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Movie Review: Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

Themes discussed in this post: adolescence, sexuality, puberty, friendship, faith/religion, family

A few weeks ago, I watched this really good movie called Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. Even though I have not read the book by Judy Blume, I still really wanted to see the movie because I really love the actress Rachel McAdams, and she is in this movie, so I really wanted to see it. It is about this young woman named Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) who moves from New York City to New Jersey with her parents, Herbert (Benny Safdie) and Barbara (Rachel McAdams). Margaret struggles with puberty, friendships and her religious identity, but she ultimately realizes that it all is just a part of growing up. I love this film, too, because I watch a lot of coming-of-age movies. Somehow watching coming-of-age movies makes me feel less alone, because even though I am no longer a teenager, it is cool to see how other young people navigate their young adulthood in movies. I didn’t go to a lot of parties or date growing up, so I always find watching coming-of-age movies fascinating because these kids in the movie are going through all of these different developmental stages and figuring out who they are, and it has helped me gain a new perspective on what growing up is like based on people’s individual experiences. Young adulthood isn’t going to be the same for everybody because each individual grows up with a different cultural background, and each culture has its own traditions and beliefs about what it means to be an adult and enter adulthood. I am still a young adult even though I am no longer a teenager, but I sometimes feel behind because I have not accomplished all of these traditional milestones of adulthood, like buying my first mortgage, getting married and having a child. That’s why I love watching coming-of-age movies, because watching them reminds me that growing up is just a part of life and you are still figuring out your identity and your brain is still developing, so it is important to set your own timelines and milestones because everyone develops differently.

One of the key themes in this film is religious identity and faith. Margaret’s father is Jewish, and her mother grew up with conservative Christian parents. Margaret’s teacher has the class write a personal essay about a topic of their interest and Margaret’s teacher suggests that she write about religion because she wrote that she doesn’t like religious holidays in a writing assignment done in class. When the teacher asks her to explain more about that, Margaret tells him that it is because her father is Jewish and in New Jersey she is around a lot of kids who celebrate Christmas and are Christian, so she feels embarrassed because she grew up in a different faith than everyone else. Margaret’s mom, Barbara, won’t tell her why her parents never come to visit the family. Margaret is close with Sylvia, her grandmother on her dad’s side, but she doesn’t know anything about her mom’s side of the family. One day after school, Margaret approaches Barbara and asks her why her mom and dad don’t come to see them or why they are not in contact with Margaret’s family. Barbara at first doesn’t want to talk about it, but after Margaret expresses genuine interest in knowing why, Barbara tells her that her parents disowned her for marrying a Jewish man because they are strict Christians and thought marrying a Jewish man would go against their beliefs. It is a really painful moment for Barbara to tell her daughter this because it caused her a lot of pain that her family didn’t want to speak to her simply because she married someone of a different faith than Christianity. Throughout the movie, Margaret goes on her own journey to figure out what religion she should uphold, Judaism or Christianity. When she goes to New York City to visit her grandmother Sylvia, who is Jewish, she asks her grandmother if they can go to the local synagogue for one of the services. Sylvia is super excited to take her granddaughter to the synagogue, and when they arrive, she introduces Margaret to everyone there and helps translate what the rabbi is saying during the service since Margaret does not know Hebrew and the rabbi is speaking in Hebrew. After the service, Margaret talks to God and tells him that she isn’t sure how she feels about it because she thought it would be different somehow. However, her grandmother wants Margaret to commit to being Jewish and thinks that is what Margaret wants. Margaret’s mother, while writing greeting cards to loved ones, decides to send a greeting card to her mother and father, Mary and Paul Hutchins, without telling anyone, even though she knows deep down that her parents do not like her husband because he is Jewish. She thinks that her parents might have had a change of heart in the time that they have not been speaking to their daughter and her family, and they surprisingly write her back and let her know that they want to come to New Jersey to visit her. Margaret, however, has already made plans with her grandmother to come down to Florida and visit her. Her grandmother left New York City to go to Florida because she lives by herself after her family moves to New Jersey and is feeling lonely, so she moves to Florida to live in a retirement home. When Barbara tells her husband that her parents want to come visit, he is upset because he knows that they don’t like him because he is Jewish. Even though Barbara tells him that she is sorry and that she only wrote to them because she thought it would help mend her relationship with her parents, but Herbert is not convinced. When Margaret comes home from school, Barbara breaks the news and tells her that her parents are coming to visit them, but Margaret is upset because she wanted to visit her grandmother in Florida and already made plans to see her. Barbara gets on the phone and tells her that Margaret has to cancel her flight to Florida because her grandparents are coming to see them, and her grandmother, Sylvia, is upset because she wanted to spend quality time with her granddaughter. Honestly, I was worried that Margaret’s grandmother would unexpectedly die and that Margaret would regret not deciding to stick with her plan to visit her in Florida. However, Margaret’s grandmother decides to fly to New Jersey with Morris Binamin, the man she met at the retirement home, to visit Margaret and her family, even if Barbara’s parents are coming.

Margaret is super excited that her grandmother is there, but things take a turn when the family has dinner together. Barbara prepares a delicious pot roast, and everyone is enjoying the meal, but Sylvia decides to propose a toast during dinner and says “l’chaim” which means “to life” in Hebrew and is similar to saying “Cheers” in English. Barbara’s parents, Mary and Paul, are confused and upset even though they are trying to be polite. Even though Barbara and Herbert try to keep the tension low and change the subject, things erupt when Mary and Paul ask Margaret if she would be interested in going to Sunday school and becoming Christian, but Sylvia tells them that she is not going to Sunday school because she is Jewish. Sylvia argues with Mary and Paul about which faith Margaret should choose, and Herbert and Barbara try to intervene and say that Margaret is not going to choose what faith to take up until she becomes an adult. Finally, Margaret, sick and tired of hearing them argue, tells everyone to be quiet and that she is sick of them fighting over what faith she should uphold. She angrily runs up to her bedroom and slams the door. The adults feel bad that they caused this argument and Sylvia and Barbara’s parents leave in separate cabs. Margaret ends up writing in her essay to her teacher, Mr. Benedict, that she realized that religion causes conflict and war, and leaves the classroom in tears. I grew up practicing a different religion, so I could not relate to what Margaret was going through, but I can’t imagine how difficult it is to have adults fighting over what religion you should practice at a time when you are still developing your own identity and figuring out what you want in life. I thought about this experience I read about in this Buddhist magazine I read, and it was about this young woman who grew up in three different religions: Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism. She wrote about how she wanted to help end religious conflict, and looking back, after watching this movie, I really appreciate her for wanting to make that cause of helping end religious conflict. I grew up with parents who grew up Christian but started practicing Buddhism later on after seeing how it helped them transform their lives, and they raised me and my sister to practice Buddhism. But they never put pressure on us to accept Buddhism or chant every day. I still practice Buddhism because I have seen the positive changes and personal growth that I have gone through in the course of practicing it, and as I get older, I still feel like every day is a new day for growth. I think without having this philosophy in my life, I would not know what purpose my life was for.

And honestly, as I am writing this, I am reflecting on how important it is to have dialogues between people of different faiths. In college, I was really happy because they had an Interfaith Council club on campus, and even though I didn’t get to go to a ton of meetings since I was busy with schoolwork and orchestra, going to even just a few meetings felt really comforting. Everyone was respectful of each other’s beliefs, and I learned a lot from listening to people talk about their personal experiences being Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and other religions. I also got to talk about how I was born into a family that practices Buddhism and how I apply the principles of Buddhism to my daily life.

