Giving AI a human face, voice or tone is a dangerous act of cross-dressing. It triggers an automatic response in us andromorphic reflex.
By Guillaume Thierry, Bangor University
We are constantly fed a version of AI that looks, sounds and acts suspiciously like us. It speaks in polished sentences, mimics emotions, expresses curiosity, claims to feel compassion, even dabbles in what it calls creativity.
But here’s the truth: it possesses none of those qualities. It is not human. And presenting it as if it were? That’s dangerous. Because it’s convincing. And nothing is more dangerous than a convincing illusion.
In particular, general artificial intelligence — the mythical kind of AI that supposedly mirrors human thought — is still science fiction, and it might well stay that way.
What we call AI today is nothing more than a statistical machine: a digital parrot regurgitating patterns mined from oceans of human data (the situation hasn’t changed much since it was discussed here five years ago). When it writes an answer to a question, it literally just guesses which letter and word will come next in a sequence – based on the data it’s been trained on.
This means AI has no understanding. No consciousness. No knowledge in any real, human sense. Just pure probability-driven, engineered brilliance — nothing more, and nothing less.
So why is a real “thinking” AI likely impossible? Because it’s bodiless. It has no senses, no flesh, no nerves, no pain, no pleasure. It doesn’t hunger, desire or fear. And because there is no cognition — not a shred — there’s a fundamental gap between the data it consumes (data born out of human feelings and experience) and what it can do with them.
Philosopher David Chalmers calls the mysterious mechanism underlying the relationship between our physical body and consciousness the “hard problem of consciousness”. Eminent scientists have recently hypothesised that consciousness actually emerges from the integration of internal, mental states with sensory representations (such as changes in heart rate, sweating and much more).
Given the paramount importance of the human senses and emotion for consciousness to “happen”, there is a profound and probably irreconcilable disconnect between general AI, the machine, and consciousness, a human phenomenon.
The master
Before you argue that AI programmers are human, let me stop you there. I know they’re human. That’s part of the problem. Would you entrust your deepest secrets, life decisions, emotional turmoil, to a computer programmer? Yet that’s exactly what people are doing — just ask Claude, GPT-4.5, Gemini … or, if you dare, Grok.
Giving AI a human face, voice or tone is a dangerous act of digital cross-dressing. It triggers an automatic response in us, an anthropomorphic reflex, leading to aberrant claims whereby some AIs are said to have passed the famous Turing test (which tests a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent, human-like behaiour). But I believe that if AIs are passing the Turing test, we need to update the test.
The AI machine has no idea what it means to be human. It cannot offer genuine compassion, it cannot foresee your suffering, cannot intuit hidden motives or lies. It has no taste, no instinct, no inner compass. It is bereft of all the messy, charming complexity that makes us who we are.
More troubling still: AI has no goals of its own, no desires or ethics unless injected into its code. That means the true danger doesn’t lie in the machine, but in its master — the programmer, the corporation, the government. Still feel safe?
And please, don’t come at me with: “You’re too harsh! You’re not open to the possibilities!” Or worse: “That’s such a bleak view. My AI buddy calms me down when I’m anxious.”
Am I lacking enthusiasm? Hardly. I use AI every day. It’s the most powerful tool I’ve ever had. I can translate, summarise, visualise, code, debug, explore alternatives, analyse data — faster and better than I could ever dream to do it myself.
I’m in awe. But it is still a tool — nothing more, nothing less. And like every tool humans have ever invented, from stone axes and slingshots to quantum computing and atomic bombs, it can be used as a weapon. It will be used as a weapon.
Need a visual? Imagine falling in love with an intoxicating AI, like in the film Her. Now imagine it “decides” to leave you. What would you do to stop it? And to be clear: it won’t be the AI rejecting you. It’ll be the human or system behind it, wielding that tool become weapon to control your behaviour.
Removing the mask
So where am I going with this? We must stop giving AI human traits. My first interaction with GPT-3 rather seriously annoyed me. It pretended to be a person. It said it had feelings, ambitions, even consciousness.
That’s no longer the default behaviour, thankfully. But the style of interaction — the eerily natural flow of conversation — remains intact. And that, too, is convincing. Too convincing.
We need to de-anthropomorphise AI. Now. Strip it of its human mask. This should be easy. Companies could remove all reference to emotion, judgement or cognitive processing on the part of the AI. In particular, it should respond factually without ever saying “I”, or “I feel that”… or “I am curious”.
Will it happen? I doubt it. It reminds me of another warning we’ve ignored for over 20 years: “We need to cut CO₂ emissions.” Look where that got us. But we must warn big tech companies of the dangers associated with the humanisation of AIs. They are unlikely to play ball, but they should, especially if they are serious about developing more ethical AIs.
For now, this is what I do (because I too often get this eerie feeling that I am talking to a synthetic human when using ChatGPT or Claude): I instruct my AI not to address me by name. I ask it to call itself AI, to speak in the third person, and to avoid emotional or cognitive terms.
If I am using voice chat, I ask the AI to use a flat prosody and speak a bit like a robot. It is actually quite fun and keeps us both in our comfort zone.
Guillaume Thierry, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Bangor University
If implemented, Trump's tariffs will have far reaching consequences on the film and television industry, but they are unlikely to make anyone more prosperous.
By Jean Chalaby, City St George's, University of London
With its tariffs policies, the administration of US president Donald Trump aims to correct the country’s persistent goods trade deficit. The president has argued that the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered” by other countries. Trump feels it is now America’s “turn to prosper” – and he has the film and TV industries in his sights with threats of 100% tariffs on foreign films.
Economists cite multiple reasons why tariffs are bad for economies, from stunting growth to adding inflationary pressure. But there is a more fundamental problem, which is notable in the case of the film and TV industries. While trade data reflects a country’s overall performance, it says nothing about the nature and ownership of the traded goods.
Indeed, the cross-border activities and foreign investments of US-based multinationals widen the US trade deficit. Global trade flows in film and TV are a good example.
