The Strand | Volume 60, Issue 8

the

STRAND VICTORIA UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER VOLUME 60, ISSUE 8 | 30 JANUARY 2018

Art for art’s sake?

The hype surrounding Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors sabrina papas / arts p.10

Saved for later

Attempting to sustain mental health in the era of “breaking news” georgia lin / opinions p.06

Wave-particle duality: an interview with nonbinary physics professor A. W. Peet On gender, science, and the atmosphere of STEM academia tanuj ashwin kumar / features p.08

02 NEWS

EDITOR | AINSLEY DOELL NEWS@THESTRAND.CA

Ammara Wasim Replaces Stuart Norton as UTSU VP Student Life Norton fourth elected executive to resign from UTSU this academic year uma kalkar associate news editor

On December 29th 2017, Ammara Wasim was appointed as UTSU’s new VP Campus Life. Her appointment comes after former VP Stuart Norton’s resignation on December 31st due to personal reasons.

Wasim, a fifth-year Visual Studies student, previously served two years as the VP Communications of the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA). In an email to The Strand, UTSU President Mathias Memmel stated that Wasim “was appointed by the Board of Directors after an open application process. There were three applicants for the position, … [t]he board was especially impressed by Ammara’s experience in the Muslim Students’ Association, which is one of UofT’s best-managed clubs.”

Her appointment highlights a growing trend of elected executive resignations and the unorthodox board designation of UTSU executives. Thus far, VP University Affairs, VP Campus Life, one of the Vic Directors, and the UC Director have stepped down due to increasing tensions as well as political and personal disagreements. The discord within the UTSU has made this the second time this year that the UTSU Board of Directors has revoked Section five, part B of Bylaw X of the UTSU Charter to allow the Executive Committee to fill vacant UTSU seats.

There is growing student apprehension around this closed-door and opaque hiring policy within the UTSU. Adrian Huntelar, who was recently appointed to replace Carina Zhang as VP University affairs, has reached out to students to ease concerns over his appointment to this executive role. When asked about the resignations, Memmel responded that “[n]o two resignations are alike, and no two executives have the same

experience at the UTSU.” Wasim believes that the appointment of individuals to fill empty spots on the UTSU is needed to see the agenda of the roles carried out. Her plan is to further the groundwork Norton laid and to see his agenda to completion.

There is an ever-present lack of accountability by the UTSU leadership on the whole. Division I and II Directors, which do not include UTSU Executive members, had a meager attendance rate of 55 percent during meetings last semester. UTSU Bylaw X, Section

2 explicitly states that a Division I or II member “shall be deemed to have delivered their resignation” if the member failed to attend three consecutive meetings, any four meetings, or any three committee meetings.

By this metric, 29 percent of the UTSU Board of Directors would have resigned de facto.

The UTSU is experiencing divides within their ranks that have the potential to hinder their ability to serve students, yet the UTSU remains tight-lipped on the reasons for this and their attempts to heal the union. photo

| hana nikcevic

Victoria College alumna Margaret Atwood speaks out about #MeToo Her comments were quickly defended by UofT professor Nick Mount sabrina papas arts and culture editor

Notable Victoria College alumna Margaret Atwood has received backlash recently for her contributions to the “#MeToo” discussion. Opinions have been divided as to how to treat these comments.

A couple of weeks ago, The Globe and Mail published an op-ed by Atwood titled “Am I a bad feminist?” Atwood begins by discussing UBC Accountable, a petition she signed in November 2016.

The petition proposed that the University of British Columbia should be held accountable for the alleged mistreatment of Steven Galloway, the former chair of the university’s creative writing department, when he was accused of sexually assaulting a student in 2015. UBC made the case public before the accusations reached Galloway and he was made to sign a confidentiality agreement that forbade him from speaking to the media about the case, denying him due process.

Galloway was found to be not guilty, but he was fired by the university as a result of the allegations.

Atwood then delves into comparing sexual assault cases to the Salem witch trials, “in which you were guilty because accused.” She claims, “The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system”—when women cannot find justice from institutional structures, the Internet provides them with a platform to make their experiences known. For Atwood, this new tool poses as a threat because it puts power in the hands of “extremists,” rather than the “Bad Feminists” that, like her, are “acceptable neither to Right nor to Left.”

Yasmeen Sanyoura, an Architecture and English student at UofT, agrees that the #MeToo movement is a symptom of a broken legal system as “institutions have historically tried to more or less keep complainants and accusers quiet.”

Sanyoura continues, “Her comment on ‘understandable and temporary vigilante

justice’ morphing into a ‘solidified lynchmob habit’ is really problematic when paired with the context of the #MeToo movement because, though it was born out of a frustration with the systems in place, I think the movement has created more of a support system than an accusatory mob.”

UofT professor of English Nick Mount jumped in to defend Atwood on Twitter. His tweet stated, “I’m curious: what then does Bad Feminist mean? As I read Gay’s book, it simply means imperfect: ‘feminism is flawed because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed.’ Twitter this weekend would suggest that includes Atwood, no?” This was in response to Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist, who wrote that Atwood had misinterpreted her term.

Continuing to outrage students and communities, Jordan Peterson also spoke out about #MeToo. In an interview with The National Post’s Christie

Blatchford, he stated that “there are rules” surrounding sexual behaviour. He said, “The question is what are the rules?

And the answer is ‘no one knows.’ So there’s going to be mistakes everywhere, all the time. Where do you draw the line between a sexual invitation and harassment?” Peterson’s comments disregard the entire concept of consent.

Atwood, however, is merely “seeing the movement through too narrow of a lens” according to Sanyoura. “The movement does more than show the world how the legal systems have failed women. I think it does that, but seeing that through this lens alone basically fails to account for all the women who have been through experiences that they didn’t even know could be considered as sexual assault or harassment, or the women who have kept quiet about their experiences because they think they are alone.”

NEWS 03

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 30 JANUARY 2018

2018 Hart House Hancock Lecture: Black & Educated?

“Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere”

What’s going on around campus next month?

Acta Victoriana 142.1 Launch Party February 1, 8:30PM No One Writes to the Colonel (460 College St.) Come celebrate the launch of Acta Victoriana’s newest collection of poems, prose, and art. There is a line-up of performances by artists featured in the issue, as well as free copies for everyone who attends.

The Strand Section Workshops February 1, 4:30-6:30PM The Strand Office, Goldring Student Centre, Room 153 Come meet some of our section editors and learn how to pitch your stories to us! We will be running workshops on a casual, drop-in basis to teach you how to get started pitching and writing, and to answer any questions you may have about getting involved. Arts and Culture, News, Opinions, Features, and Stranded editors will all be present.

photo

georgia lin editorial assistant

The 2018 Hancock Lecture, entitled Black & Educated? Unveiling the Contradictions & Redesigning the Future with speakers Chizoba Imoka and Dr. Kofi Hope, was held on January 23rd 2018 in the Hart House Great Hall. Chizoba Imoka, a PhD candidate in the Educational Leadership and Policy program at OISE and founder of the NGO Unveiling Africa, delivered a powerful lecture on anti-racism and her vision for decolonized educational systems, focusing on her native Nigeria.

For Imoka, to be Black and educated meant being “uprooted from my cultural heritage and forced to take on an Eurocentric perspective.”

She also recalled several instances of experiencing anti-Black racism in Canada, such as when a classmate said Western culture was better than African culture because the former didn’t practice female genital mutilation, or when professors had lower expectations for her educational potential because of her race.

In her lecture, Imoka analyzed the “broken” Nigerian educational system at length. In school, she was taught that “colonization was the salvation of Black people” and that Africans would be “illiterate” without it. While attending the University of Alberta, Imoka found that many students participated in efforts to “Save Africa,” whereas she had never been taught that Africa needed to be saved. She realized she had been denied the truth of her history in her Nigerian schooling, and came to the conclusion that the system required a complete, decolonizing transformation.

Throughout the evening, Imoka stressed that the world is not currently in a post-colonial state, and decolonization efforts must continue. Imoka claimed that the concepts of multiculturalism and freedom come at the cost of ethnocides and linguicides in Western civilizations; a Eurocentric education turns students into objects who sustain imperialism when “the flip side of imperialism is racism.” To be Black in higher education is to undergo “an identity crisis, because you are Black on the outside but feel white on the inside.” Imoka asserted that Eurocentric school curriculums seek

| georgia lin

to silence heritage, as students only learn about creation through Adam and Eve, “when my ancestors predate Adam and Eve.” A Eurocentric Western education undereducates Black students and results in an intellectually colonized group of students becoming agents of their own colonization. “A Eurocentric vision of success is what makes Black people fit into Canada, but still get asked how [we] speak such good English,” said Imoka.

