Vol. 57 Issue 7

4

3 SAD Lamps At VIc VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

VOL. 57 ISSUE 7 •JAN. 12 2015 • WWW.THESTRAND.CA

8

Robot s Tak E over

White Privilege in hip hop

10

Graffiti art

14 the year in music

WARMING UP TO THE new year

electoral reform (5)

Be Genuine (7)

ALIVE IN 2015(16)

Ne

DALHOUSE DENTISTS SUSPENDED RACHEL WARD CANADIAN UNIVERSITY PRESS LABOUR BUREAU CHIEF HALIFAX (CUP) — The Dalhousie University president announced Jan. 9 that 13 dentistry male students have been barred from attending regular classes. The students were members of a Facebook group in which some posted misogynistic and sexually explicit comments. The group was banned Monday from degree-required clinical work.

“No woman who has been harmed by this will be sitting in a class next to one of the Facebook page members,” said President Richard Florizone in a press conference that afternoon.

Those men have been barred from regular classes, but may take classes remotely or in a separate on-campus classroom. When questioned, Florizone did not explain the logistics of this decision.

Florizone also announced the school has commissioned an external task force to assess the dentistry department’s culture and policy.

The revelations mid-December of misogynistic Facebook posts, sometimes naming female dentistry students, shook the Dalhousie community. Some expressed outrage through the social media hashtag #dalhousiehateswomen, a public statement and an online petition to expel the men, which almost 50,000 people signed.

The posts from the private Facebook group, 2015 DDS Gentlemen’s Club, were made public by the CBC and the Coast. They show male dentistry students voted on which female student to have “hate sex” with. Members also joked about getting women unconscious with chloroform or nitrous oxide, in order to “bang until stress is relieved,” and using a penis to “wean and convert lesbians and virgins into useful, productive members of society.” Several posts also named female students directly, according to these media reports.

ONE MAN NOT PARTICIPATING IN RESTORATIVE JUSTICE PROCESS The school is undertaking a restorative justice process, one of the informal options in the sexual harassment policy.

Fourteen women and 12 men are taking part, said Florizone at Friday’s press conference.

“I understand the thirteenth elected not to take part,” he said, refusing to explain further.

All men involved — including “the thirteenth” — will be assessed individually by an internal committee of dentistry professors called the Academic Standard Class Committee (ASCC). This is meant, according the Dalhousie website, to determine whether the students meet professional standards.

At the press conference, Florizone confirmed the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario had asked for the names of the 13 to be released, which Florizone refused, citing privacy reasons. Several other provincial organizations have joined the call by speaking with media outlets.

In the press conference on Jan. 9, Florizone said he did not know how many of 14 women in the restorative justice process had been named on the Facebook page. Four dentistry students wrote a letter three days earlier to say they disapproved of the process and felt pressured into participating.

Florizone released a statementsaying the school is dedicated to just process. He echoed that in this latest development.

“We care about everyone who has been harmed in this, even if they haven’t chosen to take part,” said Florizone.

“What we’re hoping is that some of the other measures we’ve announced today, and this week — the suspension, the work of the ASCC, the broader task force — starts to meet some of their needs just as well.”

FACULTY COMPLAINT YET TO BE ADDRESSED The school has yet to respond to a formal complaint filed Dec. 21 by four faculty members, Francoise Baylis, Jocelyn Downie, Brian Noble and Jacqueline Warwick. The group said it wants a formal investigation through theStudent Code of Conduct as the women impacted can remain anonymous and the findings — including a clear decision on guilt — will be

made public. Florizone said the school is “working hard on” responding and will make another announcement. “We are still waiting,” said the group in a statement Jan. 9.

The faculty group said it worries about the lack of a formal investigation to identify those involved, beyond simply saying 13 students were members. It also said nothing has been done to protect the reputations of male students not involved but about to graduate.

“What steps will the University take to ensure that all men who were involved in the Facebook group are identified and held accountable through various institutional processes?”

The faculty group, in the statement, said it supports the external investigation in the form of a presidential task force and headed by University of Ottawa professor Constance Barkhouse. It wants a broader review, as well. “The President has clearly listened and responded, at least in part.”

UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS EXTERNAL TASK FORCE Barkhouse will lead the Task Force on Misogyny, Sexism and Homophobia in Dalhousie University Faculty of Dentistry, a group of herself and two other members, which she will chose with the president. Dalhousie chose Barkhouse, said the release, because of her extensive background working on gender equality.

The investigation will review the dentistry school only, by considering documents belonging to the university, interviews with people involved and submissions from dentistry students and faculty, according to the terms of reference.

Goals include answering questions such as when the Facebook group was created and whether others have ever existed, what policies exist regarding misogyny, sexism and homophobia and what training students and faculty receive.

Missing from the list is analysis of the individuals’ involvement.

The task force is scheduled to wrap up June 30, 2015 with two reports on policy change recommendations for each the dentistry school and the broader university. Florizone said results will be made public.

THE INTEREST RATE HIKE FOR CANADIAN CONSUMERS ERIK PRESTON STAFF WRITER The new year has brought speculation that the Bank of Canada will finally raise the benchmark interest rate at some point this year. This will have an effect on all Canadians, from larger corporations to members of the middle class.

The benchmark interest rate directly affects the rate that banks charge for loans across the board, from mortgages to bonds. The reason for hiking the rate, which has been held at 1% since September of 2010, is to control inflation—the rate at which the price for goods and services increases. With an ever-improving American economy and cheaper Canadian dollar, Canadian exports are becoming more popular. This, coupled with other positive economic factors, leads to a higher inflation rate.

Despite the low interest rate, Canadian household debt has remained very high and continues to increase. At the end of 2013, the average Canadian household had an exceedingly high $20,891 in non-mortgage debt. Considering that the average Canadian income is $48,250 a year, this figure appears particularly startling. Raising the benchmark rate could very easily overextend a very large number of households, overwhelm the housing market, and cause another economy-wide decline.

However, several economists argue that an increase to the benchmark rate will not come in 2015. The declining price of oil, upon exports of which the Canadian economy (particularly in Western provinces) is so dependent, could cause

2

deflation as opposed to inflation, meaning a delay in the raising of the rate.

Furthermore, raising the rate could have drastic consequences on the delicate housing market. Many experts believe the Canadian housing market to be already overvalued. Raising the rate could not only overextend many new homeowners who cannot afford the homes they have purchased, but also cause a sudden, steep drop in prices that would have a strongly negative effect on the economy.

For many students who have a line of credit, the bank’s equivalent of OSAP, this also means a raising of the interest rate that they will pay while in school. This is especially important to those with a variable interest rate, who would be immediately affected by a rate hike. This could also push attending post-secondary institutions out of the reach of many students.

Regardless, the Canadian economy has been improving year by year, with the GDP growing by 2.4% in 2014. The Bank of Canada is sure to raise the benchmark rate soon. If not in 2015, it will most certainly happen in 2016.

Despite the potentially negative consequences mentioned above, raising the rate is a sure-fire way to keep the economy under control. Keeping inflation under control keeps prices and the value of our dollar at reasonable levels, and is therefore crucial to the health of our economy as a whole.

THE STUDENT PROJECTS FUND:

VICTORIA CHUEN

WHAT DOES IT DO?

ANJALEE NEVARAJAN CONTRIBUTOR A Victoria College student, Auni Ahsan, recently spearheaded a successful venture to buy several Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) lamps for the Victoria College campus at the University of Toronto. He financed this venture through the Student Projects Fund established by the Victoria University Students Administrative Council (VUSAC). On its website, VUSAC states that one of the goals of the fund is to finance “awesome ideas.” In Ahsan’s case, his idea was to use the lamps to alleviate some of the mental-health issues caused for students by SAD. To apply for funding, the applicant must be a member of the Victoria College Union as defined by VUSAC, or belong to a VUSAC-approved club or constitutional organization. The applicant could also be part of any club or organization where at least 80% of members are Vic students. After satisfying these conditions, the proposed project must “improve the Victoria College student life experience” or contribute to the growth of the Victoria College community.

Even so, the Student Project Fund excludes the following proposals: regular operating costs and equipment upgrades for student organizations and clubs, or facility and furnishing improvements in the residences. Since the majority of Victoria College students are commuters, proposals that deal with residences or improvements to residence facilities would not be as available to them. Similarly, as defraying operating costs for student organizations only benefits those organizations’ members and not Victoria College students as a whole, those proposals are also not considered. Moreover, the Fund

excludes proposals that have garnered complete funding elsewhere, or those that seek to fund wages, salaries, and any taxable income. As a result, while the SAD lamps initiative was approved, a composting initiative for the campus was not, even though both would ostensibly improve the student experience at Victoria College.

