Taking off the shades: Taylor finds confidence filming ‘Tangerine’
Student Activities welcomed Mya Taylor, the star of last year’s low-budget Sundance Film Festival hit “Tangerine,” to campus yesterday to present the film and discuss her life and struggles as a transgender woman.
The film opens at Donut Time, where Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) spends one of her two remaining dollars on a doughnut to split with Alexandra (Taylor). After Alexandra lets it slip that Sin-Dee’s boyfriend Chester, who doubles as a pimp, cheated on Sin-Dee with one of his prostitutes during her 28-day stint in jail, the two transgender women scour the streets of West Hollywood looking to take revenge of Chester and the “fish” (a slang term for a cisgender woman) he slept with.
The two go on to break up a motel room brothel, bargain with a police officer to force a client to pay up and promote a show Alexandra is performing in, all on Christmas Eve.
Taylor, a trans woman of color who moved to Los Angeles after her grandparents kicked her out of their house at 18 for being transgender, was herself not unfamiliar with LA’s unofficial red light district. The film, and Taylor’s acting success, likely would not have come to be if Sean Baker, the writer and director of “Tangerine,” had not come across Taylor.
“I was at Santa Monica in Macaron talking with some friends—at that time they were friends—and Sean says that he saw me 30 feet across the room and he just said I have that star quality,” said Taylor. “He came and he talked with me and said ‘I don’t know anything about this area but it looks interesting, there’s a lot of stuff that goes on, I’d like to turn it into a movie.’”
Before she met Baker, though, Taylor was anything but close to a big break. She had applied for 186 jobs in one month and interviewed for 26 positions. Without the cash to change her name and gender on her ID, Taylor could not escape discrimination.
“There was a job on Craigslist, it was a telemarketing job. The man [hiring] liked me and he said he wanted to have the company call me to test my voice over the phone because it was telemarketing,” said Taylor. “He took my information down, which is what revealed my ID at that time, which did not say Mya Taylor—it said my other name and it showed that I was transgender.”
The man said he would get back to Taylor the following day, but no call came. After three days on edge, Taylor decided to call out her potential employer. She called the company back but was told that, unfortunately, it was having a hiring freeze. So she applied under a fake name.“I sent them a message saying oh, this is Jessica Miller, I’m so interested in this job and everything and here are my skills,” said Taylor.
“The lady said well, come in tomorrow at 10:20 a.m. for an interview. I was there at 10:20 and I walked in as Mya Taylor. [I told the receptionist] that they told me they weren’t hiring anymore...She was like, well, that’s a lie.”
Tangerine was shot on an iPhone 5s, and the hyper-realness of the footage makes the characters’ ever-present struggle just to get by eerily authentic. But the daylong extravaganza of absurdities still feels comedic because of the light Taylor and Rodriguez bring to their situations.
“I wanted it to have comedy [because] the story is so depressing. Whenever I was down, low in my life, I would bring it back up with comedy,” said Taylor. “When you’re down that low, you’re prostituting, you’re selling your body to try to make money, to try to live to get by, it’s not fun, but you gotta make fun of it.”
Despite “Tangerine” being her first real role—she is credited as an unnamed zombie in one episode of “Hollywood Wasteland”—Taylor played the role with a confidence that both animated Alexandra’s comfort in her West Hollywood neighborhood and also helped Taylor through her own transition.
“I had started taking hormones two months before [shooting the movie]. In real life, I was always in shades, big shades, like Hollywood shades because I was insecure about what I looked like,” said Taylor.
“I would wear shades because shades cover up a lot of your face, but it also keeps you in your own zone, it keeps everyone away. That’s how I felt in shades. Doing the movie I came out of the shades and I said look, this is something I have to do, this is something I’m doing for my career, you never know how this movie could turn out. I don’t know, somewhere I build up all the confidence.”
Now, Taylor is in a much better place. She is starring in two upcoming short films, is working on a television show and has fallen in love and moved with her fiancé to North Dakota.But she’ll be the first to say her fame hasn’t changed her.
