Mount Hood

Review: “Mercury 13”

Zoë Strickland | Editor-in-Chief

Are women fit for space travel? NASA in 1961 thought the answer was a resounding no. One of Netflix’s newest documentaries, “Mercury 13,” explores the fight that resulted from this opinion. “Mercury 13” is informative and vital for documenting the path to gender equality, specifically in regards to women in the STEM field. However, its slow start and tendency to repeat points made it difficult for me to fully engross myself in the film.

“Mercury 13” sheds a light on the stories of 13 of the 25 women who took part in secret testing that would determine if they were fit to be sent into space. The testing, administered by William Lovelace the creator of the male astronaut test for NASA was conducted primarily because of Lovelace’s curiosity, rather than because of NASA’s interest.

The documentary is focused on the 13 women who passed the testing and were technically eligible for spaceflight. Though some of the women performed better than others, it was found that some even had better scores than their male counterparts. However, the unsanctioned tests were a wash because of Lovelace’s inability to convince NASA that women were fit for space.

In addition to tracking the test-related plight of women trying to achieve space travel, “Mercury 13” also outlines the governmental backlash that the testing resulted in.

The documentary starts off dreadfully slow. Though it hits every mark in regards to exposition, it takes 20 minutes to really get into the main parts of what actually led to the spaceflight testing.

“Mercury 13” isn’t trying to uncover the great mystery of why women weren’t allowed to be sent up to space it was purely because of the sexism perpetuated by the government, male astronauts and societal beliefs.

While the documentary makes a good point of including source content from interviews with the Mercury 13 from the time of the trial including a reporter asking one of them about how she was going to find the time to be an astronaut as well as a mother at times it felt like the same points were being made in monotony. Because of this, this documentary felt like something I would watch in a classroom rather than on my own time.

That being said, the film was overall enjoyable. The more recent interviews conducted with some of the women show a level of tenacity that everyone should aspire to. The women are vivacious and determined to better the landscape of gender equality in STEM fields. Their discourse regarding the events they were involved in livens up the documentary tenfold.

Undoubtedly, my favorite part of “Mercury 13” was its ability to maintain a sense of unity between all of the female pilots involved. In addition to having interview clips from most of the surviving women included, the documentary also includes interviews with women who were affected by the efforts of the Mercury 13, like Eileen Collins, the first female pilot of a space shuttle. This not only emphasized the scope of women affected, but it also grounded the efforts in a more tangible way. It’s clear that, while the Mercury 13 women were unable to achieve spaceflight, they’re still invested in future women who want to be sent to space.

As someone who’s interested in both space and gender issues, I liked this documentary. “Mercury 13” took two things I love learning about and discussed the crossroads between them. However, I wouldn’t recommend it to people who are hesitant to watch documentaries, or who have little to no interest in the subject matter. It’s slow to start, and admittedly took some trying to get through.

Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu

Photo by: nasa.gov

Exhibit explores how numbers relate to nature

Kevin Reed | Staff Writer

“Art is really for oneself and fine art doesn’t really have one finite message that one’s trying to get across,” said Jennifer Bracy, a professor of visual communications design at Western. “It’s often much more about questions and maybe there’s some kind of an answer or a message within, but it’s less important.” Bracy has been teaching at Western for eight years and recently released a new fine art exhibit called “Forces of Nature,” on display in Hamersly Library on the second floor.

In the past Bracy has mainly worked as a freelance graphic designer.

“I work often with small startups or non-profit organizations that need help with a campaign … or something of that nature,” said Bracy. However, she explained that this display is a new exploration for her: “There’s a specific message and specific audience that has to be communicated in graphic design … It’s much more open to interpretation.”

Though she has done art displays and shows before, this “Forces of Nature” explores new mediums and techniques utilizing ink and printmaking to create contrasting colors, shapes and forms to make each piece beautiful and have its own personality.

