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Robinson rebuke reinforces negative assumptions about aboriginals

By
Peak Web
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2

robinson the peak

Just because investigative journalism sullies a local hero doesn’t make it less valid

By Helena Friesen
Photos by Eleanor Qu

In Feb. 3’s column, Eric Onderwater asked the student body to “Leave John Furlong Alone.” Furlong, who has been accused of abusing aboriginal students during his stint as a voluntary teacher up North in the 70s, is also the former CEO of VANOC. Onderwater asks SFU students to ignore the laundry list of allegations against Furlong, which include his use of a leather strap on students, multiple accounts of sexual assault and his penchant for racist slurs.

Onderwater accuses Robinson (the Georgia Straight journalist who broke the story) of fabricating it with the intention of becoming famous, selecting Furlong at random as the target. Because most journalists would risk their entire careers in order to break a story about a marginalized group of people that most Canadians are not sympathetic towards while tearing down a local celebrity. A bulletproof plan if ever there was one.

Let’s do a little math: a furlong was typically used to measure the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. It is approximately the equivalent of 5 km. Currently there are over 6.5 km worth of archived material and documents related to residential schools that are inaccessible because the government has refused to provide the resources to bring them out of storage. One furlong is equivalent to approximately 33 John Furlongs. This means you would need 3575 Mr. Furlongs in order to understand how much material the government is not allowing us to access.

Although John Furlong was not teaching at what is technically a residential school, he did teach at a Catholic school that had virtually the same mission of assimilation, humiliation and degradation. In fact, they even shared some of the same teachers. Because of this technicality, none of the students were compensated for the mistreatment they endured.

The millions of documents that attest to the conditions of residential schools are currently unavailable, seemingly because the government would like to make it as difficult as possible to access our atrocious history. If more people were aware, pieces like Onderwater’s would never be penned. Onderwater’s article reinforces the dominant attitude held by Canadians, and he works hard to delegitimize aboriginal people and silence their voices.

He states “Robinson thinks. . . Aboriginals are saintly creatures in need of every resource the government has to offer.” He conveniently neglects the fact that the entire population of Canada uses government funds, like the ones we get to keep the university running, to pave our roads, or to give subsidies to oil corporations.

The effects of residential schooling are not up for debate. If the allegations against Furlong are true, he must be held accountable. More importantly, Canadians need to stop believing the lie that indigenous people are bathing in pools of money with endless resources. It is important to contextualize the conditions of different aboriginal communities.

There is no monolithic aboriginal identity, or experience. Making sweeping generalizations about a group of people is called stereotyping and is best friends with a concept I like to call racism. How many Furlongs will it take for people to finally start believing aboriginal people and give it a rest? We can only hope that work like Robinson’s continues to highlight the gross negligence the government shows towards groups of people. I’m not so sure we need to leave John Furlong alone, but it would probably be best if Onderwater recognized the SFU community does not support his solo act.

Who’s afraid of feminism?

By
Peak Web
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0

WEB-masculism-Mark Burnham

The masculist movement seems to think it has girl cooties at any rate

By Rachel Braeuer
Photos by Mark Burnham

There was a point in my life where I thought being a feminist was abhorrent. If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written before, take a minute to let that sink in. I understand the motivations that make the growing masculist movement want to grow independently from feminism, but I’m here to tell you it’s an unnecessary divide.

Eric Bock’s proposed event “Why UBC needs Masculism” is an enigma. Is it serious or is it a joke? Bock didn’t respond to a request for an interview, so the best I can do is assume based on the responses given on the page. He does cite studies about men getting raped and the increasing incidence of eating disorders in men. Comments from others who seem to take the event seriously felt honest, but were all shrouded in what I’d call hipster irony, save for fear that would be patronizing, err, matronizing?

None of the serious posts made on the board that I saw were off base. Men do face serious issues that are directly related to their gender. But let’s make two things clear: women had to fight for their right to be taken seriously in a man’s world for a long time and (with less frequency) still do. I appreciate, if the organizers are serious and not just mocking the “Why UBC needs feminism” event from the week before, how it feels to have people not take you seriously because of your gender. Really, this response proves their point, if they’re genuinely trying to make one.

Secondly, feminism (maybe not radical feminism, but generally) has, for at least a decade, been talking about and trying to proactively resolve these “men’s issues.” It was in women’s studies classes that I was introduced to studies in masculinity, not while interloping in the men’s locker room. This is what really gets me down. Men can be and are feminists. The white ribbon campaign was started by men, for men. One of the organizers of Slutwalk in Vancouver is male. If asked, I’d call most of the guys I know feminists. However, if I told them that, I imagine some would be displeased.

