The Strand Volume 58 Issue 2

Gabriela Stafford An Interview (p2)

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER VOL. 58 ISSUE 2 • SEPTEMBER 22, 2015

Hillside Music Festival Still Gives Hope Clarrie Feinstein | Arts & Culture Editor In recent years, music festivals have positioned themselves firmly in mainstream consciousness, and what was once an alternative method of enjoying and experiencing music has now become a manufactured product of a growing industry.

Many festivals in North America, like Osheaga, Wayhome, Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Bonnaroo, are all big-time, for-profit festivals that try to recreate that Woodstock ‘69 dream, but are often merely transparent money-making machines.

Samir Baijal, Artistic Director of Hillside Festival—the Guelph music festival started in 1980—talked about Hillside and its objectives and goals as a non-profit music festival. “I became artistic director in 1998,” he said, “and Hillside’s grassroots community approach and diverse programming [are] what makes it different. It is a festival driven by volunteers and an incredibly open minded audience who literally check their tastes at the gate.”

Often, music festivals sell their shows by heavily promoting their headliners, who are paid handsomely to perform. “We don’t really have the idea of headliners here,” Baijal reflected on the process of choosing the music acts. “I mean some just sort of turn out that way, but we have always been more about bringing up-and-coming talent and supporting Canadian artists.

“There are strategic bookings based upon musical genre and cultural diversity, as almost anything goes at Hillside—every now and then a more widely known artist will close an evening at the festival on our main stage. There are many bands that have played on our stages over the years early in their careers and have come back to perform at the festival, like Feist (2000, 2006), Arcade Fire (2004, 2005), Broken Social Scene (2003, 2005, 2008) and Metric (2003, 2004).”

Unlike many festivals, Hillside receives most of its funding from ticket sales, and only a small part comes from local sponsors and grants. The festival relies on the enthusiastic help of their 1,300 volunteers and coordinators.

It also strongly believes in connecting the music experience to the physical environment and community-centric atmosphere, says Baijal: “We offer so many programs and workshops, like the drumming and dance area, healing arts, and environmental workshops, our crafts vendors, our amazing food vendors, which in some ways [are] just as important as the music...it all adds to the community and experience.”

One of the most controversial issues surrounding music festivals is their environmental impact: huge festivals often leave tons of waste, which then goes unsorted into landfills.

Camping tents are bought for a weekend and

often left behind, water bottles are discarded in vast quantities, not to mention the thousands of people driving to and from the event.

Hillside’s green initiative may seem progressive and forward thinking, but Baijal disagrees, claiming “it was just common sense. When people asked us, how did you just decide to not allow plastic water bottles? It wasn’t a big decision, it just made practical sense...why wouldn’t we?”

Hillside was the first festival in the region to provide a tank of drinkable tap water, which is sponsored by the City of Guelph. Festival-goers can fill up their canteens free of charge for the weekend. There are also reusable mugs for the beer tent, as well as plates and sporks that are collected and cleaned by the dishwashing volunteers. The permanent main stage has a living roof, and the bike and bus system promotes a more sustainable and environmentally conscious experience. But these systems have been in place for almost a decade, some for 30 years, and have naturally become ingrained over time, making these seemingly progressive tactics actually a simple reality of the festival. (continued on page 14)

In this issue... p3

Vic students endorse BoD proposal

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Introducing: 50 First Dates

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Politics as spectacle

p13

Bang Gang: Love in the time of hookups

p8

On literature and bros

p16

Emmerich and history

News • the STRAND

Mathieu Belanger

Victorian Victory An Interview with Gabriela Stafford Nicole Paroyan | News Editor Gabriela Stafford, a third-year student at Vic, has just finished an extremely successful season with the UofT Varsity Blues. The Strand sat down with her to discuss her goals, tips, and some of her favourite running spots on campus!

Quick Quick Facts: Facts: Name: Name: Gabriela Gabriela Stafford Stafford Age: Age: 20 20 Year Year of of study study and and major: major: Third-year Third-year psychology psychology Number Number of of years years running running competicompetitively: Started training with tively: Started training with UofT UofT Track Track Club Club in in Grade Grade 10, 10, so so five five years! years!

Favourite Favourite time time of of day day to torun: run:At Atdusk dusk (whenever dusk is at that time of (whenever dusk is at that time of year) year) Typical Typical number number of of km km run run per per day: day: 12 kilometres, plus a bike 12 kilometres, plus a bike Music orno nomusic musicwhile while running: Music or running: No No music, just my thoughts and the music, just my thoughts and the sound sound of my feet! of my feet!

Tell us about your most recent season with the Blues.

Where were you this summer?

I was all over the place! I raced in California twice, Boston, Guelph, Windsor, and London, Ontario.

One of the highlights of my season was 1500m Night in London where I ran [one] second off of Olympic Standard [Time]. But the most exciting trip I took was to Gwangju, South Korea, where I won a silver medal

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for Canada in the 1500m at the World University Championships.

How were you able to manage your time between Vic One and being a varsity athlete? And how did Vic One affect your first-year experience at Vic? You just learn to develop very good time management skills! “Don’t procrastinate” is the name of the game for a student athlete. I really loved Vic One, because it made the experience of being a first-year at UofT a little less intimidating. I really got to know my classmates and my professors in the smaller classroom. Vic One definitely helped me transition from high school to university.

Would you recommend participating in varsity or recreational sports to first-year students?

I definitely would! I’ve had nothing but positive experiences as a Varsity Blue. Your team really becomes your family and your support group. If you love a certain sport, find a way to do it, whether that be in an intramural or as a varsity athlete. You won’t regret it!

But I’m also really biased here, because I love running. If you’re someone who doesn’t have that same passion for a sport, then maybe joining a team isn’t the best idea.

The key here is just to get involved in something that you love and [that] brings you a sense of fulfilment. If that’s not sports, then it could be the arts, or community service, or any club at UofT. What are your favourite running routes around Vic? Do you have any secret spots you would recommend to first years that enjoy running?

All my favourite running spots are a couple of kilometers away from the busier part of downtown. There is this great trail system that you can enter from the Rosedale area (Roxborough and Mount Pleasant.) It con-

nects Mount Pleasant Cemetery, the Beltline Trail, the Brickworks, Crothers Wood, the Don River Trail, and I think even Sunnybrook—but I don’t usually run that far! Another favourite of mine is Cedarvale, which is close to St. Clair and Spadina. The cross country team does a lot of workouts in that park.

Tips for running outside in the winter?

You definitely have to layer. I usually wear a thin quickdry long sleeve to wick away the sweat, a sweater to keep me warm, and a windbreaker to, well, block those arctic winds! For my legs I usually just wear thermal running tights, but for those Arctic Vortex runs I will also wear rain pants to block the wind. Unfortunately, you’re probably going to be a little cold for the first five minutes of your run, but you should warm up if you’re dressed properly!

Do you run outside year-round, or do you stop at a certain time of year and begin indoor training?

In November: the cross-country season ends and the indoor track season begins, so we take our interval workouts from the trails outside to the fieldhouse at the AC. But we still do our easy runs outside, even in the winter.

Favourite Burwash meal after a run?

That’s a tough one… Probably fajitas... with three glasses of chocolate milk. Mm! They really need to get bigger glasses at Burwash, haha!

What’s your routine after a run at Vic? It depends on the time of day! But usually I’ll do some stretching, take a shower, and get something to eat at Burwash!

News • the STRAND

Victoria Students Endorse Proposal B: First Caucus Meeting Results In Endorsement Ahead of UTSU Annual General Meeting Anthony Burton | Editor-in-Chief

On Friday, a group of students at Victoria University voted on behalf of the VCU to endorse Khrystyna Zhuk’s UTSU Board of Directors restructuring proposal.

The motion to vote on endorsing the proposal was brought forward by Thomas Zheng, a student in attendance at the event. The motion followed a presentation by VUSAC Vice President External Alex Martinborough on both the remaining proposals, Zhuk’s (referred to as Proposal B) and the one brought forward by Grayce Slobodian, colloquially referred to as Proposal E. Students in attendance of the caucus, a forum held by VUSAC multiple times per year to discuss campus issues with the Victorian student body at large, represent Victorians at large in any motions brought to a vote in the caucus.

