Pitch List – Filth

Send your pitches to Karim at [email protected]

1. The Business of Filth: Why We Love True Crime and Scandals
   Why are we drawn to the “filthy” details of crime, celebrity scandals, and internet drama? This could analyze the appeal of things that shock or disgust us—and what it says about media and human nature.
2. Greek Life and the Selective Tolerance of Filth
   Fraternity houses are notorious for being messy and unsanitary, yet Greek life remains a respected and well-funded part of many universities. Why is this type of “filth” overlooked and even often celebrated?
3. The ‘Messy’ Student Archetype: Is Academic Success Supposed to Look Neat or Messy?
   Universities reward polished, put-together students, but real academic life is often messy. Is success about discipline and presentation, or is there room for the chaotic, “filthy” student who thrives in imperfection?
4. Filth and the Fear of Aging: Why We Equate Getting Older with Decline
   Why do we associate aging with decay, loss of control, and even disgust? This piece could explore how marketing, media, and social norms contribute to the idea that youth is “clean” and old age is the opposite and undesirable?Main Character” Complex on Campus
5. College can feel like a movie, with students carefully curating their experiences for social media and self-narration. While this mindset can be empowering, it can also create pressure to live an idealized version of student life. Are we so busy crafting our own stories that we forget to fully engage with the people and experiences around us?

Claim a pitch or send your own to Romina at [email protected]

1. The Ivory Tower: How is elitism affecting the UofT classroom? Is there anyone they label “undesirable,” “filthy,” or “unwanted”? I’m looking for a piece that discusses how/if the University marginalizes specific communities, and how that affects their opportunity for success.
2. The “filthy” side of the city: How is Toronto hiding away its problems? I’m looking for a piece that discusses how Toronto purposeful ‘cleans’ up itself to hide the undesirable and unorganized aspects of the city.
3. University of Toronto Student Union: What’s going on? The University Of Toronto Student Union is facing internal issues: from coordinator distaste with executive members, to lack of student engagement. I’m looking for a piece that talks about the failures of the UTSU and discuss how/if the UTSU has lost power on campus.

Claim a pitch or send your own to Manuela at [email protected]

1. Exploitation Films
   • This is an open pitch which can be taken in any direction so long as it involves the genre of exploitation films. Potential pitches could include an article regarding the evolution of exploitation as a film genre, or a subgenre of exploitation such as “Blacksploitation films,” or a critique of your favourite exploitation film.
2. Where camp and filth collide
   • Dragula by the Boule brothers is the best of both worlds. Write a review of the horror-themed Drag Show.
3. The Fountain
   • What was Duchamp’s watershed art piece, “The Fountain,” and what did it mean and why did many in the academy view ready-made and similar pieces as filth?
4. Think of the children
   • explore the origins of sex and innuendo in lyricism and how the idiom “sex sells” came to dominate popular music and culture in general.

Claim a pitch or send your own to Alexa at [email protected]

1. Interview with U of T Trash Team
   • A science-based community outreach group, the Trash Team is working to combat pollution in the City of Toronto. Interview a member(s) of this group, focusing on their work and how to get involved as an undergrad at U of T.
2. Internet Filth
   • Algorithms are no joke – many people are complaining of Instagram or TikTok pushing them inflammatory or misinformed videos. This article can dive into how this technology works and its implications for us consuming media.
3. How We Deal with Waste
   • How humans dealt with waste (human, animal, material, etc.) has changed drastically across time. What has this path been like? What changes have been made? Examine how we have changed our policy to deal with pollution or waste and what we are still aiming to change in the future.
4. Science Programs at U of T
   • Program exploration day occurred recently and soon hundreds of students will be choosing what to major in for the rest of undergrad. Highlight the many science programs that U of T has to offer in a guide for first years interested in pursuing a STEM degree.

Claim a pitch or send your own to Silas at [email protected]

• Dennis Cooper: “To understand something, you have to listen, right? You have to study it clinically. If you reject things as gross, or people as horrible, you’ll never understand them. I really want to understand why horrible things happen. And I don’t think people are at fault. I think it’s something else, I’m not sure why. But everyone in my books gets a chance to gain sympathizers, as far as I can control such things. It’s up to the reader. You know . . . what’s that saying . . . ‘Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out.’ Let the reader sort them out.
• Robert Gluck: “When I was young I could share my experience whole cloth with an intimate, a friend. At a certain point I couldn’t. My experience was only mine — a matter too complex, containing too many distances and receding eras and deaths to convey entirely. It’s isolating to be lost in a crowd of earlier selves, strangers. I carry this matter that can’t be fully expressed, which in some sense is myself. Friendship becomes more important, friendship with people who knew me when I was young, like Bruce and Kathleen and Elin, and also friendship with the young, like Damon and Jocelyn and you, Eric.”
• William S. Burroughs: “You would never see it. In exorcism, a verbal argument can never do anything. You can’t ever beat the entity in a verbal argument because that’s what he wants. It’s only through a confront, a non-verbal confront, that anything happens. It has to be non-verbal. Otherwise, they’d argue and argue going around and around and around for a hundred thousand years. But the arguing has nothing whatever to do with what they’re really doing.”

Claim a pitch or send your own to Patrick at [email protected]

1. Times I was Read for Filth
   • Sometimes you just have to admit that someone got your ass and give them their flowers. Write about an incident or incidents where you were absolutely torn to pieces (in a really accurate way, and to be loved is to be known, sorta?).
2. Things in Someone’s Trash Can and What They Mean
   • This would totally help someone out if they were rummaging through someone’s trash. What someone throws away really says a lot about them—it’s really like a more accurate horoscope! A bunch of takeout boxes? They’re going to choke on their food and have a crisis about their dating life like Miranda in Sex and the City. A bunch of letters from grad schools in thin envelopes? Hah! What a loser. Not like you’re looking through their trash or anything. A brand new laptop? What an idiot! I sure hope a little girl won’t crawl out of the screen in seven days.
3. Crumbs in Your Bed
   • Maybe I’m just chronically online, but people love talking about how (blank) is (blank) for people with crumbs in their bed. So I’m calling someone who has crumbs in their bed—is Phoebe Bridgers or Taylor Swift for people with crumbs in their bed? Alternatively: write a list of celebrities/characters who seem like they have crumbs in their bed (I know, I’m really going ham on the listicles with this one).
4. One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure
   • Play devil’s advocate—what are things that everyone hates that you love? Do you ever open Letterboxd to rate your new favorite movie and see that it has a 2.2 rating? Is “hear me out…” part of your daily vocabulary? This one’s for you!

Claim a pitch or send your own to Audrey at [email protected]