The Student Project Fund was established in the spirit of students giving back to students. In 2000, a referendum was passed in favour of creating a ten-dollar levy to “improve student space and activities.” This levy was added to the Student Society Fee, a part of every Victoria College student’s ancillary fees. A special committee judges each proposal on its merits. It is comprised of representatives of VUSAC, various clubs and levies, and both residence and commuter students.

The committee also has two ex-officio members: the VUSAC Vice President of Operations and a Dean’s Office representative. All members can provide input and, save for the two ex-officio members, all can vote on the status of proposals.

Arlette Bax, the Chairperson of the Student Projects Fund, performs the administrative duties of hiring committee and advisory board members. She also performs the administrative duties that arise during the project proposal process, a process consisting of three steps: a written application, the applicant’s presentation to and discussion with the committee, and a private committee discussion. Most importantly, Bax offers advice to applicants and provides assistance with their applications. Although the process looks lengthy at first glance, Ahsan found it “really easy to go through.” Bax ex-

pedites the funding to successful applicants and acts as a liaison between those students, the Victoria College Dean’s Office, and VUSAC. The Dean’s Office provides the actual funding, while VUSAC endorses the committee-approved projects. There has not been a year where funding required for approved projects has exceeded the allotted funding. If that were the case, though, “committee members would then individually have to decide which projects they believe would most benefit the larger Victoria College community and vote accordingly,” says Bax. Ahsan thinks that this scenario is unlikely; instead, he is more concerned with what he calls a “deficiency of ideas.” He claims that “any thorough and logical idea will get funding easily.”

However, the committee does reject projects, even wellconsidered ones. If the project does not meet the criteria listed previously, then it is automatically rejected. Second, if the committee has a concern with at least one aspect of the project, it is also rejected. Since the committee either passes or rejects a proposal, it cannot amend the problematic parts of an initiative. Regardless, the committee explains the reasons for rejection and, according to Bax, “the applicant is strongly encouraged to re-apply if they are willing to address the committee’s concerns.” Although Ahsan’s proposal was not rejected, he did receive suggestions about how to refine his proposal after discussion with committee members. As a result of his positive experience, he says “I feel like [project funding] is definitely underused.”

CANADA BESTS RUSSIA IN WORLD JUNIOR HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIP ANTHONY BURTON NEWS EDITOR If there were a squad of youngsters that were going to end Canada’s uncharacteristic medal drought at the World Junior Hockey Championship, this year’s team were the ones to do it. And do it they did, with a dramatic 5-4 win over the Russians that added another chapter to one of the oldest and most enduring rivalries in all of sport.

Lower bowl tickets ran as high as $1,900 on the resale market, a function of the sort of fervour that the World Juniors causes in Canada. Depending on your economics, that might even have been worth it. The game gave Canada fans what they wanted from the get-go, as Canada took no time in setting the stage by scoring on their first two shots. This resulted in Russia pulling goalie Igor Shestyorkin and replacing him with the almost-identically-named-but-definitely-another-person Ilya Sorokin (seriously, say them both out loud).

It would be understandable if you mistook Sorokin for Shestyorkin, because the yanking of the former didn’t do much to decrease Russia’s morale—they ended the first period only one goal behind.

While we’re on the subject of Russia’s morale, this seems

to be a good segue into what happened next: Canada scored four goals in the first 12 minutes of the second period, leaving them up 5-1. It would take a magician of a coach (or Scotty Bowman) to keep a team’s morale up after being dominated not only on the score sheet but also on possession and zone starts for so long. Considering that, we should either check Russian coach Valeri Bragin’s birth certificate or figure out if he dabbles in the dark arts; the Russians responded with an equal display of force, using the remaining eight minutes in the period to score three goals and come within shooting range of Canada’s lead. This triggered flashbacks of Canada’s last medal, one seemingly made of gold that upon further inspection and five unanswered goals in the third period by the Russians in 2011 magically turned into silver.

If Russia’s 2011 heroics—where they came back from a 3-0 defeat to eventually win 5-—seemed a tad lucky to you, then Monday’s third period will give you some evidence to support that theory. The 2011 collapse involved a number of factors: junior hockey is more about speed and skill than hockey wisdom, and Jordan Eberle was possessed by the ghost of young Gretzky the year prior to save Canada’s hopes with a pair of goals. Maybe the combination of naiveté and the belief that the hockey gods were on their side led to Canada’s col-

lapse that year. However, like a good undergrad, Team Canada seemed to have finally learned from their failures after four years of doing the same thing over and over again. Instead of trying to increase their lead, Canada came out of the dressing room and into the third period intent on preserving the lead they had. Forwards Connor McDavid, aka Sidney Crosby Jr., and face-off king Sam Reinhart (he won 90% of his face-offs, which is quite a lot), led Canada’s effort to play a shutdown game for the final 20 minutes.

The third period remained scoreless. Team Canada approached the third buzzer the same way they did the second, with a 5-4 lead. However, it made a different sound. It was the sound of Canadians in the Air Canada Centre, right outside in Maple Leaf Square, and all over the country in their living rooms, cars, and bars celebrating a victory. This was a long overdue victory in their game, a victory that was earned by playing the Canadian way. When your team scores five goals in the first half of the game, you know you’ve got a good roster of players. When your team prevents a goal—a tying goal that would pierce the morale of last week’s most important group of teenagers like a safety pin to a balloon—then you’re Team Canada coach Benoit Groulx, and you’ve made a country as proud as it has ever been.

3

VICTORIA CHUEN

BIG BENEFITS OF GOING SMALL KENDALL ANDISON CONTRIBUTOR main strength: “We actually know every student. We try wherever possible to offer face-to-face time with faculty.

We have a strong link with the students’ association, fund their annual journal, and support their many activities.” Student experience confirms this view. David Kitai, a European Union Studies minor, states: “The opportunity to get to know professors is one of the main things that drew me to the program.”

In addition to traditional opportunities such as the student journal, European and Hungarian Studies and the Hellenic Studies Initiative provide numerous, often generously funded, opportunities to study abroad. For example, in May 2015, ten students in Hellenic Studies will get the opportunity to go to Greece for field research. As Professor Austin explains: “We place an emphasis on giving students unique opportunities outside of the classroom. We want students to be able to

AZEALIA VS. AZALEA Identity, race, and white privilege in hip hop

internationalize their degree.”

Despite these opportunities, enrollment remains relatively low: the European Studies program has only about 70 majors at present. Many students fear that participating in a less-recognized program will be a detriment to their pursuit of graduate studies and employment. Professor Austin wholeheartedly disagrees with this concern: “Firstly, you are still getting a degree from the University of Toronto, which is the best you can get in Canada. Secondly, small programs such as ours give you a specific chance to undertake outreach and extracurricular activities, and to develop close relationships with faculty members—these are things that can only be an advantage.” If anything, participating in smaller programs such as European Studies provides students with an important edge in regard to their future endeavours. It sets them apart.

PAULA RAZURI

Smaller “boutique” programs within the University of Toronto are uniquely positioned to enhance educational opportunities for students. The European Studies program, which also serves as the umbrella for the Hungarian Studies program and the Hellenic Studies Initiative, offers students the chance to study specific regions from an interdisciplinary perspective. These programs offer only a few core courses, but provide a wide selection of classes to be taken within other departments.

Particular emphasis is placed on developing language skills. So while some students may worry about limiting their focus, in many respects small programs allow for much-needed increased flexibility.

The small size of these programs means that students have a greater opportunity to get to know their professors. Professor Robert Austin, the Coordinator of European Studies, believes that this is the program’s

MANAAL ISMACIL CONTRIBUTOR Rapper Azealia Banks is known among audiences for her viral hit “212”; however, she has most recently entered our collective cultural consciousness not for her music, but for her feud with Iggy Azalea. The hostility between the two female artists exemplifies the issue of white cultural appropriation in hip hop and, largely, the tensions between race, identity, and white privilege.

In an interview with hip hop radio station HOT97, Azealia Banks got unapologetically emotional when questioned about the “beef” between her and Iggy.

Banks, who is rebellious in her speech and passionate in her convictions, said this about Iggy being nominated for the Grammy Rap Album of the Year: “The Grammys are supposed to be awards for artistic excellence…

Iggy Azalea’s not excellent. When they give these Grammys out, all it says to white kids is, ‘You’re great.

You’re amazing. You can do whatever you put your mind to.’ And it says to black kids, ‘You don’t have shit. You don’t own shit, not even the shit you created yourself.’

And it makes me upset.” Banks goes on to explain that

4

white artists continue to receive acknowledgement and awards for imitating stereotypes of black culture, while black artists, including Azealia Banks herself, who are more representative of the genre, are continually snubbed by music’s highest accolade.

