Tag Archives: Culture

I’m Sorry, but Keira Knightley’s Topless Photo Does Not Count as a Win in the War Against Photoshop

Posted on November 12, 2014 by | 8 comments

I consider myself a somewhat fit person. I try to do yoga at least once a week. I bike to school. I force-feed myself smoothies (I’ve almost convinced myself that I like them). I also think I’m a fairly confident person. The mental image I hold of myself is, if anything, a little too gracious.

Damn girl, you’re looking fine today!

That being said, after unwillingly encountering photo after photo of perfectly photoshopped women day after day, sometimes I start feeling pretty freaking ugly.

This feeling of inadequacy, directly linked to viewing altered images, makes a lot of people wish there was a wider representation of body types in the media. We want to see people who look like us on TV and in magazines. And we want to see those people presented as attractive, not merely as comic relief or as a foil to the attractive characters. Continue reading →

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Posted in celebrity, feminism, media, sex

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Jian Ghomeshi Part II: What Should We Do With Our Monsters?

Posted on November 5, 2014 by | 6 comments

It’s been a little over a week since the news about Ghomeshi went viral. Since the news first hit, nine women have come forward anonymously to the media and three have already reported their case to the police.

The increasing number of testimonies has pretty well solidified his guilt in the public eye, and everyone from the PR firm he hired to the musician he managed have withdrawn their support from him.

Since Ghomeshi was a familiar presence in most Canadian homes, many Canadians felt personally betrayed by his actions. When my husband, John, tried to identify his own interest in the case, he explained it like this,

“When you hear someone’s voice so often, you start to feel like you know who they are. So when you discover the truth about terrible things they have done, it’s shocking to realize that you never really knew them at all.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve have heard about the terrible things familiar faces (or in this case, voices) have done. The difference is, in the past, we have tried to forget the monsters hidden in the public men and women we admire. Continue reading →

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Posted in celebrity, morality, relationships, sex

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What Are We Afraid Of?

Posted on November 3, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Well folks, October has come and gone, and gone with it is the movie industry’s litter of trope-y, recycled Halloween cash-ins.

Yes, I’m talking about you. Now get out of here. Scram.

This means we can get back to the horror movies being made as movies first, rather than cynical money-grabs.

Excluding the Paranormal Activity franchise, but obviously that goes without saying…

See, say what you like about horror flicks (and there’s no shortage of criticism to be leveled), I do truly believe this is a genre just as important as any other- heck, possibly even more. At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s a better gauge for contemporary culture than the things we fear most as a society. Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa, America, art, bizarreness, film, race, religion, science fiction, zombies

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A Visual Reminder of What Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (Still) Looks Like

Posted on October 22, 2014 by | Leave a comment

We’ve discussed sexual harassment a lot on this blog. My last post was on the hacked photos of Jennifer Lawrence, a public event that easily qualifies as sexual harassment. In the past I’ve discussed other forms of internet harassment, as well as the problem of sexual harassment in the work environment of female RCMP officers. Evan also touched on this issue in his article about how it’s being combatted at conventions, while Gordon recently wrote on the“Yes Means Yes” Bill meant to address sexual harassment on college campuses.

Obviously it’s an issue we all consider very important. That’s why it was so cool when we were recently contacted by a woman whose colleague had been doing research in the area of sexual harassment, specifically harassment in the workplace. She also offered us this infographic, the result of said research, to share with our readers. I hope you all will appreciate it as much as we do.

Courtesy of Frank Nicholas. Click the image itself to link to their site and a full article accompanying the infographic.

Continue reading →

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Posted in crime, sex

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CWR’s Halloween Movie Recommendations II

Posted on October 5, 2014 by | 1 comment

Well readers, it’s that time of the year again.

Decorations are going up, costumes are coming out, and here at your favorite blog in the whole wide world, we’ve got your latest batch of chilling and thrilling movie recommendations.

Let’s get to it.

Splice

You know all those classic monster movies with heavy-handed messages about scientists playing God?

This isn’t one of ’em.

Quite the opposite, in fact: Splice is arguably a movie showing just the reverse, the danger of not providing scientists with the necessary resources and trust. And while that’s a long overdue message, beyond that, Splice is a simply fantastic horror flick. Well-acted, well-funded, well-shot, and even if you manage to see certain plot points coming, they’re only made all the more disturbing for it. Continue reading →

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Posted in bizarreness, film, science fiction

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ISIS, Gaza, Ebola, and Robin Williams: Dealing with Grief on the Large and Small Scale

Posted on August 13, 2014 by | 1 comment

This week I emerged from my happy little language cult in a tiny remote Quebecois town.

I emerged to discover a lot of sadness.

I had already been hearing bits and pieces about the deaths in Gaza and the lives lost to Ebola before I even left Trois-Pistoles, but the last few days I’ve also been hearing a variety of horrific rumours about ISIS. Last night when I started researching for tonight’s blog, I thought I would look into the veracity of those articles.

That was a bad idea.

At the time, I had a hard time finding coverage of the things I had heard about from any reputable sources. And the things I did come across were highly disturbing and meant to be provoking. I’m not actually going to link to anything I came across in my search, because I don’t want to see those images ever again. I don’t know when or where those photos were taken. I don’t know if they are fake or real. All I know is that they made me very very angry. And they made me feel very, very powerless.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Africa, America, celebrity, Comedy, crime, Islam, media, morality

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