The Illusion Sells

By Vivian Aguilar

Last year, the documentary Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion came out that really caught my attention. The documentary exposes the true inside story of the Brandy Melville company.

Eva Orner, director of Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion, uncovers the mask on the popular teen brand Brandy Melville, uncovering a world of toxic beauty standards, exploitative labor methods, and misconduct by the company. I chose to highlight this documentary for the outreach post because I believe that it strongly parallels Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston with an emphasis on the gap between appearance and reality. Both of these works highlight the negative consequences of striving for an ideal of perfection, whether it is pushed by corporate branding or societal expectations.

Brandy Hellville reveals how Brandy Melville's "one size fits most" approach and controlled social media presence helped to create a cult-like fanbase. According to the documentary, the company contributed to young women's difficulties with body image and self-esteem by promoting an exclusive and unachievable ideal. The story of the film is based on the contrast between the brand's well-preserved exterior and the shocking truth of its internal culture, which includes claims of racism, body shaming, and worker exploitation.


In a similar way, Their Eyes Were Watching God examines Janie Crawford's life and the discrepancy between appearance and reality. Janie's first marriage to Logan Killicks is motivated by her grandmother's desire for security and social status, which proves to be a suffocating cage. Her second marriage to Jody Starks is motivated by his ambition and need for power, which eventually silences Janie's voice and conceals his own fears. Janie is forced to play a part in both relationships, hiding who she really is in order to live up to others' expectations.



To add on, Brandy Hellville illustrates how the basis of Brandy Melville's marketing strategy is the creation of a sense of belonging. The documentary demonstrates how the company presents a carefree, California, cool image on social media, drawing young customers into an endless cycle of pursuing an idealized way of life. This performance of perfection reflects Janie's early understanding of love and marriage, which was influenced by external factors rather than true connection. Both the store Brandy Melville and Janie's community in the novel foster illusions that value appearance above substance.

Orner's documentary and Hurston's novel both criticize the power structures that sustain these illusions. The CEO of Brandy Melville, Stephan Marsan, is presented as having great authority over his staff of young girls ages. Marsan made employees meet strict beauty rules; they had to be thin, white, and pretty, or else they'd be fired. They even had to send him photos every day to prove they looked right or else they would be fired. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is similarly controlled by Jody Starks who demands that she fit his ideal of a proper wife. Hence, these power imbalances demonstrate how those in positions of authority usually exploit and manipulate others in order to preserve their superiority.



These examples show a specific pattern that those in power positions, such as CEOs of corporations or people in patriarchal societies, frequently try to dominate and control. This manipulation maintains the status quo by promoting existing power structures. Their Eyes Were Watching God and Brandy Melville's documentary both highlight the human cost of these power disparities, showing how people are compelled to compromise who they truly are in order to succeed and be accepted.

Hence, both Their Eyes Were Watching God and Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion highlight the troublesome aspects of aiming for an idealized appearance, whether it is motivated by social pressures or corporate branding. Both of these works illustrate the human cost of following such values through their stories, showing how people often have to compromise their authenticity in their pursuit of success and acceptability. By looking at these similarities, we can better appreciate how crucial it is for people to reclaim their individuality and speak with their own voices.

Life on Pause in 2020

By Angel Wang

Story I: Olympic-Level

March 13, 2020

Freshman year of high school was supposed to be the start of something new—late-night study sessions, cafeteria food complaints, maybe even some dumb high school drama to roll my eyes at. Instead, I was stuck at home.

At first, it was tolerable. Zoom classes, breakout rooms filled with awkward silence, the occasional “You’re on mute.” But as the months dragged on, the walls of our house felt smaller. Tighter. Conversations turned into arguments. Arguments turned into screaming matches. Every little thing got under my skin. My younger sister chewing too loudly, my older sister hogging the WiFi, and the way no one else seemed to put their dishes in the sink.

I tried to escape with my nose in a book, drowning out the tension. But the fights found me. My sisters and I had nothing better to do than get on each other’s nerves, and we did it with Olympic-level dedication.


Story II: Bombshell

October 15, 2020

I found the test before she told us.

It was shoved in the bathroom trash, buried under tissues, but not well enough. I don’t know why I reached for it—morbid curiosity, some gut feeling. Two pink lines. Positive.

I stared at it for a long time. Then I put it back, walked to my room, and shut the door.

I told no one—not my sisters, not my mother, not even myself, really. I willed it into nonexistence as if by ignoring it, I could undo whatever was happening.

It didn’t work.

The knowledge sat heavy in my chest, pressing down on me. I barely spoke at dinner. I picked fights over nothing. My younger sister clicked her mouse too many times playing Roblox and my older sister sighed too loudly. We were already suffocating, trapped in a cycle of sameness—Zoom calls, restless scrolling, fighting over WiFi, over space, over who had the right to be annoyed at who.

And now this.

A baby.

I couldn’t imagine it. We weren’t the kind of family that embraced change. We were set in our ways, in our rhythms. Then COVID happened, and it shattered everything we thought we knew about time, about routine, about certainty.

And now my mother was pregnant. As if we hadn’t lost enough control already.

When she finally told us, I did not hide my reaction.

I spiraled. My frustration, already bubbling beneath the surface, erupted in a scalding wave. I snapped at everything and everyone. I stayed up late, scrolling mindlessly, resenting the world for locking me in this reality.

We were not meant to be trapped inside together, not for this long. There were three of us, sisters, compressed into the same square footage, breathing the same air, cycling through the same arguments. It went like this for months, then a year.


Story III: Esther

May 14, 2021

Outside, the world unraveled in slow motion. The news flickered with numbers and warnings, but in our house, time twisted. There was no structure, only repetition. Zoom classes that blurred into afternoons, evenings that turned into 2 a.m. binge-reading.

