From Screen to Sound: The Art of Comic-to-Audio Adaptation

Adapting a book into an audiobook is a fairly straightforward process. But what about an audio comic?  ♦ 

"Thank you for listening to Adventures in Odyssey!” host Chris Anthony says as she ends the latest episode of the audio drama, and then the CD stops. Seven-year-old me takes the disc out and eagerly replaces it with the next in the series. I grew up with audio dramas like this one: I would play in my room for hours listening to stories interwoven with voices, music, and sound. As I got older, I admired the talent that went into making these stories and decided to make some for myself. However, I wanted an extra challenge: converting image into sound. It’s easy enough to make an audio drama from a written script that can be read aloud. Could I also adapt the images in a comic to an audio drama? How would I stay faithful to both the comic’s text and images?

To begin, I chose a simple, slice-of-life comic I’ve been reading for years: Humor Me by Marvin. Humor Me focuses on a no-nonsense girl trying to get through school while also taking care of her younger brother. Meanwhile, a young model mistakes the girl for an obsessed fanboy and tries to get her kicked out of the school. The comic’s dialogue, story, and visuals seemed simple enough at a glance but gave me a lot to consider as I adapted them for audio.

The first step was to write a script. I needed to include the characters’ lines, sound effects, and descriptions for places and actions that were drawn but not mentioned in the comic’s text. I knew a narrator would be necessary at times but preferred to “show” action through sound effects. To do this, I reviewed each scene and identified what was important for the listener to know. For example, in one scene, the main character walks from inside of a store to the outside street. I needed to portray movement from indoors to outdoors without overwhelming the listener with different sounds. To signal the setting change, I faded the store sounds out and inserted the sound of a door opening. Because of sound cues like these, a single chapter of this comic turned into roughly 15 pages of script with 11 characters.

Next, I needed to cast my characters. I recruited my amazing group of friends to help me out with this project. Some were actors, and some were not. As a result, I had to be a good vocal director and accurately explain what performance I wanted from them. This was by far my favorite part of the process: I loved helping people who had no acting experience learn how to use only their voice to act.

Once I had all my lines, I went through the script and made a list of sound effects I needed to find. For this project in particular, I was lucky enough to find the necessary sounds on royalty-free websites. For past projects, however, I have pulled out my blue Yeti mic and recorded sounds myself. Some examples include walking in my bathtub in heels to imitate a woman walking downstairs and splashing a pot of water into a sink lined with towels to imitate water spilling onto a shirt. Though I didn’t have to create my own sound effects for this project, I still needed to be creative with how I searched for audio tracks. For example, I couldn’t find a sound that imitated a hug, so I settled on an audio track called “body falling on floor.”

Once I had all of the sounds and music I needed, I started to piece everything together in the editing program, Adobe Audition. The editing process took several hours, and each track had to be laid out as a separate Wav file. This means I was managing between 20 to 30 sound files at the same time. The most time-consuming part of this process was timing the sound effects correctly in relation to the other tracks. If a sound is even half-a-second too early or late, it is very noticeable. This is especially true for dialogue. To make the dialogue sound as natural as possible, I spent a lot of time moving lines back and forth within the editing program until they synced up just right. Another time-consuming task was adding effects to the sound effects. While it may seem redundant, this task is absolutely essential. For the walking and running effects, I changed their pitches and speeds to distinguish the different characters’ walking patterns. I also manipulated the dialogue's frequency to represent when characters were talking on the phone.

This entire process required a lot of work, but I loved every second of it. Starting off, I was a little worried that my audio choices would not properly represent the comic. As I continued, however, I realized that I understood the heart of the story being told. My choices were unconsciously portraying my view of the comic and its story. If you’d like to try creating your own audio drama, give yourself a lot of time! Audio editing takes more of it than you’d think. It’s a lot of listening, re-editing, and tweaking the tiniest details. However, once it’s done, you will definitely be satisfied.

About the Author

Gina Moravec is a current senior at Miami University with a Professional Writing major, a Media & Culture co-major, and a Theater minor. Gina has been making audio-based projects since she was 16. You can find her current work on the Internal Comms Pro, the Podcast as the Associate Producer as well as The Successfully Funded Podcast as the Executive Producer. When she’s not working on projects, she likes to take walks around her college campus or the woods in her backyard.

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Book Influencers in the Wild

Take a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of social media's most bookish content creators.  ♦ 

For years, celebrity book clubs like Oprah’s Book Club have swayed readers’ interests and writers’ popularity with their recommendations. Since the rise of social media, however, there’s been a surge in virtual discussion about books. Now, many everyday booklovers have become “book influencers” themselves: content creators whose digital presence impacts their followers’ reading habits. These hardworking, ordinary people review everything from graphic novels and audiobooks to new fiction and classics. In addition to their own careers, they manage professional accounts brimming with polished flat lay images, quality videos, thought-provoking posts, and podcast episodes.

But what goes into crafting this content for readers? What do book influencers’ lives look like behind-the-scenes? As a budding influencer myself, the thought of filming selfie videos, setting up flawless photos, and reading enough to post makes my head spin! Fortunately, I had the pleasure of interviewing several book influencers about their work and how they approach their role online. It’s astonishing to see what they are able to accomplish with their passion for books driving their actions.

Phoebe Wright and Ashley Chandler run not only the joint podcast Read It or List It but also their own book accounts that differ in style and content. The pair met and connected through #bookstagram, balancing each other out— Ashley being the technical side and Phoebe being the creative. Another influencer, Kat Botell, runs her literary blog, Rustic Pages, on her own. “My life currently consists of taking and editing both photos for Instagram and videos for YouTube. I recently got back on top of blogging,” she shared.

The Read It or List It podcast duo, Phoebe and Ashley, did not set out to be book influencers. “I had no idea book influencing was a ‘thing’ to be honest. I started my blog and Instagram account as a creative outlet... it was a passion project that then took on a life of its own,” says Phoebe. Kat over at Rustic Pages started hers as a ‘hobby account’ initially, and it grew from there as she tried out blogging.

The three agree that book influencers must create authentic relationships with their audiences. As they plan, Phoebe and Ashley keep a dedicated planner for their blog and Instagram account. Phoebe says, “I lay out my content for the month and always leave room for a little flexibility in order to maintain an authentic relationship with my audience.” Personally, I prefer to engage with accounts that feel like friends more than a corporate company. When influencers reflect on a book with anecdotes from their own lives, it doesn't feel like they are actively selling me a product. Instead, their honesty and personal connection to the work’s themes builds my trust in them and the book they are posting about.

With all of this preparation and creating content about books, when do these influencers have time to read what they are writing about? Ashley emphasizes, “I can’t talk about books if I don’t read them! But posting and engaging is a lot of work, which I did not realize until I saw the difference in my growth when I let my audience into my life a bit more.” Kat is a night reader and consumes page after page before going to bed. She states, “I also LOVE read-a-thons and co-host one every first Friday of the month on my Instagram.” Read-a-thons engage followers in a set period of time (usually 24 hours or a week) of dedicated reading compared to normal. Kat admits that engaging with over 32,000 followers on Instagram is time-consuming but finds the work incredibly rewarding. Keeping up with comments is valuable and builds a relationship of trust between herself and her followers.

While the rewards of providing such content are encouraging, there can also be times of challenge. Reading provides most of the content but balancing it with keeping the accounts active can become burdensome. Additionally, seeing little return on time invested can be upsetting. “Balance and creative burnout are definitely the challenges. It’s also really hard not to play the comparison game. I struggle with it more than I’d like to admit, but I put so much work into what I do that it can make me feel inadequate some days,” says Ashley. Remembering why you started is always a good rule of thumb. Kat agreed, saying, “And as with any other niche, to not compare yourself to others. Everyone grows at their own pace!”

