by Rachel Sechrist

The recent Wicked (2024) movie starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande has certainly gathered talk amongst anyone on the internet; however, it is not the first musical-to-movie adaptation that has been made. Among films of this nature in recent years, namely, Mean Girls (2024) and Dear Evan Hansen (2021), movie producers have attempted to recreate the musicals in the film form, but these movies were not received all too positively among the original musical fans. What made the new Wicked film different?

Marc Platt, Wicked's producer, told NBC Universal “We decided to tell the story over two films to give each character, each storyline, the justice that it deserves.” Anyone who watched the 2024 film will see that the filmmakers were focused substantially more on developing the characters than simply regurgitating the plot of the already beloved musical.

With the first act of the musical (running around an hour and a half) turned into a 2-hour and 40-minute movie, the viewers get to see much more into each character’s backstories. For example, one element added to the film was the insight into Elphaba’s childhood, where the audience sees that her bear nanny, Dulcibear, practically raises her. This helps explain even further Elphaba’s passion for animal rights throughout the film which is, ultimately, the reason for her descent into “wickedness.”

Another difference that adds much more depth to the character is the fact that contrary to the musical, Elphaba is not planning to enroll at Shiz University at the beginning of the film. She is told to stay to look after her sister while she is dropping her off by her father. Eventually, she becomes overemotional and outbursts, using the magic she possesses to push objects away from her in the courtyard, leading to Madame Morrible becoming interested in her ability. Additionally, this drives a further wedge into the already icy relationship between Elphaba and Glinda, because of Glinda’s jealousy, making their eventual friendship even more heartwarming.

This is precisely the reason why Wicked did so well at the box office: instead of simply putting stage to screen like in past adaptations, the producers sought to add something new to the story. 

Another major influence on the film’s success, as well as many other films in recent years, is, of course, the movie’s popularity on platforms like TikTok. With trends featuring songs from the movie, people dressing up as the characters, and others of the sort, the film gained significant popularity for months before the premiere.

However, compared to a movie of similar popularity on social media, Mean Girls (2024), the Wicked movie received much more praise in the theaters. Once again, Wicked was likely able to achieve this because of its commitment to telling a story that viewers hadn’t heard before, while still staying true to the original integrity of the movie. In contrast, the musical version of Mean Girls which came out earlier this year, was a simple recreation of the stage production with only a few new elements. 

This all being said, there is certainly excitement among viewers to see Wicked Part Two, released in November of 2025, and follow Elphaba and Glinda to the end of their stories, both plot-wise and regarding their newly developed characters.

Axolotls: Fantasy Creature or Possible Pet? 

by Lauren McVitty 12/10/24

Vaping: Respiratory Suicide 

by Adalynne Souders & Jose Echevarria

Vaping has rattled our generation of young adults and students. Many of us ask the question, “How can we stop it?” But before we can ask this, students must see the bigger picture.  

The vaping epidemic has left students annoyed and addicted. Interviews with students revealed that many of them were dissatisfied with the amount of vaping that happens in the bathrooms, and even during instruction in the classroom. We asked Kyle Smith, a senior, how vaping affected the student body. He said, “Lots of people probably tend to cut class to go and vape in the school bathrooms, would be my guess.”

Many Red Land students are fed up with the vaping epidemic because of the constantly crowded bathrooms. The stench of flavored air any time a step is taken in the general vicinity of the bathrooms causes discomfort and irritation.. Although bathroom passes are monitored, students still find a way to get into the bathrooms, creating a conflict for those who have a bathroom pass and value class time. 

Vaping has blown up as a trend in the past couple of years, with an ignorance of consumers' health. The FDA has updated concerns with new known health conditions. This can include but is not limited to asthma, cancer, early addiction, increased blood pressure, depression, or anxiety. 

Vaping has become a part of the younger generations' culture and has been catering to children's habits with new types of devices and flavors to keep consumers interested. Vaping can start anywhere between 13-16 years of age, causing early addiction within teenagers as the prefrontal cortex is still not fully developed. Researchers from The Journal of Consumers Affairs claim that close to 23% of the adolescent population uses e-cigarettes and vaping devices. “People think it's cooler than smoking or less dangerous than smoking,” Master Sergeant Collier commented.

Vaping in the classroom affects not only students' health but also their classwork and grades. Impacting academics in the classroom can have detrimental setbacks for students. "They're missing tons of the instruction that's going on in class. and especially math, right?” -- “You'll see a decrease in grades, you'll see missing assignments,” said assistant principal Mrs. Jackson.  Teachers and administrators alike are coming together to realize the risk affects not only the adolescent's body, but their mind as well, with more kids failing due to addiction.

While asking about how to stop vaping within the school body, Master Sergeant Collier said, “I'm not sure that there is a really good way to crack down on it because people always figure out a way to get around [the rules].” 

Mr. Jones agreed, adding “It all starts at home.”

Supporting that if parents are unable to supervise what their children do affects not only their child, but whomever their child comes into contact with. Peer pressure is a leading cause of teenage smoking and vaping, so parental supervision and communication is key. Teaching children the consequences of vaping and monitoring their behavior as well as where students' funds are going might help to deplete some teenage smoking. 

Vaping must be taken seriously, not only by administrators but also by parents, other students, and ourselves. As a generation, we are wrapped up in a smoke stick instead of thinking about our lives ahead.

Cancel Culture: Effective social accountability or a roadblock to social engagement?

by Xavier Ambush and Caden Douville 11/19/2024

Cancel culture is an act that has been developed over the last couple centuries from back when people were being tarred and feathered to now where people are being “called out” on social media in such a way that can shun/remove them from public consciousness as a punishment of sorts. Cancel culture is social justice renamed for the modern era and has resulted in the exposing of many popular people such as streamers, artists, musicians, etc. In order to understand cancel culture it must first be understood how it affects the mind, society, and the implications of being canceled.