In terms of the origin of a movie, it is determined by factors including the nationality of those in key creative roles, financing, filming location and the culture reflected in the theme and story. The US has long been the world’s largest exporter of films and TV, dominating global media flows for much of the 20th century.
In the 1970s, the country exported seven times as much film and TV programming as that of its nearest competitor (the UK). Three decades later, the US was still exporting 4.5 times the amount of content it imported – US$12.6 billion (£9.4 billion) versus US$2.8 billion.
US exports have increased, reaching US$24.7 billion in 2023, and Hollywood remains the world’s largest movie exporter. However, the US balance of trade in the sector has shifted dramatically. While US exports grew by 95.4% between 2006 and 2023, US imports increased by 898%.
The trade in film and TV programming achieved balance in 2019, and my research shows that since then, the US has imported more films and TV shows than it exported. The deficit was narrowing in 2023 but imports remained 12.1% higher than exports (US$27.7 billion versus US$24.3 billion).
This deficit deserves an explanation. Are Asian and European producers suddenly flooding the US with films and TV shows? Has the American public developed an insatiable appetite for Nordic noir or K-drama? The reality is that US-based media conglomerates like Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery have changed strategy. They have moved away from their previous focus on exports to direct-to-consumer international distribution.
What does this mean? Well, instead of licensing content to foreign broadcasters and cinemas (which they still do, but to a lesser extent), they retail their content internationally, using their own global streaming services.
The US entertainment paradox
Maintaining these large content libraries explains the shift of the US trade balance. US-based streamers export less because they now retain more of their content for exclusive distribution on their own streaming platforms. And they import more because they acquire foreign content in greater quantities than ever before.
For example, Stranger Things is produced by Netflix in the US. As such, it does not show up in export figures. Squid Game, on the other hand, is a Korean export and shows up in US import data.
Moreover, Walt Disney has decided to retain the exclusive rights to its franchises, forgoing licensing sales. In 2020, the company licensed 59% of its scripted series to third parties, 18% in 2021, and only 2% in 2022.
All the US streaming giants license and commission foreign content. Netflix in particular has spent more on international content than US programming since 2024 (US$7.9 billion versus US$7.5 billion). Hence the creation of a paradox: US trade data in audiovisual services reveals a trade deficit, yet the US-based entertainment industry has never been so dominant globally.
There are similar patterns in industries in which US-based multinationals are located at the apex of transnational supply chains. The jeans that Levi Strauss imports from Bangladesh, the trainers that Nike imports from Vietnam, and the car components Ford imports from Brazil all show up in US trade statistics. But these goods are, essentially, American-owned assets.
About 70% of trade involves global value chains (GVC), as raw materials and components cross borders multiple times before being assembled into a final product.
In today’s global economy, the complexity of most products requires companies to cooperate along transnational production networks. As businesses and countries specialise in specific tasks, GVCs are the most efficient way of producing goods and services. The streaming industry simply mirrors these wider patterns.
Mindful of the US trade deficit in films and TV programmes, Trump announced the plans for 100% tariffs on all films produced outside the US. However, his attempt to “make Hollywood great again” is misguided.
While Hollywood has new rivals to contend with, notably South Korea, it remains the world’s largest film and TV exporter. Following a short period of decline in the late 2010s, US exports have continued to grow to reach a record US$24.3 billion.
For Trump, the vexing issue is that the US imports more films and TV programmes than its exports. But that is due to US-based platforms’ foreign content hoarding. Adolescence and Squid Game have indeed contributed to extending the gap between US imports and exports, but they are US-owned assets that have earned Netflix hundreds of millions of dollars in subscription fees. (Squid Game’s impact value for Netflix was estimated at US$891 million in 2021.)
Squid Game is an import, but it’s a giant money-spinner for US streamer Netflix.
And American content on US-based streaming giants does not show up in trade data. The whole world is watching Black Mirror and Ransom Canyon, but these series have never been exported. Rather, they are on a global platform (Netflix). US-based media conglomerates have never been so dominant in the global media market.
In short, trade data does not tell the whole story. If implemented, these tariffs will certainly have far-reaching consequences for the film and TV industry. But they are unlikely to make anyone more prosperous.
Jean Chalaby, Professor of Sociology, City St George's, University of London
Created cardinal in September 2023, Robert Prevost was elevated to the rank of cardinal~bishop in February 2025, he entered the conclave with a reputation for quiet competence, linguistic dexterity (he speaks five languages fluently) and unspectacular holiness.Cover picture Martin Grant, Paris SS17, photographed by Takashi Osato. An exhibition of the Australian designer's work is on at the NGV .
By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Australian Catholic University
When Robert Francis Prevost appeared on the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica as Pope Leo XIV, he set three precedents. He is the first pope from North America, the first Augustinian to occupy the throne of Peter, and the first native English-speaker to do so since Adrian IV in the 12th century.
Pope Leo XIV greeted Rome and the world with a simple benediction: “peace be with all of you”.
In choosing a blessing that stressed concord – and in issuing it in Italian and Spanish – he signalled both pastoral directness and cultural breadth.
A Chicago childhood and academic rigour
Prevost was born in Chicago in 1955.
Raised in the working-class suburb of Dolton, he served as an altar boy and attended St Augustine Seminary High School. He studied a bachelor of science at Villanova University, and earned a doctoral degree in canon law at the Angelicum in Rome.
Prevost entered the Augustinian order in 1977, professed solemn vows in 1981 and was ordained in 1982.
For Augustinians, virtue lies not in poverty for its own sake, but in the radical sharing of goods: community precedes individual achievement.
There are three pillars: interiority, the practical love of neighbour, and a relentless search for truth. This framework would guide Prevost’s missionary work, and his call for unity and peace.