Regardless of the amount of time and energy it requires, influencing readers has its rewards. Phoebe from Read It or List It says her interactions with authors and followers fill her with joy. She adds, “… it’s just really, really cool that people trust my opinion. It’s very rewarding to discuss books with my audience who loved a story as much as I did but only picked it up because I recommended it!” Kat has also become friends with many people through her channels. The community that is built through these platforms allows readers and followers to feel a part of something larger.

As a book becomes popular across these social media platforms, how do we know that book influencers are assisting with its success? Some blogs and websites have affiliate links that let publishers know how a buyer gets to their site. Kat frequently gets messages from followers that they have purchased the books she has posted about. If she is encouraging others to read more, Phoebe argues, then her opinion and voice are valuable.

Almost anyone can become a book influencer. Keeping the book community engaged as a creator or participant grows the love of reading and supports talented authors. Book influencers also learn strategic marketing skills that can be encouraged by publishers or sought after by book enthusiasts on their own. With new books being published every Tuesday and tons of backlists and classics to be reviewed with fresh perspectives, there is plenty of bookish content to share. So, the next time you see a bookworm staging a bookish photo or filming a tour of their favorite bookstore or library, give them a shout-out. They’re selflessly spreading and maintaining the love of books.

About the Author

Courtney Wallace is a marketing and communications professional in higher education. With degrees in Art History and Interactive Media Studies, she has implemented creative solutions to media, communications, and websites along with managing her own book blog. She resides in Cincinnati, Ohio, and enjoys literary travel, running, and playing volleyball.

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The Murderinos Are Afoot

Staying sexy and not getting murdered have never been easier, nor more fun.  ♦ 

There's nothing quite as thrilling as falling in love with a book within a genre you've never explored before. The realization that suddenly there is an entire plethora of new books to read is a truly empowering feeling, as many have recently discovered for themselves through the popularization of true crime. Titles such as Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in The Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer and The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer by Skip Hollandsworth have even found success that transcends the traditional expectations of the genre—highlighted as New York Times Bestsellers, praised by critics, devoured by readers. So, what caused this sudden interest in true crime?

I would argue that the current success of true crime literature was influenced by an unlikely source: the hugely addictive and intriguing realm of podcasts.

Growing in popularity because of its personality-driven content, relatability, and flexibility, podcasts feature devotees fervently discussing their favorite topics, ranging from politics to Dungeon & Dragons, and with the sheer number and variety of shows in existence, it's no surprise that there's a large number in the true crime genre. While some are dedicated to covering a single narrative, such as NPR’s wildly successful first season of Serial, others are more episodic and take on multiple cases, such as the podcasts Jensen & Holes: The Murder Squad, Crime Junkie, and My Favorite Murder. These podcasts opened the door to discussing true crime as a useful tool for analyzing human behavior, informing audiences about red flags, encouraging people to stand up for both themselves and others, and providing a community to explore similar interests. One podcast in particular truly helped with destroying the stigmas and barriers around true crime as a salacious genre of interest only to budding investigators or incipient serial killers, bringing true crime fully into the mainstream, and that podcast is My Favorite Murder.

My Favorite Murder began in 2016 with two hosts, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, who bonded over their love of true crime. Sharing a level of vulnerability with their audience, the pair discuss personal stories and listener testimonials, encouraging an open dialogue between themselves and their fans. As their podcast continued to grow, they created resources such as Facebook groups to connect listeners who dubbed themselves “Murderinos.” Whether discussing hometown murders, invented self-insert stories, or tips on finding red flags, My Favorite Murder connected people from different backgrounds around a common interest, growing a community that was confident in the idea that it is entirely reasonable to love true crime and helping Murderinos not only befriend each other but like-minded individuals outside of the fandom.

As the community grew, there was a significant amount of fans who connected around their deep love of literature, and these bibliophiles began to form book clubs surrounding the genres of mystery and true crime. Discussing in online forums and libraries, these book clubs read novels and nonfiction highlighted on My Favorite Murder episodes such as If You Really Loved Me by Ann Rule and No Stone Unturned by Steve Jackson. I personally lead one of these book clubs on Chase the Darkness With Me: How One True Crime Writer Started Solving Murders by Billy Jensen. The book was a whirlwind for many of us as we tried to uncover the Golden State Killer and the Bear Brook Murderer, and the experience brought me closer to both the fandom and the genre, creating some new friendships with others who shared my passions and interest.

In my opinion, podcasts like My Favorite Murder have helped legitimize the genre, making true crime less about horror and focusing much more on awareness. As an aspiring author, I often used writing as an excuse for my knowledge of and interest in true crime, rationalizing any internalized anxiety I might have felt toward the genre as a "necessary evil" for research purposes. However, listening to My Favorite Murder allowed me to recognize my interest as a beneficial passion that I can share with others. I feel as though I am not alone anymore as I agree with Karen and Georgia’s comments, laugh with them over their silly ideas, and make friends in the community.

I, along with many others, am truly proud to be a Murderino.

About the Author

Jessica Rosepen was born and raised in Ohio. She is currently a senior at Miami University, where she studies American Studies. After graduation, she will continue on to University of Kentucky to attend their Library & Information Science master’s program. In her free time, Jessica enjoys reading, writing fiction, and exploring history’s forgotten and abandoned places.

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The Narrative Formula of Gourmet Makes

(Photo credit: Bon Appétit)

This show may not fill your stomach, but it will fill your soul.  ♦ 

The internet has found a new person to lavish their love and adoration upon, and that person is Claire Saffitz. Saffitz is a contributing food editor to Bon Appétit and works in their test kitchen, the place where recipes are tried, tested, and made true. She also works as a video host for one of Bon Appétit’s most-watched series, Gourmet Makes. In this show, Saffitz is tasked with creating a gourmet version of a typically nostalgic snack and/or dessert food. This usually means simplifying the ingredients and almost always involves using kitchenware for unintended purposes, like using a salad spinner as a candy drum to coat M&M’s. The end result is not something the audience is expected to recreate, which inherently contradicts Bon Appétit’s purpose of sharing inventive recipes for home cooks, though this contradiction between the goal of the company and content of their popular YouTube channel actually says a lot about the evolution of YouTube as a form of media.

As YouTube gained popularity as an entertainment source, YouTubers made structured and heavily edited videos, often with a “how to” focus. This gave rise to overhead filmed food videos, as made famous by Buzzfeed’s Tasty, where users could conceivably follow the videos as a tutorial for how to make a food item. As YouTube evolved, the previously popular challenges, tags, and “then vs. now” videos gave way to vlog-style videos. These videos contain less editing and typically follow someone throughout their daily life, with all their rambling and moments of imperfection left in instead of edited out. This evolution of style can be seen even within distinct YouTuber’s personal evolutions. Emma Chamberlain and Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella, both started by making DIY and lookbook videos, but now create vlog content where their personalities come through more naturally and serve as the main intrigue factor of their videos. The genius of Gourmet Makes is that it combines both of these video styles: it contains some structure and editing but leaves in the moments where we see Saffitz’s personality through offhand conversations and (sometimes un)warranted complaints.

The narrative structure of Gourmet Makes is what keeps audiences coming back to experience the seemingly futile exercise of creating a gourmet version of a heavily processed food. Gourmet Makes videos are divided into three sections, which mirror the classic three act plot structure. Part One is the exploration phase, where the audience is introduced to the food item that Saffitz will attempt to recreate in a gourmet fashion, which becomes the “conflict” of the episode. Much like a novel, we are introduced to our main characters (“Hi I’m Claire from the BA Test Kitchen!”) who happen to be real people with Instagram accounts that allow us to continue to interact with them outside the narrative, and unlike a novel, the story for these characters never really ends. Part One contains repeated elements that act similarly to genre prescriptions in that they are included in each episode of the show: Saffitz always says, “And now for my favorite part, reading the ingredients”; different BA Test Kitchen staff talk about the nostalgia of the food item; Saffitz carries all of the different flavors of the food item by herself to clear her workspace; and she goes to the computer to research how the food item is made. These elements have become traditions that the audience can expect from each episode of Gourmet Makes, creating stability and structure that is reassuring to audiences.

