By Will Ross

In my first column, I said I wouldn’t limit discussion of remakes to whether they are “better” or “worse”. This is partly because I think that most filmic reiterations are harmless. Even when they’re poorly made, their heart is more often than not in the same place as their forerunners, or at worst they’re no worse than vapid. There are special cases, however, when I object to remakes that reinterpret sensitive material in a morally irresponsible way.

Enter Straw Dogs vs. Straw Dogs. The original 1971 film by Sam Peckinpah was a radically nihilistic take on the psychology of violence. Its plot is often mistaken for a slow-burn thriller, but it’s actually a domestic-drama demolition: Wussy mathematician David Summer and his attractive wife Amy flee the protest culture of America to the latter’s hometown, an English village. The locals, one of whom is an old flame of Amy’s, begin to intimidate the couple, leading to a breakdown of relations between wife, who demands that David confront the villagers, and husband, who seems passive on the matter.

But the film’s real purpose is to annihilate first impressions of this spat when the conflict becomes violent. Straw Dogs’s complicated victimhood comes to a head in its infamous rape scene. Some of the local antagonists invite David hunting, then abandon him. Amy’s ex-lover takes advantage of David’s predicament by finding and forcing himself on her. The scene has two disturbing wrinkles: first, it intercuts with David in the wilderness, apparently disinterested in finding his way home, and, by implication, complicit in the rape; second, Amy seems to be at least partially enjoying the rape, though afterwards she is traumatized.

Peckinpah makes it clear that he doesn’t believe that women generally enjoy rape: another villager soon arrives and rapes her as well, and this time Amy is obviously miserable throughout. It’s an extremely unpleasant sequence, but a daring and ultimately responsible one. Peckinpah knows these acts are despicable, and though he doesn’t blame the victims, he acknowledges that violence is closely tied to interpersonal relationships, and suggests that its appeal as a tool for sublimation makes it impossible to eradicate.

What makes Rod Lurie’s 2011 remake so reprehensible is its commitment to its potential as entertainment over duty to its subject matter. In his version, David is actively looking for a way out of the forest, and Amy is inarguably suffering throughout the entire rape. When the second rapist arrives, Lurie foregoes showing the act by fading out the sounds of the assault over a close-up of the other. Consequently, the rape ultimately reveals nothing. It only serves as ‘drama’, to ‘raise the emotional stakes’. In other words, it’s exploitation.

To respond to an honest, complex psychological dialogue of a sensitive issue with soft peddling is to cheapen both the discourse and the subject at hand. Lurie has said that Amy’s momentary enjoyment of rape ruined the original Straw Dogs, and that removing it makes his film the better of the two, but he’s got it the wrong way around. When a difficult and disturbing subject is seriously explored, it’s arrogant and immoral to ostensibly ‘improve’ it by playing it safe for the sake of enjoyment. Such gratuitously tame treatment of rape must not be allowed to masquerade as feminist revisionism.

By Cedric Chen

I’m a forum representative. Last month, another student organization (referred to as “Organization X” after here) came to the SFSS Forum meeting, advocating their referendum question to impose yet another levy on all students, whether they accept it or not. Organization X asked for the forum’s endorsement, and I refused to support them. Later, when I was reporting back to my DSU about this in a DSU general meeting, the attendees became furiously and blatantly hostile to this proposal, and this gave us yet another indication that the practice of on-campus organizations collecting levies is going too far and getting out of control.

Before I get started, allow me to draw a clear distinction: I’m in no way advocating against any cause of any on-campus organization collecting levies; my point is simply that the practice of collecting levies is getting far too acceptable.

First of all, let’s be brutally honest: SFU students and students at other institutions are already bearing heavy financial burdens thanks to government cut-backs and corporate greed (think about your hundred-dollar textbooks). Unlike the wealthy, just one more dollar can always be the last straw on a student’s back. Also, unlike the governments, who can always increase taxes as a mean of income, we cannot ask for unlimited treasure from our parents. With many of us already bearing unbearable student debts, most of us would do whatever we can to cut down our expenses. Opening up another levy is certainly in counterproductive to this goal.

More importantly, students are sometimes not given any other choices. If a student does not agree with how The Peak or SFPIRG is behaving, they have the option of opting out and reclaiming their levies. For some other organizations, opting out has not been an option, and if you refuse to pay these levies, your account becomes outstanding, preventing you from enrolling courses for the  next semester. Taking Organization X as an example, when I was trying to add an opt-out clause into their referendum question proposal, my motion was turned down.

Another reason why I’m against such practices is that once levies are approved, we can hardly find a way to track how they’re used, let alone decide how they should be used. In these cases, ‘Don’t worry. They’ll know how to use the money,’ is plain old bullshit. If the Simon Fraser Student Society, big enough to supposedly represent all SFU students, commits financial misconduct like using our money to renovate their office instead of repairing the recharging machine at the Copy Centre until last semester, then how can we just expect a random on-campus organization to financially behave as well?

