Anya Kasuri, TVM President and Post-Credits Editor-in-Chief, attended the event dressed in a sparkling gown and touted the magazine’s sole physical copy. The magazine, which she co-founded alongside TVM’s graphics coordinator, Sascha Siddiqui, encourages authors to thoughtfully analyze their favourite films. Kasuri is in her third year, studying International Development with a double minor in Political Science and World Cinemas.

In an interview with The McGill Daily, Kasuri says, “Film is the medium that influences our everyday character and aspirations.” Not only does it influence you, it allows you to understand yourself: “Critiquing film is a social activity, an intellectual engagement, and at its core, is a self-assessment of your values and beliefs…the meaning you derive from it can be really telling of your character too. ”

Her favourite part of the magazine is the graphics: “[Unlike writing, graphics] provide visuals to cinema…to perfectly complement the [article’s] argument. Sascha [Siddiqui], our graphics coordinator, did an incredible job bridging the gap … When I saw the final [magazine] it was her creativity that grounded the writing back to its roots — an appreciation of cinema.”

“Films should always be critically analyzed this way. I feel like that’s a value that I’ve derived from my film classes, particularly with Professor Ara Osterweil,” she replied when asked about the vision behind the magazine. “The process of watching and experiencing a film is not only viewing it, then going home and going to sleep. It’s about watching it with your friends, watching other people, reacting, [and] hearing everyone’s reactions in the crowd. Afterward, [the experience is about] discussing it as you understand it — because when you come out of a movie, you’re not going to know exactly what you have to say; it’s not a fully fleshed-out thought. When you spend time discussing it, you learn more about it.”

The key difference, for Kasuri, between short- and long-form analysis lies in its depth: “[Long-form analysis] offers full fledged evaluations of films’ formal elements: cinematography, mise en scene, visual tone, colour palette, acting, narrative — being able to evaluate that in a longer form analysis lets you see each film individually…and its directors’ vision apart from one another because you get into the depths of each films’ elements’ meaning[s].” To conclude: “It’s a better, more engaging, intellectual, and educational alternative to short-form media.”

However, she notes that many people forget the core of analysis: what the film wants to be. “A lot of people misjudge pieces of media by applying the same expectations to all [of them]. It’s important to judge a film based on what it’s striving to be…they all have different standards of their visual language, their pacing, their acting, their sets,” said Kasuri.

I encountered Elena Degas at a bar table next to the DJ booth, listening intently to the live band. As TVM’s music composer, she wanted to “provide insight from a musical perspective.” Writing to the Daily, she highlighted how the score was integral to the story: “Sinners was by far the film that impacted me most from the last year, and I felt that it was special in the way that the score/music was so integral to the story and the conversations that were happening around the film.”

Degas got her start in film scoring when she watched Euphoria in 2019. The music was what made her love the show; she found that it could tell a poignant story on its own.

Her favourite part of the article she wrote for Post-Credits was her analysis of the use of blues at the centre of Sinners. It gives the viewer insight into the film’s characters and their struggles. Especially the song “Pick Poor Robin Clean,” demonstrates the turn from oppressed to oppressor in Remmick, an Irishman. It opens up a “space for a larger conversation about the history of predominately Black genres of music and how they’ve evolved and continue to live on today.”

From her article: “It is immediately following [the surreal montage] scene when the people in the juke joint are faced with the vampires, who dauntingly perform an upbeat, folk-inspired rendition of ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean’ for the group.” The song is “a blues song that [embodies] someone trying to survive by picking apart and taking everything they can from a dead robin.”

For Degas, “this jolly folk rendition exemplifies the white vampires’ inability to engage empathetically and thoughtfully with the community they are attempting to infiltrate, and recalls a common pattern in genres such as blues and jazz, in which white musicians have historically appropriated and overshadowed Black artists.” Remmick’s positionality is especially striking because of his Irish heritage and experience with colonialism. His desire to completely consume the music is shaped by a selfish desire to preserve it the way he was unable to with his own heritage. However, in doing so, he reproduces colonial violence, with music becoming a tangible symbol of culture.

TVM has allowed Degas to explore her passion for the soundscape of a movie: “Film is now one of the main cornerstones of my life, I have found a huge love for making music for films at TVM, and have found a great community of other film-lovers here; I now plan on attending film school next year for sound design in hopes of a career in film audio/music!”

McGill’s distinct lack of a creative arts programme is no secret. However, student initiatives like Post-Credits Magazine are working to allow student film lovers to think critically about the art they are passionate about.

TVM will be hosting its largest event of the year, FOKUS Film Festival on Thursday, March 26 at Cinema Du Parc. For more information, visit TVM at tvmtelevision.com or @tvm.television on Instagram.

The post TVM Reveals the First Issue of Post-Credits Magazine appeared first on The McGill Daily.

In 2026, Deloitte predicts that women will make up less than 30 per cent of the global technology workforce, given that they are consistently underrepresented in academic programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). What is more, women make up only 25 per cent of tech positions on a global scale, as reported by Forbes and the National Center for Women and Information Technology. 

Girls Who Code confronts gender disparity in STEM by making the field inclusive and accessible for women and gender-diverse people. With an eye towards breaking gender barriers, the organization offers computer science lessons and mentorship for elementary and high school students across Montreal. It also runs hackathons for university students, networking events, and workshops. 

The Daily spoke with Girls Who Code executives Jenna Cacchione and Virginia Ceccatelli, U3 students studying Computer Science and Economics at McGill. We talked about the creative side to coding, imposter syndrome, and why young girls and gender-diverse students belong in the computer science field.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Enid Kohler for The McGill Daily (MD): How did you get involved in Girls Who Code, and why? 

Virginia Ceccatelli (VC): I was never really exposed to coding in high school. It wasn’t really a subject that was taught, and I always thought it was scary as a field and very masculine. When I started my studies in International Relations in university, I got a bit of exposure to Python and R and had so much fun with it, so I transferred into Computer Science. I want to give girls the opportunity to get into coding and see that it’s a creative process as well. 

Jenna Cacchione (JC): Similar to Virginia, I did my first year in [another program, Economics,] and then I switched into Computer Science. My high school didn’t have anything computer related…Had I had a program like this, maybe I would have switched into CS a little bit earlier. I really just wanted to give back [by giving] other girls that same opportunity. 

VC: CS really is like learning a language. Like any language, the more you speak it and the earlier you’re exposed to it, it’s so much easier to pick it up. 

MD: That’s a really good comparison. For those who aren’t familiar with your organization, can you pitch Girls Who Code in a few sentences? 

VC: [Girls Who Code] a way to make coding fun and creative, and to change the narrative that [coding] is anything relegated to the masculine sphere. We give back to young girls [by seeing] them learn every week. It’s really rewarding.

JC: [Coding] can be really daunting. Sometimes I look at my computer screen and I’m like, ‘oh my God, what am I even doing?’ For younger girls especially, it can be super intimidating, especially since it’s a male-dominated field. I hope our facilitators can act as big sisters to our students. 

MD: Why is it important that young girls and gender-diverse students have access to program like Girls Who Code? 

VC: In general, the CS field is massively male-dominated. Most role models in the industry are guys. So for us, it’s really to show girls that they can do it; it’s not that hard. For guys, this message is something they might have been told growing up, and for girls, it’s not necessarily the narrative. 

MD: You mentioned that the Computer Science space is predominantly male-dominated. In your own professional and/or academic experiences, what kind of patterns have you observed in terms of female representation and inclusivity? 

VC: I’m not working in the field yet, but through research projects, I’ve found that you have to prove yourself more. If you’re in a room that has seven guys and two girls, the two girls have to prove that they know what they’re talking about, that they can actually do everything that everyone else can. I feel like there’s this constant voice that’s second guessing my abilities as a girl coder. 

JC: I have to agree. I also find imposter syndrome is very much there. Exactly what you said, if you’re sitting at a table with a bunch of men, and you’re the only two girls, I sometimes feel like, ‘I don’t belong here.’It’s a mental challenge. Like, ‘no, I’ve put in the work. I do belong here. 

MD: On that note, what do you hope students will take away from the program beyond practical coding skills? 

JC: I hope that students realize that it’s okay to ask for help. Sometimes you do need guidance. I had tons of [it], and I was very lucky to have had mentors who were part of Girls Who Code. I hope that [these girls are] able to ask for help and possibly find a mentor later on in their academic career. 

MD: Do you have a favorite memory of your work with Girls Who Code? 

VC: In my year of being a facilitator for Girls Who Code, I taught at the same high school and a lot of the girls stayed the entire year. In the beginning, they were shy about asking questions, but it was really nice to see them gradually gain so much confidence. 

JC: I like the fact that our whole executive team is going through the same thing: we’re all looking for internships, we’re all studying pretty much the same classes. It’s nice to have that community. 

MD: The theme of this column is “good people doing good things.” In the context of your work with Girls Who Code, what does being a “good person” mean to you?

JC: To me, being a good person means giving back and helping younger girls. Acknowledging that I didn’t have the guidance or knowledge that I do now, and then giving it to the next person. 

