Derek Deliberates

  For my final project, I’m taking a look at Charli XCX’s viral music video for her hyperpop song “Boys.”  The music video itself was original, but many aspects of it were borrowed from ongoing trends in celebrity, color choice and masculinity.  The instant virality of “Boys” can be attributed to — quite obviously —the boys in the music video. Or more so, what they’re doing: yes, they’re objectively hot, but they’re also poking fun at gender roles. Sculpted, shirtless boys are depicted holding chainsaws and biting into pancakes— but they do so with a hint of wholesomeness, a grin emerging from their face. In this aspect, part of “Boys” digital popularity is due to its nuanced, almost parodic representation of masculinity and male happiness; the music video, released in 2017, came at a time when our systems of patriarchy were being reckoned with as the MeToo movement gained traction and conversations around toxic masculinity started happening.  Thus, we can look to th...

A hallmark of the gay youth experience is downloading Grindr, a hookup app used mostly by gay men. At a young age, gay men have been taught to reduce each other to numbers and statistics and pictures on Grindr: for instance, checking the app right now, I know that there's a 5'8 white "stocky" "otter" that's one mile away from me. This, in and of itself, provided an avenue for insecurity and hyper-sexualization at a young age.  But what happens when you factor race into it? The gay male experience is uniquely nuanced: on one hand, our civil rights movement seems to be transitioning to the mainstream; on the other, our community is often torn apart and segregated by race and pertinent issues of gender expression— a common mantra on dating and hookup apps is "no fats, no femmes, no Asians." As a queer person of color, my experiences on dating and hookup apps have provided me with a unique cultural mindset with which to analyze how race and sexuali...

I've recently started reflecting on the media I consumed over quarantine, and how it speaks to larger truths about how we use media to cope with stress or anxiety. In the past few months, my cinematic preferences have been all over the place: Queens Gambit; Parasite; Too Hot to Handle ; Bridgerton; Animal Crossing . All of these are forms of escapism in their own ways: in Too Hot to Handle , contestants are brought onto an island resort, and, tempted by the fake tans and hourglass figures of the other contestants, they are told not to engage in any sexual activity if they want to win the show; this show, albeit functioning on a very foolish premise, was a playful escape into a tropical universe where their only worldly worry was not having sex. Perhaps one of my favorite forms of escapism— particularly when it was released in March through the end of summer — was Animal Crossing: New Horizons . Growing up, I had played the other Animal Crossing  games, so this was a welcome retreat...