Part Two is the trial and error phase where Saffitz tries different methods and ingredients for the gourmet version, tastes the result, and makes adjustments. In most episodes, Saffitz encounters a major stumbling block that forces her to almost completely start over, like failing to correctly temper chocolate to coat Snickers bars. She often complains about this obstacle, tries to give up, seeks comfort from her coworkers, reclaims her resolve, and begins again. Though Saffitz claims to not enjoy filming Gourmet Makes, because it seems pointless and she dislikes failure, she always finds a way forward. This major failure resembles the climax of a typical plot structure — it is the point where everything seems to go wrong. But, this is also the turning point of the video where Saffitz rises up and overcomes the obstacle, as we see in an exchange with Brad Leone, another food contributor of Bon Appétit and host of It’s Alive, in the "Snickers" episode:

SAFFITZ: “I’m just gonna call it quits."

LEONE: “No, that’s not the Claire we know!"

SAFFITZ: “No, that’s not the show."

In some ways, Saffitz is forced to overcome the obstacle for the sake of the video and enjoyment of the audience. Without this moment of near failure that turns into success, Gourmet Makes would not resemble a typical plot structure and would not be as satisfying and enjoyable to watch as it is.

Part Three represents the falling action and resolution in which Safftiz successfully conquers whatever challenges she encountered in Part Two and runs through how one would replicate the process she went through to make the final product. It’s implied that the audience is not expected to follow this process, which reveals that Part Three serves not educational purposes, but narrative ones.

Fans of the show often go so far as to post #IWDFCFTBATK (I would die for Claire Saffitz from the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen) on social media and ironically wonder why they enjoy watching her mess up. But it’s not that they enjoy watching Saffitz fail, they enjoy watching her rise to a challenge and overcome it. It’s cathartic, just like every other three act narrative, the audience experiences the plot right alongside the character. When they rise, we rise. Gourmet Makes is telling the same story that has been told from the beginning of time, they’re just doing it with food. It’s made even more satisfying because this plot isn’t manufactured or fiction; it happens naturally in each episode. YouTube content like Gourmet Makes is essentially the gourmet version of a fictional movie or literature plot, only it is more organic and less-processed, while still allowing the audience to feel filled.

About the Author

Emma Naille is a sophomore at Miami University studying Creative Writing and Interactive Media Studies. She is from Granville, Ohio, and is passionate about storytelling, food, and the power of quiet. Emma is involved with UP Magazine and is a Young Life leader at Lakota East High School (go hawks!).

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Food Editors to YouTube Sensation: How Bon Appétit Changed Food Editing as We Know It

(Photo credit: Bon Appétit)

This classic food magazine found a new audience online and became a social media star in the process. See what Bon Appétit is cooking up next on YouTube.  ♦ 

In 2012 Bon Appétit created its very own YouTube channel featuring a series of simple recipe tutorials. Fast forward to 2020 and Bon Appétit has managed to establish themselves among the ranks of popular YouTube content creators. What makes their rise to fame so unique is the way in which the company has managed to step outside of their traditional magazine format to promote not only their recipes, but the whole cast and crew of food editors working in the Bon Appétit test kitchen. Not only has Bon Appétit transformed themselves through their YouTube presence, but they have had an influence on the marketing of traditionally written content like magazines as a whole.

When people hear the Bon Appétit name it is likely that they now associate the company with the series of fun videos that have been posted online, but this wasn’t always the case. The company got its start in the 1950s, a time when magazines were still enough to draw in a significant readership. While the company still offers a print subscription on their site, they seem to have realized that they wouldn’t be able to survive on their magazine alone in the growing digital age. As times have changed, so too has the format and content of Bon Appétit. In an effort to stay up to date and continue to draw in readers the company launched a YouTube channel to take their brand to the next level. The channel’s early videos were largely overhead how-tos and interview style recipe sharing that more or less blended into the thousands of other videos being posted at the time. While Bon Appétit’s early videos seemed to copy popular video trends, the company nevertheless continued to experiment in hopes that the videos they produced would be enough to gain the attention they were after.

It wasn’t until Bon Appétit started to do their own thing and experiment with a series of different video styles that their YouTube channel really started to take off. Introducing more hands-on tutorials with fun and exciting plot lines along with the addition of a whole cast of food editors seemed to be the recipe for success that Bon Appétit had been looking for. It appears that while Bon Appétit had originally attempted to extend their magazine format online, the key to growth was to reinvent themselves and give viewers a sneak peak of what really goes on in the Bon Appétit test kitchen. Not only were people watching to learn how to cook, but suddenly Bon Appétit had tapped into a world of entertainment as well. The takeoff of their YouTube success can in a large part be attributed to the introduction of a few lucrative series on their channels. Some of their more popular series include Gourmet Makes hosted by Claire Saffitz and It's Alive hosted by Brad Leone. These particular series have established Bon Appétit as an entity outside of their physical magazine and as a result their audience has expanded tremendously.

While Bon Bon Appétit’s success can largely be attributed to their YouTube series there is also something to be said for the other use of multimedia Bon Appétit has introduced alongside their YouTube channel. Starting as solely a print company they have slowly become more inclusive in their interactions with online and multimedia formats. Alongside their magazine and YouTube channel, the company owns and runs a fairly successful online website where users can go to find recipes from some of their most popular videos along with a whole host of online exclusive content. Bon Appétit’s website also features some of their newest videos alongside their written content for a truly multimodal experience. The company uses a number of successful social media accounts, including Instagram, which not only serves to highlight the recipes they are working on, but also helps the company establish themselves in the digital age while continuing to provide a crossover in content for their fans. This once again helps them stand out in the traditionally print industry. Outside of the company Instagram most of the editors have their own accounts where they not only share the latest recipes they’ve been working on, but also shed light into each editor’s personal life outside of the Bon Appétit test kitchen. This allows readers to get to know their favorite editors in a much more informal environment. Bon Appétit’s expansion into digital serves not only as a means of entertainment, but as a way for readers to feel as though they have joined a community through their subscription to the brand in all of its entities.

While Bon Appétit seems to have found the winning formula for enduring the digital age, they are not alone in expanding what it means to be a food magazine in the modern era. Because of the relative success that the company has found in their online presence, other food magazines and publishing entities have begun to follow suit in an attempt to keep their companies alive. Magazines like Delish are taking cues from Bon Appétit and reinventing themselves with an online presence. This can all be boiled down to the way in which these companies are attempting to attract new readers.

Not only has Bon Appétit established themselves as a well-known YouTube channel, they have also managed to find a new way to continue magazine subscription growth. First and foremost, Bon Appétit is a magazine. While their YouTube channel has had recognizable success, it all began because the company was looking for a way to increase their readership in a younger audience. This has helped them ensure that the Bon Appétit name is one that will live on in the increasingly tech savvy generations. The company's introduction came at a time when cooking didn’t need to reach a digital audience, but Bon Appétit’s YouTube presence and subsequent success proves that in order to continue spreading culinary knowledge they must do so in a contemporary and accessible form.

About the Author

Natalie Citro is a senior at Miami University where she studies English Literature with a minor in Interactive Media Studies. Natalie also works in the university’s English department where she is a student assistant charged with creating a variety of posters for department events throughout the year.

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We’re Holding Out for a Hero(ine): A Look at Leading Women

Both Marvel and DC have highly anticipated female-led superhero films on the horizon. So far, the advantage goes to DC.  ♦ 

Here is something I thought I would never utter: I now find myself having a deeper appreciation for the DC cinematic universe.