The months passed. My mother’s belly grew. My sisters and I cycled through the same fights, the same slammed doors, the same silence. Nothing changed until everything did.

We weren’t ready for her.

But she came anyway.

We weren’t allowed in the hospital, so my mother and father went alone.

By the time we saw her, she was already here, wrapped in soft pink blankets and blinking up at us like she had always been part of this house.

She was tiny. She didn’t do much at first—just ate and slept and occasionally let out a cry so piercing it rattled through the whole house. But something shifted. It wasn’t sudden, and it wasn’t something we talked about, but it was there.

At first, it was in the way we hovered around her bassinet, pretending we weren’t staring. The way we watched her little hands curl and stretch. The way my sisters and I, who had spent so long resenting the time trapped inside this house together, suddenly had something new to focus on.

Then it was in the laughter—real laughter, not the bitter kind we had grown used to. The way my younger sister made up songs to sing to her, the way my older sister reached for the baby without thinking whenever she cried. The way my mother, exhausted but glowing, handed her over and said, “Here, hold her,” like it was the easiest thing in the world.

And I did.

I held her. I traced my finger along her impossibly tiny palm and felt the warmth of her settle into my arms, into my chest, into the spaces that had been empty for too long.

She did not ask anything of us. She did not know about the months we had spent fighting, or the way we had resented her arrival, or the nights we lay awake wondering if things would ever go back to normal.

She only knew us as we were. And maybe that was enough.

Maybe, without realizing it, we had needed her. Something new. Something outside of ourselves. A reminder that not all change was bad, that not everything unexpected had to be feared.

Maybe we hadn’t lost something after all.

Maybe we had been waiting for her this whole time.





Footnote:

This essay mirrors Joan Didion’s "The White Album" in both structure and thematic resonance. Like Didion’s work, it is fragmented into vignettes, each acting as a self-contained yet interconnected moment of disorientation.

"The White Album" famously begins, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Similarly, this essay reflects on how narratives shape our understanding of uncontrollable events, such as COVID, an unplanned pregnancy, and the slow unraveling of familiar routines. Like Didion’s account of the late ’60s as a period when the old structures of meaning failed, this blog captures the abrupt loss of normalcy during the pandemic.

Moreover, just as Didion resists neat conclusions, this essay offers no grand epiphany. Instead, it embraces ambiguity by saying, “She only knew us as we were. And maybe that was enough.” This shift in perception mirrors Didion’s tendency to present change not as resolution, but as something inevitable, like something to be lived through, rather than fully understood.

Land of the Free: Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City and The Grapes of Wrath

By Maria Schroeder

A Sunday or two ago, I took a visit to the Museum of Modern Art. It was actually my first time ever visiting the MoMA, and I saw some really fascinating art. There was one exhibit on the fifth floor that caught my eye. It was a large 3-D model of what looked like the design plan for a town. It was expansive, though the terrain was quite flat, and everything in the town was congregated tightly together. What I was looking at was the work of the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. This model was called Broadacre City, and it served as a democratic city which takes advantage of modern day technology to work to decentralize the type of cities we see today, with the concentrations of power and privilege that come with it. This remarkable twelve foot by twelve foot model demonstrates how the “typical” countryside might be settled by 1,400 families. Though it was never actually built in real life, the model is a grand display of farms, homesteads, and factories all connected by roads and in close proximity to set parks and community facilities. Broadacre City works to combat the suburban sprawl that we continue to see today. The surfacing themes of land, the American Dream, and technological advancement seen in this model reminded me of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

 



The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joad family, an Okie migrant family living during the time of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl in America, specifically in Oklahoma. One theme that circulates throughout the novel is one of anti-capitalism. Steinbeck throughout the novel gives vivid descriptions into the life of the Joad family struggling with the ugly side of capitalism, one where people are hungry and living in poor conditions; struggling to make ends meet. The centralized power of the bank is made out to be the villain in the story, and images of tractors and others of technological advancement are sources of pain and destruction for the Joad family, since they rid them of the opportunity to fully live the American dream.



Broadacre City actually toured around the United States for several years during the height of the Great Depression, when the Grapes of Wrath is set. Both works tackle the concepts of capitalism and industrialization in America, with the Grapes of Wrath taking a more critical approach and Broadacre City working as a possible solution. They also pinpoint land and labor to be large aspects of the American identity, land specifically being a gateway to true freedom and self-determination in America.

Steinbeck shows the dark side of labor and production under capitalism, exemplified through the suffering and adversity that the Joad's face throughout the novel along with the other migrant workers around them. On the other hand, Wright combats this with putting power in the hands of the people, pushing against centralizing power in the hands of monopolies and big corporations. In Wright’s Broadacre City, every family must have at least one acre, a telephone, a car, a radio, and access to clean energy. Technology was to be applied at the local level, in support of the productivity of the individual for the collective good. This vision for urban renewal proposed by Wright pushes back on the typical centralization of technology and power and we continue to see today in our urban environments, ensuring that the welfare of one individual or community isn't prioritized over the other. By looking at both the Grapes of Wrath and Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City, we can both critique and envision a world at the height of technological advancement and capital.

When God Feels Gone: Watching St. Vincent: The Return After Silence (2016)

I didn’t expect to find myself revisiting Silence (2016) again this year. I’d written about it once already—digging deep into its theology of suffering and God’s seeming absence. But then I watched HBO’s St. Vincent: The Return, a 2024 documentary about a nun’s quiet mission to revive a dying parish in post-industrial Ohio—and suddenly, I was back in Japan with Father Rodrigues, not because the stories are the same, but because the silence is.