The endorsed proposal was worked on by some people in attendance, including VUSAC co-presidents Ben Atkins and Gabe ZoltanJohan, as well as the UTSU’s Victoria College representative, Steve Warner. No parties involved

in Proposal E were in attendance, despite claims

by Zoltan-Johan that they had been notified of the event and given multiple opportunities to be present.

Both proposals maintain college representation, a response to the controversy surrounding last year’s proposal—voted down at the UTSU’s Annual General Meeting—that removed college representation on the UTSU Board of Directors and replaced it with directors in charge of constituencies based on marginalized groups. Proposal B would maintain the current number and structure of college representatives at 18, while Proposal E would reduce the number of college representatives to eight.

The proposals maintain the equity goals of the original UTSU proposal in different ways. Proposal E stipulates the creation of 12 commissions devoted to specific identitybased issues, with one elected representative heading each commission. Proposal B takes a more general approach with the creation of

eight equity commissions devoted to these same issues, but with six appointed equity directors being led by an elected VP Equity, allowing for direct jurisdiction under multiple directors for any given issue.

“Last night, students of the VCU showed that they were very strongly in favour of endorsing a proposal that would maintain our representation while adding meaningful equity representation that addresses underserved aspects of the University of Toronto community,” Atkins said in a statement.

VUSAC is now constitutionally bound to advocate for the successful passage of Proposal B at this year’s Annual General Meeting, to be held on October 7. This involves raising awareness across campus about the proposal, the general meeting, and the requirements of the proposal.

Also at the caucus was a brief speech by newly minted Victoria College president, William Robins. This successor to Paul Gooch described a “wonderful” start to his tenure as president.

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Opinions • the STRAND

Softening the Heart, Not Coddling the Mind Kathleen Walsh | Contributor Content Warning: Rape mention My first week of university at OCADU, as a wideeyed 17-year-old at a school brimming with mature students, was turbulent. When asked in my first design class to present a any piece of “good design” and discuss it, I signed up right away. I’d found the perfect piece: a video of kinetic typography set to a satirical answering machine recording for a mental health hospital. As someone who’d had my own share of experience with mental health issues, I didn’t find the piece funny. I knew that many might find it offensive, but I felt the kinetic typography was on point. “Besides,” I thought, “this is university, and if there were ever a place for edgy discussions, it’s OCADU.” I thought wrong.

Despite prefacing my presentation with a content warning, I was midway through discussing a graphic on the screen when my prof raised his hand. Midsentence, I halted. “I just wanted to say that I found that offensive,” he said. Looking around the room expectantly at his new flock of students, he asked, “Who else was offended?”

I stood frozen as a sea of 25 hands rose—all but one of my new classmates. It was the first of OCADU’s many straws that would eventually break the camel’s back and lead to my decision to transfer to UofT one year later.

I experienced the damaging effects of oversensitivity, or at least misplaced sensitivity. While certainly frustrating, I realize that my experience was the exception, not the rule. In Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt’s recent article in The Atlantic, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” the authors conflate the two by using extreme examples of sensitivity to suggest its presence as the over-arching direction taken by our schools and our society.

Ironically, even while describing a tendency of today’s youth to magnify the distress caused by a situation, The Atlantic authors also magnify their own distress by describing some extreme examples of sensitivity. These examples are reminiscent of those who don’t identify as feminists because they disagree with misandry: in both cases, the validity of an entire movement focused on equality is undermined by objections to the extremists at its fringes. Despite the occasional damage of over-sensitivity, there are far more instances of our society being extremely insensitive and intolerant. It should not be surprising that in the push against the current climate of intolerance, there are going to be instances of people taking things too far.

Lukianoff and Haidt suggest that in our schools, sensitivity culture allows students to shield themselves from reality and, in doing so, actually weakens their ability to handle the real world and their own mental

health battles. However, that argument is very easy to make when you are not the survivor of rape who is forced to sit through a class on sexual assault law so that you can go on to become an environmental lawyer.

Since the emergence of more sensitive ideals, there has been an opposing culture that suggests that the world is too sensitive and that people who claim to have needs which differ from the norm are trying to get away with something. This perspective fails to consider the struggles endured by those who have different needs, and subsequently fails to recognize that those battling sensitivity culture are often speaking from privileged situations. The Atlantic article presents that age-old way of thinking, but dresses it up in new-age sheep’s clothing using the rhetoric of mental health.

While certainly a thought-provoking article, it is stunning that people feel threatened by this new culture of sensitivity. As shown by Lukianoff and Haidt, it can make more privileged people’s lives more complicated or uncomfortable for a hot second. Sensitivity to difference is an effort to level the playing field, and in schools it can increase students’ sense of autonomy, allowing them to be individuals instead of conforming to expectations.

Send in the Clowns: The spectacle of modern politics Emily Pollock | Design Editor This summer, the Huffington Post declared that they would stop covering Donald Trump as serious news.

While they would still cover his campaign, the coverage would go in their entertainment section rather than their news section. When explaining their decision, the editors wrote, “Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait.”

It’s true. Trump is a sideshow who embarrasses even the notoriously gaffe-prone Republican Party. He’s spent the campaign spouting ridiculous soundbites— such as his plan to “build a wall around Mexico”—and getting into fights on Twitter. Basically, Trump is a clownish buffoon made serious only by the potential impact of his bigotry—think your awful uncle, but with a geopolitical megaphone.

But he’s not an outlier. In an era of fast media, politicians are the new entertainers. Watch Barack Obama’s selfie stick shenanigans and online contribution to the “Thanks, Obama” meme. Witness the worldwide Rob Ford spectacle, where Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in an attempt to clear his name. Even the famously meme-hating Vladimir Putin has gotten in on the action via gratuitous shirtless pictures and videos of himself working out.

Let’s be clear: this is not a new phenomenon.

Politicians have always been performers, and politicians like Ronald Reagan (a former actor) have always known how to use the media to their advantage. Our parents’ generation lapped up salacious stories involving political leaders such as the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal or Maggie and Pierre Trudeau’s marriage. At its heart, politics is the kind of bread-and-circuses spectacle that “civilized” people like us can appreciate.

The difference today is the speed of the media cycle and the 24-hour information superhighway with its

constant stream of news. The reality of the information age is that news stories spawn and die out quickly. Funny or “cool” stories rise to (and fall from) prominence fast, with limited time for people to reflect on the nuances of the issue or the figures involved.

One of the best examples is Obama’s “Thanks, Obama” video. In the US, Tea Partiers’ sarcastic thanking of Obama for America’s perceived problems has turned “Thanks, Obama” into a popular meme.

Obama’s response to this consists of a video showing the president trying unsuccessfully to dunk a cookie in milk, then looking at the camera and saying “Thanks, Obama.” It’s wonderfully recursive—here, the joke is flipped on its head and the memed-upon becomes the memer.

But here the presentation is a distraction from serious issues. Obama can portray himself as the social media president and use Twitter to support Ahmed Mohamed, a Texas high school student victimized by Islamophobic profiling, while ignoring how his own government’s drone strikes target Muslims globally.

Putin can use his strongman persona to distract people from Russia’s decidedly weak economy. And Trump’s outrageous displays make it harder for us to notice the quiet, deadly bigotry infecting the whole Republican Party. The 24-hour news circus means that serious news can slip through the cracks.

So what do we do to fix this whole mess? It’s doubtful that other media outlets will take the Huffington Post’s route and refuse to take political shenanigans seriously.

And it’s unlikely that we can give up the fun and shiny side of politics—our brains just aren’t wired the right way. What we can do is inform ourselves about political issues and make our own decisions about what’s important. After all, the circus may be in town, but that’s no reason to hop in the clown car.

Emily Pollock

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Opinions • the STRAND

A Showgoer’s Perspective, An Ocean Apart Ahmed Hasan | Contributor Moving back to Canada after spending my high school years in Dubai was quite the change; there are plenty of societal differences, as one would expect, and readjusting to downtown Toronto’s norms took a little more time than I would care to admit. But I was expecting a familiar experience when I started going to metal shows here, as I had done in Dubai, if only a couple of times. I imagined that this was something that would help me make friends and integrate here as I had in Dubai—back there, my close friends and I all shared a love for loud, angry music, and in turn a love for wearing oversized band shirts while other people played said music.