As a young girl I was surrounded by male superheroes. I grew up loving Spider-Man and Thor, and I remember loving the upside-down kiss between Mary Jane and Peter Parker, but for some reason, I never wondered why I wasn’t seeing a woman save the world. Now, after seeing over a decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I am woefully underwhelmed by their lack of female leads. Though I was happy to see powerful women as secondary characters throughout the first four phases of the MCU, they were still secondary characters. I have lived through a lifetime of male superheroes getting their own trilogies while female characters serve as love interests or helping hands. This is not to discredit these characters I have seen; the female characters in Black Panther were particularly inspiring. Shuri is funny and smart as hell. Okoye is a fierce warrior. Yet, they do not get their own films.

In 2019 Marvel came out with its first female-led superhero origin film, Captain Marvel (something DC had already done two years prior with Wonder Woman). It took Marvel eleven years after the start of the MCU, with 2008's Iron Man, to release their first female-led film, and even with a 152-million-dollar budget, a number of collaborating writers, and Marvel Studios’ resources at their disposal, the movie still dropped the ball in creating a well-rounded female character. Much of the failure of Captain Marvel lies in what seems to be the pressure of (finally) addressing societal/gender issues in their cinematic lineup. How can one woman be expected to bear the weight of over a decade’s worth of no representation?

The writers didn’t give the character much of a head start, as we begin the movie with a woman who has no idea who she is. Stuck on an alien planet with no concept of her identity, her

Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel

personality is very slow to form, making her a boring one-dimensional character. Ironically, men and women alike in this film constantly comment that she is “too emotional,” though she is often about as emotional as a piece of wood.

I see what the filmmakers are trying to say . . . and many other women do, too. This is a part of our narrative. (“You’re too emotional”; “Are you on your period?”; “Women aren’t fit for this job, they’re too sensitive”; and so on.) This would be warranted, if Carol Danvers actually acted like a human being, but instead we’re given a leading woman with no memory, no identity, no sense of self, and ultimately no personality.

Carol is only given some semblance of self through flashbacks, but the memories that define her are not diverse. We see her getting beaten in a race by a boy, yelled at by her father, heckled by men in her squad, and insulted by a gross man asking her, “You know why they call it a cockpit, right?” She is dominated by a narrative of “You can never succeed because you’re in the world of men.” Again, this is a righteous narrative, though it’s not fleshed out well because she is so drowned in these ideas that the writers forgot to give her a personality. Carol even says herself, three quarters of the way into the film, “I don’t even know who I am!” I’m not sure who she is, either.

Carol is less of a person than a cypher through which to address gender issues. And while the toxic commentary from random male characters in the film (like, “You should smile more”) are issues that women unfortunately have experienced, myself included, they feel haphazardly forced into the film and undermine the feminist hope of a fun, kickass female superhero. What the film lacks is balance between addressing this realistic narrative while also creating a strong, personable heroine.

***
When I picture an ideal female superhero, I envision something more like Wonder Woman, or even Harley Quinn.

Yes, DC does it better.

Wonder Woman, coming out two years before Captain Marvel, set a good precedent that women can be strong, smart, caring, and handle a love interest without it letting consume her storyline. Wonder Woman comes from an entire island of beautiful Amazonian goddesses who possess unimaginable strength and a great female bond that connects them all. She falls in love with Steve Trevor, the very handsome Chris Pine, but this love interest, like all superhero love interests, does not dominate the main plot or Wonder Woman’s goals. Diana represents a real hero: offering hope when there is no one else, making a path for others, and standing for those who can’t stand up for themselves. Diana is inspiring and empowering, and the camera gives her agency rather than lingering on or sexualizing her character, as it has done previously to Black Widow, Gamora, or even the version of Diana presented in Justice League (no thanks to a different director).

The scene in which Diana crosses “No Man’s Land” is exactly the kind of heroic moment I know my younger self would love to see:

Harley Quinn, first introduced back in 2016’s Suicide Squad, landed her own film this year in Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn. Though this film does similar work to Captain Marvel in addressing issues like abuse and sexual assault, it’s more successful as a film precisely because Harley Quinn is a more exciting and dynamic female superhero to watch. In fact, it’s important to make a distinction between the Harley Quinn of Birds of Prey and Suicide Squad. In the previous film, Harley Quinn is often sexualized by the camera, and she’s presented as subservient to the Joker. After the movie’s release, unfortunately, some even romanticized their relationship, though it’s clearly presented as highly toxic and abusive.

But Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey gets revamped. The film acknowledges her relationship with the Joker, but Harley is able to grow from this experience, and it’s this growth that’s important and empowering. Harley Quinn realizes that she is not boxed in by the harlequin metaphor, a mute jester for someone else’s entertainment. She has her own agency and self-worth outside of her relationships. She proves, too, that female superheroes can be funny, just like their male counterparts. While Carol Danvers feels the need to be stoic, silent, almost masculine in representation, Harley Quinn is chaotic, fun, comedic, and a diversified feminist character. (As an added bonus, the film’s soundtrack is done by all female artists.)

Was the movie amazing? Is Birds of Prey perfect? No. Granted, it had a relatively modest budget (for a superhero film) of 84 million dollars, and there were certainly some cringy moments and things I didn’t like about the film. But the character of Harley Quinn was not one of them. Marvel still seems to have a better handle on their cinematic universe and overall storytelling, but when it comes to writing leading women, DC has the upper hand . . . so far. Marvel’s Black Widow comes out soon (though its release date has been pushed back in response to the coronavirus pandemic), and I’m excited to see her origin story and how it can help her character develop, given that, ten years after her character was introduced in Iron Man 2, we still know very little about her, other than she was a Russian spy. Hopefully, Marvel can take this opportunity to inspire young women and help them feel represented . . . and maybe, down the road, Marvel will put its billions of dollars to good use in creating even more female superhero origin stories.

I think back to what I would have been inspired by as a young woman. A superheroine is not simply someone with otherworldly powers; she’s a strong woman who is simultaneously relatable and inspiring. She is multidimensional and, like all people, she is layered. She has fears and desires, she gets up when she is beaten down. She is someone we could hope to turn to in a time of panic. She can be strong without sacrificing femininity. I hope that we can have more leading women we can look up to who are not solely defined by the politics of gender but are able to battle these ongoing issues in a way that does not undermine their own stories and personhood. I hope we can continue to refine and redefine what it means to be a heroic woman.

About the Author

Katie King is a graduating senior at Miami University of Ohio, where she studies creative writing and film. In her free time she loves to read and write fiction, play guitar, and snuggle with her very chonky cat Teddy.

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Virtual Reality: The Ultimate First-Person Narrative

Even if you are not a gamer, VR advancement is taking the storytelling experience to a completely new level . . . and everyone, especially writers, should take notice.  ♦ 

With the advent of the virtual reality headset, or “VR,” nerds, geeks, and gamers everywhere are rejoicing. Most of the public knowledge about VR revolves around how it will be useful to companies, designers, engineers, and the medical community. It will be revolutionary for so many aspects of our lives, but there is one part that is less publicized: the gaming experience. Whether you grew up watching a Star Trek series with their “holodecks,” got hooked on Sword Art Online or just recently saw Ready Player One, chances are you were fascinated with the concept of a fully immersive game. There is something magical about finally getting to live in the world of the impossible. If you are not one of these people, then I promise you will be soon.

VR headsets are worn like goggles and, through the use of lenses, allow you to look at a screen that shows a 3D virtual world in which you can look around and move. VR sets such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive come with cameras that map your movement in the real world and adjust your virtual world accordingly. Controllers are held in each hand and provide haptic feedback (physical vibrations) when you pick up an item or hit something in game. New technology is coming out every day to provide even more immersion. Tegway Co. LTD is prototyping gloves that will relay hot and cold sensations to the player’s hands. Imagine casting a fireball in a game and being able to feel the heat of the spell as it leaves your hands!