VC: Instead of resenting the system and having to stretch myself to catch up to get to where I am now, I can give these girls what I wish I had. Being a good person also means sticking together as girls and by helping girls realize that they can do it if they want to. There’s nothing stopping them. 

Learn more about Girls Who Code and opportunities to get involved on Instagram, @girlswhocodemcgill, or through their website, girlswhocode. ssmu.ca

End note: If you know good people doing good things who you would like to see featured in this column, email news@mcgilldaily.com

The post Rewriting the Code: McGill Students Break Barriers in Computer Science appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Play is critical for children’s physical and mental well-being, but not every child has the same access to recreational athletics and community socialization. Founded in 2000, Right to Play is an international non-profit organization that seeks to protect, educate, and empower children in disadvantaged communities through the power of play. Since its foundation, it has reached millions of children in Africa, Asia, and North America, namely, Canada; with the aim of harnessing play to support youth enduring conflict, disease, and poverty.

Since 2006, students have been the official university representatives of the Right to Play organization at McGill. They volunteer in local Montreal schools to promote inclusive and accessible play, fundraise for the international organization, and run community events like toy and food drives for underprivileged communities in the city. The Daily spoke with Co-President and U3 Biology and Math student Jack Gill about Right to Play. We spoke about his involvement in the club, the importance of play and physical activity, and why curiosity should be encouraged in youth.

This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Enid Kohler for the McGill Daily (MD): I’m curious about your own involvement with Right to Play. How and why did you get involved?

Jack Gill (JG): I’m on the varsity swim team at McGill, so I’ve been swimming most of my life. We train almost every day, sometimes twice a day. So sports and being active have been a really important part of my life. It’s allowed me to develop a sense of community, make tons of friends, and build my confidence in and out of the water. I wanted to encourage that in other kids. I started volunteering in winter 2025. I worked in a class with students who have learning disabilities and autism, to encourage more inclusive play. It was really fun to build connections with these kids and slowly see throughout the semester how they got more comfortable and open with us.

MD: How would you pitch Right to Play to a first year student at Activities Night?

JG: Right to Play is not just a club we founded here. It’s a broader international organization. Their whole goal is to empower kids through play to overcome adversity, especially less privileged kids. In Canada, the branch focuses more on [BIPOC such as] African communities who might not have … access to [the] resources that we do, as well as Indigenous communities who similarly don’t have the same resources or access. Our chapter takes from that. We have a lot of events where we fundraise in order to support local schools and youth groups, as well as give back to the broader Right to Play organization. We also volunteer in schools to encourage active lifestyles and fun activities.

MD: Why is it important for kids to have play in their lives?

JG: A lot of children we volunteer with don’t necessarily have access to play. For those with learning disabilities, their parents try to protect them a lot and they don’t necessarily let them do the things other children would do. It doesn’t necessarily give them the opportunity to learn and be curious. Being able to encourage that and let them try things and maybe fail and letting them explore is really meaningful to me.

MD: Do you have a favourite memory of your work with Right to Play?

JG: At one of our schools where we volunteer, we go sledding on this little hill in the winter. One of the kids at the beginning wasn’t able to get up on his own. We would encourage him to get up, but we’d end up having to help him. But later, near the end of the semester, he was able to start getting up by himself with all of us cheering around and encouraging him. It was just so nice when he was able to stand up by himself and show [that] he was fully independent. And now he’s able to do that all the time. His parents might have just always helped him and would never have let him learn to do it by himself. That was probably my favourite moment.

MD: What do you hope kids will take away from Right to Play programming into university and beyond?

JG: I think just life skills, like being able to be independent and do things on your own and interact with other people. Also a sense of community as well as teamwork and the idea of an active lifestyle. With this generation we’re kind of leaning away from that with technology, but it’s so important.

MD: The theme of this column is “good people doing good things.” In the context of your work with Right to Play McGill, what does being a “good person” mean to you?

JG: I think what it means to be a good person is to be able to listen to people and kids and let them guide you. One of the big things I like with volunteering is not necessarily forcing kids to do things but guiding them and helping them choose their own path.

To learn more about Right to Play and opportunities to get involved, visit @rtpmcgill on Instagram.

End note: If you know good people doing good things who you would like to see featured in this column, email news@mcgilldaily.com

The post The Power of Play appeared first on The McGill Daily.

In class over the past few months, we have examined the backlash modern artists received for going against the grain — the “grain” being the expectations set by the Art Academy, the Salon where they would show their work, their audience, and, of course, critics. Modern artists like Manet, who portrayed purely modern scenes without conforming to the “grain,” provoked viewership fury. French critic of the time, Émile Zola, argued in an essay titled “Édouard Manet”, originally published in 1867, that public outrage simply reveals how tightly audiences cling to expectations of what art ought to resemble. The public, up until this point, had maintained neoclassical values in art: to flatter, narrate, and moralize. Manet refused all three of those familiar imperatives by producing art that felt uncomfortable and bluntly new — a choice that is now heavily applauded. True art, a point Zola returns to time and time again, does not come from a desire to conform to norms or follow the “grain” but from individual temperament and personal vision. 

Nearly two centuries later and across the Atlantic, my girlfriends and I visited the Cineplex on Rue Sainte Catherine to watch Emerald Fennell’s 2026 “Galentines” adaptation of “Wuthering Heights”. The reaction to the film was generally varied. Some praised it, while lovers of the novel jumped to Twitter and Reddit to vent their anger over yet another inaccurate adaptation. To give credit to these bibliophiles, Fennell abandons many of the themes that make this story so impactful by portraying a narrative based on her initial impression of the book as a 14-year-old girl. In depicting this youthful interpretation, Fennell centres the film around a glorified toxic romance between Catherine and Heathcliff. Frustrated viewers were appalled at Fennell’s tone-deafness in foregrounding obsessive love while sidestepping and softening the harsher themes of the novel, particularly those pertaining to Heathcliff’s racial marginalization and the systemic class violence in the setting. 

In reading tweets alleging the film’s negligence, just as I did in December when choosing my winter semester electives, I turned to modern art history. Two hundred years apart, both Manet and Fennell have something in common: they’ve both committed to their personal visions and rejected traditional expectations. Manet counters aesthetic norms and produces art that depicts the tensions of modern life in a way that is truthful to himself. Similarly, Fennell abandons the expectation that adaptations be reflective of their source material to create a film rooted in her own experience, a decision Zola might have applauded. Whether or not you enjoy or even “agree with” either of these artist’s work, they both made the choice to commit to their personal truths and abandon external expectations. In practicing artistic autonomy, they choose their own temperament as an anchor in their work. 

If these two artists are correct and individual temperament is the “True North” of art, it leads us to question: are there traditions or expectations that artists must uphold, or is personal vision all that truly matters? Between these contexts, “tradition” is understood very differently. For Manet, “traditions” are expectations set by the Art Academy surrounding what defines academically valid (and objectively good) art. For Fennell, “tradition” underlines the source material from which she draws her film: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Both these artists abandon tradition in their works, making audiences question: where is the line drawn between artistic autonomy and deviations from tradition? 

In deviating from tradition, one can question the difference between innovation and avoidance. 

If artists do have a responsibility to uphold a certain tradition, both Manet and Fennell have failed to do so. Yet we celebrate Manet as a transformative turning point in modern art history. Why? In my opinion, it is because Manet’s work denies the comfort of ignorance and bluntly presents his audiences with uncomfortable social realities, forcing them to analyze their own lives through his work. In contrast, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights does exactly the opposite. While she also deviates from “tradition”, she does so by refusing to inherit the uncomfortable and darker themes of the novel. She allows her audiences to find comfort in the avoidance of difficult themes surrounding the intersection of violence, race, and class. If Manet makes audiences question how closely art should adhere to academic standards, Fennell forces them to question how much personal vision we are willing to accept in interpretations of classic narratives. 

In some cases, we respond well to moving away from tradition when artists depict their personal visions because it feels honest and revealing, confronting you with art rooted in social reality. This is what Manet did in pulling at the seams of academic art to reveal true modern life. On the other side of the coin, moving away from tradition can feel dishonest if viewers don’t feel it is rooted in these social truths — the very social truths that made Emily Brontë’s novel so impactful in the first place. 

Now, as I wrap up this article in my student apartment a few streets from campus, I have to conclude that this argument is somewhat of an open-ended question. I think that is because there is no universal line that separates avoidance from innovation in art. That line is unstable by design, and artists have always toed it by pushing their own personal vision forward while balancing a respect for tradition. Perhaps this tension is what produces great art. That being said, in my art history class, we are still marveling at Manet’s impact on the evolution of modern art two centuries later. But as I left the Cineplex on Sainte Catherine after seeing Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, I got the impression that this particular adaptation might not make it onto the syllabus of a film class in another two hundred years. 

The post “Wuthering Heights” and Modern Art History: A Niche Venn Diagram appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The line between performance and identity has become increasingly blurred in music. Be it EsDeeKid’s carefully hidden persona or Gorillaz’s quarter-century of lore, artists now construct themselves as deliberately as they write songs. Every physical action and digital trace carries a magnitude of importance. Optics are king, and a misstep could spell the end of an artist’s career.