Another theme in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is fitting in, being true to yourself and finding genuine friendships. When Margaret’s parents tell her that they are moving to New Jersey, Margaret is upset and tells her parents that she doesn’t want to move because she has so many friends in her hometown and would miss all of them if they moved. When they first move into their new home in New Jersey, the family is still unpacking and there are boxes everywhere. A popular girl in the neighborhood named Nancy invites Margaret to come over to her house and play in the sprinklers, and right off the bat tells Margaret that her house is much larger than hers. Nancy’s family is wealthy, and they live in a big house, and when Margaret changes her clothes to put on her bathing suit, Nancy looks at Margaret’s body and starts making comments about how she is flat-chested. Nancy is obsessed with boys and growing breasts, while Margaret is shy and isn’t at first interested in that stuff. However, Margaret, like the other kids, wants to fit in, so she goes with what Nancy tells her to do. One of the rules of Nancy’s exclusive club is that they cannot wear socks. Margaret’s mom tells her to wear socks and asks her why she isn’t wearing socks on her first day of school. Margaret doesn’t want to tell her that Nancy told her to not wear socks, and she endures blisters on her heels instead of deciding to say “Fuck it” to Nancy’s no-sock rule and wear socks. Nancy also loves to gossip about her other classmates, including a tall girl named Laura Danker who has large breasts and keeps to herself. However, later in the film, Margaret sees that Nancy is deeply insecure about herself and is just an insecure mean girl. Nancy also lies to Margaret about when she gets her period. Even though she sends Margaret a postcard from a family trip, excitedly saying, “I got my period!” to prove she wasn’t the last one to get it, during a restaurant dinner with Nancy and her family, Nancy goes to the restroom and is crushed to find out that she actually didn’t get her period during the family trip. She got her period that evening during the family dinner at the restaurant. Margaret witnesses the entire exchange between Nancy and her mom, who has Margaret fetch Nancy a pad from the sanitary pad dispenser, and when Nancy comes out of the restroom stall, her face stained with tears, Margaret gives her a look of disappointment and anger because one of the rules that Margaret formed for the exclusive girls’ club was that everyone had to tell the truth, and even though Nancy swore she would tell the truth, she did not keep that promise.

Margaret also realizes that Nancy isn’t a very great friend and realizes that Laura Danker, who was the target of everyone’s bullying, is actually a good friend. Unlike the other girls, Laura doesn’t gossip, and she also has integrity. During a party at their classmate’s house, the students play a game where they have to go into a bathroom in pairs and kiss each other. Laura gets paired with a shorter boy and everyone snickers at her, making Laura feel humiliated. Nancy spreads rumors about Laura, telling Margaret that Laura lets the male students feel up her breasts. While Margaret and Laura are in the library working on an assignment for class, Laura catches Margaret cheating on the assignment. When Margaret shrugs it off, Laura tells her that what she is doing is dishonest. Margaret gets angry with Laura and lashes out, telling her that she knows about Laura letting the boys feel her breasts. Hurt, Laura storms out of the library and Margaret runs after her, apologizing. Laura goes into the Catholic church where she confesses to a priest and Margaret follows her. Margaret decides to confess to the priest even though she is not Catholic, but she is so embarrassed for how she treated Laura that she ends up running out of the church and not confessing to the priest. Margaret realizes that everything that Nancy told her about Laura Danker was not true, and that Laura, unlike Nancy, is a genuine person. I remember when I was in middle school and I felt insecure about myself. To cope with low self-esteem, I decided to get involved in gossip about other classmates. I also wrote in my diary how much I hated my classmates, but looking back, I hated my classmates because I deeply hated myself. Margaret comes to understand that she doesn’t have to act like Nancy or anyone else in order to make friends at school. She can just be herself and she will find people who like her for who she is. I think that is why I love practicing Buddhism, because my mentor, Daisaku Ikeda, who was an educator and writer, encouraged young people to be true to themselves and not worry about following superficial trends or pretending to be someone they weren’t. When I chant this Buddhist mantra called Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, it gives me the courage to live in a way that is true to myself. Even though I do a lot of nerdy hobbies like reading, painting and knitting, I have learned to not feel bad about doing those things. I also consider myself to be an introvert at heart even though a lot of people think I am an extrovert. Growing up, I used to hate being called shy and quiet, but as I got older, I learned that I don’t need to really worry too much what other people think about my personality, and that as long as I am working on developing myself and growing as a person, then I am on the right path in life. Even though it is a challenging process, it has been very rewarding in the long run. Sometimes I read my old journals and think, Wow, I am so glad I journaled during my teenage years because I had so many emotions to process. I didn’t experience the same ecstatic enthusiasm about getting my period, though. I was too busy having painful menstrual cramps to enjoy it. I do remember my mom and I eating chocolate cake and ice cream while watching School of Rock with Jack Black to celebrate me being on my period, though. However, the brief celebration about getting my period was, well, short-lived. While watching the girls in the movie chanting “We must, we must, WE MUST INCREASE OUR BUSTS!!!” and squealing about who was going to get their period first, as hilarious as it was to watch this scene, I couldn’t really relate to be honest. In school, my big boobs got a lot of unwanted attention. Boys would constantly stare at them, and it made me feel uncomfortable. Also, as I got older and my breasts increased in size, it became harder to fit in clothes. Also, period cramps were–and always will be–very painful. My period cramps were so painful that I found myself in the high school bathroom stall vomiting and curling up on the floor in fetal position until my parents came to pick me up from school. I REALLY hate period cramps. They were the bane of my existence throughout high school, college and even well into my early 30s continue to be the bane of my existence. I remember watching a commercial from a menstrual products company called Hello Flo, and the girl in the commercial pretends to get her period by putting red nail polish on a pad. All of her friends got their periods except for her, so she pretends that she got it. Even though her mother secretly knows that the girl put red nail polish on the pad, she pretends to be excited and throws her daughter a “first moon party,” inviting her grandpa, friends and other people in the neighborhood to celebrate her daughter’s first period. The daughter is extremely embarrassed, especially because her mom chose a bunch of corny games like “Pin the Pad on the Period” and had a fondue fountain with red fondue to look like period blood. The mom reveals to her daughter at the end of the commercial that she knew her little red-nail-polish-on-the-pad trick and gets her daughter a Hello Flo period starter kit. It is a really funny commercial. Here it is below:

I know this was a really lengthy review, so if you have made it this far or even read a paragraph, let alone a single sentence, thank you for your long attention. Long story short: I recommend you see Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. 2023. Runtime: 1 hr 46 minutes. Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving sexual education and some suggestive material.

Book Review: The Book of Jose

I was browsing the local library, and I went into the adult non-fiction section. They had a section of books about music and musicians, and some of these books were memoirs that musicians have written about their personal lives and their careers. To be honest, I didn’t grow up listening to a lot of old-school rap music. Whenever I would listen to hip-hop on iTunes, I would want to listen to the clean versions that did not have any swearing because I thought swearing was bad and I didn’t want to repeat the explicit language on the album. When I was in my orchestra class in sixth grade, there was this Black kid named Christopher Weaver and he was showing his friend, a Black kid named Austin Stevens, a music CD disc. The disc cover had an African American baby on it just sitting there against a white background. In the right corner there was this sticker that read in big capital letters: PARENTAL ADVISORY, EXPLICIT CONTENT. I was so religious about avoiding CDs that had that big old black and white sticker on them that I was rather taken aback when I saw that Christopher had that CD in his hand.