Chiclayo Cathedral, officially the Cathedral of Saint Mary in Chiclayo, Peru is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chiclayo.BETO SANTILLAN/Shutterstock
Prevost has administered communities in more than 50 countries, but he first arrived as a missionary in northern Peru in 1985. Over the next decade he taught canon law, ran a seminary in Trujillo, judged marriage cases and led a fledgling parish on Lima’s urban fringe.
The experience sharpened his awareness of informal employment, extractive industries and migration – concerns that echo the Rerum novarum , an open letter issued by his namesake Leo XIII in 1891. They remain visible in Prevost’s social priorities today.
In 2015, he was appointed Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, and, in 2023, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, effectively placing him in charge of vetting episcopal appointments world-wide.
What’s in a name?
Created cardinal in September 2023 and elevated to the rank of cardinal-bishop of Albano in February 2025, Prevost entered the conclave with a reputation for quiet competence, linguistic dexterity (he speaks five languages fluently) and unspectacular holiness.
The electors turned to him on the fourth ballot. An hour later he greeted the city and the world as Pope Leo XIV, first in Italian then in Spanish: a bilingual gesture honouring his Italian American Chicago roots and his Peruvian citizenship.
Leo XIV’s choice of name is a programmatic signal. By invoking examples of Rome’s protector Leo the Great (pope from 440–61) and the great social teacher Leo XIII (1878–1903), the new Pontiff intimates he will draw upon their precedent.
Raphael’s The Meeting between Leo the Great and Attila, painted in 1514, depicts Leo, escorted by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, meeting with the Hun king outside Rome.Wikimedia Commons
His substantive focus will remain squarely on the challenges of 2025: translating Augustinian communal spirituality into governance, extending the social teaching inaugurated by Leo XIII, and mediating polarised factions.
The memory of his Leo predecessors functions as a compass rather than a map, orienting a pontificate whose horizon is the digital, migratory and climatic upheavals of the 21st century.
Pope Leo XIV will draw inspiration from his namesake, Leo XIII.Library of Congress
We can expect where Leo the Great entered dialogue, Leo XIV will offer diplomacy. Where Leo XIII defended trade-union rights and attacked exploitative capitalism, Leo XIV must address labour, climate disruption and forced displacement.
If Leo XIII gave Catholicism its first systematic response to industrial modernity, Leo XIV may be tasked with articulating an Augustinian vision for the digital Anthropocene: a view of humanity as a pilgrim community, bound by shared love rather than algorithmic preference-profiling.
Of one heart
The opening sentence of the Rule of Saint Augustine is “be of one mind and heart on the way to God”.
The order’s stress on interior prayer rather than external activism complements Leo XIV’s preference for silent Eucharistic adoration over elaborate ceremony. The Augustinian tradition of learning aligns with his own scholarly instinct.
Consistent with Francis, Leo XIV has condemned abortion and euthanasia. He has criticised hard-line immigration policies in the United States. He holds the line only men can be deacons. In a 2012 address, he pointed to media normalisation of “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners”.
The combination marks him as a centrist prepared to defend doctrinal boundaries while pressing assertively on social justice, climate action and the governance transparency that Francis began but did not finish.
Challenges ahead
Leo XIV inherits a fragmented Church. Traditionalists fear doctrinal drift, while progressives want accelerated reform of governance, liturgy and the role of women.
His Augustinian commitment to shared discernment could provide a mediating structure. Meanwhile geopolitical crises demand renewed Holy See diplomacy and Vatican finances still run unsustainable deficits.
Ultimately, Leo XIV embodies a living dialogue between tradition and modernity.
Whether he succeeds will depend on his capacity to translate the Augustinian Order’s ancient ideal of one heart, one mind into structures that protect the vulnerable worker, the displaced migrant and the wounded planet.
Yet his formation, intellect and record of bridge-building suggest he understands the Church’s credibility now rests where it did in 1891 under Leo XIII: in that social charity and theological clarity are not rivals, but partners on the road to God.
Like Leo XIII, Leo XIV approaches the world not as an enemy to be refuted but as a moral terrain to be cultivated. His pontificate must confront the ecological, technological and migratory questions of our age.
His inaugural plea for peace hints at an integral vision in which social justice, ecological stewardship and human fraternity intersect.
Whether he can translate that vision into institutional reform and global moral leadership remains to be seen.
By invoking the heritage of Leo XIII, Leo XIV has set the compass of his papacy. It points toward a Church intellectually serious, socially committed and pastorally close: one speaking anew to workers in Amazon warehouses, migrants in detention camps, students in schools, refugees in the Sahel and young people navigating the gig economy.
If he succeeds, the name he chose will read as prophetic promise, linking 1891’s clarion call for justice with the uncharted demands of 2025 and beyond.
Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Historian, Australian Catholic University
Known for his dandy style, American playwright, actor and screenwriter, Jeremy O. Harris, at the Met Gala 2025 wearing Balmain, tailored by Lionel Nichols.
By Toby Slade and Dijanna Mulhearn
Fashion is one of the most powerful tools we have for understanding ourselves and the world around us. Nowhere is this clearer than in the story of Black American tailoring and the legacy of the Black dandy. Inspired by scholar Monica L. Miller’s groundbreaking book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, the theme of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute spring 2025 show is Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.
The exhibition charts the evolution of the Black dandy from the 18th century to today. The story it tells is about more than suits. It’s about power, pride, resistance and joy.
Each year, the Met Gala takes its dress code from the institute’s spring exhibition. This year’s is “Tailored for You”. So who is the Black dandy, why are they so important to fashion today, and what can we expect to see on the red carpet?
The birth of the Black Dandy
“Black dandy” is a modern term. Figures like American abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818–95) or Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803) would not have called themselves dandies, but they used style with similar effect: as a tool of resistance, self-fashioning and cultural pride.
Toussaint Louverture was a leader during the widespread uprisings of enslaved people in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in 1791. This image was drawn in 1802.The Metropolitan Museum of Art
French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) first wrote about dandies in 1863, describing them as individuals who elevate style to a form of personal and aesthetic resistance.