Singer-songwriter Phil Elverum, talking to the Daily from his home studio in Anacortes, Washington, USA, has noticed this modern obsession with a carefully crafted image. “I think it’s an expression of what’s happening in the culture at large,” he says, gesturing for emphasis. “Everyone on social media is always performing for their followers, so everyone is used to putting on a face and presenting themselves in an idealized way.”

The goal of “perfect” performance is not restricted to social media or mainstream artists. “I think that it’s even finding expression in independent music,” Elverum adds. 

Performing as The Microphones and Mount Eerie, Elverum leans into lo-fi production, recording many songs with analog tape recorders and sparse acoustic arrangements. From hellish sound collages to delicate love stories, his music exudes vulnerability. The result is an intimate sonic landscape listeners can immerse themselves in.

Having released more than 40 records since the 1990s, with standouts like The Glow Pt. 2 shaping the independent scene, Elverum is no stranger to the pressures of presentation. Like many public figures, he holds his actions in high regard — but rather than chasing flawlessness, he actively avoids it. “People forgot that human touch is so important,” says Elverum, who is known for manning his own merchandise booth when on tour. 

Still, his goal of showcasing imperfection is most evident in his music. “My mind was formed in the era where sloppiness and imperfection were important to feature prominently,” Elverum says. His musical identity is shaped by Seattle’s grunge scene, which he describes as “raw and imperfect.” That era of music was not burdened by today’s technology, a development which tends to eliminate the mistakes and human touch that make recording music so special in the first place. 

Hence, the contrast between Elverum’s sound and the majority of today’s new music is evident. 

“I’m weirded out by how clean everything sounds. Also, people’s singing is so pretty.” He laughs, flashing a wide grin. “What’s up with that?”

Our algorithm-driven world is relentless in its crusade to force individuals into fixed boxes. Whether it’s new technology or the latest viral trends, the pressure to conform to social pressures seems unavoidable. In this day and age, a student showing up to class in skinny jeans would likely face judgement from classmates — even though the opposite might have been true ten years ago. Elverum faces a similar dilemma. Instead of skinny jeans in a room of straight-cut or bootleg denim, he arrives at a technically faultless musical landscape armed with uneven vocals and untamed instrumentals.

How has he resisted the expectations of conformity from the music industry, remaining aligned with his north star of imperfection? “I’ve just been careful to maintain my own weird little corner off to the side [and] to not really participate in the music industry as a whole in a way that feels like it’s beyond me,” Elverum explains.

His independence, facilitated through his own label P.W. Elverum & Sun, allows him to release and sell his work on his own terms. 

“I don’t work with other labels, I’m small, so I’m free and liberated to just do whatever I want. Also, I don’t really follow music very well, so I don’t even know what the expectations would be… I know how to do one thing, and that’s just what I do. If I were to try to do something that would be well-received or cool, it would be embarrassing and it would not work.”

The authenticity with which Elverum pursues his craft is poignant. Despite the talent and influence he has accumulated, he has not abandoned his ethos of imperfection for a path that almost certainly would have brought more commercial and financial success. 

At his essence, Elverum is an artist, and while he may continue to ponder the mysteries of human existence through his music, one thing he does not question is the importance of making art. “My ideal is to be engaged with some kind of art practice. Whatever it is, if it’s music or something else, I don’t know,” Elverum says.

“That’s who I am. That’s who I want to be. That’s the life I want to live, until I die.”

The post Phil Elverum on the Power of Imperfection appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Justin Friedberg for The McGill Daily (MD): How did you guys get involved with the Classics Play? What was the development process like for Antigone?

Madelyn Mackintosh (MM): We were taking [History and Classical Studies Associate Professor] Lynn Kozak’s Greek myth class together last year (romantic). I wanted to direct again and we were in class when Lynn said they were looking for a director. I had heard of the Classics Play and the Greek myth class was interesting. I also knew I’d be working with Lynn, who runs the Classics Play and is lovely and wonderful. I was drawn to Antigone given the geopolitical context of the time (late February of last year, when Trump had just been inaugurated). So I asked Adam Zanin if he would do a raw translation of the Ancient Greek text, which he did over the summer, and Caroline if she would help with the writing.

A big part of the division of labor between Caroline and I was how to structure the show as a contemporary play as opposed to the original Sophoclean text. That restructuring element was me. I come from a politics background and Caroline comes from a writing background. A lot of the show is an ethical debate between the characters, so I can do that, I can speak and write like a politician effectively. But when it comes to the storytelling pieces, that is where I needed Caroline very desperately. 

Caroline Little (CL): You had a dream, I made it real. 

MD: During that writing process, how did you approach adapting the play for a contemporary audience?

MM: We joke that they had just invented theatre. There’s a lot of distance between what you would expect from a play today and how they did it. Some of that is cultural. In Ancient Greece, you weren’t allowed to show death on stage. We wanted to reintegrate some elements of the story that were recounted off stage. The original text is similar to myth. There’ll be gods introduced in the story but they assume you know the context and they aren’t explored further. There are several characters that I think are underused — Antigone’s sister is a great example of this. In the original text, she acts as a foil to Antigone in the first third of the show and then vanishes. 

CL: Now she ends the show on a massive monologue that I felt guilty writing.

MM: Also, this is a hefty show. I hope it feels like we’re depicting a tangible form of tyranny. It’s one thing to play a maniacally evil character like a Disney villain — it’s another to play somebody who’s evil in a way that you can look in the news and see is hurting people right now.

CL: We were really looking to create an evil that people would understand. 

MM: Stephen Miller was the biggest influence for Creon’s voice. I don’t know that I hate anyone more than Miller. Part of the rationale for that is he’s not dumb. He’s an intelligent form of evil who can articulate why he hates immigrants, people of color, and gay people. It was important to me that Creon felt like a real person with realistic motivations and traits and some softness or humanity in places. 

CL: I think it’s a lot worse when villains have humanity. It’s easier to hate people who don’t seem like you at all. This show operates along the gray area. 

MM: In staging the show, I wanted the audience to feel like the citizenry of Thebes. If you saw this injustice, what would you do? Would you speak up? Would you tell what you think is the truth, even if it required sacrifice?

MD: Speaking of staging, why set the play in the 1920s?

CL: We were influenced by the Weimar era in Germany, a time of rapid progressivism. Germany was pro gay and trans. Marlene Dietrich, who inspired Antigone’s costuming, was openly bisexual and operated in gay clubs. You wouldn’t think that came right before World War II. Unfortunately, I think we’re seeing a lot of that now from the 2010s into the 2020s: an explosion of progressivism and then a rapid decline back into alt-right thinking. 

MM: A big part of the show, in my view, is about cycles of tyranny and violence and how cruelty begets more cruelty. I’m fascinated by the notion that we can give this almost 2,500 years old text the aesthetics of the early 1900s and some of the language of today and it still makes sense. Asking people to think about that lineage of tyranny was part of the goal. Another important thing to me about the show is I think Antigone is driven by love. It sometimes sounds silly or cringey, but I think empathy is the strongest antidote we have to the form of tyranny that we see on the rise today. I don’t think it is a coincidence that this was the show that came out of a writing partnership with the person I’ve been dating for three years. I think it allowed some of the love that the characters share for one another to be expressed in the text more clearly. 

CL: Yeah, and it also meant that you could be a lot more honest with me than most writing partners. 

MD: Why is the Classics Play important? 

CL: It’s important these texts aren’t studied in a vacuum. These stories are still relevant. When you study them in a library or conference, you forget that people wrote and performed them, that it touched them in a certain way. I think it’s important that these shows continue to be staged and it’s great work that Lynn is doing to make sure that happens. It’s really important to hear something. You can’t know if a poem is working until you’ve said it out loud, and I think it’s the same with theatre as well. 

Antigone ran from February 4-7, 2026 in the Grand Hall of Montreal’s Le 9e.

The post Adapting Antigone: A Discussion with the Director and Writers appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The play follows the young and newly-engaged Natasha (Claire Latella, U1) and her cousin Sonya (Miranda De Luca, U3) as they arrive in Moscow while Natasha awaits the return of her fiancé from the war. In the meantime, Natasha is seduced by the charming but married Anatole (Frank Willer, U1), and is subsequently carried into a world of scandal and societal ruin. Her last hope lies with Pierre (Sam Snyder, U4), a lonely outsider who finds love and compassion for the lost Natasha. Natasha’s search for love and finding her way in the world is reminiscent of the period of self-discovery of many university students. This makes it possible to recognize yourself in Natasha, even though she is living in a different moment in history.

The show’s immersive qualities are what really made it special, especially for the select audience members who were chosen to experience dance sequences on stage with the cast. Even those sitting in the balcony were included in the performance, with the actors running and dancing up the stairs. The musical made use of every possible part of the theatre, and seeing actors singing and dancing just a few seats away in the aisles of the balcony made the experience feel immersive. This also ensured that every single audience member was in on the fun.

While the show is full of exciting and celebratory moments, there are also beautiful, somber passages. Natasha’s solo, “No One Else,” was made especially captivating because of Claire’s remarkable vocal performance. The cast’s all-around professionalism drew you in from start to finish. Not to be ignored, the incredibly talented band played center stage for the entire show with almost no break.

