Alicia McCormack

Articles

Alicia’s Substack •

How not to clean a house

Warning: this review is jammed with spoilers - if you haven’t seen the movie, please watch it! I thought it would be stupid but it’s actually not! You know when you leave the cinema in the dark and feel a chill in the air (not the current freezing cold one, but a weird chill). You’re acutely aware of footsteps behind you on the walk home, of passing figures who falter for a moment in the night. You feel the quiet as if it’s creeping up on you and mundane noises are cut with a sinister edge, the...
Alicia’s Substack •

Sabrina Carpenter doesn't know who you are

Once upon a time, singers, actors, models and famous faces were separated from their thousands of wide-eyed admirers by a sheen of black and white Hollywood glamour. People would go to the movies or gather in front of their television screens or spread out large, leafy newspapers to pore over photographs of their favourite star dazzling on the red carpet or sneaking on a suspicious street. They sought scraps of their life to distract from their own but only had access to limited snippets. The em...
Alicia’s Substack •

Who gave this man the microphone

It’s about to be a sad day for the Republic of Ireland in October 2025 as President Michael D. Higgin’s two consecutive terms come to an end. He was first elected in 2011 when I was seven years old and has been a staple in the background of Irish life ever since, working reliably in the background and popping up at football matches and state events for everyone at home watching television to go ‘awww, isn’t he great’. The Irish Presidency is not the hardest job but it was reassuring amidst all t...
Alicia’s Substack •

Yeah, but targeting women is more fun

The chance to appear on Love Island 2025 was likely for Helena Ford the opportunity of a lifetime to switch taking care of the passengers jetting off on British Airways for their sun holidays for her own glossy retreat under the Majorcan sun. The promise of eight weeks in paradise to search for ‘love’ amongst ‘taxi drivers’ and ‘marketing executives’ who are secretly ASOS models, and the hope of continuing the party with a White Fox brand trip after seems like the dream. Going in for a bit of fu...
The Gown QUB •

Trump-Musk Feud Unveils Concerns Over the Real Powerbrokers in US Politics

By Alicia McCormack


The iconic ‘bromance’ between two of the most powerful men in the world – US President Donald Trump and his ‘first buddy’, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, came to an unexpected end on 5 June. [1] Playing out on a public stage on X, Musk’s own platform, the dispute raged on with the two taking increasingly personal hits at each other. This could hardly have been imagined given the pair’s previously warm working relationship. Musk is a relative newcomer to politics who c...
The Gown QUB •

Swapping Private Jets for Rockets: Why We Should Be Skeptical of Space Tourism  

By Alicia McCormack


There are a multitude of crippling problems on Earth – starvation, poverty, disease, abuse. Meanwhile an abundance of wealth floats around the world, exchanging hands at private beaches, exclusive parties, yachts and galas. The amounts passing from one star-studded palm to another in one night are at times enough to feed a family for a year. In an era rife with global tension and increasing poverty, cost-of-living crises burden ordinary people living even in the richest co...
The Gown QUB •

Cocktails and Pool Cues: The Watson Review

By Alicia McCormack


A former furniture manufacturer and snooker hall on Little Donegall Street has re-opened and re-branded as a stylish and distinguished bar — The Watson. Tucked into a side street, but standing out with its boldly lit frontier. Despite Friday night’s persistent and annoying drizzle of rain ready to undo an hour’s worth of hair and makeup efforts, we decided our commitment to this review (and the drink) was more important. Rain is not a valid excuse for an uber in this econo...
The Gown QUB •

The Resurgence of Thinness Culture in Fashion

By Alicia McCormack


Trends always come in a cycle, and recent times have seen a resurgence in a concerning trend that reached its peak in the 90s and early 2000s. “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” – which British supermodel Kate Moss gave as one of her mantras in a 2009 interview, was the rule for a generation of women combatted daily with the ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic [1]. This attitude towards food and body image had detrimental effects on the mental health of girls growing up with dif...
The Gown QUB •

The Problematic Rebrand of Pretty Little Thing

by Alicia McCormack


Pretty Little Thing, also known as PLT, was essential for every Irish teenage girl. I clicked on for the first time when I was thirteen years old and purchased a top for a disco, that got comments from my parents such as ‘is this what they call a top now? In my day that was a bandana’. The glitzy website with sparkling sequins, crop tops and miniskirts dominated the 2010s ‘party girl’ image. I would later learn that PLT was a fast fashion machine, churning out millions of...
The Gown QUB •

Bring Them Down: The Blueprint for Irish Drama Grows Tiring

By Alicia McCormack


As a person from rural Ireland, I may be a bit biased. I found myself rolling my eyes at Bring Them Down (2024) – Chris Andrew’s revenge thriller/drama directorial debut. It has skyrocketed to a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and gathered praise for its deep symbolism, chilling atmosphere and phenomenal cast. But, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen this film before.


There are few films set in Ireland and fewer still set in the Irish countryside. Those that have c...
The Gown QUB •

Personal Style: Not Dead Yet.

By Alicia McCormack


“Everyone’s a sheep”, my friend’s mother said, “they all look the same”. She nodded at a cluster of girls shivering in the queue outside a teen disco. All five friends were wearing the same white tennis skirt with neon tops. I didn’t mention before I hopped out of the car to join the crowd that I had added the same skirt to my basket on Pretty Little Thing after seeing it posted by every second girl I knew on Instagram. That was 2018 and since then, with the revolutionary...
The Gown QUB •

The Rise and Fall of Blake Lively: Media Bias Against Women

By Alicia McCormack


January 2023: Blake Lively is revealed to be taking on the leading role in It Ends With Us, the highly anticipated adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel. Lively is the media’s sweetheart and adored by the public. She has built her brand as an extremely beautiful ‘it girl’ who is rich and famous and best friends with Taylor Swift, but also funny and relatable, someone you might be friends with. She and her husband Ryan Reynolds are a Hollywood power couple and th...
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Nosferatu: A Return to the Roots of Horror

By Alicia McCormack

Warning: The following review may contain spoilers for Nosferatu (2024) and Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922).

Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) was the first film of its kind and has become a model for all future Vampire Films. Over one hundred years later, its 2024 remake – directed by Robert Eggers – seeks to celebrate its predecessor’s powerful influence in film, and contribute something new to toe-curling horror. The film is set in 1838 in the ficti...
The Gown QUB •

Strong Female Character: Fern Brady’s Story of Living with Undiagnosed Autism

By Alicia McCormack


Sixteen-year-old Fern Brady was sitting alone in her school library – intently reading a psychiatry manual – when she first came across a definition of autism. She froze. She had been desperately searching to figure out what it was that everyone else deemed wrong with her. Doctors diagnosed her with OCD and depression. Peers decided she was a ‘weirdo’. Her family concluded she must have been born an ‘arsehole’. Now, for the first time, Fern had a term that matched her feel...