“Sometimes I want to go to Taco Bell and [my friends] want to eat out at these really expensive restaurants where the food is nasty as shit and I’m like, ‘Bitch, I’m not used to eating that...that meat is pink on the inside, I don’t eat that, bitch.’ They sit there and they eat that really expensive food and I go right to Taco Bell and still have my coins in my purse.”
News
- 1 days ago
Faculty to vote in March on proposal for school year to begin a day earlier
The faculty will vote on March 7 on a motion to move the start of the school year one day earlier, from a Thursday to a Wednesday. The motion proposes the addition of one academic day to the calendar, and will not result in any shift of later dates. Instead, it will ensure that students can attend all of their classes during the first week of school.
“The proposal is to allow students a chance right away to see what they think their schedule looks like, to start their courses,” Dean for Academic Affairs Jim Higginbotham.
Under the current schedule, Higginbotham explained that only 237 students were able to have their full schedule of classes during the first week of class. Adding Wednesday to the schedule would increase the number of students able to attend all of their classes to 1,565.
The extra day would also increase the number of classes students can attend before the add-drop deadline two weeks in. Higginbotham hopes that this will allow students to use their first weekend back on campus to make decisions about their classes.
“[The proposal] allow[s] students a chance right away to see what their schedule looks like and really have the full two weeks to make the decision to drop or add another course,” said Higginbotham.
The current calendar, which incorporates the Wednesday before Thanksgiving into the break, has one less meeting for classes on a Monday/Wednesday schedule than those on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule.
“Right now we tell faculty that if they have a Monday/Wednesday/Friday or Monday/Wednesday schedule then they have to make up that class somehow.” The obligation is on the faculty “to find a time to arrange that,” said Higginbotham.
The addition of a Wednesday to the start of the year would eliminate the need for faculty to reschedule classes, and result in an even number of classes for all time schedules.
The change is part of a larger reevaluation of Orientation, including the creation of a program to address race and bias incidents on campus that Associate Dean of Students for Diversity and Inclusion Leana Amaez announced in a recent email to the College. Faculty to vote in March on proposal for school year to begin a day earlier
While Orientation would be reduced by one day to accommodate the additional academic day, this would not have any meaningful impacts on the programming itself, according to Higginbotham.
- 1 days ago
Meet the Board of Trustees
The Board of Trustees is holding one of its three annual meetings with President Rose this weekend at a retreat on the campus of Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. The Orient looked into the makeup of the board prior to their meeting.
The trustees are a group of Bowdoin alumni and parents that function as the College’s highest governing body. They have oversight over all aspects of Bowdoin. On various committees and in coordination with administration, the trustees oversee strategic goals for the College, faculty and administration hiring, academic affairs, admissions and financial aid, college finances and campus planning.
Many of the trustees hold positions of significant power. They are corporate executives, law firm partners, higher education administrators and hedge fund managers. Twenty of Bowdoin’s forty two trustees have or had careers in finance. Many of these twenty oversee giant investment portfolios.
In addition to the significant time commitment attending three sets of meetings each year, the trustees are expected to make significant annual donations to the College. Many also make large financial contributions to political candidates and groups.
A full two-thirds of the Board’s members are male while only one third are female. Two Board members, Jane L. Pinchin and David J. Roux, are not Bowdoin graduates and are only Bowdoin parents. 57 percent of Board members have had one or more child attend Bowdoin.
According to a 2012 Orient report, trustees are chosen based on recommendations from many constituencies including to the Board’s Committee on Trustees and added to the Board after a vote.
With 42 members Bowdoin has a slightly larger board compared to many peer schools. For instance, Williams has only 22 Board members and Trinity has 29.
The Orient compiled this report from data available from the College, the Federal Election Commission and other web sources.
Political Affiliation and Gender Breakdown12 Board members either not made political contributions or their party affiliation cannot be determined from their campaign conribuitons.CanvasJS.comWomen: 14 - 33.33%CanvasJS.comThe Board's Top Political Donors$222,200Jes StaleyCanvasJS.comThe Carreers of Bowdoin's Board Members21 Trustees have had careers in FinanceCanvasJS.com - 1 days ago
Activist Mckesson ’07 to run for Baltimore mayor
DeRay Mckesson ’07 has run for office before. While his campaign to become mayor of Baltimore will be his first run for public office, Mckesson was president of the Bowdoin Class of 2007 three times and president of the Bowdoin Student Government twice.
