Editor's Note: The following is a satirical multimedia piece assembled by Mr. Lahey’s Movie Madness class. Congratulations to Becker Barghothi, Merritt Crumpton and the rest of the graduating class of 2023!
This tragic tale begins in fall 2022. Mr. Damien Lahey had just started teaching at ASFA, and ASFA's new Creative Media course was planning to launch The Star, the online school newspaper. The pressure was on to grow this new and ambitious creative endeavor.
Mr. Lahey saw an opportunity to use his Movie Madness class as a place to produce content for The Star.
Senior math/science student Becker Barghothi convinced Mr. Lahey to bank roll his series out of the ASFA film department budget. The Weekly Zebra was to be a madcap irreverent series featuring Becker wearing a suit and a zebra head interviewing assorted faculty and students.
“Everyone thought it had a lot of potential,” says Craft. “We thought Becker was going to become the face of The Star and rally the students behind this hip, new thing we were trying to do.”
However, sources close to the production of The Weekly Zebra say things spiraled out of control as the money, attention and praise flowed.
“The school threw too much money at him. It went to his head and he became super self-indulgent and a perfectionist,” says an anonymous source.
For his part, Becker denies allegations that production went awry.
“I’m the closest thing ASFA has to a Renaissance man,” says Becker with confidence. “I crush it in the Math/Science department, and I also dominate whenever I venture into other areas ... acting, writing, filmmaking, you name it. Heck, I can even play a mean French horn. It’s about time this school recognized the best. And looking around, that just happens to be me. Heavy is the crown and all that...”
Early collaborator Liam Little had this to say about his experience: “When I first started working with Becker, he seemed cool and I was honored to be working with a senior but over time, it got scary. He became obsessed. He wouldn’t go anywhere without that Zebra head. He also became strangely entitled. He would ask me to do his laundry and stuff.”
Freshman Lucy George backs up Liam’s claims. “Becker asked if I would give up my seat for his Zebra head. Like, he believed that thing should get its own chair.”
What started out as an absurdist weekly series to bolster The Star and give the school a hip online media presence soon turned into a non-stop Becker Celebration.
Explains Mr. Lahey, “You see, what began as this kind of surreal talk show where he was wearing this zebra head and doing these skits quickly evolved into a vanity project. Becker wanted to wear a robe and carry a septer and have a crown. He saw himself as ‘The Zebra King.’ ”
Senior visual artist Merritt Crumpton concurs. “It’s true. Becker wanted me to paint this 400 foot long mural of him with that Zebra head sitting on a throne made of gummy bears. Thankfully, Mr. Lahey found me another project to work on.”
Becker was also not alone when it came to launching a new series at ASFA. Sophomore Math/Science student Prisha Sharma, whose production staff featured some of the same writers as The Weekly Zebra, was debuting her own show, The Prisha Files.
While the students originally saw The Weekly Zebra as the school’s flagship production, The Prisha Files quickly rose to prominence.
Says Dexter Gard, “It had a faster turn around. And Prisha’s a natural. She oozes charisma from every pore.”
“For real,” agrees junior theater student Jaela Ellis. “Prisha’s like our Taylor Swift.”
But sources say Becker became increasingly agitated by Prisha Sharma’s runaway success.
“When he heard Prisha got a limousine ride to the annual fashion gala in downtown Birmingham, he was enraged,” says another student who asked to remain anonymous.
“I can’t help it if people want McDonald’s instead of Ruth’s Chris,” Becker sneers. “The Prisha Files has nothing on me.”
Others saw it differently. “There was just no way he could catch up to the Prisha Files and it just drove him crazy. I mean, students would drop by asking to take pictures with her, get autographs... [and] Becker would just sit there... seething.”
Independently of the Prisha Files, Becker had also allowed his series to flounder. It had become nearly impossible to get The Weekly Zebra finished on... a weekly basis. “He told me genius doesn’t have deadlines,” sighs Mr. Lahey. “I mean, I had the administration breathing down my neck and here he was, lying on his back in class with that Zebra head on, listening to Tangerine Dream, trying to find ‘inspiration.’ ”
Remembers Katarina Johnson, who assisted in crafting the Weekly Zebra logo: ”He thought he was George Lucas. Maybe he is. But he’s certainly not the George Lucas behind Empire Strikes Back. More like the George Lucas behind The Phantom Menace. And we all know how that turned out.” Like Crumpton, Kat asked to be assigned to another project as "Becker’s ego ballooned to Godzilla-like proportions."
And sources say spending ballooned out of control and weighed down the schedule. A production source tells The Star that at its worst, for every for 40-minute class, only five minutes went towards shooting the actual show, as Becker ran up expenses on luxury craft services like shrimp buffets, chocolate lattes, and lobster rolls. “We were definitely living large. Last November we had sushi every day for like a week. It was awesome but at the same time, I knew it wasn’t right.” says visual artist Caroline Bradley.
Things pretty much shut down when Becker commissioned a portrait of himself from noted German painter Geoffrey Von Strokenweizer.
The painting is rumored to have cost $8,000, and previous reports say Becker attempted to bill the painting to the school. Neither the school nor Becker, through his attorneys, would comment pending litigation.
Around this time Becker decided to do something he was sure would get The Weekly Zebra back on track. He travelled to Hades and interviewed Old Scratch himself: The Devil.
“At that point, I was willing to do anything to make the show successful,” says Becker of his stunt in the underworld.
However, not even that exclusive interview, featured here for the first time as it was originally plagued by technical difficulties, was enough to undo the damage.
Still, Becker felt he had one last ace up his sleeve. With Zebra on Campus, he believed he’d found a way to wield the influence he felt his show should have.
“I wanted to assert cultural dominance over ASFA," Becker says. "I think I’ve earned it. But so many were afraid of my growing power.”
For readers of The Star we have this video segment for you to view.
But as senioritis and lack of support from his peers prevented it from being done in a timely fashion, Becker became withdrawn in class as the accolades for The Prisha Files piled up.
When asked about all the self-inflicted wreckage caused by his actions, Becker had these parting words, "I am Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works ye mighty and despair," before vanishing into the endless void where dreams and nightmares collide.
"What we’re left with is a cautionary tale as old as time," says Lahey. "The young talented man given the keys to the kingdom but is brought down by his own hubris and runaway indulgences. Going forward, let this be a lesson for us all."
Nah