Tag Archives: writing

2015’s Cultural Battleground – Kat’s Account

EDITOR’S NOTE: We end this year by each taking a look back and picking our five best posts, explaining both their importance to us and to the world we currently live in.  Clicking the banner images will link you to each post, so as 2014 comes to a close join us in remembering how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go.

RachelBrown

After the recent acts of Daesh terrorism in Paris I returned to this interview with PhD Candidate Rachel Brown to get some perspective. While Brown’s work was focused on food and religious identity in French and Quebecois Muslim immigrant communities, it also highlights how isolation and religious persecution can push young people towards accepting religious extremism. In the interview, Brown explains,

“I’m not really an expert in ISIS or Jihadist fighters or any of the topics that relate to this. I can say that when people, especially youth, feel alienated, when they don’t feel at home anywhere, this can lead to finding identity in extreme forms of religion. If the religious identity is the only identity that one feels they can claim, he/she is going to place a huge amount of importance on that identity.”

nestle

This year, a petition began circulating that condemned Nestlé’s operations here in British Columbia. While Nestlé has been operating here in B.C. for 15 years, residents became particularly concerned during the drought this past summer.  As Gordon has pointed out in his previous Shame Day post, Nestlé doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to respecting other countries and their water needs. In this post we take a closer look at the relationship between Canadian water and the American corporations that would like to bottle it up. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E3 “And the Maybe Baby”: A TV Review

maybebaby

Now I’m not television executive or anything, but scheduling a sitcom to regularly air on American Thanksgiving seems unwise to me. Then again, the one and only time I’ve ever celebrated the holiday with a family in the US we gorged ourselves in the early afternoon, opening up our evening to whatever we wanted, so what do I know.

On the other hand, maybe some kind of holiday episode was called for? I guess its absence is what happens when CBS’s comedy lineup is in such flux that 2 Broke Girls‘ season premiere is announced just one month before it airs. At the very, very least you’d think that given the title this week would be covering some sort of pregnancy or infant-related incident.

Nope, this week we get the return of Candy Andy.  Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E2 “And the Gym and Juice”: A TV Review

gymjuice

A lot of the time, when I wish I had implemented a grading system into these reviews when I first started two years ago, it’s because I want to underscore how truly bad an episode was. Not this week. This week I wish that I was able to qualify how good 2 Broke Girls usually is so that I could give “And the Gym and Juice” an A.

And no, this isn’t a particularly groundbreaking twenty-something minutes of situation comedy, but it is exactly what it needs to be, which is to say that it’s funny. Just two episodes into their fifth season and 2 Broke Girls appears confident in allowing its titular characters to truly carry the show, and they do so in a truly admirable fashion. I’m not sure if there was a shake-up in the writers room, but whatever happened it has me generally looking forward to future installments of the show. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E1 “And the Wrecking Ball”: A TV Review

wreckingball

Back like a bad rash, and this time on Thursday nights! That’s right, CBS has finally started airing the fifth season of 2 Broke Girls and not even the AV Club, who stopped reviewing the show midway through the second season, could ignore its momentous return to the television landscape.

When we last left our heroines at the culmination of Season 4 they were headed off to France for a much-needed vacation. More importantly, however, they realized they had been neglecting their dream of running their own cupcake business [mostly through apparel-related moneymaking schemes]. While they waited for their plane to begin taxiing down the runway Max turned to Caroline and confided:

“Well, partner, after all we’ve been through this year, whatever comes next I kinda feel ready for it.”

In this episode, scripted and directed by showrunner Michael Patrick King, we find that “whatever comes next” includes a rude tour guide who shares a name with yogourt [Dannon] and the threat of their little corner of Williamsburg being levelled to make way for an IMAX theatre. At least one of these two is a substantial hurdle to the success of their business, as the absence of a storefront would make selling cupcakes pretty difficult. Also the loss of the diner, ostensibly their primary source of income. Continue reading

Marvel’s New Black Panther and the Ghettoization of Comic Books

Black_Panther_Cover_StelfreezeThis week Marvel announced that their new Black Panther title, dropping next spring, would be drawn by Brian Stelfreeze and, more importantly to many, penned by Ta-Nehisi Coates. For those of you unfamiliar with the latter Coates was at one point most well-known for his contributions to The Atlantic, in particular the contentious “The Case for Reparations”. More recently, however, a significant amount of attention has been given to his second published book, Between the World and Me, which was released just this past July.

The various news outlets that have covered this story, those dedicated to comic book journalism and otherwise, have taken note of the fact that both Coates and Stelfreeze are African-American. While the character himself hails from the fictional African nation of Wakanda he is nonetheless Black, and many have praised the publisher for allowing top-of-their-game, Black creators to take the reins of the person soon to be their most famous Black hero [due to his appearance in the upcoming film Captain America: Civil War].

Totally_Awesome_Hulk_1_CoverThis announcement comes, while not necessarily hot on the heels of, soon after Marvel breaking the news that the latest character to hold their own Hulk title will be Amadeus Cho. A Korean-American character and one of the smartest people on the planet despite his years, his adventures were also given to another match made in comic book A-list heaven. Writer Greg Pak and artist Frank Cho are both Korean-Americans themselves, with the former being of mixed descent. In the very same vein as next year’s Black Panther this December’s Totally Awesome Hulk bears a creative team that has a lot racially, as well as culturally, in this case, in common with their book’s titular character. Continue reading

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s Unbelievable Dong Nguyen

dongSo after four months of dragging my feet I finally got around to watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, a Netflix exclusive show I had been meaning to check out if only to join in the conversation that Em Liu over at Fiction Diversity started surrounding the character of Dong Nguyen, played by Ki Hong Lee. Before I really get into things it has come to my attention that I can be negative, so allow me to preface this post with a list [CAUTION: spoilers from here onwards]:

1. I liked [and continue to like] Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It not only succeeds, but soars on the merits of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s comedy as well as Ellie Kemper’s unbridled performance.

2.  I’m grateful a character like Dong Nguyen exists. Asian characters are rare enough on TV, let alone as romantic leads [something we desperately need].

3. I wish nothing but the best for Ki Hong Lee and have absolutely nothing against the guy. Similar to how I feel about Austin Falk on 2 Broke Girls my criticisms of a character do not affect my opinions about the actor portraying them. I think it’s great that he made #4 on People‘s 2014 Sexiest Man Alive list and hope it’s the first milestone of many.

I also want to mention that Em, whose article I linked to up above, has primarily approached Dong Nguyen as a character who subverts, instead of embodies, stereotypes. That’s ultimately not something I’m going to be delving into. Instead what I’d like to address is how Dong holds up as a believable Asian character, specifically as a Vietnamese person, and how this reflects on the show’s creators. Continue reading