Instead, Imoka strives to create a “justiceorientated education” that will allow every student to emerge as a different cultural being. This includes creating classrooms where teachers facilitate “how young people ground themselves in their heritage by standing on the sides, and not the front.” Imoka pressed Black students to “declare your politics” and actively reject hierarchal oppressive systems, such as resisting discussions about the inferiority of African culture, and to fight for a “pluri-versal” world instead of submitting to universality. Imoka also encouraged allies not to “expect Black students to always be patient. Make space and advocate!”

The conversation between Imoka and Dr. Kofi Hope, a UofT alumnus and former President of the Black Students’ Association, explored how educational systems are contested spaces that perpetuate the anti-Black racism that is “woven into the texture of society.” Dr. Hope emphasized the need for North-South solidarity, and the importance of being allies to the Global South instead of wanting to “Save Africa.” In addition, he stated the importance of empowering Black youth when they rediscover their formerly colonized legacies, as “Black youth are not the problem, they are the solution.”

Imoka concluded her lecture by imploring everyone to take a class on African history taught from an anti-colonial lens, and called on UofT to ask itself “what it should mean to be the best university in the world, and how to be reflective of the diversity the world truly contains.”

The 2018 Hancock Lecture ancillary programming includes the In Their Own Words exhibit on Hart House’s Talking Walls, featuring UofT students discussing what it means to be Black on campus.

Women in Tech February 1, 6-9PM Alumni Hall, Victoria College Building Networkers Technology is partnering with Victoria University and the University of Toronto to present Women in Tech, an evening of discussion, demonstration, and networking. The event’s focus is to shed light on the wide-ranging career opportunities for women in technology in 2018. All students and alumni are welcome and encouraged to attend. Register online via uoft. me/witech Linked Oppressions: The Opioid Crisis February 5, 5:30-7PM William Doo Auditorium, 45 Willcocks St. The Equity Studies Students’ Union is hosting a panel discussion with racialized queer and trans harm reduction workers about their work and the ways in which it “address[es] the effects of the opioid crisis in their communities.” The donations collected at the event will go to the Moss Park Overdose Prevention Site. Light refreshments will be provided.

The Goose: Call for Submissions February 5, 11:59PM Victoria College’s short story publication is looking for submissions for their 2017/2018 issue. Short fiction of up to 6000 words will be accepted to goosefiction@gmail.com.

Spring Awakening February 8, 7:30-9:30PM George Ignatieff Theatre Community theatre company Ghost Light Players presents Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening.

The play follows a group of children who are navigating young adulthood with no parental guidance, due to their society’s heavy concern with public opinion and scandal. This play features serious themes and is intended for mature audiences. Tickets are $15 for students with valid student ID. UofT Drama Festival February 8-10, 7:30 PM Hart House Theatre An annual presentation of original plays written

by UofT students. This year’s lineup includes productions from UTM Drama Club, UC Follies, Victoria College Drama Society and more.

04 EDITORIAL

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF | MOLLY KAY AND ELENA SENECHAL-BECKER EDITOR@THESTRAND.CA

I can’t stop worrying about literally everything

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contributors

I spend a lot of time worrying. I worry about normal things, like school, work, money, and my relationships. But I also spend a disproportionate amount of time worrying about things that are out of my control, irrelevant, or some combination of both.

I used to identify these traits as perfectionism, or, maybe more accurately, as conditions of being a control freak. I like things to be a specific way, and I get anxious in situations where I have to let that go. But my stress extends beyond that. I fixate on things and mull them over in my mind until my anxious thinking spirals out of control. I’ll spend hours playing back social interactions in my head, wondering why I said a certain thing or behaved a certain way. Eventually, I almost always manage to convince myself that I’ve done something horrible. In reality, I just forgot to thank a friend for complimenting me on my outfit.

a car with a stranger, or standing too close to the yellow edge strip on the subway platform—all of these being likely factors in my potential death.

Psychologist Dr. Amy Przeworski says that “individuals inherit a predisposition to being an anxious person, [and] about 30 to 40 percent of the variability is related to genetic factors.”

Growing up, we tend to pick up the anxious habits around us.

My mother, for example, has a fear of leaving the house without turning off the stove. She checks it an inordinate amount of times before going anywhere, and often asks me to double-check “just in case I ask you later if I turned it off.” Now that I live on my own, I find myself doing the same thing. Sometimes I will even return to my apartment because I can’t remember if I’ve turned off the stove. Not once have I returned home to find that I actually left it on.

My anxiety still impacts my everyday life. Even though I can identify where it comes from and I can feel that it’s excessive, I’m

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MY ANXIETY STILL IMPACTS MY EVERYDAY LIFE. EVEN THOUGH I CAN IDENTIFY WHERE IT COMES FROM AND I CAN FEEL THAT IT’S EXCESSIVE, I’M NOT ABLE TO STOP IT FROM CONSUMING ME.

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Another effect of this rumination is guilt: an unjustified amount of guilt that contributes to negative thought patterns, low self-esteem, and self-loathing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sent a worried text to one of my friends that began with, “Hey, do you think this makes me a bad person?” or “I’m worried that people hate me because of….”

I didn’t realize how much my worrying was controlling my life until I opened up to my doctor about it. It wasn’t until recently that I was officially diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)—which, surely, was not a surprise to anyone in my life. I’ve since been pursuing appropriate methods of treatment. While there isn’t exactly a cure for GAD, therapy and medication are two of the most effective ways of identifying and managing the things in our lives that are known “stressors.” As I became more aware of the ways in which my thought process and habits contribute to my anxiety, I started noticing those patterns in others, too.

My gran’s a terrible worrier. She agonizes over every social encounter and obsesses endlessly over how she is perceived by others. Like many anxious people, watching the news causes her a great deal of stress. Every time she hears about something terrible happening to a young woman in a big city, she phones to caution me against walking home alone late at night, getting into

not able to stop it from consuming me. My friends and family are very patient with me. They listen to my worries and do their best to understand where I’m coming from, even when I know that I’m not making any sense.

I have, however, lost my fair share of friendships to my anxiety. These experiences have taught me about the importance of accountability and communication in any healthy relationship.

There are a lot of people who don’t understand my tendency to catastrophize—a psych term that means “to imagine the worst possible outcome of an action or event: to think about a situation or event as being a catastrophe or having potentially catastrophic consequences.” It’s definitely not my most charming quality, and sometimes I get overwhelmed by the possibility of people not wanting to be close to me because of this. But I’m learning to be more aware of the energy I bring into spaces and to take responsibility for the ways that my anxious tendencies affect the people around me.

I’m working on prioritizing my mental health and being honest with my loved ones about the challenges I’m facing along the way. I want them to know what’s going on with me, and how they can help. At the end of the day, that’s really all that I, or anyone else in my position, can do: trust and love unconditionally, and hope that others will do the same for you.

OPINIONS 05

EDITOR | KATHLEEN CHEN OPINIONS@THESTRAND.CA

Staying afloat Canada’s response to the Rohingya crisis meg zhang staff writer

The Government of Canada’s website states the nation’s official stance on the Rohingya crisis. Unsurprisingly, it approaches the subject in a fastidiously diplomatic manner.

“Canada remains deeply concerned by the violence in the Rahkine State and the displacement of more than 620,000 people into neighbouring Bangladesh,” it begins. “We have condemned the violent attacks of August 25th, attributed to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army. Canada has also called on the armed forces to exercise restraint and to protect all civilians. We urge the military and civilian authorities in Myanmar to do everything in their power to end the violence now.”

This appeal seems awfully vague. Though the Canadian government attempts to convey a tactful and neutral position on the matter, this stance looks more and more like ambivalence with every new article, photograph, and statistic that depicts the atrocities in Myanmar. The government fails to directly condemn the Myanmar military for their active participation in the violence. Given Prime Minister Trudeau’s recent desire for more involvement in international affairs, the aforementioned statement feels like a cop-out, a strategy to passively tiptoe around the matter rather than addressing the crisis head-on.

To those who are uncertain about or unaware of the disaster in western Myanmar and Bangladesh, here’s a summary: the Rohingya people are a stateless Muslim minority from Rahkine, Myanmar. They have also been called “The Boat People” by multiple

news sources. In October 2016, Myanmar’s armed forces issued several crackdowns on Rohingya villages in response to attacks by Rohingya militants on border police camps.

Less than a year later, an attack by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army provoked an exorbitantly violent response from authorities.

Officials cut off food supplies and laid siege to western Myanmar. Entire villages were pillaged and set ablaze. Survivor testimonies describe gang rapes and brutal aggression against infants. According to a detailed survey published just last month by Médicins Sans Frontières, at least 6,700 Rohingya people were killed during the initial month of conflict. An overwhelming majority of these victims died from gunshot wounds.