For audience members familiar with Tolstoy’s War and Peace, they will recognize that the passage adapted for this musical takes place in a privileged society about to be brutally interrupted by the Napoleonic invasion of Russia. There is an underlying sense of tension and impending change. AUTS’s interpretation of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 was not only a ray of warm sunlight during a cold winter day, but also a piece of art that prompted audience members to reflect on their own lives as well as the world around them.

The Daily sat down with some members of the cast and creative team to discuss the production further. I had the pleasure of interviewing Milan Mivill- Dechene (MMD), the musical’s director and choreographer; Leila Khelouiati (LK), the props designer; Sam Snyder (SS), who played Pierre; and Claire Latella (CL), who played Natasha. The following interview has been shortened and edited for clarity and conciseness.

Sophia Pinzari for The McGill Daily (MD): How was it adapting a recently-made Broadway show? What did you change or keep the same from the original production?

MMD: There are really cool elements that have come to be associated with the show, like the immersive qualities and actors that are running around the entire space. It was exciting to think about different ways we could challenge staging conventions and embody the experience that Dave Malloy had when he was at a club in Russia, and there were people running and dancing around him, eating pierogi. What was exciting for me was getting to do the show with a group of younger people. Natasha and Sonya are arriving in high society Moscow, like how we arrive at university with all these high aspirations. Throughout it, we drink and party; but we can also lose ourselves, find ourselves, and grow in different ways.

MD: As one of the production members, are the props and set true to the era, or a more modernized vision? How did you go about finding the props that you need?

LK: Milan’s vision was a blend of modern and period, so it was hard to find stuff that mashed the two together. One aspect is the envelopes. Obviously, paper is very white. For older times, you need more aged-looking paper, so it’s all been tea-dyed to make it look vintage. I mostly source my props from Amazon because it’s quick, but I did go to different McGill theatre groups and the Seagull Center for Performing Arts, which had this amazing warehouse of props where I got to hang out and find some things.

MD: What was your process in finding your characters?

CL: [Natasha has been] a bit of a dream role of mine, so getting to come up with my own take on [her character] has been exciting. It’s also been fun working with the other actors, seeing their interpretations, and working out our ideas of the characters and their relationships with each other together. We get to make our own version of the show, which is really fun.

SS: I have to agree, the cool thing about Comet is it really does feel like an ensemble piece because everybody is singing all the time and is constantly on stage helping create the story… so it’s been interesting to find where your interpretation of your character fits within the ensemble. It can be easy to gravitate towards simple answers for why characters are doing things, so looking at it from a wider angle has been interesting.

MD: How has doing the musical here at school added to your experience at McGill? And how is it managing to prepare for performances while also being full-time university students?

CL: Specifically, this year, I can’t imagine not having done this show. It’s obviously been a big-time commitment, but one that I had zero regrets about. It’s a process that makes the year for me, and I don’t know what I’m going to do in February [when the musical is over]. When I have a day full of classes and then rehearsal, that’s what I look forward to. I can’t imagine McGill without it.

SS: This is my third year with AUTS, and it’s made my university career for sure. It’s unique. I’ve had the immense privilege of doing other shows on campus, but with something like AUTS, the process is so long from September through to February, so it’s been really fulfilling to be able to stick with the character and show and to be able to refine and refine. In terms of time and pressure…what a fun problem to have.

MD: Even though the show is set in 1812 Russia, what message do you think the show has for today’s world, especially for the students who will be watching it?

MMD: There are a lot of parallels between the present moment we’re living in and back then, especially in terms of political unrest. Right after the show ends, the book keeps going, and Napoleon’s invasion happens, everything crumbles, and the city is burned. So we have this tension between this really lavish lifestyle that these characters are living and everything that’s about to crumble. It begs the question of how we are spending our time and living our days. I think the way we approached this is the image of the broken time machine — we have these two time periods happening simultaneously, but the more modern elements allow us to jump into these moments with the characters easily.

SS: The source material has major themes of young love and finding purpose, and I think everyone watching will have some sort of point of connection to what they’re seeing on stage. I think most university students can lament a failed situationship or a terrible breakup, or a confusing time in their lives where they weren’t sure what they wanted to be.

AUTS ran six sold-out showings of their production of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 from January 26-31 2026.

The post An Electrifying Journey of Young Love and Self-Discovery appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The most recent addition to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise, Wake Up Dead Man, shows Daniel Craig reprising his role as detective Benoit Blanc, who visits a neo-Gothic church where this film’s victim, Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin), was murdered. Like the two previous films, we are presented with an ensemble of characters who were close to the victim and were present at the time of his death. The ensemble consists of Father Jud (Josh O’Connor) as well as a small group of Wicks’ devoted supporters who remain by his side despite his extremist behaviour and off-putting nature.

Let’s begin with the positives. Films — especially murder mysteries — are only as strong as their characters. I believe that this film created two characters who were well-rounded; namely, Father Jud and Benoit Blanc.

Father Jud especially is a convincing suspect the entire duration of the film: a boxer turned priest who turned to religion after accidentally killing a man. He comes to the church to revitalize it, yet he immediately distrusts Wicks. The two men don’t get along, as Wicks leads aggressive church services that effectively scare away new parishioners. Father Jud recognizes Wicks’ flaws, as well as the church’s flaws, and is dedicated to changing how things are run, even if it means making an enemy of Wicks. When Jud is accused of murdering Wicks, he still does everything he can to help those around him. In one scene, he puts the investigation on hold to talk to a distressed woman, Louise (Bridget Everett), whose mother is dying. Rather than focus on clearing his name, Jud instead spends hours talking to Louise and praying for her mother. Despite his own troubles, Jud remains a caring man dedicated to being there for the people around him. He represents the ideal hospitality of the church, accepting everyone who walks through its doors and doing his best to remain patient despite the obstacles being thrown at him.

Similarly, Benoit Blanc was also given room to thrive, as shown through his relationship with religion that develops over the course of the film. At first, he cannot understand the benefits of a religion that has a history of exclusionary practices. As the film moves forward and Benoit works alongside Jud, he begins to understand why people turn to faith in difficult times. He is present for Jud’s conversation with Louise and becomes aware of how benevolent the members of the church can be to those in need. By the end of the film he is a believer: not in God, but in Father Jud and his caring nature.

Despite the film’s success in its development of characters such as Father Jud and Benoit, it is not as successful in its characterization of the rest of the ensemble. Potential suspects are not fully fleshed out , namely Vera (Kerry Washington) and Lee (Andrew Scott). The film spends so much time and energy on the protagonists that it cast aside many of its side characters, despite the fact that they too were suspects in the crime at hand and played by various famous actors.

Namely, Vera’s storyline is never properly handled or developed, even though she was one of the few who ended up speaking out against Wicks, condemning his harmful treatment of others. Despite the gravity of this, her rebellion does not go any further, and she is never convincingly portrayed as a possible suspect. Instead, after her brief moment of defiance, she retreats into herself and is shown alone in a dark room, smoking a cigarette. Vera sitting practically motionless in this scene seems indicative of how the writers seemed to give up on her character. Rather than playing an active role in the remainder of the story, she is left in the dark, with no other purpose but to stare off into the distance. She should have been given a more meaningful conclusion, or at least a more potent contribution to the events of the narrative. While she does receive fifteen minutes of relevance when condemning Wicks, her fall from the spotlight lasts the entire second half of the film.

Lee is another character whose story was ill-conceived from the start, with his role somehow even less significant than Vera’s. Viewers are told he is a failing author who is writing his comeback novel, which is basically the only thing we learn about him throughout the entire film. Every other time he is on screen, he either contributes very little to the plot or is doing unhinged and inexplicable things, like building a moat around his house. He is not close to Wicks, nor is he given any motive that would lead him to commit the murder. In short, he does not advance the narrative in any way and is not necessary to the story.

It seems like this film created more characters than needed and did not spend enough time developing equally significant character arcs for all of them. They simply threw together an ensemble for the sake of the plot without fleshing out many of the characters into the story. The murder mystery aspect of the film was not very compelling, since half of the suspects seemed to have no clear motive and their potential guilt was seemingly disregarded by the screenwriters themselves. As much as I adored this film, it could have either spent more time developing the characters or gotten rid of some of them altogether, therefore providing the audience with more convincing suspects and a balanced story.

The post Wake Up Dead Man’s Failure at Bringing Its Characters to Life appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I first met Evelyn at a Daily outreach event in September 2024. It was my first month at McGill, and I had been eager to find a new writing community. At the office, I entered a welcoming space that would end up becoming my new little sanctuary on campus. There, I also met Evelyn. They were inviting, stylish, and had a buzz of warmth around them that made me feel as if we already knew each other. As one does after meeting someone new, I followed Evelyn on Instagram that evening and was not the least bit surprised to find out that they were an artist. Since then, I’ve been quietly keeping up with their work: liking their posts, reading their blog, going to a few pop-ups, and supporting their endeavours from a distance. But when they completed “A Portal to the Free State,” their newest ceramic artwork, I was touched so profoundly that I knew it was time to finally put on my big girl pants and reach out to them again. 

