It is The Georgetown Voice’s 50th anniversary week. To celebrate, the Halftime Leisure team got together to review our favorite Halftime posts. Halftime Leisure covers just about anything, and it would be impossible for us to mention every single category in one week. So, for our final Halftime Favorites, we chose some of our favorite wild (and amazing) article ideas.
We hope you enjoyed our past week of Halftime Favorites—it has been quite a fun one. And happy 50th to the Voice!
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Anna: “Halftime Takes: What the Oscars Missed” by Danielle Guida, Luis Borrero, and Dajour Evans.
The only thing I love more than a good collab is an even better classic Halftime roast. It is safe to say that this Oscar season provided more than enough fuel for the Halftime hot take fire. In this article, Danielle, Luis, and Dajour all contributed very thoughtful and insightful opinions about the Oscars and who should have and shouldn’t have been nominated. These writers, like most Halftime writer, don’t shy away from revealing their real, valid feelings while still articulating themselves really well. This article embodies just how much of a platform Halftime Leisure is for opinions of all shapes and sizes. Personally, the first ever Halftime article I wrote was a hot take of Forrest Gump (1994) in which I talked about the pitfalls of the film. I felt more than comfortable sharing my true opinions knowing that Halftime was a safe space for all thoughts. It is important that in this new age of social media and instantaneous news, that we still stay true to our own thoughts. Articles like this Oscars takes are a staple of Halftime Leisure and epitomize everything this platform represent.
John: “The Meme Files: Powerful Shaggy” by Skyler Coffey
This article, man. You look at it and think, “Wow, this really exists.” And yeah. It does. And it’s beautiful. Memes are a pretty bizarre thing, but they seem so universally recognized by our generation that they’ve been normalized as a part of Internet culture. When you take a step back though, as Sky does here, you can really appreciate just how complex and odd these images really are. I have massive respect for her not just because she took on the beast of trying to research and articulate the history of where the meme came from, but she also did so in a way that was really entertaining to read. The article is filled with quips and rhetorical questions that are themselves funny, yet at the same time Sky’s able to convey a lot of information about the topic and the source material from which it came. Her voice comes through the text in a way that I and many other writers I know have a lot of difficulty achieving. And it’s all about Shaggy memes. That’s why Halftime is awesome.
Sky: “A Proposal for a Best Animal Award at the Oscars” by Danielle Guida
This—right here—is peak Halftime. As the title states, this article puts forth the idea of a “Best Animal Award” at the Oscars. Somehow, Danielle manages to turn a fun concept into an even more enjoyable read, with in-depth examples of specific animals from 2018 films she thinks should be nominated—from Roma’s (2018) dog Borras to The Favourite’s (2018) “fastest duck in the city” Horatio. Danielle’s analysis does not just tell us about which animals are intelligent, which are method actors, and which are good boys. She also provides unique and insightful commentary into various aspects of these movies (like symbolism and characterization) by examining the significance of each animal’s role. With all the controversy and criticism surrounding the most recent Oscars, Danielle offers us a rare set of nominations in which there is no poor choice.
Juliana: “‘She-Hulk #1’ Is a Perfect Balance” by Benjamin Mazzara
In case you don’t know me, I’m a comic book fan. I used to collect Brazilian comic books growing up, only to evolve into a watches-every-Marvel-movie-and-show adult(ish) person. I have three action figures on my desk and two Marvel posters on my wall (and two more on my bed, waiting to be hung). So when I found this during spring break while looking for older articles to promote on the Halftime Facebook page, I rushed to the group chat to ask, “How did no one ever tell me we used to write about comic books?” It was wild: Halftime was the first section I got involved with in the Voice. And to discover that one of its first articles was about something that I’m head-over-heels in love with? It was incredible.
That’s the thing about Halftime: It covers a lot of things, so it’s easy to find something you are passionate about and write about it. Halftime is Halftime, and it’s unapologetic about covering anything from TV shows to food to memes—and even comic books. So thank you, Benjamin Mazzara. I have no idea who you are, but your takes on She-Hulk and female superheroes are amazing, and now I want to find this comic book to check out if Pulido’s art style really feels rushed. But, most importantly, thanks for making my small nerd soul feel like she really did find her place in this wild little section that is Halftime.
