Show me Love attracted a large audience. Viewers leaving the first show had obviously been affected by the movie. Those waiting for the second showing were treated to many comments about how great the movie was.

The film is about Agnes, an average teenager, who moves to a small town in southern Sweden – Amal, the most boring place on the planet. There she runs into Elin, a rebel with a cause – to be different than everyone else in Amal. Elin is the school’s heartbreaker and she even makes Agnes’ heart beat faster. The fact that Agnes is looked upon as an outcast doesn’t make her odds better. Nor does it help that to society, Agnes’ emotions are not the "right" kind of love.

An unwanted birthday party is the climax in this teenage homosexual love story. Agnes invites only one person, but Elin shows up and creates emotional turmoil for Agnes. On a dare, Elin kisses Agnes and discovers the secret that Agnes has tried so desperately to conceal. Soon everybody knows, which leaves Agnes harassed and even more alienated.

Elin feels bad for Agnes, but Agnes attention also confuses her. Of course Elin can not admit this in-front of everyone so she tries to hide her curiosity by dating a guy she’s not interested in, which just makes everything more complicated.

The movie also explains the two girls’ relationship to their non-understanding parents – something most teenagers can relate to.

The movie is controversial and it obviously made quite an impression on the viewers. This night in particular the movie was presented by the Honolulu Gay and Lesbian Cultural Foundation, which might explain why girls predominated in the audience.

This is a very realistic movie that addresses more than just "sinful" love. It’s not only about being different, but also about the anxieties of growing up and finding one’s identity. In Sweden, the movie received a lot of attention and garnered the producers several nominations and some prizes. Show Me Love is the first movie of this kind to hit the big screen in Sweden. It is the first to deal with teenage homosexuality, and it might very well be a groundbreaker that will open doors for more movies that deal with similar issues.

Rap is a relatively new artform compared to other popular contemporary music. Only 25 years old, it has made an indelible mark on the music industry and reached into fashion, philosophy, and commerce.

Rap music combines rhymed lyrics spoken over rhythm tracks and samples, bits of music and sounds taken from older records. It originated in the mid-1970s when Black-American urban disc jockeys began manipulating records to create musical collages of scratching rhythms and other sounds. A vocalist, called a rapper, would speak in street-language rhymes over the music.

Rap lyrics frequently boasted of sexual or verbal prowess and often addressed the experiences and social problems of the ghetto: poverty, gangs, killers, and drug dealers (the gangster rap of Ice-T and Ice Cube), political issues (Public Enemy and KRS-One), and stories of Black-American life.

Breakdancing, including acrobatics such as headspins and flips, grew popular as a physical expression of the music.

Rap grew popular in the early 1980s and reached mainstream audiences in 1986 with hits by the Beastie Boys (a white group) and Run-D.M.C.

By the early 1990s, with national exposure in mass media outlets such as MTV, rap developed into a significant musical and fashion force for American listeners. Rapper clothing and hairstyles entered the mainstream fashion for teenagers of both sexes and all races.

In the early 1990s, groups such as N.W.A. and performers such as Ice Cube and Dr. Dre (both former members of N.W.A.), and Ice-T told brutal, graphic, and often misogynous tales of street gang life, developing a style called gangster rap. While gangster rap met substantial criticism from groups across the age and social spectrum, politically-conscious rap such as that from groups such as Arrested Development continues to be popular.

According to B. Adler, in Rap (1991), the musical style evolved to include hard rock, collages of record samples, and variations on older songs. Groups such as Digable Planets added jazz elements to rap. Although some female rappers have been successful—Salt-n-Pepa, Queen Latifah, and MC Lyte come to mind—rap remains dominated by male performers. And dance continues to be a popular part of the show, especially for performers such as Hammer.

Rap used to be an underground thing. Lyricist use to gather in basements to exchange freestyles and record them on bootleg cassettes. Today, people from all racial backgrounds, countries, and lifestyles regularly flock to record stores to buy the latest rap album. A musical form born in inner-city ghettos, moved quickly to metropolitan townhouses and then to the suburbs.

Now rap music is heard regularly on the radio and television and in TV commercials. Corporate giants such as Gap and Mountain Dew, have featured artist such as L.L. Cool J and Busta Rymes in their ads.