Usually for video games, there is a degree of separation between the gamer and their playable character. VR gets rid of this as the gamer bodily becomes the character. This means that, as games and storylines become even more immersive, games will need to account for the diversity of their players. Game writers will need to think of more ways to create storylines for a gaming experience that allows players more in-depth world exploration than ever before, and game designers will have to account for a 3D world where players aren't limited to a specifically curated perspective but will want to look around, explore, and interact with the virtual world, even more than in console games. Companies like Bethesda and Ubisoft have been making open-world games for years, such as Skyrim and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Now, they'll have a platform that will allow this style of open-world gameplay to reach new heights.

If gaming is not your thing and you are wondering how this will apply to you, look no further than movies. With VR technology, movies will place a viewer inside the scene. Imagine a horror movie where you are standing among the group of scared teenagers as a chainsaw revs in the distance; perhaps you even get to choose which characters to follow if they split up. Movies will become less sedentary and more involved. There are already filmmakers experimenting with Choose Your Own Adventure-style interactive technologies in their storytelling, where friends can watch the same film and get completely different endings. Now consider how that might be integrated with VR, where your own interactivity with the world changes the course of the film. This opens up multiple dimensions and paths to storytelling that previously were not available to us.

This is uncharted territory for storytellers. Of course, traditional movies and video games will never be completely replaced, but writers are continually given more options for how to employ their craft. We should be looking to, and excited for storytelling where there is no fourth wall. Where viewers and players are not just controllers, but participators. In our search for escapism, VR will take the gold medal.

We live in the future of media consumption. The virtual sky is the limit and when we reach that, we can head for the stars. As of right now, VR technology is still a bit too expensive for the average American to own. However, much like how computers and cell phones became household and personal items, VR will make its way into homes across the country. We as writers should be prepared and ready to join to this opening market and adapt our stories to this new medium.

About the Author

Kira Doebereiner is a soon-to-be graduate of Miami University with a degree in Creative Writing. She loves all things stone, mossy, and at least 150 years old. When she is not reading, she can be spotted during infrequent public appearances at a local restaurant’s trivia night, where she finally gets to use her minors in Classical Humanities and Art History.

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The Evolving Narrative of LARP

Love reading stories that transport you to a different world? LARP provides you with an interactive experience where you can create and star in your own fictional narrative.  ♦ 

"Bam-Bam!” a burly voice rang through the woods. It was odd how my body responded as though it was my real name. I turned to find a tall man stomping in my direction. I could tell by the stickman painted on his face that he was a part of my tribe. Although I didn’t know who he was, he sure knew me.

By participating in live action role play, or LARP, players can enter into another world’s narrative by assuming the role of a character that could exist there. The players and the game masters work together to create a story within their respective games. Being very similar to improv, the stories that are created for and through these games tend to evolve greatly over time, sometimes even during gameplay.

In this case, it was my first large-scale game, with roughly fifty players present. I went to this game with a relatively new friend in the middle of winter and was going to be there all weekend. The game I chose to play was Dystopia Rising, a full-immersion, post-apocalyptic game in which I would be in character for almost the entire time I was there. (Of course, the game stopped for a few hours for sleep, and gameplay was off limits in the restrooms.)

Despite having done online role-play for years, I was completely out of my comfort zone. The one advantage I had was that my character was supposed to be antisocial, which made it a lot easier for me to role-play through my own anxieties. In reality, most of it was a lot easier than I’d led myself to believe it would be. Although I spent the entire weekend surrounded by mostly strangers, I never once felt like I didn’t belong. Everyone welcomed me with open arms and helped me learn the ropes. I thought I wouldn’t enjoy myself if I didn’t have a few close friends play with me, but I had a blast walking through the snow by myself and meeting new people.

The most enjoyable part of the game was being an NPC, or a non-player character. In Dystopia Rising, each player has to work a shift as an NPC before “graduating” to a full character with a personal plot of one’s own. Sometimes being an NPC involves some level of role-play within another player’s personal plot. Sometimes it would merely be taking on combat roles, a facet of LARP that isn’t a part of every game. Doing the NPC shift, I saw more of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into these larger games, including a glimpse into the world of the game’s writers.

Because there are a multitude of different types of games, Game Masters (the people crafting these stories, also known as storytellers) have to come up with various ways to tackle their narratives. Some will begin planning their next story immediately after completing a game while others will roll with the punches and think on their feet during gameplay, or some combination of the two styles. No matter the direction they take when creating their stories, storytellers can experience a change in plans as early as the first minute into a LARP game.

Maria Cambone, who has been LARPing for 10 years and writing for LARPs periodically throughout, explains that your plans for a game narrative can easily be completely derailed. For example, if you plan a game for fifty people and, upon getting to the game, realize that only half that number shows up—and most of them are from out of town—you would recognize the narrative needs you had originally anticipated are now different. Occasionally, the storyteller may want to talk with new players prior to gameplay to see what they are hoping to get out of the game. Sometimes the players know, and other times they figure it out together during the game.

Photo credit: Dystopia Rising Colorado

Naturally, being a writer, I am deeply interested in this aspect of LARP, even trying my hand at creating LARP narratives a few times in some of my classes. But these narratives are harder to craft than they might appear. As James Mateika, a LARPer of 11 years, says, “The hardest part is recognizing if the players are frustrated or still having fun.” And I found this to be the case when writing my own: what I thought would be fun on paper didn’t always translate in person, especially in the early stages of designing a game. Other obstacles also arose, such as players being hard to read and things not always going the way you anticipated, much like Mateika experienced in one of his games that involved fighting with foam weapons known as boffers.

“In one game we completely missed that we were in the wrong area and killed what was supposed to be the end boss of a weekend-long game,” Mateika says. Since this occurred within the first few hours, the storytellers found that they needed to revisit the drawing board, and fast. Other times, players can think of things in ways the storyteller hadn’t considered, going in a completely different direction than initially intended.

Having role-played many times prior to trying Dystopia Rising, I already noticed how easy it was for me to assume the roles of my characters in stories I was working on. I have learned that this comes in handy when writing dialogue and creating well thought-out characters. Noticing these benefits to LARPing, I started to wonder more about storytelling in LARP games and how it could affect my writing in forms other than LARP writing.

This led me to understand that my involvement in role-play could actually have something to do with why I struggle to come up with a structured story. Though there are many things that can be learned from a LARP game’s narrative, Cambone believes that it’s not a skill that easily translates to other mediums. You can learn skills that will help greatly when building a good setting, or even help in understanding how different characters can realistically interact with one another. However, when it comes to creating plot, it’s rather difficult to master if you focus all your creative energy on LARPing. I’ve noticed that if I spend a lot of time role-playing and go to write immediately afterwards, I struggle to create without another person’s energy to feed off of. However, as Cambone has expressed, the more you work on maintaining your craft, the easier it will be for you to create narratives on your own. It’s an activity that forces you to think on your feet and put yourself in another pair of shoes . . . and it also allows you to encounter a roller coaster of emotions, make new friends, and experience things that you otherwise wouldn’t.

Cambone puts it best when she says, “LARP is an experience I live.” While you can watch a movie with another person or share your thoughts about a book with others, the story remains something that you both were told. With LARP, the story is an interactive experience with another human being, something that you’ve both lived through together. You, as your character, could feel one way towards another player’s character while feeling completely different outside of the game. While LARP isn’t an activity for everyone, it allows anyone to create their own unique experience. LARP is its own kind of medium in which the list of authors is endless and the price of entry can be as low as finding a group of friends.

About the Author

Rebecca Helton is a fifth-year at Miami University majoring in Interactive Media Studies with a focus on game design and minoring in Creative Writing. Rebecca is hoping to combine her two areas of study to prepare for her future as a graduate student working toward a career in Student Affairs.

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Theater of the Mind: How Audio Drama Made a Comeback

Listened to any good plays lately? With the resurgence of audio drama, both the classics and some brand-new favorites are just a click away.  ♦ 

Back in the 1960s the poet W. H. Auden declared that, because of television, “radio drama is probably a dying art,” which he felt was a real loss of an art form: “A dramatic medium in which almost all the effect depends upon the spoken word offers unique opportunities to poets,” Auden said, “and it will be a matter for regret if they are deprived of it.”

