Tag: pop culture

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Opinions

Poker-faces are pathetic, people!

Graphic by @spooky_soda

Why we need to start embracing emotions rather than fiercely rejecting them

If emotions make you sensitive, passionate or compassionate toward others, congratulations, you’re an empath. Plenty of people are glad that the word ‘empath’ exists. And yes, I suppose it is needed. But only in relation to the super messed up society we live in, which tells us that feeling anything other than indifferent is gross.

Think about it: you can’t feel hungry anymore without also being body shamed. You can’t feel shy without also feeling like a loser. And God forbid you feel sad or concerned for someone else, because that sure is useless!

So this word is used to differentiate those who acknowledge emotions from those who pretend they don’t. And now, empaths are made to feel like they’re overemotional. If we get emotional at work, we’re deemed “unprofessional.” Among friends, we’re known as “the sensitive one.” In the dating world, showing emotional depth is equated with vulnerability. But what are we vulnerable to? Understanding? Acceptance? Connection?

Indeed, we empaths seldom look at ourselves (or each other) in a positive light, and that’s a real shame. Because being thoughtful and compassionate is the first step to true heroism. So no, I don’t think it’s fair that the word ‘emotion’ gets tethered to other words with negative connotations, like immature, fragile and, worst of all, weak.

But in a world that worships fake looks over real personality, it’s no wonder everyone is striving to feel as much as a cardboard cut-out. Social media, television and pop culture have done a fantastic job at fooling us into believing life is all about fronts. This hasn’t just propagated unrealistic standards of beauty, it has promoted unrealistic standards of what it means to be human.

Under the example of celebrities, political leaders and #influencers, feeling 100 per cent fierce 100 per cent of the time has become everyone’s main goal. You’re not supposed to feel heartbroken; you’re supposed to feel numbness toward romance, yet with an insatiable need to have sassy sex with strangers. You’re not allowed to feel nervous when speaking in front of a crowd; what you ought to feel is extreme assurance that you own the room. If you’re anything less than certain that your presence is a privilege unto all who cross your path, then you’re not strong, and that’s pathetic.

This is the lie we empaths have internalized, thanks to the sickening logic of self-absorbed capitalists who toy with our emotions to fill up their pocketbooks. And it makes sense for them to trick us; the more walls we build, the more we underestimate the value of immaterial pleasures like true friendship and romance. Indeed, equating emotion to weakness is just another clever marketing strategy used by public figures to keep the rest of us locked in a matrix of chronic insecurity. Feelings shouldn’t be talked about—they should be covered up with a brand-name poker face, right?

Wrong. So, so wrong. Behind even the most decked-out bulletproof vest beats the heart of a living, breathing, feeling human. To my fellow empaths, as you go about your daily lives, being made to feel inferior because of the intensity with which you perceive the world, please remember this: to the right person (i.e. another empath) your ability to be authentic will make you more attractive than even the most airbrushed Kardashian or thick-skinned Hercules.

One day, you’ll meet someone who will love and embrace you, not in spite of your feelings but precisely because of them. So don’t feel ashamed… just feel.

Graphic by @spooky_soda

Categories
Arts

Queerness, community and Rocky

A look at Montreal’s renditions of the cult classic and what it means to the city

Towards the end of September, I walked into The Concordian’s office, first to arrive at our Friday pitch meeting, to find a large envelope on the floor that was addressed to me. Thinking I had deeply upset someone, I anxiously opened the envelope, emptying the contents on the table. Out spilled several papers, one of them labeled “WHAT TO BRING: TOAST, WATER GUNS … NO RICE.” Another showed illustrated instructions for the Time Warp dance. This was my invitation to the The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I am not unfamiliar with the spectacle, but since I had never seen the live performance, I was riddled with excitement. Autumn is a strange time of the year, sometimes heatwave and sometimes freezing, but one constant remains: Rocky Horror. Posters litter the streets, every lamppost and every café. This was it, this was the year I was finally going to see the live show I had heard so much about. Not long after, I found out there are not one, but two live performances. “What’s the deal?” I asked myself. “Why does Montreal love Rocky Horror so much?”

Two weeks ago, I found myself walking up a narrow staircase above Segal’s Market on St-Laurent Blvd. The Mainline Theatre wasn’t what I expected; it was homey. People of all ages bedazzled with feather boas, wigs, fishnets and a lot of glitter waited impatiently in a line filling the entire lobby.

The theatre was small. On three sides, the room was lined with rows of elevated seats facing the performance area in the centre. Out came the usheress, beginning the show with a fantastic musical number. With a run time of 120 minutes, the performance was longer than the film itself and featured amazing numbers and raunchy call backs. My favourite scene was when the newly engaged conservative couple’s strange night began.

Elyann Quessy, as Janet, and Adrian MacDonald, playing Brad, got into a car completely formed by the bodies of the phantom dancers, with Kiah Ellis-Durity at the head, planking for the duration of the scene. When Ellis-Durity first experienced Rocky Horror at the age of 16, she was empowered by Frank-N-Furter’s words: “Don’t dream it, be it.” They made her realize she could achieve more than she ever imagined. To her, Rocky Horror is the embodiment of sexual liberation and self-confidence.

