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Arts & Entertainment, Music

Dijon transforms Montreal into a playground of sound  

by Vittoria Vespoli on

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Halfway through his sold-out tour, Dijon walked out onto the barely lit L’Olympia stage in a sweater and jeans—no opener, no fuss—and somehow transformed a 2,400-capacity venue into a jam session in his living room. Before the stage lights even turned on, he slipped into the first notes of “Many Times,” and the room answered with a shout, the kind where everyone realizes they’re flung into something at the same time. 

2025 has been Dijon’s year: The release of his sophomore album Baby to practically unanimous praise, a cameo in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-bound One Battle After Another, writing credits on Bon Iver’s newest album, and a Grammy nomination for Producer of the Year on Justin Bieber’s best material in years. But in Montreal, all that buzz dissolved, leaving us with something intimate and irreplaceable. Dijon wasn’t playing the part of an artist on a winning run; he was just making music in real time, fully trusting that we’d follow him wherever he took us. 

With his seven-piece band, made up notably of Henry Kwapis on the drums, Amber Coffman from Dirty Projectors, and Daniel Aged, who’s previously worked with Frank Ocean and FKA Twigs, Dijon treated the night like a conversation between musicians: Songs weren’t just played, they changed shape, were remixed and rebuilt in real time. He’d restart mid-verse if the energy felt off, taking suggestions from the crowd. Band members moved around the stage as naturally as if they were rehearsing, tweaking sounds, stepping in and out depending on the track, like they were in a studio session we had the chance to witness. 

The set list swerved between pulse-pounding highs and softer sounds. “HIGHER!,” “Talk Down,” and “Yamaha” hit like quick bursts of adrenaline, the lights flashing on the audience, revealing a crowd swaying in unison. He gave a fresh kick to tracks like “rock n roll” by adding drum weight, creating a version that now only exists in that room. “(Referee)” melted seamlessly into “Rewind,” detonating into the night’s most electric mixes. “FIRE!” leaned heavily on production, sometimes swallowing Dijon’s voice. Still, it didn’t shake the energy in L’Olympia. “my man,” unexpectedly, was the vocal masterclass: A song I wasn’t particularly excited to hear, but one he blew right open. 

When the tempo slowed down, the room shifted with him. “The Dress,” his best-known and beloved track, pulled the audience into a collective trance, thousands of voices singing along. Its transition into “Annie” made the moment land even harder, the two songs folding into each other so naturally that the crowd leaned forward with them, powerless. He surprised the audience with “TV Blues,” an older track, previously untouched on this tour. Dijon’s been keeping fans on their toes, switching up the setlist at every stop, so the second the opening notes hit, you could see the crowd trying to place it, followed by smiles of recognition that ran across the audience.  

After “Kindalove,” he saluted us and left the stage with his band members, but the crowd wasn’t having it. Their applause dragged him back out for a three-song encore: “Big Mike’s,” sped up, “Nico’s Red Truck,” an old single from his discography that had the whole room clapping along to the beat, and finally, “Rodeo Clown.” For that last hurrah, his band slipped offstage, leaving him alone in the spotlight, the audience cast in darkness, singing along. Slowly, the musicians drifted back onstage, folding themselves back into the song when needed. The encore cemented the spell, reminding everyone why he’s one of today’s most surprising and magnetic performers. 

As I walked out, the music still vibrated in my chest, quietly humming, as if Montreal hadn’t just heard a concert but had helped build one.

Research Briefs, Science & Technology

Do good, feel good: Volunteering and its potential benefits to youth mental health

by Michelle Yankovsky on

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What if youth engagement in civic activities—volunteering, activism, and advocacy—did more than help communities? What if it also improved the mental health of volunteers? While traditional approaches to mental health include psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, and pharmacological treatments, some McGill researchers are exploring how civic involvement can contribute to positive mental health outcomes among young people.

In a recent publication in the Adolescent Research Review, Anthony Sciola, a fifth-year PhD student in McGill’s Applied Child Psychology program and member of the Youth Suicide Prevention Lab, examined how civic engagement affects youth mental health outcomes. Sciola’s desire to investigate this topic developed from a broader interest in identifying alternative ways to support and improve individuals’ mental health.