“What’s that?” Austin asked him.

“A bad CD,” Christopher told him.

I remembered reading in a music CDs catalog around that time (I think it was either Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics. I cannot remember) and they were selling various music CDs. A few of them included Follow the Leader by the rock band Korn, which shows a bunch of children playing hopscotch as a little girl runs towards the edge of a cliff and proceeds to jump off of the cliff. There was another Korn CD called See You on the Other Side that had a disturbing-looking album cover of this pale frightened boy holding a decapitated teddy bear staring out as a rabbit places a crown on him and as a horse holds the decapitated teddy bear’s head. And then I saw an album in the catalog of an African American baby sitting in this empty white void, and the title was Ready to Die. At first, I thought that Ready to Die was a heavy metal rock album similar to Korn’s music. But then I finally reached my 20s and realized that Ready to Die was a hip-hop album by the late and great Christopher Wallace, also known as The Notorious B.I.G., also known as Biggie Smalls, and also known as just Biggie. Like I said, I did not grow up listening to a lot of old school hip-hop. The only times I would hear hip-hop was from school dances or kids rapping the lyrics. If I did hear rap music on the radio, it was always censored. I grew up with Soulja Boy, T-Pain, and Ludacris. I did not grow up listening to The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac and other 1990s rappers until I was older. During my sophomore year of college, I enrolled in a course called Introduction to Black Culture by a really sweet man named Kevin Quashie. The course was an introductory class in the Afro-American Studies department (they changed the name to Africana Studies around my junior or senior year) and we watched movies such as Spike Lee’s Bamboozled and studied artworks by African American painters in the 20th century. We also read a graphic and disturbing excerpt from a non-fiction book about the lynching of African Americans during the 1900s. One of the parts of the course I remember, though, was the unit on hip-hop and rap music. In class one day we listened to songs like “Lose Control” by Missy Elliott and “We Don’t Need It” by Lil’ Kim and Lil’ Cease and also studied the origins of hip-hop and pioneers of hip-hop like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. After the course, I started exploring more hip-hop records out of curiosity. As I have gotten older, I have gained a deeper appreciation for hip-hop music that came out in the 1990s and 2000s. Hip-hop is part of my African American heritage and it has provided solace and inspiration for a lot of young people. I consider Tupac and Biggie Smalls to be poets and even though the lyrics of the music are misogynistic and homophobic, I have to remember that at the time that these artists were rapping, there was a lot of anti-gay sentiment and the AIDS crisis in the 1980s disproportionately impacted LGBTQ people, causing them to face scapegoating and ostracism from American society. Hip-hop emerged during the 1970s and 1980s so it coincided with the sexual revolution and the AIDS crisis. Art is a product of what is going on in society, and while artists have used their music to speak to racial discrimination and injustice, they have also used their music to speak negatively about groups that they perceive to be a threat. This also comes from a lack of education about the LGBTQ community because unlike now, where we have social media and online resources that non-profits such as The Trevor Project and The Human Rights Campaign have provided for people, people lacked the education and resources to meet the LGBTQ community where they were at and provide them with the support and resources that they needed. It does not in any way justify the use of bigoted language such as the F word and the D word, but looking at the use of homophobic slurs in hip-hop from the context of history helped me understand why rappers use this kind of pejorative language in their music.

I knew about Fat Joe when I was younger, but because I didn’t like songs with explicit language (I was worried about repeating it), I listened to the clean version of “Lean Back” by Terror Squad. When I finally got over my days as a language prude, I decided to pop in some rap music and listen to the full explicit lyrics. Recently, after getting Spotify Premium, I listened to full albums, and some of these albums were hip-hop albums. As I read The Book of Jose, I became curious about Fat Joe’s music. There was an album of his that came out in 2005 called All or Nothing, but I never listened to it. A month ago, I listened to it on Spotify and really love the flow of Fat Joe’s rhymes. As a queer person, I did wince each time I heard him use slurs like the F-slur, but I did my best to listen to as much of the album as I could.

There was a lot about Fat Joe’s history that I didn’t know about. He was born and raised in the Bronx in New York City and he grew up in poverty and around a lot of gun violence. What saved him was hip-hop music. He started to collaborate with other rappers and put himself out there and eventually he became a number one-selling hip-hop artist. He not only discusses his career, but he talks about meeting his wife, his children and his family. It was sad to read about the death of his friend and fellow rapper, Big Pun. To be honest, reading this book reminded me of this piece of writing that was published in the 1200s called “The Eight Winds.” It is by a Japanese Buddhist reformer named Nichiren Daishonin and it discusses how important it is to not let external influences like fame, criticism, suffering and pleasure, cause Buddhist practitioners to lose faith in their Buddhist practice. Practicing Buddhism reminds me time and again that even if I achieve fame or success in my music career, I cannot let it get to my head. Also, I need to give back to my community because that is the best way to express my gratitude for all of the wonderful music education and opportunities that I received growing up. I also need to be true to myself and not think that I am better than people just because I have trained for so long as a classical musician. The minute I act like my shit doesn’t stink, it’s over. I’m fucked.

Some Music Albums I Really Love (I Have Too Many to Choose Favorites), part 1: Christina Aguilera

For my biology class in ninth grade, we had to do a science project. I love music and so I decided to do an experiment where I had people listen to music while they played cards, and then I wanted to see if listening to music helped them memorize the cards. I mainly just did it for myself, not really for the grade or to submit for science fair, because I love music. I checked out a ton of music CDs from the library and just listened to each and every one. I loved hearing these artists. Even before I did the science fair, I was into listening to various albums by artists, and I loved listening to the entire CD from start to finish. Each has their own unique style, and each artist has their own influences for their music. One album I really love is Christina Aguilera’s Back to Basics. One summer before ninth grade, I watched a lot of MTV and knitted scarves, hats, and other things, and I remember watching Christina Aguilera’s music video for “Ain’t No Other Man”, which is a song from her Back to Basics album. It definitely had a different feel from her 2002 album, Stripped, because the songs on her album Stripped deal with a lot of topics like relationship abuse, sexuality, and trying to be yourself in a society that tells you that you need to fit in. It just felt very raw and personal, and a lot of the songs made me cry because there were definitely times when I felt like I wanted to fit in and felt bad for being different. Christina’s song “The Voice Within” always moves me to tears because it’s about trusting yourself even when society tells you that you are not enough. It is a very moving song. Honestly, I kind of wish I had listened to this album when I was in sixth and seventh grade because I really struggled to love myself and I had bad depression. When you are depressed, you feel worthless and like no one cares about you. I listened to the album in my 30s, though, and it still hit hard because even though I am an adult and no longer a teen, I still struggle with low self-esteem and insecurities.