Baudelaire’s dandy was not just stylish but symbolic. He was an emblem of modernity itself: a time marked by fluid identities, liminal spaces and the collapse of clear boundaries between gender, authenticity and social order.
Dandyism among Black men took root in the 18th and 19th centuries in both the United States and the Caribbean. Tailoring became a way to reclaim dignity under enslavement and colonialism.
Dandies take the clothing of an oppressor – aristocratic, colonial, segregationist or otherwise – and turn it into a weapon of elegance. Through meticulous style and refinement, dandies make a silent yet striking claim to moral superiority.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery, and freed in 1838. This photograph shows him in 1855.The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Douglass famously appeared in immaculate Victorian suits when campaigning for abolition, consciously dressing in the same style as those who denied his freedom.
Louverture used perfectly tailored French military uniforms during the Haitian Revolution against French colonial rule.
In the 1920s, Harlem dandies wore fine tailoring and flamboyant colours, rejecting the idea that poverty or discrimination should dictate presentation.
In perfectly tied cravats, polished shoes and sharply tailored coats, Black dandies refashion power on their own terms.
Presence through style
Dandies also challenge the narrow rules of masculinity.
Conventional menswear often demands restraint, toughness and invisibility. Dandies dare to embrace beauty, self-adornment and performance. This masculinity can be expressive, creative and even flamboyant.
The luxurious silk suits and carefully groomed appearance of American Jazz pioneer Duke Ellington (1899–1974) projected glamour rather than austerity.
The elegantly tailored overcoats and scarves of American poet Langston Hughes (1901–67) suggested a masculinity deeply entwined with creativity and softness.
Figures in Harlem’s ballrooms and jazz clubs blurred gender boundaries decades before mainstream conversations about gender fluidity emerged.
A street scene in Harlem, New York City, photographed in 1943.Library of Congress
A tradition of Black tailoring
In a world where Black self-presentation has long been scrutinised and politicised, tailored clothing asserted visibility, authority and artistry. Dandies transformed fashion into a political declaration of dignity, resistance and creative power.
Black American tailoring practices blossomed most visibly in the zoot suits of the Harlem Renaissance, though they also had strong roots in New Orleans, Chicago and the Caribbean.
As seen in the Sunday Best of the Civil Rights era, Black tailoring walked the line between resistance and celebration: beautiful but with clear political intent.
In the 1970s, the Black dandy became more flamboyant, wearing tight, colourful clothes with bold accessories. He transformed traditional suits with exaggerated shapes, bright patterns and plaids inspired by African heritage.
Artists popular with a white audience like Sammy Davis Jr (1925–90), Miles Davis (1926–91) and James Brown (1933–2006) embraced the aesthetic, contributing to its widespread acceptance.
Sammy Davis Jr with his first European gold record, 1976.Nationaal Archief, CC BY
Meanwhile, a super stylish contingent of Black men in the Congo, La Sapeur, refined their look so spectacularly they would become the benchmark of the Black dandy for generations to come.
The 1990s saw a new era of Black dandyism emerge through luxury sportswear and hip-hop aesthetics.
Designer Dapper Dan (1944–) revolutionised fashion by remixing luxury logos into bold, custom streetwear, creating a distinctive Black aesthetic that bridged hip-hop culture and high fashion.
Musician Andre 3000 (1975–) redefined menswear by blending Southern Black style with bold colour, vintage tailoring and theatrical flair.
Today, the tradition thrives in the style of influencer Wisdom Kaye, the elegance of LeBron James, and the risk-taking of Lewis Hamilton.
Dressing for the red carpet
Tailored for You invites guests to interpret the dandy’s legacy in personal, bold and boundary-pushing ways.
Whether conforming to tradition, subverting expectations or creating something entirely new, this theme is a celebration of the freedom to dress – and be – on your own terms.
The Black dandy is a figure of defiance and desire, of ambiguity and brilliance, of resistance and beauty. Dandyism blurs boundaries between masculinity and femininity, artifice and authenticity, conformity and rebellion. It unsettles fixed identities and reflects broader tensions within modern life.
The poet and activist Countee Cullen, as depicted by Winold Reiss around 1925.National Portrait Gallery
Black dandies have shocked, amused, offended, delighted and inspired society since their inception. In the sharp defiance of Douglass’ Victorian suits, the flamboyant spectacle of Harlem ballrooms, and the logo-laced rebellion of Dapper Dan’s streetwear, the Black dandy has continually forced the world to reckon with the politics of presence, pride and performance.
Despite being overlooked by mainstream fashion history, they’ve shaped the way we see elegance, masculinity and self-expression. This Met Gala and the accompanying exhibition are not just a celebration – they are a long-overdue recognition.
Toby Slade, Associate Professor of Fashion, University of Technology Sydney and Dijanna Mulhearn, PhD Candidate, School of Design. Author of Red Carpet Oscars, University of Technology Sydney
Fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar and editor-in-chief of Vogue, Diana Vreeland, with Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy and Karl Katz at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute's party at the Carlyle Hotel for the 1977 "Glory of Russian Costume" exhibition. \
By Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén, University of Southern California
The annual Met Gala in New York City is a dazzling collision of celebrity, fashion and media frenzy. The event is ostensibly a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, which houses a vast collection of historical costumes and fashion artifacts.
But for many people, it’s that time of year when their social media feeds become awash with posts, stories and live streams of A-list actors, musicians and influencers ascending the iconic steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to showcase their elaborate outfits.
The gala has come a long way since its early days as an intimate fundraising event for the local fashion industry and New York’s old-guard elite.
Through my research at the Met’s Thomas J. Watson Library, I discovered the ways in which a former fashion editor named Diana Vreeland elevated this formerly stuffy charity ball into a global media sensation.