Within the first month of these attacks, nearly half of the remaining Rohingya people in Myanmar fled to neighbouring countries.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees climbed aboard rickety wooden boats or trekked thousands of miles in search of asylum. Hundreds of these refugees died along the way, perishing from disease and hunger or from being stranded at sea. Bangladesh currently receives the majority of these refugees. It plans to move the refugees to Thengar Char, a small island in the Bay of Bengal, approximately nine hours from the refugee camps.

Not only is Thengar Char extremely prone to flooding and cyclones, there are no roads or infrastructure on the island. Nevertheless, the Bangladeshi government approved this resettlement plan at the beginning of 2017.

The Honourable Bob Rae, Canada’s special envoy, visited the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazaar at the end of last year. He noted the

absence of roads and spaces for toilets as well as the alarming number of refugees who were women or children under the age of 15. According to his interim report, the camps were “deplorably overcrowded and [posed] a threat to human health and life itself.” He pays particular attention to the sexual violence experienced by female refugees at the hands of the Myanmar military. He urges governments and non-government organizations to prioritize healthcare, sanitation, and education.

While the United Nations expressed shock and disgust over these attacks and their subsequent mass exodus, State Counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi has remained inactive and indifferent. She has drawn international criticism for her failure to recognize these atrocities and to condemn the Myanmar military.

Canadian news sources must be careful about how they depict this issue. Although its severity is at an all-time high, the Rohingya crisis is not a recent phenomenon that emerged out of thin air. Persecution against the Rohingya people has been apparent since Myanmar’s independence.

Myanmar was a British colony from 1842 to 1948. During this century of British rule, there was a steady migration of workers to western Myanmar. In the eyes of British officials, Myanmar was part of the greater Indian colonies. The native population did not share this opinion. Instead, they saw Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Following Myanmar’s independence in 1948, authorities deemed this migration illegal. In 1982, new citizenship laws did not include the Rohingya people in Myanmar’s officially

recognized ethnic minorities. To be a citizen of Myanmar, one had to possess proof of living in the country prior to 1948. Since Rohingya people were denied these documents, they could not register as legal citizens. The Myanmar government has since imposed severe legal restrictions on the Rohingya people. It is nearly impossible for Rohingya people to pursue professions in medicine, law, or politics.

And yet, we barely hear about these facts.

Instead, our media sources sensationalize current events. Babies being thrown into bonfires or children slowly wasting away during their escape to refugee camps are just some of the themes on which articles linger. To focus on the extent of the current exodus is a necessity, but it is not enough. We cannot dismiss the complex and long-term socio-political oppression of the Rohingya people. The current representation of the Rohingya crisis in Western media detracts from its true severity.

Rather than portraying these events as newly emergent, we must show that the contemporary conflict is profoundly rooted in Myanmar’s bitter colonial history. Our approach must change and it must change quickly if we wish to expedite strategies towards fruitful reconciliation.

This article is part of an ongoing series in which The Strand tackles issues relating to systemic oppression, privilege, and identity. All are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Pitches should be directed to opinions@thestrand.ca

Do you have an inspired idea?

Student Projects exists to help fund the innovative ideas of Victoria College students. If you have a vision for a project that could better your experience at Vic, we’d love to hear from you!

TAKE A LOOK AT SOME OF OUR PAST FUNDED PROJECTS! FIND MORE AT VICSTUDENTPROJECTS.COM. Alumni Dinner Thanks to funding provided by Student Projects, students had the opportunity to attend a unique alumni event and meet professionals from a wide variety of fields and disciplines. The longer dinner event aimed to help keep students informed about their future career prospects, allowing for networking and vital academic planning and discovery.

Recipes for Refugees Recipes for Refugees was a fundraising event that aimed to raise awareness and donations for Lifeline Syria, an organization that sponsors and supports Syrian refugees coming to Canada. Various student clubs and organizations from Victoria College and the University of Toronto were invited to donate dishes for the event, where attendees gave a minimum donation to enjoy a range of recipes from different cultural student groups and other organizations.

Since 2001, Victoria College students pay $10 per academic year into the Student Projects Fund, which exists as a source of funding with over $30,000 for projects that aim to improve the Victoria College student experience. By granting access to the resources required to turn students’ idea into reality, the Student Projects Fund exists to foster innovation, creativity, and most importantly, a sense of community-building at Victoria College.

Find out how to submit your project studentprojects@vusac.ca vicstudentprojects.com facebook.com/vicstudentprojects

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until mid-March.

06 OPINIONS

EDITOR | KATHLEEN CHEN OPINIONS@THESTRAND.CA

Saved for later Attempting to sustain mental health in the era of “breaking news” georgia lin editorial assistant

I’ve had a subscription to The New York Times since August 2016, when the United States presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was becoming increasingly volatile. I thought it would be beneficial to engage with the electoral and international politics of the day. I didn't foresee my obsessive future with breaking news alerts. On the night of the election, I couldn’t enjoy the concert I was attending because I kept checking the Electoral College map, my anxiety growing as I watched state after state flip from blue to red. Though the genuine danger of Donald Trump’s presidency was disconcerting regardless, only recently did I realize the damaging effects of a 24-hour news cycle.

The New York Times’ push notifications arrive steadily on my phone every day, covering U.S. politics, international crises, and opinion pieces, among other stories. With this onslaught of information, I consume negative headlines at an hourly pace. Recent articles include: “How U.S. Intelligence Agencies Underestimated North Korea,” “Republican Senators Raise Possible Charges Against Author of Trump Dossier,” and “El Salvador Again Feels the Hand of Washington Shaping Its Fate.” I can name obscure U.S. Congressional committee chairmen, Donald Trump’s inner policy advisors, and have become burdened with a growing internal stress that threatens my mental health. Being able to rattle off the names and acts of prominent U.S. senators or wealthy Republican donors is useful in political discourse, but such conversations can harm one’s stability.

I tried to strike a balance by shelving articles to read at a later date. However, due to the constant influx of news, week- or day-old articles become less relevant and lead me to ask “what if ” concerning important events from the past. For example, I still have not read a New York Times feature from October 11th, 2016 titled “‘I’m the Last Thing Standing Between You and the Apocalypse’: Inside the final weeks of Hillary Clinton’s cautious—and surprisingly risky—campaign” because I am afraid of its contents.

I am afraid of what may happen to my mood when I read it as a depressing retrospective instead of a pertinent political analysis published before the election.

I am afraid of becoming emotional when I reflect on what the state of international diplomacy would look like had Secretary Clinton won the election. I am afraid that the incessant incursion of breaking news is making us desensitized to policies expelling refugees or to repetitive demagogic statements from unqualified politicians.

MENTAL HEALTH INADVERTENTLY BECAME A SACRIFICE, BECAUSE I FALSELY BELIEVED THAT REMAINING AN ENGAGED CITIZEN TRUMPED PERPETUAL ANXIETY.

Reading breaking news on an hourly basis can be mentally exhausting. Grasping the complexities of an ongoing landmark legal case or healthcare policy can cause a sense of panic; embracing journalism slips into embracing agitation. We cannot distance ourselves from the obsession to stay up to date, but this damaging habit then internalizes our anxieties. The immediacy of break-

ing news numbs us to disheartening headlines and can result in prolonged distraction because we feel an utter helplessness at how to process ongoing global devastations and decisions. Mental health inadvertently became a sacrifice, because I falsely believed that remaining an engaged citizen trumped perpetual anxiety. The stigma and disregard for mental health exacerbates the difficulty in maintaining an equilibrium in personal priorities.

However, it is treacherous to believe that it’s easier to ignore the news rather than absorb it. The manner in which the information is understood—with a spectrum of perspectives and mediums that are created by diverse voices and multiple sectors, such as women working in blue-collar professions speaking out about the #MeToo movement—can foster a culture that provides inclusive spaces for profound conversations about uncomfortable issues.

We should endeavour to embrace worry at key moments so we don’t fall into a willful ignorance of truth.

Taking a break to read fiction instead of fact can be a comfort. Watching late-night political comedy can help dilute the distress breaking news may induce (such as Seth Meyers referring to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas as a “sentient butter sculpture.”) I’ve finished reading most of the articles in my ‘Save for Later’ section, but I know that, in order to maintain my mental health, it is beneficial and necessary to take a break from following the political beat as it updates.

The process of achieving an individual sense of mental health can be stalled by the news media, but its effects should not be detrimental. Touting mental health as a permanent, joyous state is impersonal and unrealistic. Instead, increasing or reducing our consumption of the news to match our changing mental states can decrease the negative associations between journalism and anxiety. If we can start to reconcile mental health not as an achievement, but as a progressive, fluctuating disposition, the news cycle can be a marker of evolving atmospheres instead of a burden.