“I named it ‘Forces of Nature’ because a lot of the themes that I have explored in my art, and some of my personal design projects, really came out in this body of work … the infinite wisdom of nature. What we can learn from it as humans, how we have to respect it … the tensions between the us and the environment and the things we do to it.”

Her main focus of many of the pieces in the display was the beauty that is in nature. Bracy drew inspiration from natural phenomena like the honeycomb and the geodesic dome to showcase the random perfection nature can achieve at times.

“The bee hive is so efficient and it represents this strong, stable and efficient community of bees and humans can really borrow from that,” she noted.

In “Number Series,” a specific grouping of pieces, Bracy breaks down the nature of numbers one through ten and what meaning and significance each number has around the world.

“What I love finding out is that in a lot of these human constructs with language that, inherent in them, there’s a lot of nature with a lot of those origins of numbers,” said Bracy.

Each and every day people see numbers or use numbers but nobody ever thinks about the technical side of it all or asks questions about where they come from or what they mean to other people all the way across the globe.

“I had to do a lot of research,” said Bracy. What she found was a whole new meaning for the symbols we use across the world.

Another series Bracy released in the gallery, “Color Moods”  is purely experimentation art: “It’s a series of purely abstract, meaning they were really just experimental. I was just getting a handle on this new medium. It represents the first experiments I did with monotype printing … It’s called monotype because you can only do it once,” explained Bracy. “You can never recreate it … I think it kinda has a vitality that no matter how hard I try I cannot get back too. Because it was just experimenting and now anything I try is trying to hard.”

It’s a fantastic moment for any artist when an experiment comes out perfect. No matter how much effort you put in you can never recreate that first success. However, the short-lived origins of the art is what make it so spectacular and unique. Bracy found the perfect way to display the importance of experimentation in art and how sometimes it’s important to try something on a whim.

“The Forces of Nature” is, as the name implies, centered on the features of nature that we as humans could respect and learn from. There are so many little phenomena brought to light within the art and, like Bracy says, “It’s often much more about questions” and nobody really will interpret the art in the same way.  

Contact the author at kreed17@wou.edu

Photo by: Paul F. Davis

Colorful in “Candyland”

Caitlyn Nakatsukasa | Freelancer

One of the most popular events is back on campus, and its hype at the school is monumental.

Western’s 22nd Drag Show took place on April 11 and 12. The show is hosted by the Triangle Alliance and the show, script and choreography is completely run by students. The inaugural event is a unique one that has a mix of drag elements, musical performances and unique styles. Often known for its groundbreaking, upbeat vibe and entertainment, it’s an event that everyone wants to attend every year.

This year’s theme was Candyland and the storyline is closely associated with the gameplay of the board game. Similar to the board game, the Drag Show starts off with two girls wanting to play a game of Candyland and later finding themselves in the board game. They learn that King Kandy, the most respected character that keeps the world colorful, is missing and the townspeople are worried that villain Lord Licorice will take over and ruin all of Candyland. The characters encounter other characters such as Mamma Ginger Tree, Jib and Princess Lolly who all join them in their search for King Kandy.

“Candyland” focused on pride and discovering self-identity. Candyland’s main message for the audience is to lift each other up in love and encourage others to celebrate who they are and be proud of it. Characters in the show struggled with this and showed that the digression of self love and acceptance was not easy.

Lord Licorice was embarrassed about his sexuality which caused him to be angry and become the villain he is. He never meant to hurt anyone but felt ashamed because he was different from other people which caused him to act in the way that he did. This shows the struggle that unfortunately many people today go through with acceptance and self-identification.

Self-discovery is a process, and I really wanted to explore that,” said Suse Doepken, the scriptwriter for the show. “I tried really hard to give a variation of characters and expressions, like genderfluid, questioning, super feminine, super masculine and gay.”

Doepken wanted everyone to feel included whether the person is a part of or an ally of the community: “I truly hope the audience was able to find themselves relating or seeing aspects of themselves in the characters I brought to life.”