“A Portal to the Free State” is one of Evelyn’s most ambitious projects yet: an earthen-green ceramic vase with a lighter, tea-green spiral at its centre. The vase sits atop a large piece of cotton with the title of the work embroidered in a fine red floss. Charms, representing the women in Evelyn’s family, surround the fabric. The piece was first displayed on December 13, 2025, at Scatterbrain’s “cocoon/chrysalis” showcase, with an artist’s statement stating that it aimed to “show the love that Black women pass on to their daughters.” Evelyn believes this love between Black women is a “kind [of love that] preserves, teaches, creates new possibilities and new worlds.” I spoke to them about how “A Portal to the Free State” can take us into one of those worlds. 

This interview had been edited for clarity and conciseness. 

Ingara Maidou for The McGill Daily (MD): Before we delve any deeper, could you try to explain how “A Portal to a Free State” came about?

Evelyn Logan (EL): I was taking this class called “Race, Gender, and the Practice of Power (HIST 429)” with Professor Melissa Shaw. In that class, we were examining Black women, Black marginalized people, and the way that they show up in historical records. Something that came out of that class was me realizing that there’s such a huge depth of knowledge that actually isn’t present in the archives, but that comes from my ancestors, and all the people that came before me, and that I have within me. 

Something else that came out of that class was the idea of a free state. I’m not very religious, though I was raised Christian, and I think there is this idea that, with all of this insurmountable oppression that Black people face, there has to be something else out there. There has to be another space, or mindset, or way to access the loved ones that you’ve lost — but also a way to access all of that knowledge, beauty, and power that comes from being Black. So I guess that’s kind of what the project was born out of.

MD: By being a student at university and having been raised in the church, do you feel as if those structures, where knowledge is transmitted in such particular ways, influences the way you go about your art? 

EL: I think for me, there is always going to be that tension there. Especially because, since moving to Montreal and starting university at McGill, I have become more disconnected from the church (but not necessarily from spirituality in that sense). So I think when I look at my art practice and the various things that I’m researching, I always want to get to other voices, not necessarily just the empirical sources. I will use Instagram, Twitter, and oral histories because there are so many barriers to higher education and to being published, or even just getting your voice out there. For me, it’s more about trying to genuinely listen, and not just hearing the loudest voices. 

MD: I read your artist’s statement, where you talk about how your mom, your grandmother, and your great-grandmother all influenced this project. Tell me about these women — what are they like? What qualities of theirs did you admire?

EL:  So on my mother’s side, there’s my mom Pamela, and her mother Cleo, and my mother’s two grandmothers, Meroe and Cora. I never knew my mom’s mother, as she ended up getting Alzheimer’s and then passed when I was a bit younger, but I’ve learned so much about her through this project and by asking my mom everything there was to know about her. Cleo was a schoolteacher, and she was very involved in the community. My mom recounted all these times where Cleo would drag her to the elders in the community to visit them, talk to them, or cook for them, and how my mom would help set up her classroom. Cleo was extremely loved and well-known in her community because she was very involved. Another thing that stuck out to me about her is that she was a seamstress. She sewed so well that she would often sew not just for my mom, but also for other mothers and children in their community in Maryland. That really stuck out to me because I’ve always wanted to learn to sew. 

Cleo’s mother was Meroe, and Meroe was alive during sharecropping. She wasn’t a sharecropper, though. She owned a store, which was kind of crazy because at that time most Black women were doing domestic work, or they were working in fields, or maybe they were teachers. My mother’s other grandmother, Cora, was a domestic worker. She worked throughout Mississippi nurturing people, taking care of kids, et cetera.I guess something that I got from all of them is this teaching spirit, which at first I was very proud of. Then for a while when I thought back, I didn’t know if I should be as proud of it, because teaching was one of the only jobs that Black women could do back then. But now I’m like, “Yeah, should I be proud of that!” because to have gotten that skill and that passion passed down…that’s special. 

MD: Why ceramics and tangible art? 

EL: I started doing ceramics when I was in early middle school because I wasn’t very into sports. I needed an after-school activity, and I had tried painting, but I didn’t like that and I wasn’t very good at it. So I was like, “Let me try this.” Um, or not me, my parents were like, “You’re gonna try something else.” I think it kind of stuck with me, especially because [making] ceramics is such a process. — you start with wedging your clay, and then you’re putting it on the wheel, and then you’re shaping it and centring and doing all these other things. What’s so important for me about tangible art is the touch. To form something like that from your brain… it takes quite a while to be able to make what you envision. But I love the experimental aspect of it, and I love the tactility. I was in a period of my life that was already quite rough. Then we went into COVID, and I felt very isolated as well. So being able to have something that was just mine felt so special and unique to me. I just fell in love with the idea of being able to make something, which I didn’t have in any other part of my life. Even when I was feeling so shit, if I just had my headphones on, and was just touching the clay, I could be chasing that moment where I would be pretty much centred. I would centre with my eyes closed, because it helped me focus on the feel. I guess it’s almost like prayer…I’m not religious, but I’m still very spiritual, and it’s almost like prayer. 

MD: One thing I’ve always enjoyed is how much you bring us along in the process of your work, for example with the unglazed pieces you often post. Those photos always gave me a bit of a whimsical and youthful feeling, a bit like watching clay-motion animation. So when you referenced Nathalie Batraville’s face jugs as one of your inspirations, it all started to click for me, this love for the imperfect. Therefore, I wanted to ask: what called you to document the process of making your art, and not just the final product?

EL: Well, that’s what I love the most about it: the documenting. Also, I love Natalie so much. She’s so talented. I’m a good glazer, but I’m not good in the sense that when I’m making a ceramic piece, what is in my head will just come out, which is very frustrating. So I always joke and say that, when I glaze a piece, it’s ruined. But that’s not actually why I don’t post my finished pieces. It’s just that I like the process so much better. I’d been doing ceramics for a long time before I decided to make it a career, and for a while I just got really caught up in having pieces done immediately. I feel like when you start producing content, you always have to be having something new come out that’s finished and good. And I didn’t want myself to stay in that mental hole, because I was totally in the hole. So now I’m trying to get myself to focus on the process, which also helps me get better. I’ve noticed I get so much better when I can focus on that. I find the process much more enticing now than a finished product, because there’s just so much more that you learn and so much more beauty in the process.

MD: Where do you throw? Could you tell me a bit about your studio? 

EL:  Studio 3 Tables. It’s the best space ever. It’s in this old mattress factory, and it’s an all BIPOC studio, which is super important because pottery is so white. I think most of the art world is white, but pottery is so white. So it was crazy for me to have found this space on Instagram. 

When I joined 3 Tables, I mentioned how I was interested in teaching, and the owner set me and another person up to teach, and they mentored both of us. That was such a good experience. I had my own class this past fall, and I was just beyond happy. Everybody’s so sweet, and it’s just so special because we love this specific craft and we’re all friends. I’m still getting to know everybody because I haven’t even been there for a year yet, but it’s so warm and fuzzy. It’s also been so inspiring, because everybody is so talented. And I feel like every time I step into this space, I’m ready to learn. 

MD: Talk to me about your previous ceramic sculpture series “HeLa”, inspired by Henrietta Lacks’ contributions to cancer research. Did that series influence “A portal”? 

EL:  I always wanted to do a project about Henrietta Lacks. How many lives is she saving all the time? How much money are these pharmaceutical companies making? Her family’s not seeing any of that. At the time that her biography (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) was written, her family was living in poverty. That’s so fucked up. That’s why I wanted to make a project about her. And then when I got the opportunity to do “A Portal”, I was thinking I’d continue not only the work that I was doing in that class, but also building upon the “HeLa” series. I want to keep making people think about Black women in a different way.

MD: I feel that Black identity and perceptions of Blackness operate in such a dynamic way. What differences have you noticed between navigating the world as a Black person in the U.S. compared to Canada?

EL: In Georgia, where I went to school, I was considered “lame” because I was just very nerdy. I loved what I was doing, but I was so lame. Then, when I came to McGill, all of a sudden everybody thought I was really fucking cool. They think I’m the coolest person ever, and they all want to be my friend because I’m so cool, which is just because I’m Black. Here in Montreal, if you’re Black? You’re cool. But in the States, especially in the south, there are so many Black people that you can be lame, you can be cool, you can be nerdy, or all these different things.

Going into McGill, I told myself:, “I’m gonna make all of the Black friends.” But I really struggled because I didn’t feel like I connected with Black Canadians. And when I would meet people who were from Africa, or Francophone countries, they would ask,  “Well, where are you from?” I would say, “Georgia,” and they would be like, “No, girl, where are your parents from?” Then I would say, “Ontario and Maryland.” And they’d ask, “Why don’t you know where you’re from in Africa?” And I just said, “Oh, slavery.” It just felt like people here were Black in a different way that I hadn’t really interacted with, because even though I knew a lot of people in the States that were first-generation or second-generation African immigrants, they still saw themselves as Black American and not necessarily, like, Nigerian-American. So it’s different.