“I always wanted to find something where mental health professionals are not the only source to help people,” Sciola said in an interview with The Tribune. “We always hear about physical activity, therapy, or pharmacological interventions as being something that will help mental health, right? So [I thought], what can civic engagement, getting involved in the community, do for mental health?”

Sciola’s study compiled 13 longitudinal studies—which follow a group of individuals over a substantial period of time—into a systematic review. Volunteering was the most studied civic activity, and depressive symptoms were the most investigated mental health outcome. He explained that separating civic engagement activities into individual subcategories yielded significant results when assessing their effects on mental health.

“Some studies grouped a bunch of civic engagement activities into one construct, and when they did this, the results were usually not significant,” Sciola said. “It’s really when they were separating the activities, like looking at volunteering, activism, and political engagement [separately that] we really started to see something [significant].” 

Sciola found that volunteering seems to be the most beneficial for youths’ mental health, which is not surprising as this type of activity is known to foster a sense of belonging and purpose, and increase positive social interactions.

Sciola also pointed out the bidirectional association between mental health and civic engagement, where a particular state of mental health can impact one’s level of civic pursuit.

“People who had better mental health scores were more likely to engage in civic activities,” Sciola noted. “But again, it really depends on the specific activity you participate in.”

In a follow-up study, Sciola examined five different civic engagement variables—volunteering, charitable actions, political engagement, activism, and community involvement—to further examine this association.

“Our [follow-up] study found that youth at 20 years old who volunteered or participated in charitable actions were found to have less depressive symptoms three years later,” he said.

However, other activities, such as political engagement or activism, tended to produce more complex results.

“We also found that participating in activism actually produced higher depressive symptoms three years later,” Sciola said.

Sciola explained how activism can affect individual people’s mental health differently.

“It’s not to say that we shouldn’t participate in these activities, it’s just there’s a lot of external factors that go into them, such as discrimination, being viewed a certain way, and putting yourself out there, which could lead to a lot of scrutiny,” Sciola said. “These types of activities have a lot more risk than participating in something like volunteering, where you go to an activity that people are usually in positive spirits for.”

Sciola encourages youth to be intentional about the types of civic activities they pursue. 

“The main message I want to give is participate in an activity that you feel closely connected to and that brings value to you, especially if it is something like helping [others],” Sciola said.Overall, Sciola’s study highlights the importance of finding new approaches to improving young people’s mental health. Since mental health issues have risen globally, becoming the primary cause of disability in youth alongside substance use disorders, it is in McGill’s best interest to explore accessible, innovative, and community-based strategies that support students’ well-being.

Arts & Entertainment, Fashion, Private

2026 Met Gala theme ‘Costume Art’ revives the body in art

by Lia James on

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On Nov. 17, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the 2026 Met Gala theme, “Costume Art,” in honour of the new 12,000 square foot gallery space that will house the Costume Institute’s annual spring exhibition. 

The Met Gala has consistently been a spectacle that sparks widespread discussion; the theme is the backbone of the ensembles worn by attendees. This year’s theme, however, is very broad. In an interview with Vogue, Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton said the exhibition will be on the human body—specifically how the body communicates with costume. “The idea was to put the body back into discussions about art and fashion, and to embrace the body, not to take it away as a way of elevating fashion to an art form,” he explained.

There are many ways designers might interpret the 2026 Met Gala theme, from referencing famous portraits housed in the Met to reimagining other iconic paintings. They could draw inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman marble sculpture. Imagine someone appearing in a dress referencing Winged Victory of Samothrace, a sculpture of the goddess Nike on the bow of a ship. Despite the material being marble, the look of wetness and wind against her body makes the dress flow as if real. It would be interesting to see a designer experiment with that illusion, transforming a hard material into something that looks soft and fluid. 

Bolton mentions in the interview that the exhibit will reference the nude body in art, so perhaps we can expect to see some inspiration from works such as Aphrodite of Knidos, Michelangelo’s David and many more. David was revolutionary in the way it depicted the idea of a ‘perfect body’ during the Renaissance. Designers and attendees can create room for a discussion about the classic ‘idealized body’ and the way nude women have been depicted and perceived by society for centuries. 