Doepken believes that discovering oneself and identity can be a scary and wanted the script of the show to reflect that journey so others out there can relate and not feel alone.

“(The show) was fun and exciting. Being part of a community that encourages each other to be themselves is so heartwarming. It’s always nice to be around people that can relate and support you.” said Chase Tabladillo, who played the Duke of Swirl.

This was Tabladillo’s second year in the show, and she believes the show gives people the opportunity to step out of their comfort zone and do things they’ve never done before, such as dancing and performing in front of many people; “We all had our ups and downs but at the end of the day we all pulled through as a group and made this amazing show happen.”  

“I decided to join drag show after realizing my sexuality and accepting it,” explained Mandy Storm, who performed as Dame Inatrix, and played Jolly. “I have many friends that do it and they encouraged me to at least try, so I did. And I loved every minute of it. I loved that it could be my true self and not be judged.”

Storm loved the sense of community the show brought and the friendships that were built during the production. This is her first year being part of drag show. “The most memorable part of the show was the support and encouragement that was given to me by everyone in the cast. I was able to build relationships that will last forever.”

“Candyland” was a hit and it was all because of the cast and crew. At the end of the show they stated that society should work together to lift each other up in celebration for who they are. Everyone did an outstanding job executing that message and help make this an event where it’s safe to express yourself in a fun manner.

Contact the author at cnakatsukasa15@wou.edu

Photos by: Paul F. Davis

 

Annual One Act Festival coming to Rice Auditorium

Kevin Reed | Entertainment Editor

The One Act Festival is a celebration of student involvement in the theatre department by giving plenty of students the chance to direct and put together their own short single act plays. There are eight different plays being performed at the festival this year and each is student acted, directed and produced.

The students involved get to practice their theatre skills in whatever role they are in to better prepare them for the real world of theatre and acting. With so many different one acts, viewers can really get a taste of almost anything.

“The one-act festival is fun because there are so many different shows going up that you are sure to see something you will like,” said Rory Krehbiel, director of “Canker Sores and Other Distractions.” “Each director picked a completely different kind of show making this a hodgepodge of comedy, tragedy, and melodrama.”

Many of the plays have been selected from writers and playwrights like Mary Miller, Christopher Durang, Rob Urbinati and Sam Shepard.

Because the overall time for them to rehearse and put the acts together was a short three weeks, directors and actors have both had to use every bit of time they have to make their act as perfect as they can. Many of the plays involve simple sets and costumes because of how the festival is formatted. Each director and actor is putting their heart and soul into these one acts to make sure they captivate the audience throughout the entire act.

“Fourteen Hundred Thousand” is a short play being directed by junior Hunter Atkin that was written by playwright Sam Shepard.

Atkin shared his reasoning for choosing this playwright for his act: “Shepard is a great playwright because he has this really specific way of writing, because his characters act realistically but their actions and the things they say are out of the blue and strange. Often the dialogue doesn’t make sense because it’s less about the dialogue and more about the relationship between the characters.”

In “Fourteen Hundred Thousand,” a husband and wife move into a new home that’s 10 stories up, and instal a new bookcase that holds fourteen hundred-thousand books. Atkin is new to the directing world. Because of his recent exposure to it, he believes he has found his calling in directing. Atkin described this “This year is a really big year for directing for me, because I have never really directed. I’ve acted a lot more than I have directed … The more I do it the more I actually really enjoy it and I think I’d like to pursue directing in the future.”  

“Canker Sores and Other Distractions,” a play written by Christopher Durang, is being directed at the festival by Rory Krehbiel.

Krehbiel described the play: “‘Canker Sores and Other Distractions’ is ‘bout a couple who is trying to get back together after several years of being divorced. Their reunion, however, soon dissolves into fighting.”

The author Durang has been known for his comedic playwriting bordering the extreme. Krehbiel described her thought process of choosing this play to recreate; “I knew I wanted to direct a comedy from the moment I got accepted to work on this project. My concept has definitely been the idea of perfection and then disruption interrupting it. A visual for that might be a quiet lake and then someone starts throwing rocks into it.”

