On Tuesday, Nov. 15, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and the Lyons Legacy LLC — described by the Mount Holyoke website as “a community designed to support students as they explore and express their whole selves, including their gender identities and sexualities” — hosted a “Queer & Trans* Art” event, highlighting the work of artists Martine Gutierrez and Jes Fan, who use their work to explore questions of gender, race, identity, commodification and the body.
During the weekend of Nov. 18, the Department of Film Media Theater acted out selected scenes from the play “Short Eyes.” Performing two shows, they hosted talkbacks after each as well as a symposium on Friday, Nov. 18.
“Short Eyes” by Miguel Piñero, which premiered in 1974, follows a group of inmates who meet in a house of detention and turn against a prisoner accused of child molestation. Based on Piñero’s own experiences, the play unabashedly depicts the lives of those living in the American incarceration system. It explores themes of morality and justice, as well as what it means to find humanity within a dehumanizing institution.
On Nov. 7, 2022, Mount Holyoke studio art students erected a myriad of artworks along the lush perimeter of Upper Lake. The installations were created by students of the Fall 2022 semester “Topics in Studio Art: ‘Expanded Print Media’” course taught by Assistant Professor of Art Studio Amanda Maciuba. During the cultivation process, students worked with the Miller Worley Center for the Environment and the 2022-2023 Common Read “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer to create printed installations in response to the Western Massachusetts environment, Maciuba shared.
The Backseat Lovers, an indie-rock band from Utah, has done the seemingly impossible and solidified themselves as a timeless band in an age where much music, specifically indie, can sound like the echoes of its predecessors, lacking the creation of anything groundbreaking. Formed in 2018, the band appeals to a younger generation thrust into the uncertainty of a world turned upside down, experiencing the bittersweet and precarious nature of growing up. The Backseat Lovers — Joshua Harmon, lead singer and guitar; Jonas Swanson, guitar; KJ Ward, bass; and Juice Welch, drummer — embody exactly what it means to be a kid-turned-adult in a world that isn’t quite prepared for them.
Sky-high dragon fights, familial power struggles and political schemes mark Westeros’ return to the screen. The first episode of “House of the Dragon,” a prequel series to “Game of Thrones” set roughly 200 years before the events of the original series, premiered on Sunday, Aug. 21. The following nine episodes were released every Sunday on HBO Max.
Amid the multiple Halloween movies released this month, director Todd Field’s “Tár” was a standout. Starring Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár — the movie’s protagonist and namesake — the film follows one of the best maestros of her generation as she prepares to perform the only one of composer Gustav Mahler’s symphonies that she has never tackled.
The Arctic Monkeys, a rock band from Sheffield, England, is perhaps best known for revolutionizing the English music scene, beyond rock, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Akin to “Beatlemania,” the influence the band had on garage rock permanently shaped the production of rock music. With the release of “AM” (2013), their fifth studio album, fans recognized the band as an instant classic, with the album representing the coolness of revived indie rock that the band became known for.
In cultivating “THE RAREST BLACK WOMAN ON THE PLANET EARTH,” artist and activist vanessa german set out to make something living. A branch of Skinner Museum 75 — Mount Holyoke College Art Museum’s commemoration of the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum’s 1946 bequest to the College — german’s exhibition explores decolonization by means of intellectual and spiritual emancipation.
Fall is upon us, and at Mount Holyoke it’s easy to tell due to the beautiful foliage, an increase in Doc Martens worn around campus and whispers of spooky season in the air. Halloween isn’t that far off, and if you’re looking for a way to get into the spirit of the season, here are some horror movie recommendations to guide you.
The Scooby-Doo franchise’s bright colors, wacky catchphrases, easily recognizable characters and supernatural hi jinks have wormed their way into millions of fans’ hearts. But as the franchise reimagined itself for a new generation of viewers in the 2000s, one question kept coming up: Would Warner Bros. allow gay characters into its beloved, nostalgic cartoon universe?