PHOTO | HANA NIKCEVIC

OPINIONS 07

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 30 JANUARY 2018

Capitalizing on the self-care movement The self-care industry highlights class divides and a need for more critical conversations

PHOTO | GRACE KING

annie truuvert, kathleen chen staff writer, opinions editor

In 1988, Audre Lorde wrote, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is selfpreservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” In spaces where one’s wellbeing is neglected, undermined, or seen as unimportant, self-care is a political movement, an act of rebellion. Self-care is not selfish; it is essential.

The popularization of the term ‘selfcare’ through social media, news outlets, and advertising campaigns seems to indicate that society is recognizing its importance, and that we are incorporating it more into our daily lives. However, the commercialization of self-care has created a problematic industry that emphasizes class divides, and that disempowers rather than empowers. The business of self-care is an extension of the very systems of oppression that Lorde urged us to rebel against.

Corporations have commodified the act of self-care through material goods or practices that are luxuries for many.

Searching for “#selfcare” on Instagram produces over four million results, most of which showcase a certain lifestyle: teas, healing crystals, yoga poses, brunch, and green smoothies. Though openly seeking self-care is important, it is easier to post trendy photos than to talk about going to therapy or taking medication—which is where stigma lies.

Curating the performative self-care aesthetic requires a certain level of wealth

and privilege, as well as the means and technology to manage social media accounts. Even less ostentatious forms of self-care—taking time off work, seeing a therapist, or attending a yoga class—are inaccessible to many. Self-care, as represented in the market, has become a status symbol.

or diffuser scent that they got over the holidays, it’s important to remind ourselves that mental health does not require the prioritization or possession of material items. Self-care is not what you purchase. Ineffective and absurdly unrelated products cheapen the notion of self-care by trivializing mental wellness. Further-

to recognize that systemic oppressions on the basis of racial, gender, and class identities contribute to higher levels of stress and create additional barriers to obtaining necessary help. Buying into the self-care industry makes it easy to be complacent and to centre our conversations on forms of mental illness that we

CURATING THE PERFORMATIVE SELF-CARE AESTHETIC REQUIRES A CERTAIN LEVEL OF WEALTH AND PRIVILEGE, AS WELL AS THE MEANS AND TECHNOLOGY TO MANAGE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS.

The self-care industry not only requires wealth for access to its resources and aesthetic, but it has also created a justification for the more privileged to ignore marginalized groups. Our newfound collective knowledge of the importance of self-care makes buying into these privileges feel like participating in a social movement of mental health awareness. In reality, self-care, as a socially-acceptable marketing trope, gives those with high socioeconomic status a means to perform their privilege without feeling guilty.

While everyone seems to be talking about the latest mindfulness application

more, raising awareness about consumer products that promise mental well-being does little to combat stigma.

Bell Let’s Talk Day is an opportunity to change the mental health conversation. It’s time we look at mental health through a more nuanced lens. Class divides are manifested not only in how selfcare is marketed, but also how people are affected by stigma. When someone hashtags a photo on Instagram as “selfcare,” we comment on how aesthetically pleasing it is, but we are less comfortable with what dealing with mental health issues may actually look like. We need

are comfortable with. We can do better.

We’ve started the conversation; now, let’s improve it.

Last year, Zahavah Kay wrote a powerful piece for The Strand called “#LetsTalk Responsibly,” highlighting the tendency for #BellLetsTalk day to become a competition of social media confessionals, as well as the need to include nuanced discussions of the most stigmatized illnesses and underrepresented groups. You can find this article online at: thestrand.ca/letstalk-responsibly/.

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EDITOR | ERIN CALHOUN FEATURES@THESTRAND.CA

Wave-particle duality: an interview with nonbinary physics professor A. W. Peet On gender, science, and the atmosphere of STEM academia tanuj ashwin kumar science editor

The Strand: What's your research about?

A.W. Peet: Physicists generally like to divide themselves into categories. In the past, physicists would usually divide themselves into theoretical or experimental physics. Nowadays, you might really say there's three aspects to doing physics: computational, experimental, and theoretical. My expertise is in theoretical physics, and specifically I work in theoretical subatomic physics, so I'm interested in the structure of forces and matter, from the very shortest length scales, up until way out to the very edges of the universe. So I guess what we try to seek is “Universe OS,” like how we have iOS or Android OS on your smartphones. We're looking for the underlying set of instructions that run the universe. Within theoretical subatomic physics, I do string theory, which is one way of imagining theories of quantum physics and gravity, and trying to describe all of the forces together. And my particular interest in string theory is in the gravitational side of things. Gravity's my favourite force in the universe, and I want to figure out more about how it works— especially deep in the heart of a black hole.

How did you feel about the gravitational wave reveal?

So excited! The first gravitational waves were predicted in 1916, and it wasn't until 2016 that we first saw them.

You know, they were very determined, squashed a lot of bugs, and eventually made things work.

How did your colleagues react when you first came out as trans and nonbinary? What about your students, and was there any difference between their reactions?

When I first voiced as genderqueer and trans, there was a range of responses. It wasn't only determined by age; before I told various colleagues and students, I had somehow thought that their response would probably be determined by the person's age. If they were younger they were

likely to be more progressive, and probably it would be the oldest folks who would be the most reactionary or surprised. That wasn't borne out entirely in observations.

A number of colleagues and students were really cool about it. In particular, some of my undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs were really great. Some of my older colleagues were also really great about it, even some 80 and 90-yearolds. Not all of them were in physics: they were colleagues in other departments—from conferences, and so forth.

But there were also a number of responses that were hostile and not welcoming. I think it correlates fairly strongly with the person's general politics and not so much with the person's age or racialization or cultural background or whatever else.

What's something you'd tell trans and nonbinary students studying sciences in their undergrad who are currently uncertain about the future?

Well, I’d like them to know that there are more senior people in the field like them. We exist. You're not alone, you're not in this alone, and finding others like us can be difficult when we're new at this. If we've only recently voiced, it can be lonely and isolating. But we can still seek community with trans people, whether through social media or in person. If somebody asks me who else I might know who is trans or nonbinary, I can't volunteer that information because that's not mine to share. But I can point them to places where they're more likely to run into these individuals, and so on.

I'm only really knowledgeable about physicists in physics culture, and I know a little about mathematicians and maths culture. One of the things that can be difficult about hard scientists is that we don't generally have language for understanding anti-oppression. So, there can be some difficulty in that colleagues or our students may not know about these concepts. But the flip side is that these subjects aren't something we study, so our scholarly expertise doesn't

cover these aspects of humanity. But because we're not experts in social science, we usually don't think we know the answers already.

So that I've found that if we have the energy to try and educate the average physicist about gender, they don't usually respond with being a know-it-all. Some of them, of course, still think they're know-it-alls, though!

a linear slider: 'X percent female' versus '100 minus X percent male,' and so on, like the genderbread person.

That's too restrictive. It's not just a linear spectrum.

There's a bigger dimensional universe of gender.

(See Peet's gender and wave-particle duality explanation on their website!)

Is the atmosphere of inclusion in physics You've explained your getting better or is gender in the context it slow and rigid to change? of wave-particle duality. How did this come about? And do I think both. It has been you have any general getting better at times, and comparisons between yet there are still rigidities gender and physics? in the way we think about The way it arose, actually, was when I was prepping for a first-year physics seminar course. I was really racking my brain over how to explain to my students about how something like an electron could have both particle and wave properties. Suddenly I was thinking how an object could have two different aspects of behaviour and still

things. It depends very much on local culture.

The answer for how UofT has been getting better is not the same as how it may be getting better in other places. For example, if you're in California, compared to being in Texas, the environment for how that's improving has been different. So, I think individuals pushing for

ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES NAVIGATING PHYSICS ACADEMIA AS A NONBINARY PERSON IS THAT THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT GENDER AS IT RELATES TO PHYSICS IS SO BINARY. WE BINARIZE THE WAY WE EVEN HAVE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT GENDER IN PHYSICS.

be consistent—it's still an electron, with wave and particle-like behaviour with different properties in different contexts. So then I say, “Well, that's just like a nonbinary person, like me,” and I realize all of a sudden, I've just disclosed this to my graduate students. For me personally, I sometimes behave like a masculine person in some contexts and a feminine person in other contexts, and these are both integral aspects of my identity. And they were like, “Huh, that's easy.” I'm not confused, and I'm not a hot mess—I just happen to have both of these properties.

I don't have any general analogies, but sometimes when people try and explain nonbinary gender identities, they try and think of it like

greater inclusiveness can have a really big impact in departments, especially in departments that do not practice inclusivity, and don’t understand the true value of multiaxial pluralism.