“Hazelwood Jr. High” is a thriller story about a group of middle school girls whose classmate has just been brutally killed. Originally written by Rob Urbinati, this short is both dark and thrilling. Mindy Mawhirter and her crew will be recreating this chilling play.

Another play being displayed at the festival is “Ferris Wheel” written by Mary Miller, and directed by Carina Ramirez, a fifth year Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre major. This play takes you through the course of what happens when a woman, who’s scared of heights, and a man who just quit smoking are put together on an old creaky Ferris wheel.

“I’m really excited to finally see the play performed,” said Ramirez. “I’m also happy knowing that I was able to extend my experience in theatre by adding directing to my profile.”

Other acts being preformed include Roseanna Beth Whitlow’s Thistle Blossoms,” a chilling drama between a college student and her strict professor, being directed by Alex Schlientz; “Studio Portrait,” a bittersweet comedy by Arlene Hutton about photographer and his nervous subject, directed by Nicole Gebbie; “Playwriting 101,” being directed by Tera Lopez, originally by Rich Orloff about an instructor teaching his class the art of playwright; and “The Adventurer’s Club” by Damian Woodsbeing, a story of a group of young adults putting together an adventure plan, directed by Kevin Huang.

The festival runs April 19-21. Viewers will be given a wide variety of plays to watch from thrillers, to comedy, to bizarre drama and tragedy. Tickets will be $3 at the door. Each team is hoping to showcase the work they have been putting together for weeks for attendees and take them away to a whole new place for a short time.

The festival gives anyone who attends a little bit of everything from drama to comedy and gives theatre students a chance to branch out and try taking the role of director.

Contact the author at kreed17@mail.wou.edu

 

April 19th and 21st at 7:30 at RA 113

Fourteen Hundred Thousand

The Adventurer’s Club

Hazlewood Jr. High

Canker Sores and Other Distractions

April 20th at 7:30 and 21st at 2:00 in RA 113

Thistle Blossoms

Studio Portrait

Playwriting 101

Ferris Wheel

 

Photo by: Paul F. Davis

What We Can Learn From Nature

Kevin Reed | Entertainment Editor

“Art is really for oneself and fine art doesn’t really have one finite message that ones trying to get across,” said Jennifer Bracy, a professor of visual communications design at Western. “It’s often much more about questions and maybe there’s some kind of an answer or a message within, but it’s less important.” Bracy has been teaching at Western for eight years and recently released a new fine art exhibit called “Forces of Nature,” on display in Hamersly Library on the second floor.

In the past Bracy has mainly worked as a freelance graphic designer.

“I work often with small startups or non profit organization that need help with a campaign and they need some posters designed, or something of that nature,” said Bracy. However, she explained that this display is a new exploration for her: “There’s a specific message and specific audience that has to be communicated in graphic design … It’s much more open to interpretation.”

Though she has done art displays and shows before, this “Forces of Nature” explores new mediums and techniques utilizing ink and printmaking to create contrasting colors, shapes and forms to make each piece beautiful and have its own personality.

“I named it ‘Forces of Nature’ because a lot of the themes that I have explored in my art, and some of my personal design projects, really came out in this body of work … the infinite wisdom of nature. What we can learn from it as humans, how we have to respect it you know the tensions between the us and the environment and the things we do to it.”

Her main focus of many of the pieces in the display was the beauty that is nature. Drawing inspiration from natural phenomena like the honeycomb and the geodesic dome to showcase the random perfection nature can achieve at times.

“The bee hive is so efficient and it represents this strong, stable and efficient community of bees and humans can really borrow from that.”

One specific series she showcased in the display is called “Number Series” where she breaks down the nature of numbers one through ten and what meaning and significance each number has around the world.

“What I love finding out is that in a lot of these human constructs with language that, inherent in them, there’s a lot of nature with a lot of those origins of numbers,” said Bracy.

