Last night, I attended the Zootopia screening. As a lifelong Disney fan, I found this to be an excellent opportunity for a fun study break and a chance to rewatch one of the best animated movies in recent years. The first time I saw this movie, I recall walking out of the theater and being surprised at Disney’s boldness in making this movie. On the surface, it is a clever and enjoyable buddy cop film starring a charming cast of anthropomorphic animals. However, it takes very little analysis to get to the heart of the movie, which is a thoughtful analogy for racial and gender tensions. From the constant stereotyping of predatory animals, to the protagonist’s assertions that she’s not just some “token bunny” in the police force, the movie provides an incredibly nuanced portrayal of a society dealing with issues of discrimination and profiling that were relevant at the movie’s premiere in 2016 and are unfortunately still topical now. One scene that stood out in particular to me last night was a scene portraying a peace rally, in which one animal yelled at a tiger to go back to the jungle, to which she angrily replied, “I’m from the savannah!” This reminded me of examples in our society in which intolerant people ignorantly target other people and make assumptions about them. This was just one scene in a film that was as self-aware as it was fun and humorous, and I highly recommend Zootopia to anyone who is looking for a way to relax that will give them something to think about afterwards.
Author Archives: cs895
A Song and a Dance
Last night, I attended the CU Wind Symphony’s concert not as an audience member but as a performer. It was a very special night for me, and made even more singular by being able to share it with my fellow Rose Scholars. While I found the whole program enjoyable, especially the section where the Air Force Heritage of America band was given the stage to share their extraordinary musicianship, I found the most impactful part of the evening was when we performed the Symphonic Dances Suite from West Side Story. This musical has had a profound effect on my development as a musician. I was first exposed to the music of Leonard Bernstein in freshman year of high school, when my school put on West Side Story as our spring musical and I performed in the pit orchestra. As a fledgling clarinet player, this complicated music was beyond intimidating, but ultimately made me a much stronger player. The second time I was in close contact with West Side Story was the summer after my freshman year of college, when I participated in a local theater program’s production of the show. Finally, my recent experience with the Wind Symphony marks another memorable contact with Bernstein’s work. It is truly special for me to be honoring and celebrating this spectacular musician and educator in the way I, and he, understood best, and I am excited to potentially grow further as musician through future encounters.
Creating a Kinder Culture
Last week, I attended the Rose Cafe with VP Ryan Lombardi. It was definitely not par the course for the cafes I’ve attended in the past; instead of learning about a new intellectual topic that I haven’t been exposed to before, we discussed a topic that is very near and dear to my heart: the culture on campus. For all of Cornell’s wonderful qualities, one thing we cannot boast about as an institution is the incredibly high level of stress felt universally by the student population. It was interesting to have a conversation with Ryan about his experience working in higher education and his perspective on Cornell, compared to other schools. He was also genuinely interested in hearing our feedback about what could be done to improve our experiences on campus, and while the suggestion of a curfew to ensure that every student got enough sleep was more of a joke, I felt that it was important to have this kind of conversation and make abundantly clear to a member of the administration just how overworked students can feel at Cornell.
One other thing I did find particularly interesting was Ryan and Rosemary’s comments about how unfriendly New Yorkers can be, compared to others from places like the Midwest. As a New Yorker myself, I never realized how my instinct of minding my own business and not reaching out to strangers could potentially lead to other people feeling isolated. I definitely think the first step of smiling at our peers and expressing concern for the people around us, even those we do not know, could significantly contribute to developing a more friendly and supportive culture on campus.
November 6th, Save the Date!
Glen Altschuler’s Rose Cafe was incredibly interesting and topical, seeing as it was about the upcoming midterm election. I consider myself reasonably well-informed, but Professor Altschuler blew me away with his political expertise; he was able to cite specific congressional districts that featured critical House races whose outcomes could possibly predict the outcome of the entire election, such as one in Syracuse and one in Virginia. While this is a politically tumultuous time, Professor’s Altschuler’s talk actually made me slightly more hopeful. He said that if there is a high voter turnout, specifically from young voters (who historically have the worst turnout), this election could significantly change the composition of the House of Representatives. At least from what I’ve seen, young voters have never been more motivated to be informed and active citizens, and so I am hoping that on November 6th, our generation will make sure to be heard and shape the direction of this country’s future.
Filling Stomachs and Hearts
This past Friday, I participated in the Feed My Starving Children service event. Not only was it a nice opportunity to get off campus, but I also found it to be a truly meaningful experience that very few one-off events like these are. Feed My Starving Children is an organization that takes donations to pay for meals that get sent to hungry children in at least 70 countries around the world. Volunteers at mobile packing stations like the one in Ithaca work in shifts to pack the meals. We worked for an hour and a half and packed nearly two hundred boxes, each containing 36 meal packs, and each meal pack contained 5 servings. It was incredible to think that in that short amount of time, I was able to help put together thousands of meals that will go directly to children with who live with food insecurity. Although it was easy to zone out while performing our individual responsibilities during packing, this was definitely one of the most directly effective service projects I have ever been a part of.
It’s Who You Know
This week’s Rose Cafe featured Christa Downey from the Engineering Career Advising Office. It was very interesting to take part in what was more of a discussion than a lecture, where most of the participants seemed to be there for the same reason I was: to get advice. The topic was developing your mentor network and ensuring that you have a collection of people to whom you can go to for support and guidance. As a relatively shy person, I have always found it difficult to reach out to professors, and many of the other students at the cafe either felt similarly to me or were transfer students who knew they were at a time disadvantage and wanted to make the most of their years at Cornell. Personally, I found that our conversation on time management was the most meaningful to me. Chris talked about how you should make goals for yourself – for example, making one faculty connection each semester – and how that requires you to take time out of your normal schedule to go to office hours or find other opportunities to connect with people. While it sometimes seems impossible to find the free time to do such things, I agree that forming relationships with professors or other people who have the capacity to be mentors is one of the most valuable things you can do with your time at Cornell.
The Value of a Life
Last night’s film was both utterly shocking and, in hindsight, rather cliché. Ex Machina ticks all of the boxes of a typical AI-centric film: a creator who ignores the possible sentience of their creation, a computer who blurs the line between human and machine, and a debate that pervades the movie about the nature of humanity. The movie centered around two computer scientists attempting to measure if the AI could pass the Turing Test, a historical test designed by mathematician Alan Turing would determine a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. As a computer science major who took an AI class last semester, I could not help but be intrigued. However, as the movie progressed, it was clear that the movie was as much a discussion of human nature as it was about the progress of technology; arguably, one cannot occur without the other. The ending showed this most clearly: the complete role reversal of the AI and the human characters raises many questions. Can we classify this computer as a human, given that it has shown to have emotions, self-interest and awareness, and even a gender identity? Who deserves our sympathy more: the humans, merely because they are human (despite their unethical actions), or the AI, who is not human but has been mistreated? ‘In the end, none of the characters really deserve sympathy, and maybe that is the point: the AI behaves just as cruelly as the humans for her own self-gain, which makes her no different to us.
This movie definitely gave off Black Mirror and Jurassic Park vibes, forcing us to question the course of our technological progress. However, I saw this movie less as a warning that it would be a bad idea to pursue advanced technology and more of a warning that we must proceed with kindness and empathy. If the creator of the AI had treated her like a human, the tragic events of the movie would not have unfolded.