Masculists often talk about the need for “safe spaces for men.” I think this is one of the areas where feminist and masculists aren’t seeing eye-to-eye, and I wonder if this is a question of phrasing. When feminists talk about safe space for women, it references women only having a voice inside their own homes, and still being thought of as either the father or husband’s property (fun fact: rape was, until the mid-20th century, thought of as property damage because of this!)

Until women demanded their safe spaces outside of the home, all other spaces were, by default, men’s spaces. I agree that men don’t have arenas where they can talk about issues that impact them the way women do, but trying to usurp the need for safe spaces or appropriate feminist phrases demonstrates the unchecked privilege some masculists exhibit and places the movement in direct and arbitrary opposition with feminism.

If the masculist movement takes off and makes positive changes for men that in turn benefit everyone, I’ll still be sad I didn’t get to bro-out with everyone under the banner of feminism, but I’ll still be happy. I will support any movement that raises consciousness and promotes equality, but if masculists are going to rhetorically posit themselves against a movement that has been trying to advocate in similar way to them for years, I can’t help but be matronizing.

Critical thinking in the classroom

By
Peak Web
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0

These skills are sadly lacking in a lot of upper-division seminars

By Daryn Wright

When surveyed, most undergraduate students claim that the most important thing they’ve gained from university is the ability to think critically. To this I ask: where is this critical thinking in the classroom? Because I’m not seeing much of it.

As an English major, most of what my peers and I do is engage in discussions about this or that text. Can we read Othello as having a homosexual theme? What can we derive from the metrical variation in Paradise Lost? Success as a student of English literature depends wholly on ones ability to pull meaning from text where it is not explicit — or to take what is explicit and explain why it is meaningful. It is a tragic moment when you’re sitting in a fourth-year English course — one where you expect your fellow classmates to have some critical thinking abilities about them — and the only discussion threads are “these lines are cool,” or worse, “I thought this was interesting.”

Well great, I’m glad you thought those lines were cool and interesting, because T.S. Eliot did some cool things and was an interesting guy, but can you tell me why you think so? This is where so many discussions stop: the dead-end alleyway of ignored metaphors and misinterpreted verses.

Constructing meaning from text, or from anything for that matter, is not merely a matching game either, as so many students seem to believe. Finding parallels in literature is not a hard thing to do — in fact, often the text nurtures this kind of engagement — but pairing two objects or concepts together is not enough to constitute an argument. This is one thing we could all learn from philosophy students, who, bless their hearts, are taught to tango in the form of logically sound arguments at an early stage in their education.

They are taught that simply pairing A and B together does not equal C, and no matter how much fluffy rhetoric they pack around that argument, it is not going to arrive in Timbuktu in one piece. If there is anything that English students — and all students in general — could benefit from, it’s a lesson in logic.

Is this problem rooted in the way we’ve been taught, or is it a form of laziness? Perhaps it is a badly-made cocktail of both causes, taking the form of rhetorically inflated discussions and papers that aren’t really arguing anything. Maybe this is my own disappointment speaking, but I thought that by the time we got to upper level courses we were supposed to have left behind the practice of merely matching “interesting” things.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes classroom discussions result in the cracking open of texts in the most unexpected and exciting way, and collectively we are able to tease out revealing analogies and new interpretations. What directly follows from this is that tingly feeling you get in the bottom of your toes, that indication that the discussion has been enlightening in some way.

The opposite of this is the feeling of an exceedingly heavy skull as the class continues to hover around that one line that “sounds so cool.”

Maybe I’m being too harsh, and by no means am I a model academic, but if there’s one thing I can hope for in a university education, it’s that critical thinking will make its way back into our discussions, and that distracted, meaningless claims will make themselves scarce.

What are ‘values’ anyway?

By
Peak Web
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0

what are values the peak

In a culture as diverse as Canada’s, rhetorical appeals to shared values are empty statements

By Mohamed Sheriffdeen
Illustration by Ben Buckley

If you pay attention to political rhetoric, nearly every speech issued by someone campaigning for your vote embraces the idea of “our values” or “our shared values” or “our core values.”

President Obama is enamoured with the phrase, and you cannot skim through Thomas Mulcair’s website without stumbling over the term repeatedly (a brilliant drinking game if you can hold your liquor). It can be used as a weapon, a commitment to a relationship, and even be glossed over when suitable.

