The recent prom announcement received criticism due to the vagueness of the theme and controversy surrounding its location.
Prom is taking place this year in the InterContinental Hotel at the Wharf in Washington D.C. For the theme, the 2020 Student Government Association (SGA) chose pop-singer Bruno Mars’ 2015 hit “24K Magic” for inspiration.
“It’s a great theme,” class of 2020 sponsor Kristine Elsener said. “It’s positive [and] a fun song. Magic implies that prom is a special event. It brings together a piece of the fun and of the classy element.”
Junior Angraj Singh said he thinks the prom theme is tacky and could have had a better message.
“[The theme] could have been better in terms of creativity and representing what the Marshall community is all about, which is individuality,” Singh said. “This school is very expressive and the prom theme is limited in both its scope and color scheme.”
The 2020 SGA board contacted around 10 venues before choosing the Wharf, which also received backlash because of the region’s increasing gentrification in recent years.
“We are promoting economic growth in an area of D.C. […] that’s been consistently neglected by the D.C. government,” junior and SGA member Soven Bhagat said. “It’s becoming a gentrified area, which is something we should all be aware of, [but] us being there is not causing the problem.”
Elsener said there were limited location choices that could accommodate a prom for the days the school needed, and there were reasons why certain areas would not have worked.
“If students aren’t comfortable with [the location] then I apologize to them,” Elsener said. “We were not intending to offend anyone. […] I just hope students will take the time to enjoy what they have [the] opportunity to experience.”
The SGA board revealed the theme and location over a post on their Instagram account, which garnered almost 4,000 interactions.
“We put a lot of hype into that announcement,” Bhagat said. “Once you build something up so much, [it] has an equal and opposite reaction.”
Senior and 2019 SGA board member Rohan Shah said despite the dissatisfaction, students should acknowledge the hard work that goes into facilitating an event.
“[Not] all students understand how much time and effort go into planning prom,” Shah said. “There’s a lot of work behind the scenes that most people don’t know about.”
2019-05-06