The Costume Art exhibition will be split into three sections: Overlooked bodies, such as aging bodies; bodies frequently portrayed in art; and universal bodies, referencing the ubiquitous human anatomy we all share. Basing costumes on overlooked bodies is particularly thought-provoking, especially since many of the celebrities attending the Met Gala regularly use anti-aging procedures, such as Botox and plastic surgery. With a celebrity culture punctuated by Ozempic and unhealthy body standards, plus-sized bodies are also overlooked and stigmatized in visual culture. Ironically, it could be argued that the very celebrities funding and attending the Met Gala are partially responsible for the disregard of these bodies in the first place.  

Bolton’s idea of representing the ‘universal body’ in this exhibit also has many intriguing facets. Can we expect to see ideas of the anatomical body, perhaps dresses that are supposed to represent the human muscular structure, skeleton, or different organs essential for living?

The Met Gala itself is highly exclusive, with tickets from past years costing about $30,000 USD and attendees drawn mostly from celebrity or wealthy circles. In this context, this theme of a ‘universal body’ may be an attempt to reach out to the average person viewing this event, who does not share that level of privilege. The message behind the theme may be a gesture towards connection and community, because in the end, we are all humans. 

Who will be brave enough to represent the overlooked bodies? And while most of the celebrities have some familiarity with their own bodies as works of art, how will celebrities celebrate the universal? 

Commentary, Opinion

Cutting teaching assistant funding will hurt learning

by Max Funge-Ripley on

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With first- and second-year classes averaging 69 enrolled students—and many required classes tallying in the hundreds—McGill must create more opportunities for students to collaborate in smaller sections. The benefits of small-group learning have been widely documented; it is in McGill’s best interest to draw money from its endowment to expand teaching support instead of cutting it.

In 2013, McGill chose to cut 100 seminar-style classes in the Faculty of Arts and redirect the saved funds toward hiring more teaching assistants (TAs). The aim was to offset the cut of smaller courses by dividing larger classes into conferences managed by TAs. 

Studies consistently show that people remember information best when they link what they are learning to their own personal experiences. TA-led conferences can best facilitate this process. Often, this format of smaller class sizes and closer instructional attention allows students to engage with material in a more multifaceted and low-risk setting alongside peers. 

This year, instead of maintaining its promised expansion plan, McGill has reversed course. With the deficit expected to grow to nearly $200 million CAD by 2028, the administration chose to implement 15 to 20 per cent cuts for teaching support in the Faculty of Arts, shifting TAs into other roles and reducing their hours.

This is a lose-lose scenario. Cost-cutting is a short-term solution to a budget shortfall, but it spells demise in the long run. In ten years, will TAs who had their hours cut want to donate money to McGill? What about students who struggled to find classes where their voice was heard and valued, where they could delve deep into topics out of pure interest, not just motivated by a grade?

If McGill wants to receive donations from alumni and preserve its endowment in the long term, it must create positive experiences for its students. More importantly, if students, faced with a tough job market, see that the only programs worth maintaining are those that provide monetary value to McGill, they might apply that logic to their own lives and prioritize performance over learning.

By robbing students of a space to share their thoughts, the administration tells Arts students that their academic contributions are not worth the tuition they pay, even as McGill raises spending on external private security by the millions.

McGill is teaching the wrong lessons. It’s operating like a business and foregoing its primary goal of promoting higher-level learning. If advancing education were truly the administration’s top priority, as President Deep Saini claims, it wouldn’t cut funding for teaching support. 

As Quebec lowers funding and slashes caps on international students, fiscal prudence is wise, but McGill still has an impressive cushion. The university’s endowment sits at $2.2 billion CAD, of which the university spends 4 per cent each year. In contrast, the endowment grosses a ten-year average of 7 per cent per year, a rate that continues to rise. The fund has increased in value by a whopping 41 per cent in the last five years, an astounding number in light of this month’s frantic belt-tightening.

McGill should raise its distribution rate from 4 per cent to 4.25 per cent, freeing up an extra $5 million CAD to hire more teaching assistants. This small budget increase would allow McGill to hire 300 more teaching assistants for the whole year, expanding the number of TAs by nearly 20 per cent, while still ensuring that the endowment grows over time.

Cuts to teaching support will wind up hurting McGill’s fundraising abilities, reputation, and enrollment in the future, while worsening the experience of current students. McGill claims it can’t afford to pay for teaching assistants. In the long run, it can’t afford to cut them.