St. Vincent: The Return follows Sister Evelyn, a Catholic nun in her 70s, who returns to her hometown to care for a once-thriving church that now stands mostly empty. The documentary is spare, slow, and almost painfully intimate. There are no sweeping conversions or grand revelations. Just dust, broken pews, and people who drift in and out with half-forgotten prayers. The parishioners are tired. Some have lost children to fentanyl, others to poverty or prison. Sister Evelyn listens. She doesn’t preach much. And most of the time, she’s just cleaning, cooking, waiting.

At one point in the film, someone asks her if she feels God is still here. She pauses and says, “He’s never left. But sometimes He lets you feel like He has.” That line hit like a whisper from Silence. In Silence, Rodrigues begs for a sign, a sound—anything—from God. He sees believers mutilated and murdered, and hears nothing in return. His God is terrifyingly quiet. And yet, at the climax, in the smallest, most unexpected way, God speaks—not with power, but with shared suffering: “Trample. Trample. I was born into this world to be trampled on by men.” It’s a revelation of solidarity, not rescue.

In St. Vincent: The Return, the silence isn’t tragic—it’s ambient. The film doesn’t ask why God is silent. It assumes He is and watches what people do anyway. Sister Evelyn never says she hears God. But in every bowl of soup she ladles, every hymn she sings alone in the cold chapel, there’s something quietly sacred. 

The documentary doesn’t glorify her. It just shows her, persevering in love with no audience, no applause.
That’s where the connection deepens. In my earlier writing on Silence, I argued that Rodrigues’ final act—his apostasy to save others—is a kind of hidden martyrdom. Outwardly, he denies Christ. Inwardly, he becomes Christ: humiliated, silenced, crucified without glory. In a strange way, Sister Evelyn lives that same inward devotion. She isn’t martyred. But she sacrifices visibility. Her holiness is anonymous. Her suffering is ordinary.

What struck me most about St. Vincent was that no one converts. No one returns to church in droves. The miracle is that Sister Evelyn stays. The camera doesn’t flinch when she breaks down after a funeral for a teen overdose victim, or when she lights candles in an empty sanctuary. But through those quiet acts, the film suggests that sometimes faith is just fidelity—staying when you could leave, loving when it feels pointless, waiting in the silence.

This documentary doesn’t dramatize suffering like Silence does. It doesn’t need to. Its power lies in duration: the ache of quiet faithfulness across decades. Silence asked me if God was still present when it felt like He’d abandoned His people. St. Vincent: The Return shows me someone who acts as if He is—even when He doesn’t answer.

And maybe that’s the deeper message in both works. Faith isn’t always certainty or joy or martyrdom. Sometimes it’s cleaning the floor of a crumbling church. Sometimes it’s hiding a crucifix in your hand as they burn your body. In both, silence isn’t the absence of God—it’s the space where love continues anyway.

Footnote:
This blog post reflects on the 2024 HBO documentary St. Vincent: The Return through the lens of themes I previously explored in Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016), particularly the intersection of faith, suffering, and divine silence. While Silence dramatizes martyrdom under persecution, St. Vincent explores quiet, everyday faith in a modern, disillusioned context. Drawing from my earlier essay’s insights on Rodrigues’ hidden fidelity, I connect Sister Evelyn’s quiet service to the idea of “concealed martyrdom”—a life of love and endurance in the absence of divine response. The blog adopts a personal and reflective tone to mirror the style of culture commentary.

Didion and The Uses of Media

 Joan Didion in her book ‘The White Album’ focused on the use of media primarily during the student protests she saw in San Francisco State College. She notices how despite the two protests being student led, they each had their own priorities. For example, Didion was able to find that the student protest primarily led by white students, was just to garner attention. While little to no other purpose. However, the Black Panther student protest had a clear purpose and goal in mind. Hence, they were able to use the media to help push their narrative and garner support.

                                                    San Francisco State College Protests

I find this very similar to how students today similarly try to use the media. A great example were the student-led protests towards the Israel-Palestine conflict. Students were able to quickly spread their message by documenting it online through platforms like Instagram, Tik-Tok, and more. Due to the reach of these platforms thousands across many different universities were able to protest for the same message simultaneously. 

The use of the media between a protest that happened in the 60’s compared to now shows that the ability to use media to spread your message can drastically help your protest. 

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Another way to look at this though is also what happens after the media coverage of the protest. In Didion’s case, the protests led by the Black panthers were getting suppressed at even harsher level’s by the police. Which in turn, caused the protestors and some people just looking for trouble to become more violent and unorganized as a result. Leading to the protest becoming not favorable in the eyes of the media. 

Again, the Black Panther protest at San Francisco State College can relate to the Israel-Palestinian protests because at first they were just primarily student led and organized. But after the media’s attention, people just started looking for chaos to be a part of. I mainly think of Columbia University’s protests. There were many within them that were not even part of the university and were just looking for trouble needlessly. This not only hurt the message the students were trying to spread, but caused many people to look unfavorably at the student protests across the nation. The many media publications were able to harp on these protests and discredit them slowly to the point where they were not even worthy to be on the news. 

    

                                                                                        

Protesting is a necessary thing for people to voice their opinions and outrage, but it can be extremely difficult to keep the message engaging. When people turn on their TV’s, and see students and police fighting one another, many already would think that it’s some sort of riot instead. Violence that protestors take can dramatically hurt the image of the movement. In my own case, I liked how people were protesting the Israel-Hamas conflict. However, I was extremely disappointed when Jewish students at college campuses across the country would be treated harshly. They would be prevented from going to class and were seen terribly. I agree with the protests that what Israel is doing is horrible, but it does not mean every single Jewish person agrees with the nation's actions. There have been many Orthodox Jewish communities who have condemned the actions of Israel, but it did not matter to some protesting. By keeping people in line with them and having an idea of the effects their actions can have on the image of the protests is important. If MLK’s protests were violent, would they have been as successful? I would think not, because people would not be as accepting of this change. It is vital therefore to protest with a purpose, so that the media can help boost the image and message of the protest.