Barring the initial slight awkwardness that comes with being in an unfamiliar environment, I had a great time—if different than the ones I’d had in Dubai. I caught big bands I loved such as Opeth and Meshuggah, and discovered—and even made friends with—other bands along the way. The crowds at Toronto metal shows are usually a friendly bunch, eager to make conversation about the bands they’re about to see. Also in the crowd are fans that are budding musicians in their own right and freelance photographers with cameras and photo passes. These quickly become constants. Slowly, some of these reoccurring faces, when not hidden behind cameras, become friends.

But were we to go back in time for a moment and meet up with a wide-eyed, excited, 15-year-old me being assaulted by feedback swells and standing in the

“front row” (my first show took place in a hotel’s party room without a stage or barriers between the audience and performers), there was a different atmosphere entirely. The room was not awfully big and the bill consisted entirely of local talent, save for Lebanese upand-comers Voice of the Soul, who were headlining the set. A good time and significant neck pains were had by all; we got to shake hands and hold conversations with every performer immediately after their sets, while others went to buy bootleg CDs from That One EverPresent Guy who had a table set up in the back.

The metal scene in Dubai was small but extremely tight-knit; everybody seemed to know everyone else, and there was usually no more than one degree of separation from any stranger you’d chat up here or there.

My experience was limited compared to the amount of show-going I do here in Toronto, but I recall that there was an overwhelming sense of welcoming and belonging to be found in Dubai. No one looked at you strangely for having an “uncool” band’s shirt on, and a lot of the events were organized by a select group of fans themselves, rather than by faceless promoters. Fans did take a blow in 2009 with the cancellation of the Dubai Desert Rock Festival, which at its apex hosted internationally-famous bands such as Motörhead, Mastodon, and Opeth. But that seemed only to bolster local efforts to keep the scene thriving. We took fierce pride in our local talent and strongly encouraged new bands; my own short-lived band formed with some

friends (come on, we were teenagers) was offered a spot to perform very soon after word got out that we were even a thing, despite the fact that we barely had a single song written.

It bears mentioning that my limited experience meant I was not especially privy to whatever unpleasantness or discrimination may have gone on behind the scenes, if any did at all, and that I went to shows with an existing group of friends. In contrast, the Toronto scene took me a fair amount of time to get comfortable with, and the sheer scope of the scene made it harder to break into. That’s no one’s fault; Toronto is a major North American city with a much bigger population than Dubai, and a lot of really big tours visit here on a regular basis. However, I feel like this has led to a lack of the tight-knit, DIY spirit that I found so prominent in the Dubai scene, and it saddens me to see that that is not present here.

At the end of the day, I’m still going to keep going to shows here as often as university work allows, because I love the music and I’ve made some great friends along the way. However, I can’t help but wonder how many younger fans here don’t necessarily get the welcome and subsequent opportunities that 15-year-old me did in Dubai. Perhaps that will change one day—or perhaps I’m just not looking in the right places.

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OUR MASTHEAD Editors-in-Chief editor@thestrand.ca

Anthony Burton Rhianna Jackson-Kelso Holly McKenzie-Sutter

News

Nicole Paroyan

Diagnosing Misogyny as an Educator’s Duty

! ! ! $ % *&

news@thestrand.ca

Opinions

Olivia Dziwak

opinions@thestrand.ca

Features features@thestrand.ca

Geoff Baillie Claire Wilkins

Arts & Culture

Clarrie Feinstein

artsandculture@thestrand.ca

Film & Music

Bronwyn Nisbet-Gray

filmandmusic@thestrand.ca

Stranded

Neil MacIsaac

Emily Pollock

stranded@thestrand.ca

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Jake McNair

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Design design@thestrand.ca

Emily Pollock Grace Quinsey

Photo

Genevieve Wakutz

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Lynn Seolim Hong

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Kasra Koushan

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Contributors Katie Elder, Ahmed Hasan, Arika Jiang, Daniel Jubas-Malz, Lia Schifitto, Angela Sun, Sara Truuvert, Lauren Van Klaveren, Kathleen Walsh Copy Editors Alexandra Jones Illustrations Lynn Hong, Emily Pollock, Cynthia Wong Photos Peter Francis, Chris Monteiro, Lia Schifitto Ad Photo

By Flickr user Katerha. Used under a creative commons license.

Cover Photo Mathieu Belanger The Strand has been the newspaper of record for Victoria University since 1953. It is published 12 times a year with a circulation of 2000 and is distributed in Victoria University buildings and across the University of Toronto’s St. George campus.

The Strand flagrantly enjoys its editorial autonomy and is committed to acting as an agent of constructive social change. As such, we will not publish material deemed to exhibit racism, sexism, homo/transphobia, ableism, or other oppressive language.

The Strand is a proud member of the Canadian University Press (CUP).

Our offices are located at 150 Charles St. W., Toronto, ON, M5S 1K9. Please direct enquiries by email to editor@thestrand.ca. Submissions are welcome and may be edited for taste, brevity, and legality.

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Holly McKenzie-Sutter | Editor-in-Chief The return to school this September has been somber in tone, noticeably marked by increased security guards pacing the halls and monitoring the entrances to classrooms.

By now, most UofT students are aware of the violent threats made against the school on a blogTO comment thread at the beginning of this month. If you’re not fully aware of the nature of those comments, you can’t really be blamed, because the school’s Vice-President and Provost didn’t seem to think you needed to be.

In her email addressed to the staff and student body, Professor Cheryl Regehr informed students of “an investigation into anonymous threats made on a public blog against the University of Toronto.

We take these threats very seriously and want to ensure that we have a safe campus community.”

While Professor Regehr’s assurance of student and staff safety and her implementation of protective measures is appreciated, it is troubling that, in her mind, the direct and graphic nature of the comments is secondary information that the population of UofT need not worry about.

It is, in fact, important information that the anonymous user was operating under the username “Kill Feminists,” and it is important that the violent threats were directed at feminists and Women’s Studies and Sociology students and professors. While individual professors and groups such as CUPE 3902 later followed up Regehr’s general comments with more specific information about the commenter’s targets, it remains worrisome that diagnosing misogyny for what it is at face value is not a priority to the topmost authorities at our school.

However misguided or inauthentic the person behind the blogTO comments may be, the fact remains that, in their mind, a link exists between

the ideology of feminism and extreme violence.

Considering Canada’s history of violence against women in academia, it’s a given that this kind of thought process is conditioned, not instinctive.

The school’s failure to diagnose the online commenter’s comments as what they are—misogyny and hate-based rhetoric—shows a failure to educate. If we want these kinds of comments to go away, and to take the necessary steps to make UofT into a safe space, our educators need to start seeing these things for what they are and use dark moments such as this one to teach that this kind of sexism is unacceptable.

Students and staff alike have experienced a wide range of reactions in the aftermath of the threats. Those in Women and Gender Studies likely went to class feeling tenser than others, and those who have personal experience with similar violence and threats likely also had a difficult first week.

Yet overall, the student body has responded admirably and bravely to the situation. The conversations it has sparked show significant maturity and intellect of the kind an institution of higher learning can be proud of. Students have used social media and personal connections to get the word around and to react adequately and realistically to initial comments, despite the failure of Professor Regehr’s email to inform us of their true nature.

While the memory of this moment fades, hopefully the conversations it sparked continued.

If this can stand as a wake-up call for many with regards to the reality of sexism in academia and our city’s culture, let it stand as that. Let’s be thankful that it can be used as a teachable moment without actualized violent consequences.

Editorial • the STRAND

Delving Deeper into the Meaning Behind the Words Rhianna Jackson-Kelso | Editor-in-Chief As a writer, an English student, a copy editor, and now an Editor-in-Chief, my goal in life has always been to figure out how to use words effectively. My ability to do this has improved and refined over time, and while my audience for Harry Potter fan fiction is just a tiny bit different from my audience for an essay on The Waste Land (the audience for a newspaper article on the merits of eating bugs is different still), I like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at presenting my words clearly and concisely.