There were a few songs from the Back to Basics album that were sad, like her song “Hurt.” The music video for that song is absolutely beautiful. I remember watching it for the first time that summer before ninth grade and it was a really touching music video. Christina Aguilera plays a young woman in the 1940s who is grieving the death of her father, and she is performing in a circus and sees the vision of her father as she takes autographs and does circus stunts, and wrestles with a lot of regrets about not being able to mend her relationship with her father while he was still alive. At first, I thought the song was about Christina Aguilera’s father, but I looked on Wikipedia and the song was actually inspired by the death of Linda Perry’s father (Linda Perry was one of the songwriters of “Hurt.”) The song kind of reminded me of this song I heard a lot on the radio growing up by Mike + the Mechanics called “In the Living Years,” which is about a son regretting not patching up his differences with his father while his dad was still alive, and dealing with the grief of losing his dad. As a five-year-old, I didn’t really understand much about grief because my parents were still alive and I hadn’t lost anyone close to me. I think I just loved the song because the singer’s voice was so incredible and it was a very beautiful song. As I got older and listened to the song more than once and looked up what the lyrics were about, it took on a much deeper meaning. Even though my parents are still alive, a lot of my friends have lost their parents, and I can’t really fathom what it is like to lose a parent. Going to my friends’ memorial services for their parents is a sad experience. It makes me reflect on my relationship with my own parents and how I can enjoy the time I have with them. It also makes me reflect on my own mortality. Even though I am in my 30s, I do not want to take that for granted anymore. In my 20s, I thought if I hated life, I would just kill myself and things would be easier. But getting older made me realize that all the stuff that I struggled with in my 20s was going to be different as I got older. I am really glad my parents have supported me because I struggled to fit in and wondered if I was doing something wrong by having different interests than my peers, but my parents have always encouraged me to follow my own path even with all the difficulties that come with forging your own sense of self and your own path in life. I really appreciate them for respecting my individuality even when I didn’t feel like I had anything unique to offer to society. Even when our relationship with our parents is complicated, they gave us life and there is still that deep inexplicable bond between parent and child. Of course, everyone experiences grief differently, and I am not going to know what grief of losing a parent is like until the time comes when my parents pass away. I really want to make the most of my time with my parents while I can.

I really love the other songs on the Back to Basics album. There is one song called “Here to Stay” that makes me think of this poster I saw for the movie Babylon, and it shows Margot Robbie crowd-surfing at a party in Hollywood in the 1920s. It is a glamorous-looking poster and Margot is drunk and high and enjoying the party. (I haven’t seen the movie, but I heard it is actually dark and depressing.) The theme of Back to Basics is very 1940s circus, and the music videos feature a lot of things from the 1930s and 1940s. “Candyman” is a really awesome fun song, and the music video shows Christina Aguilera dressed in these 1940s outfits as she sings about finding a young WWII soldier hot and how she is sexually interested in him. I love reading historical fiction and learning about history, so I really love the 1940s theme of Back to Basics. She has a great song on the album I still remember called “Understand” and I love it because it is in the key of G major and I love G major. During the chorus, she sings in the key of E minor, which is a sad key that I really love. For some reason I love listening to songs over and over again, and I listened to “Understand” and every time I thought of the song in my head, I would start crying. I think I would cry because Christina’s voice is so soulful and beautiful. There is an amazing performance of Christina Aguilera singing “At Last” by Etta James on her Stripped tour, and it is raw and beautiful. Etta James was a huge influence on Christina Aguilera’s music, and Christina even got to perform “At Last” at Etta James’s funeral. When she hits the end of the song, “for you are mine,” she just belts out the “mine” part and just holds that note for a good long minute or two before finishing with “at last.” Her performance of “At Last” reminded me of Joss Stone’s performance with Motown singer Gladys Knight. These two young women love soul music, and as a young person who loves old soul music, I would get goosebumps whenever I heard Christina and Joss singing these old Motown songs because they were so powerful and raw. I could really tell that these young ladies feel the music with their lives.

Synesthesia and sensitive ears

I have a confession to make. I have synesthesia. Or at least a rather mild form of this neurological condition. According to Cleveland Clinic (because I’m not a doctor and I experience only one form of synesthesia), “synesthesia is when your brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience more than one sense simultaneously. Some examples include tasting words or linking colors to numbers and letters. It’s not a medical condition, and many people find it useful to help them learn and remember information.” (Cleveland Clinic, “Synesthesia”, my.clevelandclinic.org) Whenever I hear songs in certain musical keys, I associate them with a certain color. Like when I hear songs in the key of F Major, I see the color pink. When I was listening to this song called “Last Worthless Evening” by this singer named Don Henley I just saw the color pink. I don’t know how to explain it, but it just happens. I remember when I was in my first year of college, and I was reading a book for school, and this young woman who lived in the dorm room across from mine blasted Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” on her stereo. While she and her friend were laughing as they sang to the song, tears flooded down my cheeks. Of course, there was other stuff going on at the time that was making me cry, but I think I mainly cried because the song was in a key that made me see this golden yellow color, and it was emotionally overwhelming. It was in F# Major, which makes me see golden yellow. As a kid I listened to this song called “A New Day Has Come” by Celine Dion, and honestly that song always makes me cry. It doesn’t help that the music video is emotional, too, and it always confused my family why I cried during that song. Then again, Celine Dion’s songs probably make a lot of people cry. I remember when I was really young and I was taking ice skating lessons at this mall called The Galleria, and when “My Heart Will Go On” started playing on the intercom, I couldn’t stop bawling my eyes out while I was taking my ice-skating lesson. I don’t know how, at eight years old, a song like that could have moved me to tears, but then in 2016 I finally saw the movie Titanic and was up crying at 1:00 am and then bawled even harder when they played “My Heart Will Go On” during the end credits.

I also have sensitive ears, so I cannot go to loud concerts. In ninth grade we had our annual orchestra banquet, and I told everyone I had to leave during the dance at the end of the banquet because the music was loud and my ears were sensitive. When I was in sixth grade, I went to a talent show that was held at my middle school, and these eighth graders who were in a rock band played their music VERY LOUDLY. It was earsplittingly loud, and also people in the auditorium were screaming with so much enthusiasm, and the screaming was pretty loud, too. I sat through the performance feeling miserable, and my mom and sister looked at me with sympathy because they knew I had sensitive hearing. It was really loud for them, too. But yes, this is why, even though I really wanted to go to big arenas and concerts, I just can’t. At least with Spotify or the radio, I can control the volume of the music. In a concert setting, I would have to bring the best earplugs because they would be very loud. I wanted to see HAIM a couple of months ago, but I knew that the music was probably going be loud, so I didn’t go. I do love classical music concerts, though. Going to the symphony is always a treat.