MD: In your artist’s statement for “A Portal”, you describe learning how to have faith in the idea of another plane or world. For yourself, what does this “Free State” look like? 

EL:  When I think about it, practically, it’s just a world where you’re not forced to choose against your morals. I broke my laptop, but I don’t want to buy a new one because it’s an Apple laptop and I don’t want to support all of their mining practices in the Congo. But if I need to write an essay, I can’t write it on my ass, you know? In a world where people who look like us — Black people — are suffering and constantly discriminated against, it’s even hard to find a way around that without creating more harm. So, I picture a world where you can just live and not harm anyone, where you don’t have to be anxious or stressed, and nobody is policing you, and you’re not policing yourself. What do I think it looks like in a fantastical way? It’s just lots of green things, and you can just be. There’s universal income, and there’s universal healthcare, and you don’t have to worry about your body or what you need to do to make it work. You can just live. 

I struggled with writing the artist’s statement for “A Portal”. I’m worried that I wrote it in such a way that I wasn’t conveying that I believed things can be changed. The fact that I can even have this idea means that things can change, and it also means that you can change them for yourself and for your friends and family. So I didn’t want it to sound too imaginary. I didn’t want to fuel any kind of nihilism, but I also think it’s very valid specifically for Black people to have. What I wanted to infuse in the project was that while you’re reflecting on the people that came before you, and you’re getting to that place and revelling in the fact that you came from something, you can take that power and create your free state. Not just so that you can access that free state from far away, but so you can bring it here. You can bring it here. So yeah, I guess that’s what it looks like for me. 

More of Evelyn’s work can be found on their website or their Instagram pages: @ev_irl & @studios_irl 

The post How “A Portal to the Free State” Creates a New Black Utopia appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Why have so many of us rejected New Year’s resolutions? Many of us have an approach to resolutions that focuses on large-scale goals, ones that are so distant from our starting points that we struggle to draw the path that will get us there. Yet, we only consider as having reached our final goal, not by the arduous process that we were already brave for committing to. With this one-track mindset, resolutions become daunting tasks. It is no wonder that so many of us reject making them before we have the chance to see them through, if we expect to fail.

There is something about the beginning of a new year that makes me think that something radical ought to be achieved now. When I think “New Year,” I think of big fireworks, big lights, the big ball dropping in Times Square, big cheers, and big hugs; think massive change ought to occur urgently. I reflect on how I often hear, “This year is going to be my year, I swear” from my friends, peers, social media creators, and those sitcom characters who just cannot seem to get their act together. This high-stakes approach to resolutions implicitly puts pressure on us and others to have a “successful year,” in which we get everything we want by the end of the year. These sky-high expectations have made me feel helpless in the new year because I feel as if I have to adopt an attitude of “all or nothing.” Since I want to start playing the jazz saxophone, I should maximize my time and effort to be a “good player” as soon as possible, but then I am paralysed. I cannot feasibly imagine achieving these goals at this pace, given that I am already trying to best in everything I am doing now – classes, sports, relationships, food blogging, writing articles – not to mention the assumptions that will be made about my willpower if I fail to follow through.

In schools and workplaces, we often hear that we need “SMART” goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant/Realistic, and Time-bound. SMART goals might work in some contexts, such as meeting short-term deadlines for work and school. However, when it comes to making progress on a task over the course of a year, most people lack the foresight to tell if New Year’s resolutions are truly achievable. A 2015 Ipsos survey found that 73 per cent of Canadians break their resolutions. It is beautiful that we are ambitious creatures, but many of us bite off much more than we can chew. Instead, I propose we do the opposite of what the SMART framework advises: stay flexible. Throughout the year, unforeseen circumstances arise, and our goals evolve. Life can be busy, so strict consistency is often unrealistic. Maintaining flexibility allows us to make progress on the things we care about without the additional stress that can lead to failure and resentment of resolutions.

“Your Theme” by YouTube creator CGP Grey has transformed how I view New Year’s resolutions. He presents the idea of centering your resolutions on a general theme. You choose a broad word or phrase and orient yourself around it. For example, instead of reading one book a week, he proposes a “year of reading,” where the theme stays in the back of your mind. Then, in instances when you might want to habitually scroll through social media on your phone, you can reflect on your goal, and make the choice to pull up an article instead. CGP Grey redefines what we tend to think of as “progress” and lowers the stakes; we only need to “be a little different in little moments, sometimes.” I want to draw attention to this idea rather than focusing on attempts to make radical changes in the new year. Further, the changes we seek can happen in a “little moment” or in the process, as opposed to culminating in one achievement. Making our goals more flexible increases our chances of success, because it lets us make steady progress, without the pressure of reaching a single large end goal. With this mindset, we can stay motivated and avoid the kind of cynicism about New Year resolutions that discourages us from pursuing what we want.

I invite you to reflect on your theme for the year, month, or season. While the date can be arbitrary, consider using a theme as the first step towards reaching your ambitions, however slow the process is. Change can start any time, so why not begin now? It may not always feel like we are making progress in the moment, but that might be how we achieve our New Year’s resolutions.

The post The Cynicism Around New Years appeared first on The McGill Daily.

In my senior year, when I decided to quit rowing to allow myself some flexibility, I still found myself searching for some time to breathe. Even the summer before my first year of university was jam-packed. While I wanted to work as much as possible to pay the exorbitant rent for my tiny room in McConnell, I also felt the urge to spend every minute seeing my friends and family before I left to go to school two thousand miles away. I had long lists of things to buy, a room to clean, and suitcases to pack.

My first days at McGill were a shock. My parents stayed for a few days to help me shop and
move in, but soon returned home. Despite barely understanding what Frosh was, I had bought my ticket and picked up my bracelet. I had three days until it began, and I was alone.

While the freshman orientation team had organized one or two activities, these were typically in the morning and left me with free afternoons. Of course, I took advantage: my brand-new friends and I explored thrift shops in Little Portugal, hiked Mount Royal, and ran errands for our new homes. However, these experiences were tinged with something foreign: I could do whatever I wanted, with an empty to-do list. My free time felt endless, and it started to scare me a little.

When classes began, I was swept up in the new schedule, trying to build connections with my friends and continuing to explore the new city. However, when the temperature started to drop in the late fall of first year, I began to feel that I was missing out on some intangible part of the first-year experience that I would never get back. I missed the community and purpose that extracurriculars gave me in high school. I spent most of my time now sitting and chatting with friends instead of working on busywork handouts. Meanwhile, back in high school, the eight-hour school days had given me a structure to follow.

In an attempt to re-establish a routine, I applied and applied to director and council positions, missing the mark on many. I’d go to a club meeting or two, feel like I was behind, and promptly drop it altogether. This cycle made me feel like I was never going to get back the time I had lost focusing on school and friendships in my first semester. My joyful time wasn’t what I should have been doing; I started to think I’d never get a job or join a club that I enjoyed. My classes were no longer enough to satiate my desire for community and my need to be productive – even with plenty of assignments to do at any given moment, I felt unsettled that I had so much free time outside of schoolwork. Nobody was forcing me to do my readings, and I had been blessed with a combination of 200-level classes that demanded little more than a couple of hours a week outside of class.

Thankfully, as March rolled around, I started to find activities that suited me; wrote for a couple of newspapers, rock climbed, and attended the Linguistics department’s council meetings. However, each of these activities only took up an hour or two of my week, and I still had more free time than I did in high school. At first, this upset me; everyone else still seemed busier than me, and I was stressed that I was wasting my time. LinkedIn only compounded the issue: my achievements were similar to those of my high school classmates, but in my head, theirs were worth more. Spending my evenings learning to crochet wasn’t helping my future career. Nor was FaceTime-ing my friends from home, or slowly improving on the climbing wall.

But as the days passed, each one filled with activities that brought me joy, “productive” or not, I realized a truth of university life that I had to accept. There was no reason to dwell over how I spent my time outside of class, whether it was productive/generative or not. What I was missing was the point of being a student: I was not only learning about my major, but also how to live life as an independent adult.

Even today, a semester into my second year, as an editor for the Daily and in classes that demand significantly more care and attention, I catch myself feeling inadequate if I come home early to relax on a Tuesday night instead of staying late at the library or at a meeting. I hear a voice in my brain declaring that I should be dedicating all of my time to a future career; spending the evening making an elaborate dinner and watching an episode of a show with my roommates is futile. But I’ve learned the importance of rejecting this voice. Anyone, including me, can and should rest, relax, and in doing so find the time for peace, passion, and social connection in their life. School and extra-curricular activities are incredible ways to find purpose, but they don’t need to fill every hour of your day. It is just as productive and meaningful to make a new recipe, create art, or write an article about these very thoughts that I am currently having.

The conclusion I’ve come to is this: university is the time to figure out who you are. You have the freedom to attend just one or two events a club holds to see if it’s for you, and if it isn’t, you have the freedom to move on. When it’s not midterm or finals season, or you just need a break, you have the free will to develop new hobbies and try so many new things. Use your first year to dip your toes into everything, and commit to something larger later on. Any student in their first year should know and believe: you aren’t behind. This boundless time is to figure out what brings you joy.