However, another dimension of written communication—one that involves much more than just the literal meaning of the sentence or how nice it sounds when you read it out loud—has become more and more apparent to me as I’ve grown older, become more socially aware, and learned to understand and acknowledge my privileges. I’d often heard the term “the power of words” thrown around, but before I came to university and got involved with The Strand, I never thought much about what that could mean in practice. When you’re involved in a medium as public and widely read as a newspaper, though, the practical effects of words and their impact on others in everyday settings become more and more obvious.

And not just in a journalistic setting—words can have an immense potential to hurt, heal, support, and disappoint in almost every context.

I feel this issue of The Strand embodies this idea nicely. Over these 16 pages, you’ll encounter several articles that touch on the power of words in a variety of contexts, from their impact on everyday activities to how they can shape more defining moments in our lives. On page 4 you’ll find an article exploring the merits of sensitivity in academia and how different approaches to words can both bestow and withhold agency. This issue’s featured article on page 8 discusses the pitfalls of using the inaccessibility of words as a marker of personal intelligence. As you can see on the opposite page, my co-Editor-inChief has already discussed the online threats made against feminist students and staff of the university earlier this month—an example, of course, of how easily words can inflict violence and instill fear and, conversely, lead others to initiate a positive response of strength and defiance.

As you potentially already know (or will hopefully come to learn through future experiences), “the power of words” isn’t solely the domain of people

with large audiences, like authors or speechmakers.

No matter the apparent reach (or lack thereof ) your words might have, developing the ability to understand their impact is a useful and important skill for every human being, especially if you’re in a position of social privilege, like I am. If I’ve learned anything about words over the course of my time using them, it’s that you can and should always strive to improve your understanding of how others interpret them, and that developing a healthy reverence for their power to affect others is very helpful in this regard.

What seems neutral to one person can, obviously, inspire hurt and anger in another; even the most carefully constructed sentence can leave out crucial viewpoints or experiences if not cultivated with an understanding of the sentence’s potential impact.

Ultimately, more often than not there will be a gap between what you mean to say and what you actually end up saying, and understanding the potential your words have to affect people both positively and negatively is crucial to recognizing and bridging this gap.

This is a newspaper hat.

Does it make you sad to see the newspaper hat? It doesn’t have to be this way.

Some newspapers may be of better use to you as hats. Some, like The Strand, are better suited as newspapers that you, the potential hat-wearer, can instead make your own. To make this hat your home, volunteer with us. Send us your pitches, your art, and your questions to any of the emails listed on the masthead opposite this hat.

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Features • the STRAND

Bro, Do You Even Lit? The “Great Male Narcissists” revisited Geoff Baillie | Features Editor With the recent release of The End of the Tour, a biopic about David Foster Wallace starring Jason Segel, a number of opinion pieces have cropped up evaluating his relationship with Lit-Bro culture. In a recent New York Times article titled “Why Literary Chauvinists Love David Foster Wallace,” Molly Fischer describes Wallace as having become “lit-bro shorthand,” joking about a “bookish male acquaintance with a man-bun” who is “first in line to see the David Foster Wallace movie.” So what are “Lit-Bros,” and why have they come to be so closely affiliated with Wallace?

The most prominent cultural representation of the Lit-Bro is a parody Twitter account called @ GuyInYourMFA. It’s written in the voice of a white male in his mid-twenties whose know-it-all attitude and loudly professed chauvinistic convictions about literature make him the most insufferable person in his MFA program. That the account has over 60,000 followers suggests that this type of guy is recognizable to more people than just those who are enrolled in fiction writing courses. A Lit-Bro is that guy in your English course: loquacious, eager to impress, and probably has some anachronistic method of carrying his books, like a briefcase. Rather than reading for enjoyment or enlightenment, Lit-Bros treat reading as a means to show off how smart and cultured they are.

Some sample tweets to illustrate his chauvinism: “I’d have a girlfriend if every girl I met didn’t think reading Jane Austen made her literary,” and “’Who’s your favourite writer?’ I asked. ‘John Green,’ she replied. I stood up without a word and left the bar, then left the town.” His expectation of women is that despite not having such sophisticated taste as he does, they should still be impressed by his literacy: “Finished another moleskine. It’ll go where all my used notebooks go—scattered visibly in my room for girls to pick up and page through,” and “I find myself acquainted with the type of woman who appreciates my Pynchon tattoos,” highlight this quality. These tweets resonate with so many people because they reflect a pomposity and obliviousness recognizable in real guys. But why is the Lit-Bro’s taste so male-centric? If

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he wants to impress women with his literacy, why isn’t he bragging about reading any female writers?

The reason might be that many of the most widely acclaimed white male authors of the past 50 years— guys like Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, Norman Mailer, and John Updike—occasionally seem to write as if their primary ambition is to prove how smart they are. Their writing can sometimes come across as a narcissistic endeavor: they write books that are lexically and thematically challenging, seemingly to weed out readers who aren’t willing enough—or as

Rather than reading for enjoyment or enlightenment, Lit-Bros treat reading as a means to show off how smart and cultured they are.

Lit-Bro might put it, smart enough—to put in the extra effort to read a challenging book. So when a LitBro talks about how much he loves these writers, he’s subliminally bragging that he’s among that elite group of readers intelligent enough to understand their works. And because this particular group of writers is male, he reasons that female writers don’t measure up to his Lit-Bro icons. The fact that a lot of these male authors frequently wrote misogynistic characters as protagonists—Updike and Roth in particular—only strengthens the male-centrism of the Lit-Bro’s taste.

What Lit-Bros fail to understand is that great literature doesn’t need to be obtuse to be meaningful.

Alice Munro’s writing is both dense and lucid without being wordy. She writes in short, declarative sentences and her work never feels overstrained. Her high level of emotional intelligence allows her to illustrate what it means to be a human being by telling about the lives of others. Munro does this in an emotionally straightforward way. The fact that she’s ignored by LitBros illustrates what they’re missing. There’s a character in Munro’s story “Dolly” who is the antithesis of LitBro: literarily gifted, but wary about coming across as boastful: He is in fact a poet. He is really a poet and really a horse trainer. He has held one-term jobs at various colleges, but never so far away that he can’t keep in touch with the stables. […] When you’re busy with horses people can see that you are busy, but when you’re busy at making up a poem you look as if you’re in a state of idleness and you feel a little strange or embarrassed having to explain what’s going on.

Horse training, like other types of manual labour, tends to reliably yield physical results that serve as a testament to the efforts of the labourer. Since reading and writing are usually done in private, using literacy as a means to show off to others requires boastfully explaining what you’ve read or written. This is what makes Lit-Bros so annoying. This is why @GuyInYourMFA has Pynchon tattoos, and leaves his notebooks lying around as proof of his intelligence and capability as a writer.

As Fischer points in her New York Times article, as well as in an article she ran on Slate called “David Foster Wallace, Beloved Author of Bros,” David Foster Wallace earned most of his predominantly white male fan base with the publishing of his magnum opus Infinite Jest. The book, which appears on The Toast’s list of “Books That Literally All White Men Own,” is 1,079 pages long with almost 400 footnotes and uses words like “thigmotactic” and “pedalferrous.” At first

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out a set of emotional facts of human life: parenting is difficult, suffering brings people together, perfection is unattainable, and so on. The sustained moral throughout the book is that the only way to live a fulfilling life is to dedicate your energy to helping other people. It’s a lot more sincere and less narcissistic than its affiliation with cynical Lit-Bros gives it credit for.

But Wallace’s affiliation with Lit-Bros is unfair and misinformed. Infinite Jest was his effort to write something completely sincere. Despite being long and stylistically challenging, the book has a more straightforward premise than people give it credit for.

Through the relationships of a set of characters at a tennis academy and an addictions house, Wallace lays

In this way he’s more like Munro’s poet/horsetrainer than @GuyInYourMFA. Even though he’s a grammar obsessive with a fixation on obscure, esoteric words, Wallace consistently works colloquialisms into his narrative voice, the most frequent being the conjunction “and but so” that he uses to start a lot of sentences. He uses these terms because he wants

to come across as a regular guy and avoid alienating his audience. Wallace is an undisputable genius, but despite not being a normal person, his mission as a writer was to connect with normal people. Striving to connect, rather than to impress, is where Wallace’s attitude differs from that of his Lit-Bro devotees. Associating Infinite Jest with Lit-Bros because it’s complex and lengthy completely undermines the point of a book written by an incredibly empathetic author.