Books I Have Read So Far

  1. Americanah: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  2. Speak: Laurie Halse Anderson
  3. The Clique: Lisi Harrison
  4. Twilight: Stephenie Meyer
  5. About a Boy: Nick Hornby
  6. Rose Gold: Walter Mosley
  7. The Septembers of Shiraz:
  8. Tess of the D’Urbervilles: Thomas Hardy
  9. Pageboy: Elliot Page
  10. The Sound and the Fury: William Faulkner
  11. The Last King of Scotland: Giles Foden
  12. Trainspotting: Irvine Welsh
  13. Atonement: Ian McEwan
  14. Confessions of a Shopaholic: Sophie Kinsella
  15. The Little Friend: Donna Tartt
  16. The Book of Form and Emptiness: Ruth Ozeki
  17. Germinal: Emile Zola
  18. Oliver Twist: Charles Dickens
  19. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency: Alexander McCall Smith
  20. Daring Greatly: Brene Brown
  21. Together: Vivek Murthy
  22. Big Magic: Elizabeth Gilbert
  23. Free Food for Millionaires: Min Jin Lee
  24. PUSH: Sapphire
  25. So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y’All Don’t Even Know: Retta
  26. Bossypants: Tina Fey
  27. Yes Please: Amy Poehler
  28. It Could be Worse, You Could be Me: Ariel Levy
  29. Being Jewish: Ari Goldman
  30. Caramelo: Sandra Cisneros
  31. Crazy Brave: Joy Harjo
  32. She Had Some Horses: Joy Harjo
  33. Everything is Illuminated: Jonathan Safran Foer
  34. The Other Americans: Laila Lalami
  35. Swing Time: Zadie Smith

List I prepared for a college interview back in summer 2011

In the summer of 2011, I visited Mount Holyoke College, a liberal arts women’s college in South Hadley, Massachusetts; Smith College, another liberal arts women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts; and Simmons College, a liberal arts women’s college in Boston, Massachusetts. I love talking about books, movies and music, and so I ended up gushing to the admissions people who interviewed me about my favorites.

Why I chose Simmons: I was searching through my sister’s college handbook and saw Simmons as one of the colleges listed. The more I read about it, the more I became curious about the college.

Books I’ve Read for Pleasure:

  • Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  • The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  • The Hours by Michael Cunningham
  • The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
  • Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  • Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Canter
  • Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  • Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
  • Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
  • The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  • The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
  • Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride
  • The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
  • The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
  • The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (Books 1-3) by Alexander McCall Smith
  • The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan

A challenge I overcame: Not becoming arrogant in my junior year of orchestra and making it to the top orchestra

About me: I am a lifelong vegetarian and have been vegan for three years (since 9th grade). I have played cello since the 6th grade, and my dream is to play my cello at Carnegie Hall (the Carnegie Hall).

Hobbies: reading, writing, watching movies, talking with people/ family/ friends, and listening to music

My Favorite Music: everything (mainly rock and classical)

Favorite Artists: Death Cab for Cutie, Sia, Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, The Kooks, Keane, classical composers, Morcheeba, Madeleine Peyroux, KT Tunstall, Joss Stone, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Earth Wind & Fire, Coldplay, Phil Collins, Genesis, Elton John

My favorite snacks

  • Peanut butter and tortilla chips
  • carrots, celery, or any vegetable with hummus (I like carrots and celery with peanut butter)
  • Fruit

Favorite Movies:

Hmmm…that’s hard

  • Big Fish
  • Slumdog Millionaire
  • August Rush
  • Inception
  • The Kids Are All Right
  • My Cousin Vinny
  • The Breakfast Club
  • About a Boy
  • Avatar
  • Julie & Julia
  • The Great Debaters
  • Despicable Me
  • City Island
  • The King’s Speech
  • The Devil Wears Prada
  • Patch Adams
  • Temple Grandin
  • The Emperor’s New Groove
  • Mulan
  • The Parent Trap
  • Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2
  • Frost v. Nixon
  • Jumanji

Why I chose Mount Holyoke: while studying the 2nd Great Awakening period, our teacher discussed how women were prohibited from learning math and science because they would supposedly “get brain damage” and other health problems. I read about Mary Lyon’s female seminary and thought, “Wow, that’s empowering.” I also chose it for its high level of diversity and its campus dining options.

Why I chose Smith: great music program, studied about women’s education in the late 19th century and how women were denied education. I also chose it because of its strong academic programs.

Why Everyone Should Go See CODA If They Haven’t Seen It Yet

I LOVED CODA. I know it sounds like I am screaming when I write all caps, but I will say it again, even louder. I LOVED CODA.

Seriously, I was weeping by the end of the movie. I started watching it a few months ago, and then stopped halfway and watched other films, but finally after a long day and because I was having period cramps and needed to do something relaxing for a while, so I collapsed on the couch and turned on Apple TV. I thought about what to watch and then realized I had not finished CODA. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to finish it, so I did. And honestly, it was the best decision I made.

For those who haven’t seen the film yet, CODA is a movie about a young woman named Ruby Rossi who lives in a fishing village in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She helps her parents, Frank and Jackie fishing business and also translates for them in American Sign Language because they and her older brother are both deaf (CODA stands for “Children of Deaf Adults”). Ruby loves to sing, and at the beginning of the movie, she is singing along to “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” by the legendary soul singer Etta James while helping out Frank and Jacki on a fishing boat. Her life changes when her music teacher, Bernardo Villalobos, encourages her to apply to go to college at the Berklee School of Music, but when she tells her parents, they don’t want her to leave because she is their ASL translator and they also cannot afford for her to go to college. Through this emotional journey of a movie, Ruby learns that no matter how far she is from her family, she will always be close to them, and they will always love her. I got really emotional when she started singing “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell during her audition for Berklee. I didn’t grow up listening to much Joni Mitchell, to be honest, but hearing the song “Both Sides Now” was such a moving experience. Joni has a beautiful voice, and when I saw her on TV performing at the Grammys, I was deeply moved by her performance.

I was so happy when CODA won for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2022. When it won, everyone in the audience applauded in American Sign Language, which involves waving your hands in the air and twisting them at the wrists. Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur, who play Ruby’s parents in the movie, were incredible actors, and Troy actually was the first deaf male actor to win an Academy Award. I haven’t seen a lot of films with deaf characters, to be honest. The last film I saw was Babel, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. One of the characters in the film was a girl from Japan named Chieko and she was born deaf. The movie shows her communicating in sign language with her classmates, who are also deaf, and struggling to communicate with people who don’t understand her. Babel was a really powerful movie that also had me bawling like a baby, and the actress who played Chieko was incredible. You could see the pain on her face when people could not understand her, when she faced rejection and loneliness, all while grappling with the death of her mom.

I also didn’t know anything about Children of Deaf Adults (CODA), but I now want to learn more. I didn’t grow up with deaf parents, but I remember watching an episode on a Buddhist YouTube channel about a young man named Alex who overcame his battle with leukemia, and the video showed him communicating with his parents in American Sign Language because they were deaf. I also started to become more curious about the deaf community after watching a video of a deaf professional dancer in Germany dancing to Beethoven. Her performance was incredible, and so I started looking up social media channels by deaf people and was really fascinated by their videos. The Buddhist organization I am a part of has virtual meetings every few months for people who are deaf/ hard of hearing. The meetings are also open to hearing people who have deaf spouses, friends or siblings, and anyone who wants to help support any deaf and hard of hearing Buddhist members in their community. Even though I am a hearing person, it was really cool to see people communicating in American Sign Language.

