The McGill Tribune Vol. 41, Issue 2

The McGill Tribune TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021 | VOL. 41 | ISSUE 2

McGILLTRIBUNE.COM | @McGILLTRIBUNE

Published by the SPT, a student society of McGill University

EDITORIAL

FEATURE

Arts & Entertainment

Take note: It’s time to vote

Meeting myself halfway

‘He’s All That’ is a hollow ode to ‘90s teen nostalgia

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PGs. 8-9

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(Natalie Co / The McGill Tribune)

‘What the Pop!’ booths showcase local talent

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Students and staff push for better COVID-19 academic accommodations Several professors were denied remote teaching accommodations Sabrina Nelson Contributor Members of the McGill community have been re-

questing more inclusive academic considerations since the university’s requirement that students and faculty be on campus for Fall 2021. Similar to the academic accommodations that apply specifically to students with the Office

The return of Gerts Exploring the legacy of McGill’s iconic student bar Holly Wethey Student Life Editor Many lower-year McGill students will draw a blank at the name “Gerts.” As a fourth-year student, I’ve only heard stories of the famous bar that’s been closed since 2018.

However, with the stu-

dent bar in the SSMU building reopening on Sept. 14, it’s worth reminiscing about its closure.

Alana Dunlop, Arts Sci ’21, recalled her first drink at Gerts after getting mono in her first year.

“The doctor said [I couldn’t] drink for

a month,” Dunlop explained to The McGill Tribune, “A month later, I marked on my calendar that I could drink, [...] I knocked on my friend’s door and he was like ‘we can get a beer at Gerts.’ So I had my first drink at Gerts.”

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for Students with Disabilities, academic considerations are specific to COVID-19 concerns and apply to students who are required to self-isolate, or who are delayed in starting their courses due to isolation requirements.

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Laval triumphs over McGill in women’s soccer opener After suffering a 2–0 loss , the Martlets hope to bounce back Reza Ali Contributor On Sept. 10, the McGill Women’s Soccer team lost 2–0 to Laval in a hotly contested match, as the eventual winning goal did not come until the 59th minute. Mireille

Patry of Laval pounced on a rebound after a Laval free kick to give them the lead. Thirty minutes later, Audrey Genois put the game to bed with a composed finish past first-year goalkeeper Brenna Bordeniuk, cementing Laval’s

victory. McGill registered six shots compared to Laval’s 16, only one of which was on target, compared to Laval’s six.

However one-sided these stats sound, they do not tell the full story of the match.

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NEWS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

McGill tumbles from 40th to 44th in Times Higher Education ranking Law and Health Sciences shine in annual rankings, breaking top 25 Signy Harnad Contributor McGill ranks 44th among the top 1,662 universities in the world, and third in Canada, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings released on Sept. 1. This signals a four-spot drop from McGill’s previous 2021 placement.

The London-based ranking organization grounds its ratings in 13 separate performance indicators designed to assess athe full range of university activities. The most important categories include quality

of teaching, research output, and citations, which the THE weighs at 30 per cent each, respectively.

The remaining 10 per cent is based on industry income, which measures the commercial impact of an institution’s research, and international outlook.

Phil Baty, chief knowledge officer at the THE, noted that the international outlook metric, which reflects the ratio of international to domestic students, cemented McGill’s position among the world’s top 50. “[McGill] remains one of the world’s most internationally

Quality of teaching, research, and citations accounted for 90 per cent of the Times Higher Education’s ranking criteria this year, whereas international outlook and industry income comprised 10 per cent. (McGill University Faculty of Arts)

connected universities, with a truly global reach,” Baty said. “Its stand-out score is for international outlook, a university’s ability to draw in international talent, both faculty and students, and its research collaborations with institutions and academics outside Canada.”

Baty explained that when compiling their ranking, the THE analyzed over 80 million citations across more than 13 million research publications this year, including survey responses from 22,000 scholars worldwide.

Baty attributed McGill’s modest drop in world rankings to growing international competition.

“Specifically, McGill was overtaken this year by a group of European universities, KU Leuven in Belgium, Heidelberg University in Germany, the Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland, and Paris Sciences and Letters in France,” Baty said. “Often when margins are so tight, and competition is so intensive, a university can still improve and get overtaken by institutions improving more quickly. Rankings are of course a zero-sum game, and the reasons can be subtle.”

McGill placed 16th in law and 24th in the clinical, pre-clinical,

and health sciences this year, according to the THE’s global rankings by subject. In an email to The McGill Tribune, Frédérique Mazerolle, McGill’s media relations officer, highlighted the university’s academic legacy in the health sciences, underscoring the latest research that has amplified McGill’s international reputation.

“McGill has a long history of important contributions in health and life sciences [...] that continues to this day,” Mazerolle wrote. “From the ground-breaking work our researchers are leading on dementia treatment and care, to leading-edge therapies in cancer care, to the extraordinary efforts across our community over the past 18 months in the effort to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the recognition through McGill’s global rating in these areas is a testament to the outstanding people who together form our extraordinary community.”

McGill has also been ranked by other organizations such as Maclean’s Magazine and Quacquarelli Symonds. Although rankings have no impact on McGill’s provincial funding, they have a track record of influencing university admissions, as students often use the rankings to determine

their university choices. However, a growing number of students, including U2 Arts student Olivia Candido, have expressed skepticism toward the methodologies used by global ranking systems in recent years.

“It is puzzling to me that nowhere do these [organizations] concern themselves with the public good or meaningful change taken up by the university,” Candido said.

“Those are the factors that should be top of mind, but they simply are not built into the infrastructure [of rankings.]”

For Brooklyn Frizzle, U3 Science student and former Students’ Society of McGill University vicepresident (VP) of university affairs, the main drawback of university rankings is their failure to reflect the day-to-day experiences of undergraduate students.

“In many ways, university rankings are not representative of student experiences,” Frizzle said. “They are only based on a handful of things, that is to say, publications, research funding, and awards for their staff [….] While important, these factors are not what matters most to the ordinary student, especially not the ordinary undergraduate student.”

Students and staff push for better COVID-19 academic accommodations Several professors were denied remote teaching accommodations

Ella Fitzhugh and Madison Edward-Wright News Editors Continued from page 1.

According to the current academic considerations framework, members of the McGill community with disabilities, longterm medical conditions, or other chronic health issues are not eligible to receive COVID-19-related accommodations—such as flexible grading schemes for courses, audio or Zoom recordings of lectures, or withdrawal, incomplete, or “leave of absence” from a course. Carrie Rentschler, a professor in the Department of art history and communication studies at McGill, applied for accommodations to teach her large COMS 310 course remotely to protect herself and her spouse—who could be adversely affected by the Delta variant—but had her request denied.

“I did so on the advice of my spouse’s oncologist and my own endocrinologist,” Rentschler wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “It’s really disappointing to be turned down for accommodation. The policy is that employees who live with people with serious chronic illnesses are not eligible for accommodation, even when medical doctors advise it.”

In a statement to the Tribune, Frédérique Mazerolle, media relations officer at McGill, assured the McGill community that the

Media Relations Officer Frédérique Mazerolle explains students are experiencing travel delays due to quarantine requirements, travel restrictions, and student permit delays. (Engin Akyurt / Unsplash.com) university’s safety measures are guided by public health officials’ advisories. According to Mazerolle, McGill examines each request for accommodations and makes decisions on a case-by-case basis.

“Some students have been experiencing delays in travel due to circumstances beyond their control, such as study permit processing delays, travel restrictions, and quarantine requirements,” Mazerolle wrote. “The Office of the Dean of Students will work on a case-by-case basis around academic accommodation for these students. Students

requiring long-term accommodations related to COVID-19 should connect with the Office for Students with Disabilities to seek potential accommodations.”

Alice Laheurte, U1 Arts, experienced trouble travelling to Montreal for Fall 2021. Laheurte encountered complications at almost every stage in the process for acquiring her study permit, such as delays in obtaining proper documentation and biometrics like fingerprints, as well as COVID-19 testing. Stalling in these services and McGill’s changing deadlines regarding

study permits even left Laheurte wondering whether she would have to defer this semester. Laheurte felt that the university could have been more accomodating during this time of high stress.

“In my case, McGill advisers [and professors] really took care of me,” Laheurte said. “But I think being more reassuring and not just throwing [study permit deadlines] at students [when the deadline to apply] for a deferral [is] in two weeks [...], is not the right decision. Even if [McGill] is just going to extend the deadline, just reassure [students] and tell them that it is okay [...] because they know that students are struggling on their own.”

Rentschler pointed to McGill’s ability to implement inclusive accommodations in a timely manner during the transition to online learning in 2020, arguing that McGill should be able to apply those accommodations now.

“Last year I felt as if McGill was developing a more humane and just framework of accommodation, one that recognized that having chronic illnesses, being disabled, and living in conditions of vulnerability did not mean we could not also actively participate in the life of the university,” Rentschler wrote. “There is no reason why we cannot be more accommodating at the university, to see access to the university and learning as a human right we should all have, no matter what our physical conditions are. We know it is possible.”

NEWS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

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SSMU BoD to explore legality of vaccination mandate for SSMU employees The board also approved $20,000 budget to replace SSMU office furniture Shafaq Nami Science & Technology Editor The Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Board of Directors (BoD) convened on Sept. 9, voting on a motion to investigate the legality of enforcing a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for SSMU employees. The board also approved a budget for purchasing new office furniture.

Claire Downie, SSMU vice-president (VP) university affairs, who has been vocal in her demands for McGill to adopt a university-wide mandatory vaccination policy, requested a last-minute addition to the agenda to discuss feasibility of implementing such a policy for SSMU employees.

“Certain workplaces are saying that they think it is legal to have a vaccination mandate,” Downie said. “I know before, the concern was raised that this was not legal, [but] people on the [BoD] seemed generally receptive to having such a policy at SSMU. So given the potential of legal change, I just wanted to bring this up again and see if

As the SSMU speaker office is empty, Addy Parsons, the international students’ representative, chaired the meeting for the second time this year.

(Defne Gurcay / The McGill Tribune) the board would be interested in looking into the legal logistics [...] of having such a policy.”

Board members agreed that a hybrid model for the policy would need to be adopted to accommodate those who preferred not to get vaccinated.

One such model might include seeing those unvaccinated undergo COVID-19 testing twice

a week. Éric Sader, SSMU VP finance, mentioned that people may have religious reasons for not being vaccinated, or may not feel comfortable sharing their health records.

“If an employee, for example, has a medical reason or a sincerely held religious belief, we would not really have an option to force them

to get vaccinated,” Sader said.

“Then our only path forward if they refuse is termination, which would be termination for religious discrimination. I am not against contacting legal on this, but to me, this is a little dubious moving forward, especially given the fact that we have been stressing in the past few months that this was not the direction we want to go.”

Ben Wan, SSMU Medical Students’ Society representative, suggested that SSMU move to implement a policy mandating their employees to be vaccinated or agree to bi-weekly COVID-19 testing to enter the workplace or represent SSMU in other public settings.

Sader raised concerns about the financial feasibility and logistics of conducting twiceweekly testing, to which Downie clarified that the motion was limited to only looking into the legality of a vaccination mandate.

Beatrice Mackie, BoD member at large, echoed Downie’s sentiment that such a policy would be SSMU’s way of acting in accordance with their recent protests for a safer

campus. The motion was passed unanimously.

Next, Sacha Delouvrier, SSMU VP external affairs, introduced a motion to approve an expense under the General Administration budget for new furniture and fixtures for the SSMU building. The money would go toward replacing the furniture in the SSMU office, the student lounge, and the building’s cafe. SSMU building manager Wallace Sealy addressed directors’ concerns regarding the need for such an expense.

“We are at the point now where we are in our five-year plan [and] things are not going to get better the further we move along,” Sealy said. “So if we do not take decisive action soon, we are going to be in a situation where [...] people will want to come back to the office at some point [but] our area will [not] be able to support them.”

The motion to allocate approximately $20,000 of the General Administration budget to replacing the SSMU office fixtures and furniture was unanimously approved.