“Don’t Worry Darling,” starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles was released in U.S. theaters on Sept. 23, 2022. According to Forbes, the film “won the weekend domestic box office with a $19.2 million opening and the approval of fans.” The film, directed by Olivia Wilde, follows a 1950s housewife, Alice (Pugh), who discovers the truth about her husband Jack’s (Styles) job at an organization known as the Victory Project. The cast also features actors Chris Pine and Gemma Chan.
One might not expect a “History of the United States” from a French theater company, but Compagnie L’Héliotrope’s production of “Angela Davis, A History of the United States” did just that this past weekend at Rooke Theater. The one-woman play features a combination of monologues, music and media that provide an insightful look into the life and work of African-American scholar and activist Angela Davis from an international perspective.
Despite being a prequel, “Pearl” is able to stand on its own within the slasher genre while paying a beautiful homage to the classics. Symbolism is at the heart of all great slasher films, and A24 is no stranger to engaging it. A24 films often use color to show a transformation and to establish a character’s identity. Older horror films often use color as well, especially red to symbolize that the worst is near and to show the manifestation of repressed rage. West doesn’t try to give movie-goers something too different but plays on nostalgia and maintains what makes a slasher film good while still orienting it for modern audiences through costuming, re-imagined cliches and allusions.
This semester, the Mount Holyoke Department of Art Studio onboarded Visiting Lecturers in Art Studio Vick Quezada and Xuân Pham and Assistant Professor of Art Studio Marianna Dixon Williams. Bolstered by the soft opening of Media Lab, each of the new faculty members offers a distinctive perspective to the College’s rapidly-evolving interdisciplinary dialogue.
Last Thursday, Sept. 22, the kickoff event for the annual Native American Indigenous Studies Association Northeast Gathering and Five College Native American Indigenous Studies Symposium was held at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. Attendees made up of Five College NAIS faculty, students and local NAIS academics ate Wampanoag cuisine from Sly Fox Den Restaurant & Bar and concentrated in the front gallery, where they examined one of the newest MHCAM exhibits, “Considering Indigeneity.”
Photo courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Wikimedia Commons.
“Abbott Elementary,” a mockumentary-comedy in its second season, was awarded three Emmys.
By Oakley Marton ’25
Staff Writer
It’s rare that a show featuring a self-described “underfunded and poorly-managed public school in America” wins three Emmys. It’s even rarer that it’s a comedy show. Yet “Abbott Elementary” is quickly becoming one of America’s favorite shows, winning awards that have broken barriers for Black creators and actors last Monday, just before the show’s highly anticipated second season released on Wednesday, Sept. 21.
“Abbott Elementary” is a mockumentary-style workplace comedy about teachers at an underfunded, majority-Black elementary school in Philadelphia. The show has received rave reviews from critics like The Guardian and The New York Times, a 98 percent Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and an average of eight million viewers across all platforms.
The show’s large fan following from teachers has been particularly heartwarming to the cast and crew. This relationship is exemplified by a resolution from Helen Gym — a former teacher and current city council member of Philadelphia — to honor Brunson for the creation of the show, according to the Philadelphia City Council Twitter. This week, the cast and crew found themselves celebrated in a new arena — the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Quinta Brunson — producer, lead actor and writer for “Abbott Elementary” — was nominated for three Emmys at the 74th Emmys on Sept. 12, becoming the first Black person to be nominated in three different comedy categories in the same year.
“She’s a triple threat,” Warner Bros. TV chairman Channing Dungey said of Brunson in an interview with Variety. “There are very few people I would consider her peers.”
Brunson was born in Philadelphia, where her mother worked as a teacher. She grew to internet fame by making viral comedy videos for Buzzfeed from 2014 to 2018. She then left to star on HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” later beginning work on “Abbott Elementary.”
According to People, Brunson was inspired by her own experiences in her mother’s classroom and even named the show after Mrs. Abbott, her favorite teacher. The show’s majority-Black cast and its candid takes on public education are far from the norm in Hollywood, yet its authenticity and character-driven comedy put it among the most highly broadcast shows on television.