In a draft of the ‘Canadian Foreign Policy Plan’ leaked by CBC News in Nov 2012, a commitment to economic negotiations with China was made, glossing over cavernous ideological schisms and approaches to individual freedoms. To wit: “we will need to pursue political relationships in tandem with economic interests even where political interests or values may not align.” This stance canonizes a dollars-first mindset despite a commitment made by our PM in November 2006 to not “sell out important Canadian values, our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights . . . to the almighty dollar.”

So what are values anyway? The term is shifting and fluid, a catchall thrown together to bestow upon you, the voter, a belief that your government has your best interests at heart; whether that term is concrete or simply addresses economic, social, cultural, religious and/or political ideologies that occupy the public imagination at any given moment is up for debate.

It is hard to presume that those cultural values harboured by every single demographic in this or any country are held across the board, and indeed the argument can be made that those “values” espoused in North America are Judeo-Christian ideals that swing right and left on a decade-by-decade basis.

It is the commitment to these“values” that convinced John Baird to embarrassingly flex imaginary international political clout when Palestine was granted a confirmation of statehood by the UN. It is the commitment to these ‘values’ that led Harper’s government to circumvent parliamentary dissection of individual mandates within their highly publicized omnibus budget bills in the so-called interest of economic security. Harper once screamed that, “corruption is not a Canadian value!” when Paul Martin had the audacity to associate Liberal values with those of all Canadians.

Indeed, the amount of rhetoric and projection is so thick that it shrouds clear conversation — one cannot argue hypotheticals. So, the question remains, what are our values? They are whatever we need them to be. The idea is a useless and outdated political tool. It is impossible to identify an individual set of values with all Canadians; the cultural, religious and political diversity in our country is staggering and not all individuals may feel they are aptly represented by government, but politicos still make hay by rallying around a single, presumptuously unifying flag.

Why? Because the need to believe in something greater than the individual is a stirring call. “Our values” is the broadest, vaguest phrase in modern politics, but it allows the listener to fill in the gaps, crowd-sourcing national policy, in a grotesque vote grab that alienates the people it intends to unite.

Prevailing conditions in our southern cousin illustrates the danger of this approach. Values can be used by an individual or a group to promote an inconsistent agenda and assume an executive role with a presumed morality. Exercise gun control? Not a chance, it infringes
upon our rights.

But what about individuals with alternate lifestyles and sexualities? Do they deserve the right to enter into unions and pass on death benefits to their partners? If they violate our values, god no. What rights or values are divine? Which are human constructs, and which can truly be universally applied? Nobody really knows, and neither does your government. Prattling on about a shady, undefined set of values belittles our intelligence and drives us away from a secular government whose sole focus should be the establishment of rules and regulations derived from a clear focus on the common good. Let us move on from the white noise and demand clarity.

Vancouver lives on without the Waldorf

By
Peak Web
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0

Stop crying over spilled milk from your vintage cereal and get out there.

By Gloria Mellesmoen

Until now, I have been more than sympathetic to your lamenting cries about how nothing will be the same and how you cannot believe that this is happening to you. This might sound a little brash, but it is something that needs to be said: you need to get over it.

The mourning period has past and my patience is quickly waning. Everything comes to an end eventually and The Waldorf was no exception. You need to move on. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. Quite frankly, I am sick of hearing the whining about The Waldorf’s closure. I cannot fathom why people are so fixated on a venue that is at an end when there are so many vibrant locations that are worth talking about in Vancouver.

The way we are treating The Waldorf is much like how in death we tend to exaggerate about how loved or wonderful someone was. The Waldorf is overrated. We need to stop talking about what is gone and appreciate the things we still have.

Funky Winkerbeans on a weeknight is a perfect example of an underrated venue. The gritty nature of the bar and its East Hastings location will drive some away, but that part of its charm is what keeps me frequenting it.

Funky’s somehow manages to be both rough and laidback, a combination which promotes a “come as you are” ambiance and attracts the kind of people who have a story. The conversations
I have had in the bathroom there have been some of the most interesting I have ever had. This is a stark contrast to many of the vapid interactions I have had while waiting in lines at classier places, such as The Waldorf.

My wallet will also attest that Funky Winkerbeans is a better venue for a night of drinking. As a student, I tend to gravitate to locations where cheap alcohol is present and this is a good location for that. Even Caribou is attractive when put in a pitcher with a $12 price tag.