Mckesson is currently one of the most well-known faces of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as Campaign Zero, a policy-focused campaign to end police violence. He filed his papers to run in the mayoral race just before the deadline on Wednesday night and announced his candidacy in a post on Medium.
“In order to achieve the promise of our city and become the Baltimore we know we can become, we must challenge the practices that have not and will not lead to transformation,” Mckesson wrote.
Running for mayor of Baltimore appears to have been on Mckesson’s mind over ten years ago when he was still at Bowdoin.
In a 2005 article about Mckesson, the Orient wrote, “After a summer’s work at the Juvenile Division of the Baltimore City State Attorney’s Office, DeRay has seen the myriad problems facing his Maryland hometown. Ultimately, he would love to work in government as an elected executive official—perhaps eventually as the mayor of Baltimore.”
He talked about the possibility of running for mayor in an article in New York Magazine in November, but Wednesday’s announcement still came as a surprise to many.
Mckesson was the last candidate to announce his campaign before the Democratic primary on April 26, which is widely expected to determine who the next mayor will be.
Mckesson’s announcement struck an optimistic tone, but he emphasized that traditional politics have not been successful at improving the city of Baltimore.
“I have come to realize that the traditional pathway to politics—and the traditional politicians who follow these well-worn paths—will not lead us to the transformational change our city needs,” Mckesson wrote.
He said he would release a full policy platform soon but referenced transparency and accountability as well as safety, job development, job access, grade-level reading, transportation and college readiness as issues he would focus on.
Mckesson joins a crowded field of roughly a dozen candidates, including a former mayor, a state senator and two city councilmen. While he is widely known around the country for his activism, Mckesson faces an uphill battle as a non-traditional candidate.
According to the Washington Post, he would be the first political outsider elected mayor of Baltimore in modern history.
“It is true that I am a non-traditional candidate — I am not a former mayor, city councilman, state legislator, philanthropist or the son of a well-connected family. I am an activist, organizer, former teacher and district administrator that intimately understands how interwoven our challenges and our solutions are,” wrote Mckesson, who was born and raised in Baltimore and moved back roughly a year ago. “I am a son of Baltimore.”
After graduating from Bowdoin in 2007, Mckesson worked in the Minneapolis Public School System before leaving his job to become a full-time activist.
He’ll have to rely on his abilities to energize and organize voters that have made him so successful as an activist.
As of press time, Mckesson had raised over $40,000 from over 650 donors through the online fundraising site crowdpac.com.
If his campaign is successful, Mckesson will join a host of other Bowdoin alumni—including current Mayor of San Francisco Ed Lee ’74—who have held elected public office.
- 1 days ago
Coles Tower renovation to create ADA-accessible living spaces, relocate IT
The current Coles Tower second floor renovation is part of a four-year makeover of the building. The revamp will create new ADA-accessible living spaces for students in Fall 2016 and relocate the IT offices in the process.
The changes to the second floor were not originally part of the plans for the ongoing building renovation. However, it was incorporated early in the process because of high demand for housing in the Tower, said Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Katy Longley.
The renovation of the second floor is still in its early stages. Longley said the bulk of that renovation will happen this summer; however, the rooms will be a part of the housing lottery this spring, and students will move in next fall.
“It’s a really good use of space, taking down those walls and adding more beds,” said Longley. “It’ll be a nice floor, they’ll be brand new rooms, I think it will be popular in the lottery.”
While the common room size may vary from the rest of Coles Tower, all bedrooms on the second floor will be ADA accessible, Senior Project Manager John Simoneau explained. Depending on ResLife’s need for beds, these bedrooms could serve as doubles as well.
To make room for the big changes, Bowdoin’s IT department has moved to the Tower basement where the Textbook Center used to be.
Tom Ezquerro ’18, an IT student employee, weighed in on the big move.
“There are certain things to miss, but there are also a lot of pros to the basement,” said Ezquerro. “I think one of the big pros is that a large majority of the IT department is now together in one space, so you’re kind of pooling all of this knowledge together.”