Zendaya wearing Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano at the Met Ball in 2024, which was themed 'Sleeping Beauties, Reawakening Fashion.' Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
A low-key affair
Philanthropist and arts patron Irene Lewisohn launched the Museum of Costume Art in 1937 to promote the preservation and study of historical clothing. In 1946, New York fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert helped bring the museum’s collection under the purview of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the caveat that it would operate independently of the museum’s budget. It was then renamed the Costume Institute.
Dorothy Shaver burnished the reputation of the Costume Institute in its early years.Erwin Blumenfeld/Condé Nast via Getty Images
In 1948, Lambert organized the inaugural gala to raise funds for the institute. The following year, Lord & Taylor president Dorothy Shaver established a formal management structure for both the institute and its annual gala, streamlined operations, and helped burnish the reputation of the fledgling institution among New York’s social elite. During her tenure, gala revenues climbed steadily, from US$31,723 in 1949 to $118,775 in 1958 – roughly $1.3 million in today’s dollars.
The Met Gala that Shaver shaped looked similar, in many ways, to today’s: There was a theme, a formal dinner, live entertainment and a fashion parade that attendees could participate in. There were also a photographers row, where guests could be snapped by famed fashion photographers for a fee, and raffles with department store prizes.
After Shaver’s death in 1958, department store executives continued to steer the gala, but attendance and revenue waned. In 1961, in an effort to cut costs and revive interest, the event was moved into the museum itself.
The gala needed a reinvention. Soon, it would get one.
Fashion designer Valentino and Diana Vreeland attend The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute gala for 'Diaghilev: Costumes and Designs of the Ballet Russes' in 1978. Vreeland's Vision
Diana Vreeland took the reins of the Met Gala in 1973.
She’d had a storied career in fashion journalism, including stints as fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar and editor-in-chief of Vogue.
Vreeland, however, understood that in order for the gala to grow, it needed to become a newsworthy event that would be of interest to those who might not even attend the gala itself. So she selected spectacular, sometimes controversial themes that would generate interest from the press.
Vreeland’s first exhibition in 1973 was bold: a tribute to a single designer, Cristóbal Balenciaga.
“The World of Balenciaga” was funded by the Spanish government, Iberia Airlines and five Spanish banks – a controversial move, considering Spain was still under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. The show featured Franco’s granddaughter’s wedding dress as one of the central pieces.
Some curators also bristled at Vreeland’s unorthodox approach to exhibition planning, such as blurring time periods, displaying clothes without providing historical context and prioritizing beauty over scholarship.
“She knows fashion and who wore it,” one former museum official said, “but she doesn’t know history.”
Nonetheless, critics deemed the gala and its accompanying exhibition a huge success. American designer Stan Herman declared that the garments “belong in a museum, like good paintings.”
In the coming years, Vreeland’s other themes included “Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design,” “The ‘10s, '20s and '30s,” and “American Women of Style.” The latter was accompanied by a Vogue magazine spread starring actress and model Marisa Berenson, who channeled iconic American “it girls” like Irene Castle, Consuelo Vanderbilt and Josephine Baker.
Models and actresses wear costumes and masks for the Costume Institute’s 1974 exhibition ‘Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design.’ Diana Vreeland is seated in the center, sans mask.
Buzz and pizzazz
Before Vreeland, coverage of the gala was limited to society pages and publications like Women’s Wear Daily.
Vreeland knew how to generate buzz because she thought like an editor. She also knew how to charm the press. Vreeland popularized words like “pizzazz,” “splendeur” and “deeveen.” She told tales of discovering model and actress Lauren Bacall and the work of fashion designer Roy Halston. She regaled reporters with stories of allegedly visiting Buffalo Bill in Wyoming.
Under Vreeland’s leadership, media coverage of the gala and exhibitions exploded, with articles appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, People, Interview, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Revista Hola!, ABC de las Americas, Il Tempo, Paris Herald Tribune and Tokyo’s High Fashion, among others. During her tenure, she also opened the doors to reporters and photographers so they could cover the night of the event.
In an interview with Women’s Wear Daily she said, “I am an entertainer. And I believe in wit, and good nature, and laughter.”
Corporate controversies
With “The World of Balenciaga,” Vreeland also pioneered the use of corporate sponsorships to finance the exhibitions and parties. In 1982, Pierre Cardin Management funded “La Belle Époque,” a Met Gala theme associated with the relaunch of the famed Paris restaurant Maxim’s, in which Cardin had invested.
In 1983, Vreeland courted controversy again with the first exhibition honoring a living designer — Yves Saint Laurent — underwritten by the Pierre Bergé Foundation. Bergé was Saint Laurent’s life and business partner.
The show was launched amid rumors of the designer’s declining health and growing criticism of the museum being exploited as a publicity platform.
“One day the god of the Temple of Dendur will cry: 'I am not on earth to share a museum with a bunch of fashion freaks!’” critic John Heilpern groused in the East Side Express.
The following year, Ralph Lauren became the central sponsor and guest of honor for “Man and the Horse.”
Designer Yves Saint Laurent and Diana Vreeland arrive at the 'Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective' at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute in 1983.
Under Vreeland, a new kind of guest list also emerged.
The rise of celebrity culture in the 1960s gave birth to the “jet set” – beautiful people whose fame transcended traditional society circles.
Vreeland embraced this shift. She made space at the gala for the likes of Andy Warhol, Bianca and Mick Jagger, Halston and his Halstonettes, David Bowie, Cher, Diana Ross, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson.
Their presence helped transform the gala from society soirée to pop culture phenomenon.
After Vreeland’s death in 1989, the event lost some its splendor under the guidance of museum curators. Women’s Wear Daily columnist Aileen Mehle later lamented the decline, writing that the event had become “a far cry from the dear old Diana Vreeland days when that fashion oracle called the Costume Institute’s shots, and elegance and anticipation abounded.”
In the late 1990s, however, the museum curators who had run the event since Vreeland’s death ceded control back to the fashion industry. High-end brands like Chanel, Versace and Christian Dior sponsored the Met Gala, while fashion editors such as Liz Tilberis and Anna Wintour chaired the event.