Students wait in line for hours at McGill’s first on-campus vaccination clinic

Clinic hours cut short following vaccine supply shortage Lily Cason Contributor Amidst implementation of Quebec’s vaccine passport, McGill announced that a vaccination clinic in Redpath Hall would offer first and second doses and register vaccines received outside of Quebec starting on Friday, Sept. 3. The event was heavily advertised by email and across McGill’s various social media accounts, but many attendees felt it was mismanaged. The clinic, which was a stand-alone event and did not require registration, was overwhelmed by turnout from its start. Though the clinic was meant to remain from 1 p.m. until 7 p.m., it closed after only two and a half hours due

to short supply. McGill has since stated that future clinics will be registration-only.

Dory Sampson, U3 Arts, who went to the clinic with the hope of getting help fixing her malfunctioning vaccine passport, remembered arriving early to a long line and then leaving without getting the help she needed.

“My roommate and I showed up an hour early and there was already a line,” Sampson said. “After waiting in line for three and a half hours, we were told to go to a different location [...] which, we had found out through Facebook, had been rejecting people [...] because they were all booked up and understaffed as well.”

Sampson said she had expected the event

The line stretched from the entrance to Redpath Hall, along McTavish, all the way to Sherbrooke.

(Kate Addison / The McGill Tribune)

to be adequately staffed and better managed , given how much publicity the clinic had received from university.

“The fact that they advertised it on their Instagram, with a countdown timer, and then the line was not moving at all was kind of unacceptable,” Sampson said.

Amir Shah, U3 Science, attended the clinic in hopes of registering his out-ofprovince vaccines, but eventually left the line after realizing he would not be helped. Shah feels the university should have foreseen the logistical issues, given its large international student population—including many who do not have access to Canada’s list of approved vaccines. According to the International Student Services (ISS), McGill has over 10,000 international students who make up nearly 30 per cent of the overall student body.

“If those [international student numbers] are the numbers you are proud of, then you also need to make sure you have the resources to work with those numbers,” Shah said. “I really was expecting McGill to have started this kind of program for vaccinating students and registering students’ vaccinations from before orientation so that [...] as students trickled in from all around the world [...] they would have slowly gotten their vaccinations and registrations done.”

Shah, like Sampson, did not receive the service the university had advertised. Shah pointed out that the clinic’s shortcomings could pose a great challenge for those new to Montreal who may not know how to access local resources.

“I walked out of the line after a while,”

Shah said. “I got an appointment for next week on Wednesday at a clinic to register my vaccine, and I know a lot of friends who did that as well. It is okay for someone [like me] who has been in Montreal and who knows places around, but [I feel for] new students.”

In an email to The McGill Tribune, David Juncker, professor and chair of the department of biomedical engineering at McGill, emphasized the importance of offering vaccination clinics on campus, adding that the university should be taking more steps to effectively manage COVID-19.

“Lacking a vaccination mandate, [McGill’s] encouraging people to vaccinate via pop-up clinics is most certainly recommended,” Juncker wrote. “The university should also consider rapid testing, as is now used in Waterloo and at UBC.” The administration stated that they are looking into the potential for more oncampus vaccination clinics, and encouraged students to take advantage of walk-in clinics in Montreal.

“The university is working with public health authorities to explore options for future vaccination clinics,” Frédérique Mazerolle wrote in an email to the Tribune. “In the meantime, [...] there are a number of walkin clinics set up for the first and the second dose depending on vaccine availability. They can also book vaccination times on the Clic Santé website.”

Since providing the Tribune with this statement, McGill has announced it will hold a vaccine registration clinic Sept. 14 - Sept.

17.

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NEWS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

SSMU University Centre reopens after three-year hiatus

Gerts Bar set to open September 14 Laila Mirza Contributor After a three-year closure, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) University Centre, located at 3600 McTavish St., has officially reopened. The University Centre has been a one-stop destination for students to enjoy university life, offering space for clubs and communities to meet as well as operating a student bar. After closing for renovations in 2018, the re-opening was further delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic—so many undergraduate McGill students have never gotten the chance to visit the popular spot until now.

In an email to The McGill Tribune, SSMU President Darshan Daryanani expressed his excitement about the possibility of inviting clubs back into the building.

“The University Centre is designed to accommodate all the offices, bar and restaurant spaces, student lounges, event spaces, and meeting rooms needed for SSMU’s vast assortment of academic, social, and cultural activities,” Daryanani wrote.

Daryanani explained that the building’s reopening was continuously delayed due to required renovations, such as replacing the electrical distribution systems and upgrading the alarm system. Given that restorations were under McGill’s jurisdiction, SSMU was unable to speed up the process.

“This project consisted of the complete replacement of the building’s heating,

The University Centre houses the SSMU executive offices, club rooms, restaurants, and student lounge areas. (Kate Addison / The McGill Tribune) ventilation, and air conditioning system, which dates back to the opening of the building in 1965,” Daryanani said. “On a brighter note, the renovations will make the building more energy-efficient and more comfortable, in addition to reducing the frequency of system interruptions.”

Miya Dhillon, U2 Arts, expressed her excitement about the University Centre’s reopening.

“I had no idea there was a SSMU University Centre,” Dhillon said. “I don’t know if I have missed out on anything since I never knew that was an option for us. I am

excited about the possibility of having a spot on campus where I can go and hang out.”

Tina Vanslette, U2 Arts, echoed Dhillon’s sentiments about the reopening of the Centre, describing the reopening as a chance to experience student life.

“I have never seen the inside of the SSMU building,” Vanslette said. “I have heard stories about it, especially Gerts, but [...] its legacy is in the old Reddit posts about it. One more year of construction and it might have completely missed my graduating class. I’m glad I’ll get to see it.”

A popular feature of the University

Centre is Gerts Campus Bar, a SSMU nonprofit operation that hosts events and holds a space for students, faculty, and staff to get together. The bar will be open to students Monday through Friday and open on weekends to those who reserve in advance.

In an interview with the Tribune, Nadine Pelaez, Gerts’ Bar manager, said that she is excited to return Gerts back to the McGill community.

“Having a student bar is something most college campuses have to help promote student life,” Pelaez said. “It is a social centre where people can hang out with friends, study, or meet new people. Gerts is supposed to be the low-key student bar that allows students the opportunity to socialize without any pretenses of exclusivity or snobbiness.”

While the bar’s layout has not changed, its concept has; this year’s bar will also feature the new Gerts Café. The café will feature a space where students can buy coffee and food in a relaxed, open environment.

“I want a place where students can go on campus to get good coffee and food,” Palaez said. “I am not trying to compete with the coffee from the residence halls, but rather compete with popular coffee shops around Montreal.”

Gerts Bar and Cafe will be following all government COVID-19 regulations, including enforcing a 125-person capacity limit and checking vaccine passports at the door.

Two McGill alumni win grant for COVID-19 vaccine community outreach initiative

WeCanVax aims to increase vaccination rates in Parc-Extension Anoushka Oke Contributor The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) awarded a $10,000 grant to Tammy Xuan Bui, MScPH ‘21, and Nehal Islam, a current McGill medical student and MSc ‘21 on June 7. The funds will go toward implementing the duo’s communitybased proposal called WeCanVax— an initiative that seeks to increase diverse communities’ vaccine confidence.

Since the launch of WeCanVax, research has shown that the vaccination rate in Parc-Extension—76.8 per cent-exceeded Montreal’s vaccination rate—74.6 percent--as of September.

Bui and Islam worked alongside Dr. Ananya Banerjee, assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health (EBOH), to receive the Vaccine Community Innovation Challenge award.

“It is very rare for masters students to take an assignment and submit it for funding, but I [told Bui and Islam that they should] try it,” Banerjee said. “And lo and behold, they were awarded $10,000.”

WeCanVax operates in the ParcExtension (Parc-Ex) borough—a low-

income neighbourhood inhabited by many immigrants and other racialized communities—where vaccination rates have been low. Banerjee explained that the campaign put up posters around the neighbourhood that feature Parc-Ex community members in an effort to promote residents’ confidence in getting the COVID-19 vaccine. “[When] you walk around ParcExtension and you see residents on the posters saying why they got vaccinated and why it is important,

in multiple languages [...] it puts confidence in the community,” Banerjee said. “[Unvaccinated people] are walking by and they see pictures of their neighbours saying things like ‘I got vaccinated to protect my children’ or ‘I got vaccinated so I can travel back to India to see my parents’ [...] that is huge, and it helps to change people’s mindsets.”

WeCanVax also maintains a strong social media presence. Bui said that Facebook in particular was important for WeCanVax, as it

WeCanVax was first designed in a McGill class taught by Dr. Banerjee called The Foundations of Health Promotion. (WeCanVax)

allows the initiative to foster a deeper connection with the community.

“Facebook is really interesting, because a lot of the community groups in Parc-Ex actually operate mainly on Facebook,” Bui said. “So what’s really nice is if I wanted to share something that we are doing, maybe a poster, I would post it on a group of theirs called ‘ParcEx Action Squad’ [...] where the community of Parc-Ex comes together online.”

The grant money—as well as an additional $15,000 awarded to the project by the EBOH—has helped create outreach opportunities, such as WeCanVax’s new initiative that encourages young people to create TikTok videos or to submit a picture about why getting the vaccine is important to them. The creators of the top-three submissions will get the opportunity to attend National Basketball Association and Toronto Raptors star Chris Boucher’s basketball camp.

Islam and Bui feel that the WeCanVax initiative has helped create important changes in a borough where vaccination rates have been low. Islam was careful to note, however, that vaccine hesitancy was not the main reason for low vaccination rates.

“Going in beforehand, we had access to a whole bunch of different media articles saying that there was a large amount of vaccine hesitancy [in Parc-Ex] and that people in this community did not want to get vaccinated,” Islam said. “But what we really came to realize is that it was more of an issue about access to the vaccine. [I]t is really important to recognize these challenges and barriers that stand in the way of people easily receiving the vaccine.”

By working closely with the Parc-Ex community, Bui and Islam hopes toestablish trust with the people whom WeCanVax aims to benefit.

“We allowed [the project] to be really dynamic, so working with the community to understand [their needs] and to strengthen their own community at the same time,” Islam said. “Allowing community members to have a say in which way we oriented our project made it more effective overall and allowed us to be really warmly received by the community.”

Bui and Islam recently applied for another grant through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to evaluate the impact that the initiative has had on the community.

OPINION

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

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EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief Sequoia Kim editor@mcgilltribune.com Creative Director Ruobing Chen rchen@mcgilltribune.com Managing Editors Kennedy McKee-Braide kmckee-braide@mcgilltribune.com Madison Mclauchlan mmclauchlan@mcgilltribune.com Maya Abuali mabuali@mcgilltribune.com

News Editors Ella Fitzhugh & Madison Edward-Wright news@mcgilltribune.com Opinion Editors Jonah Fried, Matthew Molinaro & Sepideh Afshar opinion@mcgilltribune.com Science & Technology Editors Shafaq Nami & Youssef Wahba scitech@mcgilltribune.com Student Life Editors Holly Wethey & Wendy Zhao studentlife@mcgilltribune.com Features Editor Tasmin Chu features@mcgilltribune.com Arts & Entertainment Editors Lowell Wolfe & Michelle Siegel arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports Editors Adam Burton & Sarah Farnand sports@mcgilltribune.com Design Editors Jinny Moon & Xiaotian Wang design@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editor Kate Addison photo@mcgilltribune.com Multimedia Editors Alex Hinton & Noah Vaton multimedia@mcgilltribune.com Web Developers Abby de Gala & Marwan Shiraz Khan webdev@mcgilltribune.com Copy Editor Jackie Lee copy@mcgilltribune.com Social Media Editor Taneeshaa Pradhan socialmedia@mcgilltribune.com

Millions of students will head to the polls on Sept. 20 to vote in the federal election.

With the semester underway and the pandemic here to stay, many people feel lost in a dizzying haze of parties, ideologies, and options. From climate change, to racial injustice, to more efficient healthcare, countless priorities are on the ballot. More than deciding between parties and candidates, many voters are asking themselves what issues should take precedence, which political decisions will best serve their causes, and for some, whether it is worth voting at all. Granted, no one can be forced to vote. But with so many important issues that impact students sparring in the political arena, every eligible voter should take the time to inform themselves and cast the ballot of their choice.