How did this underground musical form make its way into the mainstream? Some music critics thought rap music wouldn’t last. They thought it would fade like a fad. A 25-year-old fad? Bell bottom pants and butterfly collars didn’t last so long.

How did rap become so popular? Perhaps one answer can be found in its propensity to bring together the experiences of different cultures and races. Rap exposes mainstream listeners to the experiences of a minority culture, a sub-culture of Black-American culture. This ghetto culture is grounded in unrest, alienation, and fear—of poverty, of violence, of alienation, of social authority, of a life that seems barely an existence and that seems increasingly beyond the ability of the individual to control it.

This sense of alienation and of impotence—root of the sexual and linguistic boasting conventions of rap music—cuts across cultures. Even suburban white Anglo-Saxon Protestants feel it. Rap is protest music, and much of modern white middle-class America has something to protest about their lives. The musical vibe reinforces a voice of protest that speaks to people across the American landscape.

That’s why rap is so popular.

So to all the critics, rap is here to stay—at least for a while. You may not love it, you may not hate it, but you will have to live with it. Till next time, stay Tuned In. Peace!

A Brush with Soul, the current exhibition at the HPU Art Gallery on the windward campus, is a roller coaster ride through a land of dreams, sometimes nightmares. The paintings, done by members of the Playworks Studio group, exhibit a smooth and eerie mixture of beauty, sorrow, loneliness, madness, evil, and love.

They speak to our emotions and to the part of our souls that hides our inner most feelings.

The artists, 18 adults and 10 children, have succeeded in creating gateways from reality into a realm that is solely created by the viewer’s imagination.

Like the symbolist painters of the early 20th century, they evoke emotion through synesthesia, compelling us to experience reality in ways that startle our senses--so that we hear color, see sound, and taste textures.

Even though some of the works are created by children, all the works show the professionalism that is expected from any exhibition.

The painting Hector, by Carol Langner is one of many at the exhibition that brush against the senses and set the imagination in motion. Hector portrays a caterpillar with a human-like face. Langer has used red, orange, blue, and green to create this dreamy and somewhat unsettling image.

Another painting, Dragonair, done by Anolani Kathleen Bennie, shows a dragon breathing out fire. This one has contrasting tones of orange and silver, and although a child clearly is the artist, the painting suggests a dark and fearful side of our souls.

Many of the paintings done by adults show a clear connection, almost as if they were done by one person, or as if the 18 people involved shared a single vision. The artists have found inspiration from each other, and many of them have used similar techniques when creating their works.

The children, on the other hand, show an individuality and creativity that is unique and interesting to view.

The idea of mixing children’s works with adults is a brilliant way of emphasizing the dual nature--childlike and mature--of art.

The exhibition is open to the public through Mar 17, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily except Sunday. For more information call 236-3567.

In our high-tech, fast-paced world it often seems pointless to think about the generations before us and how their world broke the ground for our century.

HPU Theatre proves the contrary in its presentation of Tintypes, a patriotic musical revue from the turn of the last century in America.

From 1860-1890, the American population nearly doubled by welcoming poor immigrants who were dreaming of a better life. The discovery of electricity began a wave of inventions including the automobile, which created a hopeful excitement in many Americans.

The industrial period was booming and factories were hiring uneducated workers for low wages. Women were beginning to seek equality but racial acceptance was far from a reality. The economy praised the rich and rejected the poor.

The play began with no real introduction and it continued with no narration, although, those watching were mesmerized by the brilliant choreography and lively music.

Tintypes is a number of satirical sketches told through music and dance, depicting the hard times of the era. The five characters all represent attitudes that were prevalent among the general public.

The actors truly mastered their parts wonderfully, despite the challenge of not surviving on dialogue. Between the musical numbers the actors carry the story with pantomimes emphasizing the search for the American dream.

The songs and dances lit a patriotic sparkler in the souls of the audience and soon enough they started singing along to the familiar tunes. The play is humorous and thought-provoking and leaves one thinking about today’s socioeconomic problems, but still lets everyone leave with a proud feeling of being an American.

Joyce Maltby did a great job directing the play, and Brad Powell had done an incredible job with the choreography. Tintypes is a truly entertaining and enjoyable experience.