TOW #20 - The Backstagers by James Tynion IV and Rian Sygh

Typically, when people go and see a performance they focus mainly on the people on stage acting, but what they don’t realize is that there are others who help keep the show going who they don’t see. In the real world they’re referred to as ‘stage crew’, but in James Tynion IV and Rian Sygh’s newest comic they’re referred to as The Backstagers. Tynion is a bisexual theater nerd who felt that most stories regarding theater only focused on the actors and not the stage crew, so he decided to try and change that by creating The Backstagers. To help him create the wonderful story he grabbed Rian Sygh, a trans male who doesn’t have a background in theater but is an amazing illustrator. Both authors also felt that their sexuality and gender identity weren’t being shown much in the media and stories so they made sure that most of their characters identified somewhere in the queer community.

                Tynion & Sygh’s characters’ sexualities and gender identities aren’t directly stated throughout the 8 issues. Growing up they both felt that every time someone included a queer character in one of their stories they made that one aspect the focus of that character’s personality. They didn’t like that, so in their comic, they made sure that it was obvious the character was queer by showing it through an action or the character’s clothing. By doing this they made their characters really relatable to their main focus audience of people in the LGBTQ community. As a queer woman I found it really hard to relate to the queer characters in the media because they were so flat, they were never developed beyond their sexuality/gender identity, but Backstagers was different because I felt that I could really relate to the queer stagehand who held the same aspirations as me.

TOW #19 - Mohammed Musallam 'The Great Illusion'

                Artist Mohammed Musallam recently set up his piece The Great Illusion in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Mattress Factory. Musallam currently resides in the Gaza Strip, where he is forced to carry around a passport as a result of the Oslo Peace Treaty. In his piece he attempts to express the torment he and all Palestinians in Gaza are forced to suffer through their everyday routines. The purpose of his piece is to remind people of the Palestinian people who are under siege and occupation, he tries to call upon the right of his people of an independent state that will give them their basic human right of free mobility.  The materials he uses; olive leaves, homemade olive oil, barbed wire, and passports help him to express this.

                The piece fills one room on the museum’s floor with olive leaves and barbed wire that is ensnaring pages from Gazan passports. All the passports are authentic and are used to symbolize him being prevent free mobility. The pages he uses are free from any travel stamps and are punctured on barbed wire to again reinforce the sense of entrapment. He punctures the passports to prove how worthless they are, under the Oslo Peace Treaty the passport is supposed to grant a citizen the freedom to travel but in reality is does the complete opposite. The olive leaves and olive oil are a symbol for Palestinian life, to represent that in the past these passports were not needed and everyone lived peacefully.

                Musallam achieves his purpose through his use of materials that help him to express his personal pain and humanitarian issues in a clear and intense manner. 

TOW #18 - Yale Renames Calhoun College

                After many debates and protests, Yale University announced on February 11^th that they would be overturning last April’s decision and renaming one of its residential colleges, Calhoun College. The building was originally named after the infamous John C. Calhoun, a white supremacist and major supporter of slavery. The fight to rename the college was first proposed after nine people were killed in Charleston, SC, but last April, the school decide that keeping the name would teach the students about the ‘most troubled aspects of our past’. The decision to finally agree to the change was fueled by the many student protesters who felt that the name supported in keeping a racists legacy alive. Starting in the fall of 2017, the building will now be named after alumni Grace Murray Hopper, she invented a pioneering computer programming language and served as a Navy rear admiral.  Hopper was picked because she was the most frequently requested Yale graduate by the staff and students.

                I don’t really understand Yale’s initial claim to keeping the college named after Calhoun. Their argument that it reminds the students of the country’s tragic past doesn’t really make sense considering the fact that having a building named after someone is generally considered a way to commemorate someone’s memory in a positive way. If the school really wanted to use Calhoun’s name to remind the students of the horrific past, then they should’ve characterized Calhoun in more negative light instead of giving him the honor of having his name on a building.

                The students’ argument that the building keeps his name alive is one hundred percent correct. The whole point of naming something after someone is to keep their memory alive. If a someone didn’t know the history surrounding Calhoun but they knew the building was named after him, they would most likely assume that he did something worthy of having a building named after him. Personally, I can’t wait to see a fascist-fighting, program major, woman to be finally recognized for her achievements, hopefully her legacy will be an inspiration to many young girls interested in pursuing male heavy professions.

IRB Intro #3

This marking period I chose Outliers by Malcolm Galdwell. Reading the synopsis of the book makes it seem like it was written by a sociologist and I just took sociology and I really enjoyed it. However, we didn’t really get to look at a lot of societys and people in depth so I though this book would do that.