Along Party Lines, McGill, Montreal, News, The Tribune Explains

The Tribune Explains: How Mark Carney’s budget will impact McGill students

by Basil Atari on

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On Nov. 4, Prime Minister Mark Carney released his long-anticipated 2025 budget, which has been criticized for projecting a $78 billion CAD deficit—despite Canada’s stated commitments to reduce its deficit—and for cutting public service jobs. Supporters argue that the new budget will contribute to stabilizing the country’s long-term fiscal outlook, and lay the groundwork for a stronger economy. The Tribune explains the contested budget’s student-specific impacts.

How does the budget affect international students?

The budget makes substantial cuts to immigration levels in Canada, including reductions to the number of study permits the country will issue. This will directly affect universities like McGill that benefit from international talent and revenue from higher international tuition rates. The total number of international student permits Canada offers will fall from 437,000 to 408,000—a 16 per cent total drop from the 2024 federal cap of 485,000 study permits.

How will the cuts to international student permits affect McGill?

McGill is projecting a $45 million CAD deficit for the 2025–2026 fiscal year, a shortfall that has already resulted in layoffs and a hiring freeze expected to amount up to 500 total job losses. The university attributes these financial pressures to declining international student enrolment and the Quebec government’s decision in October 2023 to raise tuition for both international and out-of-province students. The federal budget’s restrictions on international student permits may exacerbate financial strain at McGill.  

In April 2025, a Quebec court overturned the province’s planned Canadian tuition hike, which would have increased these students’ fees by $3,000 CAD, or 33 per cent. However, the required minimum $20,000 CAD provincial pricing for international tuition, along with the government’s ability to redistribute some of that revenue from English universities to French universities, remains in place.

How will the budget affect students receiving Canada Student Grants?

Although 586,000 students received $2.6 billion CAD in Canada Student Grants money from 2023–2024, the 2025 budget allocates only $1.2 billion CAD to these federal student aid bursaries, which offer assistance to full-time Canadian students with financial need. The budget projects further cuts to the program until 2030. 

According to some experts, it is unclear whether these Canada Student Grants cuts are intentional or the result of errors, as they could reverse 2019 Liberal commitments to expand funding for the program.

What are some benefits in the budget for students?

The 2025 budget earmarks some benefits for students and young Canadians. Over the next three years, the government will allocate more than $1.5 billion CAD to student training and employment initiatives. 

The budget will increase funding to help students find jobs through an increase of $594.7 million CAD to the Canada Summer Jobs wage subsidy, which funds youth summer employment. The budget also designates $635.2 million CAD to support roughly 55,000 co-op placements for post-secondary students.

Furthermore, the budget increases funding to help young people receive professional training, allocating an additional $307.9 million CAD to the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy, which offers hands-on training and work experience.

The budget plans to provide $40 million CAD over two years to launch an inaugural Canadian Youth Climate Corps, which will provide paid training for youth to engage in climate response work and other sustainability-focused career paths.

What are some benefits in the budget for universities as institutions?

There are also some positives to the budget for universities: It allocates $1.7 billion CAD over the next 13 years for universities to recruit international researchers, assist international PhD students settling in Canada, and improve and fund university research infrastructure. 

Off the Board, Opinion

Love is a verb

by Leanne Cherry on

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Late on a Saturday night of St. Laurent bar-hopping, you walk into the dingy bathroom of Bar Bifteck to find a college-aged stranger kneeling over the toilet. They appear to be alone. You go over and ask if they are okay, offering to hold their hair back or to get them some water. Eventually, they recover, and before you part ways with your stranger, you say, “I love you, get home safe!” But what does ‘love’ mean in this context? 

Love is traditionally defined as a strong feeling of affection and attachment towards something or someone. Even when used as a verb, ‘to love’ is to experience those feelings of affection and attachment, not to communicate some action taken on behalf of the lover. Furthermore, love tends to be reserved for someone (or something) with whom we are intimately familiar—not necessarily romantically, but in the sense that we are presumed to be deeply connected to them.

Under this definition, then, telling your bar stranger that you love them hardly feels justified, for how could you develop such feelings for someone with whom you were only briefly acquainted? It would almost appear to depreciate the value of the word itself, or to misrepresent our socially venerated definition. 