Each and every day we see numbers or use numbers but nobody ever thinks about the technical side of it all and asks questions about where they come from or what they mean to other people all the way across the globe.

“I had to do a lot of research,” said Bracy. What she found was a whole new meaning for the symbols we use across the world.

Another series Bracy released in the gallery, “Color Moods”  is purely experimentation art: “It’s a series of purely abstract, meaning they were really just experimental. I was just getting a handle on this new medium. It represents the first experiments I did with monotype printing … It’s called monotype because you can only do it once,” explained Bracy. “You can never recreate it … I think it kinda has a vitality that no matter how hard I try I cannot get back too. Because it was just experimenting and now anything I try is trying to hard.”

It’s a fantastic moment for any artist when an experiment comes out perfect. No matter how much effort you put in you can never recreate that first success. However, the short-lived origins of the art is what make it so spectacular and unique. It’s a one-of-a-kind piece of art and came from purely just messing around and trying new things with a new medium. Bracy found the perfect way to display the importance of experimentation in art and how sometimes it’s important to try something on a whim.

“The Forces of Nature” is, as the name implies, centered on the features of nature that we as humans could respect and learn from. There are so many little phenomena brought to light within the art and, like Bracy says, “It’s often much more about questions” and nobody really will interpret the art in the same way.  

 

Contact the author at kreed17@wou.edu

 

Review: “Behold the Dreamers”

Kevin Reed | Entertainment Editor

“Behold the Dreamers” — a book written by Imbolo Mbue in 2016 — revolves around two Cameroonian immigrants travelling from Limbe, Cameroon to New York City. They deal with both the hardships of immigration and discrimination in their new home.

The book is written about a young couple, Jende and Neni. Jende is happy to have recently gotten a new job as the chauffeur of a wealthy stock investor named Clark Edwards. Neni is a student in community college studying to be a pharmacist. They live together in a one-room apartment with their son, Liomi.

Over the course of the book, Jende sees that coming to America was not the simple answer to all his troubles that he had hoped it would be. His family back home is still struggling to pay for even the basic necessities, his battle to be a legal citizen is tiresome and he works long hours for very little pay.

Jende and Neni also get a deep look into the Edwards family life. They see that despite the vast gap in the two family’s wealth they share one thing: adversity. Overtime it becomes more and more clear that the Edwards wealth doesn’t protect them from struggles in their lives. Everyone has troubles no matter how rich they are.

This book really shows the gritty truth about the “American Dream” that so many immigrants fantasize about. It’s a fact that nobody will ever appreciate how amazing America is as much as an immigrant coming into this country to start a new life. At the start the two Cameroonians look at New York City as a haven for them to escape their lives in Limbe. Over time they realize that this country may bring opportunity and wonder to their lives but it also brings new hardship.

They work so hard; endlessly fighting to reach a dream that, for them, may or may not be attainable at all. They are struggling to reach a wealthy life in America; free from the struggles they felt back in Cameroon. However, as they see from the Edwards, wealth may mean stability and a lavish lifestyle but it doesn’t mean happiness.

After reading this book it gave me a huge appreciation for how amazing this country is and how many opportunities I have in my life. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day struggles and it’s important to be thankful of the life we live here in America. There are people across the world who could never dream of going to college, being or being able to read. “Behold The Dreamers” inspired me to take advantage of every opportunity I have. I recommend this book to anyone wanting — or needing — to feel a new gratitude for the country we live in.  

Mbue builds relatable characters and makes you feel every bit of emotion and suspense that they do. In the opening scene where Jende is interviewing for his new job, I felt really stressed out afterwards — as if I was interviewing for the job myself.  And, in a way I relate with Neni and how she dreams of a better life in America even through some of the darkest parts of the book, she perseveres through it all to make a better life for her family.