A Constant Conflict - The Grapes of Wrath and Ukraine War

By Joshua Breen

When I think about recent events in the past, one of the first ones that comes to mind is the Ukraine War. It has been in the news constantly for the past couple of months, marking it as a significant event in our modern-day history. From what we know about this conflict in recent months, it was sparked over a sudden claim that select parts of Ukraine were actually supposed to be owned by Russia. However, when Ukraine refused to give this land up to Russia, a full-out war broke out. When I think about this part of it, I can make a correlation to The Grapes of Wrath, or more specifically, how the government began reclaiming the homes of these people without their willingness.

In both the Ukraine War and The Grapes of Wrath, we see that people are fighting back against “authority” in an effort not to lose the things they hold dear. In the case of the Ukraine War, in past conflicts with Russia, Ukraine had handed over pieces of their land to them in an effort to avoid conflicts. However, now, with Russia demanding even more land, they have decided to fight back in an effort to safeguard the people and land that they still hold dear. Even though the Joads ended up submitting to the government's wants, we end up hearing in the story about groups of people deciding to stay behind to defend their homes.

Another common factor that is shared between the Ukraine War and The Grapes of Wrath is that we see two different groups of people in conflict with one another have vastly different levels of authority and power. In the example of the Ukraine War, we see the Ukrainians now trying to fight back against a former global superpower that remains one of the most powerful countries to this day. It has even gotten to the point where Ukraine has begun requesting assistance from NATO affiliated countries in an effort to be able to match the combat power that Russia can demonstrate. In The Grapes of Wrath, this power imbalance between forces is even greater. On one side, we have the people being forced out of their land, which mainly consisted of groups like farmers and laborers. Then, on the other hand, we have the banks and the United States government pushing these farmers and laborers out of their homes. From this fact alone, it is very clear that these farmers stand very little chance of victory due to the vast amount of resources that the government could take advantage of to actively oppress these people who have very few means of making a meaningful impact in this conflict.

There is even forced migration that is happening in both the Ukraine War that also took place in The Grapes of Wrath. From this constant conflict between Ukraine and Russia, it is estimated that Russia has now claimed around 18% of Ukraine’s land. This leads to the fact that whoever was inhabiting those lands would have had to migrate out of these lands in order to avoid the fighting that took place there prior to their conquering. Then we also see it in The Grapes of Wrath because of the government confiscating their lands. Therefore, with no right to stay on these lands anymore, these people were forced to migrate to a place where they could reclaim a comfortable life which proved to be quite challenging due to the vast amount of people migrating at once.

Using this information, we can determine that there are quite a few similarities in the events that took place in The Grapes of Wrath and continue to take place in the Ukraine War.

This was inspired by the injustices that were demonstrated at the beginning of The Grapes of Wrath, mainly the banks in the United States reclaiming land from these farmers. I used this power in balance and resilience demonstrated by the common people to compare it to the ongoing Ukraine War, where Ukrainians are playing the role of the underdog in this war against the former superpower Russia. My primary goal in writing this is to show how power and authority can be abused and how the receiving end suffers due to the natural power imbalance that we have in our world.

Authenticity on Campus

By Kate Yadush

I decided to create a video that would fit right in with the Portrait of Jason. I chose to have my friend Ana act similar to the way Jason did in the video. For example, the obnoxious laughing, the rambling, and the drinking (water). I also tried to incorporate the same cinematic tone/mood. Similar to the Portrait of Jason, I included zooming in and out, blurriness, and a black screen. I didn't ask the questions on camera because it is really just Jason talking in the film. The interviewers would say a word or two here and there. I adapted the original work while putting my own spin on it. I made it similar but original so it can feel like it can be placed into the film without being out of place. I chose the Portrait of Jason because it has an authenticity to it that really fits into the theme of our class of getting real.
 

The Relentless Patriot Review

By Mark Villa

I recently tuned in to the documentary The Relentless Patriot released last July. It covered the life and work of controversial and fiery artist Scott Lobaido, a self-proclaimed patriot and enemy of the woke left. After the first few lines of Scott cursing out anyone disrespecting America’s image, I knew I was in for a ride. The documentary had the same energy as Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,” with montages of pictures and videos from Scott's antics set to the tune of patriotic songs, interrupted by Scott constantly yelling F-bombs and throwing middle fingers into the camera at anyone who dared to defy the Ol Flyin Glory. Pickup truck horns blare, smoke from Marlboro red cigarettes fills the air and beer flows freely - some pinnacles of traditional conservative culture. Similar to a Portrait of Jason, Scott recalls wild stories from his career, including acts of protest against un-American agents of evil. Patriotic acts such as hurling horsesh*t at the Brooklyn Museum wall and unveiling a painting of Hunter Biden smoking crack while drawing stick figures. With such heroic bravery, some even consider him the second coming of George Washington. Unlike the portrait of Jason, nothing is left up to our imagination. We can see every part of Scott waging his war, with the battles usually ending with a shot of Scott cursing out the police, who are locking in his handcuffs.

 

Love him or hate him, it is clear to anyone who watches to see that Scott is vehemently committed to what he believes in and deeply devoted to veterans. The documentary shows how Scott will do everything in his power to uphold the traditional patriotic heart of America, which he believes has been eaten away by the sharp gnawing teeth of the left. Also similar to Portrait of Jason, Scott is rarely seen without a drink and cigarette in his hand. This creates a more authentic feel of the documentary - neither Jason nor Scott have restrictions on what they can and cannot do on the set. Both Jason and Scott have the opportunity to say whatever is on their mind in an unfiltered way - but the difference in their messaging was extremely apparent to me by the end of Scott’s chaotic rant.

