Tag Archives: celebrity

Jian Ghomeshi vs. The Women: 4 Reasons Why Liking Q Isn’t a Good Enough Reason to Defend Him

There’s been a lot of big news Canada over the last week. On Wednesday, a mentally ill man shot and killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, a soldier who was guarding the National War Memorial, before storming the Parliament building. The shooter, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, was then shot by 58-year-old Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, preventing any more casualties.

According to CBC’s sources, Vickers “dove to the floor around the pillar [where Bibeau was shooting from], turning on his back as he landed and simultaneously firing his weapon upwards at Bibeau”. Pretty impressive for an almost-60-year-old.

Yet the story of Cirillo’s death and Vicker’s heroism was quickly pushed aside when the news about Jian Ghomeshi hit.

When John and I first heard that Ghomeshi was going on leave we didn’t think much of it, and both said, “Well, we know he isn’t going to get fired. People love Q.”

Famous last words eh?

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Stripping Jennifer Lawrence: Not What She Did, But Why

Okay, so Jennifer Lawrence. Kat and I actually discussed her in one of our first Culture War Correspondences ever, back when the actress [or actor, I haven’t decided how I feel about the term being gender neutral] and the positive attention she was garnering online was creating an equal if not greater amount of backlash. However these days people aren’t talking about how much she loves food or her general sense of coordination when walking up to receive an Oscar.

Kat’s most recent post delves into the perception of the leaked nude photos of Lawrence, falling firmly on the side [the same one I do] that the people who should really be blamed are the ones who invaded her and many others’ personal privacy. To once again quote the same two sentences from her Vanity Fair
interview that so many have been latching onto, and rightly so, “It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime.”

Here’s that cover again.

I could have easily left it at that, except that her interview with Vanity Fair went just a little bit further. Lawrence explained that she had no reason to make any apologies to anyone, which I continue to agree with, but justified
the action of taking the pictures in the first place she said:

“I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you.”

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Unofficial Fame Day: Henry Rollins

Today’s post comes to you late because my iconoclastic, point by point take down of liberalism (yep, liberalism) wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be.

Well, that’s at least part of the reason.

Since our collective busy schedules have forced us to [temporarily] drop Fame Days from our rotation, I’ve also been concerned that this blog might get a little too negative. I figure I’d put off alienating everyone I know and point out something positive at the same time- and that “something” is actually a “someone“.

Henry ****ing Rollins.

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Shame Day: Your Fave Is Problematic

Writing “Shame Days” is harder than it looks. You gotta find a subject that’s extensive enough to merit an entire post of ranting without it being so reprehensible as to leave you speechless (Scott Lively, you satanic **********er, I’m looking at you). With that in mind, and as it’s rapidly approaching 9:00 PM as I write these words, we’re going to revisit an old subject that I personally don’t think got the lashing they deserve.

So who’s being drawn and quartered today?

It was in the title of this piece, so I guess the question’s pretty dang redundant.

“Your Fave is Problematic” is a Tumblr blog devoted, much like these Shame Day posts, to calling out celebrities and artists who the authors view as having committed bigotry in some form or another. Evan and I have both briefly touched on these guys, with us generally concluding that while noble in intent, they tend to be a bit extreme in their measures of what is and isn’t acceptable. Evan specifically stated that “I truly believe that Your Fave Is Problematic is doing a good thing”, however, after myself digging through their blog a bit more, I really just can’t say the same.

These guys are *******es.

Let me break it down here. Continue reading

Neil Young and the Tar Sands

On January 12, 2014 Canadian singer Neil Young spoke out against the Alberta Tar Sands on his “Honour the Treaties” tour to “raise money for the legal fight against the expansion of the Athabasca oil sands in northern Alberta and other similar projects, in Toronto.” I’ve included the video for you to see for yourself below. 

Since deciding to speak out Young has been under a considerable amount of criticism. A radio station in Fort McMurray has responded with a “No Neil” day. They’ve been trying to get the #notawasteland hashtag trending on twitter and banned his music on their station. One of my favorite journalists (that’s sarcasm, FYI), Rex Murphy, insists that Young is a “man who cannot distinguish the nuclear bombing of city from a worksite [and] is plainly in need of rest and instruction.”  A spokesperson for the Canadian government responded by saying that “Even the lifestyle of a rock star relies, to some degree, on the resources developed by thousands of hard-working Canadians every day.”

I first heard about Young’s controversial statement on CBC radio as the host asked callers to respond with their opinion. The reoccurring theme coming from callers seemed to be “what does he know”. As a young person I found it especially frustrating when callers would insist that youth would now follow Young’s cause in droves, because you know us young people, we just do whatever celebrities tell us to. Continue reading

Culture War Correspondence: The Internet’s Disenchantment with Jennifer Lawrence

KAT: Friends, readers, earthmen, lend us your eyes for another Culture War Correspondence. This week Evan and I will be discussing Jennifer Lawrence. It may sound like a broad topic, but maybe Evan can expand for us why she recently came to his attention.

EVAN: Well, in general there’ve been a number of articles, like this one on Salon, that hint at an impending wave of internet backlash towards J-Law [I will not be referring to her like that again]. This has been backed up by comments on popular image hosting website imgur that sum up to, “still?” and/or “okay, we get it.”

But before we really delve into all of that I think it’d be good if we both answered the question: How do you feel, generally, about Ms. Lawrence?

KAT: Well, I’ve written about her in the past and my opinion tends to be generally the same. She seems authentic to me, and while I realize no one can be truly authentic in the public eye, I enjoy seeing a celebrity in the news that I can relate to.

How about you? Continue reading