Some of you may be surprised to discover that Iggy Azalea is Australian. In interviews, she speaks with a very distinct Australian accent. This directly conflicts with her public persona and the image she portrays in her music, especially when her lyrics are chanted in an American accent with Ebonics thrown in: “Baby, I do this, I thought that you knew this/Can’t stand no haters and honest, the truth is/And my flow r-------, they speak it depart it/Swagger on super, I can’t shop no department.” Her lyrics, her accent, and the image she portrays lack continuity and authenticity. It is this lack of authenticity and blatant imitation of black culture that is problematic for Azealia Banks and many other prominent rap artists like Rah Digga and Q-Tip (of a Tribe Called Quest). For them and many others, Iggy Azalea’s

popularity, nominations, and awards in hip hop and rap categories represent a dilution of an originally black art form, an art form rooted in the oppression of black Americans.

The essence of hip hop demands authentic and honest storytelling. When an artist fakes an accent, hires someone to write lyrics for them, or reinforces black stereotypes, it adulterates an art, a genre of music that has emerged out of systemic oppression, centuries of slavery, and a denial of basic civil rights. The dismissal of black artists amidst the rise of hip hop, rap, and black culture reinforces the idea that black culture is cool, but black people are not. This comes at a time when race relations are tense in Canada and even tenser in the United States. This conflict between Azealia Banks and Iggy Azalea cannot be reduced to two female artists scrapping for the limelight, and it demands answers about the space that white artists and their privilege hold in hip hop and rap today.

EMILY POLLOCK

Op

THE YEAR FOR

ELECTORAL REEMA KUREISHY ASSOCIATE OPINIONS EDITOR

“2015! 2015!”

This was the chant of NDP members in June 2012 when the Conservative Party’s controversial omnibus budget bill passed. The bill made countless changes (many of them harmful) to various existing statutes, all under the guise of economic prosperity. The NDP’s chant was a challenge to the Conservatives to say that, come 2015, Canadians will come together and finally vote the party out because of its undemocratic actions.

Election time is coming up in October, and now is the time to have some important discussions about Canadian politics. It would take several issues of The Strand to compile all that is wrong with our current electoral system and the ways in which the Harper government has taken advantage of it and made it worse (see the “Fair” Elections Act of 2014). But let’s try to address some points here anyway.

First, the Canadian electoral system is highly flawed, largely because it is based on a first-past-thepost concept. This means that a candidate in a riding wins if they get the most votes out of all the candidates.

So, the bulk of population may not vote for the winner, but that person could still win and go on to represent that riding. This was how the Conservative Party got a majority government when only 39% of the population voted for them. The other voters were split between the NDP, the Liberals, the Green Party, and independents.

There’s something very, very wrong with that scenario.

Any other political party would take advantage of the same broken system if it worked in their favour the way it did for the Conservatives. Before 2004, the Liberal Party managed to get a majority government three times because the votes were always split between the Progressive Conservative and the Reform Parties

REFORM?

of Canada. The Liberals didn’t do anything to change the voting system. Now, the Conservative Party takes advantage of it too, and chances are other parties will keep doing the same if the system is allowed to continue as it is.

Electoral reform is about making changes to the structure of how we elect our politicians in order for Canadians to be better represented. Canada’s first-pastthe-post system is unfair and ineffective. A better alternative is a mixed-member proportional representation system, which would reduce partisanship and give voters greater power to choose a candidate they actually want.

It is also important to bring about electoral reform because the alternative for voters is strategic voting.

This means that voters will not opt for the candidate they prefer, but instead vote for the candidate who they feel has the greatest chance of defeating the current party in power. Strategic voting seems to be the weapon of choice for these coming elections as well, but it might not have come to that if Canada had a more effective voting system.

So why might this year be the one that will be the catalyst for change? After all, the Conservative and Liberal Parties have continually said that they do not support proportional representation, and the Liberals even have a policy against it.

What gives me some hope for this year is the trajectory of the Conservative government since it came into power, with the scandals of senators like Mike Duffy, election frauds, and undemocratic legislations like the Fair Elections Act and omnibus budget bill.

It’s not these issues themselves that give me hope; it’s the increasing ability of grassroots organizations to mobilize Canadians around these failings of the Conservative Party that offers a glimmer of assurance. Organizations like Leadnow.ca and Fair Vote Canada have been

actively reaching out to Canadian citizens to get the ball rolling for a more equitable election system in 2015.

They also do an excellent job of educating the public and fostering relationships within communities.

Here’s a radical idea: the next elected government might just listen to the people who elected them. The number of Canadians who are mobilizing under these groups is growing, and they are collectively calling for change in the electoral system. It’s especially important that this continues throughout this year.

Students in particular need to be heavily advocating for electoral reform. Tuition fees and accessibility to education is dependent upon the priorities of the federal and provincial governments. Students need to advocate for a system where their interests are better represented, and that will only be possible when the system itself is forced to change. So what can students do? We need to rigorously engage with our political system. We can do this both by making electoral reform an issue for the student unions to endorse and by getting involved individually. Getting involved with Leadnow.ca and Fair Vote Canada is a good place to start, as they have campaigns and opportunities in place specifically for youth.

“Democracy” is starting to become a worn-out, tired word. It gets thrown around way too often and has become synonymous with “voting” to the point where we are losing the meaning of the term. A democracy does not just mean that citizens show up at polls and put a mark beside a candidate’s name. Instead, it’s about engaging with the political process every step of the way, making sure that politicians are elected responsibly, and that they represent the needs and interests of the populations that elect them. A real democracy does not function the way Canada is currently operating. Let’s make 2015 the year we repair and rebuild the faulty system and inject some meaning back into the word.

5

Ed

Editors-in-Chief

Amanda Aziz Emily Pollock Paula Razuri

News

news@thestrand.ca

Anthony Burton Ben Atkins

Opinions

Jonah Letovsky

Features

Chantal Duchesne

editor@thestrand.ca

opinions@thestrand.ca features@thestrand.ca

EMILY POLLOCK

OUR MASTHEAD

TO SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD:

Arts & Culture

artsandculture@thestrand.ca

Film & Music

filmandmusic@thestrand.ca

Stranded

stranded@thestrand.ca

Production production@thestrand.ca

Design design@thestrand.ca

Holly McKenzie-Sutter Claire Wilkins Dominique Béchard Emily Deibert Olesya Lyuzna Vacant

Copy

Vivian Che Grace Quinsey

Photo

Rhianna Jackson-Kelso

copy@thestrand.ca photo@thestrand.ca

Victoria Chuen

Art art@thestrand.ca

Lynn Seolim Hong Wenting Li

Web

Vacant

Distribution

Vacant

Editorial Assistant

Kasra Koushan, Kiley Venables, Lily Wang

Contributors Kendall Andison, Ariana Douglas, Clarrie Feinstein, Manaal Ismacil, Reema Kureishy, Neil MacIsaac, Neil McKenzie-Sutter, Tara MacTavish, Brownyn Nisbet-Gray, Erik Preston, Eleanor Proudfoot, Cara Schacter, Angela Sun, Rachel Ward Copy Editors Bronwyn Nisbet-Gray, Jacob McNair, Alexandra Jones Illustrations Lynn Seolim Hong, Wenting Li, Emily Pollock, Paula Razuri Photos Victoria Chuen, Clarrie Feinstein Cover Photo Victoria Chuen

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/trans*phobia, 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.

t

Follow us on Twitter for news and updates:

@strandpaper

6

Charlie Hebdo and our inability to report complex narratives EMILY POLLOCK EDITOR-IN-CHIEF We’ve all b e en told not to sp e a k ill of t he de ad, whet her t he “de ad” wa s your pa r t icula rly horr ible aunt or t he late Ma rga ret T hatcher (may she rest in pie ces). In t he or y, it’s a nice t radit ion—after all, we want to b e rememb ere d well after we pa ss on. But in prac t ice, it ma kes for shit t y and dishonest jour nalism.

On Janua r y 7, mult iple g unmen entere d t he office of Cha rlie Heb do, a French s at ire maga z ine, k illing four and injur ing 12. Two men, Cher if Kouachi and Said Kouachi, were susp e c t s who were k ille d while holding host ages. A lt hough t he maga z ine offende d many different g roups, t he me dia ha s linke d t he att ack w it h t he pap er’s der isive c a r to ons of t he P rophet Muha m mad.

T he at t ack cre ate d a worldw ide wave of s y mpat hy for t he a r t ist s, and t hous and s of p e ople to ok to t he st re et s of Pa r is. Given t hat t his wa s France’s la rgest ter ror ist at t ack in 40 ye a r s, t he sho ck and hor ror a re just ifie d. But me dia out let s and public fig ures have also suggeste d t hat we should re-pr int and diss em inate t he maga z ine’s c a r to ons, a s some sor t of nebulous st and against “ter ror ism.”

T his ide a is ha rd to stomach if you ac t ually lo ok at t he a r t t he maga z ine pro duce d.