When people look back on the past 50 years of English literature, hopefully they don’t lump Wallace in with the “Great Male Narcissists” that he criticised.

Lynn Hong

glance it appears like the kind of thing Lit-Bros love: a difficult book that exists for the sake of being a difficult book. Wallace, who famously described Mailer, Updike, and Roth as the “Great Male Narcissists,” had accidentally written a book that would become the essential Lit-Bro status symbol. You had to be smart to read it and you had to read it to be considered smart.

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Arts & Culture • the STRAND

The Baconless Life Lia Schifitto

Lia Schifitto | Contributor I’ve been a vegetarian for over four years. Just the other day, I tried chicken for the first time since then. It was a very impulsive decision made at The Ex, but I mean, it was The Ex, so there was fried food galore. As I ate my fried chicken stick, I pondered ever so deeply what I was actually eating. I began to find that with each chew, there was a disturbing amount of thinking going on in my head about what was in my mouth. I did not like what came to mind, no matter how delicious it tasted. I have realized, however, that vegetarianism offers a simplistic and whole-food frame of mind to those that choose to embark on the baconless diet. It’s better for you and for our planet.

Vegetarian food sometimes carries a bad rep, because, let’s face it, the North American world is addicted to white chicken breast with a side of hormones, please.

Honestly, I think vegetarian cuisine is some pretty sexy stuff. Vegetables are packed with proteins, vitamins, nutrients, and can be used in versatile ways to create sensational and easy dishes.

This is the recipe for a zesty vegetarian stir-fry.

Best way to serve it: with fresh advacado slices, crispy fried noodles, and a dash of hot sauce!

Serves 2-3 hungry vegetarians or carnivores

Ingredients: Sesame oil (2 tablespoons) Soy sauce (1 tablespoon) Brown sugar (1 tablespoon) Cooking vinegar (1 tablespoon) Garlic (1 clove) Onion (1-2 medium sized) Carrots (2-3 large) Snap peas (1/2 cup) Edamame (1/2 cup) Yellow pepper (1) Baby bokchoy (1/2 a bag) Ginger powder (2 teaspoons) Minced ginger root (1 teaspoon) Paprika (1 teaspoon) Red chili flakes (1 teaspoon) Tomato paste (1 tablespoon) Extra firm tofu (1/2 package) Flour for breading tofu Lemon zest (1/4 cup) Agave syrup (1 teaspoon) Canola oil (2 tablespoons) Salt and pepper 2-3 bunches of noodles (I use egg-based, but you can try soba, rice vermicelli, or substitute which ever type you like)

Directions: 1. In a large pot, heat sesame oil, cooking vinegar, and minced garlic on medium-low heat. Add coarsely sliced onions, brown sugar, and soy sauce. Cook on mediumlow until onions have begun to caramelize, about 4 minutes.

2. In separate pan, bring canola oil to high heat. Bread the diced tofu in flour (I like to add spices to the flour to add an extra kick), then add to the pan. Add salt and pepper. Cook on medium-high heat and flip every few minutes until golden brown. Mix together agave and lemon zest, then add to the pan and cook at medium heat until tofu has been glazed with mixture on both sides. Remove from heat.

3. Add vegetables (except bok choy) to large pot with onions. Add minced ginger root, ginger powder, salt and pepper, paprika, chili flakes, and tomato paste. Stir and place on low heat. Cover with a lid to let the vegetables steam.

4. Separate pot, boil water and cook noodles. It is up to you how you would like your noodle to tofu-andvegetable ratio, but for 2-3 servings, 2-3 bunches of noodles is usually just right.

5. Add bok choy, with sesame oil and soy sauce to taste, and let cook for 5 minutes on medium-low heat with lid covering pot. Add noodles and tofu.

50 First Dates For: Romantics | Neighbourhood: North York | Cost: $14 (Total price of food and drinks for two at the Garden Café) Angela Sun | Staff Writer I’ve always had my doubts about the romanticism of rain.

It can be soothing if you are watching a storm from the comfort of your dry, warm abode, but I’ve never really fancied getting wet. However, this time I discovered that the clichés might all be true and that a little rain could actually set the perfect mood.

I first heard about the Toronto Botanical Garden (777 Lawrence Ave East) from a friend who got engaged there.

The area is made up of three large gardens: the Botanical Garden, the Children’s Garden, and Edwards Gardens.

The Botanical Garden contains nine mini-gardens that vary in size and design. One of these gardens swirls up a small hill, and another was pruned into the shape of a knot. There are also multiple vine-covered canopies, mini-waterfalls, and a small artificial stream. The rain had not only rendered the park secluded, but highlighted the beauty of the surrounding nature.

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As my friend and I walked around, we were surprised to find that, unlike the Garden Shop, the Garden Café was still open on a day so gloomy and in a park so empty.

Open seasonally from May to October until dusk, the inside is painted in bright-yet-soft hues and furnished simply. There may be limited seating indoors, but their patio is expansive.

We ended up deciding upon a very seasonallyappropriate selection: we shared a turkey tourtière ($6.50) and pumpkin tart ($4.00) and sipped on London Fogs. The friendly café staff told me that the desserts are delivered daily from the café owners’ bakery in Port Hope, while the savoury pies are made onsite.

After the café, we made our way to newly rehabilitated Wilket Creek Park and trails. Though the hiking trails were framed by lush trees in a way that was reminiscent of the Don Valley, I found this space to be more romantic

because of the numerous benches and bridges that we discovered on our walk.

At some point, we followed a path away from the garden and ended up on the Bridle Path. The Bridle Path is famed for being one of Toronto’s richest neighbourhoods—the one with the huge mansions. We had a nice time peeking at all the extravagant monstrosities and renovation-happy ranch-style structures. A warning though: we were unable to cut through the Path, so we had to retrace our steps to get back into the park.

But as we languidly walked back, the sun came out and the grey sky melted into a soft fuchsia. The tops of the trees now looked like they had been dipped in gold, and I almost could have burst at the loveliness of it all.

One last tip: just remember to wear proper footwear if you plan on traipsing through a park in the rain.

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The Misfit Toy Trope: Burlesque Edition Lauren Van Klaveren | Contributor For the past eight years, The Toronto Burlesque Festival (which took place from August 27-30 this year) has hosted the finest local talent and some of the most spellbinding international performers hailing from New York, Japan, and even Switzerland. While most of the TBF showcases have a general theme (the Saturday latenight show was inspired by popular culture and nerd fandom), at least one show is scripted, with each act and character meticulously worked into a larger story.

This year, the scripted show was titled “The Lost Toys,” and featured performances that explored nostalgia for childhood through the universal human experiences of love and neglect.

As I watched the show I was reminded of the poignancy of the Toy Story films—that connection was blatantly and gladly completed when burlesque performer and TBF producer Coco Framboise performed as Mr. Potato Head. Even though the Toy Story films are

fictional, animated, and geared mostly towards children, the emotional insights the characters experience resonate with audiences of all ages.

The dichotomy between humans and creations that mimic life—such as machines, toys, and dolls—is a fascinating one. “The Lost Toys” questions what makes us human and what makes us conscious thinkers and feelers in the world. Characters such as a singing marionette, an abandoned troll doll, and a broken-hearted porcelain doll best address the ways that so-called objects can show and illustrate emotion in an effective and affective way.

The urgent desire to be loved was elegantly presented

by Dew Lily, who sang The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now” as a marionette whilst tied and suspended from the ceiling. Another vulnerable and powerful act of the night was Knox Harter’s chair dance as a porcelain doll to Princess Chelsea’s haunting cover of White Town’s “Your Woman.” The act culminated with the performer’s

bra, covered by a large, glittery red heart, breaking apart to reveal near identical halves of the heart as her pasties.

Between each act in the show, the host, known as Sexy Mark Brown, donned an apron and limped across the stage as an elderly toy maker. He interacted mainly with Pixie Trix, who was playing a neglected troll doll whose owner had grown up to raise a family that included children and grandchildren.