One of the biggest challenges navigating physics academia as a nonbinary person is that the way we think about gender as it relates to physics is so binary. We binarize the way we even have discussions about gender in physics. For example, I'm actually chairing the Committee to Encourage Women in Physics of the Canadian Association of Physicists this year. But still, they're thinking of gender as “men do X, women do Y.” The way we've been talking about gender inclusion

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in physics is often that the troubles that women have with sexism in physics are often described in terms of a “deficit model.” This is the model in which the masculine norms are the “default” and if women don't have these behaviours that many of the guys had, then this must be a deficit that must be “remedied,” we can “train up the women so they're just as masculine as the guys,” and then they’ll succeed in physics, is sort of the assumption underlying all of this.

One thing that trans and gender nonconforming people understand really clearly is that gender is anything but a binary. Certainly, even sex is not a binary—it's not even phenotypically or genotypically. The karyotype, the phenotype, there are levels and levels of complication. If you look to the animal kingdom, there's even more variability, and the way sexing works, and all that sort of stuff, even within mammals, you know.

None of these things is a simple binary. And to assume that it is, is violent.

It's violent to trans people, because as a trans person I may not “pass,” I may not look thoroughly convincing to a cis person in the gender that I am living. And if people have very rigid concepts of what a man looks like, or how they behave, or similarly for a woman, that can be very degrading and dehumanizing for say, a trans woman who really works hard to be recognized as a woman. And often physicists can be either clumsy or hostile to these people.

I think nonbinary people get treated as if we're somehow “making up” our gender.

I find this part of the discussion very unhelpful. Certain people who have expressed bloviating opinions about this have made very clear what they think about these questions. But I know the reality of this is that there are feminine cis men, masculine cis women, trans women, trans men, nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, lots of different people in the higher dimensional universe of gender. And I think nonbinary people are treated like we're “snowflake unicorns.” “Your gender is an affectation” is the message we get from people. It's disappointing, but it happens. If people could be less binaristic about thinking about gender, it would help a lot of people—not just nonbinary people, but trans and genderqueer people more generally.

I get misgendered all the time. I used to be called “ma'am” and now I'm called “sir” and neither of them are accurate! One of the things I think would be good is if we stopped using honorifics so much. What is a good gender-neutral version of “sir” or “ma'am”? “Friend” maybe,

but it's not formal enough for some contexts. That's why I encourage people to call me Dr. Peet or Prof. Peet, because none of that is gendered. But what if you don't have a PhD?

Specific difficulties?

Washrooms. There are very few buildings that have gender inclusive washrooms.

And I don't mean washrooms with some hybrid half-trouser half-dress creature depicted on some sign.

The best washroom for a nonbinary person is one with a picture of a toilet. That's the best symbol for what is a gender inclusive washroom. But places to pee, there's incredible difficulty. I got invited to speak at a conference at Waterloo last year. They invited a nonbinary, trans, disabled person to speak, but they didn't have a gender inclusive disabled washroom? But they managed to get it sorted out by the time I got there, so I told them, you know, I'll need to pee, could we make sure that's taken care of.

With the logistics of having nonbinary people, having a gender inclusive washroom you can use regardless of what your gender is or what anatomy you might have, is important. Being able to pee is really one of the most difficult aspects of going to conferences. That's why I fought very, very hard to have gender inclusive washrooms in the physics building!

Whenever I'm in the physics building, I'm unfortunately usually by the labs where the washrooms there are very gendered.

Very gendered, very nonprivate. Whenever I'm down there I usually just hold it.

Trans, and to some degree, genderqueer people have higher incidents of kidney and other such urinary and bladder problems because of having to hold it so much, not being able to be comfortable going in a public space.

What do you think is something that cis people could do to make these places less cisnormative and more accessible and welcoming?

Bathrooms are an important thing, for sure. Sometimes I've come across people and you know, they noticed these changes, I've had chest surgery, I've grown a few inches taller, and so on. And then they ask me about my genitals. And I'm like, you really went there? So, professors, some of whom are women, you might think they would be more clued about gender mistakes, but no, they stumble right into it!

So, one piece of advice I

could give colleagues who think about reacting when someone voices as trans or gender queer around them: never ask a trans person what you'd never dream of asking a cis person. You wouldn't ball up to a colleague and ask them “what's in your pants?!” My response is typically: “what's in my pants are molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of protons and neutrons, which are made of quarks and gluons. What's in my pants is physics!”

In the sciences, I think we've got some general understanding that gender can be pertinent to how science is done, in the sense that there have been ways in how femininity interacts with scientific work and collaboration in a different way than masculinity does. Of course, individuals have variegations.

But we often don't have an understanding of how this style of how we do physics is informed by the normalization of masculinity in physics.

The Big Bang Theory is a popular depiction of how the public sees physicists. It's like, we're not all like Sheldon. And by the way, that's a terrible show with many bad stereotypes. Just realizing that “cis male” is not the default in science, and to behave like antler-crashing deer who are having competitions over who's the most dominant, masculine person in the room, that's the way that dude scientists relate to one another, but that's not necessarily the norm—and it shouldn’t be.

So, some of the things that help make these spaces less cisnormative are also those which can tackle misogyny. A trans woman may be degraded by the cis men around her simply for being a woman, and in general, for the femininity she may display. A trans man trying to establish his masculinity may be degraded by the cis men around him for not being “masculine enough” to their perception.

As a trans masculine-of-center person, I've seen some of this firsthand. So, part of it is related to misogyny, but this obviously isn't the whole story. In physics, the stream of countering misogyny and toxic masculinity is related to the drive to help make physics a more gender inclusive environment.

What's one important piece of advice you would give to trans and nonbinary students who wish to head into science academia?

Academia would ideally be an inclusive and welcoming place. We haven't reached that point yet. As an academic, there will be stuff you'll have to face, and if we are a

illustration

“rare” person in these environments, we often feel pressured to conform. To give up some aspects of who we are in order to fit into the pigeonhole that we're expected to fit into in the grand scheme of things. And while you don't always have the choice, I encourage students to spend your time around people who are less toxic. It sounds so obvious! These students often feel pressured to go to the biggest fish in the department, because “Professor X” might have a giant reputation. Maybe they also have a giant reputation of being an asshole. It's worth doing your research on people that you're thinking of working with. Asking people older than you, what was it like doing a course or doing research under Professor X/Y/Z? It's particularly important for grad students to look for an advisor who is less toxic (I don't think it's possible to find an advisor who is completely non-toxic). It's important to find someone who supports you as a human being, humanizes you, and treats you with dignity. Ideally this sort of dynamic would be happening everywhere. As it stands there's bubbles of reason and it would be good to link these up, creating a more inclusive environment.

It's really difficult.

If a trans woman told me, “It's so hard being a trans person in physics,” or a nonbinary person told me, or so on, I'd believe them every day. “It's so hard, they're so clueless, they're so cisnormative, they're so heteronormative, it's awful, should I really have to put up with this in order to pursue my passion in physics?”

Ideally, we can build a world where we don't have to choose between keeping your humanity and doing physics.

If you do have to choose, if you decide that the strain of existing as a non-normative gender person in a normative physics world is too much, I

don't think any less of you, and I don't think that you've “failed” in any sense. It's just that you've recognized that this place where you've considered spending a significant part of your time is too toxic for you and that it may carry high health burdens. I recognize that if you choose to move away from this field, even if you love it, then that's being true to yourself as a person. If you're trans or nonbinary and in STEM and can't see a way forward, and choose to move away, then I respect your choice. And if you want to stay in physics, and want to be in my department, if there's some way that I as a professor can encourage faculty and students and the space to be more inclusive, I'll do what I can to encourage that.

Social media can be good for finding other students and other people. Trans Twitter has been pretty great for me to learn from.

Anything else to add?

If you are trans or nonbinary or genderqueer or genderfluid, your gender is valid.

You are valid as a person. You are inherently valid and worthy and deserving of support and deserving of people pulling strings to make things more inclusive. It's a human right to be treated with dignity and to be gendered correctly, or at least not misgendered, and for people to treat you right. That's where I'd like to go. I still have a long way to go before I can call myself an expert.

I chose to be out about my trans status while on the job, and this carries some burdens. But, I have tenure.

And by the time I voiced, I had tenure. There's many reasons why I didn't voice earlier. But one of the reasons I didn't was because I'm so much more secure voicing as trans with this security. This makes me much more secure than 99.9 percent of the trans

| tanuj ashwin kumar

community in Toronto, for example. The average median annual income of a trans person in Ontario is somewhere in the low $20,000s. Lots of trans people can't get employment at all. I have a job and a pension, for goodness sake. Almost nobody has the level of economic insulation like I do, so that's one of the reasons I decided to speak out.