 


The Relentless Patriot was put together nicely. Interviews from friends and family of Scott - even including people who think the guy is absolutely bonkers add various perspectives. However, the documentary ultimately lost me in its message. The Relentless Patriot tries too hard to push its agenda and ends up contradicting itself in many ways. In contrast, Portrait of Jason demands nothing from the audience. Jason simply tells us his story and allows the audience to make his own conclusions. Scott’s narrative that America’s glory is being destroyed by leftist culture seems like another one of my drunk uncles' rants at the Thanksgiving dinner table. And Scott does everything he can to shove traditional conservatism down the audience’s throat. The interviewees talk about how democrats cannot agree with anything the right says, and their disagreements lead to rioting and violence (uhhhh did they forget about January 6th?!) Scott also states that America is accepting of all peoples, races, religions, and creeds, but is then followed by good old Rudy Giuliani stating that the terrorists who committed 9/11 come from a “1000-year-old culture that kills people.” To me, the patriotic smoke and mirrors from the images of flags and “amazing grace” playing in the background are drowned out by Scott constantly attacking people who disagree with anything he stands for. To me, American identity has everything to do with differing opinions. Americans will always find something to disagree with, but true patriotism should be accepting, not vengeful and aggressive. Scott references the founding fathers frequently, but he seems to forget the phrase “united we stand, divided we fall.” While the documentary provided an interesting summary of Scott’s debauchery and his work, I would have much rather looked at the Twitter of middle-aged dads reposting Donald Trump Jr. to get this kind of conservative narrative.

-April 7th 2025

Manufactured Love and Reality TV

Manufactured Love💘 and Reality TV🎬 

By Christian J. Weddington

Pop the Balloon or Find Love is a Black reality internet series where an eligible bachelor or bachelorette is introduced to a group of 8 potential candidates. Each candidate holds a balloon that they can pop if they are uninterested in the eligible bachelor or bachelorette. The candidate whose balloon remains un-popped at the end wins the prize of going on a date with the bachelor or bachelorette. Within Episode 11, which premiered in June, the bachelor, Aaron the plumber, displayed the highest level of stereotypical hypermasculinity, arrogance, and pettiness. As a result of this, he got into loud arguments and aggressively dismissed all the female candidates which created an array of viral content that allowed the show to reach new audiences. This ultimately shaped the show's format and has allowed it to become a pinnacle within modern entertainment. Although the nature of the show is problematic, it has been successful through taking inspiration from the iconic reality television series The Real World by mimicking reality and utilizing diverse cast for the sake of entertainment.



Photo of Aaron Sloan "Aaron the Plumber"


Reality television has the ability to capture large audiences because it constructs a narrative that feels somewhat authentic and relatable to viewers. The audience interprets the content of shows such The Real World, Pop the Balloon or Find Love as real and genuine, but in actuality, they are a manipulated version of life that allows viewers to be entertained. Within The Real World, they live in a picture-esque Soho loft that matches the aesthetic of a Disney channel bedroom with luxurious features that most people could not afford. In accordance with Pop the Balloon or Find Love, a contestant walks out, and there is a line of eight beautiful black people, which is not the reality someone would face when dating. These two tactics are used since the reality of six people living in a rundown apartment barely suited for two — now crammed with six — would not be very interesting to watch. In addition, viewers online would not be engaged in watching someone endlessly swipe on Tinder and Hinge without ever finding a match.


The SoHo Loft used in the The Real World and The set for Pop The Balloon or Find Love

Media companies like YouTube, Netflix, and MTV have to craft unrealistic set layouts and other tactics that mimic reality for these shows that cause consumers to romanticize this narrative. People watch reality television to take a break from the present and not necessarily have to think. They do not want to ponder the social dilemma of dating caused by social media or the harsh reality of how expensive it is to live in NYC. Because of this, viewers would rather see a romanticized ideal that will keep them engaged. This enables these large companies to utilize these tactics to keep people watching which continues to generate money and has enabled The Real World and Pop the Balloon or Find Love to be successful.



Photo of the Cast of Season 1 of The Real World NYC & Julia Gentry

Furthermore, The Real World appealed to large audiences by having a diverse cast on the surface. This strategy consisted of various racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds for the sake of engaging viewers through tension and drama. Julia, who is from Birmingham, Alabama, when first introduced while home, has a gigantic red confederate flag on the screen. She immediately makes her presence known as being naive and ignorant by making a terrible joke to her roommate, Heather B. who was African American, asking her if she is a drug dealer when a pager goes off. Although she didn’t mean it in a negative way, it became apparent that her southern heritage and innocence would be used for the sake of creating issues around ignorance and racism.

Within the context of Episode 11 of Pop the Balloon or Find Love, they utilize this model established by The Real World to cast a wide variety of women whose personalities would clash with Aaron, the plumber, to create drama. For the lineup of women, two were type A, very calm and relaxed, while the other six were type B and very driven, assertive, and argumentative. In addition, some women were very confident in their bodies and wore more form-fitting clothing, while others were more modest. As a result, when Aaron made unprecedented judgments and assumptions based on these women's appearance and outfits, he was met with a group of type B women who defended themselves.



Image of Type A and Type B women in Episode 11


An example of this is Aaron the plumber telling a woman who popped her balloon, "I don't deal with women who have more hair on their arms than me, you ain't qualified baby," and another woman rebutting saying, "You kind of look like a ninja turtle, you're not that cute, you need to relax, you stocky as hell" while other women clap, and joined into the argument. Although this type of commentary is problematic, especially within the context of a show that was focused on promoting Black Love, it enables viewers to be entertained and viral content to be produced. Reality television only exists based on the creation of drama as a display of Love where everyone is kind and respectful would leave consumers disengaged after a very short period. Moreover, all of these strategies used within reality TV allow them to construct something that mimics reality and leaves viewers engaged while having a high retention.