While its fanbase boomed, the show received seven Emmy nominations this year — including for Outstanding Comedy Series — and won for Outstanding Writing in A Comedy Series, Outstanding Supporting Actress and Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series. Quinta Brunson was the second Black woman to win the writing category, the first being Lena Waithe in 2017 for Netflix’s “Master of None.” Sheryl Lee Ralph, the “Dreamgirls” star who plays the no-nonsense veteran teacher Barbara on “Abbott,” was the second Black woman to win in that category since Jackée Harry in 1987 for “227.” In her acceptance speech, Ralph sang an excerpt from “Endangered Species” by Dianne Reeves. “I’ve been singing that song for years because I think of myself as an artist, as a woman, especially as a woman of color — I’m an endangered species. I don’t sing any victim song. I’m a woman. I’m an artist and I know where my voice belongs,” she stated at the end of her speech. Harry tweeted to Ralph after her win, saying, “For 35 years I’ve been the only Black woman to win Outstanding Supporting Actresses in a Comedy Series. But that all changes tonight … and it’s come full circle!”
“I think of myself as an artist, as a woman, especially as a woman of color — I’m an endangered species. I don’t sing any victim song. I’m a woman. I’m an artist and I know where my voice belongs.”
In this emotionally-charged atmosphere that celebrated the talent of Black artists whom institutions like the Emmys rarely recognize, some were frustrated at Emmy host Jimmy Kimmel’s joke before Brunson’s win, wherein he pretended to be so inebriated that the category announcer had to drag him out from backstage. A controversy emerged, with concerned fans and stars, including Ralph, expressing that Brunson needing to step over his body to give her acceptance speech felt disrespectful and took away from the moment, according to HuffPost.
After the show, Brunson commented, “I think in that moment, I was just really happy that it was Jimmy up there,” who she has described as a “comedy godfather” and one of the first to watch “Abbott.” She continued, “I don’t know, tomorrow maybe I’ll be mad at him. I’m gonna be on his show on Wednesday, so I might punch him in the face,”she joked. “I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.”
That Wednesday, during his “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” monologue, Brunson “interrupted” Kimmel, walking onto the stage in a sparkling pink dress, Emmy in hand. “I have a little favor to ask, actually,” she said once the cheers for her had died down. “So you know how when you win an Emmy, you only have 45 seconds to do an acceptance speech, which is like, not that much time?” she asked him rhetorically, tampering down a grin. “Then you get less time, because someone does a dumb comedy bit that goes on a bit too long?”
“You know, I have heard of that happening in previous years,” Kimmel joked.
“Right, right. Well, I was wondering — or more, demanding — if I could I have a couple of extra minutes to thank a couple of extra people I didn’t get to on Monday night,” Brunson continued. The crowd burst into cheers again as Kimmel exited and Bruson recreated her acceptance speech, thanking different comedy writers that inspired her: Channing Dungey, the first Black American president of a major broadcast TV network, “the internet for raising me and to all my ‘Abbott Elementary’ writers watching, I wouldn’t have this without you. Now, please go to bed. We have work tomorrow — even though you’re adults and I have no jurisdiction over when you sleep,” she finished, ending with a smile wrapped in the glow of the gold trophy she carried.
Brunson’s comedic strengths and the power of her fans helped her steer the conversation back to the highly anticipated season two of Abbott Elementary, and the unique place it’s carving out on television right now. On the red carpet, the showrunner reflected on what it meant to her to write a show that resonated with so many, especially teachers. “My mom was a teacher. I was so close to it all my life. I was in my mom’s class. Schools like Abbott, with Black children and Black teachers who care about them, they’re very special places. Places of community and safety and morals and intense humor.”
Abbott Elementary is a love letter to teachers, filtered through the intense humor Brunson and the cast cultivate so well. This season, the show will be diving into new storylines of characters like Barbara, the oldest teacher, learning how to make her class accessible to a student who uses a wheelchair; Melissa, a veteran teacher managing high class sizes and, of course, many will be watching closely to see if Gregory and Janine’s will-they-won’t-they grows into something more. Season two, episode two of “Abbott Elementary” premieres on ABC Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 9 p.m. EST.