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On November 1, I went to eat at a cafe with my friends for brunch and took a seat facing the window. Throughout the entire meal my view consisted of a man on the street stringing Christmas lights onto a tree. While this sight brought me undeniable joy, it made me think about my Halloween costume from the night before; it was still laying in a pile on the floor next to my bed, like Halloween’s freshly deceased body, the corpse still warm. Upon realizing this, I had to wonder: since when did it become acceptable to publicly celebrate Christmas 11 hours after Halloween had ended?

Many people prefer that the Christmas season begin as soon as possible, partaking in festivities like ordering from the Starbucks holiday menu and streaming “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey. However, the elephant in the room during this holiday joy is the capitalistic commercialization and consumerism that comes with the holiday season. While Christmas and its celebration have a rich biblical history, the holiday has now been monetized: an issue that has been the case for many other cultural celebrations. Christmas is a prime milking point for retailers as holiday promotions, endless Christmas-themed items, and grandiose gift giving is encouraged more and more each year. James J. Farell from the Smithsonian found that America’s malls spend an average of just over twenty thousand dollars on Christmas decorating, coaxing citizens to shop during the holiday season. Whether we choose to ignore the facts or face them head on, it is true that the holiday season is riddled with consumer traps from companies that begin celebrations as soon a possible to maximize profit rather than out of the good old Christmas spirit.

Capitalistic greed doesn’t discredit the positive effect the holiday season can have on our mental health. A study done by UC Davis on the effects of seasonal depression disorder (SAD) suggests that planning fun activities and socializing with friends and family acts as a potential prevention strategy for symptoms of the disorder, which, according to Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, professor of psychiatry at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in therapeutics for mental health, two to three per cent of Canadians face. This indicates that stretching the Christmas season, by planning trips to Christmas markets, making gingerbread houses with friends, or going ice skating with loved ones can actually be a solution to alleviating the symptoms of seasonal depression. Beginning these festivities as soon as benefits. While these activities are obviously not a surefire cure to a serious mental disorder, the correlation between holiday festivities and a more positive attitude should be considered a pro of the holiday season starting early.

However, seasonal depression and the push of Christmas consumerism through advertising intersect to raise a more complicated question: are companies taking advantage of seasonal depression during the holiday season for their own profit? For marketers, the Christmas season means more than just celebration and love. It also means incentivizing consumers to purchase items from their retail company during the most competitive season of the year. It could be inferred that the suggested use of holiday purchases to spark joy in the dark winter months may not be an innocent coincidence. People crave warmth, nostalgia, and quick dopamine boosts more than usual during these times, and brands are aware of this. Therefore, products advertised during Christmas are portrayed as gateways to warmth and joy, things that people dealing with SAD are struggling to feel. A 2024 Starbucks ad, for example, equates drinking a glee. This encourages consumers to spend more than usual on their limited-edition holiday drinks. Some would argue the ad implies that happiness comes with the consumption of Starbucks products, which is emphasized by their slogan “here’s to joy and coffee.” As retail sales boom during November and December, so does retail therapy, where many people struggling with their mental health shop to induce happiness. Coping becomes intertwined with consumption. This benefits companies but leaves people with seasonal depression in the same place they started.

It’s debatable whether companies can truly be held accountable for these joy-inducing business tactics. Their ultimate goal is to motivate consumers to feel the spirit of the holiday season through their products. Despite the profit incentive, it is unclear if companies explicitly over-advertise the season to take advantage of people with seasonal depression. Cultural commercialization plays a role in every holiday, and it is apparent no matter when the Christmas season actually “starts.” Among the many benefits of the holiday season beginning early, I believe that the most important is prolonging the core values of Christmas. The holiday has become increasingly secular over the past 20 years, aligning with the general decline of religiosity. Religion provides us with a guide to the world when we feel most lost, so as society becomes more secular, many struggle to find purpose. A lot of people still celebrate Christmas in a traditionally religious sense, yet a large number of people do not. For those who are not religious, Christmas is defined by a display of generosity, love, and family bonding. While the state of faith in our current world can make it difficult for us to find reason or purpose, the perseverance of Christmas celebrations through this is a reminder that we can continue to have faith in those around us. What I believe to be most important about the Christmas season is love and togetherness, which make the early start to the holiday season a net positive.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

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Following US President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the outrage this political change caused slowly started to seep its way into my everyday life, increasing my desire to understand politics and social issues. For many other McGill students who seek to support meaningful political change, I believe this may also be the case.

In recent years, anti-intellectualism – a general mistrust or rejection of intellectual pursuits, such as academia or science — has been growing in the US. This way of thinking is often associated with conspiracy theories and mistrust of the government, and is intended to appeal to the sympathies of working-class individuals who may regard political and academic institutions as disconnected from their everyday realities. Anti- intellectualism is not new, yet it appears that it has seen a violent resurgence in recent years. This may be because we are currently witnessing the spread of these ideals by President Trump. Through his constant dismissal of scientific and academic expertise, such as referring to the climate crisis as a “con job” and spreading misinformation regarding COVID- 19, Trump legitimizes skepticism towards experts and leading officials on important matters.

One of the anti-intellectualism movement’s greatest critiques concerns the elitism associated with academia. American politicians tend to use their prestigious backgrounds, exceptional academic honours, and lengthy resumes in campaigns.

Yet, Trump positions himself as more relatable to the average American, someone who ‘tells it like it is’ by rejecting the intellectual, professional tone often used by political figures. His language use is simple: his 2018 State of the Union address scored 8.1 out of 18 on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test — a measure designed to determine the US grade school level required to understand a text – indicating that his vocabularity is akin to that of an eighth-grade student. While it may be presumed this result would hurt his credibility, in the midst of a national literacy crisis, Trump’s speech shares the exact score of the average US adult’s literacy level. Trump’s populist rhetoric amidst an elitist political climate is one of the major reasons anti- intellectualism in the US can thrive. Being informed and educated is all well and good, but presenting this information in a way that only highly educated people can understand is alienating to much of the population. Consequently, Trump’s ability to appeal to less educated Americans reveals how feelings of exclusion from academic and political spaces can be leveraged as a tool to garner support, despite a lack of reliable sources. This may be one of the primary reasons why Trump is able to rally the support of so many people.

It can be easy to take for granted the privilege that comes with higher education. When knowledge is presented in ways that appear elitist or inaccessible, it risks alienating those it fails to reach. Knowledge is a tool, but so is knowing how to use it effectively. Hence, it is increasingly necessary to reclaim the narrative of what is truthful by connecting with audiences through accessible and comprehensible means, catering to all levels of education.

A lack of quality education can act as a barrier which limits many people’s exposure to diverse perspectives. This creates disparities in the academic resources and skills that allow individuals to assess the credibility of sources. When lacking the ability to distinguish between reliable and misleading information, it becomes easier to grow skeptical of all forms of expertise. This is especially pertinent in the misinformation salient throughout digital spaces. While people used to turn to news sources to receive their information, many now turn to social media platforms, which lack strict factuality regulations. Even for those who do not use social media as a primary news source, political messaging is repeated ad nauseam online and over- publicized by the algorithm to reinforce pre-existing beliefs. This issue is exemplified by Trump’s “flood the zone” strategy, in which the media is bombarded with controversial statements and high volumes of executive orders to overwhelm and confuse the population. With intentionally deceptive tactics like this at play, distinguishing between truth and misinformation is becoming increasingly difficult. It is essential to find a means of creating this distinction in order to encourage the public to access reliable information rather than fall prey to conspiracy theories and ill- intentioned deceit.

Upon taking a deeper dive into the growing anti-intellectual sentiments in the US the myriad of ways in which political and socio-economic issues can intersect to create polarization become evident. When political knowledge is presented as inaccessible, skepticism towards credible institutions on the whole starts to grow. If we are to foster a political climate that values impactful discourse and growth, we must work together with patience and respect despite our differing academic backgrounds. When we assume ignorance, we create a community which fosters social exclusion. Intellectualism shouldn’t be a weapon, but rather a bridge that connects people from all walks of life — the future of the American political landscape may depend on it.

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That being said, we can’t ignore the significance of “queer” as a pejorative. Western capitalist society, which in many ways is inherently conservative, tends to revile and ridicule strange things — unless they can generate profit. From pop culture’s appropriation of the ballroom scene, to the annual inundations of gay-coded products every Pride Month, the cultural expressions of queer communities have been pillaged for profit countless times throughout history. Even today’s apparent progress in global queer acceptance has been coupled with an aestheticization, commodification, and “unqueering” of queerness which poses a profound threat to queer life. Indeed, when acceptance is predicated on a group of people being palatable, de-radicalized, and profit-yielding, it is poor acceptance indeed.