With a goal of getting drunk (and the way that Caribou will almost always taste better with more consumed), Funky’s offers the perfect off-campus drinking experience.

Though the other patrons and the price of alcohol are incentive enough on their own, the best part of Funky Winkerbeans on a weeknight is The Evil Bastard Karaoke Experience. The magic begins around 9 p.m. and comes without a cover charge.

There is no kind of judgemental or pretentious atmosphere here. Everyone, regardless of how well they can sing, is able to get on stage and sing. I am effectively tone deaf and even I can drag someone up with me, with the encouragement of Caribou, to belt out Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” with confidence. The best part is that they have no Nickelback on their song list and likely never will.

Though the Waldorf closing is without doubt unfortunate, Vancouver has a plethora of worthwhile joints for entertainment and drinks that deserve to be the topic of conversation. There is no reason to lament for what was when we have such great places like Funky Winkerbeans that still exist.
 

Letters to the Editor – February 18, 2013

By
Peak Web
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0

Dear Editor,

I’d like to give a reminder to all students who ride the bus.

Please, look up from your portable devices once in awhile, and if you see an older person standing, get up onto those strong young legs of yours and offer your seat out of respect.

These are the people who have contributed so much to the society you live in. I have seen older individuals left standing too many times when young, strong students are sitting. As one ages, stability can weaken, so please take a minute and think about maybe giving up your seat to make someone else’s life a little more comfortable. I hope that when you reach that age, someone will show you the respect you deserve.

Thank you,
Laurie Darcus
Graduate Student,
Archaeology department
 

COLUMN: Bill C-30 defunct

By
Peak Web
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0

Government listens to successful online campaigns

By April Alayon

When I first read the news about Bill C-30 being thrown out by the Supreme Court, I was overjoyed. Bill C-30 is the Conservative government’s attempt to strip you of your privacy rights by requiring telecommunications service providers to disclose any subscriber information without a warrant. Bill C-30 was vetoed by the government due to a large opposition from Canadians who believe that the bill is more of a violation of privacy rights than a tool to speed up law enforcement investigations. How did Canadians voice their right to privacy and free expression?

Through online petitions. This is a historic milestone in Canada. It proves that grassroots campaigns and online petitions can be very effective if they receive country-wide support and doggedly press the government. Bill C-30 is officially the Protecting Children from Internet
Predators Act. This is a misnomer. Protecting children from internet predators is not even the purpose of the act. It has more to do with unauthorized surveillance than actual protection for children.

The fear around this act being passed stemmed from the uncertainty over which of the authorized individuals would be able to access information and how they would be able to use this private information. OpenMedia asked Canadian citizens to stand up for their rights and started the stopspying.ca campaign, which generated huge support to bring down the bill. Pushing the bill to pass, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews accused those who refused to support this bill as supporters of child pornography. This was a feeble maneuver.

It was June 2011 when the campaigns went viral among Canadian’s social network news feeds. Videos against the bill were produced and national TV news started paying attention. It was also reported by CBC that the constant and determined campaign by OpenMedia gave weight to the
political engagement.

Remember SOPA and PIPA? Back in 2011, Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act were attempted to be passed by the US law to lay down censorship on the Internet. Both acts were not passed due to huge online protests that took place. Social media is just a tool, but it’s becoming more evident that it is a powerful tool that can unite a huge country and change policies. I was once skeptical of methods like collecting of signatures and online petitions. I used to believe that no court would take it seriously, but recent events involving widespread outcry of the citizens being highlighted by social media and led by grassroots campaigns gave me faith that we are still in charge of our government. All we need it to stick together and voice it out.

One last thing: if you took part in this campaign by even just signing a petition online, give yourself a high five!

Surprise! Homophobia still exists

By
Peak Web
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1

WEB-homophobia 2-Mark Burnham

Even in a marketably queer-friendly city like Vancouver, people are still sipping the gay haterade

By Rachel Braeuer
Photos by Mark Burnham

Over drinks last week, a friend was shocked to hear that I’d experienced homophobia in Vancouver. She was even more shocked to hear that it wasn’t an isolated incident. I don’t know whether to chalk this up to well-meaning NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) or the fact that I have some pretty sweet straight friends; either way, I’m here to be the killjoy and inform you that yes, homophobia does still exist, even here in fair Vancouver.