Luckily for us, entertainment has crossed into the digital age via phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and smart speakers, and this has allowed the former “radio drama” a new chance to continue through the beloved Amazon service Audible and podcast apps such as the Old Time Radio Player or TuneIn's Audio Drama Internet Radio. These apps and others have created space for innovation and creativity to prosper in this once-dying genre and have become a reader's—or in this case, listener's—best friend, racking in nearly a trillion dollar profit last year. I remember when Audible was the hot new thing, but I’ve been a fan of audiobooks, and especially audio drama, since my middle school years, when my local libraries added audiobooks on CD and MP3 electronic resources to their collections (I also learned why adults disliked waiting lists). Back then, Shakespeare was enemy number one as my professors loved to assign his works. Reading in a dialect older than my five times my predicted lifespan with fluctuating characters isn’t the easiest to understand—nor reading the text on the page and then trying to imagine what this voice sounds like, or how that scene played out in the midst of chaos, and so on—and I found that the audio format was my best defense.

My love of literature has propelled me since to become an avid reader, and I'm generally not too picky about the format I choose, utilizing literary outlets and formats accordingly. If I have downtime, I like a physical experience where I can hold my book, flip the pages, bend the corners and come back later. If I’m traveling long distances and don’t want to chance leaving my book somewhere, reading on my phone is the way to go. If I’m on the go and attention isn’t required, or I’m exercising or hiking, I choose audiobooks. But there are still times when I prefer the audio drama in particular, and where its best features are still as important to me as back in my Shakespeare days.

As an English major, I sometimes struggle to get through the sheer volume of readings in my classes just like any other student. And when classic drama is part of the syllabus—whether Fences, The Crucible, The Importance of Being Earnest, and on and on—audio drama is the format that brings the text to life for me, able to immerse the listener in the world of the play beyond trying to conjure a visual for oneself: there are skilled actors performing the parts, special effects to help you imagine action and setting, audio production (sometimes including music) to create mood, and a sense of liveliness. When trying to be all parts in my head, as I’m sure many can relate, it’s easy to lose the identities of the characters, or misunderstand the stage direction, or to disrupt the flow of the piece, and I must reread to make sure I don’t miss anything. Audio formats are helpful for staying on track, comprehending what’s in the words and maintaining the distinction between the characters. It brings a much closer experience to how the text was supposed to be encountered than merely reading the words on the page, particularly for those students who prefer auditory to visual learning, though a student can still incorporate the best of both: you can listen to the play first and then read the play, or you can listen to the audio play as you read it. Either way offers a much more immersive experience than reading alone, and believe me, your GPA will thank you.

Today more than ever, access to literature from hundreds of years ago up to the newest releases is at your fingertips, for anyone’s price range and any way you like to enjoy it. Classic works by Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and so many others can be listened to through Audible, of course, whose current trial offer is thirty days free including one audiobook and two Audible originals (after the trial, you get one audiobook and two Audible originals for $14.99 a month). But if you can’t afford this low rate, your local public library is the next best thing, where you can access streaming audio works for free through such apps as Hoopla and Overdrive.

About the Author

Jaimoneé Madison is a senior Linguistics major at Miami University with minors in Spanish and Creative Writing. She recently had her first piece accepted for publication in the upcoming edition of MU's Mosaic magazine. What Jaimoneé loves most about writing is that there's always something to propel her writing or bring her deeper into this world; at any moment she's able to take something and create from it. She had the honor of meeting the one and only African American female award-winning children's writer Sharon Draper, who gave her what she considers one of the best pieces of advice she's ever received: Write true to yourself and to your cause.

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Toxic Men in Media: Criticism or Glorification?

Can character critiques be effective when audiences aren't getting the message?.  ♦ 

The original hero is a good guy. He is a clean-cut, handsome leader who knows the difference between right and wrong and faces no internal qualms about fighting for what is indisputably right. He stands for morality, he sees no gray areas, and he does not succumb to temptation. This hero became a predictable messiah figure that viewers soon grew bored with, and thus, the anti-hero has risen to popularity over the last twenty years.

However, the anti-hero is moving from a flawed hero to an irredeemable man who does the bare minimum to occasionally to make us believe that maybe he does care about something, or someone. This type of protagonist began to receive backlash for representing moral depravity and violence against women, but instead of making better characters, creators have moved in the direction of putting forth these male protagonists under the guise of “criticism” of this precise behavior. After many years of watching toxic male protagonists on my screen who are supposedly meant to be self-criticisms, a question must be raised. Does the viewing experience even allow for these characters to function properly? More often than not, it seems that audiences are missing the point of these characters, and are simply enjoying the spectacle of watching horrible men sleep with beautiful women and commit gratuitous acts of manipulation and violence.

The issue here is that authorial intent has almost no bearing on how the viewer interprets what is put before them. Creators may have every intention of portraying that a man is despicable and not to be idolized, but the viewer may never come to this conclusion. This dissonance between the creator and the viewer is expertly articulated in the fifth season of Bojack Horseman. Bojack Horseman is an animated show that features an alcoholic, drug-addicted, emotionally manipulative, Hollywood has-been. He spends the show ruining his own life as well as hurting anyone and everyone who cares about him. Just when the audience begins to sympathize with Bojack, he almost has sex with his friend’s seventeen-year-old daughter, or chokes his girlfriend and co-star in a drug-induced haze. In the fifth season, the character Diane realizes that the television show she is working on, which stars Bojack, centers around a man who has committed horrible crimes, and could be viewers like that character feel exonerated rather than condemned, which was not her intent. As far as I’m concerned, in doing this Bojack Horseman is one of few shows that stars a morally abhorrent male protagonist and explicitly reminds its audience of that fact. The point being that although the character has done good things, he has also done things that are inexcusable, and as viewers we should not overlook either aspect of his character.

Another animated character that has entered the mainstream in the last several years is Rick Sanchez, one of the two protagonists of the television series Rick and Morty. Rick Sanchez is a genius scientist and inventor who takes his grandson, Morty, on inter-dimensional adventures. Rick is also a raging alcoholic who abandoned his wife and daughter and consistently uses others, in most cases his family, only as a means to his own selfish ends. Rick has almost no moral compass, and he uses his intelligence to avoid and excuse any responsibility he has to treat another human being with bare minimum respect. And yet, while there is a consensus among viewers that Rick is not a good person, it seems most viewers hold Rick to the same standards that he holds himself to: that he does not have to be a good person, because he’s too powerful and intelligent to be tied down by such an insignificant responsibility. This is an attitude that is particularly unsavory when we see it translated to men in real life—men who believe they are intrinsically superior to others, and therefore, do not need to treat others with basic respect. Furthermore, Rick is consistently excused for his amoral and apathetic behavior when, once every several episodes, he reluctantly reveals through small, backhanded moments of selflessness that he does care for his grandson. Somehow, the audience takes the scraps of Rick’s emotional reveals and uses these moments to reconcile the countless times he has traumatized and endangered his grandson.

Even before watching The Wolf of Wall Street, the consumer knows that Jordan Belfort’s debauchery catches up to him and causes him to crash and burn. We know that Belfort spent 22 months in prison and lost the glamorous empire he built. We know that we should not want to be like him. But while watching the movie we root for him. We are jealous of his lifestyle and his prowess. He is portrayed as untouchable—as godlike. By the time I entered college I knew countless eighteen-year-old boys who aspired to be Jordan Belfort, the drug addicted, domestic abuser, billionaire fraud. In the final shot of the film, after Belfort has served his quick and cushy time in prison, he is still selling. The camera pans to an audience that avidly watches Jordan Belfort in all his glory, aspiring to achieve what he has. This shot could be interpreted as director Martin Scorsese subtly placing some of the blame on us—the audience, the consumer, and the society that not only allows for Belfort’s debauchery, but also idolizes and strives for it. This final shot supposes that Scorsese expected The Wolf of Wall Street to be misinterpreted.