With any luck, eventually there will be more of us in the field. As a student, it was important for me to have some “existence theorems,” as mathematicians refer to them. There exists a nonbinary physicist at UofT. And in fact, that there was a woman at Stanford who was in the physics department, that was important to me as an undergrad, that you could be a woman and in physics. The fact of the existence doesn't mean you'll be fully aligned with politics or they can give you everything you want, but the fact that they exist gives hope.

One final thing about the gender binary: one of the things we bemoan in physics is the lower representation of women as compared to men. What we are often slow to realize is that the gender inclusion story has a lot to do with the inclusion of racialized people. Even the notion of the gender binary is not as deeply embedded in other cultures as it is in white Euro-American culture. Britain, my culture, has an incredibly binarized view of gender, and imposed this violently around the world.

Within what we now call Canada, there are plenty of Indigenous and First Nations peoples who have very different concepts of gender than the Western binary. People who think you can address gender inclusion in physics without addressing other forms of inclusion are not up with the play!

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photos

| art gallery of ontario

EDITOR | SABRINA PAPAS ARTSANDCULTURE@THESTRAND.CA

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Art for art’s sake?

The hype surrounding Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrors

sabrina papas arts and culture editor

After a debut in Washington, DC and exhibitions at galleries in Seattle and Los Angeles, Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors will be on display in Toronto at the AGO beginning March 3rd. Advanced ticket sales began online on January 16th, with the first batch of tickets quickly selling out. As with any high-demand event, tickets are now being resold on secondparty websites for up to $100. This response from the public is unusual in comparison to past exhibits at the AGO. Why, then, is Kusama’s art garnering such an extreme reaction?

One reason could be the novelty of the exhibit. Infinity Mirrors includes Kusama’s paintings and pastel drawings, but the main attraction consists of six themed rooms filled with colourful LED lights, polka-dotted sculptures, and mirror-paneled walls that create the illusion of infinite space. Kusama offers an experience that is inherently different from the traditional exhibits that we are used to seeing. According to Allison Peck, the

Communications Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington where the exhibit debuted, “It’s very different from a normal highvisitation exhibition, where visitors can move freely through the space. Each room is a contained experience unto itself.”

Although visitors are only allowed 30-45 seconds inside each infinity room (a restriction imposed by Kusama herself ), only two to four people are permitted into a single room at once. The person limit allows for a private experience.

Some of my favourite interactions with art have been at off-peak hours, when I could really immerse myself without being rushed or distracted by the people around me: you know that thousands, or even millions, of people have seen the piece you’re looking at, but for that brief moment it belongs to you.

So do the prescribed limits allow for a more personal engagement with the art, or will people merely be using their designated 30-45 seconds to take photos? Many art exhibits prohibit photography, but the nature of Kusama’s work

instead promotes documentation. Due to the short period of time visitors are given inside each room (if they can manage to purchase tickets) capturing each room in a photo is a logical solution.

The infinity rooms are immortalized to an image—one, significantly, that can be endlessly consumed by the viewer and shared on social media.

Gloria Sutton, an Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art History and New Media at Northeastern University, claims that “most visitors endure the hours-long wait for the express purpose of procuring a self-portrait with a smartphone inside this uniquely mirrored room, which, in effect, renders a digital image within a structure that is itself an infinity of images. In fact, the desire to take such an ‘image within an image’ after seeing one online is the reason many visitors come to the museum in the first place.” Through platforms like Instagram, Kusama’s work has reached us in Toronto, and we too want to capture similar images for our social media pages.

The popularity of Kusama's work for its aesthetic value has surely been height-

ened by social media. The excitement surrounding Kusama’s art, however, has been consistently strong for the last 20 years. As Peck states, “This uptick of interest is part of a recent rediscovering of her work, which started in the late 1990s and early 2000s. When she returned to Japan in the 1970s after working in NYC in the 1960s, she was not a popular figure. It was only later that she started becoming a true cultural phenomenon.”

The high demand for tickets also prevents a passive public. To see Kusama, you can’t just stroll into the AGO once your Instagram feed has been inundated with friends’ photos of Infinity Mirrors and join in.

If all the hype does boil down to a desire to consume the image of the art rather than the art itself, that may not be a necessarily or wholly negative phenomenon. Any interaction with art should be a personal experience, designed by the viewer. Whether you want to immerse yourself in an exhibit while you’re there or experience it through your images once you’ve left—the choice is up to you.

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EDITOR | SABRINA PAPAS ARTSANDCULTURE@THESTRAND.CA

The most memorable meals in film How great meals made movies better nicholas freer staff writer

As the first month of 2018 ends, now is a good time to look back to the past. What follows is a list of some of the better foods to have made their way into film. Ranging from the simple to the extravagant, here are five great films and the noteworthy meals in them.

The Big Lebowski – The White Russian Though not a meal in itself, the first entry in this list can certainly accompany one. The favoured drink of The Dude (Jeff Bridges) in the classic 1998 Coen brothers comedy, the White Russian is to some an alcoholic milkshake and to others a gateway into the world of cocktails. In either case, the mix of Kahlua, vodka, and cream reflects what defines the The Dude’s laid-back character as he bumbles through one misadventure to the next. A White Russian is the easiest aperitif for any cash-strapped college student (over 19).

best-looking stew in film history. Though never clarified in the movie, with some research this stew has been found to be a Spanish style Andalusian stew: a mix of aromatic vegetables and rabbit. Perfect for the long winter nights spent working on papers or studying for tests.

Hook – Imaginary Food Hook’s (1991) feast, drummed up in the imaginations of the Lost Boys and Peter Pan (Robin Williams), is the most colourful meal to be included on this list. Functioning in the film as the moment in which the amnesic Peter recalls his childhood creativity, this feast is not only delicious but central to the plot of the film. If only for the nostalgia, imagine

yourself with some popcorn and re-watch this childhood favourite.

The Hundred-Foot Journey – French and Indian Cuisine A heart-warming film, The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) follows a Capulet-Montague rivalry between the Indian and French restaurants located across the street from one another in a small town in France. Though not the best movie on this list, it is by far the most food-based. A simple and enjoyable watch, this movie has so many dishes in it that it’s impossible to choose the best. Rather, it offers an appetizing survey of the best foods from both cultures while also providing a worthwhile narrative of multicultural appreciation.

Pulp Fiction – The Big Kahuna Burger Writer-Director Quentin Tarantino’s trope-ridden take on mob movies and crime novels, Pulp Fiction (1994), is a film awash with cuisine. Though often cited for its diner scene, the truly appetizing moment, both cinematically and culinarily, is when Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) eats Brett’s (Frank Whaley) Big Kahuna Burger in a display of aggression. Described by Jules as “the corner stone of any nutritious breakfast,” this burger plays a central role, providing a veneer of normality as tension builds to a violent peak.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Andalusian Stew The epitome of Spaghetti Westerns, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is a film which follows three solitary figures: Blondie (Clint Eastwood), Tuco (Eli Wallach), and Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef ) in their race to dig up the buried fortune of a dead solider. Acclaimed for its score, stylized violence, and cinematographic innovations, the film also features the illustration

| melissa avalos

Review: VCDS presents The Drowsy Chaperone grace king associate photo editor

“Don’t you hate the theatre?” a voice asks from the darkened stage.

This is how the the Victoria College Drama Society’s production of The Drowsy Chaperone, directed by Meredith Shedden, begins: in total darkness. The voice belongs to the narrator, a nameless, endearing man in a knit red sweater, seated in an armchair to the side of the stage.

This narrator, played by Tom Fraser, organizes the production of Drowsy on two levels. On the surface level, the “Man in Chair,” listens to a record of the fictional musical called The Drowsy Chaperone from 1928 and provides scene-by-scene commentary from the comforts of his armchair and apartment.

The production itself is a parody of musicals in 1920s America.

There is also the frame narrative of the musical The Drowsy Chaperone. The musical begins with feverish excitement for the forthcoming marriage of popular musical actress Janet (Shannon Smith) and her fiancé Robert (Michael Henley). Janet plans to abandon acting after her marriage. The plot builds as Broadway producer Mr. Feldzieg (Kody McCann) tries desperately to prevent the marriage, lest he lose his job and fortune in losing Janet.

A significant portion of the comedic attempts in Drowsy feel outdated, as if they never quite made it past the late 1990s when Bob Martin and Don McKellar wrote the play. These weaker jokes contribute to

a recurring sense of overeager comedy in Drowsy, such as when Robert is carried on the shoulders of dancers while singing a monkey-themed anthem and gleefully clashing cymbals.