It is in situations such as the sick solo stranger where our restrictive definition of love fails us. Love should not be defined as merely a feeling that we experience ourselves, but as an action which we can perform, one which demonstrates the unrestricted kindness and care that we carry within us. ‘Love’ functions as a verb in the same way that ‘help’ or ‘listen’ does, in that there must be some recipient: To help someone, to listen to someone, to love someone. The closest equivalent to using ‘love’ in this way is to see it as performing an act of kindness—doing something for someone, whether they are your closest friend or a stranger you stumble across, just for the sake of doing a kind thing. By expanding our definition of love, we realize our limitless capacity to pour our hearts into the world. 

This alternative definition is not unrelated to the mainstream understanding of love. I believe that our capacity to love as a verb—as I have described it—may be ultimately rooted in love as a feeling. But the action of love is important for precisely this reason: It is through the action of love that we are able to express the feeling of love within us, to share it with the world around us. Of course, there are moments when it is only possible to feel love for someone from afar, without your feelings ever actually reaching the person they are directed towards. However, when the opportunity to act on love presents itself, we must seize it if we want the people who surround us—regardless of our emotional proximity to them—to feel our love as well.        

This is especially true in an era when anti-empathy campaigns run rampant; it feels as though every day I come across yet another self-assured vlogger purporting that we do not owe each other anything, despite our immense ability—and responsibility—to look out for our peers. When loving someone is depicted as a burden, or a duty unfairly shoved upon us, it only becomes more important to love in every sense of the word.    

So, yes: When you hold that stranger’s hair back, you are, in fact, loving them. Whether it is love that you are experiencing as warmth inside your heart, love that you are doing as an act of kindness, or some wonderful combination of the two, you are exercising your capacity to care. When you write a thoughtful card, when you hold the door open for someone behind you, when you cook for your friends and family, when you give someone a good, long hug—these are all means by which we demonstrate the true beauty and openness of our souls and how capable we really are of supporting one another. These are all ways in which we love. I implore you to act on the love in your heart, in the things you do, in every little corner of your life.

Editorial, Opinion

Montreal’s unhoused population deserves to thrive, not just survive

by The Tribune Editorial Board on

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For Montreal’s unhoused individuals, the early-descending freezing temperatures and the predicted high-precipitation winter ahead pose fatal risks, including frostbite, hypothermia, and death. Yet, shelters across the city are already struggling at and over capacity. 

Although Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada has promised to expand housing and healthcare services for the unhoused, the city’s political and institutional apathy towards long-term sustainable solutions to the housing crisis persists. Such inaction upholds a cycle that denigrates the city’s most vulnerable individuals, sustains housing and healthcare insecurity, and fails to properly ensure that humans live with dignity, support, and security.

In Montreal, shelter space for the unhoused population falls far short of growing demand. There are about 1,800 shelter beds available but an estimated 4,690 unhoused individuals, forcing some shelters to offer chairs for the night instead of beds. Just this week, housing rights advocates voiced concerns about the increasing death rate among the unhoused, which had been rising long before the winter months. The persistent occurrence of preventable deaths of those already most marginalized lays bare the failures of Montreal’s housing and healthcare systems. 

In her campaign, Mayor Ferrada promised to end homeless encampments within four years, claiming that they pose risks to the city’s cleanliness and security. However, just weeks after her election, Quebec’s Transport Ministry issued dozens of eviction notices to individuals living in tents along Notre-Dame Street, giving residents only days to vacate. Ferrada’s strategy of dismantling homeless encampments without first prioritizing housing alternatives for their inhabitants effectively criminalizes the unhoused population for circumstances created and upheld by governmental negligence.

Instead of supporting crisis measures, the government has put time and money into violently destroying encampments, inhumanely stripping individuals of all their belongings, and leaving them without any place to go. In this way, the Ferrada government has chosen to address a major socioeconomic crisis by displacing a population it considers unpalatable, relocating these groups to areas where they will be less visible instead of confronting the systemic factors that lead to homelessness in the first place. 