Although Elections Canada has suspended the Vote on Campus program this year, voters can mail in their ballots or pick up a special ballot at an Elections Canada office until Sept. 14. Election officials have cited the pandemic as well as the snap-pace of the election

OFF THE BOARD

as logistical justifications for the campus voting program’s cancellation. Even so, students can reasonably be concerned that the current parliament is not doing enough to facilitate turnout. But that is even more of a reason to vote early and encourage others to do the same. If the government has blundered the election process, it should answer for it on Sept.

20.

In response to some of these barriers, McGill’s administration has taken some steps to assist student voters. In an Aug. 31 email, Secretary-General Edyta Rogowska discouraged staff from scheduling academic deadlines on Sept. 20 and asked them to accommodate students when necessary. Nevertheless, because many courses have mandatory attendance or are not recorded, some students may be reluctant to miss lectures for the polls. Those in this position should consider mail-in or early voting. But McGill could go further by disseminating resources, identifying nearby polling places, and requiring professors to permit absences for voting purposes. As a public institution and educational space, the university has a basic

obligation to encourage young voters to make their opinions heard and support democratic participation.

Student organizations like the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) have already been promoting election materials and helping voters make informed choices. For example, the AUS held a virtual debate between the presidents of the different political partyaffiliated clubs on Sept. 13, providing students with a variety of perspectives and answers to policy positions.

Students interested in learning more about the federal parties should reach out to these clubs, including Liberal McGill, New Democratic Party (NDP) McGill, the Conservative Students’ Association of McGill, Young Greens McGill, and others. Some of these clubs have planned “Get Out to Vote” initiatives. Students should take part in these to help others learn about the different parties’ ideas in preparation for election day.

Even students who are ineligible to vote, such as international students, should learn about the issues raging across the country as the election unfolds.

Canada’s next government will make decisions that affect all

students, and everyone has the agency to promote candidates of their choice on social media and elsewhere, as well as encourage friends to vote.

Above all, it is imperative that students not be apathetic.

An election—especially an early one—is a rare occasion to turn rhetoric into votes, and ideas into policies. People may disagree on the merits of voting based on one’s conscience— such as voting for a party that they feel most represents them—or strategically voting for a candidate to block another that they vehemently disagree with from power. Although that decision is ultimately up to the individual, everyone should agree that votes do count—even if a riding typically skews a certain way. Students should vote in this election, and all the ones to follow, because today’s prevailing questions are the policies of tomorrow and the shape of Canada’s future For more information on the political parties and their candidates, consult the Elections Canada website; voter information guides published by Macleans, Global News, and other media outlets; or the different political organizations’ web pages.

The significance of silence

Lowell Wolfe Arts & Entertainment Editor

Business Manager Marilie Pilon business@mcgilltribune.com

TPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Angelica Voutsinas, Marilie Pilon, Namrata Rana, Reem Abdul Majid, Sequoia Kim, Shreya Rastogi

CONTRIBUTORS Reza Ali, Katie Anglin, Anna Bergas, Lily Cason, Natalie Co, Zoe Countess, Defne Gurcay, Suzanna Graham, Avery Haley-Lock, Signy Harnad, Juliette Henderson, Kaden Jagoe, Zoe Karkossa, Adam Menikefs, Laila Mirza, Ananya Mohanty, Anoushka Oke, Dylan Schofield

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EDITORIAL

Take note: It’s time to vote The McGill Tribune Editorial Board

5

Recently I drove two and a half hours to visit a long-time friend. Coming from different childhood backgrounds, and following similarly disparate pathways of life, our perspectives mesh and reinvigorate in surprising, and rewarding, ways. As my rickety Subaru accelerated its way north along Lake Superior’s rural coastline, we, too, brought each other metaphorically up to speed.

My friend had been dealing with incredibly difficult personal circumstances, while I was excitedly returning to university, enthusiastic to re-enter the physical realm of scholarship. Sensing the uneven footing, and slightly unsure of how to navigate our colliding circumstances, I tried to respect that our shared time would not be celebratory.

With different reasons driving our desires to ditch town one last time before summer’s end, there was little my friend and I could do but sit and be quiet together.

Such a way to pass the time is not as wasteful or impersonal as it might seem. My friend and I shared space in mutual silence without any dependence on the other’s words for personal gratification, reaffirming that we valued each other holistically. Instead of attempting to fill a void with words, our individual presences were enough for one other. Not only was it gratifying, but it reified the significance of our friendship. We saw each other, we didn’t talk much, and we were still very close––perhaps even closer than before.

The realms that benefit from silence extend beyond the social. I’ve always devoured literature and music, and I am grateful for the technology that posits these sources of entertainment and knowledge directly at my fingertips. For much of my young life, I’ve felt a constant urge to satisfy these enjoyments, hip-hopping around from content to content; I would read a book in a cafe, then listen to a different audiobook on

the way home, and finally put on music when I cooked my dinner that evening.

Now, I try to create space for silence each and every day; whether it is at the breakfast table, a park bench, my yoga mat, or anywhere else that I feel inclined to back away from the immediacy, noise, and temptation of overindulgence. This past July, while I was in the backcountry with my father, I challenged myself to see how long I could sit silently, and just think. Sometimes it was boring.

Occasionally my train of thought would stumble across a memory or an emotional trigger that I didn’t enjoy, and my body would want to distract itself. But I tried really, really hard to do absolutely nothing.

Returning to McGill, and along with it, a city populated by over one million people, has reduced the opportunities that I have for true, complete silence. However, I still seek it out, and the effects are worth the while. Without anything else to focus on, the mind quickly processes its most pressing matters, sifting its way through the stressors of school, friends, family, careers, and anything else that’s there for it to digest.

With these thoughts washed and hung to dry, I find myself more capable of attending to these responsibilities with patience and focus—and with an ease that I hadn’t had previously. Additionally, these moments of quiet and stillness have become increasingly enjoyable. There’s something warm and comforting in the knowledge that wherever I may be, such peace is available.

6

OPINION

COMMENTARY Kennedy McKee-Braide Managing Editor Content warning: This article discusses disordered eating I first started to think about my weight when I was in elementary school. I distinctly remember feeling as though I had to lose weight to make friends or to capture the attention of my crushes. But it was not until early high school when it started to take a larger toll on my life. In ninth grade, my mom would send me to school with $20 a week to buy food at the cafeteria.

Rather than eating, I would pocket the money and tell my friends it was simply a way to save some extra cash In reality, this was the first time I was consciously engaging in disordered eating, skipping meals in the hopes of becoming thinner. These patterns have continued on and off for most of my life thus far.

As I grew up, I began to notice how common it was amongst my––more often than not, womanidentifying––peers to count calories, develop unhealthy relationships with exercise, and pick apart their appearances. Often, this was

COMMENTARY

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

Toward body liberation under the guise of merely caring about our health. This belief is likely genuine for many. After all, people are taught from a young age that fatness correlates directly to being unhealthy and that weight gain drives them to an early grave.

But in reality, these claims have their roots in racism and arbitrary metrics. And for many who struggle with their body image, the fear of weighing more is based in internalized fatphobia more than anything else––even if that fear is unconscious.

Though I never fully escaped my recurring patterns of disordered eating, I realized a few years ago that I needed to improve my body image––something would have to change if I wanted to take control over my life. As I started to work to unlearn some of what I had been taught to believe about weight, I set off on a mission toward self-love and body positivity.

I quickly noticed, however, that this focus had its issues as well. I found that I was angry at myself whenever I had a bad day; if I looked in the mirror and didn’t love what I saw. In some backward way, I was still placing far too much emphasis on my relationship

Some activists criticize videos and images posted on TikTok and other social media platforms depicting thin white women purposely accentuating their body rolls and other physical ‘flaws.’ (refinery29.com) with the way I looked––rather than the way I felt and why.

Beyond my own personal struggles with body positivity, fat activists and disability rights activists have long been questioning whether the mainstream approach to body image is productive. For one, the mainstream body positivity movement tends to be dominated by thin, white, non-disabled women. While it is undoubtedly important for everyone to accept themselves as they are, many ac-

tivists feel as though the fat acceptance movement––which aims to tangibly approve plus-sized people’s experiences—has been watered down by an over-emphasis on physical appearance. Additionally, when body positivity focusses too much on one’s body’s ability to function “properly,” it risks leaving out disabled people––especially those who experience issues with body image.

For those like myself, who inhabit bodies that are not large

enough to experience struggles like excessive stigma and poor experiences with health care professionals, it is essential for all to confront internalized fatphobia, fight for those whose voices are underrepresented in the movement, and work to unlearn patterns of disordered eating. Overall, it is important to recognize the powerful origins of the fat acceptance and liberation movement and use them to contextualize current societal attitudes toward weight.

Truth and Reconciliation Day: McGill’s lost opportunity

Katie Anglin Contributor McGill University has sent a bold message to Indigenous students and their communities by refusing to close for Truth and Reconciliation Day this upcoming Sept.

30. The federal government created this statutory holiday to give Canadians an opportunity to acknowledge and learn about the tragic history of residential schools.

Educating oneself about the wrongdoings of Canadian predecessors is essential, but it is equally important to honour survivors

and their communities who continue to deal with and resist ongoing colonialism.

McGill prides itself on being a progressive institution, yet by denying students and staff the opportunity to participate in Truth and Reconciliation Day to the fullest, they miss an opportunity to support Indigenous students and to pave a path toward reconciliation with their own violent, colonial past and present.

Federal offices and banks are closed on Sept. 30, and numerous academic institutions across Canada—including Simon Fraser University and the University of

Indigenous Awareness Weeks will take place from Sept. 13-24. (McGill Reporter)

Saskatchewan—are closing for the day to show their support for Indigenous communities. As one of the top schools in Canada, McGill should be leading by example, not failing to support reconciliation efforts.

It is ironic that the university’s motto is Grandescunt Aucta Labore, meaning “by work, all things increase and grow,” and yet they are unwilling to work to try and mend the relationship with the Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawk) people, on whose land McGill is built. It is even more hypocritical that the school closes for Patriots Day in May every year to recognize and celebrate the French rebellion that fought against English forces in the 19th century, but refuses to acknowledge that McGill exists because of the French colonial power that Indigenous people are currently resisting.

The university’s name perpetuates the tragic and ongoing legacy of English and French colonialism and systemic racial injustice in Canada. As a trader in the West Indies, James McGill enslaved at least two Indigenous children and three Black people while gaining immense wealth on the backs of other enslaved people. Even after the statue’s temporary removal due to vandalism, racialized staff and students have been pushing the university to decolonize for years. McGill’s reluctance to remove a statue speaks to the maintenance of colonial history as the status quo. But the removal of statues is but a small step of the more transformative steps McGill must take to address their colonial legacy. One institution beginning to assume responsi-

bility for its ruinous past is X University—formerly known as Ryerson University—in Toronto. In response to widespread student activism, the Canadian university has declared it will change its school name and remove statues that celebrate colonial figures, including Egerton Ryerson––an architect of the residential school system.

While there is still more work to be done, the X University case sets a precedent for how large institutions can begin to acknowledge their wrongdoings and work to repair relationships with Indigenous communities. Sam Howden, a Red River Métis student activist and organizer at X University who was among the first students to refer to the school as “X University,” emphasized that the student action that led to the name change was fundamental in centring Indigenous experiences on campus.

In 2016, McGill assembled a task force to implement changes laid out in the final report of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission. McGill pledged to work on the university’s relationship with Indigenous communities by creating initiatives designed to encourage an inclusive environment for present and future Indigenous students. A negative environment is not conducive to academic productivity or individual growth, and McGill still has yet to unequivocally acknowledge the suffering the school has caused. While a closure alone would not allow McGill to rectify broken promises, its failure to do the bare minimum is a lost opportunity and an insult to Indigenous communities on campus.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

7

Five science myths perpetuated by your favourite movies and TV shows From ‘Star Trek’ to ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,’ bad science is woven into the fabric of the pop culture landscape Shafaq Nami Science & Technology Editor Movies and TV shows are notorious for sacrificing sound science in favour of cinematics that capture audiences’ attention. While this provides good entertainment, viewers may be shocked when scientific reality does not match up with fantasy. The McGill Tribune busts five incorrect portrayals of science in the popular media.