You’ve no doubt heard about the kids in Sullivan, Indiana trying to have a “traditional” prom. Yes, I know, this isn’t about Vancouver, but hold on. I’ll get back to us. This one kills me. If you live in a town that’s so backwoods it feels the need to try to have a no-gays-allowed dance, then just have your regular prom. I’m sure the number of intolerant assholes in attendance will be sufficient to keep the gays at home.

There’s a reason Valentine’s Day queer prom nights like the People’s Prom are so popular: a lot of LGBT teens didn’t feel comfortable going to their proms; now as adults, they revel in the opportunity to dress up as they would have liked, get bad pictures taken in front of a Hawaiian sunset backdrop, and drink legally spiked punch.

This story has died down a bit, and some students have defended their high school, saying that the group organizing this is a fringe group of fundamentalists. They have continued to affirm how accepting their school is, even as a neighbouring school’s special-ed teacher, Diana Medley, has publicly stated that she doesn’t think gay people have a purpose in life, compared being gay to being disabled, and then said that LGBT kids attending prom is “offensive.”

Dave Springer, the no-gays-at-prom group’s school’s principal said “a girl could go [to their prom] with another girl if they didn’t have a date or that was their choice.” The rhetoric here of “choice” and Springer’s initial hope that this hypothetical girl is just a sad loser that would rather go with a girlfriend than a real live choice-making queer negate his attempt at acceptance. I know for these small town kids that’s about as good as they can realistically hope for, but for the love of rainbows, they deserve better and shouldn’t have to settle for disdainful tolerance from their mentors.

Across the globe next year, Sochi, Russia, will be hosting a cast of queer athletes for the 2014
Olympics. Despite my general feelings surrounding the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, I will admit that the Pride House they had for queer athletes was a definite high note, showcasing the need for and normalizing acceptance in sports. Presumably, though, we won’t be seeing any of those at Sochi. A handful of regions in Russia, including St. Petersburg, recently passed legislation that made LGBTI “propaganda” aimed towards minors illegal. This ambiguous legislation means that anything that equates being gay with being normal is illegal; it assures that even in areas where having sex with someone of the same sex is legal, Russian youth will know that being LGBT is icky, despite being legally protected. Maybe the kids from Sullivan should have a destination prom in Russia (though everyone knows that Communists are worse than gays!)

In an issue that hits closer to home, The Owl, the University of Regina’s pub, came under fire last fall when a trivia host saw fit to use homophobic slurs. A student wrote an op-ed piece in the student newspaper, The Carillon, and then received backlash for saying that the host’s use of the word “faggot” made him feel isolated and afraid.

It’s hard to imagine this happening at the SFU pub. I haven’t spent a tonne of time there by any means, and while I’ve definitely heard choruses of “Ugh, gaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!” coming from individual tables, I still can’t imagine language like that getting used by an event host. But maybe that’s my own willful NIMBYism acting up. Vancouver hardly has a clean rap sheet when it comes to hate crimes. In 2009, Shawn Woodward left Ritchie Dowrey permanently brain damaged because he hit on Woodward — while at a gay bar. “He deserved it. The faggot touched me,” Woodward said after sucker-punching Dowrey in the back of the head on his way out of The Fountainhead. Woodward was convicted of a hate crime, but after serving a year and a half is now out on day-parole, living in a North Vancouver halfway house.

In 2008, Michael Kandola broke Jordan Smith’s jaw in three places after he hurled homophobic slurs and punches at his face. Smith was walking down Davie Street, holding another man’s hand, prompting the attack. “Why are you faggots holding hands?” Kandola rhetorically asked while the attack was underway. Kandola’s 2010 trial was a landmark case for the LGBT community: it is one of the first times an attack was deemed a hate crime in a court of law, despite the VPD treating numerous previous attacks as hate crimes.

I remember feeling a hollow victory when I read the news. Yes, we’d gotten the hate crime designation which established a legal precedent, but how excited can you be over a gay bashing? The statistics on sexual-orientation based hate crimes are pretty dismal in Vancouver. In 2010, we topped the charts, accounting for 26 per cent of the sexual orientation-motivated hate crimes committed. The VPD has stated that these hate crimes have been on the decline since 2010 with 2012 being an all-time low, but some question the reliability of statistics. The Transit police force, for example, had no reported gay bashings on file as of Sept. of last year, despite there having been attacks reported to news sources.

