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The Golden Globes and the Critics Choice awards have both gone by and now the Oscars loom ahead. To no real surprise, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film “Inherent Vice” barely received any nominations snagging just two in the Oscars: costume design and adapted screenplay.

The reason that the lack of nominations for this film, to put it simply, is because it just isn’t a clinical “Oscar” film. Meaning, that it isn’t packaged nicely for the viewer to digest easily in one viewing so that they come out of the theatre saying, “Ya, I get it.”

I can understand that casual viewers wouldn’t even think about seeing this movie, but the polarized reviews by the critics was a little disappointing. Many of them bashed the film for being too boring or having no recognizable plot. But umm…that isn’t the point of the film? Matt Zoller Sietz, a writer for the late Roger Ebert’s movie review website, got it spot on. He recognized that the point of the movie isn’t about following the plot, because honestly, that is damn near impossible. Instead, you should just let yourself be washed over by the atmospheric paranoia of 70’s California that the film immerses you in. Know that this is a movie that gets better with multiple viewings.

Also, if you are familiar with Thomas Pynchon’s work (author of Gravity’s Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, and of course, Inherent Vice) then you will recognize that this movie is an incredibly faithful adaptation, and that the convoluted plot isn’t a sign that PTA is a bad director or writer. It’s just Pynchon man…

My best attempt to explain what I think the point of the film, is for me to point you in the direction of a song that is in it’s soundtrack. Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF6JMotbHYM

Amidst this world of hippy paranoia, the only thing that Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is sure of, is that he still loves Shasta, and he hopes that she loves him too. But this is not meant to be. Of course I may be completely wrong. To steal Seitz’s final line from his review, “What were we talking about?”

Joaquin Phoenix is also another reason this may not be getting much favour from the Oscars (he publicly said that the Oscars were bullshit, but later apologized, however, lets be honest, old people don’t forget insults, although they may forget a lot more, like what a good movie is for instance).

But the entire cast is amazing, Joaquin Phoenix is basically in every scene, then we have Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro, Reese Witherspoon, Martin Short, and a newcomer Katherine Waterston. Every single one of these actors give wonderful performances.

If it isn’t obvious by this point, I absolutely loved this film. Arguably you could say I am somewhat biased, by saying that I love Paul Thomas Anderson’s work (The Master and There Will Be Blood are both amazing), but that isn’t true because I don’t love Punch Drunk Love that much, nor Magnolia. I still think The Master is my favourite out of his filmography, followed now by Inherent Vice (or maybe tied).

So watch this trailer, and go see it if you want. Remember, don’t try really hard to follow the plot, just enjoy the moment.

Oh, did I forget to mention? The movie is absolutely hilarious.

I have always been hiding myself. It sort of comes with the territory of being gay. You hide from your family, you hide from your friends, and you hide from society. You learn to store things away because someone else’s reaction may be harsher than the consequences of bottling it up. It becomes easier to lie to yourself than to express yourself. This is part of the danger that society imposes on those that are deemed lesser. This is not an experience shared just within the Queer community and I’m sure many of us have this same experience, but I can’t comment on those perspectives, I can only comment on my own.

People always ask me when I knew I was gay. Maybe, I’m a special case, but I always knew I was gay, the only issue was coming to accept it. Again, I might be a special case with this, but I accepted it when I was in 6^th grade. That was the first time I stopped really lying to myself. Before then, I was absolutely terrified of who I was. At that time, the representation in media was either very stereotypical/negative or shielded from me because they hit on some very adult themes that I probably couldn’t handle at that point. I had nobody to look up to, nobody to show me that life in the Queer community can be happy, comforting, and safe. I did not want to accept myself, but I knew that life would be even more difficult to survive if I didn’t. I came out to myself and that was my first step to being tired of hiding.

The next step came during high school, the first time someone learned that I was gay. I wouldn’t call it my first time “coming out” because I didn’t really decide to do it. I was asked if I was gay and I didn’t want to lie to them. That’s how I operated for a long time; if someone wanted to ask me, I would answer as truthfully as possible. This was my way to stop lying, but not be open. I didn’t get a lot of questions during that period of my life, so it wasn’t very satisfactory for me. I had actively come out to a person during this time, but I was not ready to actually come out to others. I was moving forward, but very slowly.

My (hopefully) final, and most important transitional step came with college. When I went to college, I decided to be fully open with myself and others. I was completely out to all my friends on campus and I started living my life in the way that I truly wanted. In addition, I started coming out to my family. That is still an intimidating process, but I will continually work towards it. With this new transition, I can finally do some true introspection and find out who I am.

Now a lot of the people reading this are probably wondering what this has to do with art. This blog is a part of Arts at Michigan, so I should make some reference to art. I will do more than that. Unfortunately, I believe that my artistic development is stunted from my experiences. A lot of art concerns looking into oneself and I wasn’t really able to do that for most of my life. I wasn’t able to express myself like others could and I think has negatively affected me. I don’t believe my creative endeavors are as mature as my peers and I don’t know if they ever will be. At the very least, I can express myself now and that is a miracle.

I’ve recently been seeing a lot of publications about the legging epidemic that seems to be overtaking America. The “are they pants or not” debate has been raging since my junior year of high school, but it seems to be getting fiercer as stores come out with more styles and varieties. Up to this point I’ve just sort of rolled my eyes and stayed out of it but a series of incidents have led me to speak out on the topic. Let me start by saying that as someone who loves fashion, I do believe there are times to wear and not to wear leggings as pants, such as if they are see-through or in a professional setting. However I also firmly believe in a woman’s right to dress as she pleases without being labeled a “distraction.” Last year I remember seeing battles between middle/high schools and wearers of bright patterned leggings. Schools called them distracting and were working toward banning them as a result of this. Public education systems struggle enough with getting kids to focus, so even though I disagreed with this affront to self expression, I let it slide.