Myth 1: Antidote to the rescue!

You may be familiar with action movie plotlines, involving the manufacture and distribution of an antidote to counteract a poison in a timeframe of mere days. For instance, in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Shredder’s evil plan revolves around spreading a virus and then using the teenage mutant ninja turtles to create and distribute an antidote—all within the time span of a month. Most of these films feature certain characters with a natural resistance toward the poison who then provide their antibodies as a cure.

In real life, however, manufacturing an antidote would take much longer than a few days—even if the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations were ignored and a production process was already in place.

A real-life parallel of antidote manufacture is snake antivenom, which is

made by injecting horses with venom to produce antibodies. The process takes at least 18 months to complete and involves breeding snakes and milking their venom, and then purifying the antibodies produced by horses upon exposure.

dangerous side-effects of an explosion, there is a more insidious way explosions can kill: Through blast waves. If a person is close enough to the explosion

wind pressure it creates. Such high pressure can cause serious ear, lung and bowel damage—sorry, Tom Cruise.

Myth 2: Charge to 100—stat!

Defibrillators, a very common occurrence in movies and medical dramas, are often used to put audiences on the edge of their seats, waiting to see if their favourite character will survive the shock.

In shows, defibrillators are mostly employed when a character’s heart suddenly stops beating. However, in a real emergency, defibrillators cannot be used on people with extremely slow heart rates or none at all. They are also not placed side-by-side on the chest as shown in movies, but at specific angles on the chest; one above the right nipple and the other on the left side just below the chest area.

Myth 3: Walking away scot-free Many movies feature action heroes that are seemingly invincible: They walk away from huge explosions and destruction relatively unharmed—think any movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While fire and shrapnel are both

needs a medium to travel through to be heard. This fact was first proved in the 17th century by Irish physicist Robert Boyle, when he conducted an experiment that placed a ringing alarm clock inside a glass jar. After sucking out the air from the jar using a pump, creating a vacuum, Boyle discovered that when the air disappeared, so too did the sound.

Myth 5: The chloroform kidnap

There is no scientific evidence to support the myth, often used in movies such as ‘Lucy,’ that humans only use 10 per cent of our brains. (commonsensemedia.org) to be propelled by its shockwave, they are close enough to be killed.

When an explosion occurs, it creates a vacuum which is immediately filled by surrounding air. Pressure changes of three pounds per square inch (psi) can cause 164 kilometre-per-hour winds—gusts strong enough to collapse most residential buildings. Anyone close to the explosion would not only feel the blast, but also the immense

Myth 4: The BOOM in space Battle sounds and noises made by ships as they move through space are found in many science fiction movies, like Star Trek and Star Wars. If these movies were true to science, there would be only deafening silence in space.

The reason for the silence is because space is a vacuum, and sound

Kidnapping scenes in movies tend to involve a dark figure descending upon an unsuspecting victim from behind, muffling their screams with a chloroform-soaked cloth. The victim typically loses consciousness only seconds later.

Though it is a powerful anaesthetic, chloroform is a slow-working substance. It would take an adult human at least five minutes to lose consciousness—during which they could potentially fight off their attacker. Moreover, chloroform’s efficacy also depends on its dose: If the attacker is imprecise, overdose of chloroform can cause death.

This is one of the reasons why chloroform is no longer used in surgeries.

Despite the inaccurate portrayals of science that would make any expert shudder, most people continue to consume such media without question.

After all, why go to the movies if not for an escape?

Meeting myself halfway Coming to peace with a mixed cultural identity Sequoia Kim, Editor-in-Chief “Hi Halmoni,” I say, as I draw my Korean grandmother into a very loose, awkward hug. “Hi sayquoi-yah,” she beams back at me, purple puffer jacket, tattooed eyebrows, and all.

My grandparents are very predictable people; Halmoni will measure herself against me and tell me I should enter the Miss Universe beauty pageant; Haraboji will draw out a long “Hii,” pull me into a very brief hug, and give me two or three solid—and I mean solid—pats on the back.

I am grateful for every minute I get to spend with my grandparents, but seeing them in the flesh is bittersweet. It reminds me of the time I told Haraboji that I was going to take an introductory Korean language class at McGill.

I never actually ended up taking the course, and it pained me when every time he came over to visit, he would ask me if I was still taking it. I shook my head and muttered that I would start trying to learn on my own soon—a promise I knew I wouldn’t keep. I wanted to take the class to stop feeling so much like a Korean fraud, and more importantly, to be able to speak freely to my Korean family. I wanted to know all the stories that couldn’t quite pierce through the language barrier.

Growing up mixed KoreanScottish in a predominantly white town in southwestern Ontario, my search for a sense of identity and belonging has felt, at turns, humiliating and insatiable.

As I enter my twenties, however, I’ve begun to see this confusing existence not as something to lament, but as something beautiful and inordinately complex to explore.

Simmering on low heat for several years prior, my racial identity crisis erupted in my first year of studies at McGill. McGill’s Upper Residence felt packed with hundreds of obnoxious, loud, white Americans.

More than being excluded, I felt repulsed: Who I was couldn’t have been further from the culture I had been plunged into. Outside of the more glaring reasons for my alienation—like the astounding dominance of the thin, white, and blonde ideal—lots of other small things bothered me.

For one, people wasted disgusting amounts of food in the dining hall. My Apba taught me to scrape out the last grain of rice out of the bowl, and I always used chopsticks to nitpick out the final few half-grains stuck to the sides.

the much of the McGill population. “[I remember] feeling so [...] isolated, feeling like I don’t have anything in common with these people at all,” Mitchell said, recalling their first year. “I think that’s when I started doing a lot of thinking and I was like, ‘if this is white people, this is not me.’”

But

it

was

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my first year of university, I felt the sudden urge to explore, and confront, my Asian identity. But how? The most obvious starting point was through my Haraboji— translating to “grandfather” in English. In my eyes, he embodied a lifetime’s knowledge of Korean culture, traditions, language, and lived history. I wanted to know all these things too; I wanted to be able to answer any Korea-related question anyone ever had for me just like my grandfather could. It was as if I wanted to become my grandfather himself. Not far into my tragic h e r o ’ s journey did I

“Once boba liberalism kicks in, and you see your cultural identity as things that can be bought and sold, and you’re mixed, you are always going to have this idea that you’re deficient,” Lo Innes said. “You have a scarcity mentality that tells you have to do all these things to catch up.”

The term critiques the idea of reaffirming one’s racial identity by purchasing commodified and mainstream “Asian” products. Another Twitter user, replying to the original thread, continued: “It’s capitalist consumption presented as ‘API-ness.’

Buy more Crazy Rich Asians tickets, sell more boba, go to raves, wear this brand. It’s reliant on capitalism.”

Although I was never a materialistic “boba liberal,” I certainly struggled with the temptation to outwardly display—and perhaps, perform—my Asian-ness.

I was never obsessed with purchases, but I was still obsessed with their shadow: Performance. I knew I just desperately wanted to prove to people—especially to white people—that I was Asian, that I was Asian enough.

thought that my proximity to whiteness would grant me back-end access to the “best four years of your life” university experience that I was expecting—but it never really did. Through various conversations with other mixed East Asians, however, it was affirming to find out that my experience was not an anomaly. Serene Mitchell, a U3 Arts student born in Taiwan but raised transnationally between Asia and the west coast of Canada, remembers being astonished by the unabashed displays of privilege among

experiences of Othering and alienation that led Mitchell to explore their Asian identity in more depth. She added, “I feel like because of how horrible it was, it pushed me to reconcile with my Asian identity, because [...] the fact that people make me feel like I can’t have it makes me want to have it more.”

And oh, how badly I wanted my identity. After being chewed up and spat out by

confront t h e realization that becoming a walking encyclopedia on Korean culture wouldn’t make me any more Korean than I already am.

After that, I latched onto something different, something that Katia Lo Innes, BA ‘21, calls “boba liberalism.” Said to be coined by the now-deleted Twitter user @diaspora_ is_red, the term points to the rise of bubble tea as part of the “substanceless trend-chasing spectacle” that is mainstream AsianAmerican—and AsianCanadian—liberalism.

“If you look at things as a performance for other people, you’re not going to feel it, Lo Innes said. “But if you look at your own personal rituals, I think a lot of it [is] actually quite cultural. Like boiling water or taking shoes off to wear slippers. And they’re not ‘capital C’ culture, I’m not doing a tea ceremony every morning, but those are all cultural habits.”

At some point along the way, I, along with Lo Innes, was added to the Facebook group “Subtle Asian Traits.” Its 1.9 million members make funny, relatable posts about the “Asian experience”: Asian dads making kids cry while helping with math homework, fans cracking jokes about their favourite

K-dramas and anime, strict parents pushing their children to be doctors and lawyers. While I related to some of the memes, I often felt like an outsider— even, an imposter—in a community I was supposed to fit into.

“A lot of the Subtle Asian Traits discourse, and also a lot of mixed-race and cultural identity discourse is really based on consumption and what you do,” Lo Innes said.

“It’s kind of shallow. Being Asian isn’t just going to get boba or having parents that beat you with a wooden spoon.”

But the unsettling feeling of not feeling Asian enough obviously runs deeper than being unable to relate to a universalized Asian experience.

Many of my worries are linguistic, existential, even generational. Earlier this summer, I decided to walk down to Montreal’s meltingpot-of-a-Chinatown for the first time, expecting to find some comfort. Instead, I felt disoriented. As I walked through the stores, pouring over all the things that I used to see lying around my grandparents’ house, I felt lost trying to navigate a space written in languages and characters I didn’t recognize nor understand.

The dichotomy is dizzying: I saw so many familiar Korean things, but they felt oh-so distant, foreign, and out of reach. It’s akin to how I feel around my Korean relatives sometimes: They speak to me in broken English, marvel at my mixed features—my curly hair, mostly. I always nod along, catching some words and comments here and there. My Apba spoke to me in Korean when I was a young child, but eventually stopped. I never learned the language.

If there’s one thing that keeps me up at night, though, it’s grappling with the fear and sorrow of the possibility of the Korean line fizzling out in my generation. If I feel so disconnected from my culture now, it hurts to think about how disconnected my future kids might feel.

Haraboji and Halmoni won’t be alive; I won’t have any Korean to pass onto my kids; and so many family stories will be left untold, caught behind the rigid language barrier dividing the world between my grandparents and me. Michelle Zauner, the half-Korean lead vocalist and songwriter of indie rock band Japanese Breakfast, asks herself a similar question in the opening chapter of her memoir //Crying in H-Mart//: “Am I even Korean

anymore if there’s no one left to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?”

Lo Innes, too, has grappled with long-term generational anxieties, but finds comfort in the fact that Chinese culture is always in flux— not something stuck in time, about to be lost.

places outside of the homeland is important too.

Born to an Italian father and a Korean mother, Catherine Young Zambrano, U2 Arts, said she feels most at home in Toronto, where she lives right in-between her two cultural neighbourhoods.

“In Toronto, my mom’s

‘extra fancy’ Calrose rice— otherwise known as sticky rice—several kilometres back to my apartment. In my grandparent’s house, you will never find the rice cooker empty. For Zambrano, making her mother’s dumplings is a way of connecting to Korean culture.

“I

“What I try to tell myself is that if I try and claim too much of Chinese culture as I

make them for my roommates, make them for my friends, and make them for my dinner parties,”

Though I cook for myself much of the time, food is best enjoyed in company.

