DiscountEDU North by Northwestern

Episode Notes
Join hosts Dallas, Jezel, Aryn, and Valentina in their second episode of DiscountEDU, part two of their first episode. They discuss adjusting to the academic rigor of the school, switching up routines, and dealing with PWI/socioeconomic culture shocks.

A North by Northwestern podcast. This episode was hosted by Aryn Honaker, Jezel Martinez, Valentina Parra, and Dallas Thurman. Edited by Dallas Thurman.

Cover art by Olivia Abeyta.

Follow North by Northwestern: Instagram – @northbynorthwestern X – @nbn_tweets Tik Tok – @northbynorthwestern

Welcome to DiscountEDU, a podcast all about the first-generation lower-income (FGLI) student experience at Northwestern University. Join hosts Dallas Thurman, Jezel Martinez, Aryn Honaker, and Valentina Parra for their first episode as they dive into their transition from high school to a Big 10 university.

A North by Northwestern podcast. This episode was hosted by Aryn Honaker, Jezel Martinez, Valentina Parra, and Dallas Thurman. Edited by Dallas Thurman.

Cover art by Olivia Abeyta.

Follow North by Northwestern: Instagram – @northbynorthwestern X – @nbn_tweets Tik Tok – @northbynorthwestern

Episode Notes
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["Maintain(Makaih.com)," by Makaih Beats, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]**
["Maintain(Makaih.com)," by Makaih Beats, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]
L: Hi, I'm Lami Zhang.
V: This is Victoria Benefield.
L: And welcome to Subtitled, a podcast where two fake film students take a look at popular TV shows and movies. Although I am no longer a film student, I have dropped my minor, and I am picking up art history. 
V: Whoo! Exciting! 
L: Yeah, which is a possibly even more pretentious minor than Film and Media Studies.
V: I don't know. I feel like based on the length of the title of it, Film and Media Studies is really obnoxious. Like I feel embarrassed when I introduce myself with a Film and Media studies minor. Sometimes I have to shorten it to film studies to sound slightly less ridiculous.
L: Alright, so today we're going to talk about our 2020 favorites and least favorites for TV shows and movies. Because we have a lot of opinions on things like this.
V: Oh yes. And all things. I think we have opinions on a lot of things. 
L: That's true. That's true. So Victoria, give me your top three movies for 2020.
V: Okay, top three movies of 2020. Shirley directed by Josephine Decker, available on Hulu. Please watch it. It's excellent. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, which is – I don't even need to explain this one. An excellent movie. And then Emma. Those are my top three. What about you Lami? What were your top three films of 2020?
L: Definitely Emma, ‘cause I’m a huge slut for Jane Austen. Obviously. The King of Staten Island because Pete Davidson is my man. And I have written down Portrait of a Lady on Fire, although I did not really enjoy that movie. I guess I just haven't seen a lot of movies in 2020.
V: Yeah, I feel that. I don't think there were a lot of good ones that came out, like I struggled to make this list. Or maybe I just didn't watch the good ones. That’s also a possibility.
L: I think you would really like The King of Staten Island because you also like Pete Davidson.
V: Oh, yeah. A huge fan of Pete Davidson, which apparently is controversial.
L: TV show wise, I really liked Bridgerton obviously. Simon's pullout game is strong. The Queen's Gambit, although I know nothing about chess. And Emily in Paris.
V: Did you really put that at number three?
L: That was not number three. Okay. I'm not even going down a list right now. Um, number three, let's see. Possibly Sex Education, season two. Wait, no, no, no,
V: Wait, that was in 2020?
L: That was in 2020.
V: So good.
L: But maybe that didn't make my list. Big Mouth season three, two… three? The newest season. [Note: Lami is referring to Season 4.] Really, really good. Highly recommend.
V: My TV choices. I only have two, but I would put Bridgerton on here as well. Shamefully, but so good. I love Gossip Girl, and I love Jane Austen, and it really just felt like the best possible combination. So, top two TV shows for me were How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast). Season two came out this year. This is a German show. Everyone needs to watch it. It's about two really nerdy high school boys that end up starting a drug business online, somehow. It's so complicated, but it's so good, and there's a lot involved, 3D printed guns … there's  a lot of drama. It's so good. And then my other favorite was Ramy season two. So good. It has to be in my top five TV shows of all time. I think it's incredible, like the portrayal of the conflict between religion and culture and like American culture versus his culture from home. It's incredible.
L: Remind me what Ramy is about again? I've heard you talk about this. 
V: Way too many times. Yeah. So, it's basically about this Muslim … man. I almost called him a boy. He's definitely a man, a fully grown man. But a Muslim man growing up in the U.S. and about just his relationship with his culture and his heritage, him reckoning with his religion versus American culture. And as someone who is religious, I think it's really interesting, like the tug b

Episode Notes
Trigger warning for mentions of sexual violence from 5:15 through 5:50.