As I watched the performers, I remembered all the toys and stuffed animals that I played with as a child. In particular, I thought of my stuffed toy dog that I loved to pieces and took with me wherever I went. Inevitably, I grew up and forgot about him, leaving him behind to lose his shine and gather dust. Maybe some day, when I’m cleaning and trying to be a stable adult, I’ll find him again and hold on to him, a surviving reminder to live and love with the candor and vulnerability of a child.

Peter Francis

Why I Eat Bugs to Save the World Daniel Jubas-Malz | Contributor Last year I took a course in environmental psychology.

That sounds totally weird, but the aim was to explore how environmental problems can be addressed in modern society, borrowing from sources in the environmental sciences, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Our main assignment was to develop a feasible campaign, based on relevant literature and personal intuition, that could be applied to a population and actually incite change towards greater environmental consciousness. The project we came up with was to promote entomophagy—the consumption of insects—in western culture. We were all so satisfied with our campaign outline that we decided to turn it into an actual organization on campus called “Bug Bites.”

The reaction I’ve gotten from telling people about this has been divided: I’m either met with a disgusted “Why would you do that?” or something along the lines of “Huh, that’s actually kinda neat.” If you couldn’t guess, I belong to the latter camp. But why?

In short, it’s because insects have tremendous nutritional, economic, and environmental benefits. Studies have found that certain insects have nutritional content that rivals traditional meats. Different insects have varying nutritional benefits, including but not limited to proteins,

fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Although nutritional content varies from insect to insect, the scientific consensus is that insects are a viable nutritional source.

Insect farming also has considerable economic and environmental benefits that mostly go hand-in-hand. Farming insects requires far less space and feed, and the insects reproduce at a significantly faster rate than traditional livestock. Additionally, insects can often be fed waste that is inedible for humans, reducing overall waste and saving farmers money on livestock feed.

Despite these benefits, introducing insects to an unfamiliar culture has proven to be difficult. As part of our project, my group and I interviewed several of our friends and found common themes in the aversion towards insect consumption. The three main issues were: disgust, accessibility, and ignorance of use (i.e. unsure how to cook the product). Interestingly, people seemed more willing to eat an insect if the food they were eating did not look like one.

Extending from this point, we realized that, for example, people do occasionally eat a chocolate-covered insect as some sort of dare or challenge. We felt like this habit of turning insects into a novelty food would never allow it to become mainstream as a potential ingredient for everyday

use. Thus, our motto, “Normalize—don’t novelize,” was born.

Considering these barriers, Bug Bites decided to start bringing insect-based foods to students, but pre-cooked and without a “buggy” look. Specifically, we made brownies with cricket flour. Yes, cricket flour. This demonstrates that insect products can be interchanged with existing ingredients without the taboo associated with bug munching.

As of right now, our goal is to raise awareness and demand. We need more people to know that entomophagy is a viable, sustainable, and nutritional lifestyle choice that would only add to the recipes we already make and love, eventually incentivizing farmers to shift at least part of their focus to insects. And what’s exciting is we’ve already met plenty of people who are excited to explore insectbased food options, especially when we tell them about the benefits.

So if you see us around on campus, come say hi and chat with us for a bit. And, if you’re feeling up to the challenge, maybe try a bug or two—or three, if you’re daring.

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Film & Music • the STRAND

The End of the Tour Holly McKenzie-Sutter | Editor-in-Chief An early scene in James Ponsoldt’s The End of the Tour depicts the first meeting between Jesse Eisenberg’s reporter Dave Lipsky and Jason Segel’s David Foster Wallace. Eisenberg awkwardly tries to break ice by commenting on the home and property, to which Wallace responds, “I can’t take credit for the view.”

One thing that both lovers and haters of The End of the Tour have in common is a love of David Foster Wallace. Lovers of the film praised the intimacy of the script and the authenticity of Jason Segel’s careerchanging performance. Negative responses to the film have taken issue with the Hollywood biopic format, considering it unfaithful to the anti-commercialist spirit of the author’s oeuvre.

Both these responses come from a place of assumed personal knowledge of the author himself; we feel like we know DFW, to the extent that we feel entitled to declare whether or not a project like The End of the Tour is faithful to his essence. A more fair way to interpret Ponsoldt’s film may instead be to look at is as an anti-biopic. The film is less interested in utter and complete faithfulness to an elusive celebrity, than it is an examination of the limitations of media in aiding our attempts to know another human being.

The plot of Tour takes place over a five-day stretch, during which time Rolling Stone reporter Dave Lipsky joins David Foster Wallace for an interview while DFW is touring to promote the blockbuster novel Infinite Jest. The film mostly consists of dialogue between the two men as they discuss the toxic nature of celebrity, American culture, and other topics pertaining to Wallace’s work and supposed literary genius.

In terms of a genre, the film is difficult to categorize. Not quite a biopic, Tour at times feels like a romantic comedy-drama. The first few meetings between Wallace and Lipsky rely heavily on stress-induced chain smoking and timid bickering over who will foot

the bill for dinner. In particular, the dinner scene involves a wonderful moment where Wallace asks Lipsky “if you’re as nervous as I am, because I’m fucking terrified.” The first-date awkwardness at the men’s first meeting is tangible, and both Eisenberg and Segel play off the characters’ discomfort expertly. The audience feels as uncomfortable in the artificiality of the Rolling Stone project as Wallace and (to an extent) Lipsky do.

In keeping with the title of Lipsky’s book, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, of course, the two men do end up getting to know each other—and Ponsoldt refuses to sugar coat the ugly aspects of either figure’s personality. There is a consistent thematic undertone of the film that suggests an awareness of the toxic masculinity of Wallace’s work, and does not shy away from the streak of jealousy and competitiveness between the two men as authors and as, well, men.

The third act spirals into a delightfully meat-headed competition over the attention of any and every female fan, friend, and girlfriend Lipsky and Wallace encounter. Eisenberg and Segel shine in this particular tangent, both playing against type with Eisenberg sinking into a sleazy and effortless lit-bro ladies’ man and Segel struggling to keep up as the less confident beta male. The fact that their relationship finds its tipping point in a tiff over women’s attention is an especially humbling moment of ugliness and animalistic stupidity on both sides that humanizes Wallace and prevents him from being idolized by the film.

In typical rom-com style, the final act involves a ballistic shouting match, reconciliation, and resolution that suggests the two might continue on as friends and colleagues. But Lipsky leaves us with an ambiguous picture of Wallace: the only thing in closing that we know about Wallace is that we know less about him than we did at the beginning.

And so we return to the view from Wallace’s kitch-

en that Lipsky innocuously commented on in one of the first scenes. In its first appearance, the view was confined to a tiny box-like window, and Lipsky’s comment rang as distinctly fake. In one of the final scenes, after spending several testosterone-charged days in each other’s company, Wallace and Lipsky walk out onto Wallace’s property—and exit the confinement of the frame, so to speak. The expansive landscape shot, after a film confined to limited spaces in cars, planes, and hotel rooms, is undeniably beautiful. The End of the Tour may not complete the picture of Wallace some viewers may be looking for, but it absolutely widens the view.

To me as a reader, this is what Wallace’s project was all about—to present life’s banality and ugliness in a light that allows you to see its beauty. His project was never about knowing him as the writer.

The quest to know one’s heroes through media— be it a feature interview or a Hollywood film, is by its nature disingenuous. On several occasions Segel’s Wallace nervously suggests the impossibility of success in such an interview and, to his credit, Rolling Stone never published Lipsky’s interview. Lipsky’s quest to summarize Wallace in a confined format ultimately failed. Some might also argue that Ponsoldt’s project itself was a similar failure. But if we consider the film a complication of the man rather than a concrete resolution on his character, it is more successful in its faith to the author’s project than anything else could have been.

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Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story Arika Jiang | Contributor If you could take Larry Clark’s Kids and merge it with Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, you would get a film like Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story. Directed and written by Eva Husson in her directorial debut, the film explores the vivid sexuality of a group of teenagers in Biarritz, France. The plot centers around five very different characters—George, Alex, Nikita, Gabriel, and Laetitia—and their up-and-down relationships with each other. Most of the characters embrace a hedonistic lifestyle, full of endless partying and risqué activities. However, their reckless behaviour leads to consequences they later regret.