Again, I’m not alleging that all these organizations have been committing financial misconduct, and if one organization doesn’t commit financial misconduct, its people know that my comments here won’t affect them. I’m just proposing that we cannot just trust any organization when we’re deprived of information.

Last but certainly not least, call me selfish, but some of these organizations and their causes just aren’t going to bring any benefit to SFU or the SFU community. While The Peak is providing SFU students a platform to spill out their dissatisfaction with this university, and SFPIRG is providing SFU students good alternative sources for knowledge, I can’t see how some other of these organizations are to our benefit. In the example of the Organization X, they’re starting big projects outside of Canada. How are those big projects going to benefit SFU? Organization X kept arguing that they’re practicing SFU’s motto ‘Thinking of the World’, but have they been thinking about SFU, whose very survival is under threat from all sides?

Let’s be honest: We’re just not ‘enlightened’ to the point where we’re willing to give out levies from our pockets without seeing any potential benefit or reward, especially when we’re about to starve to death. Are these big projects going to produce talents that will help SFU build itself in return? Maybe. Maybe not.

In conclusion, I just don’t see the necessity of opening up another levy that will be imposed on already-struggling SFU students. Other than that, the practice of random on-campus organizations collecting levies may be justifiable when this practice is well under control, but now it’s spiraling out of control.

My final words to the Organization X are: if you want money, you can always do what all DSUs have been doing. Hosting fund-raisers or applying for a grant. You can also sign a sponsorship agreement with a big corporation, just like what the BASS has done. If students don’t want to give you money, you really shouldn’t just go to the SFSS and ask them to force students into giving you money.

Soon there’ll be a referendum regarding this proposed new levy, and I would encourage you all to vote ‘No’. Because if the question is passed, other organizations will do the same, and eventually SFU students will be dragged into a bottomless whirlpool.

By Joel Warren

Eleven years ago, the SFSS held a referendum encouraging students to radically alter the SFSS governance structure. Previously, the board of directors was composed of six executives — inclding one for grad students — plus a representative from each departmental student union. The new structure was to be more efficient. As such, DSUs were demoted to an advisory role on forum. The board created faculty representatives, two at-large positions and a seventh executive, the member services officer.

I remember disagreeing with this proposal, as the centralization of power would not only weaken any sense of student ownership of the SFSS, but it would reduce meaningful, inclusive participation in SFSS governance. But most importantly, I knew it would turn the board into a dirty site of ideological contest and petty alliances because a voting block of less than 10 students could hold the authority to promote personal interests rather than students’ interests. I genuinely wish I had been wrong.

The influence of the Canadian Federation of Students back then was more complicated, as they knew they could only appease, not control, a 35 to 40-member board. The CFS meddling then was minor compared to the following six years, where the dominant theme of SFSS board politics became CFS versus anybody else. This battleground dynamic led to the alienation of and eventual secession by Grad students, the impeachment of the CFS, half of the board and, eventually, SFU’s defederation from the CFS.

Progressive-minded students, which traditionally comprised an unaligned majority at forum, gradually shunned the SFSS, focusing their efforts inward towards various constituency groups, SFPIRG groups, DSUs, and clubs, creating a vacuum in SFSS politics which, absent the CFS presence, allowed a radical rightward shift culminating in this last year’s fascistic coup of the Leninistic party vanguard structure of SFSS governance.

If forum was the board like it used to be, the tragic events of this last year would never have happened. Forum-as-board would not abide a three-month lockout and cuts to services. Instead of taking an IMF austerity approach to budget deficits, more inventive measures to balancing the budget would have been taken. There would have been transparency, debates, and meaningfully inclusive participation in the discussions and decision-making surrounding the student union building (SUB). Arry Dhillon would have never been capable of saying, to paraphrase, that there is to be no debate on the SUB levy outside of a ‘No’ campaign for the referendum. [Eds. Note – Dhillon denies this quote, and maintains that debate over referendum questions is under the purview of the IEC, the BuildSFU campaign is informational only, and that the SFSS is not currently running a ‘Yes’ campaign on the referendum question as the period to do so has not started.]

The SUB is the largest initiative the SFSS has ever undertaken and  according to Arts Representative Kyle Acernio, the levy proposed is the largest in Canadian student political history [Eds. Note – The Peak could not independently confirm this figure.] The process to introduce it unfolded at the last possible board meeting available to put referendum questions to ballot, a deadline conveniently prior to a chance for forum representatives to consult their constituencies and advise the Board. This is the student politics equivalent of proroguing Parliament because the minority in power fears the majority might prefer something resembling a democratic institutional process.

Less than a half-dozen board members sat in secret negotiations with the SFU administration, hacked out a deal, and manipulated timeframes and deadlines to ensure nobody but them had a say — either in the nature of the referendum question or on the SUB proposal marketed to students. The Board is asking for an incremental levy, eventually capping at $270 per year in 2022  — but has done nothing to earn students’ trust that we should support them. Like the snake-oil salesman, they claim a SUB is a panacea of all student ills then set up a propaganda office to close the deal.