Cartoon of Aaron the Plumber as Ninja Turtle


Sources:
The Real World. Season 1, episode 1, “This is the True Story…,” MTV, 21 May 1992. Paramount+, www.paramountplus.com/shows/video/umu1Yk4XBC0HTocUAsfePxW3JlvGsbdu

Amuli, Arlette, host. "Episode 11: Pop the Balloon or Find Love." Pop the Balloon or Find Love, YouTube, uploaded by Arlette Amuli, [date], www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSCIPEc4bS0.​

Nothing But Air

By Rahul Abichandani             

  It could be felt before it was seen. March was an unexpected time for the world to suddenly turn to ashes, but that’s when it came to a hard halt and the streets got awfully quiet. Maybe not completely silent, as there was always a faint sound lingering to remind you that the world was in fact still moving—whether it be a low hum of a running refrigerator, a buzzing air conditioning unit, or distant sirens projecting through the sky. Nature still ran its course, birds still chirped, and winter still technically turned to spring. However, people were gone, or maybe we were the ones gone. Who knows.

    The news crushed the United States in distorted, fragmented pieces. A bat, or a market, or a cough in Wuhan, seemed like another foreign problem, well beyond the realm of our lives. Then it was your neighbor, a friend’s mother, a classmate’s cousin. All of a sudden we began refreshing death tolls every day like they were stocks—except there was no suspense or hope as to which direction they were going in. The red numbers were rising; the S&P 500 in freefall, while the global death total skyrocketed with no end in sight. 

    Remaining sane in the midst of a human catastrophe was next to impossible. The danger was everywhere, especially for the old, the sick, the already fragile—no family was immune from the terror. No one knew enough, as doctors were guessing, leaders were spinning, hospitals overflowed until people were dying in waiting rooms and on sidewalks. Some slipped away at home alone, breathless. So people coped however they could. They tried their best to pick up a new hobby or create a makeshift gym set-up in their home, to try to get something out of this disaster. We kids drowned in screens, gaming until sunrise, watching YouTube videos on loop—trying to find escape from the world that was burning just outside their windows.

    The streets emptied out like a war zone after shelling, and homes turned into bunkers. People washed their groceries with bleach and wore protective masks and latex gloves. Airports went dark, trains sat still, whole cities froze in place. A trip to the store felt like stepping into enemy territory aisles, arriving anxiously to grasp the final remaining toilet paper or kleenex for the foreseeable future. Strangers eyed each other like threats, in fear that they were in dangerously close proximity, jeopardizing their lives.

    People kept calling it temporary. “We’ll get back to normal,” they said, with a half-smile inspiring no confidence, obviously trying to convince themselves. However, grief doesn’t have an expiration date. It doesn’t pack up and leave just because the doors reopened. It settles in silently and hangs in the air during a loading screen at 2 AM when the only thing that makes sense is a pixelated world where there are no viruses, no news alerts, and no empty chairs. There is only noise and light and a few more borrowed minutes of forgetting and joking around with your friends.

    The country was not only physically sick, but its fabric was beginning to completely tear apart. Tragic racially motivated incidents led to protests challenging injustice which filled the streets. Sirens began to howl and cities emerged from the quiet and darkness, now suddenly taken over by fire and fury. What began as cries for change turned into division that seeped into families, friendships, and created heated exchanges between strangers on social media. People picked sides like it was war. Then came the election, dragging even more chaos behind it—flags turned to weapons, truth twisted until no one could see straight. The air felt charged and ready to break. It felt like a country was unraveling. Dystopia wasn’t a theoretical or abstract warning from George Orwell anymore—it was just outside our doorsteps.

    Eventually, the country, and the world as a whole recovered; it did not end, but it didn’t come back the same. Something in it broke, quietly, and never got put back together. People smiled again, went outside, went to movie theaters, sports games, and concerts experiencing joy they missed—but there has been a fundamental, observable shift. A kind of disillusionment, like we had all woken up from a bad dream only to realize we were still inside it. Nothing felt real or safe. The world kept turning, but those who lived through this struggled to turn with it.

In this piece, I adapted Michael Herr’s Dispatches style, emphasizing realism by illustrating the pandemic’s true devastating effects without downplaying. This mirrors what Herr does in describing the Vietnam war. I also utilized some of Herr’s literary techniques incorporating vivid, specific imagery to capture the psychological weight of events and the daily struggle it caused for those who lived through it. I utilized similar literary techniques such as em dashes to convey fragmentation and disorientation, as well as anaphoras and repeated sentence structures to convey urgency and bluntly illustrate its destruction. Also like Herr, I tried to blend narrative highlighting specifics of my own experience during the pandemic, as well as journalism documenting historical events within this time.

From the Grapes of Wrath to Gaza's Ruins: Greed's Timeless Genocide

 By James Midson

Here in this blog post, my goal is simple: To enlighten you to the connection, and to open your eyes on the corruption. What is going on in Gaza right now is not just “lets get the terrorists,” but in actuality, it is a planned and coordinated genocide fueled by greed and ego in the chase for profits; A pattern that is nothing new at all. Let's take a look at our own history highlighted in The Grapes of Wrath for some behavioral context:

First I’ll cover what we’ve seen in The Grapes of Wrath to set the context of how this mass murder all links back to money and greed. In the 1930’s the United States capitalist economy faced its first real test with the Great Depression. Hundreds of thousands were displaced, with no homes, no food, and nowhere to go. The reason why? Simple. Banks needed to keep afloat so they foreclosed properties and fed on the already struggling for any ounce of  money that they had left in order for them to remain on top. They didn't actually care about the little kids starving and the mother’s having to give birth in dirty, decrepit vehicles that they must live in without any access to medical care. They just cared about their own future, which involved one thing: money. 