T he she er puer ilit y of t he maga z ine’s a r t c an only b e overlo oke d by fo cussing on t he even g re ater racism. T he maga z ine’s c a r to ons cont ain hor r if y ingly bad c a r ic at ures of Muslim s, w it h o cc a sional ant i-Sem it ism, ant i-black racism, and t rans m isog y ny t h row n in for va r iet y. One of t he c a r to ons of Muha m mad depic t s him na ke d and in a deg rading p osit ion, w it h a b or ing and unf unny c apt ion. A not her c a r to on

depic t s t he s ex slaves of Boko Ha ra m a s sh r ill welfa re que ens. But t he maga z ine repres ente d t hem s elves a s “e qual opp or t unit y offender s” and t he inter nat ional press lapp e d it up.

T he news coverage of t he c a r to onist s’ de at hs ha s b e en s ele c t ive, fo cusing on t heir less-offensive images and craft ing an image of t hem a s honourable f re e dom fighter s. T hey’ve b e en mour ne d in a manner b efit t ing t he de at hs of elder st atesmen, w it h t he usual s accha r ine c a r to ons of t he re cent ly-de ad a s cending to he aven, all imp er fe c t ions era s e d.

But here’s t he t hing: s e cond-rate racist s in life a re st ill s e cond-rate racist s in de at h.

Por t ray ing t hes e c a r to ons a s a brave st and for f re e dom ig nores t he f unda ment al cowa rdice of racism. France’s Muslim p opulat ion is e conom ic ally dis enf ranchis e d and v ulnerable to dis cr im inat ion, b ot h b e c aus e of France’s colonialist legac y and t he worldw ide Isla mophobia t r ig gere d by t he 9/11 at t ack s. T hes e at t ack s and t he simplist ic na r rat ive t hat ha s b e en rep or te d ab out t hem w ill cer t ainly hur t French Muslim s in t he f ut ure. W hen a ske d ab out t he issue, Brandon Celi, a Toronto illust rator s aid, “It’s imp or t ant to re aliz e t hat t hes e a r t for m s st ill f unc t ion ... w it hin t he re alm of ma ss media and c an st ill f unc t ion a s propaganda.” A nd when t he jour nalist ic world ig nores t he complex it y of t he issue, it do es it s elf and it s re ader s a diss er v ice.

Pe ople shouldn’t die for ma k ing a r t, but we should b e able to s ay t ha t while ack nowle dg ing t hat a r t c an genuinely hur t p e ople. T he me dia should b e able to w r ite na r rat ives t hat balance t he t rage dy of de at h w it h an honest apprais al of t he p er son k ille d.

But don’t hold your bre at h.

STARTED FROM THE BOTTOM...

Congratulations to Chantal Duchesne, Neil MacIsaac and Holly McKenzie-Sutter, shortlisted for the Canadian University Press’s 2015 JHM awards. Go team!

BE GENUINE:

Finding joy in endless irony

PAULA RAZURI EDITOR-IN-CHIEF “A re you being sarcastic, dude?” ask s one noser ing-wear ing teen of another. T he response: “I don’t even k now anymore.” T his moment in television is nearly 20 years old, but the confusion and apathy of those t wo monotonous teens still thr ives today. As the saying goes: The Simpsons did it first.

Am I being sarcastic? I asked myself when, with no real understanding of why, my fr iends and I sat down at a Swiss Chalet for dinner over the holiday season. T he obvious reason why these t went y-somethings, br ight-eyed from their recently-ear ned BFAs, would pick such an establishment, was that it was funny. T he décor was deliberately dated, there were way too many children, and our beers were 30% ice.

Somewhere bet ween the (literally) icy beers and copious amount s of grav y was the gift exchange. After my fr iends unw rapped boxing gloves, matching speedo under pant s, VHS versions of Star Wars, and the or iginal Sh rek! picture book by William Steig, I realized that I had spun down the rabbit hole of irony, and I was in deeper than I had ever imagined. Even this dinner wasn’t safe from the ever-reaching ar ms of Sh rek and Sh rek-related humour. I began wonder about irony in general, especially in relation to the relatively recent “Shrek Renaissance.”

You may already be sav v y to the whole “Shrek is love, Shrek is life” online mantra.

If you aren’t, do yourself a favour and (don’t) look it up. For some reason or another, the 2001 DreamWork s film, Sh rek, has become the but t of a whole lot of jokes. Fashion designer Jeremy Scot t’s Spr ing/Summer 2015 line has the ogre’s pixelated face plastered on sweaters and dresses. YouTubers have taken to mak ing compilations of spin-offs of the film, complete with demonic versions of Smash Mouth’s “All Star.”

Back in 2008 we had Sh rek: The Musical. With no real rhyme or reason, a small group of peo-

ple became ver y interested in Sh rek.

However, what seems to be funny about Sh rek is simply Sh rek it self without any comment. T he common thread found throughout online Sh rek humour seems to be the representation of Sh rek in some sor t of humbly failed way: through hor r ible video graphics or pixelated stock photography. It’s as if we are all standing in a room holding up DVD copies of the movie, shouting: “Look! It’s funny because it exist s!”

Sh rek let s us laugh, and a lot of the time it let s us laugh at other people. If you yourself spend too many hours scour ing the web for funny videos, then your options for human subjec t s of comedy are slightly limited. Some people spend hours mak ing videos meant to look terr ible: with f loating, rotating text dashing on and off screen, star swipes, hidden tr iangles (a reference to the “Illuminati” conspiracy), and deafening audio. Take MLG (Major League Gaming) compilations, for instance—these videos, in their effor t, ser ve simply to draw at tention to the fac t that, at one time, someone did something similar, but genuinely. If I can do what you did ironically, then you mus t really be an idiot.

Our tolerance for ironic parodies, especially online, seems to have been renewed in recent years. With the tools for mak ing online content so accessible, the playing ground for digital parody mater ial is equalized. Comedians Kyle Mooney (Good Neighbor, SNL) and Dan K lein (Teenwheelst v, College Humor) have both used the accessibilit y of YouTube to share their brand of meta-humour: deliberately hack stand-up comedy.

Mooney’s persona, Br uce Chandling, with an impressive collec tion of leather jacket s and consistently slicked-back hair, even has a fake comedy special: Excuse Me A merica, Do You Mind? complete with a fake trailer in which the comedian’s outrageousness is emphasized again and again à la Gabr iel Iglesias. Like Chan-

dling, K lein’s persona wears a stand-up comedian’s costume: the trademark but ton down and Amer ican Apparel hoodie.

K lein spends his hour-long special, This is Comedy, toying with the audience’s expec tations. Released online only, the pseudo-documentar y star t s off with celebr it y endorsement s about how K lein is the funniest comedian of all time, but as soon as the ac t begins, the viewer wonders which par t is comedy: the jokes in the special, or the special it self. I mention Mooney and K lein because, like many other parody ar tist s, they embody the intersec tion of real sk ill and the refusal to be genuine, much like Sh rek’s recent presence in pop culture and much like the var ious Sh rek parodies.

T he whole point of going to a Swiss Chalet/ Har vey’s combination in the same unimaginative pla za as other chain restaurant s such as Montana’s, Kelsey’s, and Milestone’s, was to revel in just how genuinely lame the whole place was. And yet, as I sat amid the late 1990s furnishings, I noticed that Swiss Chalet wasn’t the dejec ted meeting place that my fr iends or I had imagined. Families spread themselves across three or four tables, high schoolers huddled together over baked potatoes, and my fr iend even won a free iced tea. In the end, we had a great time. We laughed until our faces hur t. We dunked our way through six ser vings of grav y.

T he chicken was fine.

For all of it s mumbled references, social discomfor t, and general rejec tion of emotion, irony has it s benefit s. Nothing diffuses tension like a tendency towards the funny yet insincere.

On New Year’s Eve, the moment after the stroke of midnight, I stood in a k itchen with other people meekly celebrating. As we looked around at each other for what to do now, how to mark this moment, a fr iend star ted singing: “Hey now, you’re an all star….” Ever yone sang along.

7

FE

ARTFICIAL I

LYNN HONG

ISN’T SCA

What’s the difference between Watson (the computer that recently beat the best human players in Jeopardy!) and any other human being named Watson? Everything. Okay, that’s not exactly the joke of the century, but it does stem from some real world issues. In December, Stephen Hawking discussed his new speech formation device in a brief BBC interview, stating his concerns about the future capability of Artificial Intelligence. Professor Hawking is one of many scholars and boffins (Elon Musk also has fun actively worrying about this) that have recently voiced concerns about the potential dangers of Artificial Intelligence.

However, there are many arguments against the legitimacy of such concerns. Although the debate remains controversial, those arguing that Artificial Intelligence won’t be an issue for some time aren’t saying that we will never have to discuss the ethics of intelligent machines. Simply, they argue that intelligent machines don’t pose an imminent threat and that other, more pressing issues must be addressed first.