First-timer Yannick Victor had never seen the film, he only knew of the production in passing from posters on the streets and the one scene in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Victor was simply baffled by the name: Rocky. Horror. Picture. Show. Words that are recognized all over the world, but what do they mean? “I think that very confusion, that inability to put this cult event/show/ritual/performance thing into a box is what it’s about,” Victor said. “There’s a clear link for me now between Rocky Horror not fitting into a neat little category and the gender fluidity of the characters.”

Montreal’s second version of the picture show is held at the Imperial Theatre. At The Rocky Horror Picture Show Halloween Ball, a shadow cast acts alongside a screening of the original film. The audience is encouraged to dress up and interact with the cast, spraying water and throwing toilet paper, newspaper and toast at specific points during the screening.

“Honestly, sometimes I wish I actually got hit with the toast,” admitted performer Hannah Miller. “Seeing the crowd having so much fun, playing and being free like kids, is really beautiful. It is the strangest way to build community, but it really works.”

Ten years ago, Miller was introduced to the show by Heidi Rubin, who plays Frank-N-Furter in the Montreal production. Miller joined the cast as an assistant and played Eddie the following year. Miller has been playing “Montreal’s favourite asshole,” Brad Majors, ever since.

This year, Concordia student Zynor Majeed played Rocky. He has been part of the cast for six years and has played various roles. According to Majeed, the ball is much more “extravagant and campy” than any other production he has been part of, which is one of the reasons he loves doing it.

“It’s an event that is difficult to describe,” the performer admitted. ”You can never truly have expectations. It isn’t your conventional play or movie screening, and I think events that give audiences an experience they have likely never had before reasonably get them excited.” Rocky Horror, Majeed added, “has given me a space to explore my sexuality and identity.”

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a rule-breaker, and there is antici… pation that its audience and performers will be too. It remains a curious cultural phenomenon that permits the audience to behave in ways that would be severely frowned upon at any other film screening, and brings together different generations through love and queerness.

Graphics by @spooky_soda

 

 

Categories
Opinions

Editorial: Enough of this Harambe hysteria

Photo courtesy of Andy Bewer.

This obsession with Harambe, the deceased gorilla, is getting completely out of hand. To be quite frank, people need to end this cultish fixation and move on with their lives.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, Harambe was a silverback gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo. Last May, a four-year-old boy fell into Harambe’s enclosure, and zoo officials were forced to kill the gorilla in order to ensure the safety of the child, according to the CBC.

Following the gorilla’s death, the Internet reacted as social media users vented their anger and disbelief over the zoo’s decision to put the animal down. Harambe soon became a pop culture phenomenon on the Internet, with endless memes and references being posted daily.

This phenomenon has now reached a new height, with multiple universities hosting candlelight vigils in honor of the animal. The McGill vigil—which is not officially affiliated with the school—has over 2000 individuals listed as attending on the event’s Facebook page, including many students from Concordia.

The Concordian spoke with Saad Waseem—the organizer of the McGill vigil—who said he conceptualized the event after seeing other universities holding vigils. He also added, “this meme is just another taste of how much power and influence the Internet has.”

The organizers of the event are even selling merchandise, such as t-shirts, sweaters and hoodies. The profits from these sales are reportedly going to the Mountain Gorilla Conservation Fund according to the Facebook event.

But the worst thing here is that nobody seems to actually care about the dead gorilla. The event symbolizes an uninspiring craze, rather than an actual movement or legitimate vigil.

Those attending the event simply want to be a part of this current pop culture phenomenon—they are a part of the clueless flock of sheep being herded towards the cliff. In a year from now, nobody will even remember the ‘vigil’ or the dead gorilla.

Photo courtesy of Andy Bewer.

It would be more inspiring to see students rally together to put pressure on zoos to ensure the safety and wellbeing of animals kept in captivity. Or even denounce the cruel and demeaning concept of zoos, and accept that animals shouldn’t be kept simply for our entertainment.

It would be even more impressive if we used Harambe and his African heritage as a stepping-stone to discuss the issue of ivory trafficking on the African continent, or the fact that tens of thousands of elephants die every year as a result, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Instead of buying into this vapid pop culture garbage, let’s think critically for just one second and stray away from the madding crowd. If Harambe’s death only inspired mock vigils and cheap laughs on Instagram, then the gorilla certainly died in vain.

Categories
Student Life

Who (could) run da world? Girls.

Workshop will discuss the role of feminism in pop culture

In today’s modern age, celebrities have the power to make their fans think critically about their views and beliefs. In the past few years alone, pop culture queens such as Emma Watson and Beyoncé have expressed their views as feminists and have inspired people to fight for gender equality.

UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson and UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Photo from Flickr by UN Women.