Spoiler alert for everything beyond 11:50.

Beck Dengler 
This is going to be NBN’s Bridgerton Roundtable. We're going to talk about this just crazy show that tries to do a million things at once. It was adapted based on a novel series by Julia Quinn, which is actually an eight book series. So there could be a lot of Bridgerton in our future. The show has been very hyped, at least a lot of people are watching it. So I guess the first question to begin with is does Bridgerton deserve the hype? And what are your thoughts on the show?
 
Isha
I mean, I liked it. I think it kind of did deserve the hype. I feel like a lot of the drama lately have been teen dramas, and not period pieces-ish. So I feel like it's kind of new. It has its own flavor. And I think Shonda Rhimes is the producer, and I mean I like all of her other shows. She brings in a lot of the elements that I like about the other shows into Bridgerton. And so I think that the hype is deserved.
 
Elizabeth
Since Downton Abbey, we haven't seen as popular of a period drama, as far as I know. So it's kind of been like that next modern twist on Downton Abbey. Although I do think that the first couple episodes were a little slow,  eventually, as we got more in tune and more insight into the characters, I think it did eventually live up to the hype.
 
Tanisha 
The costumes are great and I feel like a lot of people watch period pieces for the aesthetic. And I get that. I get that completely, but I don't think plot wise it was as invigorating as Downton Abbey or anything that you might expect from a period piece. I feel like in any show, you need to have someone you're really rooting for. And I just didn't see that here. I personally didn't care much for Daphne at all. She didn't really know what she wanted. She just wanted to get married. And I'm not saying that that's not cool, but beyond that, she didn't have a personality. Her personality was that she didn't like Simon from the get-go, unlike everyone else, so that makes her quirky and unique, and so she should be the protagonist. Een the other characters like Eloise, who I think is very, very, very, very, gay, as much as I love her, her only personality was, I hate everything that Daphne does, and I want to be the opposite of her. And everyone else is just kind of like, "nice."
 
Isha  
With Eloise, her thing was very "not like the other girls," which makes a little bit of sense because she did not like what a lot of the other girls were into. She wants her to get her education or whatever. But it felt like she did not express that the right way. It felt like she was taking her anger out, that should have maybe been on society in general, on Daphne. With what you said about Daphne, my biggest issue with her is she would constantly complain that the men in her life didn't trust her to make decisions and stuff, which is great cause like hashtag feminism, you know. But every time she had the opportunity to make a decision for herself she kind of messed that up.
 
Beck Dengler  
My opinion on the show was ehh somewhat fun to watch, but I did not like the characters. It was trying to do so many things. It was really trying to establish this whole world, a cinematic world with all the different characters having their own storylines. We go to their gambling place. They've got a boxing ring. We go to their orgy house, like we’re really going all over the place with tons of these different characters. I don't even know their names. And then they’re held on by this ultimate romance with Daphne. Her motivations change slightly, but she just tries to get the Duke to impregnate her I guess. I guess that's the vibe.
 
Tanisha  
When I was watching the show, I kept forgetting that it was called Bridgerton because I was so confused by why it was called that. I really thought it should have been called Lady Whistledown. The only pe

Episode Notes
Normal People: College Relationships, Mental Health, and the “Perfect” Man

V: Hi, this is Victoria Benefield. 

L: And I’m Lami Zhang 

V: Welcome to Subtitled, a podcast where two fake film students take a look at popular movies and TV shows. Seriously, Neither of us can get into any film classes, if anyone knows how please help us. 

["Wirklich Wichtig (CB 27) ," by Checkie Brown, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]

L: This episode contains strong language, and discussions of mental health and familial abuse.

V: And the overwhelming hotness of a chain-wearing Irish man. 

L: Today, we're talking about Normal People. An Irish show that follows Marianne and Connell through high school and college, as they weave in and out of each other's lives. The show focuses on relationships, mental health and masculinity.

V: Today we have a special guest Kevin Park, a second year vocal performance major, who's a big Normal People fan.

K: What up. I love this show a lot. 

L: The show starts off with a pretty toxic relationship between Marianne and Connell. 

V: They both have a lot of growing to do at the beginning, because it's high school and they're both dumb and Marianne had never been in a relationship before. And then they jumped into things pretty quickly. There was a lot of that, like first love, like it's super exciting, but then they also have no idea what they're doing at all.

L: Right. It's kind of a weird mixture of a physical relationship and like a really twisted, buried underneath emotional connection that neither of them kind of know how to go forward with. 

K: But they get to explore feelings and thoughts that they've never had to experience before. They got to express how much they feel like through intimacy and through, you know, sex, which I think like brings up this larger topic of like how intimacy is dealt with within relationships. And also just in film and TV in general. 