Hesitation to label something homophobic or hateful seems to be gaining popularity. It took a Twitter outrage last year for Aaron Poirier to be taken seriously when he was harassed for being a “fag” by another YMCA patron in the lockerroom. Despite the fact that the man threatened to punch Poirier and then harassed Poirier and his partner on a second occasion, the Y was happy to allow the harasser to maintain his membership based on a second-chance protocol. “We view this as an opportunity to teach the individual in question about appropriate behaviour and acceptance of all people regardless of their sexual orientation,” a spokesperson said initially. After pressure from the community, however, the YMCA offered an official apology and will be undergoing queer competency training.

This is a sad example of one of the problems that I see as reinforcing homophobia. There isn’t a lot of room for straight people to ask genuine questions to LGBT people about all things LGBT without being told they’re assholes simply for asking. I feel for you, straight people. I know you mean well while you’re asking those questionable questions; I can see you working up the nerve to ask them for weeks before you do, asking them in your head first in those awkward silences in our conversations.

In defence of those who refuse to answer your questions, the first time someone asked me, “How did you know?” the conversation devolved into “So you’ve been with men? You’ve had sex with men? Oh, well, then you’re not really gay.” When a former boss asked me, “How do your parents feel about this?” (for the record, they were more phased by me losing my keys one night than by my coming out) she concluded the conversation with, “Well. If it was my child I’d have
a big problem with it.” You can imagine the derisive look that accompanied that last bit. While you might not be a raging homophobe, we can’t always tell that.

Many of us don’t want to answer your questions in case they’re a smokescreen for disapproval. But then again, if you can’t ask questions, how are you supposed to learn? In the Y’s case, Qmunity offered their services, but unfortunately there isn’t always someone willing to slog through how-to-not-be-a-homophobe-101 with the commoners.

I’ll throw you a freebie: stop saying “gay” (and calling people faggots or a variation of that). I know many think of this as queers and libbers being overly PC. “I don’t mean ‘gay’ like ‘homo,’ I mean it like bad,’ ” some defend.

Guess what, idiots: that’s not how homophones work, it’s how homophobia works. “Gay” used colloquially like that stems directly from a conception of queerness as bad, other, and generally unacceptable. You might support queer rights, but if you’re still dropping gay bombs like you’re House of Pain, you’re creating a space where queers, like me, feel like they can’t go. We can’t tell you mean “gay bad” (again, that’s not a thing) and not “gay don’t-act-like-that-around-me-or-I’ll-break-your-jaw.” All it indicates to us is that the space you’re occupying when you talk like that is somewhere we might get bashed for being ourselves. It’s the Fountainhead in 2009, it’s the YMCA last year. It’s somewhere I nurse my one standard drink all night long, sit stiffly, and leave as early as I can, vaguely concerned someone might decide it’s a good night to rape me straight.

Fortunately I’ve never been physically harmed for being queer, which isn’t all that surprising. I don’t necessarily read as queer, so I’ve had it pretty easy. I have hair long enough to pull back in a ponytail, I prefer dresses as formal wear, and if I’m not feeling too lazy I’ll schlep on some make-up before I leave the house. Still, I’m unfortunately no stranger to getting harassed, usually as a result of the company I keep.

I don’t really like holding hands with my partners in public anymore. Nothing takes the joy out of being in love and holding hands on a crisp autumn day like being stuck walking downtown during crawling rush hour traffic and having an SUV full of men screaming “DYKES!” at you and your girlfriend. You can’t physically remove yourself from the situation without running away while someone screams hateful epithets and onlookers gawk silently at you; yeah, you’ll want to scream back, but what do you even say? And if you do fight back, what next? I didn’t want to end up the lesbian Jordan Smith so I did nothing. Thinking about this still makes me furious.

Transit at night is another fun one. It’s easy enough for “straight”-looking me to navigate, but I’ve received far too many text messages along the lines of “some guy on the bus is threatening to ‘kick my tranny faggot ass’ and it’s all I can do not to drag him off the bus and beat the hell out of him,” from my ex-girlfriend, who got referred to as “sir” more often than “miss” or “lady” in public.

Riding the number nine bus, I encountered a drunk guy getting on at Main and Broadway. The first thing he did was warn some other dude on the bus not to suck his dick. He continued on like this for a while: treading on the precipice of incoherence, making jokes about various riders being “butt-fucking fags,” asking who wanted to suck his dick, until his trailing eyes locked on my visibly queer female companion who had responded, “Yeah, buddy. I’ll suck your dick for sure.”

