Movie review: ‘Moonlight’

Director Barry Jenkins has achieved something so rarely seen on the silver screen: an honest, heartbreaking portrayal of a gay black man devoid of stereotypes or oversentimentality. His film “Moonlight” shines a powerful, unflinching beam on its central character, employing a piercing gaze to reveal an exquisitely elemental story of identity, race and homosexuality. The […]

Professor overhauls Peace Over Violence brand for greater inclusion

Large white letters stood out against the black and white image of a smiling woman, spelling “confianza sobre violencia” (confidence over violence). The image fades away on Peace Over Violence’s website homepage, replaced with the scene of a smiling man and woman, with the words “friendship over violence” written across their embracing arms. Rebeca Méndez, […]

UCLA graduate explores Vietnamese identity in sci-fi performance piece

This post was updated Oct. 21 at 2 p.m. T.K. Lê lay sprawled out on her Koreatown apartment floor, drawing arrows and connecting blocks of text on a huge piece of parchment paper. The large paper was the beginning of the UCLA graduate’s most recent science fiction performance piece, which she said explores her own […]

Second Take: Celebrities’ support of presidential candidates not enough to sway

The popular vote totals for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary came within 1 percent of each other. And some scholars suggest one person may have helped push the nomination Obama’s way: Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey was one of several celebrities who endorsed Obama in 2008. People came to associate the trust […]

Student takes a cut of the dorm barbering business

Slow hip-hop music flowed out of the speakers and through the dorm bathroom. Holding a razor, Jason Kuang gave a haircut to his client as the two chatted about upcoming concerts and hip-hop artists they like. Kuang was not satisfied with his haircut after visiting a local barbershop back home in the Bay Area, so […]

UCLA musician to pitch extended play at Fowler Out Loud

Charlie Bond used to sit for hours alone at his desk, recording instruments and mixing tracks for his solo albums. Now Bond is part of a band whose members are collaborating to bring the alternative rock songs he created in solitude to the live stage. The fourth-year music student released his first solo extended play […]

Kerckhoff Art Gallery showcases work of LGBTQ and disabled community

Weiwen Balter said the very act of existence can be a form of rebellion.   Balter was suspended for openly identifying as queer as a high school student in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The public school did not allow students to talk about being queer, forcing Balter to grapple with the fact that their own school […]