On January 21, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stood in front of representatives of the American media and claimed that Donald Trump’s inauguration drew the largest crowds in history. When photographic evidence and statistics rapidly surfaced to prove the opposite, U.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway quickly jumped to Spicer’s defense, stating that rather than spreading falsehoods, Spicer gave “alternative facts". In wake of Conway’s statement, 1984 by George Orwell saw an exponential growth in sales. Only a few days after the incident, the novel held the #1 bestseller spot on Amazon, and Penguin Publishing rushed to reprint over 75,000 copies to fulfill the demand. The mid-twentieth century classic centers around a totalitarian world where history is altered, freedom of thought is abolished, and the individual belongs to the all-controlling Party. Much speculation has arisen as to the reasons for the sudden spike of interest in the book, and finger...
Important context: this article was written for an assignment where we had to review the movie “Easy A” from the perspective of a feminist journalist. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect my own. A few months ago, a guy I was seeing invited me to his place for a movie night. I’m not usually one to say yes to these things; the last few movie night dates I’ve been on involved the guy picking out a movie that “I can’t believe you haven’t seen” and then spending the following two hours laughing at the sexist jokes and leering at the all-white and traditionally beautiful actresses. But after some too-persistent convincing on his end, I reluctantly agreed. After arriving at his place, though, I must say I was pleasantly surprised: the guy in question told me he wasn’t much of a movie guy, and asked me to choose what to watch. Hallelujah! No more sitting through hours of comedy that’s cringe-worthy at best and downright offensive at worst. I decided to take a...