The space has been completely renovated for IT and features brand-new cubicles in its spacious setting. Since all of IT student services are now under the same roof, there will be no more running around campus for AV and student help desk inquiries.
One casualty of the renovation is the Tower’s computer lab, which has been permanently removed. Longley said she knew of no plans for the lab to be reopened in a new location.
Ezquerro thinks the IT move will better the accessibility and unity of the staff.
“It’s supposed to encourage interaction between the different sections of IT and hopefully to get some cross training between our different departments so we can be a little more flexible and responsive,” said Ezquerro.
For the department’s new late hours—open until 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays—the renovated basement space’s layout opens up directly into the office space, allowing students to seek assistance even more easily.
Ezquerro cites the maze of a floorplan in their former second floor office space as a deterrent. “Before we’d have to get up and it was kind of a hassle and some people would just walk away,” he said.
Ezquerro did remark that the news of IT’s new location does not seem to have gotten around campus yet and might take an adjustment period.
“I think most people are actually pretty happy about it,” Ezquerro said. “Personally, I was a little sad about the windowless-ness of the basement, but now, it’s just really nice to have everybody down there and it’s just a really nice space to be able to work and welcome people in.”
- 2 days ago
Dr. Birgit Pols to step down as Director of Health Services
Dr. Birgit Pols announced this week that she will step down from her position as Director of Bowdoin Health Services in March to focus on family matters.
“I would like the entire Bowdoin community to know how much I have enjoyed my time here,” said Dr. Pols in an email sent to the Bowdoin community today. “Thank you all for your support, patience, and friendship over the past nearly two years. Bowdoin is a special place, and I will miss everyone who has made coming to work each day such a pleasure.”
Dr. Pols came to Brunswick in July 2014, after serving as director of the New York University Abu Dhabi Health and Wellness Center. Highlights of her tenure at Bowdoin include modernizing Health Center equipment as well as expanding health insurance coverage to transgender students.
“Birgit has provided strong leadership for the Health Center team and superb care for students,” wrote Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster in an email to the Orient. “I’m very sorry she is leaving us less than two years after she joined us, but she is prioritizing family for all the right reasons. I will miss her.”
Upon her departure, the College will appoint an interim director and begin a national search for a new director.
- 2 days ago
New roommates? Squirrels take the Helm
Beset by three separate squirrel related incidents since winter break, Helmreich House members have found an unlikely hero in Julianna Burke ’18.
Nickie Mitch ’18, Chris Brown ’18 and Luke Cleary ’18, have each found squirrels in their rooms this semester. These creatures, which are a little bit furrier than other squirrels seen around campus, have been deemed flying squirrels by house residents after some “sleuthing via Google Images,” according to Burke.
In fact, the actual appearance of the flying squirrels has been a long time coming. Since the beginning of the year, house members have been hearing noises in the walls, especially on the third floor of Helm. The emergence of the squirrels finally proves that Helm members were not simply overtaken by paranoia and group-think.
For this reason, Burke says, “Seeing the squirrels this semester was weirdly validating.”Interestingly enough, though, two of the three squirrels have been found in the basement. Cleary found a squirrel in his lower-level room after only having heard noises in the walls once during all of first semester. The acting theory from members of the house is that as the weather has gotten colder, the squirrels have both moved down in the house and have been keener to sneak inside in search of warmth. This development has not thrilled every member of the house.
Cleary, in describing his encounter with the squirrel in his room, explains, “I got back to my room and turned the light on and I look on my bedside table and I saw a squirrel looking right back at me… I got kind of freaked out.”
Burke tells a similar story about Cleary’s encounter with the squirrel. “One night I was just in my room reading at 10:30 p.m. or 11:00 p.m. when I heard this bloodcurdling scream. I ran downstairs and there was Luke Cleary [and the squirrel]... The squirrel had by that point moved to his bookshelf but it was really scared and really cute and it wasn’t moving. So I just got a Tupperware from the kitchen and scooped it up and brought it outside.”