Even films such as 500 Days of Summer face misinterpretation despite the film rather explicitly showing us that the protagonist, Tom Hansen, was not the victim in his failed relationship, but perhaps that he never took his partner’s desires into consideration. It is clear early on that Tom is never going to regard Summer, his love interest, as a dimensional person, and as the film is shown from his point of view, she never does gain dimension. Summer is merely the girl he has decided is “the one,” and when she does not reciprocate that feeling, Tom becomes persistent, vindictive, and victimizing. This film has faced quite a bit of misinterpretation since its release in 2009. Many viewers have perceived Tom the way he perceives himself in the film: as the victim. The actor who depicted Tom, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, has even commented on this public response to the movie saying: “I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is.” Why do so many viewers miss the true message: that Tom’s idealism of a girl who does not want a relationship is narcissistic and harmful? Why do we want to side with Tom? Because he is the protagonist, and as viewers and readers we have an inherent tendency to root for the protagonist. This tendency is not unlike to the tendency of humans to see ourselves as the hero rather than recognize our own wrongdoings.

These narratives may operate under the guise of self-criticism, but the effect often falls flat in part due to the viewer experience. As soon as we are presented with a protagonist we will step into his or her shoes, and we will begin to excuse the things they do and sympathize with them. We will believe that these terrible actions aren’t his fault, because Bojack's mother was cruel, or because we would also be tempted by greed and corruption like Jordan, or because every once in while we see evidence that Rick does care about his grandson. As soon as we begin to identify with a character, the element of criticism falls away because the viewer gives this character sympathy, and effectively, exoneration. Can we really call this self-criticism at all if the consumer misses the point?

About the Author

Allie Quinn is an undergraduate student at Miami University in the Creative Writing program.

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The Great Outdoors: Room for All?

The path for outdoorswomen isn't always clear-cut to navigate. Is a lack of media representation to blame?  ♦ 

YETI brand coolers are tough. The outdoors company sells hard-shelled coolers under names like the “Tundra Haul” and “Roadie” and measures the volume of its products by how many cans of beer can fit inside (up to 259 cans, should your hiking trip need to be that boozed). Created in 2006 by brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders, the company initially only sold these coolers but has since built its brand to include merchandise like hats, clothing, and travel mugs with the YETI logo. The merchandise, not the sale of actual coolers, makes up the bulk of YETI’s growing profits that tripled between 2014 and 2015 alone. Why has the image and appeal of YETI begun to overshadow their products?

YETI grew its brand recognition by seeking influencers on social media and in the outdoors world to make brand representatives out of them. These “YETI Ambassadors” include world-class hunters, pro-outdoor sports athletes, and adventurers who embody the tough, free-wheeling spirit their coolers supposedly invoke. It also built up a loyal base by producing gorgeous short films, which are distributed through its social channels, particularly YouTube.

The YETI Presents series shows badass ambassadors skiing down pristine snow-capped mountains or wrangling massive boars to throw on the barbecue. While the scenery of each video is captivating and the characters in them wild, eventually a pattern begins to emerge. These outdoors people are sinewy, have wiry overgrown beards and are each dedicated to their unique passion in the wilderness. Almost every YETI video has one thing in common: they overwhelmingly feature men.
   Masculinity and the “wilderness” have had a long history together in the U.S., from the ambitious writings of Whitman, the explorations of Lewis and Clarke, and from John Ford’s westerns to the westward expansion. The messages in the media have been clear: little boys go outside and get dirty while little girls stay indoors and play house. A study by the Girl Scout Research Institute found that preschool-aged girls are 16 percent less likely to be taken outside by their parents to play than boys their age. What you’re exposed to as a child shapes your relationship to it, and girls who do not have the chance to connect to nature as children may very well not seek out the outdoors as adults.

The outdoors continues to be a realm where women do not seem to venture with the same frequency as men. In 2016, an online women’s rock climbing community put out a survey of 1,500 responses that found many women experienced sexism both in climbing gyms and in the outdoors, with 65 percent of women reported experiencing microaggressions from men while climbing, and 64 percent of women reported that they felt uncomfortable in certain areas of the gym, largely due to unwanted staring (39 percent) and unsolicited climbing advice (32 percent) from men.

The lack of representation of women in the outdoors seems to transfer to the media that had arisen around the outdoors lifestyle. SURFER Magazine, for example, calls itself the “bible of the sport.” While the June 2018 “Surfing: Through Her Eyes” special issue featured a woman on the cover, no other cover of the past years’ worth of issues featured a woman (seven men were featured and five issues didn’t include people on the cover).

Mickey, a whitewater rafting guide who has worked four seasons on the Arkansas River (the most heavily rafted river in the U.S.) gave an inside look at what it’s like to be a professional outdoorswoman, behind the statistics and the magazines.

“It feels like you have to do more,” she said. “It’s possible to be recognized but you have to give a hundred percent every day to be recognized at the same level as the male raft guides.”

The company she rafts for is one of the good ones—she estimated the gender divide among guides is about 50/50 (which isn’t bad compared to other companies which only have one or zero female guides) but the male spirit of the sport permeates even her oasis. Given the male-dominated culture at some rafting companies, female raft guides are often the punchline of lewd and inappropriate jokes.

She outlined how many rafting companies are hierarchal; the longer you’ve been there the more respect you have, and the most respected also tend to be men.

“We have this old rafting dude named Kurt [name changed], and he gives women these long hugs we call ‘Kurto hugs’ where he puts his crotch in right on top of yours before even going in for the hug, then he holds you for way too long.”

Mickey said she receives these Kurto hugs because she was one of the few women who Kurt decided he liked and would always compliment her on her job on the river, whether she had actually done well or not. Her friend “Hotdog” was not one of the chosen women.

“I had the opposite experience of Hotdog. Kurt always complained about being put on a raft trip with her and would yell at her regardless of how well she rafted. He once threw his helmet at her,” Mickey recalled.

Once, Mickey and Hotdog were on a five-boat trip with Kurt with three female guides and two males, and they overheard Kurt say to the other man, “There’s too many bitches on this trip” in exasperation. Regardless of these interactions, Kurt’s position in the company is clear. “He is the most experienced and therefore respected guide at the company,” Mickey said.

Whitewater rafting is a bit of a niche outdoor sport. Leading trips means Mickey has to command customers to paddle on cue and lean a certain way; they have to trust her judgment for the safety of the entire crew. Unfortunately, the sexism doesn’t stem only from other guides.

“Every single Boy Scout dad tries to mansplain the river to the female raft guides, telling them where the rocks are,” Mickey said. “It’s so common, it’s basically a trope. Sometimes it’s bad enough that they will do different paddle strokes than what you’re telling them to do. I use a deeper voice when talking to a boatload of men so they can take me more seriously and we can all make it safely down the river.”

Given all the challenges, it’s easy to wonder what makes Mickey continue to return to the Arkansas River season after season. “There’s a certain camaraderie between female raft guides that shouldn’t go unnoticed. I basically know all the women on the river, and we all know what it’s like to constantly prove yourself. We definitely have each other’s back, and there’s also something special about being a female raft guide because there are so few.”

It’s entirely possible that the obstacles that women like Mickey face in outdoor sports are not directly related to the lack of media representation of outdoorswomen. But even if it’s not part of the problem, increasing the amount of representation could be part of the solution. In the meantime, it’s clear that plenty of progress still needs to be made. YETI Presents has a video detailing whitewater boating, titled “In Current,” which features raft guide Amber Shannon. At first glance, the video seems like progress, as Amber’s voiceover details how she always longed to be near rivers as a child. However, about a minute in, the voiceover switches to the bedraggled man sitting behind Amber as she rows, identified as John Shocklee.