The housing crisis is just one in a web of interrelated systems which mutually compound an individual’s risk of becoming unhoused. In Montreal, Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals are disproportionately represented in these systems. The over-policing of Indigenous populations, for example, leads to overrepresentation in incarceration, which then leads to a compounded risk of homelessness after release. Health disparities incurred by unhoused 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals bear similarly cyclical effects, as a lack of access to proper gender-affirming care and social services leads to increased prevalence of poor mental health, further entrenching housing insecurity. For women, domestic violence is the leading cause of homelessness, while children who have been involved in the foster care system are also overrepresented among unhoused youth.  

The Montreal municipal government’s support for the homelessness crisis has come largely in the form of seasonal warming centres and temporary housing. While critical for short-term triage, especially in harsh weather, such temporary fixes must be complemented by equally substantiated commitment to sustainable, year-round housing solutions.

The homelessness crisis is not inevitable—it is curated and actively upheld through political apathy, hostile urban design, and governmental policy. However, that also means that governments, lawmakers, and institutions have the agency to reverse this crisis. 

At the municipal level, Montreal must dismantle its hostile public architecture projects and incorporate cultural sensitivity into police training. The Ferrada government must also set aside funding for housing solutions to supplement provincial funding, instead of relying on the perennial good will of local organizations and shelters. At the provincial level, Quebec must hold itself accountable for pursuing long-term solutions to the housing crisis, as well as seeking improvements to social services and healthcare.

Action need not be limited to government bodies. McGill must commit to conducting comprehensive research aimed at benefitting the unhoused population and ensuring representation in data to best inform future policy. 

Above all, Montreal’s unhoused population must be treated with dignity, respect, and support. Mitigating the homelessness crisis must not be a push to meet the low bar of subsistence, but to ensure that every human being has the foundation to survive, and the resources, agency, and respect to thrive.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Trust, community, and the burden of leadership take centre stage in ‘The Grown-Ups’

by Dylan Hing on

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When the world around you changes in an instant, and you’re responsible for the safety of hundreds of young campers, what kind of leader will you choose to be? Tuesday Night Café Theatre’s production of The Grown-Ups, by Simon Henriques and Skylar Fox, explores how personal decisions feed into or destroy belief in one’s own judgement. The show emphasizes the value of community and the courage it takes to trust others while embracing change.

Set at a youth camp in the United States, the show follows a group of camp counsellors during a major civic conflict as they try to shield campers from the troubling news. Most of the counsellors have grown up together at the camp, but newcomer Cassie (Emma Lee, PhD Biochemistry) enters unaware of their dynamic. Though she bonds with them, tension emerges between Cassie’s bold approach to handling camp issues and the protection tactics of the other counsellors. 

Trust remains a constant concern throughout. The camp’s assistant director, Aidan (Johnny Rees), worries that sharing news of the outside tensions will shift the camp’s culture. The counsellors struggle to adjust to changes in both camp activities and their friend group, and this resistance makes it difficult for Cassie to convince the others to embrace her proposed operational changes.

In an interview with The Tribune, director Sol Blanco, U4 Arts, mentioned resonating with the fear characters have of making the wrong choice.

“A lot of people are afraid of saying things or doing things because they think that what they will do or say is wrong,” they said. “But the only way that you can move forward is by doing or saying something, and changing, so there are no wrong answers, only your answers.”

Stage manager Hannah Liben, U4 Science, reflected on the common hardship of letting go, despite understanding the necessity for change.

“It’s all about things changing and things needing to change. And I think that that’s really, really tough for me and a lot of people. But we need to think about it, especially now.”

This conflict between change and continuity, framed through the lens of teenagers grappling with changes to their chosen home, is uniquely touching. Directed in-the-round surrounding a campfire, the production’s community-driven nature shines through. 

Blanco highlighted the show’s collaborative process.

“We are equals every step of the way [….] Everybody provides a little bit of insight on everything,” they said.

The bond between cast and crew results in an intricate portrayal of fluctuating relationships, aided by the show’s staging that replicates both distance and intimacy. Audience members have the same perspective of each other as the actors have of their castmates; we remember to choose to be present with our communities for all they are, rather than worrying about leaving behind the past.

Both on and offstage, choosing to step up has been a common thread. Liben expressed her admiration for the unique contributions of the crew and cast. 