On March 7, The School of Community & Public Affairs, with the support of the Political Science Student Association (SCPASA), will be hosting a full-day event at Concordia: “Modern Feminism in a Beyonce World.” The day will be filled with interactive workshops discussing several topics under the umbrella of feminism, particularly the influence that pop culture has on women’s empowerment.

Seven presenters of different educational and cultural backgrounds will speak at the event, but they all have one thing in common: students can relate to them. “We wanted to find speakers who reflect ourselves and who were like our peers,” said Aminka Belvitt, the event coordinator. “They all identify as feminists and they all have a goal to seek out more feminist leaders.” They are also all under 28 years old.

Speakers include Amy Kishek, who will discuss the politics of feminism, Katlyn Harrison, who will explain how to become a corporate feminist, and Junior West, who will link science and feminism, to name a few.

Discussion will also surround Beyoncé ’s documentary Yours and Mine, in which she proclaims her views on gender equality and how the focus should be not only on women, but on male vulnerability. “We’re going to discuss the place of men within feminism and how we can work with men to understand gender equality,” Belvitt said. “Gender equality considers both men and women and we need to start having that full conversation.” With that said, Belvitt explained that it is just as important for men to attend the event as it is for women. “Both genders need to be involved.”

Participants will learn about societal roles that people fall into and how they translate into oppression. Why do women allow men or children to hold them back? How can women find equal partners and healthy partnerships?

Participants are encouraged to discuss, debate and really think beyond what they have been taught about feminism. “We want participants to leave with the understanding that coloured women, queer women, transgender women and men deserve a place,” Belvitt said. “We want everyone to have a voice and be included. There’s no longer this mainstream western perspective that feminism is just for the elite, academic white woman. It’s for everyone.”

The event will take place at JMSB in room 2.210 on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free but registration is mandatory with aminka.belvitt@gmail.com. Lunch will be served for $5.

Categories
Opinions

“And that kids, is how we ruined the finale”

How I Met Your Mother subject to some serious criticism from long-time fans

CAUTION: if you have not seen the How I Met Your Mother finale, looked at any kind of social media, or you live under a rock but are eager to watch it, I am advised by the unofficial TV junkies rulebook to issue a spoiler alert when it concerns unwatched shows.

For the past nine years HIMYM fans, including yours truly, have been slowly picturing that dreadful day where we would no longer have any new episodes to look forward to because Ted will have finally finished recounting to his kids exactly how he met their mother. Aside from that, we have all been fantasizing and conjuring our ideal finale in our minds, hoping that the writers grant our deepest wishes or at least come very close.

The minute the screen went black, I was left feeling sad because it was over, as well as let down. The writers joined the ranks of other  television finales such as The Sopranos, Seinfeld and Dexter, all of which had the worst possible finales to ever grace our television screens.

After a surprisingly strong final season, the final episode managed to cram way too much into one time slot by spanning the next eleven years of the gang’s life, which is something they should have done over the span of their final season to give the fans more information and context about why all these tragic things happened in the finale.

Barney and Robin getting divorced was a crushing blow that nobody saw coming, given that the writers spent an entire season proving how perfect Barney and Robin were for each other. However, I was perfectly fine with the divorce because it provided a realistic perspective of life that most sitcoms fail to do because they insist on sticking to a Hollywood ending. Well, in the real world, you can’t have the good without the bad because life just doesn’t work that way.

This led to Barney’s character regressing into the same sleaze that he was in season one, losing all of his character development, which I thought was horrible. However, when he accidentally gets a girl pregnant, Barney ends up holding his daughter for the first time and makes a face that is too priceless to even explain. This at least showed fans that the one girl to finally rid Barney of his promiscuous ways was his very own daughter.

When Ted finally met the mother on that train platform, it turned into one of the sweetest moments in television history and solidified how perfect the mother was for Ted.

However, Ted only got to spend eleven years with his soulmate, because she got sick and passed away. After Ted finished telling his story to his kids, we learn that the mother’s actually been dead for six years. This was something that many fans completely despised due to the fact that they adored the mother and killing her off so quickly seemed selfish and made the entire series superfluous. Especially when the writers spun it so that Ted’s kids told him to get back aunt Robin because that’s who their dad loves, leading to Ted standing under Robin’s window with a blue french horn.

Personally, I thought the death of the mother was a beautiful thing. After they killed her and Ted ended up with Robin, I realized how uncertain life could be sometimes and that you should just live each day without regret, because a life of regret isn’t a life worth living. Also, the mother managed to give Ted the greatest gift possible, she gave her best eleven years to him and made sure that he wouldn’t be alone for the rest of his life by pairing him with the one person he never stopped loving.

No finale will ever truly meet our expectations because we set them too high, which always leads to disappointment. I applaud the creators of HIMYM providing a darker angle to the traditional sitcom finale, giving us something we will discuss for years and years to come. We’ll argue about our own takes on the finale and how we would’ve ended it, essentially making this show immortal. I think this what the creators wanted, a show to stand the test of time and never be forgotten. And lets face it, isn’t that what they hope to achieve in show business?

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