    My point here is that even in our OWN country when times were tough, those who had all the money in the country only cared about their own position and how to maintain it and expand their power and influence instead of helping their own people. So now the question arises: are we seeing a repeat of history where powerful forces with money and influence do not care about starving little kids and the deaths of tens of thousands? And I'm not talking about banks foreclosing farms because things are much different from that in Gaza. What I’m saying that this boils down to in both cases is this idea of dehumanization driven by the pursuit of power and profit. Just as the banks in The Grapes of Wrath saw struggling families like the Joad’s as obstacles to discard in order for themselves to survive, the Israeli Defense Force and Zionist forces at play in Isreal and the United States government today view the Palestinian population as expendable “goyim” or “cattle”, that are completely okay to kill, rape, and control in the name of their religion, resources, and geopolitical dominance. The parallels are so apparent that it is laughable: in the 1930s, it was land and loans. Now, it’s oil, strategic territory to build a canal going straight through Gaza, and some scripture in a multi-millenia old religious text called the Talmud that tells the Zionists that it's okay to commit the acts they are committing against these people.

Then there's the US and the capitalist forces. If those who held all the money in the United States only cared about themselves during the Great Depression (which was evident on many occasions highlighted in The Grapes of Wrath), and refused to help their own citizens, then why would the money-hungry people in power care about the people in Gaza if it jeopardizes their position of power, influence, and wealth? It’s the same game, just a different board. Back then, it was banks bleeding the poor dry to keep their ledgers black. And today, it’s the U.S. political machine, greased by Israeli lobbying and AIPAC’s pockets (which shouldnt be legal in Congress anyway), turning a blind eye to genocide because the checks keep coming and they dont want them to stop. Politicians, corporations, and elites aren’t just complicit. They’re completely bought and paid for, raking in millions to prop up Israel’s agenda while Gaza burns and innocent Palestinian children lose limbs from bombs dropping on their heads because “that's where the terrorists are” or “they would have grown up to be terrorists” (according to Israeli/American propaganda). So then you start to ask yourself this: why would these people who run the country give up that sweet deal of cash and power to save a population they’ve never seen as human to begin with? It’s all capitalist male greed, plain and simple: a brotherhood of egos where power is the prize, and the bodies of Palestinian kids—or American farmers, for that matter—are just acceptable losses in the pursuit of future profit. History doesn’t just rhyme. It's stuck on the same damn chorus and all we can do is sit back and watch as countless innocents die horrible deaths.

A typical image of Gaza-- there's nothing left

A child wandering around looking for scraps to eat

To those reading this blog post, I ask of you this: open your eyes to the thread that runs from the pages of The Grapes of Wrath to the blood-soaked streets of Gaza. As I said before, my goal here is to make you all aware of the connection. But what I request is for you all to pray and support these people. Lift up the Palestinians in your thoughts and prayers, because they’re enduring a hell most can’t fathom. However, don’t be stupid enough to think what’s going on is just pure "we need to get the terrorists," or "this wouldn't have happened if October 7th happened" For those who buy that line, take a damn minute. Dig into it, just as you took the time to read The Grapes of Wrath and saw how the thirst for constant power and greed turned people in power into vultures, picking the bones of starving families. It’s the same rot today: unchecked, it festers into genocide. See where this road leads when we let the powerful money hungry vultures write the rules.

Dislocated

By: Mariano Pinto, Jr.

I

I remember it vividly, in mid to late March, my dad was very sick, sick as a dog, always lying in bed and coughing up a storm. I have never seen him so sick. Before this, even when he was sick, he would go to work and suck it up cause he was too tough to call out, plus he wanted to save PTO special occasions. His muscles were weak, his throat was sore, and it hurt just to breathe. He and my mom were always on the phone with doctors, trying to find a solution. I remember hearing in late 2019 that there was some virus going around the whole world, with fingers pointed at Wuhan, China. Some people called it COVID-19, and some others called it the coronavirus. I remember hearing horror stories about how many people were dying in my mom’s country of Italy and seeing pictures of all the piazzas in the major cities completely empty, like a ghost town in the desert. Milan had looked abandoned. A couple of days later - on March 23rd, 2020 - the NYCDOE announced that all public schools in the system will move to remote learning. The first thing I thought to myself was, “God, what a mess this is gonna be,” and boy was I right.

II

Remote learning for an arts school, especially being in the instrumental department, might have been the biggest mess in the world. Being in a house with my dad calling clients both domestically and internationally, my mom being in Zoom classes as a teaching assistant for students with learning disabilities, my brother taking Mechoptronics Lab I & II, and my sister and I singing and playing instruments in front of computers, respectively, I don’t know how we functioned. Till this day, I’m actually impressed by ourselves. Thankfully, my siblings and I were organized enough to coordinate and “book reservations” of who gets to use our tight basement for classes.


The next school year, we went back to fully in-person but were still mandated to wear masks. This was very hard to succeed in, especially as a music school. For those that played percussion and string instruments, it was easy: the students simply wore a mask and played as if it was pre-COVID 2019. The brass instrumentalists wore masks with a slit and flap so that they could put their mouthpiece against their lips, with a bell cover. The woodwind instrumentalists, like brass, use special masks and bell covers. Here is the problem: woodwind instruments have many openings on the sides of the instrument. I remember talking with my conductors, friends, and family about how it was pointless for the mask and the bell cover if air is still leaving the instrument. It worked for brass because if you close all the keys, a note will still be played; however, if you close every key on a clarinet, saxophone, or oboe, you're just going to try to push air into it with your lips slipping off the mouthpiece. It was useless. I couldn’t comprehend it, but not just this: everything. All of life for everyone that year filled upside-down.