Right off the bat, the flashy opening scene captures the bold and dreamy atmosphere of the film.

A character takes the audience through a loud house party filled with intoxicated teenagers partaking in wild sexual activities. Synth-pop and electronic music blast in the background as shots of naked bodies are seen in corners of a trashed house. There is no dialogue in this scene—just visuals translated through music.

The hypnotic music and bare bodies replace spoken words, creating a different form of communication.

The beautiful cinematography of the opening captures your attention right away and reels you into the film.

The film then travels back in time to one month before. The characters are slowly introduced as the audience gets a glimpse into their lives. Laetitia (Daisy Broom), a seemingly nice and shy girl, lives with her strict father and often breaks curfew. She hangs out with her best friend George (Marilyn Lima), a beautiful and playful blonde, and the two gossip about boys. One day, they set off to Alex’s (Finnegan Oldfield) house to spend time with him and his buddy, Nikita (Fred Hotier). George soon develops a crush on Alex, but gets her heart broken because Alex is a lying womanizer. Laetitia later betrays George and complicates the dynamics of the group. The plot progresses slowly and freely, giving the film a dreamy, unreal feeling and reveling in the disorder of its character’s lives. Bang Gang’s presentation of George and Laetitia is particularly interesting. While both girls take part in the sexual escapades onscreen, they are afforded freedom that is rare for female characters.

It is to Husson’s credit that a film about sex and

teenagers avoids casting George or Laetitia simply as objects.

The title of the film is derived from the “game” the teenagers take part in during their parties. The game is basically a group hookup with some individuals performing sexual acts and others watching and recording it on their phones. Originally introduced

by George as a scheme to win Alex back, the game quickly spreads and becomes a ritualized activity that later spirals out of control. Filled with a strong young cast and an electrifying soundtrack, Bang Gang is a fascinating debut feature from Eva Husson. The actors definitely carry the film, and create believable characters that make you cry and laugh. Though intensified and exaggerated, Bang Gang portrays the hookup culture and lifestyle in which many modern teenagers participate. It also shows how real relationships are becoming harder to form—or even disappearing into nonexistence.

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Phantom Boy Katie Elder | Contributor In the new film Phantom Boy, police officer Alex Tanguey is injured on the job during a run-in with an enigmatic villain whose colourful, fragmented features earn him the moniker “the Man with the Broken Face.” Recovering in the hospital with a broken leg, Alex meets Leo, a gentle and resourceful 11-year-old boy who suffers from a possibly-terminal illness. Leo’s illness grants him the unique ability to escape his body for short periods of time, leaving his body completely immobile— although still able to speak and listen to those around him—as he floats invisibly through the streets. When the police captain is unwilling to listen to Alex’s leads in catching the Man with the Broken Face, he and Leo form an unlikely team. Utilizing Leo’s phantom powers, and with the help of Alex’s journalist friend Marie, they track and capture the villain and save New York City.

Alex and Leo’s characters form a compelling foil and team. Alex is a kind-butserious detective toughened by his exposure to crime and corruption, while Leo is an innocent and imaginative child matured by his illness. It is exactly this combination of elements—grim crime drama meets fantastical adventure—that makes Phantom Boy so engaging for children and adults alike. The film touches on sober themes such as crime, illness, and death, but intersperses them with lively gags and

physical comedy. Much of this humour involves the Man with the Broken Face’s band of dim-witted thugs or his rambunctious pet dog. These two radically different tones work together to create an ultimately moving and exciting film.

Co-directors Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol also create a visually striking alternate version of New York City. Felicioli and Gagnol play with influences of expressionism and graphic novels to represent the city in an unfamiliar and exciting way, creating a world full of curious angles and vibrant colours. The film, completed solely in hand-drawn animation (a rarity in the post-Pixar world) is particularly notable for its use of movement, angles, and editing. Felicioli and Gagnol are known for their 2010 film A Cat in Paris, and much of this film’s style is on display in Phantom Boy. Phantom Boy combines a colourful and wondrous rendition of New York with a thrilling and dangerous action plot, creating a heart-warming homage to film noir while allowing the viewer to enjoy a deeply personal and meaningful children’s story.

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HOPE: Searching for Authenticity in Festivals Clarrie Feinstein | Arts & Culture Editor (Continued from page 1) While Hillside has continually managed to flourish and grow while maintaining its core beliefs and values, the festival faced major complications this past year.

Wayhome, which had 35,000 attendees, was planned on the same weekend, and another festival was put on just 90 miles away with a similar line-up. “Our sales were affected by this,” Baijal said. “We still managed to almost sell out our weekend, but it was the first time in a decade.”

With the rise of music festivals over the past few years and their increasing popularity, Baijal doesn’t see healthy outcomes. “Sure, it is initially great for the patron to have so much choice, but there’s too many festivals, it’s this huge bubble that is just going to burst... it’s not sustainable.” Already in England, music festivals have been suffering due to a supersaturated market; 12 were cut in 2012, including Big Chill and Sonisphere. North America may not be experiencing that problem yet, but it could likely occur in the near future.

“The meaning of the term ‘festival’ has come into question,” Baijal explains.

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“I have a lot of respect for the folks who organize all events, but the concept of the festival appears to have become formulaic—especially on the larger scale.

Fiscal reality has to be considered by all of us, of course, but there needs to be [a] relative balance of art and commerce.” Unfortunately, many festivals focus on the latter—once business sees profit, the integrity and authenticity of the project often vanishes.

If we take the pinnacle example of a musical festival and examine the footage of Woodstock, we can easily witness the relaxing and laid-back atmosphere.

What made this event draw together thousands of people? Of course, it was to listen to fantastic music and observe historic collaborations. But it was also the sense of community and togetherness that the festival promoted.

Hillside will continue to grow and follow its integral pathway. As Baijal says, “What makes for an authentic experience is for people to feel relaxed and to just enjoy themselves. There’s no ‘How can I get to the front?’ It’s simply rejuvenating and stress-free.”

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First-Time MargAd Student Finally Goes Number Two Hugh Janice | Contribuor Second-year student James Culus announced this morning that he finally built up the confidence to birth/unleash a baby turdzilla in the co-ed bathrooms of his Margaret Addison Hall residence. “I told my roommate I was going to brush my teeth,” Culus told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.

“Little did he know, I was going to butt-blast a month’s worth of Burwash meals.”

Culus described how he was at first skeptical of making batches of ass coffee in the same bathroom as everyone else on the floor. For the entirety of his high school career, Culus held in his bum chocolate until he got home at the end of the day. In first year, he enjoyed the relative privacy of a Lower Burwash bathroom, shared with a close confidant from high school. “Before this, the longest I’d gone was when we went on a class camping trip for a weekend, but this past month was a real challenge. I even considered buying a plane ticket back to BC just so I could feel the smooth caress of the crap throne in my own home,” Culus explained.

Culus expressed optimism for the rest of the year. “I think what I’ll do from now on is set an alarm for 4 AM every night so I can be sure to have the bathroom to myself. I would really prefer the others on the floor not hear my rectum yodel as I scatter bomb the deuce bucket,” Culus noted. flickr.com

Special Report: Student Sustains Head Injury During Frosh Week 2012, Chooses To Pursue The Arts Sara Truuvert | Contributor Experts have been studying a young woman who was the victim of “Violent Bonding” during Victoria College’s Frosh Week 2012. During a game of Ninja, the student, who The Strand has decided should probably remain anonymous, was struck in the face by a fellow Vic student during his turn. Although early examination showed no signs of injury, she now evidently exhibits symptoms of severe head trauma.

The fact that the young woman seemed unaffected at the time of the incident makes her rapid personal deterioration all the more tragic.

Suspicion of residual effects of the head trauma were aroused when she chose to complete a specialized first-year course studying fine art. From there, she chose to pursue a degree in The Arts. Most disturbingly, the student continually expresses an intention to find work in The Arts after graduation.

“She seems so genuinely happy doing it,” a concerned friend told The Strand. “But obviously she hasn’t been quite right since the incident.”

Similar concerns have been raised in the past regarding students in this young woman’s field of study. The University of Toronto continues to offer students courses in The Arts, but, our sources sus-

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pect, initially only intended them to be for students biding their time before pursuing a real field of study.