Following previously stated info, cancel culture is something that lays in the back of many people’s minds when interacting with anyone or anything on social media. Many people observe or have observed people being canceled and are now implicitly/unconsciously cautious of what they post within their thought process such as the idea of presenting oneself in a positive light with people halfway around the world instead of saying how they actually feel because of the negative social repercussions. 

As Mel Stanfill, a UCF assistant professor of texts and technology, “I think cancel culture can reflect awareness that people are not willing to accept things that they used to accept or have not been able to resist in the past, but in some ways it’s a moral panic.’” cancel culture, as much as it may seem, is not a surface level issue that can be brushed off for tomorrow and procrastinated on since people’s minds internalize what others think of them so heavily. So when searching through the impact of cancel culture the main things that tend to come up when talking about people who have been canceled usually are what the person did, how people received it, what was done, and what the person is doing now. A lot of the time a person usually recedes from the internet and stays radio silent in a manner of speaking or they try to fix what they’ve done wrong in the public eye. There are outliers, like Andrew Tate, Lil Darkie, Mario Judah, Kanye West, and Travis Scott who choose to ignore the backlash of their media. 

Furthermore, society is like a thirsty sponge, always drinking up what is produced by people whether that be good or bad. In such cases, cancel culture has changed modern justice from the law into the virtual hands of the people. Cancel culture has allowed people to demean and drain the social presence of others online such as companies like Urban Outfitters, Aunt Jemima’s, Amazon, etc. The impact that cancel culture has had on society is like that of soldiers walking the streets to prevent “crimes” and actual crimes. One such example is that of Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy, who  shot an elephant and posed with its corpse. Society, online at least, was outraged and as such people took action and so the internet,”saw the hosting company lose 70,000 domains in a single week,” according to Enzuzo writers. They also wrote that Bob Parsons stepped down in 2018 (it isn't clear whether Bob being canceled was the reason or if there was something else), which is where the implications of being canceled come in.

To elaborate, people being canceled has been a concept for the last decade and the repercussions of such have affected people around the globe. The people who have been canceled often report feeling anxiety, depression, and a sense of social isolation according to Therapy Group DC. These feelings stem from the fact that in a moment when a person or people are canceled they tend to be isolated so that everyone can direct the hammer of social justice on the right people and so the implication of being canceled tends to be that it is associated heavily with social justice just as it has been throughout this article. The punishment side of being canceled tends to be a net loss of either income, consumers, partnerships, sponsors, etc for a person or group that get canceled until either they right their wrongs or they ultimately accept what has happened and move on in a positive way. YouTubers Chrissy Teigen, Lori Levine, Tanya Cook, Nathan Miller, etc. are all celebrities who have made public appearances to apologize and redeem themselves for situations that occurred with them in the past. The implications of cancel culture tend to be that a person receives social justice and redeems themself through some sort of public apology, or they are still canceled and are suffering their punishment.

Red Land and Cedar Cliff: Rivals or Family? 

by Callista Hayden and Alyssa Chace

When people initially think of the West Shore School District and the two high schools, Cedar Cliff and Red Land, most would say we are rivals. For sporting events the largest game of the season is when the high schools play each other, and there are paint wars before the game for the student sections of each school and lots of “smack talk” between the teams. However, after some research we have found that we might be more like sisters than we thought; with Cedar Cliff having the “big sister” role and Red Land being the “little sister”. 

To start off with, the two schools are actually in different conferences for PIAA Sports. So, although the rival games are the biggest games of the year, they do not influence  the conference standings. Cedar Cliff plays in the higher conference due to them having a larger student body, an example of them being the “big sister”.  Our big sister also has more privileges like open campus and open flex policies.

Mrs. Norton, who was an assistant principal and a phys ed teacher at Cedar Cliff and is now an assistant principal at Red Land recognizes the differences. “CC no longer utilizes e-hall passes; students do not have a time limit that they are allowed to leave class or certain amount of times they can leave a day and so on. They also have an open flex policy which means students are able to go to any flex teacher or another location in the building.” said Mrs. Norton. Also, all juniors and seniors have access to open campus during their lunch/flex starting at the beginning of the school year, unlike at Red Land where juniors can earn it for their second semester with good grades, attendance and limited tardies. Cedar Cliff open campus students also have a larger variety of places to go due to their geographical location. They are able to walk to Sheetz, McDonald’s, Jersey Mikes, Chipotle, Cedar Cliff Pizza, Sweet Frog, Starbucks, CVS and Dollar Store just to name a few, while Red Land does not have any options within walking distance. Even though these  benefits might make it seem like Cedar Cliff would be the better option, Red Land also has many positive features as well. 

From our research it seems that Red Land has a higher expectation of their students both academically and emotionally. Red Land has all of our freshmen through juniors enrolled in a flex period, unless they are taking a music elective such as chorus, band or orchestra. During this time, students are required to meet with their flex teacher once a week to discuss their current grades in all classes and any other obstacles they may be facing and need help with. At Red Land we also have some flex classes that have a smaller number of students and more one-on-one conversations and help from their flex teacher. Core subject teachers also make tutoring available throughout the cycle days during flex for any student to attend if they are struggling. Due to all of these offerings, it seems that Red Land has a higher academic focus for our students than Cedar Cliff. 

Overall, it seems that Cedar Cliff and Red Land are more like sisters than rivals. Just as real sisters do not always get along and are not always treated equally, when it comes down to it, they know they are part of the same family – The West Shore School District.