III

It was mid to late July when the city started to give everyone the “ok” to go outside, go to parks, and more or less start to go back to a world similar to normal. Pre-season for my soccer league started up, which I was so excited for. Prior to this, I went to play with a couple of friends and other people there with a mask, and it was torturous because it was so hard to breathe. It was like playing a full-field 11v11 game in the mountains of La Paz when - in actuality - we were playing on half a field and only 50 feet above sea level. That pickup game was the most unenjoyable game of my life. Even after playing an awful game, I never went home regretting going to play before this day. It is my passion, my love, but the masks made it unbearable.
My team was warming up for our second pre-season game. I remember it was insanely hot, and everyone was not conditioned to play a 90-minute game in this heat. We were doing 1v1 drills against our goalie in warmups to practice our finishing. On my second go, I decided to chip the goalie, but he came out of the net too much to pressure me. He ended up tripping me and (later found out) dislocated one of my toes. My coach (who was also my dad) was pissed that I took too long on the shot and missed: “What the hell was that!? Get the ball and get back in line!” Little did he know something didn’t feel right. I sat on the turf behind the net and took off my cleat, noticing that the imprint of my foot in my sock looked different. I limped over to the bench with my right cleat in my hand, and my mom asked if I was ok. I told her that I think I dislocated my toe, but old-school fresh-off-the-boat parents just tell you to suck it up and that it's nothing… until I took off my sock.
Dislocating my toe, though it did hurt, was not even the worst part. Since this was on a Sunday, and we were not back to “normal,” all the orthopedics and doctors were either closed or didn’t want to take on the risk and responsibility of relocating my toe in fear of damaging the ligaments. Knowing that I would have to get it put back in place, I was curiously on YouTube watching the process in preparation. I didn’t seem that bad. I had some sleepless nights in my life, but this was by far the most uncomfortable. The next day, we went to Downstate Hospital. Before the doctor put my toe back into place, he offered me lidocaine. I said, “No, thank you,” not knowing how bad it would be… relocating was definitely more painful than dislocating. Funny enough, I asked my mom for a Motrin right after as I was walking out the door on crutches with my foot out all taped up.

When Survival Means Performing: The Doll and The Performer

By Ada Chen

    Black Barbie, a Netflix documentary directed by Lagueria Davis, tells the story of Mattel’s first Black Barbie doll. From the title, it’s about a doll. However, interpreting the deeper meaning, it’s about how people, especially Black people, have to perform to fit into society and the world around them. The Portrait of Jason, directed by Shirley Clarke, reflects how identity is shaped, performed, and misrepresented due to society’s expectations.

 

    At first, the two documentaries seem very different, whether in the aspect of story or format. When looking at the surface, Black Barbie is about doll toys, while the Portrait of Jason is just a man being interviewed in front of a camera. Comparing different aspects, people might find it hard to see what these two pieces have in common. By digging deeper, I realized how powerful the documentaries are, that they both show how people shape their identities in a world that doesn’t accept them. 

 

    The Black Barbie made me connect to the Portrait of Jason. In this documentary, we meet Jason Holliday, a Black, gay man who faced discrimination. During the twelve-hour marathon shooting, Jason jokes, laughs, cries, and lies, which he uses as a body armor. As Jason consumes more alcohol, we soon see his pain. He is performing for the camera and us, showing the version of himself he wants people and the society to see. 

 

    In Black Barbie, it introduces Beulah Mae Mitchell, who worked at Mattel and asked a simple question, “Why don’t we have a Barbie that looks like me?” This simple question called attention to race, beauty, representation, and the deep feeling of wanting to be seen. Beulah’s action is a powerful way to demand visibility in society which has excluded Black people for so long. Black women and Mattel employees are being interviewed in the documentary about what it feels like to grow up with dolls that didn’t look like them. When Black dolls was finally released in 1980, it symbolized a moment of accepting black’s beauty. But the doll didn’t truly reflect Black features. The Black Barbie had straight hair, lighter skin, and similar features to a white Barbie. This shows how performance, even in dolls, had to be strategically designed to fit white beauty standards. Still, the black beauty isn’t fully accepted.

 

    A scene in the Barbie documentary shows a child’s decision which favor the white doll over the brown one. By choosing the white doll, he performs what society taught him as right or normal. This is his performance to survive in a world that values whiteness. The society shaped his identity that whiteness is preferred and more lovable. It is mentioned in the documentary that little black girls lack self-esteem and would prefer to have a white doll. 

 

    Black Barbie was created by Mattel not because of race and cultural awareness, but as a business decision under pressure. Just like how Jason had to perform to be a happy black person in front of the camera to please white audiences, Black Barbie is also created to fit the society’s imagination of an “acceptable black image.” The Black Barbies look like a white doll painted black, with straight hair and light skin. According to Mattel’s marketing department, the dolls having dark skin tones would be hard to sell. Beulah’s story and the history of Mattel made me think of The Portrait of Jason. Jason presents himself as someone who has extreme humor. He uses his humor to cover his pain and hardships. His performance is a way to protect himself and to be accepted, understood, and loved by society. 

 

    Both Jason and the Black Barbie are about how black people have to fight to be seen and understood. Even though Jason hides his authentic self, but underneath, he wants to be seen and accepted as a normal person. On the same hand, the Black workers at Mattel had to push for a doll that can reflect their races’ image of beauty and identity. Throughout the documentary, I can hear from women who remember feeling invisible and excluded when they were young. 

 

    Both documentaries tell the story of performance. Now the question is, how much of ourselves or our identity do we need to sacrifice so we can be seen?