“Rowing the Grand Canyon is the most coveted job in the world. The kids that want this job, they understand that,” he said. “They have to prove it to me that they can do it. You gotta get through me first.”

Is it the kids who have to get through the gatekeepers of the outdoors, or is it the women? Shocklee seems to be optimistic about Amber’s future, ending the video by saying, “Yeah, she’ll prove herself.”

About the Author

Phoebe Myers once debated the merits of the Harry Potter series with a monk in Thailand. Her nonfiction has been published on the blog for Tricycle, the national Buddhist magazine, and her poems and essays have appeared in the journals Inklings and East End Elements, with a video essay forthcoming in The Florida Review's online counterpart Aquifer. Her nonfiction essay won second place in the 2016 Creative Writing Awards for College Writers sponsored by the SCCC Creative Writing Festival. She is a senior at Miami University in Ohio, and is currently choosing a Creative Writing MFA program to attend this upcoming school year.

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We’re Not in Riverdale Anymore: How One Show Changed a Town Forever

From comic book to Netflix show, Riverdale and its small-town inhabitants have undergone some dramatic changes—for better or for worse.  ♦ 

In the summer of 2017, I became a fan of the show Riverdale. And when I say I became a fan, I mean I became a fan. I blubbered over a tub of Ben & Jerry’s when Betty Cooper proclaimed her love for Archie Andrews after the homecoming dance. I bought Josie McCoy’s rendition of “Candy Girl (Sugar Sugar)” and bopped around my apartment like she was the biggest thing since Beyoncé. I scoured the web for the lace-trimmed sweater that Betty wore in season 2, episode 13 and donned it at a fashion magazine release party. So yeah, I became a fan. One could even say I became a Riverdale Bulldog, or a River Vixen, or—wait for it—a Southside Serpent.

Then, in the winter of 2019, the show that I fell in love with, the show that I trusted to bring me happiness every Wednesday night, had me questioning everything. And how could it not? The once-relatable town of Riverdale, where teenagers grappled with everyday matters and murder in equal measure, had become a place where 17-year-olds acted more like 30-year-olds and people were in danger of being attacked by (spoiler!) bears. No, seriously. Bears. The way I saw it, either everyone in the Riverdale writing room loved The Revenant, or something had drastically changed.

My resolve worsened with each passing episode, and I began to think: Where had Riverdale gone wrong? When had Veronica Lodge’s quick-witted quips become cringeworthy conversations, and when had Pop’s Chock’Lit Shoppe, in all its burgers-and-shakes glory, become the face for Veronica's underground speakeasy? I mean, was that even legal? Could a high school student even own a speakeasy?

The answer to my first question, I think, lies in the origins of Riverdale, and even back to the beginnings of Archie himself.

As writer Audrey Bell chronicles in her piece "A History of Archie Comics" for New West Press, Archie made his debut in 1941 as a character in Pep #22, published by what was then called MLJ Comics. Superman still dominated the comic market at that time, but MLJ Comics' founder John L. Goldwater thought that a typical teenage boy would bring in as many fans as his fellow superhuman comic book character, so the freckled and friendly Archie was born. He was the all-American boy with all-American values in an all-American town. He was the guy who would help with homework and then grab a burger with friends soon after. He was the guy whom all the dads wanted on their football team and whom all the moms wanted to date their daughter. He may have been stereotypical and maybe even problematic at points, but his story was simple and relatable, and readers couldn’t get enough of him. Archie proved such a hit that, now in his own title, Archie, his world and supporting cast grew quickly, introducing new characters including Betty, Veronica, and Jughead. Readers followed along as Archie dealt with the daily ups and downs of teenage life and ate the comics up faster than a side of fries at Pop’s.

As Archie’s popularity soared, the character jumped from the comic books into other media, venturing into radio, snatching coveted comic-strip slots in newspapers, and even making his way onto the small screen. What's more, the ever-evolving times offered new opportunities for the Riverdale gang to change, too, to appeal to new generations, like when the 1960s TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. inspired Archie’s creators to design a comic titled The Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.

It was the 1970s, and my dad was a freshman at Mt. Lebanon High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and his family had just moved back from London when he first picked up one of the comics and delved into the life of Riverdale’s most popular redhead.

When asked why he liked the comics so much, my dad emphasizes the relatability of the characters. Sure, he liked reading about Superman, Batman, and the rest of the Justice League, but there was something special about seeing comic book characters who looked like him and whose lives mirrored his own.

It seemed that every new generation found something relatable and timely in the character.

“My friends and I loved the Archie comics,” John O’Hara, my dad, remembers. “We would always go to the local pharmacy, pick up some candy, and see if the newest Archie was out.

“I looked forward to seeing what everyone in Riverdale was up to,” he says. “Whether it was Archie navigating relationships, or Betty and Veronica stressing about something at school, I felt like I could really connect with the comic in one way or another.”

So, on that fateful day in the summer of 2017 when my dad discovered that Riverdale had been released on Netflix, we popped some popcorn, plopped down on the couch, and watched the first few episodes of the first season. Needless to say, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (the show’s creator) had envisioned a much darker, more dramatic version of the Archie than my dad had met four decades earlier.

And his reaction to the show?

“It was clever,” he admits. “And it was cool to see how they modernized the characters to fit into this soapier world where some of them were up to no good. But it was also pretty dizzying.” Then he laughs. “It got to the point where I couldn’t even keep up with the main characters. "It was like I recognized parts of their stories, but the rest of it had become so complicated. I think there is something to be said for the simplicity of the original comics. They were oversimplified at points, but there was also a lot of charm in that simplicity.”

And this, I think, is where Riverdale has gone wrong . . . which ties right back to Pep #22, to what my dad saw in the comics when he read them as a kid in the 70s, and to his reaction to the recent revival.

I use the term "wrong" loosely, because a show that performs well on Rotten Tomatoes must be doing something right, but I use it nonetheless. Why? Because Betty, the girl who once baked a banana cream pie for her friends (hi, Betty & Veronica #113), now cleans blood off the kitchen floor (hello, season 2, episode 13 of Riverdale). Because Archie, the boy who once helped Jughead find a quiet place to read on the beach (check out Jughead #292), now wanders into the woods and gets attacked by bears (peep season 3, episode 9 of Riverdale). And because Veronica, the girl who once fought for Archie to take her to a concert (read Betty & Veronica Spectacular #44), is now involved in the dealing of dangerous drugs (watch season 3, episode 11 of Riverdale).

Where is the relatability in what Riverdale has recently had to offer? What happened to the I’m-not-crying-you’re-crying moments of Betty telling Archie she liked him? What happened to Betty, Veronica, and the rest of the cheerleaders performing to poppy music during the football halftime show? And what happened to Archie struggling between his love for the turf and the stage? Basically, what happened to everything that made Riverdale a teen drama? There was nothing wrong with the mysteries of Riverdale—in fact, they added just enough spunk to make the show a guilty pleasure—but when did the creators pick absurd plotlines over accessibility? When did they decide that ridiculous drama was more important than exploring the day-to-day issues that viewers face?

Maybe the truth of the matter is that my dad and I, like other fans of Archie, are (*gasp*) getting too old for a show like Riverdale. Maybe it’s time we put down our remotes and pass the torch to another generation of Riverdale Bulldogs, River Vixens, and Southside Serpents, so that Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead can live new, albeit grimmer, lives in the 21st century. And maybe, just maybe, the important thing is that the world has continued to find things to love about Riverdale’s most colorful characters.

Let’s just hope they don’t forget the simple things that made Archie great along the way.

About the Author

Kevin O’Hara is a senior at Miami University majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in Classical Humanities. Kevin is the publisher of UP Magazine, Miami University’s student-run fashion and lifestyle magazine, and has been involved with the publication since his freshman year. A lover of reading, writing, and art, Kevin enjoys learning from the stories that others have to tell.

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