Upon walking into The Fillmore
in downtown Detroit, one is
greeted by many vestiges of the
past. An illuminated marquee
lined with individual light bulbs
juts out from an ornately decorated
facade.
Inside,
geometrically
pieced archways soar over the
grand atrium, and individually
numbered exit signs are collages
of stained glass. History lines
the concert hall: Medieval-esque
suits of armor guard columns
teleported from Ancient Rome and
vivid murals depict animals on the
Earth
uninhibited
by the existence
of humans as
party
lights
change colors overhead.
However, the hundreds of
people occupying this space a few
Fridays ago were in attendance to
bear witness to artifacts arguably
more notable than all of the above:
Disney and Nickelodeon musical
TV hits from the 2000s.
The conjurer that revived these
songs of yesteryear for the ears of
today was Matt Bennett, the actor
best known for playing Robbie
Shapiro on the Nickelodeon teen
sitcom “Victorious.” Now almost a
decade removed from his claim to
fame, Bennett is 30 and stays in the
public eye through a patchwork of
one-episode acting gigs, down-
credit film roles and posts for his
millions of steadfast social media
followers.
And so emerges iParty (a
play on the Nickelodeon
title
iCarly,
another
Nickelodeon
show
that starred Bennett’s
contemporaries),
a
coast-to-coast
tour
featuring millennial
Bennett
dancing
around on stage to the
sounds of his glory
days and hoping his
audiences will do
the same. Recalling
legacy touring acts
such
as
Dead
&
Company,
what new he
brings
to
the
table
is largely
the old.
My
friend
Kathleen
first
proposed
the idea of
attending
the
Detroit
iParty
while
sitting in Martha
Cook
dormitory’s
Red Room, sipping the
traditional weekly tea. Our friends
from high school, Isabel and
Sabino, would soon be visiting Ann
Arbor for the weekend, and the DJ
set would serve as our Friday night
activity.
I initially hesitated to say yes,
thinking
about
my
lackluster
lyrical knowledge of the music
Matt Bennett would play. Growing
up, my family had cable television
only intermittently: for the week
of the Super Bowl or as a free
trial every few years. My current
familiarity with the content at
hand came from Sabino’s car
speakers,
weaving
our
friend
group through strip-mall parking
lots, or playing “All I Want is
Everything”
at
near-deafening
volume while speeding down the
interstate. Sabino named his car
Ariana after the Nick-turned-pop
star, whereas I had thought it was
just a fun name for a vehicle.
Though I had to make up
for lost time, I hoped that this
newfound immersion in what
was
once
commercially
front
and center would prove socially
useful, and it largely has. Though
references to specific Victorious
episodes may go over my head, I
understand mentions of “The Slap”
(“Victorious”’s social network) and
Trina Vega’s comically bad singing
from the soundtrack of these high
school suburban escapades.
I remained on this plane of semi-
fluency as all four of us rode in
Ariana toward downtown Detroit.
The sky was already dark when
we left Ann Arbor, so we only saw
the lights in the distance as we
approached the city. Given that
we were in a similar arrangement
to that of a few years ago in high
school, the conversations that
emerged were inevitably about
the past. We talked about how our
eleventh-grade English teacher
had recently become assistant
principal and how Sabino’s brother
is already a high schooler. We
recounted recent run-ins with
former classmates and gossip
about romances new and old.
Where are our fellow high
school alumni now? If they were
to ask the same about us, would
they guess we’re waiting for a Matt
Bennett DJ set?
By this time, we parked Ariana
in a surface lot near the Fillmore,
and evening-enhancing substances
emerged from the front row’s
center console. “Maybe we should
prepare,” someone said, and the
ongoing
pop-adjacent
Spotify
playlist is abruptly interrupted
by the iCarly and Victorious
crossover episode theme song. We
danced in the car seats by shifting
shoulders and overly contorting
our faces to the lyrics, full of now-
trivial teenage drama. A few more
songs, and it’s deemed time to go.
The line of people we added
ourselves to after exiting the fog-
windowed car was filled with
those that look like us: late-teens
to early twenties, arriving in
couples or as groups of friends.
Some wore period garb (layered
camis and patterned tops, colorful
high
top
Converse
sneakers),
others dressed as Disney or Nick
Characters
specific
characters
(think “Victorious”’s Mr. Sikowitz
or “High School Musical’”s Troy
and Gabriella).
Isabel wishes aloud that the
concert was 21-plus rather than
18, before realizing that I’m
still underage when we receive
neon-colored wristbands: one for
admission and one for the bar.
I’m
not
offended
because
I
understand
the
sentiment.
Acknowledging
the
existence
of those younger than you is
an unsettling feeling; hearing
that someone was born in 2005
rather than 2001 somehow feels
impossible. We cope with it in
many different ways, even while
still being a part of Gen Z ourselves:
We belittled those younger than us
by calling them “cute” or acting
dramatically disgusted by their
presence. The sentiment partially
carries into adulthood, though
social rules convert loathing to
a more muted aversion. While in
line, we might simply smirk at an
18-year-old with their parents,
oblivious to our own realities a few
years ago.