L: I read this article that said, that there was an accumulative 44 minutes of sex portrayed in the entire show. And I was like, this is interesting. They make the sex and intimacy seem really realistic, especially like your first time and your first love.

K: There's like one part that I remember. It was just like the first ever time I've ever seen, in like popular film or TV, consent just being shown, so normally, just a part of sex and a part of like having your first time. And I thought that was very powerful, cause that's something that has been a dialogue within our Northwestern community. 

V: I think a lot of times in media, film and TV specifically, there's kind of this implied consent that’s shown where like the couple, just look each other in the eyes and they just both know that now's the moment, right? And then I feel like this show really breaks that standard.

L: Right? Like one of the major themes of the show is communication within a relationship. 

K: It's like a mirror to us in terms of like, how we think that we are being communicative. Like Marianne asked, do you love me or something? and Connell’s, like, obviously, but she's like, who is it obvious to? You know, there's this level of miscommunication between the two of them that really mirrors to, like, are we being communicative to our partners and our relationships, whether, romantic or, you know, like a friendship or whatever.

L: The first time they broke up in college was pretty memorable, when Connell goes back to his hometown and he's afraid to ask Marianne to stay at her place. I was really confused as to why they broke up, cause clearly they're so in tune with each other physically and mentally, but their failure to communicate kind of just ruins their whole relationship.

K: We all know when we watched the show, like, just say it just like talk to them, just talk to them. Right. And like, we talked to our friends about relationships, whatever, it is, like, just talk to them. But none of us really, really want to do it. And I think it shows

Episode Notes
LAMI: Hey, this is Lami Zhang

VICTORIA: This is Victoria Benefield.

LAMI: Welcome to Subtitled, a podcast where two fake film students take a look at popular movies and TV shows. Seriously, neither of us can get into any film classes. So if anyone knows how, please help us.

LAMI: This episode contains strong language and discussion of the sexualization of children and sexual assault.

VICTORIA: And also spoilers.

VICTORIA: Today, we’re talking about Cuties, a French film released in September directed by Maiimouna Doucouré. If you somehow haven’t heard anything about this movie, I’ll sum it up for you: an 11-year-old Senegalese girl, Amy, who has just immigrated to Paris with her family, meets a group of young girls who are preparing to enter a dance competition. The film follows her friendship with the girls, their journey to the competition, and Amy’s internal conflict between her traditional Muslim roots and the liberal culture represented by her friends and social media. Sounds innocent enough, right?

LAMI: Wrong. Backlash around the movie started in August, after U.S. Netflix released promotional material showing the young cast in suggestive dance poses and costumes. Critics deemed the movie “child pornography,” saying it sexualizes the 11-year-old main character and her friends. The hashtag #CancelNetflix started trending on Twitter. Disapproval came from both sides of the political spectrum, including Rep. Brian Babin, Senator Ted Cruz, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. a grand jury in Texas brought criminal felony charges against Netflix, indicting the streaming giant for “promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child.”

VICTORIA: So, Lami, what did you think about this movie?

LAMI: I heard about the controversy surrounding this film before I actually saw the movie on Netflix. To be honest, I was a little skeptical about the backlash, mostly because I don't trust a single word that comes out of Ted Cruz's mouth. But after I watched the movie, I honestly really liked it. It covers a lot of issues pertaining to growing up as a girl and learning how to be a woman in this modern age.

VICTORIA: I've had friends who quite literally cancelled Netflix. And so I went into it thinking it was going to be pretty bad. And then I watched it, and I understand the concerns, but I think it was exaggerated. I thought that the film raised a lot of really important themes that you don't really hear or see portrayed in film or any other form of media very often.

VICTORIA: One of the really important themes that Cuties raises is the sort of dichotomy between the two different cultures that Amy is a part of, which is her African Muslim background, and the Western culture that she finds herself in when she immigrates to Paris. Some of the ways that the director talks about this is, it's most definitely through the lens of womanhood, and how womanhood is defined in both of those cultures.

LAMI: She's trying to figure out what it means to be a woman, meaning what responsibilities come with that and how she's supposed to get in touch with her sexuality. What does her sexuality mean? And her female family members don't really go into much detail about that. For me, there was a really poignant part of the movie, where she gets her period. For like every young girl, the first time you get your period is pretty memorable, right? I distinctly remember mine. Her mother later that night just said to her, you're a woman now. As validating as that may be to young Amy, I feel like there needs to be more discussion.

VICTORIA: And I think it's just sort of indicative of the way that Amy's family really wasn't there for her as she's growing up and as she's discovering more about herself, and her sexuality and her womanhood, and she's also making this huge transition from living in Africa, and then moving to Paris. Like, she's going through all of these things, including getting her period. And her family is just n