“Even if everything went wrong and we weren’t able to put this on or anything, these people are like, the best people I’ve ever met, including this one,” Liben said, pointing to Blanco.

As the director, Blanco exemplifies a leader’s trust in others’ judgments, noting their own relationship with Liben.

“Every step of the way, I was like okay, I know that Hannah can do this, I wonder what this will look like, let me consult Hannah. And when I say my vision, I also do mean our vision because […] there is no me without Hannah, right?” they said. “I think that that’s what makes this show so special.” 
The Grown-Ups serves as an excellent reminder that compromise and vulnerability bring about a unifying leadership. The bonds of steel the characters share, as well as those of the creatives, are echoed in the warmth evoked in the audience. It feels like a homecoming.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

The newest ‘Frankenstein’ adaptation redefines its iconic characters

by Gaëlle Perron on

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Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein hit theatres in mid-October and is now streaming on Netflix. The film is an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel of the same name, which is a classic in English literature and is often thought of as the first science fiction novel. The story follows the scientist Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) as his macabre experiments bring to life a sentient being, referred to as ‘the Creature’ (Jacob Elordi). 

Del Toro approached this project conscientiously, likening film adaptation to “marrying a widow.” Shelley’s original text—conceptualized by del Toro as a widow’s deceased husband—should be honoured, he explained, but should not immobilize the adaptation. Speaking with Netflix, del Toro metaphorized his intentions a different way, saying Frankenstein is a song he wanted “to sing […] in a different key with a different emotion.” He clearly valued the source material and its cultural legacy, while simultaneously prioritizing his own ambitions for the story.

Del Toro’s Frankenstein is aesthetically beautiful, offering captivating costume design and gorgeous imagery of the Arctic. However, the film is first and foremost anchored in its characters. It trades fear and shock for character study, exploring Victor’s childhood and the intellectual interests of Elizabeth (Mia Goth), Victor’s brother’s fiancée and his own love interest. The performances of the main cast reflect this emphasis on embodying characters, particularly in Elordi’s poignant portrayal of the Creature. Ironically, it is precisely the characterizations that I take issue with in this adaptation.

In reading Shelley’s novel, I observed that absence plays a key role. It is Victor’s absence in the Creature’s life that causes the initial tension between the two, the absence of a female companion that plagues the Creature, and, quintessentially, the absence of some unidentified human quality in the Creature that puzzles readers. Moreover, when reading Frankenstein as a birth myth—wherein Victor metaphorically gives birth to the Creature and then abandons him—the absence of the mother figure also stands out.

In del Toro’s adaptation, Mia Goth first plays Claire, Victor’s mother, and then Elizabeth. Hence, as soon as Elizabeth is introduced, she is visually understood to stand in for the missing mother of both Victor and the Creature. She offers the latter the kindness and empathy that Victor lacks and tries to educate him by encouraging him to speak. Elizabeth simultaneously adopts the role of the Creature’s desired female companion. Viewers picked up on the romantic subtext in Elizabeth and the Creature’s relationship, especially in the extended wedding scene, during which they express their love for one another. All the while, Elizabeth is wearing her wedding gown, with its bandage-like sleeves inspired by the costume design in Bride of Frankenstein. 

While Shelley’s novel leaves the character of Elizabeth underdeveloped, del Toro’s Elizabeth is overwrought with significance. Her character fills the absence that is so crucial to Shelley’s tale. She and the Creature act as a mother-son duo, with Oedipal implications, and as the embodiment of the moral good in the film. The Creature, who is aggressive and dangerous in the novel, is not guilty of such violence in the movie. To compensate, Victor remains wholly violent and vengeful until he is on the brink of death, the fear he felt in the novel replaced with cruelty.

Thus, del Toro’s characters operate within a strict binary between good and evil, whereas the novel’s characters manifest ambiguity. Often, scenes that require pause and silence are narrated over by Victor and the Creature, directly stating the moral of the story, preempting the viewer’s subjective analyses. 

Despite flaming dream sequences and gory depictions of Victor’s medical procedures, the film falls flat. Del Toro depletes his characters of their complexity. He excludes the audience from the experience of interpretation and presents them with what he takes to be the moral of the story on a silver platter. As mainstream art and entertainment become increasingly accommodating to binge-watching and second-screening, I was disappointed to find such a rich story and its characters so significantly reduced. 

