the march forward, the dissolution of 
pride and self-assurance.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 — 5

Sandra Oh in a frumpy coat with 

her wonderfully curly hair puffed up 
is Hollywood catnip. I don’t know why 
Oh can never have a well-fitted trench, 
but she’s legally prohibited. The more 
functional and disheveled the coat, the 
better.

The industry trend holds true as 

Sandra Oh dons a lovely Lands’ End 
toggle wool jacket in “The Chair,” a 
comedy-drama set at a fictional Ivy 
League school. 

Debilitatingly funny and touching, 

“The 
Chair” 
essentializes 
higher 

education: 
overworked 
teacher’s 

assistants, anxious students, professors 
in crisis, the politics of tenure. The 
show lovingly documents the current 
state of academia through the story 
of one recently promoted department 
chair. 

Ji-Yoon 
(Sandra 
Oh, 
“Grey’s 

Anatomy”) 
enters 
as 
the 
English 

department is in decline. Enrollment 
is down, and the department’s aging 
professors can’t relate to or retain 
students. Gifted a desk plate that is 
endearingly inscribed with “fucker in 
charge of you fucking fucks,” Ji-Yoon is 

tasked with whipping the department 
into shape.

However, 
Ji-Yoon 
is 
first 
and 

foremost an educator, and not equipped 
to spar with administration politically. 
When upper management demands she 
get three older professors to resign, 
Ji-Yoon scrambles to modernize the 
professors’ syllabi. But her efforts lead 
to more confusion and unhappy peers.

At home, Ji-Yoon lives alone with 

her adopted daughter Juju (Everly 
Carganilla, “Yes Day”). Scenes with 
Juju anchor the series and provide a 
much-needed relief from wood-paneled 
offices. But the domestic scenes do more 
than contrast the elite, academic setting. 
Instead, home scenes substantiate the 
show’s ultimate thesis about being 
overwhelmed. Through interweaving 
the personal and the professional, 
“The Chair” understands Ji-Yoon as a 
multifaceted individual: a busy mother, 
a daughter, an employee and a friend.

Ji-Yoon often has to drop her 

daughter off at her elderly Korean 
father’s house. The interplay between 
Juju, Ji-Yoon and her grandfather 
Habi (Ji-Yong Lee, “Righteous Ties”) 
is absolutely fantastic and wholesome. 
Some of the funniest and most touching 
moments 
feature 
Juju, 
hilarious 

and 
frighteningly 
self-composed, 

contrasted with Habi and his constant 
bewilderment. Habi easily makes the 
list of top five television grandparents. 
Characters like Juju and Habi justify 
The Atlantic heralding “The Chair” as 
“Netflix’s best drama in years.”

But in the end, overcommitted and 

spread too thin, Ji-Yoon finds herself 
constantly unprepared to show up in 
a satisfactory way for the people she 
cares about.

And that’s the show. “The Chair” 

is about professional disappointment: 
negotiating wins and losses, taking 
responsibility for thoughtlessness. But 
unlike other workplace TV shows that 
glorify the grind and hard work, “The 
Chair” presents a startlingly simple 
solution to the impossible Gordian knot 
of professional obligation and personal 
responsibility: quit.

No one person has all the hours in the 

day to be a leader, an attentive mother, a 
good friend and a teacher. Throughout 
the series, no matter how much harder 
Ji-Yoon tries, and despite her brilliance 
and her willingness to compromise, the 
reality is that Ji-Yoon is unhappy trying 
to fulfill her obligations. 

The show’s thesis is bolstered by 

its lucid understanding of academia’s 
contradictions. One might adore the cold 
snap of winter and trekking across a quad 

immersed in literature, but no gamely 
exploration of Chaucer with a passionate 
professor can paste over students’ keen 
awareness of how wrong and broken the 
world is. The show resists the urge to 
make ivory tower politics seem absurd 
or the result of “snowflake undergrads” 
in need of “reality checks.”

How relevant is an English degree 

when the California state forests 
are 
burning? 
How 
can 
college 

campuses serve as both a vanguard 

of liberalism and theoretical thought 
while simultaneously being capitalist 
institutions that invest in Big Oil? 