A closer look at the deal presented is revealing. Surrey and Downtown students will not benefit much from this SUB but will pay the same as Burnaby students so the board is likely to encounter significant opposition there. Throw in a football stadium (athletics and rec being under university jurisdiction, and is thus SFU’s responsibility to pay for) and you can buy jock ‘Yes’ votes to counter satellite campus ‘No’ votes.

In exchange we get an old building requiring massive retrofits and upgrades to become our SUB. On any hierarchy of needs, an upgrade to, say, student family residences outweighs a sports complex, but that would not buy enough votes. So instead of meeting real needs, or utilizing a more accessible space between the MBC and AQ, where we are not architecturally hindered by aging structures, a couple of SFSS autocrats chose the inferior site, throwing in a perk that will benefit a few to secure an unequal levy. Aside from these dirty political tricks, the board bowed to university pressure for student money as if the deal would crumble without immediate guaranteed funds. Bollocks! SFU wants a SUB too, because it helps their place-marketing.

Ultimately, however, the SUB hustle — “the McCann Scam” — may prove the catalyst to the end of the decade-long failed experiment in centralized SFSS governance. Many DSU’s and constituency groups are livid, not over the SUB, but over the secrecy and manipulation candy-coated with hollow appeals for post-hoc community input. My prediction is that come summer semester you will likely see forum pushing back and itself instituting legally binding procedural standards for the SUB project rooted in inclusion, transparency, and accountability which the Board must meet before one cent can ever be collected. This momentum may give rise to the self-confidence needed for a complimentary push by Forum for a return to decentralized SFSS governance, ensuring a handful of self-interested and ideologically aligned students cannot treat our non-profit society like their own private enterprise.

Ends may ‘justify’ means in business, but in non-profits, the means are ends themselves. Indeed, no board-designed procedural standards for the SUB are acceptable. Accountability must be imposed from below. Viva forum!

By Mike Soron

The offices, labs, and public spaces at SFU have seriously deteriorated because they are not maintained as needed. It saddens me to see the monumental steps of Arthur Erikson’s Convocation Mall literally crumbling, marked off by orange safety pylons on rainy days. Some buildings are unsafe and others so degraded that they can only be demolished. This is not an acceptable environment for world-class teaching, learning and research and graduate students are calling on the B.C. government to restore funding for the maintenance and renewal of campus buildings.

SFU’s Capital Plan, approved by the Board of Governors last spring, indicates that more than half of SFU’s buildings are in ‘poor’ condition. The plan warns that the WAC Bennett Library building is seismically unsafe. Considering this, I’m not surprised that building maintenance and renewal is a top priority for university administrators. Considering that SFU’s report to the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU) indicates a backlog of over $700 million at SFU Burnaby alone, building maintenance and renewal will remain a priority for many, many years. Yet, SFU cannot even meet ordinary yearly maintenance costs, let alone address the backlog of repairs postponed because of recent funding cuts.

In Canada, the provinces are responsible for post-secondary education, and British Columbia has historically funded maintenance through an annual capital allowance (ACA) to universities and colleges. Funding for SFU ACA has been dramatically slashed, from approximately $4.6 million in 2008–2009 to just over $500,000 in 2010–2011 — a 90 per cent decrease! SFU’s is asking for $20 million a year in provincial maintenance funding starting in 2012, just to keep our buildings and infrastructure from degrading further. But, administration’s report to the NWCCU says a value twice that is needed. If appropriate funding is not soon provided, SFU warns that its operations will be affected. At our university, operations must mean teaching, learning and research. These are SFU’s core functions and — at minimum — we need safe and healthy classrooms, labs, and washrooms kept in good repair.

Everyday, next to unsealed windows and closed-off hallways, students feel the consequences of not maintaining our buildings and infrastructure. I hear stories from graduate students about leaky ceilings, unheated offices, and unrepaired fixtures. I see the damage at SFU Vancouver, too, where malfunctioning elevators and locked stairwells soured my early classwork at Harbour Centre. Feedback from concerned students in these buildings should encourage the province to restore and prioritize maintenance funding through the ACA.

Renewing buildings in Burnaby, Vancouver, and Surrey is a socially, fiscally, and environmentally responsible use of provincial resources. Repairing and rebuilding our campus employs British Columbian workers and can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to dangerous global warming. Undertaking these repairs can improve the health and well-being of students, faculty, and staff on campus. Further delaying this work will only increase risk and long-term costs, while impairing the teaching, learning and research taking place at SFU today. So, grab a camera, document the urgent need around you, and help the GSS advocate for the provincial funds needed to repair our campus.

You can help advocate for restored funding by photographing examples of the under-maintained campus and its impact on your learning, research, and teaching. Take photographs and send them to [email protected] or by visiting iheartsfu.tumblr.com. The Graduate Student Society will collect these stories and photos showing how postponing maintenance affects teaching, learning and research and use them in making a strong case for urgent action by the B.C. government.