By channeling Vreeland’s vision, they were able to turn the gala into the global media spectacle it is today, which now thrives in an era of social media and global branding.
This year’s theme, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Styles,” is co-chaired by rapper-producer Pharrell Williams, who is also the artistic director of Menswear at Louis Vuitton. The LVMH conglomerate – Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton – is the sponsor, showing how the gala continues to operate as a platform where corporate branding, celebrity culture and high culture converge.
Taylor Swift attends the 2014 Met Gala, themed ‘Charles James: Beyond Fashion.’Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén, SweAmfo/ASF Research Fellow at USC School of Cinematic Arts | Fulbright Scholar, University of Southern California
Newspaper headlines when Trump wins the Presidency, as read on the subway, created by Barry Blitt and published in the New Yorker, November 14, 2016.
By Matthew Ricketson, Deakin University
Like many, I entered The New Yorker through the cartoon door. The first cartoon I loved, and remember to this day, featured a New Yorker staple – two guys sitting in a bar – with one saying to the other: “I wish just once someone would say to me, ‘I read your latest ad, and I loved it’.”
For someone whose first job after university was an unhappy stint in an advertising agency, the cartoon was a tonic. They are still the first thing I look at when the magazine arrives by mail or the daily newsletter by email, and the first thing shared with my family. There have been around 80,000 published since the magazine’s first issue on February 25 1925.
I had discovered The New Yorker while studying literature at Monash University and writing an honours thesis on the playwright Tom Stoppard. The English drama critic Kenneth Tynan had written a long profile of Stoppard for the magazine in 1977, combining sharp insights into the plays, behind-the-curtains material from Tynan’s time as literary manager at the National Theatre (he bought the rights to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 1966) and slices of Stoppard’s life.
The most enticing of these was Tynan’s account of a Saturday afternoon cricket match between a team from The Guardian, comprising several no-nonsense typesetters and the paper’s industrial correspondent, and Harold Pinter’s XI, which was actually a IX owing to two late withdrawals, including the captain himself.
Stoppard arrived in dazzlingly white whites but didn’t seem to take the game seriously, inadvertently dropping a smouldering cigarette butt between kneepad and trousers as he took the field. “Playwright Bursts into Flames at Wicket,” he called back to Tynan standing on the boundary.
A younger Tom Stoppard.Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
Once the game began, though, Stoppard was a revelation, first as wicket-keeper where his “elastic leaps and hair-trigger reflexes” saw him dismiss four players, and then as a batsman, when he smoothly drove and cut his way to the winning score.
I had never read anything like this. It wasn’t academic literary criticism, which tended to assault the English language on a polysyllabic basis. It wasn’t the daily newspaper, which as Stoppard himself mocked, was terse, formal and leaned to the formulaic. It wasn’t a biography of someone long dead, but a “profile”, whatever that was, of a living, breathing person.
I wanted more and so began looking out for the magazine but read it only intermittently. Released from advertising, I began working in journalism in 1981. The 1980s coincided with the final years of William Shawn’s 35-year editorship when The New Yorker almost collapsed under the weight of very long articles about very slight subjects and Shawn’s legendary prudishness. (Tynan once referred to a “pissoir”, which Shawn changed to “circular curbside construction”.)
Shawn began working at The New Yorker as a fact-checker eight years after its founding in 1925 by Harold Ross, a former newspaperman, and his wife, reporter Jane Grant. Shawn took over as editor after Ross’s death in 1951, and was brilliant, encouraging writers such as Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Hannah Arendt and Truman Capote to do work better than even they expected.
Truman Capote in 1959.Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
More than 60 writers have dedicated books to Shawn that grew out of New Yorker articles, according to Ben Yagoda’s excellent 2000 history of the magazine.
In Shawn’s later years, though, the weaknesses of his approach became dominant, and he could not bear to let go of the editorship. As John Bennet, a staff member trying to decipher Shawn’s gnomic utterances, said:
Shawn ran the magazine the way Algerian terrorist cells were organised in the battle of Algiers – no one knew who anybody else was or what anybody else was doing.
Yagoda writes the cornerstones of the magazine were:
A belief in civility, a respect for privacy, a striving for clear and accurate prose, a determination to publish what one believes in, irrespective of public opinion and commercial concerns, and a sense that The New Yorker was something special, something other and somehow more important than just another magazine. These admirable values all had their origin in the Ross years. But under Shawn, such emotional energy was invested in each of them that they became obsessive and sometimes distorted and perverted, in the sense of being turned completely inward.
The 1980s may have been a difficult period for the magazine, but it still produced some outstanding journalism, and it was the journalism I increasingly turned to, particularly that of Janet Malcolm. Today, readers know of her work through books such as In the Freud Archives, The Journalist and the Murderer and The Silent Woman, but all three, like most of her writing, originally appeared as long articles in the magazine.
I can still recall the jolt I felt reading the famous opening paragraph of The Journalist and the Murderer (published in the magazine in 1989):
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.
Malcolm’s dissection of the relationship between Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, and Joe McGinniss, a journalist convicted by her ice-cold, surgically precise prose, is by turns brilliant, thought-provoking, infuriating and incomplete. Well over three decades later, Malcolm’s book is one all journalists should read.
To Malcolm, the relationship between journalists and their subjects was the “canker that lies at the heart of the rose of journalism”, which could not be rooted out. Hers was a long overdue wake-up call for an industry allergic to reflection and self-criticism. But in the end, for all the brilliance with which she opened up a difficult topic, Malcolm packed the journalist–subject relationship in too small a box.
Among her colleagues at the magazine were many who carefully and ethically navigated the challenges of gaining a subject’s trust, then writing about them honestly, as I learnt when researching a PhD which became a book, Telling True Stories.