Today’s Artificial Intelligence has a very specific, ad hoc way of working. All programs that have dazzled the media have been designed to do

8

INTELLIGENCE

ARY

by Eleanor Proudfoot

so and can only perform within a specific system in a specific field. To better grasp this, one simply has to consider how these programs work, which reveals how loose the definition of “intelligence” can be. Most programs today rely on machine learning, which is most likely where Hawking’s and other theorists’ concerns stem from: with machine learning, the computer does not require a set of rules, but uses big data to learn from past experiences. Watson works with something called structure mapping, that essentially follows this trend of machine learning.

It uses statistical analysis of all the documents that are downloaded to pick out various possible answers with different probabilities of accuracy. For example, it picks out common words and phrases that are connected to a Jeopardy! question. Watson never understands the question or knows the meaning of the answer at any point in the process. For Watson, the answer could be one specific word with 75% certainty, or it could be a completely different concept with 60% certainty. With this definition of “intelligence” in mind, Artificial Intelligence researchers start to look like upper-class parents trying to get their kids into the best pre-kindergarten program out there and insisting on how “special” they are.

This is not how humans relate to Jeopardy! questions (or maybe I’m just really bad at Jeopardy!). Watson can produce very strange results when structure mapping goes wrong, such as Watson’s infamous mistake of providing “What is Toronto?” as an answer in the US cities category. This mistake stemmed from various issues related to Watson’s inability to understand what the questions actually mean. Scientists still lack the ability to come up with a solution to this problem that does not involve programming consciousness, which is impossible in the field of AI today.

A computer’s ability to produce results based on relational information is what Professor Hector Levesque at the University of Toronto calls a “cheap trick.” The field of Artificial Intelligence faced similar critiques during the hype over a computer program that passed the Turing test in 2014 by convincing humans it was a Ukrainian 13-year-old. These computer programs rely on illusion to make them look “intelligent”.

As a remedy to this, Levesque suggests the Winograd schema, in which the computer must rely on a certain level of language understanding unavailable in its traditional Natural Language Processing and Natural Language Understanding processes. These systems rely heavily on certain ways of looking at language as a syntactic system that holds words in relation to each other (think Noam Chomsky’s theories of linguistics), as well as relying on the kind of machine learning that Watson uses. Here’s an example, among many others, of the test Levesque suggests, drawn from his paper “On our best behavior”: “Sam tried to paint a picture of shepherds with sheep, but they ended up looking more like golfers.

What looked like golfers?” The computer must then choose between two answers, “the shepherds” and “the sheep.” This particular question relies on a computer’s ability to visualize, one of the many basic human abilities for which the Winograd schema tests.

Winograd is deliberately ambiguous, and humans are able to pass it thanks to common sense. (However, if one argues that common sense is based on past experience, computers could theoretically acquire it eventually.)

But with every problem solved in the field of Artificial Intelligence, ten more problems arise. The possibility for computers to pass Winograd is not a triumph of Artificial Intelligence. Arguably, it is just another “cheap trick,” a computer program that can be designed specifically to pass Winograd, but still have fatal gaps in its “intelligence” if asked to complete some other, more sophisticated test.

These problems relate to the programming theories about software and hardware now in place. Machine learning cannot cover everything: Immanuel

What are people so scared of? Intelligence explosion: the theory that computers will not only be able to self-generate, but that they will also become increasingly intelligent at uncontrollable speeds.

Kant theorized that we have certain intrinsic principles, like our understanding of cause and effect, that we know to be true without having to amalgamate big data. Accumulated data does not help a computer understand these principles.

Another problem that arises in a computer’s natural language processing abilities is that language is tied to emotion. The sound of the words and our word choices convey much more than we immediately realize, and these are nuances that a computer lacks. A computer that reads poetry is missing these crucial elements. Even if it were programmed to analyze some of them, it would lack humans’ core understanding of the text. Emotion is an adaptive human asset. Emotion makes us work harder if we are anxious, and it makes us less likely to repeat the same behaviours if we feel shame. This makes learning a very different process for us than it does for computers, who learn from their past data experience, but not necessarily in the same way that humans avoid doing something a second time if it produces shame:

computers aren’t necessarily learning from their “mistakes.” Even if we concede that computers are efficient, the fact remains that most of the information they process will be information created by us, where emotions, jokes, or contextual ties are crucial to grasping key concepts.

A possible solution is brain emulation. But in a discipline where scientists struggle to interpret DNA codes, copying out algorithms for certain brain functions (assuming one could separate them at all) seems an insurmountable feat, at least for the foreseeable future. Some experts argue it will always remain an impossible task. Quantum physicists Sir Roger Penrose and John R. Lucas use Gödel’s axioms, which are known to be true (though they can’t be proven), to show that human consciousness has something about it that cannot be emulated. Furthermore, Penrose and Stewart Hameroff also hold a contentious position called “orchestrated objective reduction,” which postulates that consciousness derives from the quantum activity of the individual cells inside a brain’s neurons.

Of course, as philosopher David Chalmers mentions in a paper on the future of AI, computers can’t emulate consciousness using non-algorithmic, quantum functions. This ability is outside the reach of modern science (NASA’s quantum computer is more like spare scraps of the evil HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey).

So what are people so scared of? Intelligence explosion: the theory that computers will not only be able to self-generate, but that they will also become increasingly intelligent at uncontrollable speeds.

There is first and foremost a software problem to this argument: “Humans who learn to play a video game will learn to play the next more quickly. This isn’t the case for computers,” Andrew McAfee has stated in a Council for Foreign Relations discussion.

There is also a hardware problem: IBM’s Watson is the size of ten fridges, and is the equivalent of 6,000 home computers. And not to sound like a jealous kid who just lost a trivia contest, but let’s not forget that Watson isn’t even that smart. Think about how much hardware (and power) would be necessary for truly “intelligent” AI. Perhaps AI will become so useful that it will also become problematic. But in an age where Space Law is starting to become a concern, there is no doubt that the ethics of Artificial Intelligence will be sufficiently addressed. Perhaps Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and all of us who have fun researching Artificial Intelligence only to bash it (whoops) should shift our focus to discussing humans’ potential to destroy everything before computers even get the chance to think about doing so.

9

a/c

GRAFFITI IS ART,

NOT VANDALISM DEK StART fosters a community of graffiti artists, painting the cityscape into a masterwork

were also acknowledging the beauty and the talent of our local artists; we tried to embrace and promote them to the best of our ability.”

In Toronto there is an ongoing debate between graffiti and vandalism, as graffiti is often mistaken for vandalism and property damage. However, there is a distinct definition between the two: “There was a revised bylaw, which finally made a distinction between graffiti art and graffiti vandalism. Before that, graffiti was just classified as vandalism,” Hausmanis describes.

In 2013, Rob Ford declared a “war on graffiti,” wanting to rid Toronto of this unwanted visual aesthetic. “As you know,” Ford stated, “I’ve been fighting since I was first elected to get this city as clean as possible by removing all the graffiti. Through Clean Toronto Together, the city works with businesses and residents to keep our streets clean of garbage, graffiti vandalism, and illegal posturing.” The problem was that Ford was mistaking street art as vandalism—a mistake that was only recently

changed by the graffiti bylaw.

StART highlights the positive aspects of graffiti art, but it also constructs a creative environment for artists and provides employment, strengthening the potential of this distinct and unique Toronto art scene. The initiative hires all artists, some new and some already established.

“That’s the priority of the program,” says Hausmanis. “To educate and raise the bar of street art as a viable and legitimate art form that has potential, and to show people that artists can make their living by doing this.”

Graffiti has the power to transform a space from something uninspired to something completely original.

Not only is it aesthetically beautiful, it also makes people aware of their surroundings and showcases areas that are perceived to be ordinary as something more. Graffiti is accessible art. It is because of programs like StreetARToronto, which promote graffiti’s artistic merit, that graffiti is beginning to be seen as a commendable art form.

PHOTOS BY CLARRIE FEINSTEIN, ART BY ESSENCIA COLLECTIVE

An integral aspect of the city landscape is urban art, which transforms the concrete jungle into an artistic and visually appealing public space that all city-dwellers can enjoy. StreetARToronto, also known as StART, is a program that commissions street artists from around Toronto to paint murals on city buildings, walls, and concrete facades.

In 2011, City Council adopted a new management plan which included creating a new proactive program to address and fund street art in the Toronto community. Prior to this plan, there was a graffiti transformation program that was run through the social services division. There were 15 to 20 organizations that ran youth employment programs during the summers that tackled the issues of eradicating street vandalism and youth unemployment. A new graffiti management plan was then adopted and the funding was transferred to transportation services, which is how StreetARToronto came into being.

Project Managers Kristina Hausmanis and Lilie Zendel oversee the logistics of the program. Hausmanis discussed the importance of StART, saying, “The mission is to revitalize and engage communities through art. We’re not just looking to address problems with graffiti and vandalism—that is one priority of the program—but to look at Toronto street art and how we can promote and engage it in our established artists but also those emerging in the field as well.”