“We’re almost at the point where we’d need to do formal background checks,” states one analyst working on this case. “Search for signs of head trauma or viral brain infections that may have gone unnoticed, that sort of thing, to account for these students’ ardent belief that their degrees will be valued in any workplace.”

When asked if they would hire a victim of Violent Bonding, potential employers responded, “Uh, no?” They quickly asked The Strand’s Real World Correspondent to kindly leave their offices, their hesitation clearly a product of emotional overload upon hearing this young woman’s tragic story.

[WARNING: The following excerpt from an exclusive interview with this young woman may be disturbing to some readers.]

When asked about the Violent Bonding incident, the young woman laughed and reported that she found the episode “hilarious,” demonstrating a heartbreakingly blissful ignorance of her condition.

When asked to comment on her choice to pursue a degree and career in The Arts, she reported that she “understood the risks” but was nonetheless “confident in her passion,” an opinion most people will no doubt recognize as one of a tragically deluded individual.

The University of Toronto has pledged to support these students in their endeavours. Insiders claim that the school wants to give these students a sense of purpose and confidence in their craft before sending them out into the real world, much like how an old golden retriever is soothed and petted before being euthanized.

Most recently, the young woman was spotted happily drafting a screenplay in her dorm room. Our thoughts and prayers are with her, but only time will tell what they are worth.

Note: The Strand refuses to comment on allegations that any member of its staff, especially the editor of Stranded, struck the student in question or “countless others” under the guise of Ninja-related incidents.

Stranded • the STRAND

Grading the Historical Accuracy of Roland Emmerich’s Films 2012 courtesy of Sony Pictures Releasing

10,000 BC courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

The Patriot courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Stonewall courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Independence Day courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Neil MacIsaac | Stranded Editor One of the more controversial premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival is the “historical” drama Stonewall, directed by Roland Emmerich. Based on the Stonewall Riots of 1969 that were foundational to the LGBT civil rights movement, the film has come under fire for not casting any trans actors or actresses as major trans characters, in addition to the overall historical inaccuracy and erasure of the presence of non-white and trans people in the events. Due to Stranded’s lifetime ban from TIFF for staging an incendiary “Free The IKEA Monkey” protest during a screening of Philomena in 2013, we will not be able to offer a review of Stonewall. Instead, we shall look into the past of Roland Emmerich himself by assessing the historical accuracy of each of his directorial outings, as well as writing a predictive review of Stonewall.

Stargate (1994) Premise: Using a wormhole device created by the aliens who built the pyramids, a team of scientists and soldiers travels to a world ruled by the Egyptian sun-god Ra and battle for the fate of the planet’s slaves. The President of the United States is not portrayed onscreen.

Accuracy: While generally honest in its explanation of aliens enslaving humanoids to build pyramids, the Ra of the film is depicted as the enslaver but in actuality was the emancipator. Ra’s voice is also modified to be several octaves lower than it was in reality. Steven Spielberg corrected both these errors in the 2012 sequel Lincoln.

Grade: CIndependence Day (1996) Premise: A global alien invasion wipes out much of the earth’s population until a team of scientists, soldiers, and the President of the United States rally and destroy the Mothership with an Apple Powerbook and a nuclear missile. The President of the United States, Thomas J. Whitmore, is portrayed onscreen by Bill Pullman.

Accuracy: The major fault with this movie isn’t within the movie at all, but rather the bizarre cultural delusion that Will Smith says “Welcome to Earf ” after punching an alien in the face. He doesn’t. He says “Welcome to Earth.” It is hard to understand how anyone misheard him. Other than that, intensely accurate.

Grade: A+++ Godzilla (1998) Premise: Godzilla does his thing, but in New York City. A team of scientists and soldiers respond. I have heard this movie is terrible. The President of the United States, The Mayor of New York City, is portrayed onscreen by Michael Lerner.

Accuracy: Look, I didn’t watch this as a kid and I’m not going to just so I can confirm it is terrible. Go read the Roger Ebert review, he’s pretty funny. #RIPRogerEbert Grade: ?/10

The Patriot (2000) Premise: Braveheart and The Joker win the American Revolutionary War against their hated rival, Lucius Malfoy, largely by themselves. The President of the United States, George Washington, is portrayed onscreen by Terry Layman.

Accuracy: Sure, it attributes Nazi atrocities to the Redcoats, largely ignores slavery, and follows a fictional protagonist who is an amalgamation of a few historical figures minus their glaring faults, but this movie also gets basic things any human could understand wrong.

For instance, the sun rises and sets in the same spot on a beach and Lincoln is on money before he would have been born. The only interesting historical debate The Patriot has inspired is whether or not the invention of film can still be seen as positive given that it eventually led to The Patriot.

Grade: Worst Ever The Day After Tomorrow (2004) Premise: The planet is plunged into a new Ice Age after a series of violent superstorms heralded too late by a group of scientists. Dennis Quaid and his son survive thanks to Wendy’s. Two Presidents of the United States, ??? Blake and ??! Becker, are portrayed onscreen by Perry King and Kenneth Welsh respectively.

Accuracy: This film is partially responsible for the emergence of the kind of people who say “Global warming, huh? Seems cold to me,” so it hasn’t held up well. However, the movie is based on excerpts from The Coming Global Superstorm, a non-fiction book from 1999. However, those excerpts are speculative passages on what sort of catastrophes climate change could lead to. However, obviously, this hasn’t happened, and few climate scientists are still predicting a new Ice Age. However, I also did not see this movie.

Grade: 1.5 stars 10,000 BC (2008) Premise: I could try to remember this but I’d probably end up confusing a lot of plot details with Eragon and/or Year One. I saw a lot of bad movies in junior high, ok? The President of the United States, William Howard Taft, is portrayed onscreen by a CGI sabretooth tiger.

Accuracy: To be fair, the movie’s title is ambiguous and could mean the film takes place simultaneously in any and all of the hundred centuries preceding Christ. If this is the case, many of the things depicted on screen did technically exist at some point! If not, hoo boy: this is like if The Flintstones and the first bit of the intro to The Big Bang Theory had a baby that Vin Diesel carried to term.

Grade: ∞/0

calendar” causes impossible levels of destruction across the globe. A series of arks containing scientists and soldiers preserve humanity, including John Cusack and his son Noah. The President of the United States, Thomas Wilson, is portrayed onscreen by Danny Glover.

Accuracy: Surely you were alive in 2012 and read one of the many pieces explaining why the claim that the Mayan calendar predicted an apocalypse is incredibly sketchy. Also everyone in this movie is annoying as hell, so I declare any of them surviving to be inaccurate. The only appeal this movie had was that it would be like a sequel to Independence Day but now we’re getting one next year so what’s the friggin’ point?

Grade: IDK Anonymous (2011) Premise: An exploration of the claims that William Shakespeare not only did not write any of his plays, but couldn’t read or write at all, and is responsible for the deaths of all of his contemporaries and also JFK. The President of the United States was not portrayed onscreen, or was he? Maybe that guy in that scene like a half hour in maybe he was the real president you don’t know, what even is history really???

Accuracy: Most of the people in this movie were actually people, so in a way it’s the most historically accurate Roland Emmerich movie to date.

Grade: Illuminati Symbol White House Down (2013) Premise: Die Hard, but in the White House. Channing Tatum saves the president and only strips twice. The President of the United States, James Sawyer, is portrayed the hell out of by Jamie Foxx.

Accuracy: I like this one!

Grade: Fine Stonewall (2015) Speculated Premise: Seen through the eyes of a fictional character, the infamous Stonewall Superstorm of the 1960s Or Whenever threatens to destroy every person in the LGBT community across the United States. A team of scientists, soldiers, and Presidents of the United States travel back in time and/or into space to blow up the Mayans or the Egyptians or something like that.

Now saved, the United States enters an unprecedented era of equality and liberty. The President of the United States, Tupac Shakur, will be depicted onscreen by a hologram.

Speculated Accuracy: This movie will not be accurate.

Grade: Do not pay money to watch this movie.

2012 (2009) Premise: The “Apocalypse” “predicted by” “the Mayan

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