We are rescued from the cold
autumn night by the warmth of
The Fillmore’s atrium, and the
vibrations within the plush red
carpet indicate the music has
already started. Our tickets are
scanned by an older woman, and
we enter.
“Have fun in there.”
Given the age of my concert
companions, the first stop is the
bar. We looked at the special
drinks sign, which appeared to
be drawn up in Microsoft Word.
Sabino, Kathleen and Isabel each
ordered a different $12 cocktail,
and the cups were passed around
in a circle to taste. Only Kathleen’s
drink,
the
“Wahoo
Punch,”
was
enjoyable.
The
alcoholic
allusion titled “Rex Powers” and
the generically named “iDrink”
became unwanted weights in our
palms.
We walked down the aisle
toward the standing section, the
golden wristband looped around
my left arm serving as a visual
reminder of the choice I made to
be there. When I bought my ticket,
I charged an amount to my debit
card that made my eyes wince.
In front of us was a projection
of the music video to whatever
song is playing. Though frequently
these are songs from Disney’s
Hollywood Records or a nostalgic
Kesha throwback, recent hits like
Harry Styles’s “As it Was” violated
the collective understanding that
we were dancing in the year of
2012.
After examining the DJ on
stage, Kathleen and I exchanged
comments about how Bennet’s
appearance has changed over the
years. His hair was longer, less
curly, bleached blonde. He seemed
shorter, skinnier, with sleeves of
tattoos rising up his arm. He’s
traded out his bold black glasses
for clear frames, and his voice has
burrowed further up his nose.
Perhaps it’s the quickening of
age we feel in the room. Like an
insect’s compound eye, what’s on
stage is duplicated hundreds of
times on the phone screens in front
of us, with some faithful recorders
posting the entire concert to
Snapchat or Instagram Stories.
Whereas a day was simply a unit of
time when “Victorious” was at its
peak, now, 24 hours is all it takes
for these videos to be gone, and the
distance between past and present
will feel like an expanse.
We might examine Snapchat
memories from four years ago
with laughable security, now being
on the other side of so-called glow
ups, with new wardrobes and
experiences to show for it. But
finding these niches in identity
marks maturity and therefore age.
Are these enough of a trade off for
exiting the vanguard of youth?
And if Matt Bennett looks this
old, this unrecognizable, then how
should we interpret ourselves?
Twenty minutes into the set,
the man who we thought to be
Matt Bennett is actually just the
opening act, a Los Angeles DJ
named Jeffrey. “Who are you?”
we shouted, confused on how our
minds tricked us, and realizing we
don’t quite know what we are here
to see.
After a brief set change which
involved
the
exchanging
of
two laptops between on-stage
and
off-stage,
Matt
Bennett
finally arrived. He’s instantly
recognizable; the trajectory of
his appearance since Victorious is
wholly believable and comforting.
There’s not much change at all,
and perhaps we can feel the same
about ourselves.
Wednesday, November 2, 2022 — 9
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
S T A T E M E N T
Let’s reach beyond ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: Women’s
literature and the Dobbs decision
Over the summer, hometown
boredom
encouraged
me
to
preemptively
browse
through
my fall 2022 courses and their
corresponding reading lists. Since
I’m an English major, each of my
classes offered an abundance of
novels to potentially fill my time.
However, given the political climate,
one title stood out amongst the
course
descriptions:
Margaret
Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Earlier this summer, on June
24, 2022, The U.S. Supreme Court
overturned Roe v. Wade with
its ruling in the case of Dobbs
v.
Jackson
Women’s
Health
Organization. The Supreme Court’s
Roe v. Wade decision — established
in 1973 — famously granted women
the constitutional right to abortion.
However,
the
Dobbs
decision
reversed the laws created under Roe
and returned the power of abortion
regulation to each state and its
elected representatives, declaring,
“The Constitution does not confer a
right to abortion.”
I focused my gaze on Atwood’s
title. While the popular dystopian
narrative turned Hulu adaptation
already had reserved a spot on my
personal reading list (even before the
Dobbs decision), the novel quickly
catapulted
to
my
number-one
reading slot given all the newfound
media buzz it attracted in the latter
part of summer 2022.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” is set in
the dystopian Republic of Gilead —
a future regime that has replaced
the United States of America. In
Gilead, the female body is not an
element of individual autonomy
but instead a piece of government
property. All birth control methods
are illegal with the consequence of
death should the law be disobeyed.
Women of child-bearing capabilities
become handmaids, meaning they
are stripped of all rights and forced
into a life of sexual servitude for
high-ranking members of society.
The
handmaids
must
become
pregnant with a Commander’s child
through a monthly ceremony of
nonconsensual sex. If impregnated,
they are required to carry the fetus
to term and give the infant to the
Commander’s family immediately
after birth.