Mbue is a really great writer. She builds fantastic relatable characters who are in depth and very three dimensional. Mbue came from Cameroon herself, and experienced many of the things that the characters in her novel go through first hand. This makes her writing and the situations in the book feel so real and personal to the reader. Throughout the book she uses traditional language and sayings from a cameroon. Her use of the language makes you really feel how different the culture is there and get a taste of Cameroon.  

This book is very thought provoking and it made me analyze how unappreciated our country is but also how inadequate our system of immigration is. The novel widened my understanding of what it is like to be someone coming to America with little to nothing. I recommend this book to anyone wanting a thought provoking novel that will open your eyes to the world of an Immigrant.

Contact the author at kreed17@mail.wou.edu

Photo by: Audiobookstore.com

 

Review: “The Defiant Ones”

Kevin Reed | Entertainment Editor

“The Defiant Ones” is a documentary based series on HBO, directed by Allen Hughes, centered on the story of Andre Young (Dr. Dre) and Jimmy Iovine starting “Beats by Dre.” The audience gets to see how they both started out in the music business and watch as they go through a rollercoaster of ups and downs on their way up.

Viewers see real videotapes from their early music days and interviews with a huge number of stars and executives to get an in depth look at their lives.

Dr. Dre is one of the godfathers of hip hop. His story starts in Compton, California. He was one of the people who started N.W.A. and went on to produce for some of the best hip hop artists ever. He helped Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg and Eminem start their careers, but his legacy has inspired rappers like Kendrick Lamar.

Iovine started the hugely successful record label, Interscope Records. Throughout his career, Iovine has managed artists like Eminem, U2, Nine Inch Nails, Gwen Stefani and Rico Suave. His influence on the music industry still is relevant to this day. Throughout the series it’s shown that Iovine has a fascination for the stranger artists and believes that what makes an artist strange is their creativity. This was unlike most other record labels at the time who felt their artists should adhere to what society considers normal. In “The Defiant Ones” Steve Berman, the vice chairman of Interscope Records describes a conversation he had with Iovine about the direction of the label: “I walked into Jimmy’s office one day and he said, ‘Steve you know what you problem is?’ And he drew a straight line. ‘That’s you, and you know what we need to bring into your life?’ And he squiggles. ‘We gotta get some of that.’” Iovine had never felt his label never needed to follow the status quo, he even preferred it didn’t.

Many artists make appearances throughout both Dr. Dre’s and Iovine’s stories. My personal favorite introduction of a specific artist was the establishing scene of Eminem. This scene tugged at my emotions because I always saw Dr. Dre and Eminem as the Batman and Robin of early 2000 hip-hop.

Dr. Dre’s career was suffering and the board at Interscope wanted him gone. Then, he discovers a young freestyle rapper Marshall Mathers in Detroit and decides to sign him. Against Intescope’s executives opinions, Iovine trusts Dr. Dre and they sign Eminem. Within a year of signing he released “Slim Shady LP” which destroyed the charts. Watching this scene, and seeing the actual moment on tape where Dr. Dre and Eminem first clicked made me feel like I was there and I could feel the magic happening right in front of me.

This miniseries is nothing short of motivating to me. It follows the story of two visionaries who climb from the bottom all the way to the top. They climb and claw their way up through hard work and obsession with their work. Seeing that I felt driven to work that hard in anything I do.

“The Defiant Ones” is an in-depth and immersive documentary that gives the viewer an up-close look at the lives of Doctor Dre and Jimmy Iovine. Throughout each episode, viewers get to know the events of their lives through authentic videotapes and pictures, as well as interviews of the artists and people they interacted with throughout their lives.

After watching this you feel as if you were there in the moment. Both of these men worked relentlessly and ended up changing the world of music entirely. You can feel the emotion in every up and down that goes on in the course of the story. Allen Hughes put this together magnificently and made it personal for the viewers. I highly recommend this series to anyone and it is one of my favorite documentaries.

Contact the author at kreed17@mail.wou.edu

Photo by: www.hbo.com