“Look at this guy, what the fuck even are you — man no,” he gestured to someone we couldn’t see.“Look at this fag. No shit you’ll suck my dick. Gross!” Around this point the bus driver told him to sit down and shut up, and he more or less did, and then stumbled off a few blocks later.

While anti-climactic, I can’t forget this. I was sure this was the night I was either getting gaybashed while intervening or going to be screaming helpless while my ex got her face beaten in. At the time I thought it would never end.

In reality this all played out in five minutes. It was early enough that some guy was with his eight-year-old son on the bus. There were only a handful of empty seats. No one said or did anything to this guy. We all just let it happen.

What is going through people’s heads when they scream homophobic slurs in public? I can’t say I’ve ever had a chat with someone who’s done this, so I don’t have an answer, only more questions. Do they hate queers? Do they think it’s a joke? You know what’s never fucking funny? I don’t know what motivates people to act or be homophobic, and I don’t feel like we are any closer to figuring any of this out.

What is obvious is a disconnect between what’s legally and socially acceptable and how people view their words and actions within this paradigm of permissibility. While Vancouver is certainly leaps and bounds ahead of some places, we aren’t without fault. Just because you aren’t a bigot doesn’t mean they don’t exist in droves, and a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil approach is sadly missing its fourth tenet: do no evil. I really hope we come up with more solutions soon, because I really miss holding hands.

You hypnotize me

By
Peak Web
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0

WEB-Mj hypnotist-Mark Burnham

By Ljudmila Petrovic
Photos by Mark Burnham

Think of a hypnotist and you probably get an image of a pendulum and a voice crooning, “You are getting very sleepy.” But MJ Woo looks like any other SFU student, except for his hypnosis skills.

He started off as a magician, but about five years ago, he decided he wanted to try something new. And so he embarked on a still-ongoing learning experience.

He got some training in Vegas and across the States; mostly stage hypnosis to begin with. “Stage hypnosis is mostly comedy-based, and it’s what you often see on stage,” explains MJ. “It could range from all ages to just adult, content-wise. I personally like to do comedy for all ages.” He is quick to elaborate that there are different forms of hypnosis, such as hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapy is used more for education and it is characterized by the hypnotist’s role in helping to get rid of their clients’ limiting beliefs so that they will change a behavior, such as smoking.

“The thing about hypnosis is, if you know how to do one [type], you could practically do any of it pretty safely,” says MJ. “If you’re trained in stage hypnosis, actually, you’re a little moreflexible, more so than hypnosis in a therapy room.” This being said, he stresses that he is not a hypnotherapist, but a hypnotist. Another newer form of hypnosis that MJ talks about is street hypnosis, which is similar to any other form of street performance. While he has dabbled in this form of hypnosis, he prefers doing comedy shows. But what are the dangers of hypnosis?

“Contrary to popular belief, it’s actually pretty safe,” MJ insists. He is very careful to keep his eyes on everyone in the audience. If he has any doubts at all about a person or thinks that they might react strangely, he is sure to immediately get them off the stage and make sure they’re alright. For the most part, however, MJ says that negative reactions are rare; in fact, the most common reaction is that somebody will burst out laughing.

“When I talk to people, one of the biggest fears people have is what happens, can I get stuck in hypnosis?” he explains. “But honestly, there are only two things that can happen: you’ll realize I’m not talking and you’ll just open your eyes, and you’ll just walk away. Two, you’ll just fall asleep and wake up a bit later and feel like you had a nap. Those are the only two things that can happen.”

Despite what you may think, hypnosis itself doesn’t actually take long to learn; according to MJ, it’s the practice that takes years. In fact, one of the common elements used by hypnotists is progressive muscle relaxation, which SFU’s Health and Counseling Services’ website offers videos on.

“Hypnosis is just speaking to someone,” states MJ. “You’re just giving someone directions and they’re following it. That’s it. And they’re following it into hypnosis. That’s it.” He likes to host as many comedy shows as possible using hypnosis to show students that it’s not scary; in fact, it can be very useful for things such as concentration and can aid in quitting smoking.

On a personal level, MJ sees his hypnosis skills as a valuable tool that he’ll always have. Will he follow it as a full time career? “Maybe, maybe not,” he shrugs.

Boeing Boeing takes flight

By
Peak Web
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boeing boeing the peak small

The Arts Club’s current production is a steady stream of laughs

By Andrew Zuliani
Photo courtesy of David Cooper

Men make plans and the gods laugh, and no hubris goes unpunished. The hero of Boeing Boeing, a hysterical comedy currently on stage at the Arts Club, does not seem well acquainted with this theological tenet — or, for that matter, any dictum of the Lord. His morals are of a decidedly flexible sort, allowing him to string along a trio of adoring fiancées with a clear conscience and a light heart.