Burke is a big fan of the squirrels, describing them multiple times as “really cute.” She has thus been able to come to the aid of house members like Cleary (with the help of some Tupperware, of course). Burke was also able to catch the squirrel in Brown’s room with the same Tupperware, which has now been reserved for squirrel catching.
Despite her enthusiasm about the squirrels, Burke readily admits, “It’s kind of a thrill to see them in someone else’s room, but if I was in my bed and there was a squirrel I might be a little more rattled… Some people seem to be a little spooked.”
Although Burke’s efforts have certainly been heroic, the Tupperware may be able to be retired, at least for the time being.
“An exterminator came last Wednesday, and Residential Life offices have emailed me and a couple other residents in the house to make sure the issue has been taken care of,” House Proctor Lillian Eckstein ’18 said. “We’ve also called security a couple times... I don’t really hear them running around anymore, so maybe they’re there, maybe they aren’t.”
Nevertheless, squirrels in Helm do not seem to be a new issue and may very well be back with a vengeance despite the have-a-heart traps that the exterminator used to deal with the problem. Helm house alumni Olivia Atwood ’17 and Brooke Goddard ’17 heard or saw squirrels during their sophomore year in the house.
While some house members were originally freaked out by the issue, Eckstein believes the squirrels are actually a good advertising opportunity for Helm, and said that house members have been batting around the idea of hosting a “squirrel party” as their next campus-wide event.
Whether the squirrels are funny or freaky is up for debate, but for all of those first years out there considering applying to Helmreich House, be ready for a furry roommate.
- 5 days ago
Suspect charged with violation of privacy
Stephen McIntire, arrested on separate charges in December, has been charged in connection with multiple 'peeping tom' incidents last semester
Stephen McIntire, a 55-year old Bath man arrested in late December after allegedly breaking into a woman's home and exposing himself to her, was charged today with six counts of violation of privacy, according to a Security Alert from Bowdoin Safety and Security. He was charged based on nonconsensual videos of students taken through their windows.
McIntire is currently being held at Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset on unrelated charges.
The investigations into the sexual assault at Mayflower Apartments in November and the two students grabbed while walking on Potter St. and Longfellow Ave. are continuing.
McIntire was convicted of gross sexual assault in 1997. He was also convicted in 2015 for failing to comply with the sex offender registry and for violating "peeping tom" laws at the Hyde School in Bath.
McIntire attended the support group for sex offenders that was held, until recently, at the First Parish Church just off the College's campus. According to the Brunswick Police Department Commander of Support Services Mark Waltz, the group is no longer meeting in Brunswick.
This story will be updated as more information becomes avaliable.
- January 29
Brunswick creates ‘Race and Gender Task Force’
Following a tense fall semester with bias incidents near Bowdoin’s campus and sexual assault on campus, the Brunswick Town Council has established a “Race and Gender Task Force”/ “Human Rights Task Force” to “explore the race and gender issues” facing the town and approve recommended actions by June 30.
Starting in the summer, several Bowdoin students and faculty were subjected to predominantly racial but also misogynistic slurs yelled from passing cars. After these initial reports, President Rose contacted town officials and circulated an official condemnation on September 8. In the next two months, four additional bias incidents—all of which were “drive-bys”—were reported.
Approved in December, the task force was proposed by City Council Chairwoman Sarah Brayman who saw it as the logical and necessary “next step” for the town.
Stressing how these incidents did not represent the values of Brunswick, Brayman said in a phone interview with the Orient that she wants “students to feel comfortable coming downtown.”
After being contacted by Rose and other college officials, Brunswick officials had conversations with civic organizations like Tedford Shelter, First Parish Church, Curtis Memorial Library and others to gauge their knowledge of racial bias in and around Brunswick. Following this meeting in November they moved to “formalize the efforts of [the] town” with a task force.
Since then, the Brunswick Police Department has updated their website to include a reporting mechanism for bias incidents. This consists of an online form in which victims are asked to identify the type of bias and give details about the incident; victims can choose whether or not to identify themselves and provide contact information to police.
“We want Brunswick to be a very welcoming community,” said Police Chief Richard Rizzo in a phone interview with the Orient.
Rizzo encouraged anyone subject to these attacks to please fill out the online form. “An event that you ‘don’t want to bother us with’ could be part of a pattern that the community needs to address,” wrote Rizzo on the Police website.