The graffiti movement began in Toronto in the 1980s, gaining influence from New York City, and soon the alleyways and side streets were filled with explosive images, making Toronto a vibrant and visually stimulating city.

StART creates exactly this environment—engaging the arts community with residential neighbourhoods, fostering a unique cultural vibe that allows artists to express themselves, using the city as a canvas.

“We’ve developed a lot of relationships with the street art community through this program that we didn’t previously have, especially before Ford announced his ‘war on graffiti.’ The timing to StART just came at the right time.

The city was trying to address issues of vandalism, but we

ELICSER AND TROY LOVEGATES

CLARRIE FEINSTEIN CONTRIBUTOR

10

SUPPORT NEEDED FOR U OF T’S MUSIC ENSEMBLES ARIANA DOUGLAS CONTRIBUTOR I am currently in my third year at the Uof T Faculty of Music, and I have been in all three instrumental large ensembles that were available to my instrument in the classical music program. Each of these ensembles has suffered a similar problem: low attendance. On top of this (and partially because of it), the Faculty of Music has been facing some pretty serious financial troubles as of late. There is widespread fear among the student body that this may lead to either program cuts or an unnecessary increase in students admitted into the program (despite the fact that classes and ensembles are already stuffed and practice rooms are in short supply). This, in turn, could lead to a decline in the overall quality of the programs.

Long story short, it would be really great for the Faculty of Music to get some support from the general population. The good news is, other Uof T students can help us with these problems by attending our concerts.

Admission at all Uof T music concerts is free with the presentation of a TCard (though if you feel really generous and want to buy a $10 student ticket anyway, be my guest). This means Vic students can come out and support the Faculty of Music FOR FREE. And if your parents or non-Uof T people that you know enjoy orchestral and/ or wind band music, tell them about Uof T’s ensembles.

Even if this article only leads to more students getting in for free, a fuller hall makes for a much better perfor-

mance experience for us musicians, making our music education richer.

All instrumental large ensemble concerts are in the Edward Johnson Building, which is behind the old planetarium, right outside the western exit of Museum Station.

Tickets can be bought either in the lobby of the Edward Johnson Building shortly before each concert or at the Royal Conservatory of Music box office, either online or in their building right next to the ROM. For more information on the Faculty of Music’s concerts, including more concerts for these and other ensembles and what music will be performed in each concert, go to http://www.music.utoronto.ca/events.htm.

Upcoming large ensemble concerts: UTSO: February 6, 7:30 pm Wind Ensemble: January 29, 7:30 pm Wind Symphony: January 30, 7:30 pm Ticket prices: Free with TCard $10 non-Uof T students $20 seniors $30 general

CRAFTSMANSHIP OF ART SPIEGELMAN THE

NEIL MCKENZIE-SUTTER CONTRIBUTOR

On January 6, I attended Art Spiegelman’s CO-MIX Retrospective at the AGO. It’s running from December 20, 2014 to March 15, 2015 and features a collection of Spiegelman’s work from his earliest beginnings to the present. I’d recommend it, particularly if you’re interested in grunge/psychedelic art or are thinking of a practical career in art.

I’m not a design student, but I was interested in the exhibit because I recently came across Spiegelman’s two-part graphic novel, Maus, in an English course. Maus won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, which he refused to accept because he didn’t consider Maus to be ‘fiction.’

The Academy needed to invent an entirely new category for him.

Maus is the semi-autobiographical story of how Spiegelman’s family escaped the Holocaust, except all the humans are replaced with animals: Jews are mice (hence, Maus), Germans are cats, et cetera.

This is a weird and psychedelic way of talking about the Holocaust, and it shouldn’t be surprising because Spiegelman is a weird and psychedelic guy. I just didn’t realize how weird and psychedelic he was until I went to the exhibit.

In the 1970s and 80s Spiegelman was a cartoonist for several renowned magazines including A rcade, Raw, Playboy, and Mad Magazine, and that should tell you a lot. He has drawn kids’ picture books, the covers of psychedelic novels, weird Spiegelman-style greeting cards.

Spiegelman was in charge of the cover art for The New

Yorker during the 1990s, and he was also responsible for the In the Shadow of No Towers comic book, which deals with aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of 2001. Spiegelman has done everything, and if you’re considering a career in drawing or art, you could take a lesson from him: he worked his ass off and he drew for whoever would pay him.

More than just showcasing the various eras of Spiegelman’s career, the exhibit was a good illustration of his process as an artist. The show features panoramas of Spiegelman’s drawings at different levels of completion, which really demonstrates the time and effort that went into it. The 1960s and 70s really weren’t that long ago, but with the advent of graphic design software, the vast majority of the work seems like the product of a different time.

There are multiple versions of each picture because before computers, artists had to produce each work physically. When you realize this, all the minute detailing takes on a lot more meaning. Much of Spiegelman’s work since the 2000s has been digitally rendered, but he’s the product of a different generation of artist, and the exhibition offers a neat view into that world.

FIFTY FIRST DATES FOR: Nature lovers NEIGBOURHOOD: Cabbagetown ANGELA SUN CONTRIBUTOR No one wants to go out in January. At least that’s what I told myself as I trudged through the snow alone to check out this week’s date. Truth be told, it was actually nice to date myself. You can wear whatever you want and there’s no pressure to make small talk. As the cold had already chased away any potential companions, my goal this time was to take myself someplace warm. And what’s warmer than a conservatory that houses palm trees in the middle of a freezing Canadian city?

If you think going to a greenhouse is boring, you have obviously not seen the sensual greenhouse têteà-tête in Showtime’s Victorian fantasy-thriller Penny Dreadful. I had planned on swanning around as a sexy Victorian lady with a preference for orchids, but was promptly silenced by the sight of a beautiful array of plants that greeted me as I walked through the glass doors of the Allan Gardens Conservatory (19 Horticultural Avenue, near the intersection of Carlton and Jarvis). The Conservatory was still decked out in holiday flower show gear—there is nothing cuter than seeing shiny holiday baubles hanging from a cactus. The building itself is also larger than I remembered from previous visits—there are four major plant-filled rooms, each with its own climate and stone walkways that lead you past various miniature ponds and waterfalls. Even if you’ve visited before, there is something especially rejuvenating about being among greenery when everything else is covered under blankets of white. The Conservatory also provides food for thought with signs warning that “Experts predict that 25% of all plant species will be extinct by 2050.”

Moving from food-for-thought to thinking-aboutfood, I walked two blocks east for lunch at The Scullery (200 Carlton St.), a café where the décor is so bright and sunny that you feel like you are eating in springtime even while snow is being blown across windows. I ordered the soup and salad combo in hopes that it would warm me up, but I was uncertain as to whether it would fill me up. Thankfully, the portions were adequate and the taste was refreshingly delicate. The beef and barley soup was pleasantly light, but it was the broccoli and cherry tomato salad with goat cheese and hazelnuts that really shone. Although The Scullery is known for its salads, the on-site baking is also divine: the Irish brown bread that came with the soup contained the perfect hint of sweetness, and the carrot-apple-raisin muffin I ordered for dessert was one of the best muffins I’ve ever tasted.

As both the Allan Gardens Conservatory and The Scullery close quite early, if your date is as riveting as you had hoped, I would suggest continuing the conversation at one of the many nearby bars. Stout (221 Carlton St.) has a pretty extensive beer selection, a dark, cozy interior, and friendly service. I’ve also heard good things about The Irv Gastro Pub (195 Carlton St.) right across the street.

11

F/M

LYNN HONG

COMMUNICATION ISSUES

ANTHONY BURTON NEWS EDITOR The Interview is not necessarily a dumb movie. This is a hard thing to back up; James Franco’s bewildered Dave Skylark asking Kim Jong-un (played by Richard Park) in a pivotal bonding scene if he poops and pees isn’t exactly Best Original Screenplay territory. But at its core, the movie isn’t just a fart jamboree; there’s a political undertone woven throughout, manifesting itself in displays of both Capitalist and Communist excess.

Seth Rogen’s status as America’s dick-joke laureate (and this apparently Western-exclusive form of satire) allows him and pen pal Evan Goldberg to write an unethical and ruthless CIA. Unfortunately, his margarita-loving, effeminate, and daddy-issueriddled Kim Jong-un managed to make a few people in the People’s Republic a little angry, leading to threats that forced Sony to initially pull the movie from all theatres.

No movie could live up to the hype that was eventually built up around The Interview, and it’s a doubly unfortunate disappointment. This is because without the furor, it could be taken at face value as a decent stoner bromance by Rogen-Goldberg-Franco standards.

The trio first teamed up for 2008’s Pineapple Express, a stoned haze of a comedy that had Rogen playing the unassuming chump to Franco’s wildly unpredictable and equally stupid drug dealer. The pair was immediately thrown into an over-the-top sendup of drug dealers, crooked cops, and Asian gangs.