Due to the novel and the
subsequent Hulu show’s popularity,
“The Handmaid’s Tale” quickly
became a political symbol in the
fight for abortion access and bodily
autonomy. In response to the Dobbs
v.
Jackson
discord,
pro-choice
protesters
surrounded
Supreme
Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s
house while dressed in crimson
robes and white bonnets — the
standard handmaid’s uniform.
Stephen King, like many other
public figures, compared the United
States to Gilead in a tweet that read,
“Welcome to THE HANDMAID’S
TALE.” Even Margaret Atwood
released a piece in The Atlantic
revealing how her novel is no longer
as “far-fetched” as she once believed.
While “The Handmaid’s Tale”
certainly offers powerful imagery
amid the protests and political
movements of the Supreme Court
decision, it remains only one
narrative amongst a robust field
of literature pertaining to the
oppression of women’s reproductive
rights.
In conversation, Professor Valerie
Traub, Adrienne Rich Distinguished
Professor of English and Women’s
and Gender Studies at the University
of Michigan, applauded the impact of
“The Handmaid’s Tale” as a political
statement but also acknowledged
the need to center more voices in the
movement.
“They
(pro-choice
protestors
dressed in handmaids’ garbs) were
taking popular culture, something
that is relevant to today’s young
women, and translating it into the
political arena. Everybody knew
who
protesters
were
dressed
as without saying anything — a
pretty exceptional piece of political
theater,” Traub said.
“Does ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
speak about all women? No. Could it
use better race analysis? Absolutely,”
Traub said. “However, my focus
would not be about critiquing ‘The
Handmaid’s Tale’ or the media for
centering it in the discourse, but
rather to say that we need to hear
these other voices. We need to hear
from women of Color.”
In the conversation of failing
women of their basic reproductive
rights, women of Color carry a
particularly
devastating
history.
“Forced sterilization of poor women
of color is an American tradition,”
writes journalist Natasha Lennard.
From the 1930s through the 1970s,
Puerto Rican women were subjected
to forced sterilization procedures
under the jurisdiction of undisclosed
birth control trials. In the Buck
v. Bell case of 1927, the Supreme
Court allowed the state of Virginia
to perform sterilization procedures
on women they considered mentally
incompetent — disproportionally
harming Native American women.
Although Virginia removed its
sterilization law in 1974, Buck v. Bell
continues to stand with the Supreme
Court’s original decision in 1927.
And
with
the
theme
of
discrimination in the 20th century,
Lennard
writes,
“Thirty-two
states maintained federally funded
eugenics
boards,
tasked
with
ordering sterilizations of women
— and sometimes men — deemed
‘undesirable,’” a derogatory title
typically reserved for women of
Color and disabled individuals.
In
her
essay
“Teaching
Reproductive
Justice
in
the
Premodern
Classroom,”
Professor Traub highlights the
intersectionality
of
race
and
reproductive rights.
“Given the way in which racial
and class oppression intersect in
the contemporary U.S., the risks
of enforced pregnancy will fall
disproportionately on Black and
Brown women,” Traub wrote.
One
narrative
that
Traub
mentions in her essay is Toni
Morrison’s “Beloved” — a novel
that highlights the conditions in
which oppressed and marginalized
women were historically forced
into impossible decisions about
motherhood.
“Beloved” is a fictional narrative
rooted in the horrific truth of
Margaret Garner’s story. Margaret
Garner was a Black female slave
who escaped a Kentucky plantation
in 1856 with her husband and
children. Though they fled to Ohio
for safety, Garner and her family
were eventually caught. Rather
than let her child return to a life of
slavery, Garner decided to kill her
young daughter. In the novel, the
protagonist, Sethe, who is modeled
after Margaret, spends the rest of
her life as a free woman, but riddled
with guilt and trauma because of the
decisions she made as an enslaved
mother.
Although Toni Morrison does
not directly reference abortion
or birth control, the “Beloved”
narrative speaks to how women of
color in the United States occupy a
disproportionately horrific position
throughout
history
in
which
decisions of sex, motherhood and
child-bearing have been viciously
stripped from them by systems of
power, be they government control,
an economy built around slavery, etc.
Also in her essay, Professor
Traub cites the work of Maria
Sibylla Merian, a 17th century
German-born
naturalist,
who
observed enslaved Black women in
Suriname (a small country located
on the southeastern coast of South
America) using herbal remedies to
abort fetuses so that their children
would not be subjected to a life of
slavery.
In the presence of “Beloved,”
“The
Handmaid’s
Tale”
and
Professor Traub’s research, it’s no
secret that women’s literature is a
tool that cannot be ignored in the
conversations about abortion and
bodily autonomy.
“Women have been advocating
for their own liberty and freedom for
a really long time, and that goes back
centuries,” Traub said. “Women’s
literature is just one way. They write
about their experiences, either
fictionalized or non-fictionalized,
as a way of saying their rights will be
respected.”
REESE MARTIN
Statement Columnist
iPartied with Matt Bennett
OSCAR
NOLLETTE-PATULSKI
Statement Correspondant
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