Renée Laberge, U2 Arts, made space for herself in Upper Residence in first year, sharing bits of Chinese culture and food with her floormates. “When I was in residence, I made a point to let people know that not only am I half Chinese, [but that I also] fucking love the culture,” Laberge said, beaming. For Autumn Moon Festival, Laberge’s mother sent her mooncakes, so she cut the mooncakes up into tiny pieces and put them on a plate outside for people on her floor to try. For Chinese New Year, she cooked dinner for her entire floor. ***

know it, it ends up becoming kind of the archaic, fake version that I’m trying to feed my kids and that isn’t that cool,” Lo Innes said. “Culture in China is always changing and it changes with me and it changes with everyone who is Chinese, so I think a lot of people are being less traditional.”

And change does it ever: When I visited South Korea in 2016 with my grandparents and family, I was shocked to hear from both Apba and Haraboji that they felt like outsiders there. My grandparents were born in Korea, but moved to Toronto in 1968. Haraboji said that the dialect had changed so much that he—a native Korean speaker—could at times barely comprehend what people were saying.

It made me think about the diasporic yearning to return to the homeland. The thought of travelling to the place my ancestors have lived for hundreds of years sounds soul-replenishing.

But while visiting South Korea was beautiful and thought-provoking, I realized that the place itself would be no silver bullet in reaffirming my racial identity.

Connecting to geographic

Zambrano s a i d .

“Everyone loves them a lot.”

house is in between College Street and Bloor Street. On College Street, it’s Little Italy. And on Bloor Street, it’s Koreatown. And [we lived] literally right in the middle,” Zambrano said, smiling. “What I love about going home is how close I feel geographically to each little town of mine.”

Lo Innes and Zambrano inspire me to see my complicated relationship with my cultural identity as a beautiful, intricate thing to treasure. Instead, I think I’ll start asking myself questions like: How do I find genuine connection to culture? How do I learn to accept everything that I am, and realize that everything I am not? How do I come to peace with myself?

Food was an entry point to Korean culture for me.

Although there aren’t many Asian grocery stores in the Plateau area where I live, I enjoy biking down to Chinatown or up to the JeanTalon area to visit Marché Oriental. One time, annoyed by the meagre 2 lb bags of rice sold at grocery stores around me, I hauled a 15 lb bag of

Food is my care language.

I prefer chopping vegetables and preparing a birthday meal for a friend to buying them a gift. This summer, I made bibimbap for a close friend’s 20th birthday.

I spent the morning julienning the carrots and cucumbers, marinating the spinach, making the sauce, and arranging everything in the bowl perfectly. Together, we celebrated his 20th in the park just outside of my apartment.

“Food is a great way to reconnect because it’s a universal langua3#ge and has a universal way of caring for yourself and caring for others,” Lo Innes said.

“Often, [...] being mixed and not speaking [...] your mother tongue, [you begin to ask yourself], ‘how do I communicate these feelings to people without the vocabulary to do so?’ Food is a great way to find that vocabulary.”

From Korean barbecue, to mul naengmyeon, to dotorimuk—a wobbly, nutty, acorn jelly—to a simple bowl of fresh, steaming rice, making and eating Korean food brings me so much comfort.

My Haraboji is my cultural rock. As I was reading over the final versions of this feature, I decided to call him.

I could hear his excitement emanating through the phone when he picked up.

After explaining the topic of my feature to him, he surprised me when he said he felt the same way. When he travelled to Korea for the first time in 53 years back in 2016, he said Koreans there treated him like he wasn’t a full Korean. But back in Canada, he knows he is seen as an immigrant—fully the Other, fully Korean. I sat still in my chair, processing his words.

They shook me because I had always seen myself as notAsian-enough in his shadow.

Hearing about his alienation from both places challenged the idea I had held onto for so long: That having a cultural identity is something you are born with, and is something that sticks with you for the rest of your life. That because Haraboji was a full Korean, born in Korea, that he would stay Korean for the rest of his life. The fact that even Haraboji—who epitomized Korean-ness in my eyes— was still navigating his own cultural identity at the ripe age of 84, showed me that feeling Asian is so much more complex than I had previously allowed myself to believe.

Stepping out of the metro station near Place-desArts one lonely night this summer, I passed by an outdoor MUTEK festival performance. In a plain white T-shirt that hung loosely off her shoulders as she pulsed to the beat was Ciel, a Toronto-based DJ hailing from Xi’an, China.

As I swayed to the ethereal, head-bumping electronica, suddenly I was crying. It was a simple revelation, but an important one: There is no single way to be, or feel, Asian.

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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

Nature-based solutions are the future of climate change mitigation Professor Andrew Gonzalez discusses biodiversity decline in Mini-Science lecture Madison McLauchlan Managing Editor Global biodiversity has been increasingly imperilled since the beginning of the Holocene, or the human age, but many scientists agree that biodiversity decline in the 21st century is akin to a sixth mass extinction. Without the transformation of many facets of society, species abundance will continue to decline, causing a disastrous ripple effect across ecological, social, and economic spheres.

This information, coupled with

ever-more-troubling International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports can make it feel as though all hope is lost for a livable future.

To discuss mitigation strategies, McGill’s Faculty of Science is hosting the Bicentennial Mini-Science lecture series to disseminate scientific knowledge about the future of sustainability.

Andrew Gonzalez, professor in the department of biology at McGill, Liber Ero Chair in Biodiversity Science, and director of the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science (QCBS), gave the sixth Mini-Sci-

More than 500 species are at risk across the Canadian territory. (NASA)

ence lecture on Sept. 9 via Youtube Live Stream. Gonzalez is a prolific researcher who also co-founded the environmental consulting company, Habitat. Based in Montreal, the organization advises local communities on forest management, landscape conservation, and ecosystem evaluation.

The talk covered the history of biodiversity decline and the current challenges policymakers face in preventing environmental breakdown.

Gonzalez emphasized that a definition of sustainability must address “Vital to all of this, is that human activities remain within bounds, so as not to destroy the diversity, complexity, and function of [the] ecological life support system that we call the biosphere,” Gonzalez said.

According to Gonzalez, the world operates as a “coupled social-ecological system,” where the economy and its growth are totally dependent on the productivity of the biosphere. As it stands, global supply chains for goods such as sugar, coffee, and textiles contribute to biodiversity loss, which in turn decreases economic productivity— ultimately creating a vicious cycle as long as these systems are intertwined.

“Canada also imports biodi-

versity loss,” Gonzalez said. “[We] imported enormous amounts [of goods] from around the world to support our diets and the commodities that we purchase. Those imports [...] have an imprint on ecosystems far from here, and that imprint, [whether it be] the destruction of habitats or the degradation of ecosystems, can be accounted for and quantified in our impact.”

The economic slowdown caused by the pandemic has had several negative effects on biodiversity and conservation efforts.

Despite the initial decrease in pollution and claims from social media that nature was healing, not a single international biodiversity target was reached this year. The global average temperature increase stands at a worrying 1.2 degrees Centigrade and 2021 had the warmest July on record. Canada also has the secondhighest impact per capita on terrestrial mean species abundance—4.3 times the global average.

After discussing the sobering details of the climate crisis, Gonzalez shifted gears, offering several nature-based solutions, both on the micro and macro levels, to reach biodiversity and sustainability goals.

“We have to extend global conservation networks by establishing

more protected areas [...] if we are going to bend the curve of biodiversity,” Gonzalez said. “We need to restore degraded lands [like] abandoned agricultural lands, [...] and we have to base future land-use decisions on comprehensive landscapelevel conservation planning.”

A part of this solution set, Gonzalez added, is to transform agricultural systems by shifting away from animal protein-based diets towards more plant-based ones.

Although a small number of corporations are responsible for the majority of global emissions, Gonzales noted that effective biodiversity conservation strategies should consist of local efforts—and especially those led by Indigenous groups given their extensive knowledge of land stewardship.

“We cannot come down from an ivory tower where we are hidden away from society and proposing top-down solutions,” Gonzalez said.

“That doesn’t work. The risks are too great and the needs are too immediate.”

The presentation provided a glimmer of hope in a sea of ecoanxiety, reminding attendees that scientists have amassed a wealth of solutions to preserve biodiversity.

Whether they can be adopted in time remains to be seen.

Feathered flirtations: Studying courtship song among zebra finches The mating songs of the zebra finch are as complicated as they are charming Zoe Karkossa Contributor Although studying the delicate rhythms of seduction among humans is deeply fascinating to many, some biologists prefer to devote their attention to the courtship rituals of birds. Being highly social animals, numerous species of birds display sophisticated forms of socialization, even “romance”—their bird song being an essential seduction technique.

Avian vocal communication is extremely intricate, and it’s not just what they sing that counts, but how they sing it.

Birds are of particular interest to behavioural researchers due to their complex social lives and communication habits.

Researchers at the Sarah Woolley Lab and Sakata Bird Song Lab published their recent findings on the subtle nuances of birdsong at behavioural and computational levels, respectively, in a joint paper in PLOS Computational Biology.

“Because they are one of the few groups of animals that learn their vocalizations in the same way that we learn how to speak, you can make lots of connections [to the human brain],” Woolley said in an interview with The McGill Tribune. “They are also very social birds [....] Zebra finches are socially monogamous, they form these long term pair bonds, they learn to recognize each other [in part] by their vocalizations.”

Birds exhibit an impressive range of vocalizations. A danger warning is communi-

cated with a short shout known as a “call,” whereas mating activity involves longer songs. These songs can be extensive and detailed and are constructed out of shorter phrases called “motifs.”

When male zebra finches are courting, their songs are less variable than they are during solo performances, involving subtle shifts to which the female birds are highly attentive. A motif that is present in both solo and courting versions can show small prosodic changes to pitch and rhythm that affect how females perceive the song.

“Often, when we ask the question of what females are paying attention to, we come at it from the perspective of our human ears,” Woolley said, “So when we listen to songs […] we tend to focus on the things that we are good at quantifying or that we can pick out of songs that we hear, and it is not necessarily the case that that’s what females are paying attention to.”

Female zebra finches have proven to be highly adept at recognizing the particular features of courtship songs. As shown in the paper, their acute perception of very small and fast modulations allow them to identify courtship intent from a single rendition of a motif. However, algorithm modelling of the females’ successful and unsuccessful discrimination has proven to be challenging.

The computational approach in this paper used a bottom-up method, extracting thousands of features directly from the waveforms of the vocalizations. The researchers

The mating rituals of birds include songs, dances, fanciful plumage, impeccable personal hygiene and tasteful interior nest decor. (University of Chicago) used specialized software to analyze timeseries, which are data points organized by time. Combining a wide variety of analysis methods, this highly-comparative time series analysis (HCTSA) toolbox allowed for the identification of a large quantity of minute modulations that would otherwise be unidentifiable to the human ear.

“Sound is basically a time-series, a series of oscillations, and you feed in the phrase that the bird sings, and the algorithm does thousands of computations,” Sakata said. “We used the toolbox for 5,525 different features from each of the phrases, and after we created this very large data matrix of features, we ran those features through a ma-

chine learning algorithm, [...] a bagged decision tree [classifier]. It was able to correctly identify 85 to 86 per cent of the [songs]. That was about the level of performance of the females.”

The effectiveness of the algorithm both in distinguishing courtship songs and predicting the behaviour of the female finches highlights the potential of such bottom-up techniques, wherein human bias is minimized by extracting features directly from the data. Identifying and understanding the features that are important in bird vocalizations is an essential preliminary step toward understanding how they communicate and find love in the modern world.

STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

11

Five apps to help you step up your study game

Perfecting your online study system Kennedy McKee-Braide, Managing Editor The back-to-school season is the perfect time to revamp your study system to ensure a successful semester and minimize your stress. While some prefer to stick to traditional pen and paper, The McGill Tribune has compiled a list of the most useful apps for those wishing to craft the perfect online workflow.

Notion Notion is a must-have for students looking to create a fully customized planning and productivity system.

Using their bank of templates, you can create to-do lists, monthly and weekly calendars, and centralized locations for all your readings and assignments. While the platform can be confusing to navigate at first, you can learn how to customize plenty of page templates to suit your needs––and aesthetic––on YouTube and Reddit.