Sports

Everything you need to know heading into McGill’s fall intramural playoffs

by Aidan Hotte on

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It is the most important time of the semester already, and no, I am not talking about finals (though I guess in some way I am). Intramural playoff season is upon us, and over 500 teams across 14 sports will be battling it out for ultimate victory. As a seasoned and grizzled intramural veteran myself, I can attest that you have not lived until you have experienced the epic highs and lows of McGill intramural sports.

While most students are still recovering from midterms, McGill’s brave intramural participants are putting their bodies on the line for a championship mug, which some consider more valuable than their degree—myself included. Tier 3 pickleball duos are finally getting the hang of what “the kitchen” is, and Tier 1 volleyball teams are getting to relive their high school glory days. Now, to the uninitiated, this might all seem like unintelligible jargon, so let me, an expert, cover some intramural basics.

The McGill Intramurals program has a rich history, dating back to at least the early 20th century. Any McGill student, faculty, or alumnus can participate in intramurals, provided the right fees are paid. The offerings are varied and this fall included badminton, basketball, dodgeball, flag football, cricket, pickleball, roundnet (better known by the brand name Spikeball), three kinds of soccer (11-, 7-, and 5-person variations), tennis, ultimate frisbee, and volleyball. Searching IMLeagues—the McGill intramural online platform—one can also see that there used to be offerings for video games, such as NBA2K, and board games, like Catan, which it is unclear why they cut. Tier 1 Catan would be electric.

There are three categories within every sport: OPEN, open to anyone regardless of gender and using the standard sport rules; WOMEN, open to athletes who self-identify as women, two-spirit, trans and gender non-conforming; and MIXED, also open to anyone, but with maximums of “male-matching” or “female-matching” players, and with slightly altered rules for gameplay. Within each of these categories, there are different levels of play based on athlete experience level. Starting with Play-Fun, which is designed for beginners and does not feature playoffs, tiers then move from Tier 4 to Tier 1, with Tier 1 being the most advanced. Do not fall for the belief that any one tier is better than the others, though: Personal, unbiased experience tells me that Tier 2 Mixed is the most competitive tier—at least for volleyball. 

With these basics covered, and the shroud of mystery surrounding the intramural program now thrown away, let us return to the central topic of this article: Playoffs. The playoff style in McGill intramurals is single elimination—lose once, and you are done. If you make it all the way to the finals and win, you get an intramural champion’s mug. This high-stakes setup results in some thrilling finishes, as anything can happen in a single game. Here are some teams and matchups to watch especially closely as they head into the playoffs.

In Tier 2 Open badminton, “McGill Mayhem BC” are heavy favourites, holding an undefeated record and the top seed overall. However, underdogs 14th-place “Badmint & chips” took out another undefeated team,“Birdie Smashers,” in their first round matchup on Nov. 17, indicating that the bracket may not be as predictable heading into finals as it seems.

Women’s Tier 1 volleyball was predictably a runaway season for “Empire Spikes Back,” who won their 2026 championship match off an undefeated run: A repeat after winning the mug back in 2025. 

In Tier 3 Open dodgeball, the 8th-place “Hot Dodges” took out the first-place team “Men who B” in a shocking first-round upset that had the potential to change the game as we know it. In a continued final playoff push against the second-place “DodgeBallz,” Hot Dodges managed to take the mug.

Finally, the mug race everybody is talking about is Open Tier 1 doubles pickleball. The 5–1 “Pickleticklers” seemed poised to duke it out in the final with “Smash Bros”, also 5–1 in the regular season. But my pick to emerge from the battlefield victorious would actually have been the third-place “Pepinilleros.” As newcomers to Tier 1, but last winter’s Tier 2 champs, they could have very well surprised the tier’s pickleball juggernauts.

These matchups all deliver a thrilling finish to the fall season and act as proof of how high-level McGill’s intramurals are. Overall, though, the most important thing about intramurals is that everyone has fun. They truly do enrich the student experience, and the bonds you form with your teammates are remarkable. However, I would be lying if I said that winning does not matter as well. After all, there are only two kinds of McGill students: Those with a mug, and those without one. 

I wish all teams the best of luck—except the ones playing my team.

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