pop culture
The 'boob tube' and feelin' Canadian
Feeling Canadian: Television, Nationalism, and Affect
(Wilfrid Laurier University Press,
2011;
$32.95)
Feeling Canadian, by academic and filmmaker Marusya Bociurkiw, explores the impact of television and corporate culture on Canadian identity.
Bociurkiw's book is not organized as a linear argument aimed at proving a thesis, however. Instead, she examines specific "traumatic points" in televised Canadian history. The cultural artifacts and traumatic points studied include the television shows A People's History of Canada and Loving Spoonfuls, the Molson Canadian television commercial "The Rant" featuring Joe Canadian and Pierre Trudeau's funeral. She studies these shows in order to determine how much the elusive Canadian identity is simply a product of commercial culture.
How Disney devours our daughters
Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
(Harper Collins,
2011;
$28.99)
A brand-new father told me that the (Toronto) hospital nurse wrapped his baby with a blanket which was blue on one side and pink on the other. She swaddled with the blue side out, then realized the newborn was a girl and re-swaddled with the pink side out. All this, about five minutes after birth.
Celebrating comic subversives
Satiristas
(It Books,
2010;
$32.99)
In photographer Dan Dion's portrait of comedian, satirist, playwright and Daily Show essayist Lewis Black, the subject -- in his sweater and glasses, seated comfortably at what looks like a hotel bar -- appears at first glance to be a picture of the artist in late middle-age.
Hollywood's banner year for black stereotypes
You would think that the election of a black president would have put a dent in one or two of the more negative black stereotypes, but the more things change, the more they stay the same. In 2009, Hollywood movies portrayed blacks as violent criminals; sexually depraved and promiscuous females; dimwitted drug dealers; fat, illiterate young people; uncaring, insensitive mothers; and observers of voodoo and black magic. Indeed, 2009 was a banner year for negative black stereotypes.
Avatar: A liberal message, complete with 3D glasses
So, I have a confession to make: I've seen James Cameron's new film Avatar two times in three days: this is a rarity. I'm not a big movie-goer generally, and am even less excited by apolocalyptic sci-fi flicks that feature large, blue alien warriors.