Even though CODA is about deafness and children of deaf parents, it is really, at the end of the day, a story about family, connection and the power of music. It also has a great message: to never give up on your dreams even if they seem impossible. Ruby is frustrated that she has to always translate for her parents and that she cannot go to college because her parents depend on her to translate for them, but they see her perform at her high school choir concert and they can see how much she really loves music. Earlier in the film, Ruby sings “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye for her music teacher, Bernardo, and he sees she has a lot of potential, so he encourages her to apply for music school. Even though she doesn’t have an extensive background in music or come from a prestigious family of musicians, Ruby feels the music with her life, and it is truly her passion. However, her family’s fishing business is struggling and the family and other people in the fishing business are dealing with unfair policy changes by the local government, which could put them out of business. Ruby is responsible for being her parents’ translator, so she can’t focus on preparing for college because she always working on the boat with them. Bernardo becomes frustrated with her for skipping rehearsals and thinks she is not as serious as he thought she was, but over time he becomes more understanding and even meets Frank and Jackie. It was funny because he tried to say, “Nice to meet you” in ASL, but he ended up saying “Nice to fuck you” in ASL, which is something he learned on YouTube. Ruby is mortified, and Bernardo apologizes when he realizes that he said the wrong greeting, but Frank laughs it off and jokes “Nice to screw you, too” in ASL to him. It was a sweet scene, and what really got me emotional was when Ruby is about to leave for college and drive off but then she gets out of the car and hugs her family. I cried until my eyes got red and puffy and my shoulders shook as I couldn’t stop crying. I was bawling especially during the end credits because Emilia Jones, the actress who played Ruby Rossi in CODA, performed a beautiful original song called “Beyond the Shore” and all I could say at the end was, “Wow, this was such a touching movie.”

I also realized as I was writing this that a coda is also a musical term, so it was fitting that this was the title of the movie because the movie is not just about children of deaf adults, but also about the power of music. There is a scene in the movie when Ruby’s parents are at her choir concert, and they are looking around at the audience and everyone can hear the music and is singing along and clapping, but they don’t know what they are trying to communicate. Their son, Leo, has his girlfriend with him, and she translates for him during the concert, but Jackie and Frank don’t have an ASL translator who can interpret the song lyrics in ASL for them, and they cannot rely on Ruby because she is onstage performing. Later in that scene, the volume becomes silent and for a couple of minutes you cannot hear the audience clapping or Ruby singing. They show the scene from the parents’ perspective to show how the listening experience at the concert is for them. Early on in the movie Frank and Jackie pick Ruby up from school, and as Frank pulls up in his truck, he is blasting loud rap music and jamming along to it, much to the embarrassment of Ruby, who doesn’t want to be ridiculed at school for having deaf parents. Ruby says that even though her dad is deaf, he likes to still jam out to rap because of the bass. I take it for granted that I can hear and listen to so much music that I don’t even think about what listening to music is like for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. I would be interested to learn more, because even though I am a hearing person and a young person, at some point, when I get older, I am sure I will also gradually lose my hearing and will need to wear a hearing aid to listen better, so I cannot take it for granted that I am a hearing person. Watching CODA also reminded me that deaf people are human beings who deserve the same respect as everyone else. I don’t have any friends who are deaf so the only way I would know more about the deaf community would be through watching films like CODA that represent deaf people as complex human beings rather than as people to be pitied. I also didn’t know anything about Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur, or Daniel Durant, the deaf actor who plays Ruby’s brother, Leo, in the movie. I have seen Emilia Jones in a previous film, though. She was in a movie with her and Nicholas Braun (Greg “The Egg” Hirsch from the show Succession) called Cat Person, which is based on a viral short story in The New Yorker by a writer named Kristen Roupenian about a college student’s awkward (and uncomfortable) date with an older man. Even though it wasn’t my favorite film, Emilia Jones was a good actress in the movie. Her performance in CODA, though, was phenomenal and she is such an incredible singer in the film.

My Thoughts on the HIM trailer

(I was working on this post a few weeks ago but never finished it. I decided today that I am just going to publish this post even if it is imperfect.)

Recently, Monkeypaw Productions and Universal Pictures came out with a new trailer for the sports horror film, HIM. I saw the teaser trailer and it looked pretty gnarly. I am a scaredy-cat, though, and part of me thinks that I only like to listen to the horror movie trailers while closing my eyes for the overstimulation of the trailers–the noises, the jump scares, the demonic voices–without actually watching the visuals. I don’t know why I keep doing it though. Honestly, I talked with my dad about it and he told me that I don’t need to watch scary movies (he doesn’t either because he knows it is something he isn’t interested in watching) because he knows that I am a sensitive person who doesn’t like a ton of gore and jump scares.

At first I thought HIM was directed by Jordan Peele but I saw on a lot of Reddit comments that he is the producer, not the director. The actual director of HIM is Justin Tipping. I’m not familiar with his work, but from watching the trailer I am guessing the theaters are going to be pretty packed. I might be too much of a wimp to see it, though. The trailer made me think about other movies I’ve seen where these competitive (and for the most part, young and impressionable) people meet these hardcore, sadistic instructors who not only push them to their limits, but also bring out the characters’ dark sides. In Black Swan, which is a psychological horror film, Nina is this sweet girl but a total perfectionist who goes to great lengths to win the role as the Black Swan. She is up against this other young woman who is just as talented as she is, and Nina descends into madness as she trains and trains to win the role as the Black Swan in Swan Lake. Honestly, I should have followed my gut instinct and not watched that movie because again, I am not great with watching horror movies and the content I watch sticks in my head forever. But it did make me reflect on my own perfectionism, and even though it was a fictional film, it showed me that perfectionism can be dangerous if setting high standards drives you to harm your body and lash out at others. I have been in that dark place of perfectionism before as a musician who just wanted to get into a top prestigious orchestra, and boy am I glad I took a break and started playing my cello for fun again, because I was losing my shit over a fucking section cello position.

The HIM trailer begs the question: what is someone willing to sacrifice to be number 1 in their field? The main character, Cameron, wants to be the GOAT (greatest of all time), but when he meets his idol, Isaiah White, who is a retired football legend, and starts training at his compound, the training regimen that Isaiah puts Cameron through ends up being sadistic, and, quite frankly, satanic. I watched a lot of the reaction videos to the trailer and from people’s reactions, it looks like it is going to be a pretty graphic film. I didn’t watch the part where Cameron has to throw footballs at several guys, but from hearing the sound effects of the guys having the footballs smashed into their faces (and seeing the people in the reaction videos cringe in disgust during that scene) I was like, “Okay, yeah, I just have to accept that I won’t be able to stomach violent movies like this.” The poster already looked pretty bloody. It shows Cameron all bloody and his arms outstretched like he is Jesus Christ on the crucifix. I did love the music in the trailer, though. It reminded me of the music in the trailer for Whiplash, which, even though it is a drama, is pretty horrific because the jazz band leader, Fletcher, throws chairs at his students, screams at them and shouts homophobic and outdated ethnic slurs at them. Andrew really wants to be in his jazz band, but Fletcher ends up driving Andrew to extreme stress. Andrew was already a perfectionist, but Fletcher bullied him and made him think that to be the greatest drummer of all time, he had to push himself beyond his limits to the point where Andrew could have ended up in the emergency room with all of the injuries he sustained from playing the drums until his hands bled and that car accident he got into. Watching the HIM trailer reminded me a lot of the movie Whiplash, because it shows how this abusive jazz band leader pushes his students, in particular Andrew, to extremes. Fletcher, the band leader, at one point in the movie says that the worst thing someone can say to someone else is “Good job.” Even though Whiplash and HIM are different genres of movie, the former being a drama and the latter being a horror movie, both these movies seem to show that while it’s okay to want to be the best, it’s easy to let success go to your head to the point where you tear other people down and resort to self-destructive methods to achieve that success. I would be so curious to see how professional football players feel about the movie HIM, because I read some of the reactions to Whiplash and a lot of jazz musicians were divided about how the movie inaccurately portrays what it’s like training at conservatory. To be fair, Damien Chazelle, the director, was only going off on a personal experience he had with a mean high school jazz teacher, so the movie definitely can’t speak for everyone’s experience working in jazz. And neither can Black Swan, because Nina is a fictional character and the movie is a psychological horror movie, not a documentary. Then again, I am neither a professional jazz musician nor a professional ballerina nor a professional football player, which is why, when HIM comes out, I would love to read any comments from professional football players or people who work in sports psychology or any sports-related fields about the film. I unfortunately won’t go see it because after seeing the movie Sinners, I reached my threshold for scary stuff and won’t be going to see anything scary any time soon.