Focus To-Do Available for both iOS and

Android users, Focus To-Do is one of many Pomodoro-based task management apps. The Pomodoro method is simple: Rather than mindlessly plugging away at your tasks without scheduled breaks, it suggests you work in 25-minute blocks with five-minute breaks in between. The app helps you track your study sessions and gives you the option to block yourself from closing it during your work periods. You can also customize the length of your work and break blocks.

Goodnotes For those with an iPad or tablet, Goodnotes is a great way to transition to an online note-taking system. Popular among students in the sciences for annotating powerpoints, Goodnotes—and its competitors like Notability or Bear—can help you to pay better attention in class by alleviating the pressure to mark down every word.

For arts students, Goodnotes is a great way to save paper and money when doing readings. After you import the PDF, the app allows you to highlight text and bookmark pages. Goodnotes is especially

useful for those who like adding artistic elements to their notes, as its streamlined design makes changing pen colours, moving and resizing text, or inserting images and diagrams simple. If you don’t have an iPad or don’t want to pay the $10.99 start-up cost, you can try the free notes app or Microsoft OneNote.

Speechify After a year and a half of online school, most students are tired of having to stare at a screen for hours on end every day. But headaches and eye strain remain impossible to avoid, with many instructors opting to upload online readings and textbookss.

Speechify presents a solution: Upload PDFs and other digital text, and the app will read it aloud.

You can personalize the voice and listening speed to align with your habits. Even when reading a physical book, you can scan pages using your camera and have the text transform into audio. While the app is great for any student looking to up their reading game, it’s especially useful for those with learning disabilities that make

Focus To-Do helps students study using the Pomodoro method: a system that keeps you focused through 25-minute work periods divided by five-minute breaks. (istockphoto.com) reading text more difficult.

Anki Available on both desktop and mobile, Anki is a powerful flashcard system that is great for students in fields that have lots of memory-testing assessments. It relies on a specific method: Spaced repetition. The technique is based in the psychology of memory, on

the specific idea that we retain less information as time passes, and so must revisit them to remember them long-term. As such, Anki’s algorithm displays your flashcards in increasingly spaced intervals to strengthen your brain’s recall abilities. Because Anki is an opensource software, there are plenty of add-on features to explore that can tailor your study system to your needs. Train away!

‘Making Drugs More Accurate’ offers free drug checking kits Advocating for harm reduction with drug use Wendy Zhao Student Life Editor On Aug. 24, Making Drugs More Accurate (MDMA), a non-profit organization piloted by the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) chapter at McGill, launched their free drug-checking and harm reduction service for McGill students.

In a 2019 survey conducted by CSSDP McGill, 86 per cent of students demonstrated interest in an accessible drug checking service on campus. A group of students who were eager to contribute to the initiative assembled a team to execute CSSDP’s vision and respond to student demand.

After consulting different supervised injection sites, harm reduction organizations, and overdose prevention sites in Montreal, MDMA now allows students to order free, personalized kits with chemical reagents that identify substances and verify their compositions. On their website, substancespecific instructions guide students through every step of the testing process.

The testing kits, sourced from DoseTest and Test Kit Plus, can confirm the presence of ecstasy, ketamine, LSD, cocaine, amphetamine, and opiates in the body. Each kit also includes testing strips that can detect the presence of fentanyl—a potent synthetic opioid that greatly increases the risk of

MDMA hopes to use the data collected from distributed chemical reagent tests to demonstrate the need for similar harm reduction services in student communities across Canada. (vice.com)

accidental overdose.

The greatest challenge for the MDMA team was realizing a method of distribution that did not require students to compromise their personal information. By requesting a unique code word from users on the order form, MDMA is able to preserve clients’ anonymity while delivering the kits.

In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Jordan,* the founder of MDMA, explained the organization’s non-judgemental, noncoercive, harm reduction approach to drug use.

“Ultimately, our job is not to tell people what they can and cannot use,” Jordan said.

“Our job is to give people the information so that they can have a better idea of what they’re putting in their bodies, the consequences of it [....] We would like to empower people’s decision making and nothing more than that.”

The team hopes to connect students with resources and information that can facilitate safer experiences with drugs. Jordan emphasized the importance for students to be educated on the ever-present risks of substance use. “[MDMA’s] goal is to promote a greater degree of safety, though it’s important to remember that drug use carries inherent risk,” Jordan said. “You can never reach safety with drug use.”

Allison Chow, U3 Science and member of the MDMA team, hopes to dismantle the stigma surrounding substance use on campus.

Condemning and prohibiting drug use, Chow explained to the Tribune, makes support less

accessible and places students at greater risk of drug-related injury.

“If you purport the idea of drug abstinence, you are just going to get negative consequences, [like] people overdosing, or [not knowing] when to call for help because they’re scared of repercussions,” Chow said.

“Good Samaritan laws are a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.”

To glean insight on the unregulated drug supply students are in contact with, MDMA will be anonymously collecting and analyzing the results of their clients’ reagent tests. These statistics will provide important grounds not only for growing MDMA’s own presence at McGill, but also for motivating the implementation of similar harm reduction services at other Canadian univerities.

Although the service launched just this past month, the MDMA team said it has received positive responses from students who either support the project or want to get directly involved as volunteers.

“Every class I go to, whenever I make a new friend, they are very interested in [the service],” Chow said. “I think that this is something that people want and need.”

MDMA is currently looking to expand their outreach and welcomes anyone interested in helping students.

“You don’t need to be a drug user to join,” Chow said. “You just need to care about human beings, harm reduction, and be compassionate.” *Name has been changed

12

STUDENT LIFE

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

The return of Gerts

Exploring the legacy of McGill’s iconic student bar Holly Wethey Student Life Editor Continued from page 1.

Ksenia Shulyarenko, Management ’20, also shared her first memory at the iconic spot, which involved an over-thetop drink.

“I was doing a scunt for hype week, [and I had to] order a grenade at Gerts,” Shulyarenko said. “I had no idea what that was [....] Then you had to chug within a minute. It was like five drinks in one.”

The bar, which has been around since 1974, has been closed for only a small portion of its existence. Nadine Pelaez, the bar manager, said the reopening process was difficult.

“All that was left of Gerts, after three years, was the infrastructure,” Pelaez said. “Most of the equipment was broken, but the infrastructure and legacy, the connections we had with suppliers across the city, that’s really all that was left [....] These past nine months have been spent essentially building a business from nothing.”

In reopening the bar, Pelaez had to set up the entire payment system from scratch.

“Usually you start a job, and the debit machine exists, the POS exists,”

Pelaez said. “It turns out it is incredibly laborious setting all of that up.”

Looking around the bar days before its grand return, I was impressed by the massive countertop, the pool table, and the giant shelf filled with liquor––all of which has remained unchanged since the bar closed. Pelaez remembers Gerts being packed at times, but noted that public health regulations will restrict this.

“It was such a centre for the community, and I want it to continue to be like that,” Pelaez said. “Back in the day, it was a rowdy place [....] The liquor was really pouring here [...] And now you have to stay seated at your tables.”

According to Shulyarenko, despite its occasional rowdiness, Gerts was also a laid-back place to unwind between classes.

“It was very much a [...] homey vibe, super non-threatening and relaxed,” Shulyarenko said. “You can also go there during the day to have a study session.

Everyone would look at you like you’re insane if you brought your textbooks to any other bar.”

This year, Gerts will also be opening as a cafe, which will allow students to study in between classes.

Hearing all of these stories, it is baffling to think that so many students missed out on such a central McGill experience.

Gerts hosted many theme nights, including a night dedicated to the infamous flood girl.

(Zoe Countess / The McGill Tribune) “I remember fond memories where I went with people I met from [residence],” Dunlop said. “It was a very friendly place where everyone would say ‘hi’ to each

other.”

Although Shulyarenko and Dunlop have graduated, they both plan to return to Gerts when it reopens.

Backpacks on the backburner, students take on totes McGill students’ infatuation with tote bags Juliette Henderson Contributor On campus, students sit on benches, sifting through their totes in search of a pen or pencil, grasping into the small abyss of the bag. As the backpack fades to the background, many students have opted to stylize their school outfits with something more unique—the tote bag. Different styles appear among the crowd: A canvas tote with hand drawn artwork, thick leather designer bags, or the classic Longchamp adhered with its nifty zipper. As the trend makes its rise, one wonders why students prefer them to backpacks and whether this trend is sustainable in the long run.

For Sasha Dodson, U1 Arts, tote bags are a fashionforward alternative to the out-of-date backpack.

“I found it a bit more convenient and less pretentious,” Dodson said. “I think they are more spacious than hand bags or purses that kind of date you.”

Many students appreciate not only the accessibility of a smaller bag, but also the chance to elevate their look without appearing too formal. Others, like U0 Arts student Kyra Odell, jumped on the trend because of the fashionable element that comes with sporting a tote bag.

“I see everyone having tote bags and I feel like it’s both convenient and stylish,” Odell said.

Alongside the ability to express oneself with a functional bag, the need for a backpack seems to be dissipating. As more students transition to taking notes on their electronic devices, traditional classroom supplies like binders, notebooks, or even a pen are no longer essential, rendering the bulky backpack defunct. Those returning to campus can use this opportunity to rebrand their look, with some students even painting their own designs.

While talking to McGill students about the objects in their bags, most carried the same four or five objects: Computer, wallet, notebook, pen, and water bottle. Having

In spite of its downsides, the tote remains a beloved staple and expression of personality for students. (Ananya Mohanty / The McGill Tribune) less of a requirement to bring classic school items like notebooks and pencil cases, students have extra space to store crystals, shoehorns, or even reusable cutlery.

Carrying a tote is not all it seems, however. Many find themselves struggling with disorganization, unpredictable weather, and discomforts. “The rain is a concern,” Sarah Fahmy, U1 Science, said. Fahmy’s classic canvas bag often soaks through on rainy days, damaging her computer and dampening her notebooks.

Fahmy’s friend, Mara Lupesco, U1 Arts, also noted the tote’s occasional lack of functionality.

“Things seem to just be banging together in there,” Lupesco said. “I think I’m going to switch back to backpacks.”

Though the trend has made a mark with a new wave of stylish university students, the reliance on a flimsy bag does not always seem to do the trick.

With all of its benefits as well as downsides, the tote ultimately allows students to play around with their personal style in a subtle way, transforming themselves from the classic university student to the artsy kid with a hand-printed tote, or the elegant scholar with their suede leather dagne dover.

As the world migrates to a more online lifestyle, sometimes the itch for personal style overtakes the functionality of the classic backpack. Despite this, impracticalities of the tote make one question whether this McGill student favourite is a here to stay.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

13

Canon or continuation? The delicate art of remaking a classic Why some reboots excel and others fail amid the explosion of remade media Anna Bergas Contributor A remake of Rebecca appeared on Netflix in October 2020, The Magic School Bus is going live-action, and HBO Max is making a new Gossip Girl television series. Seeing our childhood remade and repackaged can be unsettling. Remakes of familiar fictions can indulge our nostalgic memories, but half-baked carboncopies of past works often do the opposite, leaving a poor taste in the mouths of fans.

A.R Martin characterizes nostalgia in the American Journal of Psychoanalysis as a “tendency to follow the path back home, back to our beginnings.” Beardsley Ruml in his article Some Notes on Nostalgia argues that nostalgia is a basic biological drive. It is easy, therefore, for creators to fall prey to making reboots too similar to their originals. Reboots provide a starting point for creators, but can quickly become unenjoyable if they are copies of previous work rather than something new and innovative.

The success of a reboot can be traced to one word: Change. Effective reboots, such as Riverdale, exemplify how recycled media can be enjoyable with enough originality. Riverdale’s morbid mysteries are especially novel when compared to the original Archie comics, and the many plot twists provide endless surprises. As the winner of seven Teen Choice awards, the show’s commercial success supports this as well.

Riverdale writers include iconic details such as Jughead’s cap and Betty’s good-girl persona without succumbing to tonal repetition of the source. The unique, almost soap-opera, lens is what makes the show come come alive—and is what has kept it alive —and is what has kept it alive for five seasons, and counting.

