Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image description: Legs crossed on a living room table with a background of a TV with Netflix on it, a guitar on the side, and plants around the room. Debate about who makes art and who features in it is a constant conversation in my life. It is hard to explain why seeing someone like […]
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Image Description: Maddie Ziegler wearing headphones while playing the autistic character ‘Music’ in Sia’s new film. Autistic people are not well served when it comes to seeing ourselves reflected in the media. According to Hollywood, we are either socially unaware geniuses or child-like Rain Men with special abilities from whom the neurotypical (non-autistic) protagonist learns […]
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Image description: An aerial view of the Radcliffe Camera. October 2020 marks the centenary of female students being allowed to matriculate and graduate from the University of Oxford for the first time. The occasion calls for commemoration of all that has changed in that time, as well as reflection on what still needs to be […]
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The drag queen Trixie Mattel, otherwise known as Brian Firkus, is the winner of Drag Race All Stars Season 3, but also a confessed, obsessive Barbie doll collector. Firkus’s love for Barbie started when he was young. As a gay boy from Milwaulkee, he wasn’t allowed “girl toys,” but was fascinated by the tanned, blonde, […]
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Image description: Player characters from The Adventure Zone: Balance. Image credit: “The Adventure Zone” by Nicholas Kole is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Like many of my peers, I’m hungry for queer stories that aren’t exclusively about being queer. Coming-of-age and romance stories, while great on their own terms, are not my favourite genres, and I have little hope […]
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Image description: Magdalen tower For the first time, 69% of Oxford’s offers have gone to people from state schools. This may sound good, but that means that nearly a third of places have gone to an elite group. Said group representing 7% of the population. To some people this is not an issue. People have […]
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Like Patel, I am a female of South Asian descent. Unlike Patel, I do not have access to the power, platforms and policies at her fingertips. Frankly, we have very little in common. This was perfectly crystallised when Patel unabashedly decided in a recent interview that Meghan Markle was not a victim of media racism. To add insult to […]
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We are both very proud to announce the launch of Identity, our new section dedicated to spotlighting the issues, opinions and experiences of BAME students within the University. The Oxford Student has always believed in the importance of representing the wonderful range of views and backgrounds that exist in the University we all share, and […]
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Image Description: four female students from Lady Margaret Hall. Last year, the Joanna Randall MacIver junior research fellowship, which was established in the 1930s exclusively for women specialising in the humanities, was opened up to all genders. This decision was made by the senior committee of the university – the Oxford Council – in response […]
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Image Credit: David Hawgood Oxford City council has admitted that it needs to attract more people from ethnic minority groups to work within the council. Only 9 per cent of the council’s workforce is from a Black, Asian or ethnic minority background, whereas 19% of the city’s inhabitants are. Nigel Chapman, the council’s board member […]
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We are two undergraduate students studying at Hertford College, Oxford, both heavily involved in the Widening Participation sphere within and outside of the University. With one of us having been educated at a state comprehensive and the other coming from a BAME background, we were struck by the results of the Undergraduate Admissions Report and […]
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As one of the most complex and varied diseases known to mankind, depicting cancer “properly” in film is never going to be easy. If you treat the subject too light-heartedly, you do a disservice to those who have suffered from the disease. Alternatively, if you discuss cancer too heavily, then you disengage the majority of […]
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Two days after interviewing Marie, it was announced that she’s Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon. Having spent an hour talking to her, it’s not hard to see why. When we meet at the Story Museum café, she’s fresh from a busy morning of canvassing, supporting her Labour colleagues in the run up […]
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I’m back again! Join me in 6th week for a final overview, thinking about representation in kids’ versus adults’ media and the future. There were a lot of things I thought about writing on this week: Captain Jack’s bisexuality in Doctor Who, the incredible Steven Universe’s non-binary femme-presenting couple among other things, Nickelodeon’s new Loud […]
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Hello! I’m back again this week to talk about more queer representation in children’s media. If I could write my dissertation on Adventure Time, I probably (definitely) would. Although I’m here to talk about the show’s portrayal of trans characters and the romantic relationship between a bubblegum princess and a vampire queen, Adventure Time is […]
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Every other week this term I’ll be discussing LGBT+ characters in children’s TV and film. This vacation I finally finished Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra (2012-2014), sequel series to the anime-inspired Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008). Both shows had wide appeal for their combination of emotionally-mature storylines with wonderfully childlike humour and fantasy. What caught […]
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Mitt Romney is running for President again. Though technically unannounced, the news effectively became public last on the 16th of this month, when Romney just happened to let it slip that he was “seriously considering” another campaign, having said previously that he would make a decision within “weeks, not months.” When a US politician purports […]
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