Art, in all its forms, is a reflection of life around us. And yet we often fail to see ourselves — our identities, our emotions, our thoughts about life, the universe and everything — in the art we consume. That moment when you’re watching a film, or reading a book, or looking at a piece of art and you see yourself, it’s a transformative thing. It’s beautiful to realize that someone else sees the world the way you do. This B-Side is a celebration of times that we find representations in art that match (or don’t match) the way we see ourselves.
— Kari Anderson, Senior Arts Editor
Finding ammonites by Daily Arts Writer Meera Kumar
Oh, to be an octopus, slowly slithering my way through the dark, only to stumble on vestigial remains of an ancestor’s home. Aki Inomata’s moving-image piece “Think Evolution #1: Kiku-ishi (Ammonite)” describes what a good piece of art feels like: stumbling on a piece of home that you separated from lifetimes ago. Inomata was inspired by the instinct that octopuses had to huddle inside shell-like objects despite having evolved out of their shells millions of years ago. Thus, she decided to create a resin model based on the shells found of distant ancestors — ammonites. And so, in the moving image, the octopus slowly feels around the new shell it has fallen into — something it wasn’t necessarily looking for, but that seems to understand the octopus and its constitution.
Read more here.
Female saints, the quintessential feminist icons by Daily Arts Writer Cecilia Duran
My older sister came to campus to visit for a couple of days over Thanksgiving Break. On Monday, we gave a toast while ABBA’s “Thank You for the Music” played in the background — a ritual we have been doing since we can recall. It wasn’t my birthday, but it was still a day to celebrate. Nov. 22 is the patron day of Saint Cecilia — the saint of music and musicians, and my very own patroness.
I grew up Catholic in Spain, where the culture of venerating saints is very much alive. Most people have a saint according to the name they were given at birth. It is certainly not as big of a deal as celebrating one’s birthday, and people’s dedication varies greatly — some people don’t acknowledge their saints, while others make a whole celebration around them. My family is the latter case.
Read more here.
Seeing myself in Cinderella by Daily Arts Writer Kaya Ginsky
The first movie I ever loved was “Cinderella,” the original Disney animated film from 1950. The second movie I ever loved was “A Cinderella Story:” the classic 2004 teen rom-com adaptation.
As a hopeless romantic cinephile and an underdog loyalist, I kept the Cinderella plotline close to my heart throughout my youth, seeing myself in any struggle as a Cinderella before the ball. Sometimes, this rosy outlook served me surprisingly well.
During my first University of Michigan homecoming weekend, my sister’s friends, a dozen independent and empowered recent University alumna, told me that shedding my rose-colored glasses was a rite of passage. I saw them physically cringe in the presence of their former college hookups, and they told me college would traumatize me. There would be no Cinderella stories.
This week, I watched “A Cinderella Story” for the first time since starting college. I still haven’t found love, but now more than ever, I love and relate to the film.
Read more here.
Uzma Jalaluddin and representation: The legacy of ‘Hana Khan’ by Daily Film Beat Editor Sabriya Imami
I’m the kind of person who looks for herself when she reads. I want so badly to find bits of myself in characters that I love. From Hermione Granger to Lizzy Bennet, I crave a connection to beloved characters, so much so that I force similarities. I try to become the characters instead of finding a natural connection, instead of finding something real.
And then I read Uzma Jalaluddin’s “Hana Khan Carries On.”
I’ve seen attempts at Muslim representation in art in the past and have almost always been wholeheartedly disappointed. Seeing the trope of “Muslim girls gone wild,” taking their hijabs off and straying from the religious morals, troubles me. In other cases, the characters face a great, dramatic internal conflict, where they agonize over whether or not they can be both a desi Muslim and an American student — something along those lines. I’ve never felt this pressure about maintaining both aspects of my identity. There are probably desi Muslim girls who do face these issues or who are in these situations; it’s just not how I’ve grown up. It’s not who I am. So where’s the representation for the kind of Muslim I am?
Read more here.
My college experience: ‘Again, But Better’ by Daily Arts Writer Hannah Carapellotti
“I’m leaving the country because I have no friends.”
This is the opening line to one of my favorite books, “Again, But Better” by Christine Riccio. The second I read that line, I knew that this story was going to change my life (as cheesy as that may sound). I first read it shortly after graduating high school. Riccio has a big following on YouTube and documented her writing process in video diaries. One of my best friends was a huge fan, and when the book finally came out, she would not stop talking about it. She even drove down to Chicago to meet Riccio and have her sign her copy of the book. This same friend was gracious enough to let me borrow such a prized possession, and immediately after finishing it, I drove to three different Target locations to get my own copy.
Read more here.
How ‘Friends’ failed me: No representation is better than bad representation by Daily Arts Writer Emmy Snyder
It’s my schtick to say “there’s too many white/straight/skinny/gentile/neurotypical etc. people” in almost every TV review I write because, well, it’s often true. Despite watching more than my fair share of TV, there’s no character or show I can think of, off the top of my head, that makes me feel seen. There’s nobody that I can point to and say “that’s me,” even if we look alike on the outside. If I don’t feel seen up there, I know hardly anybody else does.
The problem isn’t just that representation eludes minorities and marginalized people. Sometimes there are people that look like us on screen, but they aren’t people we are proud of. So I don’t actively seek out shows when I hear there might be a character whose identity overlaps with mine; if anything, I run from them. Often, this representation hurts more than no representation at all.
Read more here.
‘No Longer Human’: Living in shame by Daily Arts Writer K. Rodriguez-Garcia
Many people think representation and identity go hand-in-hand. I also used to think so. But while I still do believe that there is a connection between representation and identity, I no longer believe that they are inextricably linked.
I am in love with media — consuming films, video games, books and more — but I’ve always found it difficult to see myself in what I consume. I tried to find characters or authors who shared similar identities to me in hopes of finding representation. Through this search, I did manage to find a lot of diverse characters that I really enjoyed; however, I still never felt represented as a person. I felt discouraged, and I stopped consuming media with the intention of trying to find myself within it. In doing that, I found a piece of media where I felt the most seen.
Read more here.
Ode to the destinationless walk by Daily Arts Writer Jaden Katz
It’s some time near the end of the afternoon, and it’s raining in Gustave Caillebotte’s Rue de Paris, temps de pluie, or Paris Street, Rainy Day. In the painting, which is over nine feet long and seven feet tall, people are walking. They slice through the composition the same way Haussman’s boulevards sliced through Paris at the end of the 19th century. No one stops for the picture. Instead, they hurry by, huddling under their umbrellas, unaware of Caillebotte’s gaze, or at least pretending to be. I imagine they have better things to do — trains to catch, cats to feed, ballets to attend — but who they are and where they are going, I will never know for sure. All I know is that they are headed somewhere beyond the frame.
Read more here.
Negligence in the name of feminism, I know it ‘All Too Well’ by Daily Music Beat Editor Kaitlyn Fox
When Taylor Swift announced that she would be releasing a 10-minute version of her 2012 breakup ballad “All Too Well” on her re-recorded album Red (Taylor’s Version), fans everywhere erupted into excitement. The original cut, already over five minutes long, was never released as a single, despite being one of Swift’s favorite songs off Red. Once the album was released in 2012, however, fans quickly gravitated to the song on their own and have been obsessed with its tragic story of a head-over-heels romance gone wrong. On a Thursday night, curled up in bed waiting for her new album to drop, I was in shambles when midnight arrived, immersing myself in an extended version of one of Swift’s most beloved songs.
Read more here.