The conflicts Ji-Yoon faces are all 

outgrowths of the turbulent present 
and higher education’s contradictions. 
“The 
Chair” 
doesn’t 
reconcile 
or 

directly respond to these questions, but 
instead validates them as queries. In a 
true collegiate fashion, the show says: 
“Great question, does anyone else have 
thoughts?”

 
“He’s All That” is a meta-exploration 

of what it means to be and stay famous. 
Though the film is almost an exact 
replica of the ’90s classic “She’s All 
That,” it fails to romanticize the teen 
experience in the same way.

The modern update of the film stars 

TikTok personality Addison Rae (“Spy 
Cat”) as Padgett Sawyer, this century’s 
Zack Siler (Freddie Prinze Jr., “Scooby-
Doo”). She’s a Southern California-
based teen influencer whose social 
status is in peril when she loses her cool 

on Instagram Live after walking in on 
her cheating boyfriend. She loses her 
sponsorship, watches her follower count 
plummet and decides that the only 
logical solution is to bet that she can 
make a certified “dork” named Cameron 
Kweller (Tanner Buchanan, “Chance”), 
the next prom king.

It’s a classic story with a classic 

solution and, inevitably, Padgett and 
Cameron develop feelings for each 
other. The antics that bring Padgett 
and her pet project together are sweet 
— they scoop poop together, reveal 
inane secrets (like how Padgett’s mom 
is a nurse or that Cameron likes to take 
pictures) and do all the things teens do 

when falling in love in an hour and a half 
on our computer screens. While “He’s 
All That” is not a story for the ages, Rae 
is a surprisingly good actress, offering 
a level of sincerity and emotion that we 
don’t often see in the TikTok videos the 
star is famous for.

Predictably, this film is interesting 

only to the extent that it can be 
compared to the original. For instance, 
the fact that a social media landscape 
even exists in “He’s All That” drastically 
changes the dynamics of the plot. The 
stakes are arguably higher for Padgett 
than they were for Zack. While Zack’s 
reputation as cool guy du jour in the 
original is under the watchful eye of 
maybe three thousand people, four if 
we’re being generous, Padgett’s fall 
from glory is seen by between eight 
hundred thousand and nine hundred 
thousand people and a critical corporate 
representative. “The bet,” for Zack, is a 
way to get his mind off the blonde who 
broke his heart. For Padgett, it’s the 
difference between securing her college 
tuition or drowning in student debt.

No matter how funny it is that they 

made Cameron a horse-boy instead 
of a falafel-slinger, Netflix can’t just 
let a movie be a movie. The streaming 
company’s favorite thing to do is 
make sure its characters have a moral 
awakening — “He’s All That” is no 
different. The issue here, however, is 
that there is simply no way to make a 
movie starring influencers without 
inadvertently 
insulting 
the 
very 

thing that got them the part in the 
first place. Early in their friendship, 
Cameron criticizes Padgett’s need 
to document everything in her life, 
allowing Netflix to eventually drive 
home the tired message that what 
we see on social media is not the full 
picture.

While this lesson is positive enough, 

it’s marred by the fact that Addison 
Rae is an influencer herself and on a 
much larger scale than her character. 
She has no credits to her name beyond 
“A-list 
TikToker” 
and 
“Kourtney 

Kardashian’s friend.” She boasts 83.5 
million followers on TikTok and close to 
40 million on Instagram. What’s more, 
Rae was at the center of a social media 
cheating scandal with YouTuber Bryce 
Hall that had people taking sides and 
making catchy hashtags in the same 
way they did for Padgett after her messy 
public breakup.

But though these similarities make 

it hard to take Netflix’s high-minded 
scheming seriously, Addison Rae is a 
different story. As one of her first forays 
into a more “traditional” Hollywood 
career, “He’s All That” establishes the 
TikToker as a viable option for other 
films in the future, bringing with her 
a stable following for which studio 
executives will probably salivate. So, 
while I doubt many of us have plans 
to watch this film as religiously as the 
original, I also won’t be surprised if 
Addison Rae becomes a Netflix cast 
staple. 