On the other hand, Arrested Development falls flat where Riverdale flourishes; the former’s failure can be attributed to its lack of original direction. When an audience consumes a piece of media, they remember not only the media itself but also its context—which includes the viewer’s own memo-

ries of watching it. Viewers develop relationships with pieces of media, which are changed, for better and for worse, by attempts to modernize, or reinvigorate its original properties. Many will undoubtedly carry their previous emotional bias, but if the remake is sufficiently differently, both the original and reboot can exist uniquely. Whereas Riverdale is a totally different viewing experience than reading Archie comics, the fourth and fifth seasons of Arrested Development are the dregs of what was once a successful sitcom. Those final seasons lack true merits of their own, making the show a drab continuation of the past with nothing new or refreshing to add. While fans of Arrested Development were excited to see the show’s return, most were disappointed by the poor and flat attempts to recreate the original magic of the show.

As long as both audience and creators ditch the loyalty to canon, plenty of innovative work can be made from pre-existing sources.

Modernizing older narratives continues to bring about exciting new

Nostalgia is an inevitable reaction to remade material; the challenge for creators and audience alike is to overcome the comfort of the past and look to the future with fresh eyes. The shows Riverdale and Arrested Development are used as a case study to examine the outcome of approaches to change.

(Avery Haley-Lock / The McGill Tribune) works—notably the upcoming Dune movie remake, which has the chance to remedy the previous, notoriously bad Dune film. After

all, the originals will remain unchanged anytime we are looking to be brought back to the past— reboots look to the future.

‘He’s All That’ is a hollow ode to ’90s teen nostalgia The gender-swapped reimagining of ‘She’s All That’ lacks originality Signy Harnad Contributor As if by mass psychosis, filmmakers have been scrambling to rehash ‘90s movies in all their zany glory. Case in point: He’s All That, a gender-swapped revamp of 1999’s She’s All That. On the surface, the remake has all the trappings of a potential Netflix hit: Lucrative source material that recouped 10 times its budget? Check. The star power of TikTok sensation Addison Rae? Check.

Product placement galore? Check. But what comes out of its 91-minute runtime feels ultimately hollow.

The storyline introduces us to beauty influencer Padgett Sawyer (Addison Rae, in a not-quite-surefooted debut) who rises to the occasion of transforming hopeless misanthrope Cameron Kweller (Tanner Buchanan) into Prom King.

Kweller’s instant stardom under her wing upps his popularity—of course, by the powers of a makeover. This familiar plot stems directly from the original She’s All That —which, for what it’s worth, was by no means a masterpiece in its own right.

However, this reboot throws the baby out with the bathwater by dropping the original’s endearing weirdness and emotionally layered performances. On the upside, it has occasional moments of charm and now-and-then laughs reminiscent of the original; Matthew Lillard’s awkward dance scene is a highlight. On the downside, the script borders on the mundane, and is too enamored with the

power of social media for its own good.

There’s no denying that nods to the cult classic elevate the film’s overall appeal: Rachel Leigh Cook, the lead of the original film, appears as Padgett’s mom, and Sixpence None The Richer’s “Kiss Me” once again plays over the end of the film, this time remixed by Cyn. Lynn Kozak, associate professor in McGill’s department of history and classical studies, has thought a lot about remakes—after all, they have been around for millennia. In an interview with The McGill Tribune, Kozak underscored the value of nostalgia in film and television

revivals.

“Nostalgia is a very powerful thing,” Kozak said. “The industry wants us to be nostalgic so it can make money off of us [….] There have been plenty of studies by people who have worked on the idea that you have nostalgia in times of uncertainty. You also have nostalgia when there are major cultural shifts.”

Despite the common use of nostalgia as a bankable commercial strategy, Kozak harbours a positive outlook toward remakes and their potential for good.

“I think about how Ancient Greek

Awash with conspicuous product placements and starring social media superstar Addison Rae, Mark Waters’s film adapts the 1999 cult classic to the TikTok era. (netflix.com)

tragedians are remixing myth, and [how] you get all these cool innovations in some of the Greek tragedies that never existed before, like Medea, who was never the one to kill her kids until Euripides decided it was,” Kozak said. “So I think that what we are seeing now is in some ways a modern version of that, of that. Taking stories that are familiar but giving them new twists [....] That’s the way culture moves forward.”

Indeed, the best late ‘90s “romcoms,” many of which were remakes themselves, pack a punch with their masterful blend of reinvention and subversion. The original She’s All That was itself based on an earlier wave of remakes, starting with George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, which morphed into My Fair Lady, the timeless musical. 1995’s Clueless was a reimagining of Jane Austen’s Emma; 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You was a riff on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew; and 1999’s Cruel Intentions offered a new twist on Dangerous Liaisons. But the difference between these Generation-X remakes and He’s All That lies in the freshness of their takes and the superb acting performances.

He’s All That fails to fully deliver on the potential of the remake format— and is ultimately forgettable as a result.

While fans of Addison Rae can take solace in knowing that they will see more of the TikTok megastar in future Netflix projects, suffice to say that, try as it might, this nostalgia-chasing flick is not all that.

14 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

‘What the Pop!’ booths showcase local talent YES Montreal’s exhibition featured live music and audience-performer interaction Natalie Co Contributor As the August heat faded and the leaves began to curl and drift away, the Montreal arts community said one final goodbye to summer at What the Pop!, a pop-up exhibition

run by YES Montreal. The free public exhibition gave dozens of local artists the opportunity to sell their art at Riverside St-Henri. On Aug. 14, 21, and 28, a plethora of local artists showcased their photography, painting, jewelry, dance, and theatre, and Iranian-Canadian

Naghmeh Shafiei wows the audience with her powerful voice and expressive lyrics at YES Montreal’s What the Pop!. (Natalie Co / The McGill Tribune)

singer-songwriter Naghmeh Shafiei performed live on Sept.

4.

Shafiei’s performance fused folk and rock and interwove Iranian melodies and intonations. With her soulful, emotive voice, and raw, poetic lyrics, Shafiei delivered a moving performance. In that moment, Riverside St-Henri felt transformed, as though there was something special in the air. As the terrace stood sheltered between brightly decorated shipping containers, wooden fences, and the darkening sky, a myriad of voices—each as uniquely beautiful as the last—washed over the crowd.

In addition to giving artists opportunities to perform, the event allowed them to meet listeners and other local artists in person. Attendees were free to roam the terrace and stop by booths to speak to artists, fostering a greater sense of community and connection.

“I have friends that I’ve met through social media [and] we’ve become really close, but it’s easy to forget that that real, [in-person] connection is just really what the soul needs,” Shafiei said in an interview

with The McGill Tribune.

Shafiei stressed the importance of in-person presence at shows, explaining that many artists become inspired and motivated by their audience. In fact, Shafiei said that What the Pop!, which offers webinars and motivational tools for artists, gave her the motivation to finish writing her poetry book, Somewhat Wiser, Some of the Time.

Lady Athenae, a threemember metalcore band, also performed at the event. To them, music is a form of catharsis: Mental health takes first priority in their lyrics. Between drummer Chris’ powerful beats, guitarist Sergio’s driving riffs, and lead singer Camille’s enchanting vocals, the band mesmerized the crowd. Suspended in the twilight, these artists shared slivers of magic through their music.

“Music is like air. It’s life,” Camille said.

Although What the Pop! is now over, the event’s website offers links to all its artists’ websites and social media, and will soon have a virtual exhibition gallery for its visual artists.

Puces POP

Celebrate independent art, crafts, and designs by local Québec vendors.

Friday, Sept. 17, 3–8 p.m.

Basement of Église Saint-Denis (5075 rue Divard) Free

Exposition Groundwater Opening Reception An art installation focussing on lifealtering processes, like migration and environmental crises.

Thursday, Sept. 16 6–8 p.m.

Galerie POPOP Free

Jazz Extravaganza

A night of Latin and French jazz.

Thursday, Sept. 16, 9:30 p.m.

La Petite Marche Free

Equinox Pop-Up Shop

Find exclusive local products in limited series, or have some drinks and listen to DJ YRO. Saturday, Sept. 18, 10 a.m.–7 p.m.

Louvgang Free

‘Come from Away’ finds solace in community amid tragedy

A Broadway musical-turned-film remembers a Newfoundland city’s hospitality for travellers stranded during the 9/11 attacks Suzanna Graham Contributor Twenty years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Apple TV+ has released a film rendition of the 2017 Broadway musical Come from Away.

During the aftermath of the attacks, the U.S. closed its airspace, diverting 238 planes to Canadian airports. 38 of those diverted flights arrived in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, where they remained for five days, with passengers experiencing confusion and compassion. The musical depicts the Gander townspeople’s efforts to aid the thousands of stranded passengers.

Critically acclaimed stage director Christopher Ashley received his third Tony Award for the musical’s direction, and for good reason: The small 12-person cast and simple staging creates an intimate setting, as each cast member plays multiple local and passenger roles. This emphasizes the feeling of a social bubble while also showing sameness between

foreigner and local people. Additionally, the musical’s use of narration to show characters’ internal monologues and to add historical context enhances the feelings of terror and confusion felt by the “plane-people,” the Newfoundland hosts, and ultimately, the audience.

Aside from its thematic emphasis on finding community after a traumatic experience, the musical also illustrates how the 9/11 attacks promoted a rise of antiArabism in the West. During a frustrated internal monologue, an Egyptian passenger (Caesar Samayoa) expresses the increased hostility he feels from others, due to his Middle-Eastern identity.

The show focuses on others whose lives were disrupted by the attacks, including a mother frantic to locate her son who was on shift as a firefighter and a pilot whose co-workers were on the hijacked flights. It is their grief and anxiety that pervade the musical, even as Newfoundlanders bring everyone down to the bar to try to comfort those suffering and divert their at-

The seven-time Tony award-nominated musical features a 12-person cast that highlights Newfoundlanders’ kindness and “plane-people’s” growing anxiety about safely returning home. (nytimes.com) tention from the tragic news.

In the face of such immense loss, the musical’s inclusion of folk music, karaoke, and humour highlight the social bonds forged during the chaos. The music breathes positivity into the story, pushing the narrative toward hope as the characters find friendship and love amid uncertain circum-

stances. Infusions of staples of Canadian culture, such as Tim Hortons stageprops and moose crossings, transform Newfoundland into a bubble away from the chaos within the United States.

For the stranded passengers, Newfoundland has become an unlikely refuge.

By transitioning this the-

atre piece to film, the show both gains a wider following while losing some of the intimate feeling that made live-shows special.

Although the initial footage of the audience entering the theatre helps bridge the gap between the in-person versus at-home viewing experience, it also adds a sense of detachment from the show as a whole. Contrasting with its themes of togetherness, Apple TV+’s film version only adds to the feeling of loneliness as the audience experiences both the pandemic and 20th anniversary of 9/11. The final moments of the show bring the audience to 10 years post 9/11, giving the characters and audience time to reflect on how their lives have changed since their stay in Newfoundland.

Overall, Come from Away is a celebration of resilience during a horrific historical moment. The musical honours incredible connections between neighbours and strangers, while respecting the lives lost and permanently altered by a tragedy whose aftermath continues to resonate today.

SPORTS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

15

Know Your Athlete: Mathieu Soucy A sit-down interview with one of McGill Football’s best wide receivers Jake Wagman Contributor Mathieu Soucy is one of McGill Football’s most impressive athletes. From athlete of the week to Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) football player of the week accolades, Soucy has proven that he is a force to be reckoned with. However, it was not always his dream to pursue football: Born and raised in Quebec City, Mathieu Soucy grew up playing soccer but only found his love for football when he was asked to join the team at Cegep Garneau.

“In physical education class, they saw me and asked if I wanted to play football. I said okay and decided to try out,” Soucy said in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

Although he started late, coaches recognized his talent early on, and quickly fit him into the wide receiver role at the McGill Redbirds football team. Soucy has put in years of hard work since he joined the team, and hopes to take McGill as far as possible this season.

The wide receiver’s impact is significant, as this position controls how the plays are run and how smoothly the offence functions. However, Soucy explained that sharing the field with his other teammates is crucial to the team’s overall success.

“You don’t want to be selfish as a wide receiver because you need to run routes to get the ball to your teammates,” Soucy said. “That also means you need good chemistry with the other players on the team.”