Despite this weakness, Drowsy is studded with subtle gems. Though she has only two appearances, Trix the Aviatrix (Lucinda Qu) sings with a refreshingly velvet voice.

There are a few moments of sharp and wellrehearsed tap-dancing. The well-curated costumes by Jaime Redford, Bailey Hoy, and Rachel Leggett enhance the fictional Drowsy’s 1928 charm. The comedy of Adol-

photo

| hana nikcevic

pho, the quick and well-poised “Latin lover” played by Ryan Falconer, adds a snarky lilt to the play’s dialogue.

It is Fraser, however, who brings the audience into the world of Drowsy and even makes them wish to stay. The audience receives subtle reminders throughout the production that the musical Drowsy is a product of Man in Chair’s record; at one point, he pauses the play to eat an energy bar, while at other points, he rises from his chair to dance alongside Drowsy’s unaware characters.

At first, Man in Chair had appeared to be a Holden Caulfield of the theatre, but

perhaps he is a bit softer, a bit sweeter. After the intermission, he not only switches from tea to whiskey, but from lighter humour to darker cynicisms. He reveals some bitterness towards love, subtly dropping hints about his recent divorce, his ex-partner’s mental illness, an absent father, and the confusions that arise due to these difficulties.

It is a sense of confusion, indeed, that emerges as Drowsy’s underlining note. This confusion is solidified in the production’s defining moment, in which the namesake character, the Chaperone, gives Janet a final piece of advice regarding her marriage. Just as the Chaperone is leaning in to give this wisdom, an object drops on stage and drowns out her words. Man in Chair pauses the record and jumps to his feet, pointing to his favourite moment of the entire play. It is impossible to decipher, he explains, whether the Chaperone’s advice was to “live while you can,” or to “leave while you can.” Space for uncertainty is created by this pivotal moment.

“Don’t you hate the theatre?” Man in Chair had asked. We know this rhetorical question is far from true for our protagonist by the end of the production. As the musical Drowsy falls into its concluding number, Man in Chair leaves his armchair to take a seat in the audience. In so doing, he signals acceptance—an acceptance of the “live while you can/leave while you can” moments, of the confusion that brings us together or breaks us apart, of the bittersweet taste beneath every surface. The audience is left with an understanding that, despite it all, we have theatre, song, and art to help us through.

ARTS AND CULTURE 13

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 30 JANUARY 2018

Making portraits without histories Google’s Arts & Culture app finds your face in art harrison wade associate arts and culture editor

There’s a rather erratic debate, at a broad, cultural level, about whether or not people should take selfies in art galleries.

An essay for or against selfies will occasionally surface, and following it will be counter-arguments in waves of tweets, which die out as quickly as they come. There doesn’t seem to be a solution, since neither side allows for any concessions.

But the staying power of the debate points to an ongoing dilemma: how do we navigate the traditions and expectations about how one “should” interact with capital-A Art, within a constantly changing modernity?

In an ironic twist, the selfie may turn out to be the art form to bridge Art and digital culture.

Google’s Arts & Culture app launched in 2016, adding an experimental selfie feature in December 2017 labelled “search with your selfie.” It wasn’t until this month that the feature, and app, went viral. Suddenly, there were selfie-portrait diptychs all over social media.

The feature uses an algorithm to match your face with a portrait drawn from Google’s database of images, gathered from its partner institutions. It presents your selfie beside a historic portrait, which you can swap out for other matches of descending accuracy. It’s as fun to find a near-perfect match as it is to discover a weird, unexpected portrait.

The app offers a number of other features, from essays to curated collections, but it’s the selfie-portrait feature that’s garnered public interest. There seems to be something inherently shareable about the concept; most of the joy comes from sharing the matches with friends, either in person or online. The selfie feature is successful because it gives access to the art world through a regular, contemporary experience.

When the side by side portraits are successful, they’re enchanting. Seeing your eyes or nose seemingly immortalized by a painter from another era is uncanny. The app is a form of time travel, one which creates a unity between the selfie and the portrait as art forms. It elevates the function of the selfie and de-mystifies the aura of Art. It recognizes that both forms of representation—often treated as polar extremes— are more similar than we think.

The results of the face match are easy to share (the app even has a built-in option) because it fragments the art, and turns the combined portraits into a meme. Your friends can

immediately judge the algorithm’s accuracy because they know your face. And no matter how obscure the painting, the form of the shared image will always be the same. You can understand your friends’ delight or frustration in an instant. An unexpected result of the app’s social media success, as pointed out by critic Emily Yoshida on Twitter, “is that everyone is just so dang excited to see what painting they look like that they’re taking their most unpolished, unoptimized selfies which collectively are kind of beautiful.”

illustration

| wren turner

Art is made accessible because it no longer needs to be about emotional or aesthetic identification. Sharing a painting or image that moves you, or a song that you love, de-

mands some sort of engagement from your friends. They have to work to make sense of how you might identify with the piece in question. This is an important and complex process, but not one suited to viral success. Google’s Arts & Culture makes identification all about representation. The app fragments the paintings it builds its portraits from, meaning you can recognize your friend’s face without needing, or wanting, to know the painting’s larger context. Its story, meaning, or history are cut out of existence.

And yet, the app has significant representational shortcomings. As Digg Editor Benjamin Goggin has pointed out, the app offers limited and conflicted results for people of colour, highlighting the flaws of Google’s partner institutions and its own algorithm. Google’s database draws primarily from museums and galleries in Western Europe and the United States, meaning matches have a larger chance of coming from those institutions. Instead of creating a truly international database (or granting access to less famous museums), this choice reinforces the hegemonic idea of capitalA art as European and white. Often the paintings drawn from these museums traffic in caricatures and stereotypes— contextual information which is present in art history but made invisible by the app’s fragmentation. Google says they are continuing to work “to bring diverse cultures from every part of the world online.”

Google’s Arts & Culture app—like most digital sensations—will probably see its users dwindle in the coming weeks. But surely a fraction of people who downloaded the app solely for the selfie-portrait will become regular users, capable of discovering the writing and histories available through the app’s other features. There’s a small part of me that wonders what might happen if Google collects digital versions of all available artworks. On the one hand, the app champions accessibility, removing the barriers that often keep museums and Art separate from our daily lives. On the other, Google is a corporation much more interested in capital and power than art.

At the very least, the experimental selfie portrait offers a new way of engaging with art, an alternative to the quiet, stiff way of walking through an art gallery. Google Arts & Culture has found a way to make art momentarily relevant.

Like taking selfies in museums, the app promotes interaction through acceptance of contemporary digital forms—and that should be celebrated.

Review: Groundling Theatre Company’s LEAR Shakespeare with a twist mena fouda contributor

To me, the thought of sitting through yet another production of Shakespeare wasn’t a very enticing one. However, a couple of names on Groundling Theatre Company’s program of LEAR had initially drawn me in: Colin Mochrie, a Canadian favourite from the improv television show Whose Line is it Anyway? was set to play the Fool, and Seana McKenna, an actress I refer to as “the Meryl Streep of the Canadian Stage,” was the leading lady.

The production presents a twist on the original story, where King Lear decides to divide his kingdom between his three children—so long as they declare their love for him. When his favourite child refuses to sweet-talk him solely for the sake of gaining the largest portion of the land, Lear grows angry and casts her away. The twist in this show was that there was no King Lear—but there was a Queen.

The gender-swap strengthened the production, adding unexpected layers to the original. Lear, instead of being a bitter old man, is portrayed as a troubled mother dealing with heartbreak, forced to maintain a mask of authority. The opening scenes, when Lear’s two power-hungry daughters are declaring their affections for their mother, were

genuine. Perhaps it was the added femininity that softened the exaggerated compliments and metaphors they spewed, but the words the actors spoke did not sound like tools to simply and selfishly help them gain power.

McKenna’s portrayal of a person who has lost nearly everything, including her wits, was heartbreaking. I wanted to crawl onto the stage and hug her. The play began with her character in such a high position, absolutely commanding the room and having every gaze transfixed on her, and ended with her pushed to the margins and stripped of both family and sanity.

In contrast to the highly emotional performances, the set struggled to provide anything to the story. The stage was composed of wooden panels that were positioned differently throughout the scenes. This failed as a visual aid in guiding the audience through the scenes, as wooden blocks in one scene looked suspiciously familiar to wooden blocks in another, whether it was in a courtroom or the exterior of a palace. The beginning scene had a decorated throne that McKenna’s character sat on, but then it was never seen again. It would have been interesting, perhaps, to keep the throne in the other scenes, but have different characters utilize it, to reflect the changing power dynamics throughout the play.