Movie Review: Revolutionary Road

Content warning: discussions of abortion

For the first time in 2016, I watched Titanic. Up until then, I would listen to a table full of high schoolers talk about the movie, and I would casually say, “I haven’t seen Titanic.” They would gawk at me, incredulous, and exclaim, “What?!? You’ve never seen Titanic?” I might as well have been hiding under a rock. My parents had a VHS set of Titanic (I guess there were two VHS cassettes because the movie is about three hours long) but when it came out in 1997, I was only four years old and, well, Titanic is PG-13 for a reason. If I watched Titanic with my parents, I would have bugged them throughout the movie, asking them questions like, “Mommy, why did that red-haired lady take off her clothes? And why is that man scribbling on a piece of paper and staring at her?” It would not have been a great viewing experience for my parents. Also, as someone who cries at even the smallest thing (I am an empath at heart), when I would go to the ice-skating rink for lessons, and that darn “My Heart Will Go On” song came on, I would start tearing up and crying because the music and Celine Dion’s voice was so moving. One of the ice-skating teachers observed me and told my parents, “This little girl is going to be a humanitarian someday.”

Fast forward to the fall of 2016, and I am up at 1:00 am, ugly-crying Viola Davis style as the end credits rolled on my laptop and Celine Dion’s voice sang “Near/ far/ wherever you are…” I was not only sad at the end. I was SHOOKETH. I had to home visit a friend in my Buddhist community the next day, which is why, looking back, I would not ever watch a movie like Titanic before going to bed because I know that it is going to keep me up. At night, all I could do was toss and turn and agonize over that one question that was apparently on a lot of people’s minds: Was there or wasn’t there enough room on that door for Jack? And why did Rose have to have the damn door all to herself? I know, I know, you’re rolling your eyes and saying, Geez, it’s just a movie. Get over yourself. Also, James Cameron is the director of the movie, so no matter what those guys on MythBusters did to prove that there was enough room on that floating door for Jack, James Cameron said that Jack sacrificed his life and was being a gentleman by letting Rose float on that door and sinking to his death. What was comforting, though, was that after I had watched the movie and told two of my friends from college how angry and upset that I was about that ending, they empathized with me and agreed that Rose shouldn’t have hogged that door. Of course, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were just doing their jobs as actors. Also, it’s a drama: it’s supposed to be sad, and in real life, many people on The Titanic did not survive when the ship hit the iceberg and sank. I think going to that person’s house and chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with her and my mom brought me some much-needed comfort, because literally that ending of Titanic gave me serious nightmares. I was that upset. Over a movie. After I watched it, I became a little bit obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio and started reading interviews and articles about him and his life growing up. I admit, I was decades late to the screaming-girls fan club of Leonardo DiCaprio. It was a very late parasocial relationship where I read interviews he did in his teens and 20s (I also was a little obsessed with his work as an environmentalist at one point.) But it was fun to fangirl over him, nonetheless. I later on saw him in The Wolf of Wall Street, and it was a totally different role than the sweet fun character of Jack in Titanic. Jordan Belfort was not a nice guy. He was misogynistic, greedy and a very miserable mean man. He started off being kind, but he got influenced by the dog-eat-dog mentality of Wall Street and soon was cussing at his employees and snorting cocaine out of a… okay, that part I probably don’t want to talk about, because to this day I can’t get that image out of my head. All you have to know is that it was gross. All I could think was, how did he and Jonah Hill’s character, Donny, survive even after all of the Quaaludes and other hard drugs they did?

But honestly, even though The Wolf of Wall Street was pretty tough for me to sit through, especially as a young woman watching Jordan cheat on his wife with multiple women in the movie, I really admire Leonardo’s acting and how versatile he is. Which brings me to the 2008 romantic drama called Revolutionary Road. Like Titanic, it also stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and like Titanic, it was emotionally intense. I didn’t cry but I was pretty depressed after watching Revolutionary Road. What kept me watching the movie, though, was the incredible acting of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The film takes place in the 1950s, and Frank and April Wheeler meet at a party at the beginning of the movie. They don’t see themselves as conventional people, but they end up doing what a lot of (white) straight people in America did what was expected of them at that time: get married, move to a white-picket-fence suburb in Connecticut and have children (I use “white” in parentheses because no way my Black ass was going to be allowed near a white picket fence in the 1950s.) Frank brings home the bacon at his 9-5 office job, and April, an aspiring actress, stays at home and takes care of the kids while continuing to audition for roles. They are friends with a couple named Howard (Richard Easton) and Helen Givings (Kathy Bates), who have a son named John (Michael Shannon), who has a bleak outlook on life. Frank and April are also friends with a couple named Milly (Kathryn Hahn) and Shep Campbell. (David Harbour) Even though they are living this comfortable life, they are deeply miserable. Frank is miserable at his full-time office job and April isn’t succeeding in her acting career. To escape from the boredom of his suburban man-of-the-house life, Frank sleeps with a secretary at his job, Maureen Grube (Zoe Kazan). April, meanwhile, proposes to Frank that they should move to Paris. Not only that, but she says she will work a job to support them both, completely defying the long-cemented traditional gender norms that dictate that the man brings home the paycheck while the woman stays home and cleans. April thinks that she is going to help Frank escape his boring office job, and that she will also get something out of it because she will become the actress she aspires to be with more opportunities in Europe. They tell their friends they are really excited, but their neighbors are uncomfortable with Frank and April just impulsively deciding they will leave their comfortable life in the U.S. to go to Europe permanently. The only one who seems to understand why Frank and April would leave their miserable lives in suburbia is Helen and Howard Givings’ son, John. He, too, is miserable in the suburbs because he doesn’t fit in and his parents are always thinking he needs to be fixed because he has a mental illness, so he loves that Frank and April, like him, want to leave this miserable empty seemingly perfect white-picket-fence life.

However, shit hits the fan and their plans to move to Europe flunk when Frank gets a promotion at work and April finds out she is pregnant again. Frank tries to talk her out of the plan to go to Paris, but April is devastated that her dreams to escape this boring conventional life have been crushed by reality, and she thinks about getting an abortion, but this is the 1950s and there was a huge taboo against getting an abortion. Also, since there were probably no abortion clinics back in that day, women had to use dangerous methods to carry out abortions. I think that is why this movie was so devastating to watch, because Frank goes off to work without him and April blowing up at each over, but then when he is gone, she carries out the abortion by herself and ends up bleeding to death. Even though I didn’t cry, seeing Frank Wheeler grieve and run out of the hospital after finding out his wife died of bleeding from the abortion was hard to watch.