As a veteran, Soucy has solidified himself as a strong mentor. On and off the field, Soucy takes a leadership role when it comes to helping the team be the best they can be.

“I’m 25, and it’s fun to see younger players, especially the ones coming in from Ontario at 18,” Soucy said. “The younger guys ask me questions, and I like being there for

Outside of football, Soucy enjoys playing video games and collecting Pokemon cards. (McGill Athletics)

them. It really helps build chemistry.”

Mathieu has the mindset of a winner; regardless of reputation, he never rules any team out as a serious adversary.

“In this league, every team is a rival,” Soucy said. “We only play each team twice a year, so we have to give it our best every time we play. Being from Quebec City, Laval has always been one of my biggest rivals. [University of] Montreal is also one of my bigger rivals because we always seem to lose to them in the playoffs and get eliminated.”

This semester is Soucy’s last. Beyond his postgraduate career plans, Soucy hopes to share his knowledge of football with his community back home once his time at McGill comes to an end.

“It’s time I start thinking about my future,” Soucy said.

“I plan on going back to Quebec City to work at my dad’s construction company, and eventually take over once he retires. I also want to coach my high school football team to give back to the kids. I have been given a lot in my life, and I feel I need to give back.”

Although Soucy does not plan to pursue a professional football career, he has not yet ruled out the idea.

“I probably won’t play contact football again,” Soucy said. “Maybe flag or touch, but contact is getting to be difficult. If a team in the CFL [Canadian Football League] asks me to play, I would definitely consider it, but otherwise, I am likely done.”

Mathieu Soucy has dedicated five years of hard work to McGill Football. Although this is his last season, his striving for greatness and dominance on the field will not be forgotten anytime soon. No matter where Soucy ends up, his years as a leader and mentor, and his dedication to the football team, will remain in the hearts of fans for years to come.

McGill Men’s Soccer drops tight affair to Laval

Redbirds fall 2-1 despite strong showing during season opener Adam Menikefs Contributor The McGill men’s soccer team (0-10) opened their Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) regular season on home turf Sept. 10 against Laval (1-0-0). Despite the enthusiastic crowd, the Redbirds came up short, losing 2–1.

The game began with fast pace and solid movement at the back for the Redbirds. From the opening kickoff, the both teams were quite physical, leading to early yellow cards on both sides. Despite a few defensive mistakes on McGill’s part in the first half, fourth-year goalkeeper Chris Cinelli-Faia made some spectacular saves to ensure the game remained

Fourth-year forward Florian Bettelli scored McGill’s lone goal in their loss against Laval.

(McGill Athletics)

scoreless.

Third-year midfielder Bouba Ouane, who came in as a substitution in the second half, felt that the team lost their composure in the latter part of the first half as a result of the early mistakes.

“After the first 20 minutes or so, I think the team got a bit nervous with the massive crowd and I felt as if we fell apart somewhat,” Ouane said in an interview with The McGill Tribune.

Third-year midfielder Jake Gerenraich, a veteran on this season’s squad, shared his appreciation for the crowd, but agreed with Ouane that the team may have not been prepared for such a loud atmosphere.

“The crowd was the largest we have had since I have been a part of the program,” Gerenraich said. “It was awesome to see for a home opener; electric. I felt that because of it though, we lost composure as the first half continued.”

Despite the loss of confidence, the Redbirds entered the locker room at halftime tied 0—0 with Laval. The momentum lost late in the first half, though, would come back to hurt the home side when the team returned to the pitch. Laval opened up the scoring two minutes into the second half on a breakaway set up by a through ball that got past the McGill back line.

Three minutes after the first goal, Laval continued to press, with forward Wassim Chaouki ​scoring on a tap-in in front of the McGill goal. The quick 2–0 lead out of the half completely shifted the momentum to the away side’s favour, digging a deep hole for the home side to climb out of.

In a sudden turn, however, the momentum

shifted back to the Redbirds. In the 58th minute, Gerenraich received a pass off of a free kick and made a spectacular pass into the 18-yard box to fourth-year forward Florian Bettelli, who converted and opened up the scoring for McGill.

Gerenraich had a sense prior to the set piece that the opportunity for a goal would present itself.

“Although I would not say set pieces are a strong suit of the team, we have some great free kick-takers and I think the goal showed that,” Gerenraich said. “A similar play happened earlier in the match and I knew the [assist] I made could possibly come again so I felt ready for the chance.”

After the Redbirds cut the lead to one, McGill applied more offensive pressure. This was made even easier just a few minutes later, as Laval defender Vincent Lavigne was sent off with a red card for a dangerous tackle, forcing the away side to play down a man for the remainder of the match.

Despite the advantage and some quality chances, McGill was unable to convert in the final twenty minutes, ending with a final score of 2–1 for Laval.

Ouane felt that they could have had a better opportunity of tying the game if they had tactically adjusted.

“I believe we could have pressed up the pitch more to end the game, especially due to the fact that we were up a man,” Ouane said.

“Maybe [we could have] even moved to three at the back to aid the midfield in supporting the strikers.”

McGill men’s soccer plays University Québec à Montréal on Sept. 16.

MOMENT OF THE GAME Florian Bettelli scored McGill’s first goal of the game, and of the regular season, right inside the penalty box, sending the massive McGill home crowd to their feet.

QUOTABLE “The crowd was the largest we have had since I have been a part of the program. It was awesome to see for a home opener; electric.”

— Third-year midfielder Jake Gerenraich.

STAT CORNER An extremely physical and heated match resulted in 10 yellow cards and one red card combined for both squads.

16

SPORTS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 2021

U.S. vs Canada soccer: Takeaways from an enthralling World Cup qualifier The North American teams played out a tense draw in Nashville Dylan Schofield Contributor On Sept. 5, the U.S. and Canada faced off in an intense World Cup qualifying match. The previous significant meeting between these two traditional rivals dates back to October 2019, 10 months into Gregg Berhalter’s time as head coach.

Nearly two years after the U.S.’ difficult defeat in Toronto, they suffered yet another disappointment against Canada in Nashville on Sunday, drawing to John Herdman’s outfit in a World Cup qualifier. The result gave the U.S. a rather lacklustre two points through its first two CONCACAF Octagonal matches.

The game itself was a high-intensity affair, and tensions occasionally rose.

The Americans were not outcompeted in Nashville like they were in Toronto—rather, they were outclassed. Canada sat deep in a 5-4-1 low block, content to let the Americans govern possession only to hit them with their breakthrough star winger Alphonso Davies.

They executed their game plan superbly, severely limiting the U.S.’ ability to make plays and quickly equalizing the game after Brenden Aaronson put the Americans ahead in the 55th. Davies burned past right back DeAndre Yedlin—a feat not many can boast—to set up striker Cyle Larin for a tapin during the 62nd minute.

“We’re disappointed with the performance. I think [...] the effort was outstanding, but the performance wasn’t up to what we expect,” Berhalter said of the

game in a post-match interview.

This assessment was largely accurate, as Berhalter was all too aware that steely determination alone does not put the ball in the net.

Statistically, this game was somewhat of an enigma. The U.S. dominated the possession, with 71.6 per cent control of the ball over the 90 minutes. Possession can be a misleading statistic, however, as it is often the productivity on the ball that eventually wins—or draws—games. This was the case for Canada as they earned a vital draw. Although the U.S. had the ball more, the Canadians were able to contain the Americans. Despite having more possession time, the U.S. failed to generate better opportunities than Canada, registering only a 1.66-1.52 edge in expected goals.

Expected goals (xG) is a metric that looks at the quality of chances, rather than shots on target. The Canadian team was able to create an essentially identical xG from only 28.4 per cent possession.

This is extremely encouraging for Canada. Coming off of a loss to Mexico and a draw with Honduras, this victory marks a substantive step in the right direction for Herdmen’s team. They looked enthused on the ball, seemingly outnumbering the American midfielders at times, and created compromising 2-on-1 situations for the American full-backs.

Davies was yet again mesmerizing in his performance. His speed and power is truly unmatched: Even in his domestic

At only 20 years old, Alphonso Davies was the first player born after 2000 to play in a Major League Soccer match. (Frederick Breedon / Canadian Premier League) league—the Bundesliga—where he stars for Bayern Munich, he clocked the fastest speed in the league at 22.34 miles per hour (35.95 kilometres per hour). Unfortunately, Davies picked up a worrying injury in the 73rd minute.

U.S. soccer fan and U1 Arts student Reza Ali was less than pleased with the draw.

“As a United States fan from Philadelphia, the result was disappointing,” Ali wrote in a message to the Tribune. “We dominated possession but failed to turn that into high quality chances. This is the crux

of modern soccer and we fell right into the trap. Hats off to Canada, but I’ll still hold my head high that Philadelphia Union Academy graduate Brenden Aaronson got on the scoresheet for us!”

Canada’s next game comes against El Salvador. Canada will have to be wary of their speed on counterattack, especially with Davies injured. However, with a performance similar to theirs on Sunday, Canada looks set to contest at the top of the CONCACAF qualifying table for the Qatar World Cup.

Laval triumphs over McGill in women’s soccer opener After suffering a 2–0 loss , the Martlets hope to bounce back

Reza Ali Contributor

First-year goaltender Brenna Bordeniuk made five strong saves, keeping the game close.

(McGill Athletics)

Continued from page 1.

Before drawing any conclusions from the score, it is crucial to note that the Martlets went into Friday’s opener with a roster of 12 first-years, nine second-years, four thirdyears, and four fourth-years.

“For the first game of the season, with a squad composed primarily of rookies, the game went well,” first-year Bordeniuk said.

“I think we became a bit scattered in the second half, but against tough opposition, I think we performed well.”

The quantitative stats show that Laval dominated, but the qualitative side of the game supports Bordeniuk’s points. In the first half, it was anyone’s game: McGill’s press in their 3-5-2 formation was effective in slowing down Laval’s buildup in their 3-43, as McGill’s formation gave them an extra player in midfield. This led to some chances, including McGill’s only shot on goal which came from first-year forward Zoe Gardiner.

However, as time went on, the Martlets struggled to hold onto the ball and lost the very formation that had initially slowed Laval down.

“We performed well in the first half and forced Laval to play a style that they did not appear to be fond of,” McGill head coach Jose-Luis Valdes said in an interview with McGill Athletics. “We had two or three clear chances in the first half but couldn’t convert.

But after Laval scored in the second half, we kind of pushed the play too much. We rushed

the play, lost our [structure] and didn’t wait for them to come to us.”

This was also the first time in over a year that the Martlets took to the pitch in front of a crowd. Fans have an incredible way of influencing the game from the sideline.

“Fans always help the atmosphere for us down on the pitch,” Bordeniuk wrote in a message to The McGill Tribune.

“Whether that’s cheering for a good tackle or a nice play, it’s exhilarating to feel some momentum from the crowd. The more fans, the better.”

However, there was a noticeable gap in fan attendance in the women’s game compared to the men’s game immediately following. The student ticket was valid for both games, yet most people only showed up for the men’s match.

“It’s always hard to see people show up for the men’s game and not ours,” Katherine Chadwick, second-year midfielder, said in an interview with the Tribune. “Considering how Canadian women have dominated athletics lately, it’s totally time for people to start getting excited for women’s games.”

Looking ahead, the Martlets hope to secure their first win this Thursday against University Québec à Montréal (UQAM). If they play as strong as they did in the first half against Laval, they have a real chance of taking home their first win of the season— especially if a strong fan section comes out to support them on September 16th at 6 p.m. at Molson Stadium.

MOMENT OF THE GAME In the 59th minute, Laval’s Mireille Patry was the first to a rebound from a dangerous free-kick and was rewarded with a tap-in that became the winning goal.

QUOTABLE “Coming from last game, I think we need to work on staying more composed with the ball, rather than forcing plays that are not on.

The defense was a brick wall, so keeping that up will be crucial to our performances this week.” — Brenna Bordeniuk, first-year keeper.

STAT CORNER First-year keeper Brenna Bordeniuk made five saves in her home debut for the Martlets.