I was obsessed with the true and false binary for 

a very brief period in the summer of 2019. These 
binary statements meant everything when coding 
my research on a computer-generated analysis of 
Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics (I know that’s a little 
too theatre kid, but bear with me). Knowing how to 
categorize words in a productive way felt impossible 
without using something so strict as a true-and-
false parameter. 

Coding is not easy, especially when it comes to 

artificial intelligence. In a world of tech secrecy, 
using a binary doesn’t cut it. Binaries don’t work 
on complex modern problems. There is a spectrum 
of solutions needed to give AI the chance to shine. 
With restrictive AI practices, there is a world of gray 
that is hard to clear out.

However, “Stephanie Dinkins: On Love and Data” 

is anything but just gray. It’s neon yellow, deep violet 
and a spectrum of what AI is here and now.

At the School of Art & Design Stamps Gallery 

downtown, “Stephanie Dinkins: On Love and 
Data,” curated by Gallery Director Srimoyee Mitra, 
celebrates Dinkins’s manifesto of “Afro-now-ism”: 
an active statement for what art and tech should be 
against systemic oppression. 

Mitra pulls from Dinkins’s most recent works to 

create a place where visitors can experience AI that 
fosters community and generational storytelling.

One of the most technically complex exhibits 

comes in the form of a dialogue. “Conversations 
with Bina48: Fragments 7, 6, 5, 2” is the recorded 
in-person, 
face-to-face 
interaction 
between 

Stephanie Dinkins and advanced social robot Bina48 
(short for “Breakthrough Intelligence via Neural 
Architecture”). The four clips of conversations last 
about a minute each — yet, as you listen, you can 
hear the repetitive nature of AI emulating personal 
thought. They touch on love, life and Bina herself, 
who is perhaps the only robot who is a Black woman. 

Bina speaks with complex, long sets of 

statements. She circles around a point, shading it 
into existence rather than painting it all at once. 
If not for the stark image of Dinkins and Bina’s 
faces inches from touching, I might not have felt 
the intimate nature of their connection. Their 
proximity was magnetic, seeing the subtlety of 
Dinkins compared to the more simulated nature of 
Bina’s delivery. 

This piece, like most in the exhibit, is in that 

exciting space of ongoing: not quite final, ever-
changing. The nature of AI makes projects hard 
to complete — how can they be finished, when AI 
is evolving every second? Changing, adapting and 
radicalizing new ways to dismantle and connect; if 
anything, this constant growth gives the collection 
a sense of unity. Everything’s in action. Sensors, 
speakers and AI harmonize to create a holistic 
image of technology that electrifies.

“Secret Garden” is the culmination of this 

action. An immersive installation of projectors 
and speakers illustrates three generations of Black 
women’s power and their stories. The use of space 
and projection breathes life into the space. A 
woman is seen ducking to the sides of a corner, and 
the projected background is composed of flora that 
highlights the space the women hold together. It 
perfectly embodies the women’s stories — stories 
of resilience and power in the face of generational 
inequality. 

Binaries are stupid. When it comes time to create 

content, whether coded or not, I shouldn’t depend 
on something so limited. It’s time to think about 
how tech can bring power to communities that have 
often been hurt by coding practices. “Stephanie 
Dinkins: On Love and Data” shows how and what 
AI should be.

Open at the Stamps Gallery until Oct. 23, it is 

worth seeing Dinkins in a league of her own.

Sandra Oh is the “fucker in charge” in Netflix’s ‘The Chair’

Addison Rae is the latest victim of the rom-com genre’s 

gambling addiction in ‘He’s All That’

Sally Rooney’s ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ is 

required reading

‘Stephanie 

Dinkins: On Love 
and Data’ shows 
AI as it should be

This image is from the official trailer for “The Chair,” produced by Netflix.

ELIZABETH YOON
Managing Arts Editor

EMMA CHANG
Daily Arts Writer

JULIAN WRAY
Daily Arts Writer

MATTHEW EGGERS

Daily Arts Writer

This image is from the official trailer for “He’s All That,” distributed by Netflix.

Design by Madison Grosvenor