It wasn’t until I worked as a camp counselor this past summer that I really began to feel outrage toward this issue. The camp has a long standing history of trying to take the focus off of romantic relationships and put it on a more brotherly/sisterly type of bond. This is a reason that so many people love the camp, so it was easy to be accommodating when they started to establish guidelines for a more appropriate way of dressing. Booty shorts and low cut tank tops were quickly abolished, but soon they adopted the dreaded finger tip rule. The problem (as everyone who has recently been in high school knows) is that everyone has different body types and a perfectly acceptable pair of shorts may not always go down to the finger tips. In addition to this, it was becoming increasingly harder for campers and staff alike to find long enough shorts in stores and no one wanted to buy an entirely new wardrobe that they would never wear outside of camp. So, to avoid the issue, this year most of the staff came prepared with loads of leggings and yoga pants – easy to move around in, relatively thin, and not against the rules. Until… One day during the staff training week, one of my superiors told me that they were thinking of banning leggings. I, like all of my coworkers, was infuriated because that was basically all we had brought. When I asked her why, she replied that many of the male counselors had been commenting and talking about the girls. So, once again, they decided to blame the women for the male gaze and sexualization of women’s bodies.

I told her it wouldn’t matter how many times they change the dress code, boys will ALWAYS find something to talk about. For once it would be nice if they addressed the boys about their tendencies instead of blaming the women. Though I thought I was sounding like a broken record, she told me she had never considered it from this perspective. Never considered it?! Even this woman couldn’t fathom that boys looking at girls could be a boy problem, not a girl problem. I wear leggings because they’re extremely comfortable, agile, and stay in place whereas low rise jeans often require constant readjustment so as not to expose the butt crack. No girl wears yoga pants to be sexy. We wear skirts and dresses and booty shorts if we’re trying to dress to impress, but we wear yoga pants for comfort. So to blame us for men and the media’s long history of taking whatever we wear and sexualizing it, is outrageously unfair.

In an article I came across last night, a woman spoke of her decision to give up wearing leggings in public out of respect for her husband after she found out that men (shocker) check girls out when they wear them. She spoke of not wanting to tempt anyone, identifying herself as the problem. This self-blame for male temptation is the same reason that the first question many women get in cases of rape is “what were you wearing,” reaffirming again and again the idea that we ask for it. What this woman doesn’t realize that not wearing leggings isn’t going to change anything. Jeans these days are just as form fitting as leggings, slacks still reveal that we have butts, and skirts and dresses still show off our legs. I’m tired of society telling me I need to change me to be acceptable. That’s why there are so many cultures around the world that force women to almost entirely cover themselves up, so as not to tempt the men who never seem to be held accountable for their own self-control.

Enough is enough, it’s time to change the conversation and ask ourselves if we really want to sacrifice our right to individuality and self expression to try to adapt ourselves to these bogus social rules rather than trying to challenge and change them. I’m not in anyway trying to blame men, it’s a media that constantly sexualizes the female body that is really at fault for this pervasive vein of thought and needs to be put into check. Of course, it won’t happen over night, but in the mean time banning leggings is just further objectifying and manipulating the female body. It’s time to raise our voices just like 13 year old Illinois middle-schooler Sophie Hasty did in protest of her school’s ban: “not being able to wear leggings because it’s ‘too distracting for boys’ is giving us the impression we should be guilty for what guys do.” I’m not willing to turn a blind eye anymore and I think it’s time we rethink our systematized victim blaming.

It seems that as soon as one turns 14, exits middle school and enters high school there is never enough time. With the stress of APUSH, Chemistry, and Calculus constantly looming, your life becomes filled with assigned readings and problem sets so that in your few moments of peace you neither have the ability or desire to do anything but take a moment to finally breathe.

Therein lies the beauty of summer vacation. In summer you have time to earn minimum wage at the local pizza shop, see your friends and watch enough TV to turn your brain to mush. During the school year there is never enough time, but during summer you have all the time in the world.

Before high school, I devoured books, but once freshmen year started I stopped reading entirely unless it was for class. Even worse, some of the assigned reading was expedited by the use of Sparknotes and Wikipedia. So the summer after freshmen year I started a tradition, one which I have honored every summer until now (my senior year of college). Every May I choose two books, two classics, and read them over the summer. While it may not seem like the largest commitment I could make, I always seem to choose the thickest books available and having never liked an English class which I have taken, it is a rather impressive feat for me.

From Don Quixote to Crime and Punishment I have loved my tradition but this past summer (2014) I couldn’t bear to finish my second book, The Portrait of a Lady. The summer of 2013 I had a girly summer where I picked two classic romance novels – Madame Bovary and Gone with the Wind (insert groan here). Madame Bovary was first and I absolutely hated it. Not for the writing, but because of the main character, Emma Bovary, who consistently whined about her boring life and did nothing to “fix it” but have an affair and ruin her husband’s life. So when Scarlet O’Hara appeared on the pages of Gone with the Wind I was hooked. Here was a girl who went after what she wanted and did not allow social niceties to stop her. SPOILER ALERT So when things did not work out as planned in the final pages of the book, I was angry. Finally I had found a character I related to, liked and respected and after a 1,200 page investment in her she ends up miserable? I was not happy. This caused Isabel Archer’s appearance in The Portrait of a Lady not to be exciting, rather scary. Scary because I worried that her free thinking would lead to her demise and that I would end my summer disappointed once more in a tradition which I had grown to love. Because of that, the book remains lying on my desk with the bookmark dangerously close to the end. Maybe some night I will find the courage to finish it. Or maybe May will come and I will find a book that does not have a strong willed, relatable, female protagonist.