Even though I was born and raised in the suburbs, I don’t know if I would want to live in a suburb in the 1950s. Of course, I wouldn’t have been allowed to anyway, because I am Black and at the time, white flight was happening and white people were moving from cities to suburbs, so there wouldn’t have been any room for me. And I would have probably had white racist neighbors throw eggs at my house and call me the N-word multiple times if I lived in the suburbs at that time. I do kind of resonate with Frank and April’s desire to get out of the suburbs, though, because even though I wouldn’t be allowed to live in a suburb back in the 1950s due to being Black, I grew up in a suburb in the 1990s and 2000s, a time when it was okay for kids like me to go to schools in the suburbs and play in the park with kids of all different races and ethnicities. I really loved growing up in the place I did, but around 16 of 17, I grew jaded of the suburbs and wanted to go to the east coast for college, and I did. I was so ready to get out of Texas and leave for the East Coast, especially growing up as someone who has always loved supporting LGBTQ rights as an ally and went to school where there was a lot of homophobia and transphobia. However, even when I went off to the East Coast for college and went to a place that was LGBTQ friendly, I still dealt with loneliness, depression, anxiety and homesickness during my time in college because I was away from my family for so long. When I moved back to Texas after graduating, I was burned out and took on some part-time jobs, and I was happy at first, but then I started having big dreams of playing at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and I thought that to make it big as a musician I had to move to a city like Los Angeles or New York since there seemed to be more opportunities to get in the music industry. However, as much as I wanted to move to Los Angeles or New York City, I think staying put here in my little suburb outside of Dallas has been ultimately the best decision for now, not only because living in those cities would be too expensive, but because looking back, even though I was bummed about not moving to New York in my 20s, I needed to stay where I was because my mental health was so fucked up and I didn’t know how to take care of myself. Even though I still want to move to New York City someday, staying here in my (not-so-little) Texas suburb has given me the time to think about what I really want to do in life and has given me the time to learn how to take care of my mental and physical health, and also learn how to be a more mature, responsible adult. I threw tantrums about not being able to move to New York, and impulsively applied for an apartment in Harlem without telling my parents, but honestly I needed to get grounded and grow up, because looking back I wasn’t in a good enough financial situation to move to the city. I also wasn’t very emotionally mature back then even though I thought I was mature. I am still saving up money to move, but I know understand after a lot of chanting and self-reflection and talking with friends and family that it takes a lot of preparation to move somewhere else: emotional, financial, etc. I know there are stories of people who just pick up everything, quit their jobs and move to New York City with less than $300 in their savings, but I had to learn over time that everyone has their own unique situation and that picking up everything, quitting my 9-5 and moving to New York was just not realistic for my personal situation. I think chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and studying about Buddhism has kept me grounded so that even if I don’t like everything about Plano, I can still find time to appreciate the little things about it, like the fact that I live near so many grocery stores within a 5 mile radius or that I don’t have to drive far to go to my job everyday.

Honestly, I am glad I read books about relationships before watching Revolutionary Road. I had a sort of dreamy idea about marriage before watching this movie but watching this reminded me that getting married to someone doesn’t always mean one will be happy. I have learned that there are a lot of people in unhappy marriages. I read this book called It’s Not Me, It’s You by Vanessa Bennett and John Kim, two therapists who are married and have a kid together. Reading this book, I learned that relationships take a lot of work and maturity, and you have to also work on yourself, too, whether you are in a committed relationship or not. Also, there are a lot of people who are Frank and April’s age nowadays who leave the United States of America and move to Europe or other places overseas for various reasons: better economic opportunities, grad school, better quality of life, or to escape the current madness of the Trump administration. I remember feeling heartbroken that this guy I had a crush on was moving to Europe with his fiancée for a year, but looking back I am glad it worked out the way it did because I realized that I wasn’t actually as in love with this person as I thought I was. He is a great friend, but I am happy he is in a relationship with someone else because after a lot of self-reflection, I realized that I love my independence and don’t want to feel like I have to rush into a relationship. Also, I only really liked that guy because he thought I was attractive when we were in school together, which is a really shallow reason to like someone. I am also asexual, so I didn’t feel any sexual attraction to him or anyone else at the time we met. Also, if I was with this person, I don’t think I would have wanted to move abroad. I like traveling, but again, I love my independence, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to be free and do my own thing if I went to Europe because my partner got a fellowship there. Then again, I probably have no idea what I am talking about because I have never been in a serious committed relationship with someone, so I don’t know whether or not I would have been happy with this guy had he ended up with me and not someone else. The last time I dated a guy was several years ago, and it lasted for about a week before I had to move back to the U.S. and the other person had to move back to Australia. We had to break it off at some point after a couple of years of long-distance talking back and forth on Facebook Messenger, and I think it was the best thing for us at the time because I didn’t have the emotional maturity to be in a serious relationship with someone. What Frank and April did would have been considered totally normal now because a lot of Millennials move to other places, and now that a lot of people work remotely, they can move anywhere for their work. Also, a lot of people have to move to different cities for their jobs, so they have to uproot their lives and start over.

The abortion scene in Revolutionary Road made me think of some other movies I have seen where abortion is a hot topic of debate. There is a movie I saw a while ago called Waves, and it’s about this Black teenager named Tyler, who is part of the wrestling team at his school and has a challenging relationship with his father, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), who sets unrealistic expectations for him and constantly reminds him that as Black people living in a white affluent area, they don’t have the luxury of failing or being average in what they do, so Tyler has to work ten times as harder as anyone else simply because he is a Black man in a society that doesn’t expect him to do anything exceptional. Ronald didn’t grow up with the opportunities that his kids have, so he thinks Tyler is wasting his life away by not constantly excelling and achieving. Ronald pushes Tyler to the brink of exhaustion and constantly berates him, and even though Tyler’s mom isn’t hard on her son and gives him encouragement, Ronald thinks that encouraging Tyler will make him weak and less of a man, so he criticizes him all the time. Tyler is dating a girl named Alexis and they are enjoying their relationship, but after they have unprotected sex, Alexis tells Tyler that she is pregnant. They go to an abortion clinic where lots of middle- aged white women are standing outside of the clinic holding pro-life signs and protesting abortion, and when they leave, one of the women calls Tyler the N-word and he threatens to fight her. He angrily drives his girlfriend back home, and loses it when Alexis tells him that she is scared of getting the abortion and wants them to keep the baby. Tyler, however, doesn’t want her to keep the baby and he keeps shouting and cussing at her about why she decided at the last minute to not get the abortion. She angrily yells “Fuck you” at him and decides to get out of his car and walk home. He texts her to try and apologize and make up, but she no longer wants to be with him because he doesn’t respect her decision to keep the baby, and after he sends her a flurry of angry text messages demanding that she give him an explanation why she doesn’t want to see him anymore, she breaks up with him over text. His self-worth damaged, Tyler spirals into a rage and destroys everything in his room, with his mom worriedly knocking on the door, asking if he is ok and to answer the door. Tyler’s anger and jealousy drives him to go to prom and confront his girlfriend about her decision to not only keep the baby but go to prom with another guy. He hits her and ends up knocking her to the ground, and she bleeds to death. This scene was heartbreaking, but it showed me that when young men are not encouraged to express their emotions in a healthy way or told that expressing emotions and vulnerability is weak, it can motivate them to express their anger in a destructive way that harms not just themselves, but their friends and family, too.