Since the form went live, there have been no reports submitted, Rizzo said at the task force’s first meeting yesterday.
At the task force’s meeting, Brayman, Kathy Wilson and Jane Millett (town councilors appointed to the task force) discussed the role of the group, who should be representatives on it and how large it should be.
Regarding goals of the task force, Brayman said at the meeting: “I think there’s education, there’s also calling out really bad behavior and there’s also supporting people who are [victims] of this behavior. To me, it’s also about who are we as a community and where are we going as a community.”
A representative of the Brunswick School Department, the Brunswick Downtown Association, Associate Dean of Students for Diversity and Inclusion Leana Amaez and potentially a Bowdoin student representative (such as the BSG Multicultural representative) were all broached as resources the task force would like to work with in the future.
Three residents of Brunswick who attended the meeting urged the councilors to remember that the task force must prioritize supporting the human rights of Brunswick’s citizens as much as it will address the recent bias incidents experienced by students of the College.
Amaez expressed hope that the town of Brunswick and the College could move forward together.
“I would like for us to work together to think about how we educate and how the town can send a message to people that this is not what the town wants to be and not what the town is as a whole,” said Amaez.
While noting that it may not be Brunswick residents committing these acts, Amaez emphasized that it is incumbent upon the Brunswick community to not be silent when these incidents occur.
Simple things like asking “Hey, are you OK? Do you want me to walk you home?” can make a world of difference, Amaez noted.
Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster spoke approvingly of the formation of the task force, further noting that, in his experience, “there is a sense that this is not isolated to Bowdoin.”Notably, last week the Bangor Daily News reported that a biracial seven-year-old student at Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary was called the n-word on two separate occasions this past fall.
“[But] that’s not the community we think about when we think about Brunswick, Maine,” said Foster. “As someone who’s lived here for 20 years... [I] don’t identify Brunswick as being a place that’s not welcoming and affirming. And, yet, some members of the community have had experiences that weren’t welcoming, so I think there’s some commitment on the part of the community to say ‘no, this is not who we are.”’
Meg Robbins contributed to this report.
- January 29
Progress reported in sexual assault case
Investigations into the break in and sexual assault at Mayflower Apartments, the grabbing of a female student on Potter Street and the numerous reports of suspicious individuals peering into windows, and the grabbing of a female student on Longfellow Ave. are ongoing, according to Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols. Nichols said that Bowdoin Security has been working closely with the Brunswick Police Department (BPD), and that progress has been made.
“We’re making significant progress,” said Nichols. “We have been interviewing a number of students and those interviews are continuing.”
BPD Commander of Support Services Mark Waltz said that they have put considerable effort into all of the incidents. Neither Waltz nor Nichols were able to comment further because the investigations remain ongoing.
In early December, a person of interest in the break in and sexual assault at Mayflower Apartments was arrested in Bath. Stephen McIntire attended the sexual offender support group that, until recently, met at at the First Parish Church just off the College's campus. Though Waltz did not say where the group has moved to, he confirmed that the group is no longer meeting in Brunswick.
- January 29
MØ to headline Ivies, BØRNS February concert tickets sell out within four hours
The Entertainment Board (eBoard) announced Tuesday morning on their Facebook page on their Facebook page and in an email to campus that the Danish singer songwriter MØ will be headlining the 151st Ivies weekend.
She will be performing on Saturday, April 30. The Thursday performer has yet to be announced.
MØ has gained recognition in the last year through her collaboration with the DJ and producer Major Lazer in his song “Lean On.” “Lean On” is currently the most streamed song of all time on Spotify, with over 600 million plays. MØ has also worked with Iggy Azalea and Avicii, among others.
This will be the third major concert to take place at Bowdoin this year—Guster visited the campus in October, and Børns will be performing a sold-out show in Pickard theater on February 5.
“We talked a lot this year on the board about bringing someone up and coming, that was one of our goals,” said Emily Serwer ’16, the co-head of eBoard. “Because our budget is so limiting I know it’s difficult for people to understand the type of artist that we can bring based on our budget, but we though