COLUMN | ISSUE NINE | WHAKAKATA / HUMOUR Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Da Hip Hop Witch (Dale Resteghini, 2000) Directed by the music videographer who’d go on to lend tone-deaf visuals to Busta Rhymes’ ‘Arab Money, Da Hip Hop Witch was a Blair Witch parody riding on four plots interwoven with no discernible rhythm. (A) Female staff at the office for a tabloid magazine fight off their creep of a boss. (B) A gang of youngins from Sal

KŌRERO TOI | ISSUE NINE | WHAKAKATA / HUMOUR Written by Isabella den Boogert (they/them) | @belladbb | Contributing Artist Isabella den Boogert is a multidisciplinary artist who works between the mediums of sculpture and printmaking. They explore the internet-driven culture of performance, self-presentation, and identity in the digital age, using text and found objects as tools for exploring culture. Often delving into the rabbit holes and dark trends of the internet and pop

Last week, I was in Shanghai, sitting beside an open window. I had nothing urgent to do. No assignments. No volunteering. No part-time shift. No gym. My phone had somehow ended up on the other side of the room. The closest things to me were half an iced watermelon. Cicadas buzzed outside as if the afternoon had nowhere else to be. It had been raining all afternoon. The rain stopped. Then started again. Then stopped again. Normally, I hate weather that can't make up its mind.

BREAD & CIRCUSES | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written by Luke Fisher (he/him) | @lukefish7 | Sports Columnist Annotated by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor Statistically, women’s sports aren’t as good as men’s. * *Starting strong with what is arguably the worst opening sentence we've ever published. The ball hits the back of the net with less ferocity. The runaway tries are scored at a less-than-blistering pace. The sixes sail over a boundary rope dragged closer to

It’s 33 Degrees Today. Are You Wearing Enough Clothes? ONE MOON COLUMN | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written by Priscilla Zhang (she/her) | @p.zhangxy | Columnist Every morning, before I even look outside my window, I look at another season. It appears on my phone. My mother has a habit of telling me the temperature back home. I think it is her way of sharing something real, something happening around her body, across the 6,000 miles between us. "Yesterday was so hot and stuffy,"

FILM COLUMN | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist Millie Lies Low (Michelle Savill, 2021) As everybody’s third or fourth choice for a Commonwealth nation — including ourselves, judging from how many of us move to Australia — it’s perhaps not as much a mystery where all the self-diagnosed ‘imposter syndrome’ in New Zealand comes from, especially if you’re competing with your colleagues for the best opportunities. The

EDITORIAL | ISSUE EIGHT | SCREENS Written by Tashi Donnelly she/her | @tashi_rd | Editor Your connection to reality has been interrupted by doomscrolling, binge-watching, and opening seventeen tabs you intended to read. Please do not attempt to disconnect. Click CONTINUE to proceed with Debate: Screens. Loading Debate: Screens… Please wait. I’ve tried writing this editorial over, and over, and over again. The problem is that there are no outside perspectives anymore. Screens

FILM COLUMN | ISSUE SEVEM | MATARIKI Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist The pūrākau about the formation of Matariki tells us that its stars were formed by an act of grief and anger by Tāwhirimātea, the god of wind and weather. To match, I’ve dusted off three essential films on the subject of wind. The Wind (Victor Sjöström, 1928) Checks out. If there was ever a more comprehensive depiction of wind in film, it’d have to be called Wind 2.

SPILL THE TEA WITH TASHI | COLUMN | ISSUE 7 | MATARIKI Written & illustrated by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Editor-in-Chief Scroll to the bottom of this webpage to submit your own question for Tashi to answer: https://www.debatemag.com/spill-the-tea-submissions Q: Dear Tashi, I feel bad writing this, but I have a very irritating classmate. They talk over other people a lot and also talk over the lecturer, interrupting them and disrupting the discussion. I have neve

"Have you Eaten Yet?" COLUMN | ISSUE SEVEN | MATARIKI Written by y Priscilla Zhang (she/her) | @p.zhangxy | Columnist Illustrations by Sophia He (she/her) | @meoskyan.art | Graphic Designer Every time my mother calls from China, she asks the same question within the first two minutes: “Have you eaten yet?” For many Chinese people, this question carries a weight that has very little to do with hunger. Conversations happen around dining tables. Friendships begin over shared m

ARTS | ISSUE SEVEN | MATARIKI Written by Tohu Harris (she/her) | @tohu._.harris | @tohu_wairua_aroha_ | Contributing Writer Project Introduction This practice-led research project explores my identity grounded by my whakapapa Māori and connection to God. I seek to find harmony between these two worlds, culture and religion, establishing wairua as the common thread that binds them both. I navigate the complexities of this multi-dimensional state of being through painting and

HOROSCOPE | COLUMN | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by László Reynolds (he/him) | @laszloreynolds | Contributing Columnist It is recommended to read your rising sign first, then the Sun after. You can read for your Moon sign as well, especially if you were born at night. Aries You’ve made it over the crest of the hill (hell?); any lingering extreme heat is fading in the rear view. What’s left is a lingering heaviness. If you look closer, though, the reason it’s so h

FILM COLUMN | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by Ricky Lai (he/him) | @rickthelai on IG & Letterboxd | Columnist A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman, 1959) Whether you’re burdened by imposter syndrome or choked by a creative block, if you’re an artist in a rut, seek the protagonist of A Bucket of Blood for reassurance that you’re not fucking up this badly. In this dark comedy, Dick Miller plays the nebbish Walter, a busboy at a beatnik café who doesn’t fit in with the so

THE HOT LESBIAN | COLUMN | ISSUE SIX | MAHI Ā-RINGA / CRAFT Written by This Week’s Hot Lesbian, Wren Probett (she/her) @inkdogshirts | @hot_lesbian_initiative | Contributing Lesbian What could possess someone to wear a shirt that reads “Gay Dog” or “Dyke”? What must go wrong in a person’s life, for them to spend hours carefully carving those words from linoleum? Of all things, why a shirt? I mean, are you planning on wearing that on the bus? At the mall?? If you’ve seen my sh