Before we brand him as a moral heretic, however, let us note: like his more pious fellow man, his earthly actions are guided by a “good book,” in the dog-eared pages of which he finds guidance through his darkest hours. What matters if this book is not a bible but a dictionary- sized international airline schedule? This book is truly good. Vital, even.

The weighty tome must be consulted as regularly as that of any devout lamb wending his way through life, if not with even more diligence. You see, all three of the future (but not really) Mrs. Bernards are airline stewardesses. Enter the punishment of the airline gods, taking the form of a heralded newer and faster plane. This sleek new jet is to be the fastest yet, a vessel capable of whipping the three unwitting paramours off on their duties and back to Bernard’s apartment with, and especially for the playboy, gut-wrenching speed. His intricate system, maintained with a well-thumbed business agenda and the help of a begrudgingly dedicated housemaid, seems on the verge of collapse.

The private bubbles of romance he inflates around each woman risk rupture, or worse, combination. The play begins, and what the audience of Boeing Boeing takes in is the hysterics of a man whose delicately woven schemes threaten to come undone and trap their owner in sticky threads.

And all of this celestial chaos takes place in a single apartment room. The architect’s den is swank as only a Parisian flat in the 60s can be; the furniture is poshly uninhabitable, the bar stocked with Campari. It is a small set, a living room with a series of doors at the back wall, but at no point during the play does the stage feel cramped or lacking.

In fact, it feels the opposite — as the apartment’s traffic lays complex patterns from door, to bar, to couch, to phone, the set seems to expand to the size of the city and gathers the complexity of a nautical map. If a particular character approaches a particular door, the audience is paralyzed. A knock on another is enough to leave us all gasping with laughter.

And there are laughs a-plenty. The characters are vivid and instantly recognizable: Bernard is the playboy man-child, the lad who never grew up to learn that women of flesh and blood pack more punch than those printed on paper.

His friend, Robert, is the gawky and awkward tag-along who is sucked in and out of the sturm und drang of his friend’s machinations. The trio of fiancées are walking synecdoches of their home terminals: there’s the brash, playful Gloria, as American as bubble gum and soda pop; the dramatic, lyrical, voluptuous Italian, Gabriella; and, from Germany, the brassy six-foot fugelhorn named Gretchen.

But the strongest character in the production is neither suitor nor sweetheart: it is Berthe, the exasperated maid who under her employer finds her job description notably lengthened to include such duties as the changing of photographs and stories at a moment’s notice and juggling of menus to suit each femme — pancakes and ketchup for the American, sauerkraut for the
German, but what do Italians eat? — as they rotate through the apartment.

Berthe, played by Nicole Lipman, steals the show. Her biting one-liners, delivered in a tone right on the edge of polite and patronizing, stick into the other characters like — if we may mix national metaphors — a toreador’s banderillas. And while the others wear their motives on their sleeves, or ring fingers, Berthe is pleasurably hard to read.

Many times her innermost stuff is questioned (she’s practically trampled by the one-woman blitzkrieg of Gretchen, who shows affection in the manner of Lenny from Of Mice and Men, as well as humiliated by the baseness of serving her crepes with ketchup, mon dieu) yet she troops through the chaos steadily, and with cynical determination maintains the bizarre status quo. Her pride and attachment to Bernard clangs against his casual romantic noncommittal, and it’s a fascinating sound.

That isn’t to say that her character completely transcends the stereotype of the snarky French maid. Like the three fiancees, Berthe’s personality is an embodiment of her country when boiled down to a syrupy pop culture reduction. Gretchen exchanges her v’s and w’s, giving the audience at least one bellowing vunderbar; Gloria, the drawling Yankee, is as cut-throat, morally-flexible New World as her sharp-suited suitor; and the Italian Gabriella’s hystrionics are positively operatic.

What’s remarkable is how well these cookie-cutter characters work — something that is fairly well displayed by Boeing Boeing’s five-decade stage history. Is it a simple guffaw-and-groaner? Are its characters fleshed out just enough to deliver the comedy? Is it crisply written, hilarious, and memorable? Oui, ja, and si.
 

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

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For promotional inquiries: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

For advertising inquiries: [email protected]
For promotional inquiries: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society