Pineapple Express marked the beginning of Rogen and Franco’s everyman versus wildcard series

12

of films, and its imprint is felt in The Interview. However, where it differs from Pineapple is that instead of focusing the film on their comedic dynamic and throwing in the explosions and crazy shit almost as an afterthought, the duo’s dynamic takes a back seat to the central conceit of the film, which is an assassination plot against Kim Jong-un.

This doesn’t necessarily work better than Pineapple, just differently. By having a concrete goal that’s beyond saving their own asses, there’s more room for levity: Franco pulls off the idiot shtick with stunning precision without having a cloud of pot smoke to hide behind. When the movie reaches its namesake moment, it’s Franco’s idiocy that both leads to it and carries the climactic moments through. The film marks the sharpening of the Rogen-Franco dynamic: Rogen doesn’t need to do much throughout the movie except be a teddy bear of a straight man, allowing his natural charm and likeability to pull the audience in via proxy.

The toilet humour, ambitious plot, and exaggerated gore that constitute much of the movie owe a bit of a spiritual debt to Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park and, more importantly, 2006’s Team America: World Police. The latter used puppets to parody post-911 American jingoism and Muslim extremism, and its offensiveness didn’t manage to cause anything more devious than some pearl-clutching from the expected crowd.

In fact, the man credited for writing the screenplay of The Interview is Dan Sterling, a vet with experience on Stone and Parker’s South Park. If I were writing a one-sentence blurb on this movie, “Seth

Rogen and James Franco meet South Park” wouldn’t be too far off the mark. But while South Park and Team America don’t pass the “has my mom heard of them” test, Rogen and Franco do. Their popularity and likeability give them the platform to make something that’s as juvenile as The Interview, getting $40 million to do so.

As a political statement, the movie goes a couple of ways. Obviously, it’s not furthering the intellectual conversation on North Korea. In the West, it’s at best enlightening a couple of rock-dwellers about the atrocities occuring in the People’s Republic. However, The Guardian recently showed the movie to a few North Korean expatriates and asked them to review it. The reviews painted the politics of the movie in a starkly different light: all the reviewers hoped dearly that their family and friends would be able to see the movie and second-guess the Kim regime. Watching anything other than propaganda or educational film is strictly forbidden, and The Interview has the potential to be much more subversive than through its satire alone.

The Interview might be considered a waste of time for you (not for me: I watched it twice), because most people may not find the idea of Seth Rogen shoving a parcel up his ass hilarious. But the Rogen-Franco dynamic lifts it out of the trash bin and onto the world stage, where it pissed off some fairly powerful people and empowered some fairly pissed off people. If the point of satire is to make people listen who normally wouldn’t, I think The Interview does a pretty good job.

CINEMA ACROSS THE POND

EMILY POLLOCK

Looking beyond Hollywood for the best films of 2014

TARA MACTAVISH STAFF WRITER It’s that time of the year: Oscar season is almost upon us.

In the last few weeks of 2014, I was barraged online by “Best of 2014” lists, with films being the popular topic of choice. Movie critics always seem to create lists that combine successful Hollywood Blockbusters with “Oscar-bait” films; Godzilla and Guardians of the Galaxy find themselves listed next to Whiplash and Boyhood.

Although my connections to North American media are strong (thanks to the internet), I came to a realization while spending my Christmas break in England that the world has so much more to offer when it comes to films. As I listened to BBC reviewer Mark Kermode list his top ten films of 2014, it occurred to me that less than five of them were American. On the list were several British films I’d never heard of, as well as French and Australian movies.

This list draws attention to how little reception international films receive in North America beyond their presence at film festivals. Are we too reliant on traditional Hollywood cinema? Why do so many incredible international films get almost no publicity in North America? And how has this reliance crippled our ability to appreciate international media and alternative approaches to cinema?

Consider, for instance, the film Paddington, which was released in the UK in late November. It became

the second highest grossing family film in 2014 after The Lego Movie. The film received mediocre reviews in Canada, and has not yet been released in the United States. Kermode listed Paddington above Godzilla on his best of 2014 list, calling it “clever” and “hilarious.”

Paddington retells the classic story of Paddington Bear, a refugee from darkest Peru who arrives in England with nothing but a battered hat and a suitcase full of marmalade. Originally a series of children’s books written in 1958, it is inspired by the child refugees of WWII. The movie stars a number of famous British actors, most notably Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey and Doctor Who’s Peter Capaldi.

Humorous and full of heart, Paddington examines what it means to be a stranger in London and how one truly discovers what home is.

Why was the film not a success with Canadian critics? Its humour is distinctly British, with frequent use of puns, innuendo, and cross-dressing. Its lukewarm reception could be considered similar to the way in which not all people in North America enjoy Monty Py thon. Having grown accustomed to Hollywood humour and American television, perhaps the jokes fell flat for Canadian audiences. Personally, I would choose Paddington over The Interview any day.

While Paddington has yet to be released in US cinemas, Pride is another critically acclaimed British film that came and went in North America. Despite being the top choice for many British film critics, Pride received moderate reviews from most American and Canadian critics.

The film was released in select theatres and made barely a splash in the box office, despite earning over £700,000 in UK theatres on opening weekend.

Pride tells the true story of a gay and lesbian activist group that raised money to support the UK miners’ strike in 1984-1985. The film is brilliantly acted, with stellar performances from Bill Nighy, Andrew Scott, and Dominic West. While Scott’s performance is wonderfully subtle and heartbreaking (a refreshing change from his Moriarty in BBC’s Sherlock), it was West who astounded me. He played a gay actor with such energy and flair that I almost forgot he was Detective McNulty in The Wire. Almost.

What Pride and Paddington share, beyond their lukewarm American reception, are strong themes of humanity and solidarity. Despite Paddington’s origins and unusual nature (he is a bear), the film Paddington examines social issues of immigration and racial prejudice in London. Pride’s parallel between being gay and being a miner under the Thatcher government demonstrates that everyone’s human rights should be treated with equal importance.

Although a bear moving to London, the miner’s strike, and gay rights in the UK may not resonate so much with North American viewers, they should. At a time when racial and sexual inequality are everyday realities, I want to be watching these sorts of films.

Not the next Michael Bay flick, and certainly not The Interview.

So on your next movie night, think international, independent, and intelligent. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

CANADA’S TOP TEN FILM FESTIVAL ARIKA JIANG CONTRIBUTOR What better way to start off the New Year than with celebrating and watching the best films made by directors from your own country? Once again, it is time for Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival to take over the lives (and hearts) of cinephiles with its incredible selection of powerful films and engaging events.

Celebrating its fourteenth year, the film festival takes place this year from January 2 to January 11. Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival was created by TIFF in 2001 to celebrate the year’s best shorts and feature-length films by Canadian filmmakers. With the dominance of Hollywood films in Canadian theatres, Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival presents an opportunity for Canadian films to shine and showcases the talent of Canada’s filmmakers and artists.

The ten feature-length films that have been selected this year as Canada’s best include Monsoon (Sturla Gunnarsson), Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg), Felix and Meira (Maxime Giroux), Sol

(Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Susan Avingaq), Mommy (Xavier Dolan), Tu Dors Nicole (Stéphane Lafleur), Violent (Andrew Huculiak), In Her Place (Albert Shin), The Price We Pay (Harold Crooks), and Corbo (Mathieu Denis). From a beautifully shot documentary about the consequences of the strong winds of India to a film about a teenage Québecer who watches the rise of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), the diverse content of these films illustrates the flexibility and creativity possessed by Canadian directors. All of the films are screened twice at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, featuring special appearances and Q&As with most of the directors.

Besides hosting screenings for the films, the festival offers other events throughout the week, such as the Canadian Cocktail Party. This event includes an installation by Canada’s Top Ten alumni and a live performance by We Are The City, a band featured on one of the selected films’ soundtracks (Violent). Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival also holds “In Conversation With…,” a series of events featuring onstage conversations with Canadian talent. This

year, guests include Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis, Keanu Reeves, and Sandra Oh. Another highlight of the film festival is a free panel discussion about the creation of documentaries, with insight provided by Canadian filmmakers like Bonnie Sherr Klein, Harold Crooks, and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.

The Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival brings people together to celebrate their love of films made by incredibly talented Canadians. The tickets are not expensive, which gives everyone the opportunity to indulge in the sweet treats the festival has to offer.

Some of the films are set and filmed in Canada, which produces a sense of familiarity and pride. The films explore the culture and environment of Canada— something Canadians do not encounter often in films because of the onscreen dominance of American culture and Hollywood. These Canadian filmmakers bring innovation, enthusiasm, and great imagination to their art. When you watch these Canadian films, you are seeing something new and filled with substance— not just the same old Hollywood movie.