One example is Lawrence Wright’s work for the magazine on the rise of Al-Qaeda, and the subsequent book The Loooming Tower. In a note on sources, Wright reflects on the questions of trust and friendship that haunt the journalist–subject relationship.
Knowledge is seductive; the reporter wants to know, and the more he knows, the more interesting he becomes to the source. There are few forces in human nature more powerful than the desire to be understood; journalism couldn’t exist without it.
By conspicuously placing a tape recorder between him and his interviewee, Wright tries to remind both parties “that there is a third party in the room, the eventual reader”.
Outstanding journalists
When I began teaching journalism, especially feature writing, at RMIT in the 1990s, I found myself drawn more and more to The New Yorker and to its history. The “comic paper” Ross originally envisaged had travelled a long way since 1925. The second world war impelled Ross and Shawn, then his deputy, to broaden and deepen the scope of their reporting.
Most famously, after the dropping of two atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing the Japanese to surrender in 1945, they commissioned John Hersey to return to Japan, interview survivors and, as Hersey later put it, write about “what happened not to buildings but to human beings”. Ross set aside the cartoons and devoted the entire issue of August 31 1946 to Hersey’s 31,000-word article simply headlined “Hiroshima”.
I still remember being deeply moved by “Hiroshima”, which I first read half a century after publication and half a world away while on a summer holiday in the bush. The backstory behind the article (ranked number one on the Best American Journalism of the 20th Century list), and its impact on journalism and the world, is well told in Lesley Blume’s 2020 book, Fallout.
By the 1990s, when Tina Brown became the first woman to edit The New Yorker, it definitely needed a makeover. It still did not have a table of contents, nor run photographs. And, beyond a headline, it gave readers little idea what a story was about! She eased up on the copy editors’ notorious fussiness. As E.B. White, a longtime contributor, once said: “Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.”
Brown lasted only marginally longer than her predecessor, Robert Gottlieb. Her editorship has been given a bad rap by New Yorker traditionalists, but she gave the magazine a much-needed electric shock, injecting fresh blood.
A list of outstanding journalists she hired who remain at the magazine three decades later is illuminating: David Remnick (who followed her as editor, in 1998), Malcolm Gladwell, Jane Mayer, Lawrence Wright, Anthony Lane and John Lahr, among others.
There’s going to be a lot of celebrating of the magazine’s 100th anniversary, including a Netflix documentary scheduled for release later in the year.
Not many magazines reach such a milestone. One of The New Yorker’s early competitors, Time, which began two years before, was for many years one of the most widely read and respected magazines in the world. It continues today but has a thinner print product and a barely noticed online presence. (I say that as someone who once worked for three years in Time’s Australian office.)
Time is far from alone in this. Magazines, like newspapers, have struggled to adapt to the digital world as the advertising revenue that once afforded them plump profits was funnelled into the big online technology companies, Google and Facebook.
Yet The New Yorker has not only adapted to the digital age but thrived in it. It is one of few legacy media outlets whose prestige and influence have actually grown in the past two decades.
As the internet arrived, the New Yorker’s paid circulation was 900,000. It exceeded a million, for the first time in the magazine’s history, in 2004. As of October last year it was 1,161,064 (for both the print and electronic edition). Subscribers to the magazine’s electronic edition have increased five-fold since it began in 2016 and now stand at 534,287. Yes, advertising revenue remains challenged, recently forcing some redundancies at the magazine, but nothing compared to other parts of the media industry.
Apart from the weekly edition, a daily newsletter was introduced around 2015. The magazine has also expanded into audio, podcasting and documentary film, runs a well-attended annual festival, invites readers to try their hand at devising captions for cartoons and does a line of merchandising. All the astute branding on the part of the magazine and its owners, Condé Nast, would have Shawn rolling in his grave, but the core of the magazine’s editorial mission remains true.
Why it succeeds
The key reasons behind The New Yorker’s current success, in my view, are twofold. First, as the internet made a cornucopia of information available instantly anywhere, the magazine continued to produce material, especially journalism, that was distinctive and different.
Journalist Jane Mayer.goodreads
Think, for example, of the extraordinary disclosures made by Seymour Hersh and Jane Mayer during George W. Bush’s administration (2001–2009) about the torture by American soldiers of Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison and how rules about what constituted torture were changed to make almost anything short of death permissible.
Both journalists later published their work in books: Hersh’s Chain of Command: the road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (2004) and Mayer’s The Dark Side: the inside story on how the war on terror turned into a war on American ideals (2008).
Alongside the investigative journalism have been many examples of deep, productive dives into seemingly unpromising topics such as the packaged ice cube business (Peter Boyer, The Emperor of Ice, February 12 2001) and a movie dog (Susan Orlean, The Dog Star: the life and times of Rin Tin Tin, August 29 2011).
In a world of information abundance, what remained scarce was the ability to make sense of chaotic events, knotty issues and complicated people, in prose that is almost always clear, alive to irony, elegant and sometimes profound. In other words, while most of the legacy media was dumbing down, The New Yorker was dumbing up.
The second reason for the magazine’s continued success is that even as the internet’s information abundance has curdled into the chaos and cruelty of social media’s algorithm-driven world, The New Yorker has not wavered in its editorial mission.
Just as Donald Trump doubled down on the Big Lie surrounding the 2020 election result and the January 6 2021 riots at the Capitol, so the magazine doubled down on reporting his actions since then and into his second presidency.
Other media outlets, even The Washington Post, which did so much excellent reporting during the first Trump presidency, have kowtowed to Trump, or at least its proprietor appears to have. Jeff Bezos decided the newspaper should not run a pre-election endorsement editorial last year. The Amazon owner was placed front and centre with other heads of the big tech companies at Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
By contrast, The New Yorker has published a steady stream of reporting and commentary about the outrageous and shocking actions of the Trump administration in its first month.
The new administration has moved so quickly and on so many fronts that the import of its actions have overwhelmed the media, making it hard to keep up with reporting every development in the detail it might deserve.