Groundling Theatre Company’s produc-

photo

tion of LEAR altered the Shakespearian story from an emotional perspective. Instead of being fueled by chivalry and revenge, the story focused on greater introspection: characters driven forward by their guilt, shame, and subtle cruelty. McKenna was stellar as

| groundling theatre company

always, making her character’s fall in power utterly devastating. With a strong cast led by women and people of colour, creative twists were successfully applied to this classical story.

14 STRANDED

EDITOR | REBECCA GAO STRANDED@THESTRAND.CA

I poured a medium coffee into a large cup What happened next will shock you photo

| leo morgenstern

Guess the Song!

Can you Guess the Song?! wilfred moeschter staff puzzler

Time for a quick brainteaser! See if you can identify the songs below by their most famous lines. Put away those phones—no Googling allowed!

Can you get them all?

1. Doo doo doo. Doodoodoo, dooooo, doodoo. Doo doo doo, doodoodoo dooooo doodoo!!!

2. baDOO DOO DOO DOO!!! Badoo doo doo doo doooo badoo doo doo dooooo doo doo 3. Da da da daaaa dadadaaaa.... dadada da daaaaaa dadadaaaa.... dadadaaaa dadada da da (da da) Keep an eye out for the answers in the next edition of The Strand!

leo morgenstern associate stranded editor, investigative journalist

While the Stranded section of The Strand is known for publishing humorous, made-up news, this story is 100% true, and I, for one, am furious. The red arrow in the image represents the additional amount of coffee you would get if you purchased a large instead of a medium. Plus, I had already taken a sip before I poured it, so really that arrow is generous. Does that red arrow look like it’s worth an extra 57 cents? Not to me, it doesn’t.

Well, that’s pretty much all I wanted to say. Just wanted to let you guys know about this. I don’t have a solution. I would recommend boycotting Second Cup, but I really like Second Cup. Oh well. photo

| epguides.com

The Bob Revue review max nisbeth the bob cast member

Experience, Emotion, Theatre. The stage encompasses all these things and more by doing something incredible: capturing life. Life is not a single story, it’s a quilt of individual moments. The Bob 2017 was one of the rare displays that was able to capture life in its purest form: through friendship, comedy, and, most importantly, humility. Amongst their abundant humbleness, as these actors passed dog food from one human mouth to another, the emotion they most prominently evoked was love. Though I don’t know this cast of characters individually, by the end of it all, it felt as though I may have seen a couple of them enter the building before the show.

In an undoubtedly humorous performance, I cried, I laughed, and I vigorously peed myself. I mean, the chair was completely soaked by the end of the first act.

The only reason I returned so late after the intermission was to draw as little attention as possible to my pursuit of a new, drier seat, which I later confidently flooded with urine.

This Bob is special in its sentiment but also in the sense of life it was able to distill. Going into next year, The Bob will lose several imperative cast members: Alex Leeming, Sumeeta Farrukh, Fateema Miller, Blaire

Golledge, Serena Chapin, Sabrina Oudine, and Matholimeue Brooks. Unfortunately, these cast members won’t be returning due to their disappearance on a Delta Airlines flight over Hawaii. Fortunately, I’ve heard they’ve also been picked up by J.J. Abrams for the cast of LOST: Next Generation.

However, this is not a moment of sadness; this is a moment of growth, of beginning, and also of a missing fuselage and tampered black boxes and smoke mon-

sters and hatches and Desmond and Kate we gotta go back. ANYHOW these moments of life fade and like a wise Gil once said, “Unlike TV, the theatre is forever.”

Though we may wince now, there is still hope as new talent begins to emerge just beyond the horizon. Young stars will rise, old ones will age, and the family of The Bob as I know it will only continue to blossom.

The Bob is life, and I love The Bob.

photo

| molly kay, freelance graphic designer for hire

STRANDED 15

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 30 JANUARY 2018

Victoria College sticker review Stick this where the Vic don’t shine photo

| hana nikcevic

max nisbeth disgraced stranded writer, convict

I’m baaaaaaaaack!!! After being fired for my controversial take on the Northrop Frye statue, I’ve been begged to come back and to take hold of the fiery reigns of the blazing chariot that is professional reviewing. Let me tell you—this hellbound inferno is only stopping for bathroom emergencies. We’ll get the dutyfree on the way back, Janis!

First off, let’s cut the Bull-South House Intramural Tennis! By selling these stickers, VUSAC has entered a war: the unwinnable war that is the sticker space on your laptop case. It’s unwinnable like my continued attempts to reclaim my old job at The Strand. The laptop lid is a very sacred space for the post-secondary student. This is a space where you can showcase your interests— not in a mode that forces you to converse or make eye contact with other human

beings, but one that entertains the procrastinating studier who, for a brief moment, looks up from their problem set in the hopes of finding salvation, only to stare directly into the dark seedy depths of your Powerpuff Girls Mojo Jojo sticker.

This Vic sticker’s inaccurate representation of Old Vic will have to fight tooth and nail to claim a coveted spot on such a sacred space. This sticker will have to fight as hard as I did when I was removed from the Strand office by cam-

Local friend RSVPs to event And actually shows up? sumeeta farrukh staff writer

TORONTO, ON—In a wild turn of events that has left the city shaken, local dude Drew McCormack actually showed up to a birthday party after having clicked “Going” on the Facebook event. Patrons of the venue, a local pub called The Box and The Riddle, are left astounded.

“That display of selflessness, heroism…I’ve never seen anything like that,” says Ricky, bartender.

In an official statement, Drew said: “I wanted to take this night to prioritize friendship, and to celebrate my friend. It’s really important to me and I know anyone else would have done the same in my place.”

Anyone else, but not Judy! Judy saw the invite, but didn’t RSVP. According to Sandra, another part-time friend: “Judy said she might drop by.” How very gracious of Judy. Witnesses say that, as of 17 minutes ago, Judy’s Snapchat story shows her taking shots with her roommates. Sources say she has been doing the same thing—with the same friends, at the same club—that she has been doing for three weekends straight. Yet, she couldn’t set aside any time in her busy schedule for her friend’s very important event.

Sources say Judy is going to miss out on good times!

Judy is going to miss out on these three guys screaming “Don’t Stop Believin’” at karaoke! Judy is going to miss out on these sweet potato fries our table just ordered! (sources say).

pus security for refusing to leave. Nothing can beat a MOJO JOJO sticker!

NOTHING! I digress. This sticker is a great way to inject your Vic pride into multiple media. You can put it on your notebooks, your bulletin boards, your new Nintendo 3DS, your dog, your friends, your limited edition Dragonball GT Piccolo action figure. Or you could be one of those people who puts their stickers directly onto their laptop because they like to watch the world burn. It is an irreversible process, as irreversible as the humiliation I felt as I was slowly and expertly dragged out of the Strand office.

In doing so you permanently prevent the sticker from being removed without force. It would have to be removed with a certain level of precision and power that the campus security guards enacted when they tactically peeled my limp, quivering body from the building.

Which leads me to my final point: they did not ask me to come back. I intercepted issue eight of The Strand before it made it to the printing press. I hacked the system like Angelina Jolie in Hackers, with fingerless gloves, rollerblades, tinted yellow runner’s glasses, and a crop top.

I will likely be hunted down by campus security for the rest of my life. On the run. Cursed. Tortured by the anguish of my past actions. For my final words I write: Vic Stickers: I only saw them once. 5/6 campus security guards.

16 STRANDED

@STRANDPAPER THE STRAND | 30 JANUARY 2018

Michael Cera just revealed that he doesn’t like corn

photo

| getty images

leo morgenstern associate stranded editor

In what is being described by experts as “a bad day for corn,” celebrated Canadian actor Michael Cera has released a statement claiming that he does not like corn. The shocking declaration came at a press conference Cera held last week. Reporters were informed that Cera was to reveal a newsworthy surprise, but were not forewarned that it was going to be about corn.

“I presumed he’d be announcing a new movie or maybe a play,” says The New York Times journalist Sarah Chong. “But instead he just said: ‘I do not like corn. Corn is bad.’ And then he got up and left. That’s not normally how press conferences go.”

“I DO NOT LIKE CORN. CORN IS BAD.” While Cera’s announcement was shocking to most, some die-hard fans claim to have known all along. One anonymous fan, who runs a Tumblr with the username @ Cornspiracy, has been sharing evidence on his blog for years. Says @Cornspiracy, “It all occurred to me seven years ago when I noticed that Michael Cera has never appeared in a commercial for corn. That’s weird right? Almost all corn commercials feature actors. And Michael Cera is an actor. It just doesn’t add up.”

While many have supported Cera following his controversial revelation, others have been more critical. Among his most vocal detractors are the Modern Family Twitter account, and Mr. Bean actor Rowan Atkinson.

The Strand reached out to Corn for comment, but has not received a response by press time.