To examine the commodification of queer culture, we must begin with the commodification of Black queer culture. The ballroom scene is one prominent site of such commodification. Ball culture began in the 19th century at the Hamilton Lodge, a Black fraternal organization in Harlem. The balls were originally intended for heterosexual men, but became a place for queer men to experiment with gender expression through cross-dressing and drag. From their inception, drag balls were exploited for mainstream entertainment. The balls were illegal, but drew a wide, culturally diverse audience. This audience included white heterosexual elites who could enjoy the pageantry of the balls without risking legal persecution (unlike the queer Black participants providing the entertainment). Ball culture was initially racially integrated, but in the 1970s, Black drag queen Crystal LaBeija spearheaded ballroom’s evolution into an explicitly Black and Latine space in response to racist biases in competition judgment. Nevertheless, the straight, white appropriation of ball culture abounded, as exemplified by Madonna’s hit single “Vogue”, which was based on the ballroom act of voguing and which has reached triple-platinum status as her most successful record. This appropriation can also be seen in the controversial documentary Paris Is Burning. The documentary is an exploration of ball culture directed by an (albeit queer) white woman, and was panned by bell hooks as an exploitative presentation of the “exotic” world of ball culture to white audiences.

The commodification of ball culture — and Black and queer culture at large — is insidious because it profits from a scene born from oppression without confronting the sources of that oppression. Drag balls were by necessity an underground phenomenon throughout the 20th century as homosexuality was a crime in Canada until 1969 and in the United States until 2003. Yet today, pop culture contains a myriad of ball culture influences, from the successful reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race to the colloquial use of “throwing shade” (a term invented at drag balls). RuPaul’s Drag Race in particular has been called an example of the neoliberalization of ball culture, as it positions each contestant’s queerness as a commodity which can be exchanged for material wealth and fame. Mainstream society has picked and chosen the aspects of Black queer culture that they find entertaining, while upholding the conservative capitalist system which still largely persecutes Black queer folks in a multitude of ways

Over the past few decades, queer acceptance has skyrocketed. Gay marriage is now legal in 40 countries and Gen Z is much more openly queer than previous generations. The explosion of sapphic visibility in the 2020s has led some to announce that we are experiencing a Lesbian Renaissance. But while mainstream, socially-acceptable queerness has grown, the radicalism once essential to queer culture has dwindled. Queers have always been radical, necessitated by their rejection from mainstream society. The famous Stonewall Uprising, credited with turning the tides of queer liberation, was one chapter in a long history of Black resistance against police brutality. Queer liberation has always been connected to radical Black liberation, as seen in the Black Panther Party’s construction of sexual repression as a tool of race and class repression and their alliance with queer causes. Queer culture is also closely entwined with the punk scene, another radical movement which has historically resisted police brutality and welcomed the disenfranchised. But today, queerness seems to be de-radicalizing.

We are experiencing an aestheticization of subcultures, which ignores their radical political basis and prioritizes the “look” of transgression. This is in part due to fast fashion marketing schemes for “alternative” clothing, which bastardizes anti-consumerist (and queer-coded) styles like punk and goth. The rise of social media has also played a role in this aestheticization, as visual platforms like Instagram and TikTok encourage creators to prioritize appearances over substance. Yet another factor in the decline of queer radicalism is the marked shortage of third spaces post-COVID-19 pandemic, which have historically been sites of solidarity-building and community for radical groups. Although queerness is more socially accepted than ever before, social acceptance has come at the cost of political potency. Amidst this crisis of queer radicalism, rainbow capitalism and pinkwashing have furthered the de-politicization of queerness by selling queer-coded products which propagate the
insidious lie that capitalism is a friend of queer folks.

Indeed, under Charlie Glickman’s definition of “queering,” the commodification of queerness by mainstream culture is a process of “unqueering” — of rendering an inherently radical group familiar, orthodox, and therefore benign. We see unqueering in the appropriation of ball culture. We see it in rainbow capitalism, pinkwashing, and the aestheticization of radical subcultures. In a sense, a loss of queer radicalism has been the price of queer acceptance. This is by no means an argument that societal acceptance of queerness is a bad thing. Countless lives have been improved, and saved by the increased availability of trans-affirming care, the legalization of homosexuality and gay marriage, and the diminishing stigma around queerness. But in the face of growing anti-queer (and especially anti-trans) legislation, in the United States as well as Europe and Asia, it is imperative that queer communities maintain their political, radical roots. Our acceptance by mainstream capitalist society is transient, based on our value to the profit-generation machine, and can be revoked at any time. In a time in which organizing the left has been harder than ever, we must nurture our community spaces and maintain our radical roots if we are to persist through the darker times to come.

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As consumers of modern news and social media, we are inundated by conflict — bleak descriptions of drone attacks in Ukraine, such as the recent September 28 attacks on Kyiv, or mass civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as Israel continues its aerial bombardment this week, are plastered across Western publications. These geopolitical conflicts are rooted in cultural significance; they feature human rights abuses and types of asymmetric warfare that undoubtedly warrant our continued attention.

There is, however, a particular myopia in the West regarding certain conflicts. In the media, humanitarian organizations, and during world summits, there is often a neglect of the conflicts within the Global South. A lack of attention and discussion with tangible policy impacts. Ask yourself, how many headlines have you seen about Ukraine or Gaza? Now think about how much you’ve seen about the fighting between rebel groups and the army in Sudan’s civil war, which is considered the worst displacement crisis globally according to the UN Refugee Agency’s June 2025 report. Or how much is reported about Yemen’s continued strife and humanitarian crisis? Even after U.S. bombardment ceased following a peace agreement in 2022, where fighting in Yemen largely died down, 18.2 million people still require humanitarian aid, according to Human Rights Watch. The M23 conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), or the continued Taliban political violence in Afghanistan, also represent conflicts that go largely ignored by mainstream media.

American, Canadian, and European media tend to bias Western, and fiscally or culturally Western-aligned, conflicts in their coverage. The self-centred bent of Western media doesn’t just have intellectual ramifications. These culturally produced biases affect lobbying in the UN General Assembly, the provision of foreign aid, and global infrastructural funding. The endemic ignorance of Global South conflicts has tangible, fiscal impacts on nations that lack the benefits of regional hegemonic power balancing, seen when large superpowers seek to assert their regional dominance through proxy states. While we must be vigilant in our support of the publicized conflicts, they are not the sole battlegrounds of the world.

Sudan’s civil war is currently the world’s largest conflict in terms of displacement. The war between the nation’s military and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has caused 14.3 million Sudanese people to be forced to leave their homes between April 2023 and the end of 2024, according to the UNHCR. Meanwhile, the UNHCR calculates that 8.8 million have been displaced in Ukraine. This encompasses individuals who have relocated within and outside of Ukraine, since the war’s inception in 2022 through the end of 2024. Highlighting this is not to undermine the tremendous loss from the war in Ukraine, but rather to ask that, given the undeniable death toll of Sudan’s civil war, why do we see such limited coverage of the war and other similar Global South conflicts? A German study from news channel Tagesschau solidifies this perception, finding that over 5,500 broadcasts from 1996 to 2019 allocated roughly 10 per cent of their broadcast time to the Global South, despite the region representing 85 per cent of the world’s population.

This trend is not solely the result of locale or informational availability. The West’s blind spots result from a combination of the proximity of conflicts to Europe, the representation of peripheral violence as endemic, and whether conflicts reflect traditional forms of combat and violence or more covert, structural ones.

Perhaps the most significant reason for our media myopia is the commonly held perception that the Global South, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, is doomed to continuous conflict and is thus not worth our collective attention. This “Afropessimism” demonstrates low readership within the West for issues that are not invested in relief efforts or international court rulings, such as violence in the Global South that is therefore seen as ever-present and thus immutable. Furthermore, Western media consumers are attracted to change, to sporadic developments and fast-paced reporting. As a result, the assumed unchanging state of “third world affairs” is not appealing to Western readership or publications

Currently, ensuing conflicts in the Global South often arise in more subtle ways than what was seen in Ukraine or other Western-aligned conflicts. Systemic and ongoing crises like the war in Sudan often involve structural political violence instead of “conventional warfare.” Sudan’s civil war has resulted in a mass forced migration and displacement. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) reported Sudan’s combat casualties at 28,700, a likely conservative figure, but still markedly lower than the military casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war, which the New York Times places at nearly 1.4 million troops. While there is undeniable extreme violence in the aforementioned Sub-Saharan conflicts, the lower casualty numbers but higher amounts of displacement reflect this generally slower means of political violence and subjugation. Ultimately, cultural, geographical, and structural factors coalesce in developing countries, failing to meet the West’s newsworthiness criteria.

Our collective negligence has tangible implications for foreign aid, International Criminal Court lobbying, and foreign policy in afflicted regions like the DRC, Sudan, and Yemen. This is because the media’s coverage does not just demonstrate Western- tinted understandings of interstate war, but these biases are reflected within the international judicial apparatus. Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to be chronically underfunded and under-discussed by UN relief organizations like the UNHCR or the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF.) Public awareness of conflicts can be directly correlated to institutional advocacy, and while the UN creates special provisions for what it deems as “underfunded emergencies,” peripheral wars lack the general assembly lobbying and mass recognition required for fundamental and institutional change.

We don’t need to change the fervour of our support for the causes that fill today’s major headlines; we simply must diversify our attention. We must seek out global stories and uncover the overlooked crises. Moreover, we must encourage the same in our newspapers and the broader media. This isn’t just about empathy for those overlooked, but about the prospect of effective aid and meaningful diplomacy moving forward.

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