13

F/M

AT THE RIGHT TIME: The Comeback and smart comedy

BRONWYN NISBET-GRAY COPY EDITOR

the television deemed “profit-guaranteed garbage.”

When Valerie is cast as herself in a series about her time as a sit-com producer while filming her actions for a reality television program, the line between her real emotions and her constructed persona becomes blurred. Valerie’s character in Seeing Red (the comedy series she inevitably joins) becomes a more realistic, grounded, and motivated person than her real self—at least in the early stages of the series. The Comeback responds directly to the notion that fiction can be more real than reality.

Critics have dubbed the 2000s “television’s golden age” because of the popularity of television that looks, feels, and develops a narrative similar to film.

However, the overwhelming praise for experimental content and form is given to dramas. Series like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and House of Cards are awarded for creativity and reflexivity, while comedies are praised for innovative content rather than form.

Although series like Modern Family and The Office use direct address and black humour throughout, comedies overwhelmingly stick with the traditions that are easy to sell to audiences. The Comeback presents a break from the comedic form so commonly seen on television. By appropriating the style of a reality series, The Comeback effectively critiques and breaks down the values and norms of Hollywood and post-television entertainment in a palatable form.

WENTING LI

When I started HBO’s The Comeback, I expected a highly polished cable series about a vengeful hasbeen—or something to that effect. I anticipated the normal, unobtrusive, easy-to-follow camera work, the comfortable laughs, and the closeted political messages about aging women in an unbearable industry. I was prepared to turn it off during the first episode, if need be. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the series was anything but vapid and, in fact, was quite insightful and darkly humorous. It’s an interesting and different comedy in an era when many series rely upon laugh-track jokes that are uncomfortably sexist. The writing is sophisticated and questions normally unspeakable subjects, namely: aging stardom, Hollywood culture, and the illusion of reality enforced by television.

The series follows Valerie Cherish (played by Lisa Kudrow), a once moderately popular sitcom star who has dropped into obscurity and is planning her “comeback” to television. The first season, released in 2004, follows Valerie as she produces a failed sitcom. The second season, released in 2014, follows Valerie as she puts together the pilot episode of a reality series. She comes to inevitably star in a sitcom about her life as a failed sit-com star—meta, I know. A word of advice: the second season works

amazingly as a standalone, and is of much better quality than the first.

Shot in single-camera setup, The Comeback uses the aesthetic of reality television to apply selfreflexive criticism on the reality genre: shaky, closeup framing appears haphazard, and space onscreen is often intruded upon by ringing cell phones and unwilling film-ees. The illusion of perfection so often associated with television, particularly reality television, is denied throughout the series. The show’s visual style calls attention to the disconnect between the production and presentation of reality TV more effectively than writing, due to its simplicity.

As the series progresses, the visual qualities of the film reflect Valerie’s internal struggle to accept her status as an outsider in the entertainment industry; The Comeback positions Valerie as both a character with emotion and ambition who sees herself as a star, but also as a prop that is self-constructed to fit the values and expectations of Hollywood and its audiences. Duality of aesthetic style and character development become representative of the series’ intentions to both entertain its audience and criticize the source material it parodies.

Part of what makes the series so clever is the way it tells the story of television in a post-television world.

The series acknowledges and confronts the divide between the television deemed “high quality” and

THE YEAR IN MUSIC The Strand’s top picks for 2014

FREDDIE GIBBS AND MADLIB – PIÑATA After a teaser of a trio of EPs over the last three years, Madlib’s new joint effort with LA MC Freddie Gibbs marks a departure from his previous works, which tended to lean towards the experimental and political.

Instead, Freddie Gibbs brings a street-rap aesthetic and aggressive lyricism to the table, and Madlib steps up with an album of raw, complex, yet accessible beats that match the urgency and honesty of the situations Gibbs paints out in his rhymes. The unlikely collaborators created an album that feels like a collaboration should, each of them bringing out something previously unseen in the other. – Anthony Burton, News Editor ST. VINCENT – ST. VINCENT St. Vincent’s eponymous St. Vincent is the brassy fourth album to come from the Oklahoma native, née Annie Erin Clark. It’s a significant departure from her earlier work—looser, more upbeat, and borrowing heavily from punk. – Jonah Letovsky, Opinions Editor ALVVAYS – ALVVAYS From the upbeat opener, “Adult Diversion,” to the introspective close of “Red Planet,” Alvvays’ selftitled album is best enjoyed not by listening to a cou-

14

ple of catchy singles, but as a full album. Listen to the 30-something-minute debut alone and let Molly Rankin’s 90’s-tinged vocals make you nostalgic for a past you never had. – Rachel Gordon, Associate Features Editor NOAH GUNDERSEN – LEDGES Ledges is a quietly expansive debut album of folksy songs, mundane and mystical, with some of the mistakes left in. Recommended listening for leaning out windows, late-night wandering, and times of introspection. – Wenting Li, Art Editor BROODS – EVERGREEN Caleb and Georgia Nott, an amazing brother-sister duo from New Zealand, channel Ellie Goulding/Lordeesque vibes in 11 songs that are great alarms to wake up to in the morning and make you feel like you’re in a Coldplay music video. “Superstar,” “Four Walls,” “Killing You,” and “Everytime” are my favourites. – Lily Wang, Editorial Assistant BETTY WHO – TAKE ME WHEN YOU GO This bright debut album is packed with songs that make me want to dance alone in a sunlit room wearing

sweatpants and lipstick. Betty Who’s dreamy style of pop is perfect for dancing or dramatically lip-syncing along to, and there isn’t a single song on the album that I want to skip. There is an endearing earnestness to it, even when the lyrics under the peppy melody are describing a doomed relationship. I can’t think of a situation that would not be made better by having this album playing in the background. – Alexandra Jones, Associate Copy Editor BAHAMAS – BAHAMAS IS AFIE Toronto-born musician Afie Jurvanen, better known as “Bahamas,” has more first-hand experience with Northern frigidity than with the tropics. Yet his stage name isn’t really a misnomer—Bahamas’ music reflects a familiarity with sunny Southern sentiment while also bringing a uniquely Canadian edge and vulnerability to the table. The tracks vary in aesthetic focus from one to the next; “Waves” is an upbeat yet melancholic ballad with attention to lyrical input, while “All The Time” features sharp and simple verse repetition paired with instrumental bite. Bahamas Is A fie’s guitar pickings and soothing vocal harmonies are perfect for any season. – Claire Wilkins, Film & Music Editor

NICE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

St

CARA SCHACTER CONTRIBUTER

15

St

HOW TO MAKE 2015 THE BEST (OR LAST) YEAR OF YOUR LIFE NEIL MACISAAC STRANDED ASSOCIATE If 2014 were the year we resolved to “shake it off” (thanks, T-Swizzle!), then we ought to make 2015 the year we “shake it up!” The most common New Year’s resolutions are tricky to keep for many, but often this stems from a basic fear of leaving your comfort zone. And there’s no zone more comfortable than that zone we call “Being Alive.” So the only resolution I’m suggesting this year is tossing off the shackles that bind us in that zone and running like feral dogs until the ground collapses beneath us and we plunge into the eternal zero. Here’s a few tips to help make this happen!

1.

Dive headfirst into new hobbies! If you’re worried about not mastering something in a short while, don’t be; everyone takes time to become expert flightsuit users, bull fighters, or chainsaw jugglers. The best strategy is to barrel blindly into such endeavours, heedless of warning or instruction. Get that heartrate up!

2.

Treat yourself! We often overvalue the philosophy of the Stoics and understate the importance of the Cyrenaics. Pleasure is the only good and pain the only evil. Some shortcuts to making hedonism a habit include smoking opium, liquidating your savings, and binge-watching. You’ll be a wine-soaked lecher in no time!

3.

Leave behind your primitive notions of virtue! Love and knowledge are illusions. Nations and religions are falsehoods.

Your allegiance is to yourself and your duty is to euphoria. Break the old idols and feast on what lies within: arrogance, power, and control. Try listening to some Kanye to get in the mood!

4.

Take things! They will try to take it back, plus heavy interest.

Do not let them. The only currency is what you carry, the only insurance is brute force. Everything else is snake oil. Your body is a weapon if you make it so, far more powerful than the spear or bow. In theft you will find sustenance, in vengeance you will find substance.

Make new friends!

5.

They will tell you you are cruel.

They will call you a beast.

But their words are a watery gruel, and your mind is a boundless feast.

Your new friends are thick with danger, and will set themselves aflame.

Take arms against the state’s rangers; Their “order” is what carries the blame For the poverty of the man And the corruption of his place.

Wreak havoc with your clan, And with blood cleanse your face.

Now the year is baptized with a shower of piercing shrieks, Fear not, ‘tis but the purging of the hollow and the weak.

Our globe constantly teeters on the lip of a vast pit.

Take up yoga, I vow that you will not regret it.

!

16 16