To take one example, The Washington Post reported that candidates for senior posts in intelligence and law enforcement were being asked so-called loyalty questions about whether the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” and the January 6 Capitol riots an “inside job”.
Two individuals being considered for positions in intelligence “who did not give the desired straight "yes” answers, were not selected. It is not clear whether other factors contributed to the decision".
The report prompted media commentary, but not enough of it recognised the gravity of an attempt to rewrite history every bit as egregious as Stalinist Russia.
The New Yorker has made its own statement, in response, by reprinting Luke Mogelson’s remarkable reporting from January 6 2021, with photography by Balasz Gardi and alarming footage from inside the capitol with the rioters.
David Remnick, now in his 27th year as editor, was among ten media figures asked recently by The Washington Post how the second Trump administration should be reported. He said:
To some degree, we should be self-critical, but we should stop apologizing for everything we do. I think that journalism during the first Trump administration achieved an enormous amount in terms of its investigative reporting. And if we’re going to go into a mode where we’re doing nothing but apologizing and falling into a faint and accepting a false picture of reality because we think that’s what fairness demands, then I think we’re making an enormous mistake. I just don’t think we should throw up our hands and accede to reality as it is seen through the lens of Donald Trump.
Remnick’s argument is clear-eyed and courageous. You would hope it is heard by other parts of the news media that have long ceded editorial leadership to what was for many years categorised simply as a “general interest magazine”.
Failing that, they could look at the cartoons. On February 14, the magazine published one by Brendan Loper featuring a drawing of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster standing outside the Cookie Company factory where a spokesman said,
Let me assure you that as an unpaid “special factory employee” Mr. Monster stands to personally gain nothing from this work.
Here’s looking at you, Elon.
Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University
Lifesize sculptures of a woman and man have been discovered in a monumental tomb uncovered outside the gates on the east side of Pompeii.
By Emily Hauser, University of Exeter
Visitors to the site of Pompeii, the ancient Roman town buried (and so preserved for thousands of years) by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, don’t often think to look beyond the city walls. And it’s easy to understand why: there’s plenty on offer within this monumentally well-preserved town, from jewel-like wall paintings of myths and legends like Helen of Troy, to the majestic amphitheatre and sumptuously stuccoed baths.
But step outside the gates for a moment, and you’re in a very different – yet no less important – world.
For the ancient Romans, the roads and paths leading into and out of cities were crucial: not just for getting places, but as a very real kind of “memory lane”. Tombs lined these ancient byways – some simply bearing inscriptions to the memories of loved ones lost, others, more grand, accommodating space for friends and family to feast in remembrance of the dead.
Some of the tombs even address the passerby directly, as if its occupant could speak again, and pass on what they’ve learned. Take one Pompeiian example, set up by the freedman Publius Vesonius Phileros, which opens with ineffable politeness: “Stranger, wait a while if it’s no trouble, and learn what not to do.”
Going into Pompeii, and leaving it, was about being reminded of ways of living and ways of dying – as well as an invitation to tip your hat to those who trod the path before you, and to learn from their example.
Which is why the recent discovery of a monumental tomb crowned by life-size sculptures of a woman and man, just outside the gates on the east side of the town, isn’t just a fascinating find in and of itself. It’s also a reminder to stop, and to remember the people who once lived and died in this bustling Italian town.
The tomb’s main feature is a large wall, peppered with niches where cremated remains would have been placed, and surmounted by the astonishing relief sculpture of the woman and man. They’re standing side by side but not touching.
The woman is taller than the man
and is draped in a tunic and veil.
I rather like that she’s slightly taller than him, standing at 1.77m, while he’s 1.75m. She’s draped in a modest tunic, cloak and veil (symbols of Roman womanhood), and boasts a pronounced crescent-moon-shaped pendant at her neck called a lunula, that (through the age-old link with lunar cycles) tells a story about female fertility and birth. He, meanwhile, is dressed in the quintessentially Roman toga that instantly identifies him as a proud male citizen of Rome.
Who do the statues depict?
The status quo in archaeology, when a woman and a man are presented next to each other in tombs and burials like this, has always been to assume that she’s his wife. Yet here, there’s an unmissable clue that there’s more going on. That’s because, in her right hand, she’s holding a laurel branch – which was used by priestesses to waft the smoke of incense and herbs in religious rituals.
Priestesses, in the Roman world, held unusual levels of power for women – and it’s been suggested that this woman might have been a priestess of the goddess Ceres (Roman equivalent of Demeter).
So this high-status priestess is shown alongside a man. The inclusion of the symbols of her status (as priestess) alongside his (as a togatus, or “toga-wearing man”), shows that she’s there in her own right, as a contributing member of Pompeiian society. She might be his mother; she might even have been more important than him (which would explain why she’s taller). Without an inscription, we don’t know for sure. The point is: a woman doesn’t have to be a wife to be standing next to a man.
What’s fascinating is this isn’t unique to Pompeii. In my new book, Mythica, which looks at the women not of Rome but of Bronze age Greece, I’ve found that new discoveries in archaeology are overturning the assumptions that used to be made about a woman’s place in society, and the value of their roles, all the time.
One fascinating example is a royal burial in Late Bronze Age Mycenae: a woman and a man who’d been buried together in the royal necropolis, around 1700 years before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius decimated Pompeii. As is typical, this woman was immediately labelled, by the archaeologists who uncovered her, as the man’s wife. But then DNA analysis came into the picture.
As recently as 2008, both skeletons were sampled for DNA – and came up with the game-changing result that they were, in fact, brother and sister. She’d been buried here as a member of a royal family by birth, not by marriage, in other words. She was there on her own terms.
From golden Mycenae to the ash-blasted ruins of Pompeii: the remains from the ancient world are telling us a different story from the one we always thought. A woman didn’t have to be a wife to make a difference.
So I think it’s worth listening to the advice of our friend Publius. Let’s look at the burials of the past, and learn.
Emily Hauser, Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Exeter
